Characterization of gene expression in double-muscled and normal-muscled bovine embryos

Myostatin, a member of the transforming growth factor-beta superfamily, is a negative regulator of skeletal muscle growth. Cattle with mutations that inactivate myostatin exhibit a remarkable increase in mass of skeletal muscle called double muscling that is accompanied by an equally remarkable decrease in carcass fat. Although a mouse knockout model has been created which results in mice with a 200% increase in skeletal muscle mass, molecular mechanisms whereby myostatin regulates skeletal muscle and fat mass are not fully understood. Using suppressive subtractive hybridization, genes that were differentially expressed in double-muscled vs. normal-muscled cattle embryos were identified. Genetic variation at other loci was minimized by using embryonic samples collected from related Piedmontese x Angus dams or Belgian Blue x Hereford dams bred to a single sire of the same breed composition. Embryos were collected at 31-33 days of gestation, which is 2-4 days after high-level expression of myostatin in the developing bovine embryo. The suppressive subtraction resulted in 30 clones that were potentially differentially expressed, 19 of which were confirmed by macroarray analysis. Several of these genes have biological functions that suggest that they are directly involved in myostatin's regulation of skeletal muscle development. Furthermore, several of these genes map to quantitative trait loci known to interact with variation in the myostatin gene.     

不同启动子对于牛催乳素表达的调控作用

在细胞水平上比较不同启动子对于牛催乳素(bPRL)表达的调控作用.分别构建了以CMV启动子、牛催乳素基因启动子和山羊β-酪蛋白基因启动子作为调控元件的bPRL真核细胞表达载体,分别命名为pCMV、pPRLP和pP1A3.将3种载体分别转染小鼠垂体瘤细胞和小鼠乳腺上皮细胞,使用RT-PCR和定量RT-PCR分析3种启动子启动bPRL在2种细胞系中的表达效果.pCMV在2种细胞中有效表达bPRL;pPRLP在2种细胞中的表达效果与pCMV接近:pP1A3不在垂体细胞中表达,在乳腺细胞中表达.pPlA3具有乳腺表达特异性;pPRLP能够在垂体和乳腺中高表达,在其他组织的表达特异性有待进一步研究.     

两猪群间繁殖相关基因表达与生殖细胞数性状相关性研究

采集三周龄杜洛克×梅山(DM,n=30)杂种母猪与PIC-长大(PLL,n=53)杂种母猪卵巢,测定其生殖细胞数目,比较2个猪群间生殖细胞数的差异,并对4个卵泡发育相关基因在2个猪群卵巢中的mRNA表达进行定量分析,研究了这些基因的表达与生殖细胞数之间的关系.结果表明DM杂种猪生殖细胞数显著高于PLL杂种母猪(P＜0.01);DM猪和PLL仔猪卵巢重没有明显差异(P=0.269),两猪群内生殖细胞数和卵巢重的相关性均不显著(分别R=0.335,P=0.07;R=0.119,P=0.398);DM杂种猪ESR和IGF1R的mRNA表达量与其生殖细胞数存在相关(分别R=0.648,P＜0.05;R=0.757,P＜0.01),FSHR和INHBAmRNA的表达与其生殖细胞数无显著相关;PLL母猪ESR、FSHR和IGFlRmRNA的表达与其生殖细胞数有相关性(分别R=0.435,P＜0.01;R=0.438,P＜0.01;R=0.292,P＜0.05),INHBA mRNA的表达与其生殖细胞数无显著相关.     

Enhancement of bovine growth hormone gene expression by increasing the plasmid copy number

Effect of copy number on the expression of bovine growth hormone gene (bGH) was investigated using the copy number mutants such as pKBJ10, pBJ( tet)10, pUBJ10-1, and pUBJ10 plasmids. The cells harboring plasmids below 84 copies/cell did not produced detectable levels of bGH. When the ColE1 replicon was replaced with the mutated ColE1 replicon originated from pUC19 plasmid, the copy number was increased to about 300 copies/cell and bGH production was enhanced by 11.5% (pUBJ10-1) and 12.3% of total cell protein (pUBJ10). A large amount of mRNA caused by increment of copy number would be needed to overcome some inhibitory threshold and might be an important factor for regulating bGH expression.     

中国仓鼠卵巢细胞表达新技术

中国仓鼠卵巢细胞（CHO细胞）是基因工程药物生产的最佳表达系统之一,在生物制药中被广泛应用。传统的获得高表达CHO细胞株的方法费时、费力。近年来出现了一些CHO细胞高效表达新技术,它们从克服位置效应,提高基因转录效率、mRNA翻译效率及稳定性、筛选高表达细胞的效率等不同层次调控外源基因在CHO细胞中的高效表达。与MTX加压扩增基因获得高效表达外源基因的方法比较,能够节约时间、减少工作量,不易丢失高表达细胞株。     

pSAT vectors: a modular series of plasmids for autofluorescent protein tagging and expression of multiple genes in plants

Autofluorescent protein tags represent one of the major and, perhaps, most powerful tools in modern cell biology for visualization of various cellular processes in vivo. In addition, advances in confocal microscopy and the development of autofluorescent proteins with different excitation and emission spectra allowed their simultaneous use for detection of multiple events in the same cell. Nevertheless, while autofluorescent tags are widely used in plant research, the need for a versatile and comprehensive set of vectors specifically designed for fluorescent tagging and transient and stable expression of multiple proteins in plant cells from a single plasmid has not been met by either the industrial or the academic communities. Here, we describe a new modular satellite (SAT) vector system that supports N- and C-terminal fusions to five different autofluorescent tags, EGFP, EYFP, Citrine-YFP, ECFP, and DsRed2. These vectors carry an expanded multiple cloning site that allows easy exchange of the target genes between different autofluorescence tags, and expression of the tagged proteins is controlled by constitutive promoters, which can be easily replaced with virtually any other promoter of interest. In addition, a series of SAT vectors has been adapted for high throughput Gateway recombination cloning. Furthermore, individual expression cassettes can be assembled into Agrobacterium binary plasmids, allowing efficient transient and stable expression of multiple autofluorescently tagged proteins from a single vector following its biolistic delivery or Agrobacterium-mediated genetic transformation. Electronic supplementary material Electronic supplementary material is available for this article at and accessible for authorised users.     

Cryopreservation of Bovine Ovarian Tissue: Structural Normality of Follicles after Thawing and Culturein Vitro

The recovery of viable follicles from cryopreserved ovarian tissue would be of benefit in many areas of assisted reproduction. Structural integrity needs to be maintained following cryopreservation of ovarian tissue in order to retrieve healthy follicles which can then be cultured in vitro to produce viable oocytes. We have assessed the effect of in vitro culture of bovine tissue for 0, 1, 4, 24, or 48 h after exposure to, or cryopreservation in, dimethylsulphoxide. Immediately after freezing, normality of primary and preantral follicles within the tissue was significantly lower than for tissue exposed to the cryoprotectant without freezing or for control tissue. After 4 h in culture, cryopreserved tissue appeared to have recovered from damage caused by freezing, although the percentage of tissue with normal morphology declined after 24 and 48 h of culture. There was no significant difference between percentage normality in control tissue and tissue exposed to the cryoprotectant without freezing for any of the culture times studied. These data indicate that it is possible to freeze/thaw bovine ovarian tissue while retaining a reasonable yield of morphologically intact follicles and that a short period of post-thaw culture may enhance follicle recovery.     

牛呼吸道合胞体病毒G蛋白的截短表达与鉴定

经生物学软件DNA Star分析,将牛呼吸道合胞体病毒G基因截短成2个片段G1和G2。然后用人工合成的牛呼吸道合胞体病毒G基因为模板,用PCR分别扩增G1和G2基因片段,其大小分别为570 bp和308 bp。将目的片段定向克隆到pET30a表达载体中,酶切及测序鉴定均正确后,转化BL21表达菌,经IPTG诱导后G1和G2基因片段都获得了表达,且都为可溶性表达。用Ni柱亲和层析法在非变性条件下纯化重组蛋白,经免疫印迹试验鉴定证明纯化的重组蛋白G1具有良好的抗原性和特异性,而重组蛋白G2无反应性。应用纯化的重组蛋白G1进行的间接ELISA与免疫印迹试验在国内牛血清中检测到了BRSV血清抗体。本研究所表达的重组蛋白G1为基于牛呼吸道合胞体病毒G蛋白的血清学诊断方法的建立与牛呼吸道合胞体病毒G蛋白生物学功能的研究奠定了基础。     

Change of insulin-like growth factor gene expression in Chinese hamster ovary cells cultured in serum-free media

Although the sera used in animal cell culture media provide the macromolecules, nutrients, hormones, and growth factors necessary to support cell growth, it could also be an obstacle to the production of recombinant proteins in animal cell culture systems used in many sectors of the biotechnology industry. For this reason, many research groups, including our laboratory, have been trying to develop serum-free media (SFM) or serum-supplemented media (SSM) for special or multi-purpose cell lines. The Chinese hamster ovary (CHO) cell, for example, is frequently used to produce proteins and is especially valuable in the large-scale production of pharmaceutically important proteins, yet information about its genome is lacking. Also, SFMs have only been evaluated by comparing growth patterns for cells grown in SFMs with those grown in SSM or by measuring the titer of the target protein obtained from cells grown in each type of medium. These are not reliable methods of obtaining the type of information needed to determine whether an SFM should be replaced with an SSM. We carried out a cDNA microarray analysis to evaluate MED-3, an SFM developed in our laboratory, as a CHO culture medium. When CHO cells were cultured in MED-3 instead of an SSM, several genes associated with cell growth were down-regulated, although this change diminished over time. We found that the insulin-like growth factor (IGF) gene was representative of the proteins that were down-regulated in cells cultured in MED-3. When several key supplements-including insulin, transferrin, ethanolamine, and selenium-were removed from MED-3, theIGF expression was consistently down-regulated and cell growth decreased proportionately. Based on these results, we concluded that when an SFM is used as a culture medium, it is important to supplement it with substances that can help the cells maintain a high level ofIGF expression. The data presented in this study, therefore, might provide useful information for the design and development of SFM or SSM, as well as for the design of genome-based studies of CHO cells to determine how they can be used optimally for protein production in pharmaceutical and biomedical research.     

多发性骨髓瘤细胞中一个新的Alu超基因家族成员的克隆与分析

根据Genebank收录的多发性骨髓瘤细胞株（ARH－77）表达上调EST AF497797设计引物,采用半定量RT－PCR证实了多发性骨髓瘤患者及正常人骨髓细胞中该expressed sequence tages(EST)存在表达差异。用EST AF497797作探针筛选人胚肾cDNA文库,获得cDNA克隆经测序并用生物信息学方法对该序列进行了初步分析。AF497797在多发性骨髓瘤患者骨髓中确有较高的表达,而在正常人骨髓细胞中低表达。获得的全长cDNA克隆序列长1248bp(Genebank登录号：AY094612）。生物信息学分析显示该片段全长cDNA编码44个氨基酸的蛋白产物且可能属于Alu家族成员。基因AY094612为一个在多发性骨髓瘤中表达上调的新基因,其改变可能与多发性骨髓瘤的发生与发展有关。