Enzymatic Properties of Purified Alkaline Proteinase from Aspergillus sojae†

Some enzymatic properties of purified alkaline proteinase from Aspergillus sojae were investigated. The optimum pH for casein digestion was 11.0. The enzyme activity was almost completely lost at 60°C within ten minutes. At low temperature, the enzyme was highly stable at the range of pH 4.5 to 10.0. At 50°C, the most stable pH was around 6.0. None of metallic ions tested promoted the activity, but Hg²⁺ showed a remarkable inhibition. The Hg²⁺-treatment seemed to cause a large unfolding of the enzyme molecule. The enzyme was inhibited by potato inhibitor and a number of animal sera. Metal chelating reagents and sulfhydryl reagents tested had no effect on the activity, but DFP caused a marked inhibition. The sensitivity to DFP of the enzyme was about 1/300 of that of α-chymotrypsin. The enzyme was inhibited neither by TPCK nor by TLCK. As the result it was assumed that the structure of the active site of the enzyme is fairly different from that of trypsin, or of chymotrypsin.     

Relevance of signaling molecules for apoptosis induction on influenza A virus replication

Apoptosis is an important mechanism to maintain homeostasis in mammals, and disruption of the apoptosis regulation mechanism triggers a range of diseases, such as cancer, autoimmune diseases, and developmental disorders. The severity of influenza A virus (IAV) infection is also closely related to dysfunction of apoptosis regulation. In the virus infected cells, the functions of various host cellular molecules involved in regulation of induction of apoptosis are modulated by IAV proteins to enable effective virus replication. The modulation of the intracellular signaling pathway inducing apoptosis by the IAV infection also affects extracellular mechanisms controlling apoptosis, and triggers abnormal host responses related to the disease severity of IAV infections. This review focuses on apoptosis related molecules involved in IAV replication and pathogenicity, the strategy of the virus propagation through the regulation of apoptosis is also discussed.     

STING信号通路的研究进展

干扰素基因刺激因子(Stimulator of interferon gene,STING)作为固有免疫系统的关键性接头蛋白,在外源或内源DNA介导的免疫应答中发挥重要作用,广泛参与宿主体内的多种信号传导过程。概述了STING信号通路分子机制及其在抗病毒感染、自身免疫疾病、神经系统疾病和肿瘤中的作用,介绍了常见的STING激动剂和抑制剂,以期为STING的进一步研究提供参考。     

Detection of Mycoplasma genitalium using a wireless magnetoelastic immunosensor

A wireless immunosensor for the detection of Mycoplasma genitalium was fabricated by immobilizing polyclonal antibody onto the surface of a magnetostrictive strip. In response to a time-varying magnetic field, the immunosensor longitudinally vibrates at a resonance frequency, emitting magnetic flux that can be remotely detected by a pickup coil. No physical connections between the immunosensor and the detection system are required, facilitating wireless aseptic operation. The binding of M. genitalium to the immunosensor surface resulted in a decrease in the resonance frequency of the immunosensor. When solutions with varying concentrations of the bacteria were tested, the shift of the resonance frequency was proportional to the concentration of M. genitalium. Under the optimized conditions, the linear range for the determination of M. genitalium was 2.0 × 10³ to 2.9 × 10⁴ color change units (ccu)/ml with a detection limit of 3.4 × 10² ccu/ml. The immunosensor was successfully applied to real samples containing M. genitalium with results similar to those previously obtained by the color change unit method.     

根际微生物群落功能与调控的研究进展

根际微生物群落是随植物长期进化及地球生境变迁而形成的动态微生物系统。随着多组学技术的不断发展，人们对根际微生物群落结构与功能的研究日益深入。根际微生物群落中的功能微生物类群，如植物促生细菌、植物促生真菌等，通过与植物建立紧密的物质、能量与信息联系，参与植物激素合成、难溶营养物解离、生物固氮、微生物拮抗、生长因子供应等系列生物学过程，从而提高植物营养物质吸收与抗逆能力，为植物的健康和高效生长提供重要保障。这些微生物中的某些成员已被开发成微生物刺激剂，广泛应用于作物增产抗逆与农田地力提升。近年来，多学科的交叉融合为根际微生物群落结构-功能-调控策略的交互式研究提供新的机遇，推动了基于合成生物学与材料科学技术的合成微生物组的发展。尤其是在核心微生物互作方面，人工蛋白创制、磁性组装、生物炭强化等策略能够增强核心微生物与目标植物之间的物理连接作用，大幅提高合成微生物组的工作效率和稳定性，从而有效驱动作物增产增收，提高污染修复效率。因此，根际微生物群落结构、功能与调控的深入研究，必将为绿色农业发展提供不竭动力。     

视觉假体的研究进展与面临的挑战

人工视觉假体是当今国际上对视网膜色素变性和老年性黄斑病变患者进行视觉修复的研究热点,该人工装置采集外界图像信息,并进行编码处理,通过微电流刺激器将刺激微电流信号加载到微电极阵列,对视觉神经系统进行作用,从而在视觉中枢产生光幻视,实现视觉功能修复。根据目前的国际研究现状,视觉假体可以对视觉通路的任意位置进行电刺激,以期产生视光感。按照植入位置的不同,视觉假体基本上可以分为视皮层假体、视网膜上假体、视网膜下假体和视神经假体。本文着重介绍了中国的C-Sight小组在视神经假体方面的工作进展和面临的挑战。     

建立“人工面神经技术”恢复周围性面瘫兔的闭眼功能

目的：建立“人工面神经技术”以恢复单侧周围性面瘫兔的眼轮匝肌闭眼功能,为周围性面瘫提供一种新的治疗手段。方法：制备单侧周围性面瘫兔,建立健侧眼轮匝肌肌电信号采集、中枢信号处理模式识别、患侧电流刺激眼轮匝肌系统。当健侧眼轮匝肌采集的肌电信号经信号识别、提取以及电脑分析判断,符合其闭眼刺激阈值时,即对人工电刺激器发出指令,由刺激电极直接作用于惠侧眼轮匝肌,引起眼睑完全闭合。结果：以最小电流刺激患侧眼轮匝肌,引起眼睑完全闭合。刺激方式为正负矩形波,电流强度为0．30～0．50mA。结论：利用可植入式微机电技术,在单侧周围性面瘫模型建立“人工面神经反射弧”,恢复患侧眼轮匝肌闭眼收缩,可维持双侧闭眼功能的对称性和同步性。     

ROI-Based Compression Strategy of 3D MRI Brain Datasets for Wireless Communications

ObjectivesBecause of the large amount of medical imaging data, the transmission process becomes complicated in telemedicine applications. Thus, in order to adapt the data bit streams to the constraints related to the limitation of the bandwidths a reduction of the size of the data by compression of the images is essential. Despite the improvements in the field of compression, the transmission itself can also introduce errors. For this reason, it is important to develop an adequate strategy which will help reduce this volume of data without having to introduce some distortion and resist the errors introduced by the channel noise during transmission. Thus, in this paper, we propose a ROI-based coding strategy and unequal bit stream protection to meet this dual constraint.Material and methodsThe proposed ROI-based compression strategy with unequal bit stream protection is composed of three parts: the first one allows the extraction of the ROI region, the second one consists of a ROI-based coding and the third one allows an unequal protection of the ROI bit stream.First, the Regions Of Interest (ROI) are extracted by hierarchical segmentation of these regions according to a segmentation method based on the technique of Marker-based-watershed combined with the technique of active contours by level set. The resulting regions are selectively encoded by a 3D coder based on a shape adaptive discrete wavelet transform 3D-BISK, where the compression ratio of each region depends on its relevance in diagnosis. These obtained regions of interest are protected with an error-correcting code of Reed-Solomon type with a code rate that varies according to the relevance of the region by an unequal protection strategy (UEP).ResultsThe performance of the proposed compression scheme is evaluated in several ways. First, tests are performed to study the impact of errors on the different bit streams. In the first place, these tests are carried out in order to study the effect of the variation of the compression rates on the different bit streams. Secondly, different Reed Solomon error-correcting codes of different code rates are tested at different compression rates on a BSC channel. Finally, the performances of this coding strategy are compared with those of SPIHT 3D in the case of transmission on a BSC channel.ConclusionThe obtained results show that the proposed method is quite efficient in transmission time reduction. Therefore, our proposed scheme will reduce the volume of data without having to introduce some distortion and resist the errors introduced by the channel noise in the case of telemedicine.     

Ageing Effect Evaluation on HD-sEMG Signals Using CCA Approach

ObjectivesThe objective of the proposed study is to exploit the technology of high-density surface electromyography (HD-sEMG), in order to evaluate the muscle activation in young and elderly subjects during a daily life gesture, namely, Sit To Stand (STS), using wireless connected ambulatory equipment (TMSi©) and Blind Source Separation (BSS) approach with Canonical Correlation Analysis (CCA).Materials and methodsSixteen subjects participated (50% females) divided into two categories (‘H1’: young (30.62 yrs ±5.92, 23.95 kg/m² ±3.08), versus ‘H2’: old (61.87 yrs ±7.98, 23.4 kg/m² ±3.38)), in the recording of HD-sEMG signals, using 32-electrodes square grids (4×8), during Sit To Stand (STS) motion, three times at spontaneous speed. The studied muscle is the Rectus Femoris (RF) muscle. The recorded HD-sEMG signals were analyzed with CCA approach to extract correlation coefficient sets according to two age categories (young versus old), in order to evaluate its discriminating power with ageing. Statistical tests (t-test) were used to evaluate the discrimination for these two categories.ResultsThe calculation of CCA correlation coefficients showed a significant difference between young and old category concerning the mean CCA correlation coefficient (P<0.001***) and also the standard deviation of the CCA correlation coefficients (P<0.0001****).ConclusionThe obtained results are promising and indicate a clear difference between the obtained source variability using CCA method between the young and the old tested subjects during daily life motion. Furthermore, these estimated sources seem to be impacted by both anatomical and functional modifications with ageing.     

鸽子慢性电刺激用电极转接装置及其固定方法

慢性电极植入以及无线刺激技术被广泛应用于动物自由活动状态下的脑区功能研究。实现刺激器与脑内植入电极过渡连接的转接装置需固定在颅骨之上。鸟类特殊的骨质构造不利于转接装置的长期固定。以鸽子(Columba livia)为例设计制作了一种用于慢性运动诱导实验的9通道电极转接装置,长12.8 mm、宽9.5 mm、高5.5 mm,重0.42 g;根据鸽子颅骨特点在固定过程中对颅骨表面进行粗糙化处理增加固定时与牙科水泥的接触面积,并选取特定位点拧入螺钉进行固定,有效延长了转接装置的固定时间。经实验验证能够在鸽子头部稳定固定6个月以上,满足鸽子长期运动诱导研究的需求,未对动物正常活动产生影响。该装置及其固定方法亦可为其他小型动物的脑区功能研究提供借鉴。