Expression level of enzymes related to in situ estrogen synthesis and clinicopathological parameters in breast cancer patients

In order to evaluate the importance of estrogen production in tumor and surrounding tissues, we measured mRNA expression levels of 5 enzymes participating to estrogen synthesis in situ and 4 breast cancer-related proteins in 27 pairs of tumor and non-malignant tissues. Steroid sulfatase (STS) mRNA was more frequently detected in tumor tissues rather than in their non-malignant counterparts. Estrogen sulfotransferase (EST) was constantly expressed with high level not only in tumor tissues but also in their surrounding non-malignant counterparts. In contrast, mRNA expression levels of aromatase, and 17β-hydroxysteroid dehydrogenase type I and II were relatively low and detected only in small proportion of the patients. We also measured the mRNA expression levels of the same nine genes in tumor tissues of 197 breast cancer patients, and analyzed relationship between the mRNA expression level and the clinicopathological parameters. The mRNA expression levels of STS, aromatase and erbB2 in tumor tissues increased as breast cancer progressed. The tumoral mRNA expression levels of STS, estrogen receptor β, and erbB2 in patients with recurrence were higher than those in patients without recurrence. Upregulation of STS expression plays an important role in tumor progression of human breast cancer and is considered to be responsible for estrogen production in tumor and surrounding tissues.     

亚历山大藻属微卫星标记的筛选

采用生物信息学方法,从塔玛亚历山大藻的ESTs数据库中筛选微卫星(Simple Sequence Repeat, SSR)位点,设计SSR引物,利用毛细管电泳对4株塔玛亚历山大藻(Alexandrium tamarense)、2株相关亚历山大藻(Alexandrium affine)和1株链状亚历山大藻(Alexandrium catenella)进行种内、种间遗传多样性分析,获得以下主要结果:(1)从6830条非冗余的ESTs中共查找到222个SSR,平均每18.5kb就有一个SSR,三核苷酸重复在所有的重复类型中所占比例最大,达到48.2%,重复单元CTG/CAG出现频率最高.进一步筛选出12条SSR引物,用于遗传多样性分析.(2)种内遗传多样性水平整体偏低,多态性引物比率仅为41 67%,Nei's基因多样性平均为0.2130.种间遗传多样性水平较高,多态性引物比率为75%,Nei's基因多样性平均水平为0 4643;另外,种间遗传分化系数较高,平均水平为0.7051.(3)对7个样品的聚类图分析发现,A. tamarense CCMP116 与A. affine CCMP112遗传距离极为接近;A. tamarense ATHK9301、CCMP1598和ATDH01相互聚在一起;A. catenella ACDH01与A. tamarense分属两枝.以上结果表明,SSR标记在亚历山大藻种内遗传多样性分析方面是一种非常有用的工具.     

宽果苁菔适应昼夜变化ESTs的分离与分析

以流石滩地区植物广布种宽果苁菔为实验材料,应用磁珠介导的抑制消减杂交方法,分离昼夜差异基因。随机挑选了136个差异ESTs克隆并进行测序,测序结果使用Blast2go程序进行功能注释和分析。结果表明绝大部分ESTs功能与稳定细胞状态和抗性响应相关,其次与物质能量代谢和信号传导相关,宽果苁菔适应昼夜变化过程的机制非常复杂,本研究为进一步研究高山植物适应流石滩恶劣环境的机制奠定了基础。     

Generation and Analysis of ESTs from the Grass Carp,Ctenopharyngodon idellus

Grass carp, Ctenopharyngodon idellus (Valenciennes, 1844), is an economically important species widely cultured in the world, but its genome research resources are largely lacking. The objectives of this study were to construct normalized cDNA libraries for efficient EST analysis, to generate ESTs from these libraries, and to identify EST-related molecular markers such as microsatellites and single nucleotide polymorphisms (SNPs) for genetic analysis of this species. A total of 6,269 ESTs were generated representing 4,815 unique sequences, from which 105 putative microsatellites and 5,228 SNPs were identified. These genome resources provide the material basis for future genetic and functional analyses in this species.     

社鼠组织器官同工酶的研究

用聚丙烯酰胺凝胶等电聚焦电泳方法,分析了社鼠的肝、肾、心肌、骨骼肌、肺、脾和脑等多种组织器官的ＬＤＨ、ＡＤＨ、ＥＳＴ、和ＳＯＤ４种同工酶,对各组织器官的酶带数目和分布,以及酶活性进行了比较研究。结果表明,社鼠的ＬＤＨ同工酶、ＡＤＨ同工酶和ＥＳＴ同工酶具有比较明显的组织特异性,而ＳＯＤ同工酶的组织特异性较低。肺和脾除ＥＳＴ同工酶活性较高外,脑除ＬＤＨ同工酶活性较高外,其它３种同工酶的活性均较低;而肝和肾中４种同工酶的活性普遍很高。心肌和骨骼肌因氧张力不同而使ＬＤＨ同工酶酶谱存在明显差异,但其它３种同工酶酶谱却非常相似。同工酶的组织特异性与各组织器官所执行的生理功能是相一致的     

Detection and validation of EST‐derived SNPs for poplar leaf rust Melampsora medusae f. sp. deltoidae

We report the discovery, characterization and validation of 118 single nucleotide polymorphisms (SNPs) for poplar leaf rust Melampsora medusae f. sp. deltoidae identified using a gene‐targeted approach in an expressed sequence tag (EST) library. We developed a genotyping assay using the iPLEX? primer extension method for two multiplex assays of 28 and 22 SNPs.     

Revisit on the evolutionary relationship between alternative splicing and gene duplication

Gene duplications and alternative splicing (AS) isoforms are two widespread types of genetic variations that can facilitate diversification of protein function. A number of studies claimed that after gene duplication, two AS isoforms with differential functions can be 'fixed', respectively, in each of the duplicate copies. This simple 'functional-sharing' hypothesis was recently challenged by Roux and Robinson-Rechavi (2011). Instead, they proposed a more sophisticated hypothesis, invoking that less alternative splicing genes tend to be duplicated more frequently, and single-copy genes are younger than duplicate genes, or the 'duplicability-age' hypothesis for short. In this letter, we show that all these genome-wide analyses of AS isoforms actually did not provide clear-cut evidence to nullify the basic idea of functional-sharing hypothesis. After updating our understanding of genome-wide alternative splicing, duplicability and CNV (copy number variation), we argue that the foundation of the duplicability-age hypothesis remains to be justified carefully. Finally, we suggest that a better approach to resolving this controversy is the correspondence analysis of indels (insertions and deletions) between duplicate genes to the genomic exon-intron structure, which can be used to experimentally test the effect of functional-sharing hypothesis.     

In Silco Mapping of ESTs from the Turkey (Meleagris Gallopavo)

Sequence similarity was used to predict the position of expressed sequence tags (ESTs) in the genome of the turkey (Meleagris gallopavo). Turkey EST sequences were compared with the draft assembly of the chicken whole-genome sequence and the chicken EST database by BLASTN. Among the 877 ESTs examined, 788 had significant matches in the chicken genome sequence. Position of orthologous sequences in the chicken genome and the predicted position of the EST loci in the turkey genome are presented. Genetic assignments suggest a high level of accuracy for the COMPASS predictions.