Comparative proteomic analysis of methyl jasmonate‐induced defense responses in different rice cultivars

Jasmonate is an important endogenous chemical signal that plays a role in modulation of plant defense responses. To understand its mechanisms in regulation of rice resistance against the fungal pathogen Magnaporthe oryzae, comparative phenotype and proteomic analyses were undertaken using two near‐isogenic cultivars with different levels of disease resistance. Methyl‐jasmonate (MeJA) treatment significantly enhanced the resistance against M. oryzae in both cultivars but the treated resistant cultivar maintained a higher level of resistance than the same treated susceptible cultivars. Proteomic analysis revealed 26 and 16 MeJA‐modulated proteins in resistant and susceptible cultivars, respectively, and both cultivars shared a common set of 13 proteins. Cumulatively, a total of 29 unique MeJA‐influenced proteins were identified with many of them known to be associated with plant defense response and ROS accumulation. Consistent with the findings of proteomic analysis, MeJA treatment increased ROS accumulation in both cultivars with the resistant cultivar showing higher levels of ROS production and cell membrane damage than the susceptible cultivar. Taken together, our data add a new insight into the mechanisms of overall MeJA‐induced rice defense response and provide a molecular basis of using MeJA to enhance fungal disease resistance in resistant and susceptible rice cultivars.     

Cofactor and CO2 donor regulation involved in reductive routes for polymalic acid production by Aureobasidium pullulans CCTCC M2012223

Polymalic acid (PMA) is a water-soluble polyester with many attractive properties for biomedical application. Its monomer l-malic acid is widely used in the food industry and also a potential C4 platform chemical. Cofactor and CO₂ donor involved in the reductive routes were investigated for PMA production by Aureobasidium pullulans. Biotin as the key cofactor of pyruvate carboxylase was favor for the PMA biosynthesis. Na₂CO₃ as CO₂ donor can obviously improved PMA titer when compared with no CO₂ supplier NaOH, and also exhibit more advantages than the other donor CaCO₃ because of its water-soluble characteristic. A combinational process with addition of biotin 70 mg/L and Na₂CO₃ as the CO₂ donor was scaled-up in 50 L fermentor, achieving the high product 34.3 g/L of PMA and productivity of 0.41 g/L h. This process provides an efficient and economical way for PMA and malic acid production, and is promising for industrial application.     

A 2D graphical representation of the sequences of DNA based on triplets and its application

In this paper, we first present a new concept of ‘weight’ for 64 triplets and define a different weight for each kind of triplet. Then, we give a novel 2D graphical representation for DNA sequences, which can transform a DNA sequence into a plot set to facilitate quantitative comparisons of DNA sequences. Thereafter, associating with a newly designed measure of similarity, we introduce a novel approach to make similarities/dissimilarities analysis of DNA sequences. Finally, the applications in similarities/dissimilarities analysis of the complete coding sequences of β-globin genes of 11 species illustrate the utilities of our newly proposed method.     

The effect of aging on the frequency,phenotype and cytokine production of human blood CD4 + CXCR5 + T follicular helper cells: comparison of aged and young subjects

Background

T cell-dependent B-cell responses decline with age, indicating declined cognate helper activity of aged CD4?+?T cells for B cells. However, the mechanisms remain unclear. T follicular helper (Tfh) cells, a novel T helper subset, play an essential role in helping B cells differentiation into long-lived plasma cells in germinal center (GC) or short-lived plasma cells. In the present study, we proposed that there might existe changes of proportion, phenotype or cytokine production of blood Tfh cells in healthy elderly individuals compared with healthy young individuals.

Results

The results showed that frequencies of aged blood CXCR5?+?CD4?+?Tfh cells increased compared with young subjects. Both aged and young blood CXCR5?+?CD4?+?Tfh cells constitutively expressed CD45RO, CCR7 and CD28, and few of these cells expressed CD69 or HLA-DR, which indicated that they were resting memory cells. There was no significant difference of IL-21 frequency production by aged blood CXCR5?+?CD4?+?Tfh determined by FACS compared with young individuals, however, aged PBMCs produced significantly higher levels of IL-21 evaluated by ELISA. Furthermore, there were no significant differences of percentages of IFN-γ, IL-4, IL-17 or IL-22 production by aged Tfh cells compared with their counterparts of young individuals respectively. However, frequencies of IL-17+ cells within aged CD4?+?CXCR5-T cells were markedly lower than in the young individuals. Furthermore we observed different frequencies of IFN-γ, IL-17, IL-4 or IL-22 production by Tfh or by CD4?+?CXCR5- cells in aged and young subjects respectively.

Conclusions

Our data demonstrated that the frequencies of blood memory CXCR5?+?CD4?+?Tfh cells increased in the elderly population. There were similar frequencies of Th characterized cytokine production such as IL-21, IFN-γ, IL-4, IL-17 or IL-22 in aged and young Tfh cells. However, aged PBMCs produced a significantly higher amount of IL-21 compare to young subjects.

     

Investigation of the interaction between quercetin and human serum albumin by multiple spectra,electrochemical impedance spectra and molecular modeling

Quercetin (Qu), a flavonoid compound, exists widely in the human diet and exhibits a variety of pharmacological activities. This work is aimed at studying the effect of Qu on the bioactive protein, human serum albumin (HSA) under simulated biophysical conditions. Multiple spectroscopic methods (including fluorescence and circular dichroism), electrochemical impedance spectra (EIS) and molecular modeling were employed to investigate the interaction between Qu and HSA. The fluorescence quenching and EIS experimental results showed that the fluorescence quenching of HSA was caused by formation of a Qu–HSA complex in the ground state, which belonged to the static quenching mechanism. Based on the calculated thermodynamic parameters, it concluded that the interaction was a spontaneous process and hydrogen bonds combined with van der Waal's forces played a major role in stabilizing the Qu–HSA complex. Molecular modeling results demonstrated that several amino acids participated in the binding process and the formed Qu–HSA complex was stabilized by H‐bonding network at site I in sub‐domain IIA, which was further confirmed by the site marker competitive experiments. The evidence from circular dichroism (CD) indicated that the secondary structure and microenvironment of HSA were changed. Alterations in the conformation of HSA were observed with a reduction in the amount of α helix from 59.9% (free HSA) to 56% (Qu–HSA complex), indicating a slight unfolding of the protein polypeptides. Copyright © 2014 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Dietary Mushroom Intake May Reduce the Risk of Breast Cancer: Evidence from a Meta-Analysis of Observational Studies

Epidemiological studies have investigated the potential anticancer effects of mushroom intake. This review aims to clarify the evidence on the association of dietary mushroom intake with breast cancer risk and to quantify its dose-response relationship. Relevant studies were identified by a search of PubMed, Web of Science and Google Scholar up to December 31, 2013. Observational studies with relative risks (RRs) or hazard ratios (HRs) or odd ratios (ORs) and 95% confidence intervals (CIs) of breast cancer for three or more categories of mushroom intake were eligible. The quality of included studies was assessed by using Newcastle-Ottawa Scale. A dose-response meta-analysis was performed by utilizing generalized least squares trend estimation. Eight case-control studies and two cohort studies with a total of 6890 cases were ultimately included. For dose-response analysis, there was no evidence of non-linear association between mushroom consumption and breast cancer risk (P = 0.337) and a 1 g/d increment in mushroom intake conferred an RR of 0.97 (95% CI: 0.96–0.98) for breast cancer risk, with moderate heterogeneity (I² = 56.3%, P = 0.015). Besides, available menopause data extracted from included studies were used to evaluate the influence of menopausal statues. The summary RRs of mushroom consumption on breast cancer were 0.96 (95% CI: 0.91–1.00) for premenopausal women and 0.94 (95% CI: 0.91–0.97) for postmenopausal women, respectively. Our findings demonstrated that mushroom intake may be inversely associated with risk of breast cancer, which need to be confirmed with large-scale prospective studies further.     

Molecular Interaction Mechanism between 2-Mercaptobenzimidazole and Copper-Zinc Superoxide Dismutase

2-Mercaptobenzimidazole (MBI) is widely utilized as a corrosion inhibitor, copper-plating brightener and rubber accelerator. The residue of MBI in the environment is potentially harmful. In the present work, the toxic interaction of MBI with the important antioxidant enzyme copper-zinc superoxide dismutase (Cu/ZnSOD) was investigated using spectroscopic and molecular docking methods. MBI can interact with Cu/ZnSOD to form an MBI-Cu/ZnSOD complex. The binding constant, number of binding sites and thermodynamic parameters were measured, which indicated that MBI could spontaneously bind with Cu/ZnSOD with one binding site through hydrogen bonds and van der Waals forces. MBI bound into the Cu/ZnSOD interface of two subdomains, which caused some microenvironmental and secondary structure changes of Cu/ZnSOD and further resulted in the inhibition of Cu/ZnSOD activity. This work provides direct evidence at a molecular level to show that exposure to MBI could induce changes in the structure and function of the enzyme Cu/ZnSOD. The estimated methods in this work may be applied to probe molecular interactions of biomacromolecules and other pollutants and drugs.