Sonochemical synthesis of Ag nanoclusters: electrogenerated chemiluminescence determination of dopamine

We report a facile one‐pot sonochemical approach to preparing highly water‐soluble Ag nanoclusters (NCs) using bovine serum albumin as a stabilizing agent and reducing agent in aqueous solution. Intensive electrogenerated chemiluminescence (ECL) was observed from the as‐prepared Ag (NCs) and successfully applied for the ECL detection of dopamine with high sensitivity and a wide detection range. A possible ECL mechanism is proposed for the preparation of Ag NCs. With this method, the dopamine concentration was determined in the range of 8.3 × 10^–9 to 8.3 × 10^–7 mol/L without the obvious interference of uric acid, ascorbic acid and some other neurotransmitters, such as serotonin, epinephrine and norepinephrine, and the detection limit was 9.2 × 10^–10 mol/L at a signal/noise ratio of 3. Copyright © 2013 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Antidiabetic effect of an active fraction extracted from dragon's blood (Dracaena Cochinchinensis)

The active fraction extracted from dragon's blood displayed an inhibitory effect on alpha-glucosidase activity with an IC50 of 0.152 microg/mL, which is nearly half of the crude material. Its inhibition on alpha-glucosidase was noncompetitive. In addition, when this fraction was orally administered to mice dosed with Acarbose (20 mg/kg), the active fraction (100, 300, 500 mg/kg) significantly suppressed increase of blood glucose levels after sucrose loading in a dose-dependent manner. These results suggest that this extract from dragon's blood exerts an anti-diabetic effect by suppressing intestinal carbohydrate absorption and thereby reducing the postprandial increase of blood glucose.     

Genetics and Resistance Mechanism of the Cucumber (Cucumis sativus L.) Against Powdery Mildew

Journal of Plant Growth Regulation - Powdery mildew (PM) is one of the most severe foliar diseases in cucumbers (Cucumis sativus L.), but the inheritance of PM resistance remains unclear. The...     

Anticancer drugs cause release of exosomes with heat shock proteins from human hepatocellular carcinoma cells that elicit effective natural killer cell antitumor responses in vitro

Failure of immune surveillance related to inadequate host antitumor immune responses has been suggested as a possible cause of the high incidence of recurrence and poor overall survival outcome of hepatocellular carcinoma. The stress-induced heat shock proteins (HSPs) are known to act as endogenous "danger signals" that can improve tumor immunogenicity and induce natural killer (NK) cell responses. Exosome is a novel secretory pathway for HSPs. In our experiments, the immune regulatory effect of the HSP-bearing exosomes secreted by human hepatocellular carcinoma cells under stress conditions on NK cells was studied. ELISA results showed that the production of HSP60, HSP70, and HSP90 was up-regulated in both cell lines in a stress-specific manner. After exposure to hepatocellular carcinoma cell-resistant or sensitive anticancer drugs (hereafter referred to as "resistant" or "sensitive" anticancer drug), the membrane microvesicles were actively released by hepatocellular carcinoma cells, differing in their ability to present HSPs on the cell surface, which were characterized as exosomes. Acting as a decoy, the HSP-bearing exosomes efficiently stimulated NK cell cytotoxicity and granzyme B production, up-regulated the expression of inhibitory receptor CD94, and down-regulated the expression of activating receptors CD69, NKG2D, and NKp44. Notably, resistant anticancer drugs enhanced exosome release and generated more exosome-carried HSPs, which augmented the activation of the cytotoxic response. In summary, our findings demonstrated that exosomes derived from resistant anticancer drug-treated HepG2 cells conferred superior immunogenicity in inducing HSP-specific NK cell responses, which provided a clue for finding an efficient vaccine for hepatocellular carcinoma immunotherapy.     

Rational design of cationic antimicrobial peptides by the tandem of leucine-rich repeat

Antimicrobial peptides represent ancient host defense effector molecules present in organisms across the evolutionary spectrum. Lots of antimicrobial peptides were synthesized based on well-known structural motif widely existed in a variety of lives. Leucine-rich repeats (LRRs) are sequence motifs present in over 60,000 proteins identified from viruses, bacteria, and eukaryotes. To elucidate if LRR motif possesses antimicrobial potency, two peptides containing one or two LRRs were designed. The biological activity and membrane–peptide interactions of the peptides were analyzed. The results showed that the tandem of two LRRs exhibited similar antibacterial activity and significantly weaker hemolytic activity against hRBCs than the well-known membrane active peptide melittin. The peptide with one LRR was defective at antimicrobial and hemolytic activity. The peptide containing two LRRs formed α-helical structure, respectively, in the presence of membrane-mimicking environment. LRR-2 retained strong resistance to cations, heat, and some proteolytic enzymes. The blue shifts of the peptides in two lipid systems correlated positively with their biological activities. Other membrane-peptide experiments further provide the evidence that the peptide with two LRRs kills bacteria via membrane-involving mechanism. The present study increases our new understanding of well-known LRR motif in antimicrobial potency and presents a potential strategy to develop novel antibacterial agents.     

Ethers Illume Sodium‐Based Battery Chemistry: Uniqueness,Surprise, and Challenges

Sodium‐ion batteries (SIBs) have the potential to be practically applied in large‐scale energy storage markets. The rapid progress of SIBs research is primarily focused on electrodes, while electrolytes attract less attention. Indeed, the improvement of electrode performance is arguably correlated with the electrolyte optimization. In conventional lithium‐ion batteries (LIBs), ether‐based electrolytes are historically less practical owing to the insufficient passivation of both anodes and cathodes. As an important class of aprotic electrolytes, ethers have revived with the emerging lithium‐sulfur and lithium‐oxygen batteries in recent years, and are even booming in the wave of SIBs. Ether‐based electrolytes are unique to enabling these new battery chemistries in terms of producing stable ternary graphite intercalation compounds, modifying anode solid electrolyte interphases, reducing the solubility of intermediates, and decreasing polarization. Better still, ether‐based electrolytes are compatible with specific inorganic cathodes and could catalyze the assembly of full SIBs prototypes. This Research News article aims to summarize the recent critical reports on ether‐based electrolytes in sodium‐based batteries, to unveil the uniqueness of ether‐based electrolytes to advancing diverse electrode materials, and to shed light on the viability and challenges of ether‐based electrolytes in future sodium‐based battery chemistries.     

A Simple Evaluation of Soil Quality of Waterlogged Purple Paddy Soils with Different Productivities

Evaluation of soil quality can be crucial for designing efficient farming systems and ensuring sustainable agriculture. The present study aimed at evaluating the quality of waterlogged purple paddy soils with different productivities in Sichuan Basin. The approach involved comprehensive analyses of soil physical and chemical properties, as well as enzyme activities and microbial community structure measured by phospholipid fatty acid analysis (PLFA). A total of 36 soil samples were collected from four typical locations, with 12 samples representing high productivity purple paddy soil (HPPS), medium productivity purple paddy soil (MPPS) and low productivity purple paddy soil (LPPS), respectively. Most measured soil properties showed significant differences (P ≤ 0.05) among HPPS, MPPS and LPPS. Pearson correlation analysis and principal component analysis were used to identify appropriate soil quality indicators. A minimum data set (MDS) including total nitrogen (TN), available phosphorus (AP), acid phosphatase (ACP), total bacteria (TB) and arbuscular mycorrhizal fungi was established and accounted for 82.1% of the quality variation among soils. A soil quality index (SQI) was developed based on the MDS method, whilst HPPS, MPPS and LPPS received mean SQI scores of 0.725, 0.536 and 0.425, respectively, with a ranking of HPPS > MPPS > LPPS. HPPS showed relatively good soil quality characterized by optimal nutrient availability, enzymatic and microbial activities, but the opposite was true of LPPS. Low levels of TN, AP and soil microbial activities were considered to be the major constraints limiting the productivity in LPPS. All soil samples collected were rich in available N, K, Si and Zn, but deficient in available P, which may be the major constraint for the studied regions. Managers in our study area should employ more appropriate management in the LPPS to improve its rice productivity, and particularly to any potential limiting factor.     

Flavobacterium qiangtangensis sp. nov., Isolated from Qiangtang Basin in Qinghai-Tibetan Plateau,China

A flexirubin-type yellow-pigmented, non-gliding, non-flagellated, gram-negative bacterium strain, designated F3^T, was isolated from a drilling core sample of the Qiangtang basin, Qinghai-Tibetan plateau, China. Phylogenetic analysis based on 16S rRNA gene sequences showed that the strain F3^T belongs to the genus Flavobacterium, with the highest 16S rRNA gene sequence similarity to the Flavobacterium noncentrifugens CGMCC 1.10076^T (94.92 %). Strain F3^T grew optimally at temperature about 20 °C, at pH about 7.0–8.0, at NaCl concentration 0 % (w/v). The DNA G+C content of the isolate was 35.5 mol%. The major polar lipid was phosphatidylethanolamine, predominant cellular fatty acids of the strain was iso-C_15:0 (22.02 %), while the major menaquinone was menaquinone 6. Due to the phenotypic and genetic distinctiveness and several other characteristic studied in this article, we consider F3^T as a novel species of the genus Flavobacterium, and propose to name it Flavobacterium qiangtangensis sp. nov. The type strain is F3^T (=CGMCC 1.12706^T = JCM 19739^T).