Comparative Analysis of Endogenous Hormones and Metabolite Profiles in Early-Spring Flowering Plants and Unflowered Plants Revealing the Strategy of Blossom

Journal of Plant Growth Regulation - Early-spring plants are a special type of plant that complete their life cycle promptly in cold, early spring. Very little effort has been made into researching...     

Agar Diffusion Method for Negative Staining of Microbial Suspensions in Salt Solutions

Microbial suspensions in a saline medium can be prepared for negative staining by a simple agar diffusion method that achieves a high degree of particle concentration.     

N-Glycans and sulfated glycosaminoglycans contribute to the action of diverse Tc toxins on mammalian cells

Tc toxin is an exotoxin composed of three subunits named TcA, TcB and TcC. Structural analysis revealed that TcA can form homopentamer that mediates the cellular recognition and delivery processes, thus contributing to the host tropism of Tc toxin. N-glycans and heparan sulfates have been shown to act as receptors for several Tc toxins. Here, we performed two independent genome-wide CRISPR-Cas9 screens, and have validated glycans and sulfated glycosaminoglycans (sGAGs) as Tc toxin receptors also for previously uncharacterized Tc toxins. We found that TcdA1 form Photorhabdus luminescens W14 (TcdA1^W14) can recognize N-glycans via the RBD-D domain, corroborating previous findings. Knockout of N-glycan processing enzymes specifically blocks the intoxication of TcdA1^W14-assembled Tc toxin. On the other hand, our results showed that sGAG biosynthesis pathway is involved in the cell surface binding of TcdA2^TT01 (TcdA2 from P. luminescens TT01). Competition assays and biolayer interferometry demonstrated that the sulfation group in sGAGs is required for the binding of TcdA2^TT01. Finally, based on the conserved domains of representative TcA proteins, we have identified 1,189 putative TcAs from 1,039 bacterial genomes. These TcAs are categorized into five subfamilies. Each subfamily shows a good correlation with both genetic organization of the TcA protein(s) and taxonomic origin of the genomes, suggesting these subfamilies may utilize different mechanisms for cellular recognition. Taken together, our results support the previously described two different binding modalities of Tc toxins, leading to unique host targeting properties. We also present the bioinformatics data and receptor screening strategies for TcA proteins, provide new insights into understanding host specificity and biomedical applications of Tc toxins.     

Structural analysis of inhibition of <Emphasis Type="Italic">E. coli</Emphasis> methionine aminopeptidase: implication of loop adaptability in selective inhibition of bacterial enzymes

Background  

Methionine aminopeptidase is a potential target of future antibacterial and anticancer drugs. Structural analysis of complexes of the enzyme with its inhibitors provides valuable information for structure-based drug design efforts.     

外泌体源性miRNAs在肺癌发生发展中的作用

外泌体(exosomes)是细胞分泌的纳米级细胞外囊泡.外泌体通过释放其内的生物活性大分子,比如微小RNA(microRNA,miRNA)到受体细胞,从而介导细胞间交流通讯. MiRNAs作为一类主要在转录后水平负向调控靶mRNAs的非编码RNAs,其在外泌体中含量最为丰富.在肺癌中,miRNAs经肿瘤细胞分泌的外泌体转运释放而发挥重要的作用.本文主要讨论了外泌体源性miRNAs在肺癌发生发展的各个阶段,包括血管生成、细胞增殖、侵袭转移、免疫逃逸、耐药等方面的作用,以及其在作为新型肺癌诊断和预后标志物方面的临床价值.     

Prenatal diagnosis of Pallister-Killian syndrome and literature review

Pallister-Killian syndrome (PKS) is a rare sporadic genetic disorder usually caused by mosaicism of an extra isochromosome of 12p (i(12p)). This retrospective study analysed the prenatal ultrasound manifestations and molecular and cytogenetic results of five PKS foetuses. Samples of amniotic fluid and/or cord blood, skin biopsy and placenta were collected. Conventional karyotyping and single nucleotide polymorphism array (SNP array) were performed on all the amniotic fluid or cord blood samples. Copy number variants sequencing (CNV-seq) and fluorescence in situ hybridization (FISH) were also used for the validation for one foetus. All the five foetuses were from pregnancies with advanced parental age. Two foetuses involved structural abnormalities and one foetus had only soft markers, all of which included increased nuchal translucency. The rest two foetuses had normal ultrasounds in the second trimester, which has rarely been reported before. The karyotype revealed typical i(12p) in four cases and a small supernumerary marker chromosome consisting of 12p and 20p in the remaining one case. The proportion of cells with i(12p) ranged from 0 to 100% in cultural cells, while SNP array results suggested 2−4 copies of 12p. For one foetus, metaphase FISH showed normal results, but the interphase FISH suggested cell lines with two, three and four copies of 12p in the amniotic fluid. Advanced parental age may be an important risk factor for PKS, and there were no typical ultrasound manifestations related to PKS. A combination of karyotype analysis and molecular diagnosis is an effective method for the diagnosis of PKS.     

Oligomerization of Baculovirus LEF-11 Is Involved in Viral DNA Replication

We have previously reported that baculovirus Bombyx mori nucleopolyhedrovirus (BmNPV) late expression factor 11 (lef-11) is associated with viral DNA replication and have demonstrated that it potentially interacts with itself; however, whether LEF-11 forms oligomers and the impact of LEF-11 oligomerization on viral function have not been substantiated. In this study, we first demonstrated that LEF-11 is capable of forming oligomers. Additionally, a series of analyses using BmNPV LEF-11 truncation mutants indicated that two distinct domains control LEF-11 oligomerization (aa 42–61 and aa 72–101). LEF-11 truncation constructs were inserted into a lef-11-knockout BmNPV bacmid, which was used to demonstrate that truncated LEF-11 lacking either oligomerization domain abrogates viral DNA replication. Finally, site-directed mutagenesis was used to determine that the conserved hydrophobic residues Y58&I59 (representing Y58 and I59), I85 and L88&L89 (representing L88 and L89) are required for LEF-11 oligomerization and viral DNA replication. Collectively, these data indicate that BmNPV LEF-11 oligomerization influences viral DNA replication.