海拔高度对2型糖尿病患者循环内皮祖细胞及低氧诱导因子的影响*

目的: 探讨不同海拔地区2型糖尿病患者循环内皮祖细胞数量及相关检测指标的变化情况,为2型糖尿病血管并发症的研究和治疗提供依据。方法: 选取386 m低海拔地区(咸阳市)和1 520 m高海拔地区(兰州市)各一家医院内被诊断的2型糖尿病患者(25人/29人)和健康体检者(20人/20人)。用全自动生化分析仪检测两组人群的血脂、血糖和糖化血红蛋白指标,用酶联免疫吸附试验(ELISA)检测低氧诱导因子-1α(HIF-1α)的浓度,用流式细胞仪测定外周血循环内皮祖细胞(EPCs)的数量。结果: 无论在低海拔还是高海拔地区,糖尿病组较健康组循环EPCs数量降低(P＜0.01),体质指数(BMI)、腰臀比(WHR)、甘油三酯(TG)、空腹血糖(FBG)及糖化血红蛋白含量(HbAlc)增高(P＜0.05);与低海拔组相比,无论高海拔的糖尿病患者还是健康者,HIF-1α的表达水平均明显增加(P＜0.05),而循环EPCs数量明显降低(P＜0.05),且有循环EPCs数量健康者高于2型糖尿病无血管并发症者高于2型糖尿病伴血管并发症者的表现(P＜0.05)。结论: 海拔高度增加,2型糖尿病(T2DM)患者体内HIF-1α表达水平增加,循环EPCs数量降低,且与其血管病变程度密切相关。因此有望通过对高海拔地区T2DM患者进行EPCs的移植来实现对糖尿病血管并发症的预防和改善。     

微塑料对湖泊生态系统初级生产者的影响

塑料的广泛应用导致大量微塑料进入环境,尤其是水环境,从而产生环境风险。浮游植物等自养生物是湖泊系统的主要初级生产者,是湖泊食物链的关键组成部分,为食物链的上游提供能量和物质基础。同时,浮游植物也是对微塑料响应最敏感的类群。了解湖泊浮游植物等初级生产者对微塑料的响应是探究微塑料对湖泊生态系统功能影响的重要基础。总结了全球湖泊生态系统微塑料的丰度、类型、尺寸、来源等分布特征,系统分析了微塑料暴露对浮游植物等初级生产者细胞结构、基因表达和生长,以及对浮游植物叶绿素a含量、光合活性的影响,并总结了其中的影响机制。总体而言,微塑料会降低初级生产者的叶绿素a含量,剂量越高、尺寸越小,这种抑制作用越强烈;同时,微塑料也会作用于初级生产者,造成细胞膜损伤、DNA损伤,调控其相关功能基因表达,抑制其生长和光合活性等。然而,湖泊生态系统微塑料的实际检出浓度远低于室内暴露实验中的添加剂量,微塑料结构和组分也更为复杂,野外观测结果与室内培养实验之间还不能建立直接的对应关系。因此,未来的相关研究应集中在如何有效联系野外观测结果与室内培养实验结果,进一步聚焦建立可靠的、可应用推广的微塑料浓度与初级生产者之间的剂量-效应关系模型,探究微塑料对湖泊初级生产者的作用机制,为刻画微塑料对湖泊生态系统初级生产者及其功能的作用机制提供科学支撑。     

牛乳酪蛋白源抗菌肽的研究进展

抗菌肽是具有抗菌活性的肽类物质的总称。除了广泛存在于生物体内的内源性抗菌肽外,已从酪蛋白的酶解产物中获得了多种外源性抗菌肽。抗菌肽的抗菌机理独特,有望成为新一代抗菌剂。简要综述了牛乳酪蛋白源抗菌肽的种类、抗菌机理及其研究展望。     

蒙古国喀尔喀部蒙古族4项群体指趾遗传学特征研究

在内蒙古民族大学调查了160例(男66例,女94例)来自蒙古国的喀尔喀蒙古族留学生的拇指类型、环食指长、指甲形状、足趾长4项群体指趾遗传学特征。研究结果:1)直型拇指率为44.38%,环指长率78.13%,指甲形状长型率58.75%、方型率6.88%、扁型率34.38%,足趾类型拇趾长率35.00%;2)指甲形状出现率性别间差异具统计学意义,两两特征间均未表现出明显相关关系;3)与我国10个蒙古族族群相比,多数差异具有统计学意义。     

Heparin and its derivatives bind to HIV-1 recombinant envelope glycoproteins, rather than to recombinant HIV-1 receptor, CD4

We have employed a direct radiolabel binding assay to investigate the interaction between3H-heparin and recombinant envelope glycoproteins, rgp120s, derived from several different isolates of HIV-1. Comparable dose-dependent binding is exhibited by rgp120s from isolates IIIB, GB8, MN and SF-2. Under identical experimental conditions the binding of3H- heparin to a recombinant soluble form of the cellular receptor for gp120, CD4, is negligible. The binding of3H-heparin to rgp120 is competed for by excess unlabeled heparin and certain other, but not all, glycosaminoglycan and chemically modified heparins. Of a range of such polysaccharides tested, ability to compete with3H-heparin for binding was strictly correlated with inhibition of HIV-1 replication in vitro. Those possessing potent anti-HIV-1 activity were effective competitors, whereas those having no or little anti-HIV-1 activity were poor competitors. Scatchard analysis indicates that the K d of the interaction between heparin and rgp120 is 10 nM. Binding studies conducted in increasing salt concentrations confirm that the interaction is ionic in nature. Synthetic 33-35 amino acid peptides based on the sequence of the V3 loop of gp120 also bind to heparin with high affinity. V3 loop peptides that are cyclized due to terminal cysteine residues show more selective binding than their uncyclized counterparts. Overall, these data demonstrate further that heparin exerts its anti-HIV-1 activity by binding to the envelope glycoprotein of HIV-1, rather than its cellular receptor, CD4. This study confirms that the V3 loop of gp120 is the site at which heparin exerts its anti- HIV-1 activity. Moreover, it reveals that high affinity binding to heparin is shared by all four rgp120s examined, despite amino acid substitutions within the V3 loop.      

Destruction of aflatoxins B1 and G1 in bread making

The effect of processing steps as well preservatives used in French bread making namely propionic acid and/or potassium sorbate (0.2%) on the destruction of aflatoxins B₁ and G₁ was studied. Mixing and baking processes showed marked destruction of aflatoxins B₁ and G₁; being 71.2% and 52.5% for aflatoxin B₁ after mixing and baking steps, while reaching 73.9% and 54.5% for aflatoxin G₁. Fermentation step caused additional 15.3% and 15.0% destruction of aflatoxins B₁ and G₁. On the other hand, aflatoxin B₁ destruction was 79.2% and 50.7% when propionic acid was used and 75.3 and 56.7% in the presence of potassium sorbate and after mixing and baking steps respectively. Concerning aflatoxins G₁ it was found that mixing and baking steps showed destruction of 81.9% and 53.4% in the presence of propionic acid and 75.1 and 49.4% in the presence of potassium sorbate in this respective order. Generally, it can be concluded that using propionic acid as preservative appeared to be more effective on the destruction of aflatoxins B₁ and G₁ than potassium sorbate in French bread making.     

Double intratibial injection of human tonsil-derived mesenchymal stromal cells recovers postmenopausal osteoporotic bone mass

Background and aims

Osteoporosis, which is a disease characterized by weakening of the bone, affects a large portion of the senior population. The current therapeutic options for osteoporosis have side effects, and there is no effective treatment for severe osteoporosis. Thus, we urgently need new treatment strategies, such as topical therapies and/or safe and effective stem cell therapies.

Estimates of Social Contact in a Middle School Based on Self-Report and Wireless Sensor Data

Estimates of contact among children, used for infectious disease transmission models and understanding social patterns, historically rely on self-report logs. Recently, wireless sensor technology has enabled objective measurement of proximal contact and comparison of data from the two methods. These are mostly small-scale studies, and knowledge gaps remain in understanding contact and mixing patterns and also in the advantages and disadvantages of data collection methods. We collected contact data from a middle school, with 7th and 8th grades, for one day using self-report contact logs and wireless sensors. The data were linked for students with unique initials, gender, and grade within the school. This paper presents the results of a comparison of two approaches to characterize school contact networks, wireless proximity sensors and self-report logs. Accounting for incomplete capture and lack of participation, we estimate that “sensor-detectable”, proximal contacts longer than 20 seconds during lunch and class-time occurred at 2 fold higher frequency than “self-reportable” talk/touch contacts. Overall, 55% of estimated talk-touch contacts were also sensor-detectable whereas only 15% of estimated sensor-detectable contacts were also talk-touch. Contacts detected by sensors and also in self-report logs had longer mean duration than contacts detected only by sensors (6.3 vs 2.4 minutes). During both lunch and class-time, sensor-detectable contacts demonstrated substantially less gender and grade assortativity than talk-touch contacts. Hallway contacts, which were ascertainable only by proximity sensors, were characterized by extremely high degree and short duration. We conclude that the use of wireless sensors and self-report logs provide complementary insight on in-school mixing patterns and contact frequency.     

RevSex duplication-induced and sex-related differences in the SOX9 regulatory region chromatin landscape in human fibroblasts

It was recently shown that duplications of the RevSex element, located 0.5 Mb upstream of SOX9, cause XX-disorder of sex development (DSD), and that deletions cause XY-DSD. To explore how a 148 kb RevSex duplication could have turned on gonadal SOX9 expression in the absence of SRY in an XX-male, we examined the chromatin landscape in primary skin fibroblast cultures from the index, his RevSex duplication-carrier father and six controls. The ENCODE project supports the notion that chromatin state maps show overlap between different cell types, i.e., that our study of fibroblasts could be of biological relevance. We examined the SOX9 regulatory region by high-resolution ChIP-on-chip experiments (a kind of “chromatin-CGH”) and DNA methylation investigations. The RevSex duplication was associated with chromatin changes predicting better accessibility of the SRY-responsive TESCO enhancer region 14–15 kb upstream of SOX9. Four kb downstream of the TESCO evolutionary conserved region, a peak of the enhancer/promoter-associated H3K4me3 mark was found together with a major dip of the repressive H3K9me3 chromatin mark. Similar differences were also found when three control males were compared with three control females. A marked male/female difference was a more open chromatin signature in males starting ~400 kb upstream of SOX9 and increasing toward the SOX9 promoter. In the RevSex duplication-carrier father, two positions of DNA hypomethylation were also found, one corresponding to the H3K4me3 peak mentioned above. Our results suggest that the RevSex duplication could operate by inducing long-range epigenetic changes. Furthermore, the differences in chromatin state maps between males and females suggest that the Y chromosome or X chromosome dosage may affect chromatin conformation, i.e., that sex-dependent gene regulation may take place by chromatin modification.     

Complex temporal decay: a complete analysis

Relaxation dynamics is universal in science and engineering; its study serves to parameterize a system's response and to help identify a microscopic model of the processes involved. When measured data for a phenomenon cannot be fitted using one exponential, the choice of an alternative function to describe the decay becomes nontrivial. Here, we contrast two different, but fundamentally related approaches to fitting nontrivial decay curves; exponential decomposition and the gamma probability density function. Copyright © 2013 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.