A comprehensive evaluation of SAM,the SAM R-package and a simple modification to improve its performance

Background  

The Significance Analysis of Microarrays (SAM) is a popular method for detecting significantly expressed genes and controlling the false discovery rate (FDR). Recently, it has been reported in the literature that the FDR is not well controlled by SAM. Due to the vast application of SAM in microarray data analysis, it is of great importance to have an extensive evaluation of SAM and its associated R-package (sam2.20).     

基于HMM的齿肋赤藓VOZ转录因子的预测与分析

VOZ(Vascular plant One Zinc finger protein)作为与植物的进化与发育密切相关的基因,在极端耐旱荒漠苔藓植物齿肋赤藓(Syntrichia caninervis)中对VOZ基因进行挖掘和分析有利于更好的揭示VOZ基因的进化关系,且可作为抗逆基因进行更为深入的分子生物学研究。在VOZ转录因子蛋白中VOZ-domain是一个保守的DNA结合结构功能域,利用VOZ-domain多序列联配构建隐马尔可夫模型序列谱能够很好的进行家族成员的识别和预测。利用拟南芥、小立碗藓和水稻等植物已知的转录因子序列信息构建HMM序列谱模型,对荒漠苔藓齿肋赤藓转录组进行比对搜索。最终得到一条新的齿肋赤藓VOZ转录因子ScVOZ1(NCBI/EBI检索号:HG764415),序列长度为1 495 bp,具有完整的VOZ-domain结构域。生物信息学分析表明其具有转录调控功能和核定位潜能。多序列比对、进化和保守基序分析表明,ScVOZ1蛋白序列与小立碗藓VOZ家族和拟南芥AtVOZ1相似度较高。本研究为进一步研究ScVOZ1基因的功能以及其进化起源奠定了基础。     

强化表达SAM合成酶促进SAM在毕赤酵母中累积

S 腺苷甲硫氨酸 (S adenosyl L methionine ,SAM)是生物体硫代谢的重要中间代谢物质 ,在体内起着转甲基、转硫基、转氨丙基的作用 ,具有重要的药用和保健价值。将酿酒酵母来源的SAM合成酶 2基因置于GAP启动子调控下 ,构建胞内组成型表达质粒 ,并电转化至毕赤酵母菌株GS115。经Zeocin抗性和培养筛选到一株高产SAM的重组菌。对重组菌表达工艺的研究表明 ,碳源、氮源、pH和溶解氧对SAM的累积有较大影响。在优化条件下 ,重组细胞培养 3天 ,SAM累积量可达 2 .49g/L。     

HMMER及同源比对预测大豆病程相关蛋白

病程相关蛋白(pathogenesis related proteins,PRs)是病理或病理相关环境下诱导产生的一类蛋白,它的产生与积累是植物体应答生物或非生物胁迫的主要特征之一.近年来大量PR蛋白被鉴定,根据它们的结构特征,生物功能以及进化关系等将PR蛋白分为14个家族.然而,在重要的粮食和油料作物的大豆中发现的PR蛋白却很少,本文通过搜索拟南芥、水稻、玉米以及豆科植物所有的已有的PR蛋白,根据其保守结构域利用BLAST程序和HMMER程序同时预测大豆中可能存在的PR蛋白,通过两种方法的预测和比较整合,共得到大豆9个家族的36个PR蛋白序列.并对它们的连锁群分布、基因结构、基因长度及进化关系进行了详细的分析.发现PR家族成簇分布于Gm05、Gm10、Gm13、Gm15、Gm17、Gm19和Gm20等几个连锁群,基因普遍存在序列较短,大部分都小于1 000 bp,且内含子数目较少,结构相对简单的特点.在PR4家族中,其家族成员亲缘关系都非常相近,而PR1-4和PR1-3等与该家族其它成员亲缘关系较远的情况.本研究结果预测的PR蛋白为大豆抗病育种以及抗病基因工程研究提供了良好的基础,同时为大豆中其它家族基因预测研究以及其它物种基因家族研究提供参考方法.     

Improved performance in viscous mycelial fermentations by agitator retrofitting

For viscous mycelial fermentations it was demonstrated at the pilot-plant scale that the replacement of standard radial flow Rushton turbines with larger diameter axial-flow Prochem hydrofoil impellers significantly improved oxygen transfer efficiency. It was also determined that the Streptomyces broth under evaluation is highly shear thinning. Separate experiments using a Norcardia broth with similar Theological properties demonstrated that the oxygen transfer coefficient, K(L)a, can be greatly increased by use of water additions to reduce broth viscosity. These observations are consistent with the hypothesis that the improvement in oxygen transfer by changing agitator types is primarily due to an improvement in bulk mixing. A model is presented, based on the concepts of Bajpai and Reuss, which explains this improvement in performance in terms of enlargement of the well mixed micromixer region for viscous mycelial broths.     

Improved prediction of malaria degradomes by supervised learning with SVM and profile kernel

The spread of drug resistance through malaria parasite populations calls for the development of new therapeutic strategies. However, the seemingly promising genomics-driven target identification paradigm is hampered by the weak annotation coverage. To identify potentially important yet uncharacterized proteins, we apply support vector machines using profile kernels, a supervised discriminative machine learning technique for remote homology detection, as a complement to the traditional alignment based algorithms. In this study, we focus on the prediction of proteases, which have long been considered attractive drug targets because of their indispensable roles in parasite development and infection. Our analysis demonstrates that an abundant and complex repertoire is conserved in five Plasmodium parasite species. Several putative proteases may be important components in networks that mediate cellular processes, including hemoglobin digestion, invasion, trafficking, cell cycle fate, and signal transduction. This catalog of proteases provides a short list of targets for functional characterization and rational inhibitor design. Electronic supplementary material  The online version of this article (doi:) contains supplementary material, which is available to authorized users. Rui Kuang and Jianying Gu have contributed equally to this work. An erratum to this article can be found at     

Challenges in homology search: HMMER3 and convergent evolution of coiled-coil regions

Detection of protein homology via sequence similarity has important applications in biology, from protein structure and function prediction to reconstruction of phylogenies. Although current methods for aligning protein sequences are powerful, challenges remain, including problems with homologous overextension of alignments and with regions under convergent evolution. Here, we test the ability of the profile hidden Markov model method HMMER3 to correctly assign homologous sequences to >13 000 manually curated families from the Pfam database. We identify problem families using protein regions that match two or more Pfam families not currently annotated as related in Pfam. We find that HMMER3 E-value estimates seem to be less accurate for families that feature periodic patterns of compositional bias, such as the ones typically observed in coiled-coils. These results support the continued use of manually curated inclusion thresholds in the Pfam database, especially on the subset of families that have been identified as problematic in experiments such as these. They also highlight the need for developing new methods that can correct for this particular type of compositional bias.     

Promoting regional sustainability by eco-province construction in China: A critical assessment

The regional level has been recognized as a good scale for implementing actions towards sustainable development (SD). An important pathway to improve regional sustainability is to locally carry out long-term ecological planning. In order to reduce environmental impacts from fast economic growth, several eastern provinces of China began Ecological Province Construction (EPC) at the end of 1990s. This paper presented a case for analyzing the progress of EPC in China via both qualitative and quantitative methods. We studied Shandong Eco-province Construction (SEPC) and evaluated its outcomes with its pre-set indicators in 2003–2010. A further evaluation with eco-efficiency and de-linking indices was conducted. The results indicated the pre-set indicators could not effectively reflect of the ecological province construction. It was recommended to introduce an evaluated framework combined with eco-efficiency and de-linking indices to indicate ecological planning at the regional scale.     

Polyamine uptake by DUR3 and SAM3 in Saccharomyces cerevisiae

It has been reported that GAP1 and AGP2 catalyze the uptake of polyamines together with amino acids in Saccharomyces cerevisiae. We have looked for polyamine-preferential uptake proteins in S. cerevisiae. DUR3 catalyzed the uptake of polyamines together with urea, and SAM3 was found to catalyze the uptake of polyamines together with S-adenosylmethionine, glutamic acid, and lysine. Polyamine uptake was greatly decreased in both DUR3- and SAM3-deficient cells. The K(m) values for putrescine and spermidine of DUR3 were 479 and 21.2 mum, respectively, and those of SAM3 were 433 and 20.7 mum, respectively. Polyamine stimulation of cell growth of a polyamine requiring mutant, which is deficient in ornithine decarboxylase, was not influenced by the disruption of GAP1 and AGP2, but it was diminished by the disruption of DUR3 and SAM3. Furthermore, the polyamine stimulation of cell growth of a polyamine-requiring mutant was completely inhibited by the disruption of both DUR3 and SAM3. The results indicate that DUR3 and SAM3 are major polyamine uptake proteins in yeast. We previously reported that polyamine transport protein kinase 2 regulates polyamine transport. It was found that DUR3 (but not SAM3) was activated by phosphorylation of Thr(250), Ser(251), and Thr(684) by polyamine transport protein kinase 2.     

Improved performance in protein secondary structure prediction by combining multiple predictions

In this paper(1) we present a novel framework for protein secondary structure prediction. In this prediction framework, firstly we propose a novel parameterized semi-probability profile, which combines single sequence with evolutionary information effectively. Secondly, different semi-probability profiles are respectively applied as network input to predict protein secondary structure. Then a comparison among these different predictions is discussed in this article. Finally, na?ve Bayes approaches are used to combine these predictions in order to obtain a better prediction performance than individual prediction. The experimental results show that our proposed framework can indeed improve the prediction accuracy.     

Improved performance on high-dimensional survival data by application of Survival-SVM

MOTIVATION: New application areas of survival analysis as for example based on micro-array expression data call for novel tools able to handle high-dimensional data. While classical (semi-) parametric techniques as based on likelihood or partial likelihood functions are omnipresent in clinical studies, they are often inadequate for modelling in case when there are less observations than features in the data. Support vector machines (svms) and extensions are in general found particularly useful for such cases, both conceptually (non-parametric approach), computationally (boiling down to a convex program which can be solved efficiently), theoretically (for its intrinsic relation with learning theory) as well as empirically. This article discusses such an extension of svms which is tuned towards survival data. A particularly useful feature is that this method can incorporate such additional structure as additive models, positivity constraints of the parameters or regression constraints. RESULTS: Besides discussion of the proposed methods, an empirical case study is conducted on both clinical as well as micro-array gene expression data in the context of cancer studies. Results are expressed based on the logrank statistic, concordance index and the hazard ratio. The reported performances indicate that the present method yields better models for high-dimensional data, while it gives results which are comparable to what classical techniques based on a proportional hazard model give for clinical data.     

Improved performance of column chromatography by arginine: dye-affinity chromatography

Arginine has been effectively used in various column chromatographies for improving recovery and resolution, and suppressing aggregation. Here, we have tested the effectiveness of arginine as an eluent in dye-affinity column chromatography using Blue-Sepharose, which binds enzymes requiring adenyl-containing cofactors (e.g., NAD). A common eluent, NaCl, showed a broad elution peak with low recovery of lactate dehydrogenase, at most approximately 60% using 2M salt. The recovery decreased as the NaCl concentration was either decreased or increased; i.e., the recovery was maximum at 2M. On the contrary, addition of arginine to the eluent resulted in more than 80% recovery above 0.5M and the recovery was nearly independent of the arginine concentration. The elution peak was much sharper with arginine, leading to elution of more concentrated protein solution. Successful elution of proteins bound to the ATP-agarose resins by arginine was also described.     

S-Adenosylmethionine (SAM) and antibiotic biosynthesis: effect of external addition of SAM and of overexpression of SAM biosynthesis genes on novobiocin production in Streptomyces

The production of antibiotics in different Streptomyces strains has been reported to be stimulated by the external addition of S-adenosylmethionine (SAM) and by overexpression of the SAM synthetase gene metK. We investigated the influence of SAM addition, and of the expression of SAM biosynthetic genes, on the production of the aminocoumarin antibiotic novobiocin in the heterologous producer strain Streptomyces coelicolor M512 (nov-BG1). External addition of SAM did not influence novobiocin accumulation. However, overexpression of a SAM synthase gene stimulated novobiocin formation, concomitant with an increase of the intracellular SAM concentration. Streptomyces genomes contain orthologs of all genes required for the SAM cycle known from mammals. In contrast, most other bacteria use a different cycle for SAM regeneration. Three secondary metabolic gene clusters, coding for the biosynthesis of structurally very different antibiotics in different Streptomyces strains, were found to contain an operon comprising all five putative genes of the SAM cycle. We cloned one of these operons into an expression plasmid, under control of a strong constitutive promoter. However, transformation of the heterologous novobiocin producer strain with this plasmid did not stimulate novobiocin production, but rather showed a detrimental effect on cell viability in the stationary phase and strongly reduced novobiocin accumulation.     

Improved performance of intensive semicontinuous cultures of Scenedesmus by biomass recirculation

The microscopic green alga, Scenedesmus obliquus, was used in a semicontinuous culture system for the tertiary treatment of urban wastewater, with the simultaneous production of usable biomass. Partial biomass recycling was used to increase the productivity of the system by overcoming the limits imposed by the low maximal growth rate of the alga. The biomass to be recycled was collected by simple gravity settling of the removed culture.The culture system was operated at different dilution rates and its productivity measured at each rate. An evaluation of the crude nutrient composition of the algae produced at each dilution rate was also carried out.The system was found to operate stably at dilution rates of up to 0.8 day(-1) which represents a 20% net increase over the maximum dilution rate allowed under the same conditions in a system without recirculation. The composition of the biomass produced varied little over a range of dilution rates, which may be of relevance to its projected end-use.The study indicated that such a system can exploit available light to the full and should be of particular value for the treatment of low-strength wastes such as we employed.     

Improved performance in protein secondary structure prediction by inhomogeneous score combination.

MOTIVATION: In many fields of pattern recognition, combination has proved efficient to increase the generalization performance of individual prediction methods. Numerous systems have been developed for protein secondary structure prediction, based on different principles. Finding better ensemble methods for this task may thus become crucial. Furthermore, efforts need to be made to help the biologist in the post-processing of the outputs. RESULTS: An ensemble method has been designed to post-process the outputs of discriminant models, in order to obtain an improvement in prediction accuracy while generating class posterior probability estimates. Experimental results establish that it can increase the recognition rate of protein secondary structure prediction methods that provide inhomogeneous scores, even though their individual prediction successes are largely different. This combination thus constitutes a help for the biologist, who can use it confidently on top of any set of prediction methods. Moreover, the resulting estimates can be used in various ways, for instance to determine which areas in the sequence are predicted with a given level of reliability. AVAILABILITY: The prediction is freely available over the Internet on the Network Protein Sequence Analysis (NPS@) WWW server at http://pbil.ibcp.fr/NPSA/npsa_server.ht ml. The source code of the combiner can be obtained on request for academic use.     

Evaluation and critical assessment of putative MCL-1 inhibitors

High levels of BCL-2 family proteins are implicated in a failed/ineffective apoptotic programme, often resulting in diseases, including cancer. Owing to their potential as drug targets in cancer therapy, several inhibitors of BCL-2 family proteins have been developed. These primarily target specific members of the BCL-2 family, particularly BCL-2 and BCL-X_L but are ineffective against MCL-1. Major efforts have been invested in developing inhibitors of MCL-1, which is commonly amplified in human tumours and associated with tumour relapse and chemoresistance. In this report, the specificity of several BCL-2 family inhibitors (ABT-263, UCB-1350883, apogossypol and BH3I-1) was investigated and compared with putative MCL-1 inhibitors designed to exhibit improved or selective binding affinities for MCL-1 (TW-37, BI97C1, BI97C10, BI112D1, compounds 6 and 7, and MCL-1 inhibitor molecule (MIM-1)). ABT-263, BI97C1, BI112D1, MIM-1 and TW-37 exhibited specificity in inducing apoptosis in a Bax/Bak- and caspase-9-dependent manner, whereas the other agents showed no killing activity, or little or no specificity. Of these inhibitors, only ABT-263 and UCB-1350883 induced apoptosis in a BCL-2- or BCL-X_L-dependent system. In cells that depend on MCL-1 for survival, ABT-263 and TW-37 induced extensive apoptosis, suggesting that at high concentrations these inhibitors have the propensity to inhibit MCL-1 in a cellular context. TW-37 induced apoptosis, assessed by chromatin condensation, caspase processing and phosphatidylserine externalisation, in a BAK-dependent manner and in cells that require MCL-1 for survival. TW-37-mediated apoptosis was also partly dependent on NOXA, suggesting that derivatives of TW-37, if engineered to exhibit better selectivity and efficacy at low nanomolar concentrations, may provide useful lead compounds for further synthetic programmes. Expanded medicinal chemistry iteration, as performed for the ABT series, may likewise improve the potency and specificity of the evaluated MCL-1 inhibitors.     

高效液相色谱法同时测定Pichia pastoris发酵过程中腺苷甲硫氨酸相关的六种物质

建立了用高效液相色谱同时测定Pichia pastoris菌体中腺苷甲硫氨酸及其代谢相关物质(AMP,腺苷,腺嘌呤,SAH).采用Hypersil SCX色谱柱(4.6 mm×250 mm,5 μm),柱温是30 ℃,流动相是0.5 mol/L甲酸铵(用甲酸调至pH 4.0),流速为2.0 mL/min,检测波长是254 nm.结果表明该方法可以直接从细胞裂解液对六种物质进行分离和定量.该测定方法简便、可靠、准确、灵敏度高,有利于说明Pichia pastoris发酵产腺苷甲硫氨酸过程中的代谢情况.