拟除虫菊酯农药降解菌HP-S-01培养基的筛选及优化

通过比较高氏合成1号培养基、查彼氏培养基、马铃薯葡萄糖培养基、燕麦片培养基和理查德培养基等5种培养基对拟除虫菊酯农药降解菌Streptomyces sp.HP-S-01生长的影响,确定了高氏合成1号培养基为菌株生长最适宜的培养基.以高氏合成1号培养基为基础培养基,采用中心组分旋转设计法(RRCD)和响应曲面法(RSM),优化了培养基关键组分中可溶性淀粉、硝酸钾和磷酸氢二钾的组成,以降解率为主要衡量指标,最佳配方包括可溶性淀粉25.9549 g/L、硝酸钾1.9975 g/L和磷酸氢二钾0.9505 g/L,最终优化出的培养基处理1 d后对50 mg/L高效氯氰菊酯的降解率达到99.61%,与期望降解率99.92%相一致,比优化前84.10%提高了15.51%.     

Multidisciplinary approach to diagnosis and management of osteosarcoma – a review of the St Vincent's Hospital experience

Background

Osteosarcoma is the most common primary malignant bone tumour in children and young adults. Despite advances in the diagnosis and management of osteosarcoma, there have been few recent studies describing the experiences of tertiary referral centres. This paper aims to describe and discuss the clinical features, pre-operative work-up, management and outcomes of these patients at St Vincent's Hospital (Melbourne, Australia).

Methods

Retrospective study of fifty-nine consecutive patients managed for osteosarcoma at St Vincent's Hospital between 1995 and 2005.

Results

Median age at diagnosis was 21 (range, 11–84) years. Gender distribution was similar, with thirty-one male and twenty-eight female patients.Twenty-five patients had osteosarcoma in the femur, eleven each were located in the humerus and tibia, six were identified in the pelvis, and one each in the clavicle, maxilla, fibula, sacrum, ulna and radius.Pre-operative tissue diagnosis of osteosarcoma was obtained through computed tomography-guided percutaneous biopsy in over ninety percent of patients.Following initial therapy, over fifty percent of patients remained relapse-free during the follow-up period, with twelve percent and twenty-seven percent of patients documented as having local and distant disease recurrence, respectively. Of patients with recurrent disease, sixty-two percent remained disease-free following subsequent surgical intervention (most commonly, pulmonary metastatectomy).

Conclusion

Patient outcomes can be optimised through a multidisciplinary approach in a tertiary referral centre. At St Vincent's Hospital, survival and relapse rates of patients managed for osteosarcoma compare favourably with the published literature.

     

Advanced Cell Mapping Visualizations for Single Cell Functional Proteomics Enabling Patient Stratification

Highly multiplexed single‐cell functional proteomics has emerged as one of the next‐generation toolkits for a deeper understanding of functional heterogeneity in cell. Different from the conventional population‐based bulk and single‐cell RNA‐Seq assays, the microchip‐based proteomics at the single‐cell resolution enables a unique identification of highly polyfunctional cell subsets that co‐secrete many proteins from live single cells and most importantly correlate with patient response to a therapy. The 32‐plex IsoCode chip technology has defined a polyfunctional strength index (PSI) of pre‐infusion anti‐CD19 chimeric antigen receptor (CAR)‐T products, that is significantly associated with patient response to the CAR‐T cell therapy. To complement the clinical relevance of the PSI, a comprehensive visualization toolkit of 3D uniform manifold approximation and projection (UMAP) and t‐distributed stochastic neighbor embedding (t‐SNE) in a proteomic analysis pipeline is developed, providing more advanced analytical algorithms for more intuitive data visualizations. The UMAP and t‐SNE of anti‐CD19 CAR‐T products reveal distinct cytokine profiles between nonresponders and responders and demonstrate a marked upregulation of antitumor‐associated cytokine signatures in CAR‐T cells from responding patients. Using this powerful while user‐friendly analytical tool, the multi‐dimensional single‐cell data can be dissected from complex immune responses and uncover underlying mechanisms, which can promote correlative biomarker discovery, improved bioprocessing, and personalized treatment development.     

土壤可溶性有机氮研究进展

可溶性有机氮(SON)和无机氮是陆地生态系统氮循环过程中重要的氮素形态,互为“源”和“汇”。陆地生态系统中氮素和其他营养元素的矿化、固持、淋溶和植物吸收均与SON有密切的联系。SON在土壤物质循环和养分流动等动态过程中的作用越来越受到关注,已成为生态学、环境学、土壤学、水文学等研究领域的热点之一。本文综述了国内外对土壤SON的研究进展,包括SON的定义和测定、SON库容大小和组成、植物和微生物对SON的吸收利用、SON来源及其影响因素、SON在土壤中的转化运移和淋失等。综合国内外研究结果发现,土壤SON是一个复杂的多组分可溶性有机物的混合物,主要为难降解的物质(惰性成分),能快速矿化分解的物质(活性成分)占比较低。由于惰性成分和活性成分在周转速率上的差异,SON在生态系统氮循环中的地位不能完全通过SON的容量特征来反映。因此,为了更准确地反映SON在氮周转、氮吸收和氮流失中的作用,未来需要创新研究方法并对SON组分加以区分:研究SON在氮转化和氮吸收中的作用时,重点关注SON中的活性成分;研究SON在氮淋溶径流损失中的贡献时,则重点关注SON中的惰性成分。     

Plasticity in R/S ratio, morphology and fitness-related traits in response to reciprocal patchiness of light and nutrients in the stoloniferous herb, Glechoma longituba L

Clonal fragments of the stoloniferous herb Glechoma longituba were subjected to a complementary patchiness of light and soil nutrients including two spatially homogeneous treatments (SR–SR and IP–IP) and two spatially heterogeneous treatments (IP–SR and SR–IP). SR and IP indicate patches (shaded, rich) with low light intensity (shaded, S), high nutrient availability (rich, R) and patches (illuminated, poor) with high light intensity (illuminated, I) and low nutrient availability (poor, P), respectively. Plasticity of the species in root–shoot ratio, fitness-related traits (biomass, number of ramets and dry weight per ramet) and clonal morphological traits (length and specific length of stolon internodes, area and specific area of laminae, length and specific length of petioles) were experimentally examined. The aim is to understand adaptation of G. longituba to the environment with reciprocal patches of light and soil nutrients by plasticities both in root–shoot ratio and in (clonal) morphology. Our experiment revealed performance of the clonal fragments growing from patches with high light intensity and low soil nutrient availability into the adjacent opposite patches was increased in terms of the fitness-related characters. R/S ratio and clonal morphology were plastic. Meanwhile, the capture of light resource from the light-rich patches was enhanced while the capture of soil nutrients from either the nutrient-rich or the nutrient-poor patches was not. Analysis of cost and benefit disclosed positive effects of clonal integration on biomass production of ramets in the patches with low light intensity and high soil nutrient availability. These results suggest an existence of reciprocal translocation of assimilates and nutrients between the interconnected ramets. The reinforced performance of the clonal fragments seems to be related with specialization of clonal morphology in the species.     

The promoter of the pepper pathogen-induced membrane protein gene <Emphasis Type="Italic">CaPIMP1</Emphasis> mediates environmental stress responses in plants

The promoter of the pepper pathogen-induced membrane protein gene CaPIMP1 was analyzed by an Agrobacterium-mediated transient expression assay in tobacco leaves. Several stress-related cis-acting elements (GT-1, W-box and ABRE) are located within the CaPIMP1 promoter. In tobacco leaf tissues transiently transformed with a CaPIMP1 promoter-β-glucuronidase (GUS) gene fusion, serially 5′-deleted CaPIMP1 promoters were differentially activated by Pseudomonas syringae pv. tabaci, ethylene, methyl jasmonate, abscisic acid, and nitric oxide. The −1,193 bp region of the CaPIMP1 gene promoter sequence exhibited full promoter activity. The −417- and −593 bp promoter regions were sufficient for GUS gene activation by ethylene and methyl jasmonate treatments, respectively. However, CaPIMP1 promoter sequences longer than −793 bp were required for promoter activation by abscisic acid and sodium nitroprusside treatments. CaPIMP1 expression was activated in pepper leaves by treatment with ethylene, methyl jasmonate, abscisic acid, β-amino-n-butyric acid, NaCl, mechanical wounding, and low temperature, but not with salicylic acid. Overexpression of CaPIMP1 in Arabidopsis conferred hypersensitivity to mannitol, NaCl, and ABA during seed germination but not during seedling development. In contrast, transgenic plants overexpressing CaPIMP1 exhibited enhanced tolerance to oxidative stress induced by methyl viologen during germination and early seedling stages. These results suggest that CaPIMP1 expression may alter responsiveness to environmental stress, as well as to pathogen infection. The nucleotide sequence data reported here has been deposited in the GenBank database under the accession number DQ356279.     

Nitric Oxide Signalling In Plants

Nitric oxide (NO) is an important molecule that acts in many tissues to regulate a diverse range of physiological processes. It is becoming apparent that NO is a ubiquitous signal in plants. Since the discovery of NO emission by plants in the 1970s, this gaseous compound has emerged as a major signalling molecule involved in multiple physiological functions. Research on NO in plants has gained significant awareness in recent years and there is increasing indication on the role of this molecule as a key-signalling molecule in plants. The investigations about NO in plants have been concentrated on three main fields: The search of NO or any source of NO generation, effects of exogenous NO treatments, NO transduction pathways. However we have limited information about signal transduction procedures by which NO interaction with cells results in altered cellular activities. This article reviews recent advances in NO synthesis and its signalling functions in plants. First, different sources and biosynthesis of NO in plants, then biological processes involving NO signalling are reviewed. NO signalling relation with cGMP, protein kinases and programmed cell death are also discussed. Besides, NO signalling in plant defense response is also examined. Especially NO signalling between animal and plant systems is compared.     

细菌内依赖TonB的外膜铁转运体的研究进展

铁是细菌所必需的微量营养元素,但由于易被氧化溶解性低,生物体的利用率大大降低。细菌在进化过程中形成多种策略来吸收环境中低浓度的铁,不同类型铁的吸收通过外膜上依赖TonB的转运体(TonB-dependent transporters,TBDTs)完成,TBDTs结合不同形式的铁复合物,通过内膜上的TonB-ExbB-ExbD复合物提供能量完成转运,对其机制的研究一直是微生物基础生命活动研究中的热点问题。近年来新鉴定了一些TBDTs的结构,并对其功能和转运机制有了更深入的研究,对此进行了综述,不仅有助于进一步揭示细菌的铁转运机制,而且有助于寻找新的靶位点以开发新的治疗药物。     

REFOLDdb: a new and sustainable gateway to experimental protocols for protein refolding

Background

More than 7000 papers related to “protein refolding” have been published to date, with approximately 300 reports each year during the last decade. Whilst some of these papers provide experimental protocols for protein refolding, a survey in the structural life science communities showed a necessity for a comprehensive database for refolding techniques. We therefore have developed a new resource – “REFOLDdb” that collects refolding techniques into a single, searchable repository to help researchers develop refolding protocols for proteins of interest.

Results

We based our resource on the existing REFOLD database, which has not been updated since 2009. We redesigned the data format to be more concise, allowing consistent representations among data entries compared with the original REFOLD database. The remodeled data architecture enhances the search efficiency and improves the sustainability of the database. After an exhaustive literature search we added experimental refolding protocols from reports published 2009 to early 2017. In addition to this new data, we fully converted and integrated existing REFOLD data into our new resource. REFOLDdb contains 1877 entries as of March 17^th, 2017, and is freely available at http://p4d-info.nig.ac.jp/refolddb/.

Conclusion

REFOLDdb is a unique database for the life sciences research community, providing annotated information for designing new refolding protocols and customizing existing methodologies. We envisage that this resource will find wide utility across broad disciplines that rely on the production of pure, active, recombinant proteins. Furthermore, the database also provides a useful overview of the recent trends and statistics in refolding technology development.

     

Development and validation of a UPLC/MS method for a nutritional metabolomic study of human plasma

In order to study the effect of a diet on metabolites found in body fluids such as plasma, we have developed and validated a UPLC/MS method. While methods using NMR have been well established to analyse different biological tissues, recent studies have described robust untargeted UPLC-MS methods for plasma analysis. One major concern when profiling plasma is the presence of an important quantity of proteins which have to be precipitated without any loss of metabolites prior to LC/MS analysis. The utilization of untargeted approaches in nutritional metabolomics still suffers from the lack of identification of specific biomarkers. We therefore suggest an alternative method still using a global approach but focusing at the same time on metabolites previously described in human plasma in order to detect biomarkers of metabolic dysregulations. Thus, to fulfil our objectives, analytical parameters were tested (i) the anticoagulant type for sample collection, (ii) the protein precipitation method and (iii) UPLC/MS analytical conditions. Three protein precipitation methods and two anticoagulants were tested and compared. The method utilizing blood collection on heparin and methanol precipitation was chosen for giving the most reproducible results while keeping the complexity of the sample. Finally, a validation was proposed to evaluate the stability of this analytical method applied to a large batch of samples for nutritional metabolomic studies.