Striving for the development of biology——The celebration of Biomagnelism formally changed into Progress in Modem Biomedicine

ime flies!Biomagnetism magazine has been gradually growing up since it was started publication,which was firstly sponsored by China Biomagnetism Society in 1987 as a restricted publication.The publication was given official number by Ministry of Science and Technology in April,2001,issued by post office in 2003;it was chosen as one of the core periodicals of science and technology in 2004,with influence factor(0.734)and being classified as ninth-rale in periodicals of biology.Upon the approv…     

Acknowledgement to all reviewers for Virologica Sinica in 2013

In the fruitful year of 2013,the impact of Virologica Sinica （VS） as been largely extended.The successful publication of VS with high-quality articles is largely benefited from the efforts made by experts listed below,who were committed in managing the editorial process and/or in peer-reviewing.Apology was offered to any reviewer whose name has been inadvertently omitted.The time and expertise of all the experts devoted to Virologica Sinica are greatly appreciated!     

新起点，新态势 —— 《中国科学：生命科学》2010年述评

The year 2010 marks the sixtieth anniversary for the publication of Science in China series journals,and meanwhile the Science in China Series C: Life Sciences took a new name as Science China Life Sciences(SCLS in short).Simultaneously,it has been reformed to make a new start for this journal in its long history.The journal has appeared with a new face to the readers and authors in both the novel publishing style and the highly qualified articles.An extensive review was given to the journal’s specific progress in the year 2010 by highlighting some of the representative publications.     

Copyright

Selection and translation of an adicle previously pub-lished in the Chinese Ianguage implies that this article has not been published in the English language or any other foreign Ianguage before；that a translation of this a~icle is not under consideration for publication else-where；that the publication of the translated article has been approved by all co-authors,if any,as well as-tacitly or explicitly-bv the responsible authorities at the institution where the work was carried out.     

High-level expression of functional tumor suppressor LKB1 in Escherichia coli

The human LKB 1 tumor suppressor has been implicated as an important regulator of many cellular processes and signaling pathways, indicating that it could be a good candidate for anticancer drugs. The failure of its obtain high-level expression has been a major obstacle to study its protein structure and function in vitro. Here, we describe the high-level expression of human LKB 1 in Escherichia coli and show its kinase activity and anticancer effects on a tumor cell line. The gene encoding LKB 1 was optimized by replacing rare codons with codons frequently used in E. coli and synthesized with overlapping primers. The recombinant His-LKB 1 was expressed in hosts BL21（DE3） （BL） and Rosetta-gami（DE3）pLysS （RG）. His- LKB 1 from BL was present mainly as inclusion body. The soluble His-LKB 1 from RG accounted for 34. 1% of total proteins and the yield of purified His-LKB 1 was approximately 92 μg/ml. Purified His-LKB 1 protein from both hosts was functionally active, as shown by reversible autophosphorylation and kinase activity in the absence of any other associated kinase. The growth inhibitory ratio of the purified BL-derived and RG-derived His-LKB 1 on hepatic carcinoma SMMC-7721 cells was 24.97% and 45.68%, respectively, and both could produce significant cell-cycle arrest.     

Mutation of Residue Arginine^18 of Cytochrome b559 α-Subunit and its Effects on Photosystem Ⅱ Activities in Chlamydomonas reinhardtii

It has been known that arginine is used as the basic amino acid in the α-subunit of cytochrome bsss （Cyt bsss） except histidine. However, previous studies have focused on the function of histidine in the activities of photosystem （PS） Ⅱ and there are no reports regarding the structural and/or functional roles of arginine in PSll complexes. In the present study, two arginine18 （R18） mutants of Chlamydomonas reinhardtii were constructed using site-directed mutagenesis, in which R18 was replaced by glutamic acid （E） and glycine （G）. The results show that the oxygen evolution of the PSII complex in the R18G and R18E mutants was approximately 60% of wild-type （WT） levels and that, after irradiation at high light intensity, oxygen evolution for the PSll of mutants was reduced to zero compared with 40% in WT cells. The efficiency of light capture by PSll （Fv/Fm） of R18G and R18E mutants was approximately 42%-46% that of WT cells. Furthermore, levels of the α-subunit of Cyt bsss and PsbO proteins were reduced in thylakoid membranes compared with WT. Overall, these data suggest that R18 plays a significant role in helping Cyt bss9 maintain the structure of the PSll complex and its activity, although it is not directly bound to the heme group.     

The inhibitory effect of transthyretin gene on growth of human hepatoma cells

Transthyretin(TTR) gene was highly expressed in normal liver and it has been found to be deleted in part of DNA samples from human hepatic cancer.Its mRNA expression was suppressed in most hepatoma samples.In order to study the biological effect of TTR gene on the growth of hepatoma cells,a recombinant vector containing TTR cDNA was constructed by pCMV,then it was transfected into hepatoma cell lines SMMC-7721 and Q3.It has been demonstrated that the inhibition of growth rate of TTR cDNA transfected hepatoma cells was about 50% in strength compared with that of the control.This inhibition was further enhanced when the transfected hepatoma cells were treated with all-trans retinoic acid.Hepatoma cells of cell lines PLC/PRF/5,SMMC-7721 and Q3 as well as hepatoma cells SMMC-7721 transfected with pCMV or pCMV-TTR were analyzed for TTR expression by Northern hybridization.The low level of TTR expression was found in both hepatoma cell lines and in SMMC-7721 cells transfected with pCMV alone.However,a remarkable TTR mRNA expression was observed in hepatoma SMMV-7721 cells transfected with pCMV-TTR.It seems possible that TTR gene might be a candidate of cancer suppressor gene for human hepatic cancer.