Anti-HIF-1α-pEGFP重组质粒的构建及表达

目的构建EGFP-HIF-1α反义重组质粒,转染人宫颈癌Hela细胞,用以探讨HIF-1α蛋白在宫颈癌的生长、转移中的作用。方法应用基因重组技术构建EGFP-HIF-1α反义重组质粒,通过脂质体介导将其转染入Hela细胞,倒置荧光显微镜观察转染效果,Western blot检测HIF-1α蛋白的表达。结果酶切鉴定结果显示含EGFP-HIF-1α反义重组质粒构建成功,并能在Hela细胞中封闭HIF-1α蛋白的表达。结果 EGFP-HIF-1α反义重组质粒构建及转染成功,封闭Hela细胞中HIF-1α蛋白的表达,为进一步研究HIF-1α蛋白在宫颈癌的生长、转移中的作用提供试验基础。     

脂氧素A_4对大鼠急性肝衰竭的保护作用

目的观察脂氧素A4(LXA4)对大鼠急性肝衰竭的保护作用并初步探讨其机制。方法采用D-氨基半乳糖(D-GalN)+脂多糖(LPS)建立大鼠急性肝衰竭动物模型。30只大鼠随机分为四组:正常组、模型组、脂氧素组、四氢化吡咯二硫代氨基甲酸酯(PDTC)组。肝组织病理切片观察肝组织损伤情况;自动生化仪检测肝功能;ELISA法检测血清TNF-α及IL-6水平;免疫组化法检测肝组织核因子κB(NF-κB)表达。结果大鼠急性肝衰竭时,肝组织炎症坏死明显,肝脏转氨酶明显升高,血清IL-6及TNF-α水平显著升高,肝组织NF-κB表达明显增强;脂氧素组及PDTC组组织学改变均明显好转,肝脏转氨酶、细胞因子及NF-κB表达明显下降(与模型组比较,P0.01,);脂氧素组及PDTC组比较,上述指标之间P0.01。结论 LXA4对大鼠急性肝衰竭有明显的保护作用,这种保护作用部分是通过阻断肝组织NF-κB活化,减少促炎细胞因子的释放来实现的。     

北细辛内生真菌的分离鉴定及代谢产物的生物活性

采用表面消毒法分别从3种北细辛中分离获得10株形态特征不同的优势内生真菌,经形态学和18S rDNA ITS分子分类学分析鉴定为小丛壳属(Glomerella sp.)、叶点霉属(Phyllosticta sp.)、柄孢壳菌属(Po-dospora sp.)、刺盘孢属(Colletotrichum sp.)和镰孢属(Fusarium sp.)。对北细辛优势内生真菌的发酵产物进行体外抗肿瘤和抗菌活性检测,结果表明:除菌株E3、E4和E10外,其余菌株均有不同程度的抗肿瘤和抗菌活性;镰孢属(Fusarium sp.)菌株E9对A549、MDA-MB-231和PANC-1肿瘤细胞抑制率达75%以上;小丛壳属(Glomerella sp.)菌株E1和叶点霉属(Phyllosticta sp.)菌株E2靶向FabI的抗菌活性较强,抑制率达59%。     

南京紫金山风景区紫堇属观赏植物调查及开发应用前景

通过对南京紫金山紫堇属野生观赏植物资源现状的调查,结合相关资料,从观赏特性、生态习性、园林应用等方面探讨了紫金山紫堇属植物的应用方向和前景,以期对紫堇属野生观赏植物资源的保护、开发、利用提供参考。     

Bilateral similarity function: A novel and universal method for similarity analysis of biological sequences

Bilateral similarity function is designed for analyzing the similarities of biological sequences such as DNA, RNA secondary structure or protein in this paper. The defined function can perform comprehensive comparison between sequences remarkably well, both in terms of the Hamming distance of two compared sequences and the corresponding location difference. Compared with the existing methods for similarity analysis, the examination of similarities/dissimilarities illustrates that the proposed method with the computational complexity of O(N) is effective for these three kinds of biological sequences, and bears the universality for them.     

Hepatitis B Virus (HBV) Surface Antigen Interacts with and Promotes Cyclophilin A Secretion: Possible Link to Pathogenesis of HBV Infection

Cyclophilin A (CypA), predominantly located intracellularly, is a multifunctional protein. We previously reported decreased CypA levels in hepatocytes of transgenic mice expressing hepatitis B virus (HBV) surface antigen (HBsAg). In this study, we found that expression of HBV small surface protein (SHBs) in human hepatoma cell lines specifically triggered CypA secretion, whereas SHBs added extracellularly to culture medium did not. Moreover, CypA secretion was not promoted by the expression of a secretion deficient SHBs mutant, suggesting a close association between secretion of CypA and SHBs. Interaction between CypA and SHBs was observed by using coimmunoprecipitation and glutathione S-transferase pull-down assays. Hydrodynamic injection of the SHBs expression construct into C57BL/6J mice resulted in increased serum CypA levels and ALT/AST levels, as well as the infiltration of inflammatory cells surrounding SHBs-positive hepatocytes. The inflammatory response and serum ALT/AST level were reduced when the chemotactic effect of CypA was inhibited by cyclosporine and anti-CD147 antibody. Furthermore, higher serum CypA levels were detected in chronic hepatitis B patients than in healthy individuals. In HBV patients who had received liver transplantation, serum CypA levels declined dramatically after the loss of HBsAg as a consequence of liver transplantation. Taken together, these results indicate that expression and secretion of SHBs can promote CypA secretion, which may contribute to the pathogenesis of HBV infection.Hepatitis B virus (HBV) infects more than 350 million people worldwide and is a major cause of chronic viral hepatitis and hepatocellular carcinoma (25). Three morphologically distinct forms of viral particles exist in the sera of HBV-infected patients, namely, the 22-nm-diameter spherical particles, tubular particles, and 42-nm-diameter virions (19). Strikingly, the subviral particles (spheres and tubules), containing only viral envelop glycoproteins and host-derived lipids, typically outnumber the virions by a factor of 1,000- to 10,000-fold (6, 11). There are three HBV envelop glycoproteins collectively known as HBV surface antigen (HBsAg), including the large (LHBs), middle (MHBs), and small (SHBs) surface proteins. Among them, SHBs is the most abundant viral envelop protein in virion and subviral particles. Although excess HBsAg subviral particles have been suggested to sequester the neutralizing antibody against HBV and contribute to a state of immune tolerance, thereby enabling the survival of infectious virions and leading to persistent infections (6, 27), the biological and pathological significance of the overproduction of HBsAg subviral particles still remains elusive.HBsAg has been proved extremely effective in inducing protective antibodies (anti-HBs) and thus has been used as the prophylactic vaccine. Thus far, most studies on HBsAg have focused on the development of hepatitis B vaccines (41), identification of HBsAg-interacting membrane proteins as potential host HBV receptors (9, 13), and characterization of the impact of naturally occurring HBsAg mutations on its antigenicity (12, 43). However, specific interactions between HBsAg and host intracellular factors have not been extensively studied.To address this issue, SHBs-secreting cell lines and lineages of HBV transgenic mice persistently expressing HBsAg were used in our previous studies (28, 34, 44). We found that the level of cyclophilin A (CypA) decreased markedly in the livers of HBsAg transgenic mice but increased significantly in their sera (44). CypA is a multifunctional cellular protein. It is the major binding protein for the immunosuppressive drug cyclosporine (Cs) (14) and exhibits peptidyl-prolyl cis-trans isomerase activity (35). Recently, it was found CypA played important roles in regulating inflammatory responses and viral infections. Regarding these newly recognized physiological functions, CypA was speculated to be involved in HBV infection. In the present study, the mechanism and clinical implications of elevated secretion of CypA induced by SHBs were explored in detail, including studies in cell cultures, hydrodynamic injected mouse models, and chronic hepatitis B patients. Our findings indicate that expression and secretion of SHBs can trigger the secretion of CypA, which may induce liver inflammation and contribute to the pathogenesis of HBV infection.     

“Pseudo” γ-Butyrolactone Receptors Respond to Antibiotic Signals to Coordinate Antibiotic Biosynthesis

In actinomycetes, the onset of secondary metabolite biosynthesis is often triggered by the quorum-sensing signal γ-butyrolactones (GBLs) via specific binding to their cognate receptors. However, the presence of multiple putative GBL receptor homologues in the genome suggests the existence of an alternative regulatory mechanism. Here, in the model streptomycete Streptomyces coelicolor, ScbR2 (SCO6286, a homologue of GBL receptor) is shown not to bind the endogenous GBL molecule SCB1, hence designated “pseudo” GBL receptor. Intriguingly, it could bind the endogenous antibiotics actinorhodin and undecylprodigiosin as ligands, leading to the derepression of KasO, an activator of a cryptic type I polyketide synthase gene cluster. Likewise, JadR2 is also a putative GBL receptor homologue in Streptomyces venezuelae, the producer of chloramphenicol and cryptic antibiotic jadomycin. It is shown to coordinate their biosynthesis via direct repression of JadR1, which activates jadomycin biosynthesis while repressing chloramphenicol biosynthesis directly. Like ScbR2, JadR2 could also bind these two disparate antibiotics, and the interactions lead to the derepression of jadR1. The antibiotic responding activities of these pseudo GBL receptors were further demonstrated in vivo using the lux reporter system. Overall, these results suggest that pseudo GBL receptors play a novel role to coordinate antibiotic biosynthesis by binding and responding to antibiotics signals. Such an antibiotic-mediated regulatory mechanism could be a general strategy to coordinate antibiotic biosynthesis in the producing bacteria.     

Mechanomyography is more sensitive than EMG in detecting age-related sarcopenia

The aim of this work was to investigate the effects of age-related sarcopenia on the time and frequency domain properties of lower extremity muscles’ electromyographic and mechanomyographic activities. Healthy elderly (n=10, 64.5±4.5 yr) and young (n=10, 22.6±2.8 yr) were recruited as participants. Participants’ lean thigh volumes (LTV) and 1 RM (one repetition maximum) leg strength of quadriceps and maximum speed knee extension with different load levels (45%, 60% and 75% 1 RM) were recorded. The root mean square (RMS) and the mean frequency (MF) of the surface electromyography (EMG_RMS, EMG_MF) and mechanomyography (MMG_RMS, MMG_MF) signals were collected at vastus lateralis during concentric contraction with different intensity levels. Compared to the young, the elderly had significantly less LTV, absolute and relative maximal force, as well as absolute and relative maximal power (p<.05). EMG_MF of the elderly and the young increased monotonically from 45% to 75% 1 RM testing conditions. While the MMG_RMS of the young increased with testing intensities, the MMG_RMS of the elderly increased only from 45% to 60% but leveled off from 60% to 75% 1 RM testing conditions. The results indicate the declines of muscle mass, force and power production capacity with aging. The observations could be explained by neuromuscular performance and change of MU activation patterns may result from age-related sarcopenia. Aging affected muscle power more than muscle strength, which could be due to fast fiber reduction. This is supported by our observations that the MMG_RMS differences between the young and the elderly across all three intensity level where EMG_RMS was only different at the greatest intensity. We suggest that MMG could be used as an important measurement in studying muscle contraction in age-related sarcopenia.     

Dual Role of α-Secretase Cleavage in the Regulation of γ-Secretase Activity for Amyloid Production

Processing of the amyloid precursor protein (APP) by β- and γ-secretases generates pathogenic β-amyloid (Aβ) peptides associated with Alzheimer disease (AD), whereas cleavage of APP by α-secretases precludes Aβ formation. Little is known about the role of α-secretase cleavage in γ-secretase regulation. Here, we show that α-secretase-cleaved APP C-terminal product (αCTF) functions as an inhibitor of γ-secretase. We demonstrate that the substrate inhibitory domain (ASID) within αCTF, which is bisected by the α-secretase cleavage site, contributes to this negative regulation because deleting or masking this domain turns αCTF into a better substrate for γ-secretase. Moreover, α-secretase cleavage can potentiate the inhibitory effect of ASID. Inhibition of γ-secretase activity by αCTF is observed in both in vitro and cellular systems. This work reveals an unforeseen role for α-secretase in generating an endogenous γ-secretase inhibitor that down-regulates the production of Aβ. Deregulation of this feedback mechanism may contribute to the pathogenesis of AD.     

Stress relaxation of human ankles is only minimally affected by knee and ankle angle

Comprehensive characterization of stress relaxation in musculotendinous structures is needed to create robust models of viscoelastic behavior. The commonly used quasi-linear viscoelastic (QLV) theory requires that the relaxation response be independent of tissue strain (length). This study aims to characterize stress relaxation in the musculotendinous and ligamentous structures crossing the human ankle (ankle-only structures and the gastrocnemius muscle–tendon unit, which crosses the ankle and knee), and to determine whether stress relaxation is independent of the length of these structures. Two experiments were conducted on 8 healthy subjects. The first experiment compared stress relaxation over 10 min at different gastrocnemius muscle–tendon unit lengths keeping the length of ankle-joint only structures fixed. The second experiment compared stress relaxation at different lengths of ankle-joint only structures keeping gastrocnemius muscle–tendon unit length fixed. Stress relaxation data were fitted with a two-term exponential function (T=G₀+G₁e^?λ₁t+G₂e^?λ₂t). The first experiment demonstrated a significant effect of gastrocnemius muscle–tendon unit length on G₁, and the second experiment demonstrated an effect of the length of ankle-joint only structures on G₂, λ₁ and λ₂ (p<0.05). Nonetheless, the size of effects on stress relaxation was small (ΔG/G<10%), similar to experimental variability. We conclude that stress relaxation in the relaxed human ankle is minimally affected by changing gastrocnemius muscle–tendon unit length or by changing the lengths of ankle-joint only structures. Consequently quasi-linear viscoelastic models of the relaxed human ankle can use a common stress relaxation modulus at different knee and ankle angles with minimal error.