Dissection of human MiRNA regulatory influence to subpathway

The global insight into the relationships between miRNAs and their regulatory influences remains poorly understood. And most of complex diseases may be attributed to certain local areas of pathway (subpathway) instead of the entire pathway. Here, we reviewed the studies on miRNA regulations to pathways and constructed a bipartite miRNAs and subpathways network for systematic analyzing the miRNA regulatory influences to subpathways. We found that a small fraction of miRNAs were global regulators, environmental information processing pathways were preferentially regulated by miRNAs, and miRNAs had synergistic effect on regulating group of subpathways with similar function. Integrating the disease states of miRNAs, we also found that disease miRNAs regulated more subpathways than nondisease miRNAs, and for all miRNAs, the number of regulated subpathways was not in proportion to the number of the related diseases. Therefore, the study not only provided a global view on the relationships among disease, miRNA and subpathway, but also uncovered the function aspects of miRNA regulations and potential pathogenesis of complex diseases. A web server to query, visualize and download for all the data can be freely accessed at http://bioinfo.hrbmu.edu.cn/miR2Subpath.     

Proteomic Analysis of High Temperature Stress-Responsive Proteins in Chrysanthemum Leaves

Chrysanthemum is one of the most important ornamental flowers in the world, and temperature has a significant influence on its field production. In the present study, differentially expressed proteins were investigated in the leaves of Dendranthema grandiflorum ‘Jinba’ under high temperature stress using label-free quantitative proteomics techniques. The expressed proteins were comparatively identified and analyzed. A total of 1,463 heat-related, differentially expressed proteins were successfully identified by Liquid Chromatography-tandem Mass Spectrometry (LC-MS/MS), and 1,463 heat-related, differentially expressed proteins were successfully identified by mass spectrometry after a high temperature treatment. Among these, 701 proteins were upregulated and 762 proteins were downregulated. The in-depth bioinformatics analysis of these differentially expressed proteins revealed that these were involved in energy metabolism pathways, protein metabolism, and heat shock. In the present study, the investigators determined the changes in the levels of some proteins, and their expression at the protein and molecular levels in chrysanthemum to help reveal the mechanism of heat resistance in chrysanthemum. Furthermore, the present study elucidated some of the proteins correlated to heat resistance in chrysanthemum, and their expression changes at the protein and molecular levels to help reveal the mechanism of heat resistance in this flower species. These results provide a theoretical basis for the selection of new heat resistant varieties of chrysanthemum in the field.     

Improved stability of methanolic Wright's stain solution with dual additives

Degradation of methanolic Wright's stain solutions was greatly diminished with the addition of diethylamine hydrochloride and dimethylamine hydrochloride as costabilizers. Precipitation problems were eliminated by the dual additives. The stabilized stain solutions demonstrated good staining performance on blood smears. Methods for predicting the shelf life using calculated analytical parameters are described. Using these methods, the shelf life of a control stain solution was predicted to be 0.7 years; predicted shelf life was more than tripled with the addition of diethylamine hydrochloride and was increased approximately 27 times with the addition of both diethylamine hydrochloride and dimethylamine hydrochloride.     

Identification of three protein disulfide isomerase members from Haemaphysalis longicornis tick

Three genes encoding putative protein disulfide isomerase (PDI) were isolated from the Haemaphysalis longicornis EST database and designed as HlPDI-1, HlPDI-2, and HlPDI-3. All three PDI genes contain two typical PDI active sites CXXC and encode putative 435, 499, and 488 amino acids, respectively. The recombinant proteins expressed in Escherichia coli all show PDI activities, and the activities were inhibited by a PDI-specific inhibitor, zinc bacitracin. Western blot analysis and real-time PCR revealed that three HlPDIs were present in all the developmental stages of the tick as well as in the midgut, salivary glands, ovary, hemolymph, and fatbody of adult female ticks, but the three genes were expressed at the highest level in the egg stage. HlPDI-1 is expressed primarily in the ovary and secondarily in the salivary glands. HlPDI-2 and HlPDI-3 are expressed primarily in the salivary gland, suggesting that the PDI genes are important for tick biology, especially for egg development, and that they play distinct roles in different tissues. Blood feeding induced significantly increased expression of HlPDI-1 and HlPDI-3 in both partially fed nymphs and adults. Babesia gibsoni-infected larval ticks expressed HlPDI-1 and HlPDI-3 2.0 and 4.0 times higher than uninfected normal larval ticks, respectively. The results indicate that HlPDI-1 and HlPDI-3 might be involved in tick blood feeding and Babesia parasite infection in ticks.     

Electrodeposition of polypyrrole-multiwalled carbon nanotube-glucose oxidase nanobiocomposite film for the detection of glucose

A nanobiocomposite film consisted of polypyrrole (PPy), functionalized multiwalled carbon nanotubes (cMWNTs), and glucose oxidase (GOx) were electrochemically synthesized by electrooxidation of 0.1M pyrrole in aqueous solution containing appropriate amounts of cMWNTs and GOx. Potentiostatic growth profiles indicate that the anionic cMWNTs is incorporated within the growing PPy-cMWNTs nanocomposite for maintaining its electrical neutrality. The morphology of the PPy-cMWNTs nanocomposite was characterized by scanning electron microscopy (SEM). The PPy-cMWNTs nanocomposite was deposited homogeneously onto glassy carbon electrode. The amperometric responses vary proportionately to the concentration of hydrogen peroxide at the PPy-cMWNTs nanocomposite modified electrode at an operating potential of 0.7V versus Ag/AgCl (3M). The results indicate that the electroanalytical PPy-cMWNTs-GOx nanobiocomposite film was highly sensitive and suitable for glucose biosensor based on GOx function. The GOx concentration within the PPy-cMWNTs-GOx nanobiocomposite and the film thickness are crucial for the performance of the glucose biosensor. The amperometric responses of the optimized PPy-cMWNTs-GOx glucose biosensor (1.5 mgmL(-1) GOx, 141 mCcm(-2) total charge) displayed a sensitivity of 95 nAmM(-1), a linear range up to 4mM, and a response time of about 8s.     

Low rates of expression profile divergence in highly expressed genes and tissue-specific genes during mammalian evolution

Evolutionary rates provide important information about the pattern and mechanism of evolution. Although the rate of gene sequence evolution has been well studied, the rate of gene expression evolution is poorly understood. In particular, it is unclear whether the gene expression level and tissue specificity influence the divergence of expression profiles between orthologous genes. Here we address this question using a microarray data set comprising the expression signals of 10,607 pairs of orthologous human and mouse genes from over 60 tissues per species. We show that the level of gene expression and the degree of tissue specificity are generally conserved between the human and mouse orthologs. The rate of gene expression profile change during evolution is negatively correlated with the level of gene expression, measured by either the average or the highest level among all tissues examined. This is analogous to the observation that the rate of gene (or protein) sequence evolution is negatively correlated with the gene expression level. The impacts of the degree of tissue specificity on the evolutionary rate of gene sequence and that of expression profile, however, are opposite. Highly tissue-specific genes tend to evolve rapidly at the gene sequence level but slowly at the expression profile level. Thus, different forces and selective constraints must underlie the evolution of gene sequence and that of gene expression.