Isethionate and taurine transport sites at brain cell membranes: Influx studies with brain slices

The influx of [¹⁴C]isethionate (ISA) into rat brain slices was studied with and without taurine. This influx was relatively rapid, but took place largely by a non-saturable, passive mechanism, which transferred much less ISA into the brain cells than taurine. Taurine inhibited the influx of ISA competitively (K _m=50 and 100 mol/l) at low ISA concentrations, and ISA that of taurine non-competitively (V=200 and 400–700 mol×min^–1×kg^–1 wet weight) at high taurine concentrations. It thus appears that ISA and taurine may have a small number of common transport sites at brain cell membranes, but these are apparently of little significance for the total transport of ISA.     

High Sensitive Detection of Carbohydrate Binding Proteins in an ELISA-Solid Phase Assay Based on Multivalent Glyconanoparticles

Improved detection of anti-carbohydrate antibodies is a need in clinical identification of biomarkers for cancer cells or pathogens. Here, we report a new ELISA approach for the detection of specific immunoglobulins (IgGs) against carbohydrates. Two nanometer gold glyconanoparticles bearing oligosaccharide epitopes of HIV or Streptococcus pneumoniae were used as antigens to coat ELISA-plates. A ~3,000-fold improved detection of specific IgGs in mice immunized against S. pneumoniae respect to the well known BSA-glycoconjugate ELISA was achieved. Moreover, these multivalent glyconanoparticles have been employed in solid phase assays to detect the carbohydrate-dependent binding of human dendritic cells and the lectin DC-SIGN. Multivalent glyconanoparticles in ELISA provide a versatile, easy and highly sensitive method to detect and quantify the binding of glycan to proteins and to facilitate the identification of biomarkers.     

Galectin-4 Reduces Migration and Metastasis Formation of Pancreatic Cancer Cells

Galectin-4 (Gal-4) is a member of the galectin family of glycan binding proteins that shows a significantly higher expression in cystic tumors of the human pancreas and in pancreatic adenocarcinomas compared to normal pancreas. However, the putative function of Gal-4 in tumor progression of pancreatic cancer is still incompletely understood. In this study the role of Gal-4 in cancer progression was investigated, using a set of defined pancreatic cancer cell lines, Pa-Tu-8988S (PaTu-S) and Pa-Tu-8988T (PaTu-T), as a model. These two cell lines are derived from the same liver metastasis of a human primary pancreatic adenocarcinoma, but differ in their growth characteristics and metastatic capacity. We demonstrated that Gal-4 expression is high in PaTu-S, which shows poor migratory properties, whereas much lower Gal-4 levels are observed in the highly metastatic cell line PaTu-T. In PaTu-S, Gal-4 is found in the cytoplasm, but it is also secreted and accumulates at the membrane at sites of contact with neighboring cells. Moreover, we show that Gal-4 inhibits metastasis formation by delaying migration of pancreatic cancer cells in vitro using a scratch assay, and in vivo using zebrafish (Danio rerio) as an experimental model. Our data suggest that Gal-4 may act at the cell-surface of PaTu-S as an adhesion molecule to prevent release of the tumor cells, but has in addition a cytosolic function by inhibiting migration via a yet unknown mechanism.     

Reduced Serum Selenium Concentration in Miscarriage Incidence of Indonesian Subjects

Selenium is an essential nutrient for human health, and maternal selenium concentration has been reported to be associated with pregnancy outcome. To further investigate the possible role of selenium (Se) in miscarriage, we conducted a case–control study to evaluate the correlations among selenium status, glutathione peroxidase activity, and spontaneous abortion. A total of 46 subjects with normal pregnancies and 25 subjects with spontaneous abortion were recruited, and their serum selenium concentrations and serum glutathione peroxidase activities were analyzed. The total serum selenium concentrations in subjects with normal pregnancies were significantly higher than those of subjects with spontaneous abortion; however, the glutathione peroxidase activities were similar in both groups. We further separated the subjects into smoking and nonsmoking groups, and the logistic regression analysis suggested that total serum selenium concentration, but not serum glutathione peroxidase activity or smoking, was significantly correlated with the incidence of miscarriage. The present study thus reaffirms that low serum selenium levels are associated with miscarriage and that selenium plays an important role in pregnancy maintenance.     

Marine Actinobacteria from the Gulf of California: diversity, abundance and secondary metabolite biosynthetic potential

The Gulf of California is a coastal marine ecosystem characterized as having abundant biological resources and a high level of endemism. In this work we report the isolation and characterization of Actinobacteria from different sites in the western Gulf of California. We collected 126 sediment samples and isolated on average 3.1–38.3 Actinobacterial strains from each sample. Phylogenetic analysis of 136 strains identified them as members of the genera Actinomadura, Micromonospora, Nocardiopsis, Nonomuraea, Saccharomonospora, Salinispora, Streptomyces and Verrucosispora. These strains were grouped into 26–56 operational taxonomic units (OTUs) based on 16S rRNA gene sequence identities of 98–100 %. At 98 % sequence identity, three OTUs appear to represent new taxa while nine (35 %) have only been reported from marine environments. Sixty-three strains required seawater for growth. These fell into two OTUs at the 98 % identity level and include one that failed to produce aerial hyphae and was only distantly related (≤95.5 % 16S identity) to any previously cultured Streptomyces sp. Phylogenetic analyses of ketosynthase domains associated with polyketide synthase genes revealed sequences that ranged from 55 to 99 % nucleotide identity to experimentally characterized biosynthetic pathways suggesting that some may be associated with the production of new secondary metabolites. These results indicate that marine sediments from the Gulf of California harbor diverse Actinobacterial taxa with the potential to produce new secondary metabolites.