Calpain activation mediates microgravity-induced myocardial abnormalities in mice via p38 and ERK1/2 MAPK pathways

The human cardiovascular system has adapted to function optimally in Earth''s 1G gravity, and microgravity conditions cause myocardial abnormalities, including atrophy and dysfunction. However, the underlying mechanisms linking microgravity and cardiac anomalies are incompletely understood. In this study, we investigated whether and how calpain activation promotes myocardial abnormalities under simulated microgravity conditions. Simulated microgravity was induced by tail suspension in mice with cardiomyocyte-specific deletion of Capns1, which disrupts activity and stability of calpain-1 and calpain-2, and their WT littermates. Tail suspension time-dependently reduced cardiomyocyte size, heart weight, and myocardial function in WT mice, and these changes were accompanied by calpain activation, NADPH oxidase activation, and oxidative stress in heart tissues. The effects of tail suspension were attenuated by deletion of Capns1. Notably, the protective effects of Capns1 deletion were associated with the prevention of phosphorylation of Ser-345 on p47^phox and attenuation of ERK1/2 and p38 activation in hearts of tail-suspended mice. Using a rotary cell culture system, we simulated microgravity in cultured neonatal mouse cardiomyocytes and observed decreased total protein/DNA ratio and induced calpain activation, phosphorylation of Ser-345 on p47^phox, and activation of ERK1/2 and p38, all of which were prevented by calpain inhibitor-III. Furthermore, inhibition of ERK1/2 or p38 attenuated phosphorylation of Ser-345 on p47^phox in cardiomyocytes under simulated microgravity. This study demonstrates for the first time that calpain promotes NADPH oxidase activation and myocardial abnormalities under microgravity by facilitating p47^phox phosphorylation via ERK1/2 and p38 pathways. Thus, calpain inhibition may be an effective therapeutic approach to reduce microgravity-induced myocardial abnormalities.     

生物基分子介导纳米金属材料的制备及其应用

纳米金属材料具有纳米晶强化效应、光吸收率大、较高的表面能和单磁畴性能等优点,因其在医药、化学催化、抗菌抑毒等方面发挥着越来越重要的作用而受到人们广泛关注.近年来,随着全球石化资源消耗与曰俱增,环境污染加剧,基于可再生资源的生物基分子介导纳米材料的制备研究方兴未艾.生物基分子是指直接或间接来源于生物质的小分子或大分子物质...     

斜纹拟木蠹蛾在广州发生的生物学特征

本文报道了斜纹拟木蠹蛾Indarbela obliquifasciata在广州的发生和为害特征,对其形态和生物学特征做了阐述,表明该虫在广州一年发生一代,其取食寄主达18种,但主要寄主植物为羊蹄甲,其幼虫共6龄并以幼虫越冬。并对该虫的防治提出了建议。     

基于转录组测序的Cd胁迫下芹菜细胞自噬相关基因的筛选

细胞自噬是植物逆境应答过程中最常见的保护机制之一。动物中,自噬相关基因抵御镉(Cd)毒害的功能研究较清楚,但植物却知之甚少。文中以芹菜品种‘皇后’为试材,采用外源Cd(终浓度为0、2、4、8mg/L)添加营养液水培处理,利用转录组测序(RNA-seq)技术筛选细胞自噬相关差异基因并进行q RT-PCR验证。结果表明Cd胁迫对芹菜植株产生了明显的毒害作用,并与浓度间产生了量效关系。在筛选的8个差异表达的自噬相关基因中,ATG8a、ATG8f、ATG13、AMPK-1、AMPK-2基因随Cd浓度升高表达上调,ATG12、VPS30和VPS34则先上调后下降,说明自噬相关基因可能通过表达上调增加了自噬小体结构以抵御Cd毒性作用;而高浓度Cd(8mg/L)可能超出芹菜的耐受范围,导致多个自噬基因又出现表达下调趋势。以上结果有助于后期自噬相关基因的功能研究,为进一步探讨芹菜对Cd胁迫的耐性机制提供参考依据。     

PSMD: An extensive database for pan‐species microsatellite investigation and marker development

Microsatellites are widely distributed throughout nearly all genomes which have been extensively exploited as powerful genetic markers for diverse applications due to their high polymorphisms. Their length variations are involved in gene regulation and implicated in numerous genetic diseases even in cancers. Although much effort has been devoted in microsatellite database construction, the existing microsatellite databases still had some drawbacks, such as limited number of species, unfriendly export format, missing marker development, lack of compound microsatellites and absence of gene annotation, which seriously restricted researchers to perform downstream analysis. In order to overcome the above limitations, we developed PSMD (Pan‐Species Microsatellite Database, http://big.cdu.edu.cn/psmd/ ) as a web‐based database to facilitate researchers to easily identify microsatellites, exploit reliable molecular markers and compare microsatellite distribution pattern on genome‐wide scale. In current release, PSMD comprises 678,106,741 perfect microsatellites and 43,848,943 compound microsatellites from 18,408 organisms, which covered almost all species with available genomic data. In addition to interactive browse interface, PSMD also offers a flexible filter function for users to quickly gain desired microsatellites from large data sets. PSMD allows users to export GFF3 formatted file and CSV formatted statistical file for downstream analysis. We also implemented an online tool for analysing occurrence of microsatellites with user‐defined parameters. Furthermore, Primer3 was embedded to help users to design high‐quality primers with customizable settings. To our knowledge, PSMD is the most extensive resource which is likely to be adopted by scientists engaged in biological, medical, environmental and agricultural research.     

Manipulation of host ecdysteroid hormone levels facilitates infection by the fungal insect pathogen,Metarhizium rileyi

Entomopathogenic fungi such as Metarhizium rileyi and Beauveria bassiana are widely used insect biological control agents. Little, however, is known concerning genetic or enzymatic factors that differentiate the mechanisms employed by these two fungal pathogens to infect target hosts. Infection by either of these organisms is known to increase levels of the growth and molting hormone, ecdysone, which also regulates the expression of a number of innate immune pathways. M. rileyi, but not B. bassiana, has apparently evolved an ecdysteroid-22-oxidase (MrE22O) that inactivate ecdysone. We show that deletion of MrE22O impaired virulence compared with the wild-type strain, with an increase in ecdysone titer seen in hosts that was coupled to an increase in the expression of antimicrobial genes. An M. rileyi strain engineered to overexpress MrE22O (MrE22O^OE), as well as trans-expression in B. bassiana (Bb::MrE220^OE) resulted, in strains displaying enhanced virulence and dampening of host immune responses compared with their respective wild-type parental strains. These results indicate that ecdysone plays an important role in mediating responses to fungal infection and that some insect pathogenic fungi have evolved mechanisms for targeting this hormone as a means for facilitating infection.     

Down-regulated LINC00115 inhibits prostate cancer cell proliferation and invasion via targeting miR-212-5p/FZD5/Wnt/β-catenin axis

Prostate cancer is the second most frequent malignancy in men worldwide, and its incidence is increasing. Therefore, it is urgently required to clarify the underlying mechanisms of prostate cancer. Although the long non-coding RNA LINC00115 was identified as an oncogene in several cancers, the expression and function of LINC00115 in prostate cancer have not been explored. Our results showed that LINC00115 was significantly up-regulated in prostate cancer tissues, which was significantly associated with a poor prognosis for prostate cancer patients. Functional studies showed that knockdown LINC00115 inhibited cell proliferation and invasion. In addition, LINC00115 served as a competing endogenous RNA (ceRNA) through sponging miR-212-5p to release Frizzled Family Receptor 5 (FZD5) expression. The expression of miR-212-5p was noticeably low in tumour tissues, and FZD5 expression level was down-regulated with the knockdown of LINC00115. Knockdown LINC00115 inhibited the Wnt/β‑catenin signalling pathway by inhibiting the expression of FZD5. Rescue experiments further showed that LINC00115 inhibits prostate cancer cell proliferation and invasion via targeting miR-212-5p/ FZD5/ Wnt/β-catenin axis. The present study provided clues that LINC00115 may be a promising novel therapeutic target for prostate cancer patients.     

单纯疱疹病毒2型潜伏相关转录体ORF1的表达及其抗凋亡作用

旨在研究单纯疱疹病毒2型潜伏相关转录体 (LAT) 开放读码框1 (ORF1) 对放线菌素D诱导的凋亡作用的影响。以HSV-2 333基因组为模板PCR扩增ORF1片段,构建重组质粒pEGFP-ORF1,转染Vero细胞,RT-PCR鉴定ORF1的表达。放线菌素D诱导Vero细胞凋亡,通过荧光显微镜观察凋亡小体,Hochest33258荧光染色观察细胞形态变化,MTT检测细胞活性,流式细胞术检测细胞凋亡率。双酶切和测序确认pEGFP-ORF1构建成功,RT-PCR表明该真核表达载体能在Vero细胞中高效表达。转染了pEGFP-ORF1的Vero细胞经放线菌素D凋亡诱导后,Hochest33258染色显示细胞形态正常。MTT结果表明转染了重组质粒pEGFP-ORF1的Vero细胞经放线菌素D凋亡诱导后Vero细胞活性与未经任何处理的正常对照组相比,无显著差异 (P＞0.05),但高于放线菌素D诱导凋亡的Vero细胞组及与转染空质粒pEGFP-C2且放线菌素D诱导凋亡的Vero细胞组,差异具有统计学意义 (P＜0.05)。流式结果表明,转染重组质粒pEGFP-ORF1且经放线菌素D诱导凋亡组与正常对照组凋亡率差异不显著 (P＞0.05),而显著低于放线菌素D诱导凋亡组和转染空质粒pEGFP-C2且经放线菌素D诱导凋亡组 (P＜0.05)。HSV-2 LAT ORF1具有抗放线菌素D诱导的Vero细胞的凋亡作用。     

Reprogramming of sugar transport pathways in Escherichia coli using a permeabilized SecY protein-translocation channel

In the initial step of sugar metabolism, sugar-specific transporters play a decisive role in the passage of sugars through plasma membranes into cytoplasm. The SecY complex (SecYEG) in bacteria forms a membrane channel responsible for protein translocation. The present work shows that permeabilized SecY channels can be used as nonspecific sugar transporters in Escherichia coli. SecY with the plug domain deleted allowed the passage of glucose, fructose, mannose, xylose, and arabinose, and, with additional pore-ring mutations, facilitated lactose transport, indicating that sugar passage via permeabilized SecY was independent of sugar stereospecificity. The engineered E. coli showed rapid growth on a wide spectrum of monosaccharides and benefited from the elimination of transport saturation, improvement in sugar tolerance, reduction in competitive inhibition, and prevention of carbon catabolite repression, which are usually encountered with native sugar uptake systems. The SecY channel is widespread in prokaryotes, so other bacteria may also be engineered to utilize this system for sugar uptake. The SecY channel thus provides a unique sugar passageway for future development of robust cell factories for biotechnological applications.     

Deficiency of Macf1 in osterix expressing cells decreases bone formation by Bmp2/Smad/Runx2 pathway

Microtubule actin cross‐linking factor 1 (Macf1) is a spectraplakin family member known to regulate cytoskeletal dynamics, cell migration, neuronal growth and cell signal transduction. We previously demonstrated that knockdown of Macf1 inhibited the differentiation of MC3T3‐E1 cell line. However, whether Macf1 could regulate bone formation in vivo is unclear. To study the function and mechanism of Macf1 in bone formation and osteogenic differentiation, we established osteoblast‐specific Osterix (Osx) promoter‐driven Macf1 conditional knockout mice (Macf1^f/fOsx‐Cre). The Macf1^f/fOsx‐Cre mice displayed delayed ossification and decreased bone mass. Morphological and mechanical studies showed deteriorated trabecular microarchitecture and impaired biomechanical strength of femur in Macf1^f/fOsx‐Cre mice. In addition, the differentiation of primary osteoblasts isolated from calvaria was inhibited in Macf1^f/fOsx‐Cre mice. Deficiency of Macf1 in primary osteoblasts inhibited the expression of osteogenic marker genes (Col1, Runx2 and Alp) and the number of mineralized nodules. Furthermore, deficiency of Macf1 attenuated Bmp2/Smad/Runx2 signalling in primary osteoblasts of Macf1^f/fOsx‐Cre mice. Together, these results indicated that Macf1 plays a significant role in bone formation and osteoblast differentiation by regulating Bmp2/Smad/Runx2 pathway, suggesting that Macf1 might be a therapeutic target for bone disease.