模式生物研究

世界上公认的用于生命科学研究的常见模式生物有酵母、线虫、果蝇、斑马鱼、小鼠、拟南芥等。当今,生命科学及医学的发展,模式生物发挥着重要作用。据统计,刊登在Nature、Science和Cell等重要杂志上的论文中,80％以上有关生命过程和机理的研究都是通过模式生物来进行的。本期《生命科学》以专题的形式,刊登了由国内从事模式生物研究专家撰写的介绍模式生物的文章。作者从不同角度,对不同模式生物在研究工作中的历史轨迹、各自优势、技术手段、热点课题、发展前景,以及对生命现象揭密和人类疾病治疗探索的重大贡献作了系统而又简要的介绍。从中,我们可以具体而又生动地体察到,模式生物在今天生命科学发展中的重要地位和推动生命科学及医学进步的不可替代的巨大潜力。改革开放以来,我国生命科学研究经历了“跟踪”、“接轨”和“融入主流领域”的过程,而用模式生物进行的研究则是主流研究领域的重要组成部分。只有通过在主流研究领域的参与、竞争、创新超越,才能提高我国生命科学研究水平,才能真正对世界生命科学的发展作出重大贡献。作为主流领域的模式生物研究,我国起步很晚,仅局限在很少数的实验室。因此,加强这方面的介绍,对于普及现代生命科学理念,大力推动模式生物研究领域的开展和学术交流,是十分重要和及时的。     

色谱技术与生命科学的发展

在生命科学发展中起着重要作用。有10项获得诺贝尔奖涉及生命科学的重大发现中,色谱技术起到了关键性作用。电泳技术与色谱技术的结合更使生命科学研究如虎添翼,解开了许多生命之谜。从色谱法源于对生命的研究、色谱技术与生命科学发展、电泳层析法在生命科学研究中的突出作用3个方面,对色谱技术在生命科学研究中的作用做了回顾。     

生物光子学应用

生物光子学是光学技术与生命科学的交叉学科,可以在分子水平上研究细胞的功能和结构,包括生物系统的光子辐射以及这些光子携带的信息,用光子及其技术对生物系统进行检测、加工和改造等。激光扫描共焦显微术、双光子荧光显微术、近场光学扫描显微术和光镊等显微技术在生命科学研究中的应用非常重要。     

实验动物资源开发、保存和共享利用

实验动物科学作为在现代科学带动下崛起的一门以生物学为主体,以医学、生物学为核心的综合性新兴学科,正以异乎寻常的发展速度影响着整个生命科学的各个领域.实验动物资源是生命科学研究的重要支撑条件,是一种完整的生物型研究工具和试验对象,作为相似度高、可控性强、使用经济、操作简便的有生命模型,实验动物广泛运用于探索生命奥秘、研究疾病机制及防治等生命科学各领域,成为继试剂、仪器和信息之后,生命科学研究不可替代的第4大必备条件,     

灵芝:一种研究天然药物合成的模式真菌

模式生物在生命科学研究中发挥着核心作用,缺乏成熟的药用模式生物研究体系已成为阻碍天然药物生物合成研究发展的重要瓶颈.灵芝是目前研究最深入的药用生物之一,具有模式生物的鲜明特征:世代短、子代多、基因组小、培养条件简单、可进行遗传转化、对人体和环境无害等.灵芝多元化的次生代谢途径使其成为研究天然药物生物合成及其调控的理想模式生物.近期,全基因组序列的测定完成为灵芝成为模式生物奠定了坚实的基础.作为药用模式真菌,灵芝将在次生代谢产物多样性研究、药用真菌发育生物学及天然药物合成生物学等领域发挥重要作用.同时,推广灵芝成为一种新的模式生物将有利于整合现代生命科学的前沿技术和研究策略,进而深入阐明次生代谢研究领域中具有普遍性的机制和规律,为建设高效可控的天然药物合成平台奠定基础.     

微生物学一直是生命科学中领先的学科北大核心CSCD

微生物学学科的研究对象决定了它有如下两方面的显著特点：微生物作为最简单的生命体而成为生命科学研究不可替代的基本材料,由此也奠定了微生物学在生命科学中的基础地位;微生物极其丰富的生物多样性决定了它们具有代谢产物多样性,同时又与人类、动植物和环境有着密切的相互作用,使得微生物学也成为应用领域里十分活跃的一门学科。     

微生物学一直是生命科学中领先的学科北大核心CSCD

微生物学学科的研究对象决定了它有如下两方面的显著特点：微生物作为最简单的生命体而成为生命科学研究不可替代的基本材料,由此也奠定了微生物学在生命科学中的基础地位;微生物极其丰富的生物多样性决定了它们具有代谢产物多样性,同时又与人类、动植物和环境有着密切的相互作用,使得微生物学也成为应用领域里十分活跃的一门学科。     

微生物学一直是生命科学中领先的学科北大核心CSCD

微生物学学科的研究对象决定了它有如下两方面的显著特点：微生物作为最简单的生命体而成为生命科学研究不可替代的基本材料,由此也奠定了微生物学在生命科学中的基础地位;微生物极其丰富的生物多样性决定了它们具有代谢产物多样性,同时又与人类、动植物和环境有着密切的相互作用,使得微生物学也成为应用领域里十分活跃的一门学科。     

微生物学一直是生命科学中领先的学科

微生物学学科的研究对象决定了它有如下两方面的显著特点:微生物作为最简单的生命体而成为生命科学研究不可替代的基本材料,由此也奠定了微生物学在生命科学中的基础地位;微生物极其丰富的生物多样性决定了它们具有代谢产物多样性,同时又与人类、动植物和环境有着密切的相互作用,使得微生物学也成为应用领域里十分活跃的一门学科。     

微生物学一直是生命科学中领先的学科

微生物学学科的研究对象决定了它有如下两方面的显著特点:微生物作为最简单的生命体而成为生命科学研究不可替代的基本材料,由此也奠定了微生物学在生命科学中的基础地位;微生物极其丰富的生物多样性决定了它们具有代谢产物多样性,同时又与人类、动植物和环境有着密切的相互作用,使得微生物学也成为应用领域里十分活跃的一门学科。     

斑马鱼在生命科学研究中的应用

利用模式生物进行研究是推动生命科学发展的主要手段之一.斑马鱼已成为继小鼠之后的又一个重要的模式脊椎动物.本文将重点介绍斑马鱼在学习记忆和疾病研究领域中的应用,以及我国推动斑马鱼相关研究的策略.     

涉及基因操作的前沿生物技术风险及其法律法规应对

涉及基因操作的前沿生物技术,已成为生命科学和生物技术研究的核心和热点,并带动着生物产业迅猛发展.但对生命体的基因操作将带来生物安全和生命伦理的潜在风险,需要对相关研发活动进行监管.本文概括了涉及基因操作的前沿生物技术,综述了相关技术在生命科学、医药健康、工农业生产、生态环境保护等行业领域的发展与应用,分析了各行业领域存...     

New roles for model genetic organisms in understanding and treating human disease: report from the 2006 Genetics Society of America meeting

Fundamental biological knowledge and the technology to acquire it have been immeasurably advanced by past efforts to understand and manipulate the genomes of model organisms. Has the utility of bacteria, yeast, worms, flies, mice, plants, and other models now peaked and are humans poised to become the model organism of the future? The Genetics Society of America recently convened its 2006 meeting entitled "Genetic Analysis: Model Organisms to Human Biology" to examine the future role of genetic research. (Because of time limitations, the meeting was unable to cover the substantial contributions and future potential of research on model prokaryotic organisms.) In fact, the potential of model-organism-based studies has grown substantially in recent years. The genomics revolution has revealed an underlying unity between the cells and tissues of eukaryotic organisms from yeast to humans. No uniquely human biological mechanisms have yet come to light. This common evolutionary heritage makes it possible to use genetically tractable organisms to model important aspects of human medical disorders such as cancer, birth defects, neurological dysfunction, reproductive failure, malnutrition, and aging in systems amenable to rapid and powerful experimentation. Applying model systems in this way will allow us to identify common genes, proteins, and processes that underlie human medical conditions. It will allow us to systematically decipher the gene-gene and gene-environment interactions that influence complex multigenic disorders. Above all, disease models have the potential to address a growing gap between our ability to collect human genetic data and to productively interpret and apply it. If model organism research is supported with these goals in mind, we can look forward to diagnosing and treating human disease using information from multiple systems and to a medical science built on the unified history of life on earth.     

生物钟机制研究进展

由生物体内源性生物钟所产生的昼夜节律是近年来生命科学的研究热点之一。几种模型生物（蓝细菌、脉孢菌、拟南芥、果蝇、小鼠）的生物钟相关基因相继被克隆和鉴定,为理解昼夜节律的分子机制奠定了基础。振荡器蛋白对其编码基因的负反馈调控可能是不同生物的生物运作普遍机制,在此基础上,不同生物有不尽相同的调控方式;隐色素可能是高等生物的共同生物钟光受体。     

A future of the model organism model

Changes in technology are fundamentally reframing our concept of what constitutes a model organism. Nevertheless, research advances in the more traditional model organisms have enabled fresh and exciting opportunities for young scientists to establish new careers and offer the hope of comprehensive understanding of fundamental processes in life. New advances in translational research can be expected to heighten the importance of basic research in model organisms and expand opportunities. However, researchers must take special care and implement new resources to enable the newest members of the community to engage fully with the remarkable legacy of information in these fields.     

The NCBI Databases: an Evolutionist’s Perspective

The National Center for Biotechnology Information (NCBI) organizes information resources for life scientists on an evolutionary scheme. This facilitates research about present-day organisms. The recent discovery of a new arenavirus, the LUJO virus, illustrates the utility of adopting evolution as a central architectural principle for life sciences databases: using the NCBI’s resources, clinicians were able to classify the new virus in real time—soon enough to aid in the diagnosis and treatment of a hemorrhagic fever caused by the LUJO virus. Topics fundamental to the study of evolution, often thought of as useless, are indeed vital because they inform how life science information ought to be organized.     

Perspective: Researching the transition from non-living to the first microorganisms: Methods and experiments are major challenges

Methods to research the origin of microbial life are limited. However, microorganisms were the first organisms on the Earth capable of cell growth and division, and interactions with their environment, other microbial cells, and eventually with diverse eukaryotic organisms. The origin of microbial life and the supporting scientific evidence are both an enigma and a scientific priority. Numerous hypotheses have been proposed, scenarios imagined, speculations presented in papers, insights shared, and assumptions made without supporting experimentation, which have led to limited progress in understanding the origin of microbial life. The use of the human imagination to envision the origin of life events, without supporting experimentation, observation and independently replicated experiments required for science, is a significant constraint. The challenge remains how to better understand the origin of microbial life using observations and experimental methods as opposed to speculation, assumptions, scenarios, envisioning events and un-testable hypotheses. This is not an easy challenge as experimental design and plausible hypothesis testing are difficult. Since past approaches have been inconclusive in providing evidence for the origin of microbial life mechanisms and the manner in which genetic instructions was encoded into DNA/RNA, it is reasonable and logical to propose that progress will be made when testable, plausible hypotheses and methods are used in the origin of microbial life research, and the experimental observations are, or are not reproduced in independent laboratories. These perspectives will be discussed in this article as well as the possibility that a pre-biotic film preceded a microbial biofilm as a possible micro-location for the origin of microbial cells capable of growth and division.     

Mycology should be recognized as a field in biology at eye level with other major disciplines – a memorandum

Fungi are key players in terrestrial ecosystem functions. They are not only indispensable symbionts of most of the terrestrial plants, but can also interact with almost all organisms and are the major decomposers of organic matter. Indeed, they are involved in most ecosystem services, so much that life on earth would not have evolved without them. Competition among fungi and with other organism groups has driven evolution of offensive and defensive mechanisms, including the production of secondary metabolites, which continue to be widely unexplored. In addition, fungal plant parasites threaten the global agricultural production and are therefore of highest relevance for human health and survival. Given the ecological and economical relevance of fungi, advancement of other biological and physical sciences are impeded because mycology—the science devoted to the study of fungi—is insufficiently recognized as a major field of life science and supported in basic and applied research and economic contexts.     

Physicochemical bases for protein folding,dynamics, and protein-ligand binding

Proteins are essential parts of living organisms and participate in virtually every process within cells.As the genomic sequences for increasing number of organisms are completed,research into how proteins can perform such a variety of functions has become much more intensive because the value of the genomic sequences relies on the accuracy of understanding the encoded gene products.Although the static three-dimensional structures of many proteins are known,the functions of proteins are ultimately governed by their dynamic characteristics,including the folding process,conformational fluctuations,molecular motions,and protein-ligand interactions.In this review,the physicochemical principles underlying these dynamic processes are discussed in depth based on the free energy landscape(FEL)theory.Questions of why and how proteins fold into their native conformational states,why proteins are inherently dynamic,and how their dynamic personalities govern protein functions are answered.This paper will contribute to the understanding of structure-function relationship of proteins in the post-genome era of life science research.     

传统中国医药与现代系统生物学研究理论的殊途同归

系统生物学是研究一个生物系统中所有组成成分(基因、mRNA、蛋白质等)的构成与组分之间相互关系的学科,近年来,系统生物学作为后基因组学时代研究的一个重要内容,已广泛深入到生命科学和医药学的各个领域。而作为中国传统医学而言,似乎与之相去甚远,然而当我们对这两个新老学科基础理论进行比较时,我们发现:传统中国医药与现代系统生物学研究理论的殊途同归。有鉴于此,本文论述了系统生物学和中医学的思想起源、相互联系,基于系统生物学的发展、研究思路和方法,阐述了生物学由还原论的研究方法过渡到系统论的研究方法,强调对生命现象从系统和整体的层次进行研究和把握,对传统中医学研究方法的变革起到了推动作用,最后对系统生物学在中医药学未来发展进行了评价。