TAT-凋亡素融合蛋白的表达及其抗肿瘤活性

凋亡素(apoptin)由鸡贫血病毒vp3基因编码,能特异地诱导肿瘤细胞凋亡而对正常细胞 没有毒性,为了获得可转导入细胞内部的凋亡素,将人工合成的编码TAT蛋白转导结构域的DNA片段与凋亡素编码基因克隆入质粒pET-28a内,构建出表达融合蛋白TAT-apoptin的原核表达载体pET-28a-TAT-apoptin.在大肠杆菌Rosetta（DE3）中表达融合蛋白,利用IDA -Ni2+ 亲和柱纯化,葡聚糖凝胶G 25除去尿素后得到可溶的变性蛋白.纯化后的TAT apoptin加入体外培养的人脐静脉内皮细胞(HUVECs)和人肺癌Anip973细胞,对照组加入TAT-麦芽糖结合蛋白（TAT-MBP）. 经免疫组化检测,转导1 h后TAT-MBP分布于以上两种细胞的胞浆和胞核,TAT-apoptin则主要分布于2种细胞的胞浆内,转导24 h后TAT-MBP的亚细胞定位没有变化,TAT-apoptin分别定位于HUVECs的胞浆和Anip973的胞核中.脱氧核糖核苷酸末端转移酶介导的缺口末端标记法（TUNEL）显示转导48 h后,TAT-MBP处理过的 HUVECs和Anip973细胞、TAT-apoptin处理过的HUVECs没有明显改变,而TAT-apoptin处理过的Anip973细胞大量凋亡.以上结果表明TAT apoptin融合蛋白在肿瘤治疗上有潜在的应用价值.     

Non‐dormant Axillary Bud 1 regulates axillary bud outgrowth in sorghum

Tillering contributes to grain yield and plant architecture and therefore is an agronomically important trait in sorghum (Sorghum bicolor). Here, we identified and functionally characterized a mutant of the Non‐dormant Axillary Bud 1 (NAB1) gene from an ethyl methanesulfonate‐mutagenized sorghum population. The nab1 mutants have increased tillering and reduced plant height. Map‐based cloning revealed that NAB1 encodes a carotenoid‐cleavage dioxygenase 7 (CCD7) orthologous to rice (Oryza sativa) HIGH‐TILLERING DWARF1/DWARF17 and Arabidopsis thaliana MORE AXILLARY BRANCHING 3. NAB1 is primarily expressed in axillary nodes and tiller bases and NAB1 localizes to chloroplasts. The nab1 mutation causes outgrowth of basal axillary buds; removing these non‐dormant basal axillary buds restored the wild‐type phenotype. The tillering of nab1 plants was completely suppressed by exogenous application of the synthetic strigolactone analog GR24. Moreover, the nab1 plants had no detectable strigolactones and displayed stronger polar auxin transport than wild‐type plants. Finally, RNA‐seq showed that the expression of genes involved in multiple processes, including auxin‐related genes, was significantly altered in nab1. These results suggest that NAB1 functions in strigolactone biosynthesis and the regulation of shoot branching via an interaction with auxin transport.     

毕氏海蓬子SbDREB基因的克隆与表达分析研究

以毕氏海蓬子的基因组为模板,通过PCR技术扩增到一个编码DREB蛋白AP2保守结构域的基因片段;根据该片段序列设计引物,以毕氏海蓬子经NaCl处理的植株肉质茎cDNA为模板,应用RACE技术获得该基因的cDNA全长,命名为SbDREB(GenBank登录号:JF894301)。SbDREB基因cDNA全长1206bp,包含一个编码284个氨基酸的完整开放阅读框。对氨基酸序列比对分析表明,该蛋白在靠近N端具有典型的AP2/EREBP保守结构域,且该结构域与一些高等植物DREB类转录因子的AP2区域具有高度同源性。进化树分析表明SbDREB属于DREB亚家族中的A-6亚族。实时荧光定量PCR结果显示:干旱、高盐和ABA能够诱导其表达,而低温则使其表达下调,表明该基因在毕氏海蓬子植株对干旱、盐和低温等非生物胁迫的应答中起作用。     

EB病毒潜伏膜蛋白-1介导的信号传导

EB病毒编码LMP-1介导的信号传导途径已引起人们广泛的注意.它涉及TRAF/TRADD途径,AP-1途径,JAK/STAT及其他途径.就此作一综述,有助于人们认识LMP-1的致瘤效应.     

Lipidomic changes during different growth stages of Nitzschia closterium f. minutissima

Ultra Performance Liquid Chromatography-Electrospray ionization-Quadrupole-Time of Flight Mass Spectrometry (UPLC-ESI-Q-TOF–MS) is a powerful lipidomic tool. In this study, we developed a UPLC/Q-TOF–MS based method to investigate the lipid metabolomic changes in different growth phases of Nitzschia closterium f. minutissima. The data classification and biomarker selection were carried out by using multivariate statistical analysis, including principal components analysis (PCA), projection to latent structures with discriminant analysis (PLS-DA), and orthogonal projection to latent structures with discriminant analysis (OPLS-DA). We discovered that the intercellular lipid metabolites were significantly different among exponential, early stationary and late stationary phases. Thirty-one lipid molecules were selected and identified as putative biomarkers, including free fatty acid, Harderoporphyrin, phosphatidylglycerol, 1,2-diacyglycerl-3-O-4′-(N,N-trimethy)-homoserine, triacylglycerol, cholesterol, sulfoquinovosyldiacylglycerol, lyso-sulfoquinovosyldiacylglycerol, monogalactosyldiacylglycerol, digalactosyldiacylglycerol and lyso-digalactosyldiacylglycerol. These lipids have been shown previously to function in energy storage, membrane stability and photosynthesis efficiency during the growth of diatoms. Further analysis on the putative biomarkers demonstrated that nitrate starvation played critical role in the transition from exponential phase to stationary phase in N. closterium. This study is the first one to explore the lipidomic changes of microalgae in different growth phases, which promotes better understanding of their physiology and ecology.     

Metabolic flux analysis of Escherichia coli K12 grown on 13C-labeled acetate and glucose using GC-MS and powerful flux calculation method

A new algorithm was developed for the estimation of the metabolic flux distribution based on GC-MS data of proteinogenic amino acids. By using a sensitive GC-MS protocol as well as by combining the global search algorithm such as the genetic algorithm with the local search algorithm such as the Levenberg-Marquardt algorithm, not only the distribution of the net fluxes in the entire network, but also certain exchange fluxes which contribute significantly to the isotopomer distribution could be quantified. This mass isotopomer analysis could identify the biochemical changes involved in the regulation where acetate or glucose was used as a main carbon source. The metabolic flux analysis clearly revealed that when the specific growth rate increased, only a slight change in flux distribution was observed for acetate metabolism, indicating that subtle regulation mechanism exists in certain key junctions of this network system. Different from acetate metabolism, when glucose was used as a carbon source, as the growth rate increased, a significant increase in relative pentose phosphate pathway (PPP) flux was observed for Escherichia coli K12 at the expense of the citric acid cycle, suggesting that when growing on glucose, the flux catalyzed by isocitrate dehydrogenase could not fully fulfill the NADPH demand for cell growth, causing the oxidative PPP to be utilized to a larger extent so as to complement the NADPH demand. The GC-MS protocol as well as the new algorithm demonstrated here proved to be a powerful tool for characterizing metabolic regulation and can be utilized for strain improvement and bioprocess optimization.     

New mechanism of nerve injury in Alzheimer’s disease: β‐amyloid‐induced neuronal pyroptosis

The present study was designed to investigate the role of β‐amyloid (Aβ_1‐42) in inducing neuronal pyroptosis and its mechanism. Mice cortical neurons (MCNs) were used in this study, LPS + Nigericin was used to induce pyroptosis in MCNs (positive control group), and Aβ_1‐42 was used to interfere with MCNs. In addition, propidium iodide (PI) staining was used to examine cell permeability, lactate dehydrogenase (LDH) release assay was employed to detect cytotoxicity, immunofluorescence (IF) staining was used to investigate the expression level of the key protein GSDMD, Western blot was performed to detect the expression levels of key proteins, and enzyme‐linked immunosorbent assay (ELISA) was utilized to determine the expression levels of inflammatory factors in culture medium, including IL‐1β, IL‐18 and TNF‐α. Small interfering RNA (siRNA) was used to silence the mRNA expression of caspase‐1 and GSDMD, and Aβ_1‐42 was used to induce pyroptosis, followed by investigation of the role of caspase‐1‐mediated GSDMD cleavage in pyroptosis. In addition, necrosulfonamide (NSA), an inhibitor of GSDMD oligomerization, was used for pre‐treatment, and Aβ_1‐42 was subsequently used to observe the pyroptosis in MCNs. Finally, AAV9‐siRNA‐caspase‐1 was injected into the tail vein of APP/PS1 double transgenic mice (Alzheimer's disease mice) for caspase‐1 mRNA inhibition, followed by observation of behavioural changes in mice and measurement of the expression of inflammatory factors and pyroptosis‐related protein. As results, Aβ_1‐42 could induce pyroptosis in MCNs, increase cell permeability and enhance LDH release, which were similar to the LPS + Nigericin‐induced pyroptosis. Meanwhile, the expression levels of cellular GSDMD and p30‐GSDMD were up‐regulated, the levels of NLRP3 inflammasome and GSDMD‐cleaved protein caspase‐1 were up‐regulated, and the levels of inflammatory factors in the medium were also up‐regulated. siRNA intervention in caspase‐1 or GSDMD inhibited Aβ_1‐42‐induced pyroptosis, and NSA pre‐treatment also caused the similar inhibitory effects. The behavioural ability of Alzheimer's disease (AD) mice was relieved after the injection of AAV9‐siRNA‐caspase‐1, and the expression of pyroptosis‐related protein in the cortex and hippocampus was down‐regulated. In conclusion, Aβ_1‐42 could induce pyroptosis by GSDMD protein, and NLRP3‐caspase‐1 signalling was an important signal to mediate GSDMD cleavage, which plays an important role in Aβ_1‐42‐induced pyroptosis in neurons. Therefore, GSDMD is expected to be a novel therapeutic target for AD.     

Screening of lipid high producing mutant from rhodotorula glutinis by low ion implantation and study on optimization of fermentation medium

In order to obtain lipid producing strain with high-yield, the wild type stain Rhodotorula glutinis was treated by low ion implantation, and optimization of fermentation medium for higher lipid yield was carried out using mutant strain. It was found that the strain had a higher positive mutation rate when the output power was 10 keV and the dose of N⁺ implantation was 80 × 2.6 × 10¹³ ions/cm². Then a high-yield mutant strain D30 was obtained through cid-heating coupling ultrasonic method and lipid yield was 3.10 g/L. Additionally, the surface response method was used to optimize fermentation medium. The three significant factors (glucose, peptone, KH₂PO₄) were optimized using response surface methodology (RSM), and the optimized parameters of fermentation medium were as follows: glucose 73.40 g/L, peptone 1.06 g/L and KH₂PO₄ 3.56 g/L. Finally the fermentation characteristic of high-yield mutation strain D30 was studied, when fermentation time was 10 days, which lipid yield increased to 7.81 g/L. Fatty acid composition of the lipid was determined by GC, and the most represented fatty acids of mutant D30 were C16:0 (11.4 %), C16:1 (5.66 %), C18:1 (49.3 %), and C18:2 (27.0 %).     

Aptamer selection for the detection of Escherichia coli K88

In this study, the first group of single-stranded DNA aptamers that are highly specific to enterotoxigenic Escherichia coli (ETEC) K88 was obtained from an enriched oligonucleotide pool by the SELEX (Systematic Evolution of Ligands by Exponential Enrichment) procedure, during which the K88 fimbriae protein was used as the target and bovine serum albumin as counter targets. These aptamers were applied successfully in the detection of ETEC K88. They were then grouped under different families based on the similarity of their secondary structure and the homology of their primary sequence. Four sequences from different families were deliberately chosen for further characterization by fluorescence analysis. Having the advantage of high sensitivity, fluorescence photometry was selected as single-stranded DNA quantification method during the SELEX process. Aptamers with the highest specificity and affinity were analyzed to evaluate binding ability with E. coli. Since ETEC K88 is the only type of bacterium that expressed abundant K88 fimbriae, the selected aptamers against the K88 fimbriae protein were able to specifically identify ETEC K88 among other bacteria. This method of detecting ETEC K88 by aptamers can also be applied to bacteria other than ETEC K88.     

福建南亚热带雨林封禁30年的群落特征

福建南靖县和溪南亚热带雨林,是我国南亚热带东段境内目前保存较完整的地带性植被类型之一,是福建南亚热带的代表植被［１,２］,于１９６２年起由国家对其作永久性封禁,今为福建省自然保护区。现将该群落特征作定量分析,并与１９６５年的群落特征［３］进行全面比较...