The apoptosis of peripheral blood lymphocytes promoted by hyperbaric oxygen treatment contributes to attenuate the severity of early stage acute pancreatitis in rats

The aim of this study was to investigate the immunoregulatory effects of hyperbaric oxygen (HBO) via promoting the apoptosis of peripheral blood lymphocytes (PBLs) to attenuate the severity of early stage acute pancreatitis (AP) in rats. Additionally, the persistence of the HBO treatment effects was evaluated. One hundred and twenty male Wistar rats were randomized into four groups: sham, AP, AP + normobaric oxygen (NBO), and AP + HBO. Each group consisted of 30 rats. Four hours after the induction of AP, the 30 rats in the AP + NBO group were given normobaric oxygen treatment with 100 % oxygen at 1 atm for 90 min. The 30 rats in the AP + HBO group received 100 % oxygen at 2.5 atm for 90 min, with a compression/decompression time of 15 min. The 30 rats in the AP group remained untreated. At 6, 12, and 24 h after the induction of AP, surviving rats from each group were sacrificed, and the blood and tissue samples were collected for the following measurements: the partial pressure of oxygen (PaO₂) and oxygen saturation (SaO₂) of the arterial blood, the levels of serum amylase, lipase, interleukin-2 (IL-2), interferon-γ (IFN-γ), interleukin-10 (IL-10), hepatocyte growth factor (HGF), and reactive oxygen species (ROS), and the mitochondrial membrane potential (?Ψm) of the PBLs. The expression levels of procaspase-3, caspase-3, procaspase-9, and caspase-9 were also evaluated in the PBLs. Additionally, the apoptosis of PBLs was assessed, and the pancreatic tissues were subjected to a histopathological analysis by pathological grading and scoring. The histopathology of the lung, liver, kidney, duodenum, and heart was also analyzed at 12 h after the induction of AP. Significant differences were found at 6 and 12 h after AP induction. The HBO treatment significantly elevated the PaO₂ and SaO₂ levels, and the ROS levels in the PBLs. Additionally, HBO downregulated the levels of amylase and lipase. The HBO treatment also reduced the ?Ψm levels, upregulated the expression of caspase-3 and caspase-9, and increased the apoptosis rate of the PBLs. Moreover, the HBO treatment decreased the serum concentrations of IL-2, IFN-γ and HGF, and reduced the pathological scores of the pancreatic tissue. The histopathological changes of the lung, liver, kidney, duodenum, and heart were also improved. A significant elevation of IL-10 occurred only at the 12-h time point. However, no obvious differences were found at the 24-h time point. This study demonstrated that the HBO treatment can promote the apoptosis of PBLs via a mitochondrial-dependent pathway and inhibit the inflammatory response. These immunoregulatory effects may play an important therapeutic role in attenuating the severity of early stage AP. The repeated administration of HBO or the use of HBO in combination with other approaches may further improve outcomes.     

普伐他汀对溶血磷脂酰胆碱所致血管内皮功能损伤的保护作用及机制探讨

目的:探讨不同剂量的普伐他汀对溶血磷脂酰胆碱(LPC)所致血管内皮功能的影响.方法:用离体血管环和培养的人脐静脉内皮细胞(HUVECs)为实验模型,以血管内皮依赖性舒张反应(EDR)、内皮细胞活力以及生化参数为指标,用LPC作为损伤因子,用普伐他汀作为保护药,观察LPC对内皮的损伤作用及普伐他汀的保护作用.结果:LPC与血管环共孵或内皮细胞显著性地抑制了血管EDR反应,增加了血管MDA含量,并导致培养的内皮细胞的活力、内皮型一氧化氮合酶(eNOS)活性及一氧化氮(NO)含量显著性降低;普伐他汀与血管环或内皮细胞共孵,浓度依赖性地减轻了LPC对血管EDR的抑制作用(P＜0.05),保护了内皮细胞的活力(P＜0.05).恢复了细胞eNOS活性及NO含量(P＜0.05),抑制了内皮细胞活性氧(ROS)的生成(P＜0.05).结论:LPC能直接损伤的血管内皮细胞,普伐他汀对LPC所致的血管内皮细胞损伤有显著性保护作用,其机制可能与LPC触发脂质过氧化反应,从而抑制血管内皮血管内皮细胞NO的合成有关,普伐他汀通过抗氧化而保护血管内皮细胞的功能.     

α-亚麻酸和γ-亚麻酸对高脂血症人群的降血脂作用

目的:研究α-亚麻酸和γ-亚麻酸对高脂血症人群血脂水平的影响.方法:选取血清总胆固醇≥5.2mmol/L及甘油三酯≥1.65mmol/L的自愿受试者106人,随机分为对照组和试验组,试验采用双盲试验.对照组每天服用含α-亚麻酸400mg,γ-亚麻酸120mg的软胶囊3粒,对照组服用外形相同的安慰剂3粒.实验前后分别观察人血清TG、TC、HDL-C变化及一般状况.试验周期为45天.结果:与对照组比较,试验组血清TC、TG水平显著降低,血清HDL-C水平显著上升;试验组自身比较,试验后血清TC和TG水平显著降低,血清HDL-C水平显著升高;对照组自身比较,试验后血清TC、TG、HDL-C水平差异均无显著变化;试验组TC、TG、HDL-C有效率及总有效率明显高于对照组.在试验期间受试者的精神、睡眠、饮食、在小便、血压、各项临床指标等均未见异常,未见其它不良反应.结论:α-亚麻酸和γ-亚麻酸具有辅助降血脂功能,且对机体健康无不良影响.     

Elevated CO2 concentration enhances the role of the ear to the flag leaf in determining grain yield of wheat

Net photosynthetic rate (P _N) of ear and flag leaf during grain filling stage and grain yield of plants with non-darkened or darkened flag leaf or darkened ear were examined in two different CO₂ concentrations: ambient (AC) and AC+200 μmol mol⁻¹ (EC). Ear showed much higher enhancement (56 %) of P _N than flag leaf (23 %) under EC. Moreover, CO₂ enrichment shortened the photosynthetic duration of flag leaf relative to ear. In this way the ratio of ear to flag leaf contribution to grain yield increased from 1.18 (AC) to 1.39 (EC).     

Structure dissection of human progranulin identifies well-folded granulin/epithelin modules with unique functional activities

Progranulin is a secreted protein with important functions in several physiological and pathological processes, such as embryonic development, host defense, and wound repair. Autosomal dominant mutations in the progranulin gene cause frontotemporal dementia, while overexpression of progranulin promotes the invasive progression of a range of tumors, including those of the breast and the brain. Structurally, progranulin consists of seven-and-a-half tandem repeats of the granulin/epithelin module (GEM), several of which have been isolated as discrete 6-kDa GEM peptides. We have expressed all seven human GEMs using recombinant DNA in Escherichia coli. High-resolution NMR showed that only the three GEMs, hGrnA, hGrnC, and hGrnF, contain relatively well-defined three-dimensional structures in solution, while others are mainly mixtures of poorly structured disulfide isomers. The three-dimensional structures of hGrnA, hGrnC, and hGrnF contain a stable stack of two beta-hairpins in their N-terminal subdomains, but showed a more flexible C-terminal subdomain. Interestingly, of the well-structured GEMs, hGrnA demonstrated potent growth inhibition of a breast cancer cell line, while hGrnF was stimulatory. Poorly folded peptides were either weakly inhibitory or without activity. The functionally active and structurally well-characterized human hGrnA offers a unique opportunity for detailed structure-function studies of these important GEM proteins as novel members of mammalian growth factors.     

iRSpot-PseDNC: identify recombination spots with pseudo dinucleotide composition

Meiotic recombination is an important biological process. As a main driving force of evolution, recombination provides natural new combinations of genetic variations. Rather than randomly occurring across a genome, meiotic recombination takes place in some genomic regions (the so-called ‘hotspots’) with higher frequencies, and in the other regions (the so-called ‘coldspots’) with lower frequencies. Therefore, the information of the hotspots and coldspots would provide useful insights for in-depth studying of the mechanism of recombination and the genome evolution process as well. So far, the recombination regions have been mainly determined by experiments, which are both expensive and time-consuming. With the avalanche of genome sequences generated in the postgenomic age, it is highly desired to develop automated methods for rapidly and effectively identifying the recombination regions. In this study, a predictor, called ‘iRSpot-PseDNC’, was developed for identifying the recombination hotspots and coldspots. In the new predictor, the samples of DNA sequences are formulated by a novel feature vector, the so-called ‘pseudo dinucleotide composition’ (PseDNC), into which six local DNA structural properties, i.e. three angular parameters (twist, tilt and roll) and three translational parameters (shift, slide and rise), are incorporated. It was observed by the rigorous jackknife test that the overall success rate achieved by iRSpot-PseDNC was >82% in identifying recombination spots in Saccharomyces cerevisiae, indicating the new predictor is promising or at least may become a complementary tool to the existing methods in this area. Although the benchmark data set used to train and test the current method was from S. cerevisiae, the basic approaches can also be extended to deal with all the other genomes. Particularly, it has not escaped our notice that the PseDNC approach can be also used to study many other DNA-related problems. As a user-friendly web-server, iRSpot-PseDNC is freely accessible at http://lin.uestc.edu.cn/server/iRSpot-PseDNC.     

FATP1 silence inhibits the differentiation and induces the apoptosis in chicken preadipocytes

FATP1 plays an important role in the trafficking of free fatty acids in adipocytes, however, its precise function and relationship with other fatty acid transporters all remain poorly understood. In this study, FATP1 gene silencing was induced by transfecting siRNA of target sequence into chicken preadipocytes, then the expression of FABP was found down-regulated while the expression of FAT was raised. In addition, differential inhibition of the cells was observed and the expressions of PPARγ and C/EBPα were found down-regulated. Moreover, the silencing also induced the down-regulation of FAS and inhibited the adipogenesis in adipocytes. Of specific interest here was that FATP1 silencing significantly improved the expressions and activities of cell apoptotic factors Caspases 3 and BCL2 associated X protein (Bax). Consequently, FATP1 deficiency prevented the differentiation while induced apoptosis in chicken preadipocytes.     

Structural analyses of Legionella LepB reveal a new GAP fold that catalytically mimics eukaryotic RasGAP

Rab GTPases are emerging targets of diverse bacterial pathogens. Here, we perform biochemical and structural analyses of LepB, a Rab GTPase-activating protein (GAP) effector from Legionella pneumophila. We map LepB GAP domain to residues 313-618 and show that the GAP domain is Rab1 specific with a catalytic activity higher than the canonical eukaryotic TBC GAP and the newly identified VirA/EspG family of bacterial RabGAP effectors. Exhaustive mutation analyses identify Arg444 as the arginine finger, but no catalytically essential glutamine residues. Crystal structures of LepB_313-618 alone and the GAP domain of Legionella drancourtii LepB in complex with Rab1-GDP-AlF₃ support the catalytic role of Arg444, and also further reveal a 3D architecture and a GTPase-binding mode distinct from all known GAPs. Glu449, structurally equivalent to TBC RabGAP glutamine finger in apo-LepB, undergoes a drastic movement upon Rab1 binding, which induces Rab1 Gln70 side-chain flipping towards GDP-AlF₃ through a strong ionic interaction. This conformationally rearranged Gln70 acts as the catalytic cis-glutamine, therefore uncovering an unexpected RasGAP-like catalytic mechanism for LepB. Our studies highlight an extraordinary structural and catalytic diversity of RabGAPs, particularly those from bacterial pathogens.     

Age,growth, reproduction and status of resource development of Ptychidio jordani,a critically endangered freshwater fish in the Hongshui River,China

The age, growth, reproduction and resource development status of Ptychidio jordani, as a critically endangered freshwater fish in the Hongshui River, China, was studied in this work. A total of 525 specimens were collected monthly using the cages and gillnets from October 2021 to September 2022 in the Hongshui River. The scale was used for age determination, and the maximum age for both female and male was estimated to be 5 years and 3 years, respectively. Female and male P. jordani showed different growth patterns, which were expressed as L_t = 261.3 (1-e^{−0.4885(t−0.1476)}) and L_t = 251.2 (1-e^{−0.4758(t+0.9643)}), respectively. The overall sex ratio was 1:0.47 (female:male). Female attained sex maturity at 2.34 years (192 mm body length). Month variation of the gonad somatic index indicated that the spawning period occurred from April to October. The absolute fecundity was estimated at 9046 ± 3434 eggs per individual, and the relative fecundity was 38.08 ± 15.77 eggs per gram. The exploitation rate of female and male was 0.233 and 0.495, which indicated that P. jordani was not overfishing. This study provided data on the key life-history traits of P. jordani, which has not been known previously and is essential for conservation strategy and policy development.