木姜子叶精油的化学成分研究

采用气相色谱-质谱联用仪对产于秦岭太白山的木姜子叶的挥发油成分进行分析鉴定,从分离出的79个峰中鉴定了32种成分,其含量占挥发油总量的90.59％,主要成分为1,3,3-三甲基-乙-氧杂双环[2,2,2]辛烷(59.96％),1,8-桉油醇(8.96％),香茅醛(6.86％),2-甲基-5-(1-甲基乙烯基)环己酮(4.34％)和澄花醇乙酯(3.19％)。     

荧光显微镜观察大蒜油对腹水癌细胞的影响

用吖啶橙染色,荧光显微镜观察大蒜油对—S180,昆明小鼠,U14 C57BL/6J小鼠和L1210DBA小鼠的癌细胞作用的影响,结果表明大蒜油有直接破坏癌细胞的DNA,RNA和分裂中期染色体的作用。给药后2—6小时作用最强,12小时后癌细胞数逐渐恢复,因此给药间隔不应超过12小时。我们研究证实大蒜油有明显的抗癌作用,为临床应用提供有力的依据。     

气候和土地利用变化影响下生态屏障带水土流失趋势研究

受气候和地形等诸多因素影响，我国"两屏三带"国家生态屏障带中的川滇-黄土高原区域和南方丘陵带水土流失十分严重，自然灾害频发。但是，针对川滇-黄土高原区域和南方丘陵带水土流失时空格局变化，特别是未来气候变化和土地利用变化影响下水土流失变化趋势的研究很少。因此，本研究以川滇-黄土高原区域和南方丘陵带为研究对象，利用修正土壤流失方程（RUSLE）定量分析了该区在2000-2015年水土流失的时空变化规律及其影响因素，并预测了在RCP2.6和RCP4.5的未来气候情景下及土地利用变化条件下水土流失的变化趋势。研究结果表明：（1）黄土高原地区在植被恢复的积极作用下，水土流失显著缓解；（2）川滇地区的西南部因植被盖度的增长和降雨的减少水土流失显著缓解，但四川省境内人口密集区农田面积增加以及降水增加造成水土流失大幅度加剧；（3）南方丘陵带受降水增加影响导致了部分区域的水土流失恶化；（4）在未来气候变化情景下，由于大部分地区降雨将减少使土壤侵蚀趋于缓解，但四川、黄土高原和南方丘陵带大部分地区仍然面临未来农田面积增加带来的水土侵蚀压力。考虑到未来气候变化情景下降雨减少的趋势，建议在黄土高原地区提高草地在土地利用类型中的占比，在减少耗水量的同时维持地表盖度，缓解水土侵蚀；此外，各区域仍需控制农田面积，而且需通过加强坡耕地上保水保土耕作措施降低农田区域的土壤侵蚀压力。     

Engineering the Saccharomyces cerevisiae β-Oxidation Pathway to Increase Medium Chain Fatty Acid Production as Potential Biofuel

Fatty acid-derived biofuels and biochemicals can be produced in microbes using β-oxidation pathway engineering. In this study, the β-oxidation pathway of Saccharomyces cerevisiae was engineered to accumulate a higher ratio of medium chain fatty acids (MCFAs) when cells were grown on fatty acid-rich feedstock. For this purpose, the haploid deletion strain Δpox1 was obtained, in which the sole acyl-CoA oxidase encoded by POX1 was deleted. Next, the POX2 gene from Yarrowia lipolytica, which encodes an acyl-CoA oxidase with a preference for long chain acyl-CoAs, was expressed in the Δpox1 strain. The resulting Δpox1 [pox2+] strain exhibited a growth defect because the β-oxidation pathway was blocked in peroxisomes. To unblock the β-oxidation pathway, the gene CROT, which encodes carnitine O-octanoyltransferase, was expressed in the Δpox1 [pox2+] strain to transport the accumulated medium chain acyl-coAs out of the peroxisomes. The obtained Δpox1 [pox2+, crot+] strain grew at a normal rate. The effect of these genetic modifications on fatty acid accumulation and profile was investigated when the strains were grown on oleic acids-containing medium. It was determined that the engineered strains Δpox1 [pox2+] and Δpox1 [pox2+, crot+] had increased fatty acid accumulation and an increased ratio of MCFAs. Compared to the wild-type (WT) strain, the total fatty acid production of the strains Δpox1 [pox2+] and Δpox1 [pox2+, crot+] were increased 29.5% and 15.6%, respectively. The intracellular level of MCFAs in Δpox1 [pox2+] and Δpox1 [pox2+, crot+] increased 2.26- and 1.87-fold compared to the WT strain, respectively. In addition, MCFAs in the culture medium increased 3.29-fold and 3.34-fold compared to the WT strain. These results suggested that fatty acids with an increased MCFAs ratio accumulate in the engineered strains with a modified β-oxidation pathway. Our approach exhibits great potential for transforming low value fatty acid-rich feedstock into high value fatty acid-derived products.     

iTRAQ‐Based Proteomics Reveals that the Tomato ms1035 Gene Causes Male Sterility through Compromising Fat Acid Metabolism

So far, over 50 spontaneous male sterile mutants of tomato have been described and most of them are categorized as genetic male sterility. To date, the mechanism of tomato genetic male sterility remained unclear. In this study, differential proteomic analysis is performed between genetic male sterile line (2‐517), which carries the male sterility (ms10³⁵) gene, and its wild‐type (VF‐11) using isobaric tags for relative and absolute quantification‐based strategy. A total of 8272 proteins are quantified in the 2–517 and VF‐11 lines at the floral bud and florescence stages. These proteins are involved in different cellular and metabolic processes, which express obvious functional tendencies toward the hydroxylation of the ω‐carbon in fatty acids, the tricarboxylic acid cycle, the glycolytic, and pentose phosphate pathways. Based on the results, a protein network explaining the mechanisms of tomato genetic male sterility is proposed, finding the compromising fat acid metabolism may cause the male sterility. These results are confirmed by parallel reaction monitoring, quantitative Real‐time PCR (qRT‐PCR), and physiological assays. Taken together, these results provide new insights into the metabolic pathway of anther abortion induced by ms10³⁵ and offer useful clues to identify the crucial proteins involved in genetic male sterility in tomato.     

Classification of the Gut Microbiota of Patients in Intensive Care Units During Development of Sepsis and Septic Shock

The gut microbiota of intensive care unit (ICU) patients displays extreme dysbiosis associated with increased susceptibility to organ failure, sepsis, and septic shock. However, such dysbiosis is difficult to characterize owing to the high dimensional complexity of the gut microbiota. We tested whether the concept of enterotype can be applied to the gut microbiota of ICU patients to describe the dysbiosis. We collected 131 fecal samples from 64 ICU patients diagnosed with sepsis or septic shock and performed 16S rRNA gene sequencing to dissect their gut microbiota compositions. During the development of sepsis or septic shock and during various medical treatments, the ICU patients always exhibited two dysbiotic microbiota patterns, or ICU-enterotypes, which could not be explained by host properties such as age, sex, and body mass index, or external stressors such as infection site and antibiotic use. ICU-enterotype I (ICU E1) comprised predominantly Bacteroides and an unclassified genus of Enterobacteriaceae, while ICU-enterotype II (ICU E2) comprised predominantly Enterococcus. Among more critically ill patients with Acute Physiology and Chronic Health Evaluation II (APACHE II) scores > 18, septic shock was more likely to occur with ICU E1 (P = 0.041). Additionally, ICU E1 was correlated with high serum lactate levels (P = 0.007). Therefore, different patterns of dysbiosis were correlated with different clinical outcomes, suggesting that ICU-enterotypes should be diagnosed as independent clinical indices. Thus, the microbial-based human index classifier we propose is precise and effective for timely monitoring of ICU-enterotypes of individual patients. This work is a first step toward precision medicine for septic patients based on their gut microbiota profiles.