Absence of nuclear receptors LXRs impairs immune response to androgen deprivation and leads to prostate neoplasia

Chronic inflammation is now a well-known precursor for cancer development. Infectious prostatitis are the most common causes of prostate inflammation, but emerging evidence points the role of metabolic disorders as a potential source of cancer-related inflammation. Although the widely used treatment for prostate cancer based on androgen deprivation therapy (ADT) effectively decreases tumor size, it also causes profound alterations in immune tumor microenvironment within the prostate. Here, we demonstrate that prostates of a mouse model invalidated for nuclear receptors liver X receptors (LXRs), crucial lipid metabolism and inflammation integrators, respond in an unexpected way to androgen deprivation. Indeed, we observed profound alterations in immune cells composition, which was associated with chronic inflammation of the prostate. This was explained by the recruitment of phagocytosis-deficient macrophages leading to aberrant hyporesponse to castration. This phenotypic alteration was sufficient to allow prostatic neoplasia. Altogether, these data suggest that ADT and inflammation resulting from metabolic alterations interact to promote aberrant proliferation of epithelial prostate cells and development of neoplasia. This raises the question of the benefit of ADT for patients with metabolic disorders.

Mice lacking the liver X nuclear receptors (LXRs), crucial integrators of lipid metabolism, were used to study the response of the prostate to androgen deprivation. This reveals that lack of androgens leads to chronic inflammation due to impaired clearance of castration-induced apoptotic cells, allowing production of pro-inflammatory cytokines and promoting prostate neoplasia.     

Mode coupling points to functionally important residues in myosin II

Relevance of mode coupling to energy/information transfer during protein function, particularly in the context of allosteric interactions is widely accepted. However, existing evidence in favor of this hypothesis comes essentially from model systems. We here report a novel formal analysis of the near‐native dynamics of myosin II, which allows us to explore the impact of the interaction between possibly non‐Gaussian vibrational modes on fluctutational dynamics. We show that an information‐theoretic measure based on mode coupling alone yields a ranking of residues with a statistically significant bias favoring the functionally critical locations identified by experiments on myosin II. Proteins 2014; 82:1777–1786. © 2014 Wiley Periodicals, Inc.     

A comparative study on two closely relative Tulipa L. taxa from NE Anatolia

This study presents observations on the anatomical, palynological and ecological features of Tulipa gumusanica Terzio?lu and its morphologically similar relative, T. armena Boiss. var. armena, in order to clarify their similarities and differences. We found that these taxa have some important differences with regard to anatomical, palynological and ecological features, as well as morphological traits. General anatomical traits of both examined taxa are similar, both having isolateral leaves with distinct hypodermis and a stem with distinct monolayer collenchyma close to the epidermis. However, some anatomical characters such as mesophyll width, average number of stomata on lower epidermis, and epidermal cells on upper epidermis are found to be important in delimiting these taxa. In addition, considerable differences have been observed in pollen shape and size. The species differ ecologically in that T. gumusanica prefers slightly acidic soil with low organic content in the woodland, whereas T. armena var. armena prefers slightly alkali soil with high organic content in steppe vegetation.     

Flavonoids from Brickellia chlorolepis and B. dentata

Eleven flavonoids including three new glycosides were isolated from Brickellia chlorolepis and one new and nine known flavonoids were obtained from B. dentata. The new glycosides from B. chlorolepis are 6-methoxykaempferol 3-rhamnoglucoside, spinacetin 3-rhamnogalactoside and veronicafolin 3-rhamnoglucoside. The known compounds identified from B. chlorolepis are patuletin, casticin, artemetin, eupatolitin 3-galactoside, quercetin 3-rhamnogalactoside, rutin, isorhamnetin 3-galactoside and eupatin 3-SO₃Ca_{$\text{1}\text{2}$}. B. dentata contains the new glycoside eupalitin 3-galactoside and nine known compounds: pectolinarigenin, salvigenin, eupafolin, cirsiliol, eupatorin, eupatolitin, eupatolitin 3-glucoside, eupatolitin 3-galactoside and eupatin.