可控性释放NGF的京尼平- 壳聚糖微球的研究

目的:在体外研究京尼平-壳聚糖微球可控性释放具有生物活性的神经生长因子的可行性。方法:采用"乳化-化学交联"技术制备包埋神经生长因子的京尼平-壳聚糖微球,京尼平为化学交联剂;应用扫描电镜、粒径分布、体外缓释动力学及细胞生物活性分别对微球的性能进行研究。结果:京尼平-壳聚糖微球表面光滑,平均粒径在5.1~50.5μm之间;京尼平的浓度可影响微球在体外释放神经生长因子的速度,经高浓度京尼平交联的微球能减缓并持续释放神经生长因子;此外,从京尼平-壳聚糖微球释放的神经生长因子可维持PC12细胞的生物活性,提高NGF生物利用率。结论:京尼平-壳聚糖微球能有效缓释具有生物活性的NGF超过14天,为神经退行性疾病的治疗提供一种治疗策略。     

人神经生长因子融合蛋白的纯化及其生物活性的研究

用一株基因工程菌Ｅ．ｃｏｌｉ２４２６／ｐＭＮ表达了麦芽糖结合蛋白－人神经生长因子融合蛋白,菌体超声破碎后,上清液经直链淀粉亲和柱一步即可获ＳＤＳ－ＰＡＧＥ纯融合蛋白,为麦芽糖结合蛋白与人神经生长因子的络合物,产率约１０％。产物用鸡胚背根神经节检测生物活性,１ＢＵ不大于１０ｎｇ,与小鼠颌下腺β神经生长因子具有类似生物活性。     

人神经生长因子融合蛋白的纯化及其生物活性的研究

用一株基因工程菌Ｅ．ｃｏｌｉ２４２６／ｐＭＮ表达了麦芽糖结合蛋白－人神经生长因子融合蛋白．菌体超声破碎后,上清液经直链淀粉亲和柱一步即可获ＳＤＳ－ＰＡＧＥ纯融合蛋白（５５ｋＤ）,为麦芽糖结合蛋白（４２ｋＤ）与人神经生长因子（１３ｋＤ）的络合物,产率约１０％．产物用鸡胚背根神经节检测生物活性,１ＢＵ不大于１０ｎｇ,与小鼠颌下腺β神经生长因子具有类似生物活性     

冻干神经生长因子活性稳定性试验研究

用不同的物质作保护剂冻干纯化鼠神经生长因子,经检定以人血白蛋白作为赋形剂和保护剂冻干神经生长因子制品外观洁白细腻,结构强度良好,生物活性符合要求,残存水分低于３％。采用留样观察法检测其稳定性,将制品放置４℃～８℃,在０、０．５、１、２、３、６、９、１２、１８、２４、２５个月分别测定其各自的活性。结果表明神经生长因子冻干制品在４℃～８℃保存,２５个月仍然保持原有生物活性     

重组人神经生长因子β亚基的原核融合表达及其活性研究

目的：通过原核融合表达,获得具有生物活性的重组人神经生长因子（hNGF）的B亚基。方法：分别以大肠杆菌二硫键形成蛋白家族（Dsb）中的DsbA、DsbC蛋白及硫氧还蛋白（Trx）为融合分子,与hNGFB亚基在原核表达系统进行融合表达,优化融合蛋白的复性条件,获得可溶性rhNGFp亚基融合蛋白;通过鸡胚背根神经节培养实验鉴定各融合蛋白的生物活性。结果：在获得的3种融合蛋白中,只有DsbA-L-NGF表现较高的、类似小鼠NGF的生物活性,可观察到其促进鸡胚被根神经节突起生长。结论：人神经生长因子B亚基与DsbA融合蛋白具有良好的生物活性。     

神经生长因子的研究

神经生长因子的研究湖南医科大学李叔庚神经生长因子（ｎｅｒｖｅｇｒｏｗｔｈｆａｃｔｏｒＮＧＦ）是神经系统最重要的生物活性分子之一,也是最早发现和最典型的神经营养因子,它影响外周和中枢神经系统某些神经元的存活和分化［１］。１９４８年Ｂｕｅｋｅｒ首次发现将...     

应用自体脂肪源性干细胞移植方法—哈医大压力性尿失禁治疗研究取得可喜进展

哈尔滨医科大学最近的一项研究表明,在治疗女性压力性尿失禁（SUI）过程中,应用壳聚糖包裹缓释神经生长因子（NGF）和成纤维细胞生长因子（bFGF）与ADSCs共同移植治疗SUI可以取得理想的治疗效果。这项研究成果将发表于近期出版的生物活性材料核心杂志Biomaterial上。     

蛇毒神经生长因子的研究进展

神经生长因子（Ｎｅｒｖｅｇｒｏｗｔｈｆａｃｔｏｒ,ＮＧＦ）是神经系统最重要的生物活性分子之一,是交感神经元和感觉神经元生长和存活所必需的一种营养成分,对神经元的存活,神经纤维的生长和分化以及再生起极其重要的作用。它的有关研究已成为发育神经学、神经损伤...     

猴头菌属药用真菌活性次级代谢产物研究概况

对猴头菌属药用真菌的次级代谢产物化学、生物活性研究进行了综述。目前已经从猴头菌属真菌中发现了83个不同类型的活性次级代谢产物,主要包含二萜类、酚类、脂肪酸类、甾体、生物碱类化合物;这些化学成分显示了抗肿瘤、抗菌、抗糖尿病、促进神经生长因子合成等多种活性。文中讨论了目前研究的主要问题并对其前景进行了展望。     

乳源性生物活肽及其生物学与保健意义

乳中含有大量的生物活性肽,或自然存在于乳中,或来自乳的酶解产物。前一类生物活性肽包括表皮生长因子（ＥＧＦ）、转化生长因子（ＴＧＦ）、神经生长因子（ＮＧＦ）、胰岛素及胰岛素生长因子Ⅰ和Ⅱ（ＩＧＦ－Ⅰ、ＩＧＦ－Ⅱ）。初乳中这类生物活性肽的浓度一般高于血液中的浓度。由于初生动物胃肠道的蛋白酶活性低以及乳中存在蛋白酶抑制因子,这些活性肽能在哺乳期动物的消化道内存活。饲喂ＥＧＦ、胰岛素和ＩＧＦ－Ⅰ可加快新生     

Mutation of tryptophan-21 in mouse nerve growth factor (NGF) affects binding to the fast NGF receptor but not induction of neurites on PC12 cells.

By using in vitro DNA mutagenesis, we replaced the tryptophan residue at position 21 in mouse nerve growth factor (NGF) with either phenylalanine, leucine or serine. Yield, biological activity, immunological reactivity and receptor binding of the recombinant proteins were determined. All three mutants were produced at considerably lower yields than wild-type NGF, with the serine mutant being undetectable. The results of competitive binding assays show that tryptophan-21 is involved in recognition of the fast NGF receptor of PC12 cells. However, specific biological activity of NGF is not altered by the replacement of tryptophan-21. Our results therefore suggest that biological activity of NGF is not directly coupled to binding to the fast NGF receptor.     

Structure-function studies of nerve growth factor: functional importance of highly conserved amino acid residues.

Selected amino acid residues in chicken nerve growth factor (NGF) were replaced by site-directed mutagenesis. Mutated NGF sequences were transiently expressed in COS cells and the yield of NGF protein in conditioned medium was quantified by Western blotting. Binding of each mutant to NGF receptors on PC12 cells was evaluated in a competition assay. The biological activity was determined by measuring stimulation of neurite outgrowth from chick sympathetic ganglia. The residues homologous to the proposed receptor binding site of insulin (Ser18, Met19, Val21, Asp23) were substituted by Ala. Replacement of Ser18, Met19 and Asp23 did not affect NGF activity. Modification of Val21 notably reduced both receptor binding and biological activity, suggesting that this residue is important to retain a fully active NGF. The highly conserved Tyr51 and Arg99 were converted into Phe and Lys respectively, without changing the biological properties of the molecule. However, binding and biological activity were greatly impaired after the simultaneous replacement of both Arg99 and Arg102 by Gly. The three conserved Trp residues at positions 20, 75 and 98 were substituted by Phe. The Trp mutated proteins retained 15-60% of receptor binding and 40-80% of biological activity, indicating that the Trp residues are not essential for NGF activity. However, replacement of Trp20 significantly reduced the amount of NGF in the medium, suggesting that this residue may be important for protein stability.     

Characterization and Partial Purification of a Novel Neuronotrophic Factor from Bovine Seminal Vesicle

Extracts from bovine seminal vesicles have been shown to contain high concentrations of nerve growth factor (NGF)-like biological activity and of the NGF protein with properties corresponding to that of NGF from other sources. We now demonstrate that a second neuronotrophic protein, termed seminal vesicle-derived neuronotrophic factor (SVNF), is present in seminal vesicle extracts (SVEs), which could not be distinguished from NGF on the basis of biological activity. SVNF has neuronotrophic activity on NGF target cells like embryonic chicken-sensory and sympathetic neurons, sympathetic neurons, and chromaffin cells from neonatal rats, but it is inactive on embryonic chicken ciliary or neonatal rat nodose ganglion neurons. It also stimulates fiber outgrowth from rat pheochromocytoma (PC 12) cells. In gel filtration chromatography on Biogel A 1.5 m, the activity is eluted with an apparent molecular weight of 40 kilodaltons, and by preparative isoelectric focusing, the isoelectric point was determined to be in the neutral range (6.8-7.8). The biological activity of SVNF, in contrast to that of NGF, is partially retained after preparative sodium dodecyl sulfate-polyacrylamide gel electrophoresis and can be electrophoretically eluted with an apparent molecular weight of 16-20 kilodaltons. Electrophoretically purified SVNF is not inhibited by antisera to mouse NGF, but its activity is increased greater than 10-fold in the presence of very low concentrations of NGF. For partially purified SVNF, a specific activity of 2.9-5.8 X 10(5) biological units/mg of protein was determined in the presence of subthreshold NGF concentrations.(ABSTRACT TRUNCATED AT 250 WORDS)     

The nerve growth factor precursor proNGF exhibits neurotrophic activity but is less active than mature nerve growth factor

Nerve growth factor (NGF) promotes neuronal survival and differentiation and stimulates neurite outgrowth. NGF is synthesized as a precursor, proNGF, which undergoes post-translational processing to generate mature beta-NGF. It has been assumed that, in vivo, NGF is largely processed into the mature form and that mature NGF accounts for the biological activity. However, we recently showed that proNGF is abundant in CNS tissues whereas mature NGF is undetectable, suggesting that proNGF has biological functions beyond its role as a precursor. To determine whether proNGF exhibits biological activity, we mutagenized the precursor-processing site and expressed unprocessed, cleavage-resistant proNGF protein in insect cells. Survival and neurite outgrowth assays on murine superior cervical ganglion neurons and PC12 cells indicated that proNGF exhibits neurotrophic activity similar to mature 2.5S NGF, but is approximately fivefold less active. ProNGF binds to the high-affinity receptor, TrkA, as determined by cross-linking to PC12 cells, and is also slightly less active than mature NGF in promoting phosphorylation of TrkA and its downstream signaling effectors, Erk1/2, in PC12 and NIH3T3-TrkA cells. These data, coupled with our previous report that proNGF is the major form of NGF in the CNS, suggest that proNGF could be responsible for much of the biological activity normally attributed to mature NGF in vivo.     

Three Distinct Types of Monoclonal Antibodies After Long-Term Immunization of Rats with Mouse Nerve Growth Factor

This article reports the results of a systematic investigation of the different types of antibodies produced in the course of a long-term immunization of rats with mouse nerve growth factor (NGF). We have characterized three types of monoclonal antibodies, namely: (1) antibodies that bind to NGF and inhibit its binding to target cells and its biological activity in culture (type A); (2) antibodies that bind to and precipitate NGF but do not inhibit its binding to target cells or its biological activity (type B); (3) antibodies that fail to recognize NGF itself, but inhibit nonetheless its binding to target cells (type C). These antibodies bind to an antigen present on NGF target cells and not on rat fibroblasts lacking NGF receptor. They appear thus to be antiidiotypic antibodies directed against the NGF receptor, developed as a consequence of the long-term immunization with NGF.     

Mutational studies of conserved residues in the dimer interface of nerve growth factor.

An understanding of the structure-function relationship of nerve growth factor (NGF) requires precise knowledge of all the residues and regions that participate in NGF receptor binding, receptor activation, and biological activity. Seven recombinant human NGF mutants having alanine substituted for residues located either in the NGF dimer interface or beta-strand region were studied to determine the role of each amino acid residue in NGF biological activity. F86A, T91A, R100A, and R103A remained nearly full active with 61, 120, 91, and 73% of wild-type activity, respectively, in the PC12 cell bioassay. Hydrophobic core and dimer interface residues Y52, F53, and F54 were studied in more detail. Y52A and F54A were expressed in very low levels, suggesting that these two residues may be important for protein stability. Y52A retained full biological activity (91%). F53A had a 20- and 70-fold reduction in biological activity and TrkA phosphorylation, respectively, with only a 5- to 10-fold effect on TrkA binding and no effect on low-affinity receptor binding. F54A had significantly decreased TrkA phosphorylation and biological activity (40-fold). The results suggest that F53 and F54 may play a structural role in TrkA receptor activation subsequent to binding.     

Molecular cloning of bovine and chick nerve growth factor (NGF): delineation of conserved and unconserved domains and their relationship to the biological activity and antigenicity of NGF.

Previous experiments with purified mouse and bovine nerve growth factor (NGF) have shown that the biological activities of these two NGFs are identical, whereas the immunological cross-reactivity of antibodies produced against the two NGF molecules is very limited. This observation, together with the fact that antibodies to mouse NGF do not affect the development of sympathetic and sensory neurons in chick embryos, suggests that the domain of the NGF molecules responsible for the biological action has been highly conserved during evolution, whereas other domains determining the immunological properties were under less rigorous evolutionary constraint. The nucleotide sequences of bovine and chick NGF were determined from a cDNA clone prepared from mRNA of bovine seminal vesicles and from cloned chick genomic DNA, and the amino acid sequences deduced therefrom were compared with the available sequences of mouse and human NGF. All six cysteine residues were conserved in agreement with the previous finding that the biological activity of NGF is conformation-dependent requiring intact disulfide bridges. Amino acid changes are mainly confined to hydrophilic regions expected to be potential antigenic determinants, thus providing an explanation for the poor immunological cross-reactivities between the different NGFs. One single hydrophilic region is conserved in all NGFs and this region could be involved in the biological activity. The carboxy termini of bovine and chick NGF differ from that of mouse NGF, the changes in the amino acid sequences suggest that chick and bovine NGF are probably not processed by the gamma-subunit and that no 7S complex can be formed as in the mouse submandibular gland.     

The in vitro biological effect of nerve growth factor is inhibited by synthetic peptides.

Nerve growth factor (NGF)1 is a neurotrophic polypeptide that acts via specific receptors to promote the survival and growth of neurons. To delineate the NGF domain(s) responsible for eliciting biological activity, we synthesized small peptides corresponding to three regions in NGF that are hydrophilic and highly conserved. Several peptides from mouse NGF region 26-40 inhibited the neurite-promoting effect of NGF on sensory neurons in vitro. Inhibition was sequence-specific and could be overcome by increasing the concentration of NGF. Moreover, peptide actions were specific for NGF-mediated events in that they failed to block the neurotrophic activity of ciliary neuronotrophic factor (CNTF) or phorbol 12-myristate 13-acetate (PMA). In spite of the inhibition of NGF activity, peptides did not affect the binding of radiolabeled NGF. These studies define one region of NGF that may be required for neurotrophic activity.     

Detection of brain-derived neurotrophic factor-like activity in fibroblasts and Schwann cells: inhibition by antibodies to NGF

mRNA coding for brain-derived neurotrophic factor (BDNF) has been detected in cultured L929 fibroblasts, rat dermal fibroblasts, and sciatic nerve Schwann cells, as well as in rat skin. Medium conditioned by cultured fibroblasts and Schwann cells also stimulates neurite growth from retinal explants and promotes the survival in culture of BDNF-responsive sensory neurons; biological activity is abolished by antibodies raised against NGF. These results suggest that molecules with BDNF-like activity may be produced by cells in the peripheral nervous system and that the BDNF-like activity in fibroblasts and Schwann cells is derived from molecules immunologically related to NGF. In support of this concept, antibodies against NGF have been found to reduce the biological activity of recombinant BDNF in culture and to cross-react with BDNF on Western blots.     

Enhancement of angiogenic effect of co-transfection human NGF and VEGF genes in rat bone marrow mesenchymal stem cells

The current study explored the feasibility and efficacy of co-transfection of the human nerve growth factor (NGF) and vascular endothelial growth factor 165 (VEGF165) genes in rat bone marrow mesenchymal stem cells (BMSCs). The obtained hNGF and vascular endothelial growth factor (VEGF) cDNAs were cloned into the pEGFP-C1 expression vector to construct the recombinant vectors. Co-transfection in rat BMSCs was performed and the expressions of both genes were detected by RT-PCR, Western blot, and enzyme-linked immunospecific assay. The biological activity of recombinant NGF and VEGF proteins was confirmed using the Chick Chorioallantoic Membrane (CAM) assay. NGF and VEGF genes could be expressed successfully in rat BMSCs. The recombinant NGF and VEGF from the rat BMSCs showed a more significant synergetic biological activity compared with single recombinant NGF or VEGF. These findings demonstrate that the co-transfection of hNGF + VEGF genes can enhance the angiogenic effect in vivo.