The Drosophila caspase Ice is important for many apoptotic cell deaths and for spermatid individualization, a nonapoptotic process

Caspase family proteases play important roles in the regulation of apoptotic cell death. Initiator caspases are activated in response to death stimuli, and they transduce and amplify these signals by cleaving and thereby activating effector caspases. In Drosophila, the initiator caspase Nc (previously Dronc) cleaves and activates two short-prodomain caspases, Dcp-1 and Ice (previously Drice), suggesting these as candidate effectors of Nc killing activity. dcp-1-null mutants are healthy and possess few defects in normally occurring cell death. To explore roles for Ice in cell death, we generated and characterized an Ice null mutant. Animals lacking Ice show a number of defects in cell death, including those that occur during embryonic development, as well as during formation of adult eyes, arista and wings. Ice mutants exhibit subtle defects in the destruction of larval tissues, and do not prevent destruction of salivary glands during metamorphosis. Cells from Ice animals are also markedly resistant to several stresses, including X-irradiation and inhibition of protein synthesis. Mutations in Ice also suppress cell death that is induced by expression of Rpr, Wrinkled (previously Hid) and Grim. These observations demonstrate that Ice plays an important non-redundant role as a cell death effector. Finally, we demonstrate that Ice participates in, but is not absolutely required for, the non-apoptotic process of spermatid differentiation.     

艾滋病病毒蛋白酶高效表达载体及体外活性检测系统的构建

艾滋病是本世纪80年代初发现的一种烈性传染病,5年病死率为100％,致病因子为人免疫缺陷病毒,该病毒的蛋白酶在病毒复制和成熟中具有决定性的意义。由于目前国内外尚未获得艾滋病病毒蛋白酶的高效表达的重组子及活性检测系统,限制了它的研究与应用。本文利用PCR技术修饰了艾滋病病毒蛋白酶的基因,使其具有便于克隆及表达用的限制酶切位点及转录终止码,井在其C末端设置了一个可用于检验该酶活性的特殊序列。DNA序列分析揭示上述突变策略成功,将修饰后的艾滋病病毒蛋白酶基因克隆入大肠杆菌表达系统,并获得高效表达(>30％),Western-Bolt鉴定结果表明所表达的蛋白为艾滋病病毒所特有,并具有较好的生物活性。     

Mining gene expression data for positive and negative co-regulated gene clusters

MOTIVATION: Analysis of gene expression data can provide insights into the positive and negative co-regulation of genes. However, existing methods such as association rule mining are computationally expensive and the quality and quantities of the rules are sensitive to the support and confidence values. In this paper, we introduce the concept of positive and negative co-regulated gene cluster (PNCGC) that more accurately reflects the co-regulation of genes, and propose an efficient algorithm to extract PNCGCs. RESULTS: We experimented with the Yeast dataset and compared our resulting PNCGCs with the association rules generated by the Apriori mining algorithm. Our results show that our PNCGCs identify some missing co-regulations of association rules, and our algorithm greatly reduces the large number of rules involving uncorrelated genes generated by the Apriori scheme. AVAILABILITY: The software is available upon request.     

Effect of amino acids on cryopreservation of cynomolgus monkey (Macaca fascicularis) sperm

The effects of three amino acids (proline, glutamine, and glycine) added to the freezing medium Tes-Tris-egg yolk (TTE) for cryopreservation of cynomolgus monkey (Macaca fascicularis) spermatozoa were studied. This is the first report on the effects of amino acids on nonhuman primate sperm cryopreservation. The addition of 5mM proline, 10mM glutamine, and 10 or 20mM glycine each significantly improved post-thaw sperm motility and membrane and acrosome integrity compared with the control (TTE alone). However, a significant decrease in motility and membrane/acrosome integrity was observed when amino acid concentrations increased to 60mM for proline and glutamine, and 80 mM for glycine. The results suggest that adding a limited amount of amino acids to the freezing media is beneficial for freezing cynomolgus monkey sperm.     

东北山地水生鞘翅目昆虫多样性的比较研究

调查了东北长白山自然保护区及辽宁省医巫闾山两地静水水体中水生甲虫．结果表明,长白山阔叶红松林生态系统水生甲虫比辽宁医巫闾山农林复合生态系统水生甲虫物种丰富的多．长白山水生甲虫共有１７个属２９个种,而辽宁医巫闾山水生甲虫只有１０个属１３个种．两地水生甲虫Ｓｈａｎｎｏｎ多样性指数分别为２．１２４、１．６４３,Ｓｈａｎｎｏｎ均匀度分别为１．２６０、０．６４１,两种不同生态系统中的水生甲虫物种多度分布较好地拟合于对数级数模型,均以少数物种为优势种,其中长白山自然保护区水生甲虫以Ｈｙｄｒｏｇｌｙｐｈｕｓｊａｐｏｎｉｃｕｓ、Ｈａｌｉｐｌｕｓｓｉｍｐｌｅｘ为优势种,辽宁医巫闾山水生甲虫则以Ｈｙｄｒｏｇｌｙｐｈｕｓｐｕｓｉｌｕｓ、Ａｇａｂｕｓｕｓｕｒｉｅｎｓｉｓ、Ａｇａｂｕｓｂｒａｎｄｔｉ占优势．     

明永冰川垂直气候带中可培养低温细菌多样性分析

本研究对位于云南滇西北的明永冰川地区暖温带、中温带和寒温带三个不同垂直气候带中可培养低温细菌的多样性进行了研究。利用四种不同培养基对该地区可培养低温细菌进行了分离纯化,共得到细菌37 513株,根据菌落形态特征分为了391种,其中LB培养基分离到99种,Organic培养基分离到78种,PSG培养基分离到96种,PYGV培养基分离得到118种,可以看出寡营养培养基PYGV分离得到的细菌种类多于LB和Organnic等富营养培养基,表明PYGV针对冰川地区细菌的分离与鉴定更为合适;通过革兰氏染色和扫描电镜观察表明大部分菌株为革兰阴性杆菌;对已分离得到的优势菌进行了16S rRNA基因测序并构建系统发育树,分析得出:假单胞菌属(Pseudomonas)、耶尔森氏菌属(Yersinia)和黄杆菌属(Flavobacterium)在明永冰川不同垂直气候带上均有分布,其中假单胞菌属最多占据35%;而寡养单胞菌属(Stenotrophomonas)是寒温带上特有的菌属。本研究证明明永冰川地区垂直气候带中可培养低温细菌多样性非常丰富,也为下一步了解这一特殊地理生态环境下微生物的群落演替规律、研究冰川环境中微生物群落如何响应气候变化提供了参考。     

Mycobacterium kansasii-induced death of murine macrophages involves endoplasmic reticulum stress responses mediated by reactive oxygen species generation or calpain activation

Although pathogenic mechanisms of tuberculosis have been extensively studied, little is known about the pathogenic mechanisms of Mycobacterium kansasii. In this work the influence of virulence and ER-stress mediated apoptosis of macrophages during two different strains of M. kansasii infection was investigated. We show that M. kansasii infection is associated with ER stress-mediated apoptosis in the murine macrophage cell line RAW 264.7. Infection of RAW 264.7 cells in vitro with apoptosis-inducing a clinical isolate of M. kansasii SM-1 (SM-1) resulted in strong induction of ER stress responses compared with M. kansasii type strain (ATCC 12478)-infected RAW 264.7 cells. Interestingly, inhibition of calpain prevented the induction of CHOP and Bip in ATCC 12478-infected RAW 264.7 cells but not in RAW 264.7 cells infected with SM-1. In contrast, reactive oxygen species (ROS) were significantly increased only in RAW 264.7 cells infected with SM-1. We propose that ROS generation is important for triggering ER stress-mediated apoptosis during SM-1 infection, whereas ATCC 12478-induced, ER stress-mediated apoptosis is associated with calpain activation. Our results demonstrate that the ER stress pathway plays important roles in the pathogenesis of M. kansasii infections, and that different strains of M. kansasii induce different patterns of ER stress-mediated apoptosis.     

基于同源重组的裂殖壶菌遗传转化体系的构建及验证

【目的】裂殖壶菌是一种能高效生产DHA的海洋真菌;基因工程技术已经成功应用在微生物改造和代谢机理研究中,利用基因工程技术对裂殖壶菌进行改造首先需要构建适合裂殖壶菌的遗传转化体系;【方法】本文利用电转化的方法将含有18S r DNA同源重组片段的ble基因导入裂殖壶菌中,通过zeocin抗性平板筛选出阳性菌株,并设计ble基因引物,以裂殖壶菌基因组为模板,进行PCR验证ble基因是否成功结合到裂殖壶菌染色体上。【结果】筛选获得的抗性菌株基因组上确实PCR出ble基因片段,对改造菌株与原始菌株进行发酵培养,发现改造后菌株在生物量、油脂含量、DHA含量及脂肪酸分布等方面和原始菌株基本一致。【结论】抗性基因的插入不会影响菌株的正常代谢,该体系的构建为后续其他外源基因导入奠定基础。     

登革病毒血清型特异单克隆抗体的制备和鉴定

登革病毒 (Dengue virus,DENV) 是全球传播最为广泛的虫媒病毒,由于缺乏快速鉴别感染病毒血清型的诊断技术,导致异型交叉感染引起重症登革出血热病例居高不下。为实现免疫学方法快速鉴别诊断不同血清型DENV感染,本研究采用哺乳动物细胞293T表达并纯化了4种DENV血清型NS1蛋白,免疫小鼠后通过杂交瘤技术制备了针对NS1蛋白的单克隆抗体。利用酶联免疫吸附方法 (Enzyme-linked immunosorbent assay,ELISA)、间接免疫荧光法 (Indirect immunofluorescence assay,IFA)、免疫斑点杂交试验 (Dot blotting) 以及蛋白质免疫印迹试验 (Western blotting) 确认所制备的单克隆抗体能够有效识别天然病毒NS1以及重组NS1蛋白。获得的单克隆抗体包含2株可识别1–4型DENV NS1蛋白的通用型抗体及3株分别针对DENV-1、DENV-2和DENV-4的血清型特异抗体。以所制备的DENV NS1抗体为基础,采用双抗体夹心ELISA可快速鉴别不同血清型DENV。DENV血清型特异单克隆抗体的制备和甄别DENV血清型ELISA方法的建立为快速鉴别感染DENV血清型的临床诊断奠定了基础。