Molecular Cloning and Characterization of a Novel Human C4orf13 Gene, Tentatively a Member of the Sodium Bile Acid Cotransporter Family

By large-scale sequencing analysis of a human fetal brain cDNA library, we isolated a novel human cDNA (C4orf13). This cDNA is 2706 bp in length, encoding a 340-amino-acid polypeptide that contains a typical SBF (sodium bile acid cotransporter family) domain and ten possible transmembrane segments. The putative protein C4orf13 shows high similarity with its orthologs in Mus musculus and Xenopus laevis. Human C4orf13 is mapped to chromosome 4q31.2 and contains 12 exons. RT-PCR analysis shows that human C4orf13 is widely expressed in human tissues, and the expression levels in liver and lung are relatively high, expression levels in placenta, kidney, spleen, and thymus are moderate, low levels of expression are detected in heart, prostate, and testis.The nucleotide sequence reported in this paper has been deposited to GenBank under accession number AY346324.     

Molecular Cloning of emip,a Member of the Major Intrinsic Protein (MIP) Gene Family,Preferentially Expressed in Epidermal Cells of Barley Leaves

Cloning and characterization of a barley gene named emip is reported that encodes a member of the major intrinsic protein family. A λ-unizap cDNA library synthesized from poly A⁺?mRNA of leaf epidermis was screened differentially with epidermis-versus mesophyll-derived probes. One of the clones epi 3-2 was sequenced and further analyzed. The open reading frame of the full length clone codes for a polypeptide of 288 amino acids with a molecular mass of 30,634 Da exhibiting a high degree of homology with members of the major intrinsic protein family. Hydropathy analysis predicts six potential membrane-spanning helices. mRNA levels were high in the growing zone of barley leaves and declined towards the tip of the fully expanded leaf blade. Expression was high in epidermal strips, lower in roots and very low in the leaf mesophyll. In order of decreasing response, wilting, salt shock and heat shock resulted in stimulated expression. mRNA levels remained low during slow salting up experiments. The expressional pattern suggests a role of EMIP in turgor regulation, particularly under stress.     

CMV甜瓜分离物外壳蛋白基因的克隆及植物表达载体的构建

从河南省临颖县采集的病毒感染的甜瓜样本经ELISA检测和接种分离获得黄瓜花叶病毒(Cucunbermosaicvirus,CMV)分离物。把该分离物接种西葫芦,从发病的叶片中提取总RNA,并以此为模板经RTPCR扩增获得CMV的外壳蛋白(cp)基因,将其克隆到pUCmT质粒上。经序列测定和分析,结果表明该cp基因由657个核苷酸组成,编码218个氨基酸。其核苷酸序列与黄瓜花叶病毒亚组I的分离物有较高的同源性,达92.2%～93.9%,与亚组II的同源性仅为76.8%～77.8%,与我国报道的CMV分离物的cp基因序列比较,除香蕉株系XB外核苷酸序列的同源性达91.8%～93.4%。根据这些分析,该CMV分离物属于亚组I。将cp基因通过中间载体pJIT163定向克隆到植物表达载体pBINPLUS中(重组双元载体质粒命名为pBCP),并经冻融法导入农杆菌中,经PCR及酶切鉴定,证实质粒已被导入。利用该植物表达载体对西瓜的遗传转化工作目前正在进行中。     

SNF2家族新成员Ercc61的cDNA克隆与表达分析

SNF2家族蛋白在基因组复制、修复与表达中具有重要作用.报道了SNF2家族新成员Ercc61(excision repair crosscomplementing rodent repair deficiency,complementation group 6-like)的cDNA克隆、特性与表达分析.通过表达序列标签(EST)搜索和组装,获得了cDNA全长4002 bp的新基因Ercc6l(GenBank Acc.No AY172688),然后通过RT-PCR在小鼠胚胎心脏成功克隆了该基因.Ercc6l在小鼠基因组中由两个外显子和一个内含子组成,定位于X染色体,最大开放阅读框(ORF)编码一个含l 240个氨基酸的假定蛋白质.该假定蛋白质含有SNF2蛋白的8个保守基序(SNF2结构域).通过与SNF2家族各亚家族的成员进行多重比对,初步确认Ercc6l属于ERCC6亚家族成员.将Ercc6l编码区克隆到pEGFP-C3然后转染HeLa,3T3和B16细胞,融合蛋白主要定位于胞浆.BLAST搜索检索出69条小鼠EST与Erccol同源,这些EST主要来自胚胎和肿瘤组织.对小鼠不同发育时期的多种组织进行RT-PCR,发现Ercc6l在胚胎期强表达,出生产后表达显著下调.这些结果提示Ercc6l在胚胎发育和肿瘤发生中可能具有重要作用.     

Functional Identification and Molecular Cloning of a Human Brain Vesicle Monoamine Transporter

A vesicle monoamine transporter was functionally identified, molecularly cloned, and characterized from a human substantia nigra cDNA library. The ATP-dependent transport of 5-[³H]hydroxytryptamine ([³H]5-HT) by digitonin-permeabilized fibroblasts expressing the vesicle monoamine/H^± antiporter in culture exhibited a K_m of 0.55 μM. Reserpine and tetrabenazine, inhibitors of two monoamine binding sites, effectively blocked [³H]5-HT accumulation with K₁ values of 34 and 78 nM, respectively. Pretreatment of cells with as little as 10 nM reserpine in the presence of ATP abolished uptake. The rank order for substrate inhibition of [³H]5-HT uptake for both the previously reported rat vMAT1 and the human transporter clone followed the order 5-HT > dopamine > epinephrine > norepinephrine > 1 -methyl-4-phen- ylpyridinium > 2-phenylethylamine > histamine. The virtually identical transport characteristics of rvMATI and hvMAT1 confirm the relevance of neuropharmacological studies of rat brain biogenic amine uptake and storage to human brain neurochemistry.     

A Glycoprotein Expressed by Human Fibrous Astrocytes is a Hyaluronate-Binding Protein and a Member of the CD44 Family

We have isolated and characterized an antigen from normal human brain called p80, so called because it migrated with an Mr of 80 kDa on SDS PAGE. The Mr of 80 kDa consists of a protein of about 55-60 kDa and carbohydrate (20-25 kDa). The carbohydrate is almost entirely of the N-linked type, although a small amount of O-linked carbohydrate was detected. Cross-reactivity with monoclonal antibodies A3D8 and A1G3 showed that p80 could therefore be considered an isoform of the CD44 adhesion molecules. In addition, specific binding to hyaluronate which was not competed for by proteoglycan demonstrated that it involved different sites than the proteoglycan binding sites. We also observed that fucoidan and dextran sulphate increased the binding by 200-250% while chondroitin sulphate C also increased the binding but to a lesser extent. Heparin, heparan sulphate and chondroitin sulphates A and B did not have such an effect. The binding of p80 to hyaluronate was pH dependent with a maximum at pH 6.4. We concluded that p80 was an astrocyte specific adhesion molecule.     

黄毛草莓F-box蛋白基因FnFBOX1及其启动子的克隆和表达分析

探索黄毛草莓FnFBOX1参与草莓胶孢炭疽菌(Colletotrichum gloeosporioides)侵染过程中的抗病反应和pFnFBOX1启动子的转录活性,为研究FnFBOX1抗炭疽病功能奠定基础.以黄毛草莓(Fragaria nilgerrensis Schidl.)为研究对象,通过RT-PCR技术克隆FnF...     

人类SR蛋白超家族新成员——SFRS12(SRrp508)的基因克隆和特性分析

采用生物信息学方法克隆出全长3811bp的人类RC508cDNA片段,经核酸和蛋白质分析为人类新基因（Gen-Bank登记号：AF459094）,利用RT－PCR方法从人类胰脏组织中扩增出包含码508个氨基酸残基最大开放读码框架（ORF）的1680bp cDNA片段,经核酸测序证明与电子克隆结果完全一致。该基因具有启动子和TATA-box,ORF前同一相位有多个终子码,后有加尾信号,显示为客观存在基因。该基因含有12个外显子（96－2093bp)和11个内含子（140－5153bp),定位于人类5号染色体5q11.2-q12.1,无任何连锁基因存在。该基因ORF342－1868（1527）横跨10个外显子,所编码508氨基酸蛋白的全长序列与大鼠丝氨酸－精氨酸二肽富含性（SR）剪切调控蛋白86（1527）横跨10外显子,所编码508氨基酸蛋白的全长序列与全长序列与大鼠丝氨酸－精氨酸二肽富含性（SR）剪切调控蛋白86（SRrp86)高度同源,在核酸和蛋白水平的同源性分别为84％和86％,与其他已知蛋白无论在核酸水平是在氨基酸水平几乎均无整体的同源性。结果表明,所克隆的508氨基酸蛋白才是大鼠SRrp86的人类同源物,从而修正了Barnard(2000)所指出的人类同源物为人类精氨酸富含性核蛋白54（p54)这一论断,并提示它是日益增长的SR蛋白超家族的又一个新成员。该基因组织表达谱广泛,有可能具有转录因子活性,暂命名为SR相关剪切调控蛋白508（SRrp508)。国际人类基因命名委员会已将其命名为丝氨酸－精氨酸二肽含性剪切因子12（splicing factor,arginine/serine-rich),缩写为SFRZS12,化名为DKFZp564B176,SRrp86。     

A New Tool for Routine Testing of Cellular Protein Expression: Integration of Cell Staining and Analysis of Protein Expression on a Microfluidic Chip-Based System

The key benefits of Lab-on-a-Chip technology are substantial time savings via an automation of lab processes, and a reduction in sample and reagent volumes required to perform analysis. In this article we present a new implementation of cell assays on disposable microfluidic chips. The applications are based on the controlled movement of cells by pressure-driven flow in microfluidic channels and two-color fluorescence detection of single cells. This new technology allows for simple flow cytometric studies of cells in a microfluidic chip-based system. In addition, we developed staining procedures that work “on-chip,” thus eliminating time-consuming washing steps. Cells and staining-reagents are loaded directly onto the microfluidic chip and analysis can start after a short incubation time. These procedures require only a fraction of the staining reagents generally needed for flow cytometry and only 30,000 cells per sample, demonstrating the advantages of microfluidic technology. The specific advantage of an on-chip staining reaction is the amount of time, cells, and reagents saved, which is of great importance when working with limited numbers of cells, e.g., primary cells or when needing to perform routine tests of cell cultures as a quality control step. Applications of this technology are antibody staining of proteins and determination of cell transfection efficiency by GFP expression. Results obtained with microfluidic chips, using standard cell lines and primary cells, show good correlation with data obtained using a conventional flow cytometer.     

HBP21: A Novel Member of TPR Motif Family, as a Potential Chaperone of Heat Shock Protein 70 in Proliferative Vitreoretinopathy (PVR) and Breast Cancer

A large number of tetratricopeptide repeat (TPR)-containing proteins have been shown to interact with the C-terminal domain of the 70 kDa heat-shock protein (Hsp70), especially those with three consecutive TPR motifs. The TPR motifs in these proteins are necessary and sufficient for mediating the interaction with Hsp70. Here, we investigate HBP21, a novel human protein of unknown function having three tandem TPR motifs predicted by computational sequence analysis. We confirmed the high expression of HBP21 in breast cancer and proliferative vitreoretinopathy (PVR) proliferative membrane and examined whether HBP21 could interact with Hsp70 using a yeast two-hybrid system and glutathione S-transferase pull-down assay. Previous studies have demonstrated the importance of Hsp70 C-terminal residues EEVD and PTIEEVD for interaction with TPR-containing proteins. Here, we tested an assortment of truncation and amino acid substitution mutants of Hsp70 to determine their ability to bind to HBP21 using a yeast two-hybrid system. The newly discovered interaction between HBP21 and Hsp70 along with observations from other studies leads to our hypothesis that HBP21 may be involved in the inhibition of progression and metastasis of tumor cells. Qinghuai Liu and Juanyu Gao have contributed equally to this work.