N enrichment affects the arbuscular mycorrhizal fungi-mediated relationship between a C4 grass and a legume

Arbuscular mycorrhizal fungi (AMF) regulate soil nutrient cycling, directly supplying a host plant with nitrogen (N). AMF can also affect the outcome of interspecific interactions, but a mechanistic understanding of how soil N availability affects AMF-mediated interspecific relationships is currently lacking. We selected one dominant (Bothriochloa ischaemum; C₄ grass) and one subordinate (Lespedeza davurica; legume) species in a natural grassland climax community to investigate the mechanism by which AMF influence interspecific interaction (mixed and monoculture) under three levels of N addition (0, low, and high N addition). Under the non-N addition treatment, AMF preferentially supplied N to the roots of B. ischaemum at the expense of N uptake by L. davurica, resulting in inhibited AMF benefits for L. davurica shoot growth. Under the low N addition treatment, interspecific interaction via AMF promoted L. davurica growth. Compared to the non-N addition treatment, N addition largely mitigated the effects, both positive (for B. ischaemum) and negative (for L. davurica), of AMF-mediated interspecific interaction on plant N uptake via AMF. When soil N availability severely limited plant growth, preferential N supply to the C₄ grass by AMF was important for maintaining the abundance of the dominant species. When the N limitation for plant growth was alleviated by N addition, the interaction between AMF and soil microorganisms improved nutrient availability for the legume by stimulating activity of the enzyme responsible for soil organic matter mineralization, which is important for maintaining the abundance of the subordinate species. These data could influence strategies for maintaining biodiversity.     

Genomic organization and expression analysis of a farnesyl diphosphate synthase gene (FPPS2) in apples (Malus domestica Borkh.)

A farnesyl diphosphate synthase gene (FPPS2), which contains 11 introns and 12 exons, was isolated from the apple cultivar “White Winter Pearmain”. When it was compared to our previously reported FPPS1, its each intron size was different, its each exon size was the same as that of FPPS1 gene, 30 nucleotide differences were found in its coding sequence. Based on these nucleotide differences, specific primers were designed to perform expression analysis; the results showed that it expressed in both fruit and leaf, its expression level was obviously lower than that of FPPS1 gene in fruit which was stored at 4 °C for 5 weeks. This is the first report concerning two FPPS genes and their expression comparison in apples.     

Waist Circumference,Not Body Mass Index,Is Associated with Renal Function Decline in Korean Population: Hallym Aging Study

Background

Prospective investigation of obesity and renal function decline in Asia is sparse. We examined the associations of body mass index (BMI) and waist circumference (WC) with renal function decline in a prospective study of Korean population.

Methods

A total of 454 participants who had baseline estimated glomerular filtration rate (eGFR) levels of more than 60 mL/min/1.73 m² in Hallym Aging Study (HAS) were included and followed for 6 years. Renal function decline was defined as follows: (1) an eGFR decline ≥3 mL/min/1.73 m²/year (n = 82 cases); (2) an eGFR decrease of 20% or greater (n = 87 cases) at follow-up; (3) an eGFR decrease of 20% greater at follow-up or eGFR decline ≥3 mL/min/1.73 m²/year (n = 91 cases); and (4) an eGFR <60 mL/min/1.73 m² at follow-up (n = 54 cases). eGFR was determined based on the Modification of Diet in Renal Disease (MDRD) Study equation. Multivariate logistic regression model was used to determine the association between obesity and renal function decline.

Results

We found that central obesity was associated with faster renal function decline. Comparing WC of >95 cm in men or >90 cm in women with ≤90 cm in men or ≤85 cm in women, ORs (95% CIs) ranged from 2.31 (1.14–4.69) to 2.78 (1.19–6.50) for the 4 definitions of renal function decline (all p-values for trend <0.05). Waist-to-hip ratio (WHR) and waist-to-height ratio (WHtR) also was associated with renal function decline. There was no significant association of BMI with renal function decline.

Conclusions

Central obesity, but not BMI, is associated with faster renal function decline in Korean population. Our results provide important evidence that simple measurement of central fat deposition rather than BMI could predict decline in renal function in Korean population.     

Epidemiology and Outcome of Severe Sepsis and Septic Shock in Intensive Care Units in Mainland China

Introduction

Information about sepsis in mainland China remains scarce and incomplete. The purpose of this study was to describe the epidemiology and outcome of severe sepsis and septic shock in mixed ICU in mainland China, as well as the independent predictors of mortality.

Methods

We performed a 2-month prospective, observational cohort study in 22 closed multi-disciplinary intensive care units (ICUs). All admissions into those ICUs during the study period were screened and patients with severe sepsis or septic shock were included.

Results

A total of 484 patients, 37.3 per 100 ICU admissions were diagnosed with severe sepsis (n = 365) or septic shock (n = 119) according to clinical criteria and included into this study. The most frequent sites of infection were the lung and abdomen. The overall ICU and hospital mortality rates were 28.7% (n = 139) and 33.5% (n = 162), respectively. In multivariate analyses, APACHE II score (odds ratio[OR], 1.068; 95% confidential interval[CI], 1.027–1.109), presence of ARDS (OR, 2.676; 95%CI, 1.691–4.235), bloodstream infection (OR, 2.520; 95%CI, 1.142–5.564) and comorbidity of cancer (OR, 2.246; 95%CI, 1.141–4.420) were significantly associated with mortality.

Conclusions

Our results indicated that severe sepsis and septic shock were common complications in ICU patients and with high mortality in China, and can be of help to know more about severe sepsis and septic shock in China and to improve characterization and risk stratification in these patients.     

人PSP94的分泌表达及其表达产物抗前列腺癌作用

将编码人 94个氨基酸的前列腺分泌蛋白 ( PSP94) c DNA与酵母整合载体 p PICZαA重组 ,构建的重组质粒线性化后转染酵母细胞 GS1 1 5,获得了 PSP94在酵母细胞中遗传性稳定表达酵母工程细胞 .诱导后的培养物中 ,rh PSP94表达量约为 0 .9mg/L,分子量约 1 6.5k D.培养上清经离子交换层析纯化后 ,目的蛋白的纯度为 92 % .体外在人前列腺癌细胞上活性分析表明 ,rh PSP94以1 0 0μg/L ,对该细胞的抑制率 2 0 .4% ;单纯新型 TNF,以 1 0 3 U/ml,抑制率 2 9.8% ;rh PSP94和新型 TNF以上述同样剂量联合应用 ,抑制率为 86.3% .提示 PSP94在体外对抗前列腺癌细胞有杀伤作用 ,但不明显 ;PSP94与新型 TNF联合应用 ,可使抑制率明显提高 ,可能 PSP94与新型 TNF有协同抗前列腺癌的作用 .     

BioCaster: detecting public health rumors with a Web-based text mining system

SUMMARY: BioCaster is an ontology-based text mining system for detecting and tracking the distribution of infectious disease outbreaks from linguistic signals on the Web. The system continuously analyzes documents reported from over 1700 RSS feeds, classifies them for topical relevance and plots them onto a Google map using geocoded information. The background knowledge for bridging the gap between Layman's terms and formal-coding systems is contained in the freely available BioCaster ontology which includes information in eight languages focused on the epidemiological role of pathogens as well as geographical locations with their latitudes/longitudes. The system consists of four main stages: topic classification, named entity recognition (NER), disease/location detection and event recognition. Higher order event analysis is used to detect more precisely specified warning signals that can then be notified to registered users via email alerts. Evaluation of the system for topic recognition and entity identification is conducted on a gold standard corpus of annotated news articles. AVAILABILITY: The BioCaster map and ontology are freely available via a web portal at http://www.biocaster.org.     

Directed evolution of a monomeric, bright and photostable version of Clavularia cyan fluorescent protein: structural characterization and applications in fluorescence imaging

The arsenal of engineered variants of the GFP [green FP (fluorescent protein)] from Aequorea jellyfish provides researchers with a powerful set of tools for use in biochemical and cell biology research. The recent discovery of diverse FPs in Anthozoa coral species has provided protein engineers with an abundance of alternative progenitor FPs from which improved variants that complement or supersede existing Aequorea GFP variants could be derived. Here, we report the engineering of the first monomeric version of the tetrameric CFP (cyan FP) cFP484 from Clavularia coral. Starting from a designed synthetic gene library with mammalian codon preferences, we identified dimeric cFP484 variants with fluorescent brightness significantly greater than the wild-type protein. Following incorporation of dimer-breaking mutations and extensive directed evolution with selection for blue-shifted emission, high fluorescent brightness and photostability, we arrived at an optimized variant that we have named mTFP1 [monomeric TFP1 (teal FP 1)]. The new mTFP1 is one of the brightest and most photostable FPs reported to date. In addition, the fluorescence is insensitive to physiologically relevant pH changes and the fluorescence lifetime decay is best fitted as a single exponential. The 1.19 A crystal structure (1 A=0.1 nm) of mTFP1 confirms the monomeric structure and reveals an unusually distorted chromophore conformation. As we experimentally demonstrate, the high quantum yield of mTFP1 (0.85) makes it particularly suitable as a replacement for ECFP (enhanced CFP) or Cerulean as a FRET (fluorescence resonance energy transfer) donor to either a yellow or orange FP acceptor.     

Fibril formation of hsp10 homologue proteins and determination of fibril core regions: differences in fibril core regions dependent on subtle differences in amino acid sequence

Heat shock protein 10 (hsp10) is a member of the molecular chaperones and works with hsp60 in mediating various protein folding reactions. GroES is a representative protein of hsp10 from Escherichia coli. Recently, we found that GroES formed a typical amyloid fibril from a guanidine hydrochloride (Gdn-HCl) unfolded state at neutral pH. Here, we report that other hsp10 homologues, such as human hsp10 (Hhsp10), rat mitochondrial hsp10 (Rhsp10), Gp31 from T4 phage, and hsp10 from the hyperthermophilic bacteria Thermotoga maritima, also form amyloid fibrils from an unfolded state. Interestingly, whereas GroES formed fibrils from either the Gdn-HCl unfolded state (at neutral pH) or the acidic unfolded state (at pH 2.0-3.0), Hhsp10, Rhsp10, and Gp31 formed fibrils from only the acidic unfolded state. Core peptide regions of these protein fibrils were determined by proteolysis treatment followed by a combination of Edman degradation and mass spectroscopy analyses of the protease-resistant peptides. The core peptides of GroES fibrils were identical for fibrils formed from the Gdn-HCl unfolded state and those formed from the acidic unfolded state. However, a peptide with a different sequence was isolated from fibrils of Hhsp10 and Rhsp10. With the use of synthesized peptides of the determined core regions, it was also confirmed that the identified regions were capable of fibril formation. These findings suggested that GroES homologues formed typical amyloid fibrils under acidic unfolding conditions but that the fibril core structures were different, perhaps owing to differences in local amino acid sequences.     

AIMP3 inhibits cell growth and metastasis of lung adenocarcinoma through activating a miR-96-5p-AIMP3-p53 axis

Aminoacyl-tRNA synthetase-interacting multifunctional protein-3 (AIMP3) is a tumour suppressor, however, the roles of AIMP3 in non-small cell lung cancer (NSCLC) are not explored yet. Here, we reported that AIMP3 significantly inhibited the cell growth and metastasis of NSCLC (lung adenocarcinoma) in vitro and in vivo. We have firstly identified that AIMP3 was down-regulated in human NSCLC tissues compared with adjacent normal lung tissues using immunohistochemistry and western blot assays. Overexpression of AIMP3 markedly suppressed the proliferation and migration of cancer cells in a p53-dependent manner. Furthermore, we observed that AIMP3 significantly suppressed tumour growth and metastasis of A549 cells in xenograft nude mice. Mechanically, we identified that AIMP3 was a direct target of miR-96-5p, and we also observed that there was a negative correlation between AIMP3 and miR-96-5p expression in paired NSCLC clinic samples. Ectopic miR-96-5p expression promoted the proliferation and migration of cancer cells in vitro and tumour growth and metastasis in vivo which partially depended on AIMP3. Taken together, our results demonstrated that the axis of miR-96-5p-AIMP3-p53 played an important role in lung adenocarcinoma, which may provide a new strategy for the diagnosis and treatment of NSCLC.