月季体细胞无性系及其在品种选育中的可能应用

文章介绍月季的体细胞无性系诱导和植株再生,主要包括月季体细胞无性系再生的类型、影响因素及其在育种中应用的研究进展。     

基于GS和GIS的春尺蠖种群分布动态研究

本文利用杀虫灯诱杀春尺蠖雄成虫的数据,采用地统计学空间插值方法,借助遥感（RS）和地理信息系统（GIS）技术,得出2001～2003年和田地区春尺蠖种群空间分布格局及其动态。结果显示,3年中春尺蠖种群均为聚集分布,但聚集程度、种群空间分布和数量处于动态变化之中。通过TM卫片解译提取和田地区森林图层,在ARCGIS中完成对插值模拟图的切割,从而把春尺蠖种群动态的年际分布显示在具体的森林斑块内。研究结果可作为进一步研究春尺蠖种群暴发机理和系统控制的基础。     

Role of phosphodiesterase in cyclic AMP signaling in cultured rat granulosa cells

Inactivation of the cyclic nucleotide signal in granulosa cells depends on a complex array of cyclic nucleotide phosphodiesterases (PDE). In order to examine the role of PDE in cyclic AMP (cAMP) signaling in granulosa cells, the present study examined the expression of PDE4D proteins and regulation of cAMP-PDE activities in cultured rat granulosa cells. The results of immunoblot analyses showed that two predominant PDE4D subtypes of approximately 80 and 70 kDa appeared when immature rat granulosa cells were treated with FSH. However, these two new subtypes presumed to be PDE4D proteins were not influenced by treatments of DETA/NO, cGMP and PKB inhibitor, LY294002. Immature rat granulosa cells treated with medium alone displayed low cAMP-PDE activity throughout 48 h of culture while those treated with FSH (2 ng.mL-1) showed a marked increase in cAMP-PDE activity between 6 and 12 h of culture, followed by a decline. The findings from the present study indicate that the increased cAMP-PDE activity by FSH is mainly related to the changes of PDE4D protein levels. However, the inhibitory effects of NO on cAMP accumulation in rat granulosa cells are not via the increased cAMP-PDE activity.     

IL-15 regulates CD8+ T cell contraction during primary infection

During the course of acute infection with an intracellular pathogen, Ag-specific T cells proliferate in the expansion phase, and then most of the T cells die by apoptosis in the following contraction phase, but the few that survive become memory cells and persist for a long period of time. Although IL-15 is known to play an important role in long-term maintenance of memory CD8+ T cells, the potential roles of IL-15 in CD8+ T cell contraction are not known. Using an adoptive transfer system of OT-I cells expressing OVA257-264/Kb-specific TCR into control, IL-15 knockout (KO) and IL-15 transgenic (Tg) mice followed by challenge with recombinant Listeria monocytogenes expressing OVA, we found that the survival of CD44+CD62L-CD127- effector OT-I cells during the contraction phase is critically dependent on IL-15. In correlation with the expression level of Bcl-2 in OT-I cells, the number of OT-I cells was markedly reduced in IL-15 KO mice but remained at a high level in IL-15 Tg mice during the contraction phase, compared with control mice. In vivo administration of rIL-15 during the contraction phase in IL-15 KO mice inhibited the contraction of effector OT-I cells accompanied by up-regulation of Bcl-2 expression. Furthermore, enforced expression of Bcl-2 protected the majority of effector OT-I cells from death in IL-15 KO mice after infection. These results suggest that IL-15 plays a critical role in protecting effector CD8+ T cells from apoptosis during the contraction phase following a microbial infection via inducing antiapoptotic molecules.     

Distribution of CIAPIN1 in normal fetal and adult human tissues.

CIAPIN1, a newly identified antiapoptotic molecule that plays an essential role in mouse definitive hematopoiesis, is considered a downstream effector of the receptor tyrosine kinase-Ras signaling pathway. Our previous studies have indicated that CIAPIN1 is involved in the development of multidrug resistance (MDR) in gastric cancer cells. However, the mechanism of CIAPIN1-mediated antiapoptosis and MDR has not been fully elucidated. To reveal the possible physiological role of CIAPIN1, we examined the expression and distribution of CIAPIN1 in fetal and adult human tissues using immunohistochemistry. We found that CIAPIN1 was ubiquitously distributed in fetal and adult tissues, and was localized in both the cytoplasm and the nucleus. The expression patterns of CIAPIN1 were similar in fetal and adult tissues, and was correlated with the previously described expression pattern of p21ras. These observations suggest that CIAPIN1 expression appears to be involved in cell differentiation, and that it might exert universal and possibly important physiological functions under the regulation of Ras in humans.     

Vitamin C Pretreatment Attenuates Hypoxia-Induced Disturbance of Sodium Currents in Guinea Pig Ventricular Myocytes

As an important in vivo antioxidant, vitamin C is commonly used clinically to alleviate hypoxia-induced heart symptoms. To approach the protective mechanisms of vitamin C on hearts during hypoxia, we investigated the electrophysiological effects of vitamin C (1 mM, pretreated before hypoxia) on Na⁺ currents (including transient and persistent Na⁺ currents) in guinea pig ventricular myocytes during hypoxia by the whole-cell and single-channel patch-clamp techniques. Whole-cell recordings showed that the mean current density of I _NaT in the hypoxia group decreased from the control value of 40.2142 ± 1.7735 to 27.1663 ± 1.8441 pA/pF and current density of I _NaP increased from 0.3987 ± 0.0474 to 1.1854 ± 01994 pA/pF (n = 9, P < 0.05 vs. control) at 15 min. However, when vitamin C was administered before hypoxia as pretreatment, I _NaT and I _NaP varied moderately (mean current density of I _NaT decreasing from 41.6038 ± 2.9762 to 34.6341 ± 1.9651 pA/pF and current density of I _NaP increasing from 0.3843 ± 0.0636 to 0.6734 ± 0.1057 pA/pF; n = 9, P < 0.05 vs. hypoxia group). Single-channel recordings (cell-patched) showed that the mean open probability and open time of I _NaP increased significantly in both groups at hypoxia 15 min. However, the increased current values of the hypoxia group were still marked at hypoxia 15 min (n = 9, P < 0.05 vs. vitamin C + hypoxia group). Our results indicate that vitamin C can attenuate the disturbed effects of hypoxia on Na⁺ currents (I _NaT and I _NaP) of cardiac myocytes in guinea pigs effectively.     

Peptide crosslinked micelles: a new strategy for the design and synthesis of peptide vaccines

This report presents a new and simple methodology for the synthesis of multicomponent peptide vaccines, named the peptide crosslinked micelles (PCMs). The PCMs are core shell micelles designed to deliver peptide antigens and immunostimulatory DNA to antigen-presenting cells (APCs). They are composed of immunostimulatory DNA, peptide antigen, and a thiopyridal derived poly(ethylene glycol)-polylysine block copolymer. The peptide antigen acts as a crosslinker in the PCM strategy, which allows the peptide antigen to be efficiently encapsulated into the PCMs and also stabilizes them against degradation by serum components. Cell culture studies demonstrated that the PCMs greatly enhance the uptake of peptide antigens into human dendritic cells.     

Cyclin-dependent kinase-5 prevents neuronal apoptosis through ERK-mediated upregulation of Bcl-2

Cyclin-dependent kinase-5 (Cdk5) is required for neuronal survival, but its targets in the apoptotic pathways remain unknown. Here, we show that Cdk5 kinase activity prevents neuronal apoptosis through the upregulation of Bcl-2. Treatment of SH-SY5Y cells with retinoid acid (RA) and brain-derived neurotrophic factor (BDNF) generates differentiated neuron-like cells. DNA damage triggers apoptosis in the undifferentiated cells through mitochondrial pathway; however, RA/BDNF treatment results in Bcl-2 upregulation and inhibition of the mitochondrial pathway in the differentiated cells. RA/BDNF treatment activates Cdk5-mediated PI3K/Akt and ERK pathways. Inhibition of Cdk5 inhibits PI3K/Akt and ERK phosphorylation and Bcl-2 expression, and thus sensitizes the differentiated cells to DNA-damage. Inhibition of ERK, but not PI3K/Akt, abrogates Cdk5-medidated Bcl-2 upregulation and the protection of the differentiated cells. This study suggests that ERK-mediated Bcl-2 upregulation contributes to BDNF-induced Cdk5-mediated neuronal survival.     

Gene selection using support vector machines with non-convex penalty

MOTIVATION: With the development of DNA microarray technology, scientists can now measure the expression levels of thousands of genes simultaneously in one single experiment. One current difficulty in interpreting microarray data comes from their innate nature of 'high-dimensional low sample size'. Therefore, robust and accurate gene selection methods are required to identify differentially expressed group of genes across different samples, e.g. between cancerous and normal cells. Successful gene selection will help to classify different cancer types, lead to a better understanding of genetic signatures in cancers and improve treatment strategies. Although gene selection and cancer classification are two closely related problems, most existing approaches handle them separately by selecting genes prior to classification. We provide a unified procedure for simultaneous gene selection and cancer classification, achieving high accuracy in both aspects. RESULTS: In this paper we develop a novel type of regularization in support vector machines (SVMs) to identify important genes for cancer classification. A special nonconvex penalty, called the smoothly clipped absolute deviation penalty, is imposed on the hinge loss function in the SVM. By systematically thresholding small estimates to zeros, the new procedure eliminates redundant genes automatically and yields a compact and accurate classifier. A successive quadratic algorithm is proposed to convert the non-differentiable and non-convex optimization problem into easily solved linear equation systems. The method is applied to two real datasets and has produced very promising results. AVAILABILITY: MATLAB codes are available upon request from the authors.