异叶三宝木的二萜成分及抗菌活性研究

为研究异叶三宝木(Trigonostemon heterophyllus)的二萜成分及其抗菌活性,采用硅胶柱层析、凝胶柱层析、高效液相色谱对萃取物进行分离纯化,结合现代波谱技术对所得化合物进行结构鉴定,并通过牛津杯法和2倍稀释法检测化合物对革兰氏阴性菌大肠杆菌(Escherichia coli)以及革兰氏阳性菌肺炎双球菌(Pneumococcus)的生长抑制活性和MIC值。从异叶三宝木中分离得到了6个化合物,包括5个二萜类, 1个木脂素类,分别鉴定为trigonochinene E (1)、neoboutomannin (2)、6,9-O- dedimethyltrigonostemone (3)、stelltian B (4)、3,4-secosonderianol (5)、biondinin A (6)。化合物1、2、3、5对大肠杆菌有抑制作用,MIC值分别为9.375、18.75、18.75、18.75 μg/mL。化合物2、3、4、6为首次从该种植物中分离得到,化合物4为首次从该属植物中分离得到。除化合物4外,其他化合物都有一定的抗菌活性,且化合物1、2、3对大肠杆菌抑制作用强于阳性对照硫酸卡那霉素。     

Allotransplantation of adult spinal cord tissues after complete transected spinal cord injury: Long-term survival and functional recovery in canines

Science China Life Sciences - Spinal cord injury (SCI), especially complete transected SCI, leads to loss of cells and extracellular matrix and functional impairments. In a previous study, we...     

基于目标检测的东北虎个体自动识别

东北虎个体的自动识别是种群数量评估和制定有效保护策略的重要基础。以东北虎林园和怪坡虎园38 只虎为研究对象,将目标检测方法首次应用到东北虎个体识别研究中,采用多种深度卷积神经网络模型,以实现虎个体的自动识别。首先通过相机在不同角度对 38 只东北虎进行拍摄取样,建立包含13579张图像的虎样本数据集。由于虎的体侧条纹信息不具有对称性,所以运用单次多盒目标检测（Single Shot MultiBox Detector, SSD）方法,对虎的躯干左侧条纹、右侧条纹以及脸部等不同部位图像,进行自动检测并分割提取,极大节省手工截取时间。在检测分割出的左右侧及脸部不同部位图片基础上,运用上、下、左、右平移变换进行数据增强,使图片数目扩大为原来的5 倍。采用LeNet、AlexNet、ZFNet、VGG16、ResNet34共5 种卷积神经网络模型进行个体自动识别。为了提高识别准确率,运用平均值和最大值不同组合方式来优化池化操作,并在全连接层引入概率分别为0.1、0.2、0.3、0.4的丢弃（Dropout）操作防止过拟合。实验表明,目标检测模型耗时较少,截取分割老虎不同部位条纹能达到0.6 s/张,远快于人工截取速度,并且在测试集上准确率能达到97.4%。不同姿态下的目标部位都能正确识别并分割。ResNet34模型的准确率优于其他网络模型,左右侧条纹以及脸部图像识别准确率分别为93.75%、97.01%和 86.28%,右侧条纹识别准确率优于左侧条纹和脸部图像。研究为野生虎自动相机影像的识别提供技术参考。在未来研究中,对东北虎个体影响数据进行扩充,选取更多影像数据进行训练,使网络具有更强的适应性,从而实现更准确的个体识别。     

CEP Biomarkers as Potential Tools for Monitoring Therapeutics

Background

Carboxyethylpyrrole (CEP) adducts are oxidative modifications derived from docosahexaenoate-containing lipids that are elevated in ocular tissues and plasma in age-related macular degeneration (AMD) and in rodents exposed to intense light. The goal of this study was to determine whether light-induced CEP adducts and autoantibodies are modulated by pretreatment with AL-8309A under conditions that prevent photo-oxidative damage of rat retina. AL-8309A is a serotonin 5-HT_1A receptor agonist.

Methods

Albino rats were dark adapted prior to blue light exposure. Control rats were maintained in normal cyclic light. Rats were injected subcutaneously 3x with 10 mg/kg AL-8309A (2 days, 1 day and 0 hours) before light exposure for 6 h (3.1 mW/cm², λ=450 nm). Animals were sacrificed immediately following light exposure and eyes, retinas and plasma were collected. CEP adducts and autoantibodies were quantified by Western analysis or ELISA.

Results

ANOVA supported significant differences in mean amounts of CEP adducts and autoantibodies among the light + vehicle, light + drug and dark control groups from both retina and plasma. Light-induced CEP adducts in retina were reduced ~20% following pretreatment with AL-8309A (n = 62 rats, p = 0.006) and retinal CEP immunoreactivity was less intense by immunohistochemistry. Plasma levels of light-induced CEP adducts were reduced at least 30% (n = 15 rats, p = 0.004) by drug pretreatment. Following drug treatment, average CEP autoantibody titer in light exposed rats (n = 22) was unchanged from dark control levels, and ~20% (p = 0.046) lower than in vehicle-treated rats.

Conclusions

Light-induced CEP adducts in rat retina and plasma were significantly decreased by pretreatment with AL-8309A. These results are consistent with and extend previous studies showing AL-8309A reduces light-induced retinal lesions in rats and support CEP biomarkers as possible tools for monitoring the efficacy of select therapeutics.     

Molecular cloning, tissue expression and SNP analysis in the goat nerve growth factor gene

In this study, we cloned the full coding region of NGF gene from the caprine ovary. Result showed the caprine NGF cDNA (GenBank Accession No. JQ308184) contained a 726 bp open reading frame encoding a protein with 241 amino acid residues. Bioinformatic analysis indicated that caprine NGF amino acid sequence was 83–99 % identical to that of mouse, pig, dog, human and bovine. It was predicted that caprine NGF contained nine serine phosphorylation loci, four threonine phosphorylation loci and nine specific PKC phosphorylation loci. The NGF mRNA expression pattern showed that NGF gene was expressed highly in ovary. This work provided an important experimental basis for further research on the function of NGF in goat. A single nucleotide polymorphism (A705G) in the coding region of NGF gene was detected by PCR–RFLP and DNA sequencing in 630 goats of three breeds. The frequencies of G allele were 0.52–0.61, and frequencies of A allele were 0.48–0.39 for SN, GZ and BG breeds, respectively. The does with GG genotype had higher litter size than those with GA and AA genotypes (P < 0.05). Hence, the biochemical and physiological functions, together with the results obtained in our investigation, suggest that the NGF gene could serve as a genetic marker for litter size in goat breeding.     

RSBP15 interacts with and stabilizes dRSPH3 during sperm axoneme assembly in Drosophila

Flagellum in sperm is composed of over 200 different proteins and is essential for sperm motility. In particular, defects in the assembly of the radial spoke in the flagellum result in male infertility due to loss of sperm motility. However, mechanisms regulating radial spoke assembly remain unclear in metazoans.Here, we identified a novel Drosophila protein radial spoke binding protein 15(RSBP15) which plays an important role in regulating radial spoke assembly. Loss of RSBP15 results in complete lack of mature sperms in seminal vesicles(SVs), asynchronous individualization complex(IC) and defective "9 + 2"structure in flagella. RSBP15 is colocalized with dRSPH3 in sperm flagella, and interacts with dRSPH3 through its DD_R_PKA superfamily domain which is important for the stabilization of dRSPH3. Moreover,loss of dRSPH3, as well as dRSPH1, dRSPH4 a and dRSPH9, showed similar phenotypes to rsbp15 KO mutant. Together, our results suggest that RSBP15 acts in stabilizing the radial spoke protein complex to anchor and strengthen the radial spoke structures in sperm flagella.     

油樟叶中黄酮类物质抑菌效果研究

探究从油樟（Cinnamomum longipaniculatum）叶中提取出的不同极性黄酮样品对大肠杆菌（Escherichia coli）、志贺杆菌（Shigella）、金黄色葡萄球菌（Staphylococcus aureus）、稻瘟病菌（Magnaporthe grisea）和黄曲霉菌（Aspergillus flavus）五种病原菌的抑制作用。以五种病原菌为指示菌,将不同的黄酮样品滴加在滤纸片上,观察抑菌圈的大小。结果显示,样品Fr1、Fr2、Fr3、Fr4和Fr7对大肠杆菌有抑菌作用;样品Fr2、Fr3、Fr4、Fr5、Fr7和Fr8对志贺杆菌有抑菌作用;样品Fr4和Fr8对金黄色葡萄球菌有抑菌作用;样品过孔和Fr4对黄曲霉菌有抑菌作用;样品过孔对稻瘟病菌有抑菌作用。故不同极性的黄酮样品有良好的抑菌性。     

Diurnal Expression Pattern,Allelic Variation,and Association Analysis Reveal Functional Features of the E1 Gene in Control of Photoperiodic Flowering in Soybean

Although four maturity genes, E1 to E4, in soybean have been successfully cloned, their functional mechanisms and the regulatory network of photoperiodic flowering remain to be elucidated. In this study, we investigated how the diurnal expression pattern of the E1 gene is related to photoperiodic length; and to what extent allelic variation in the B3-like domain of the E1 gene is associated with flowering time phenotype. The bimodal expression of the E1 gene peaked first at around 2 hours after dawn in long-day condition. The basal expression level of E1 was enhanced by the long light phase, and decreased by duration of dark. We identified a 5bp (3 SNP and 2-bp deletion) mutation, referred to an e1-b3a, which occurs in the middle of B3 domain of the E1 gene in the early flowering cultivar Yanhuang 3. Subcellular localization analysis showed that the putative truncated e1-b3a protein was predominately distributed in nuclei, indicating the distribution pattern of e1-b3a was similar to that of E1, but not to that of e1-as. Furthermore, genetic analysis demonstrated allelic variations at the E1 locus significantly underlay flowering time in three F₂ populations. Taken together, we can conclude the legume specific E1 gene confers some special features in photoperiodic control of flowering in soybean. Further characterization of the E1 gene will extend our understanding of the soybean flowering pathway in soybean.