A novel human striated muscle RING zinc finger protein, SMRZ, interacts with SMT3b via its RING domain

The RING domain is a conserved zinc finger motif, which serves as a protein-protein interaction interface. Searches of a human heart expressed sequence tag data base for genes encoding the RING domain identified a novel cDNA, named striated muscle RING zinc finger protein (SMRZ). The SMRZ cDNA is 1.9 kilobase pairs in length and encodes a polypeptide of 288 amino acid residues; analysis of the peptide sequence demonstrated an N-terminal RING domain. Fluorescence in situ hybridization localized SMRZ to chromosome 1p33-34. Northern blots demonstrated that SMRZ is expressed exclusively in striated muscle. In the cardiovascular system, SMRZ is more highly expressed in the fetal heart than in the adult heart (slightly higher expression in the ventricle than in the atrium), suggesting that SMRZ is developmentally regulated. SMRZ was found to interact with SMT3b, a ubiquitin-like protein, through the SMRZ-RING domain. This interaction was abolished by mutagenesis of conserved RING domain residues. Transient transfection of SMRZ into C2C12 myoblasts showed localization of SMRZ to the nucleus. These data suggest that SMRZ may play an important role in striated muscle cell embryonic development and perhaps in cell cycle regulation.     

慢性乙型肝炎舌红苔黄和舌淡苔白不同舌象的尿代谢组研究

目的：探索慢性乙型肝炎舌红苔黄和舌淡苔白不同舌象者的尿代谢差异指标,为中医舌象生物学物质基础微观辨证提供证据。方法：采用气相色谱／质谱联用（GC／MS ）技术方法获取慢性乙型肝炎舌红苔黄和舌淡苔白不同舌象者的尿液样本代谢指纹谱,用无监督的学习模式进行多变量统计分析,观察不同组别的人群之间是否存在“自然”的分类结构。利用有监督的学习模式进行数据分类模型的建立和检验,寻找造成样本聚集和离散的主要差异变量。利用商业化的代谢物谱库以及标准品数据库,进行物质鉴定。结果：慢性乙型肝炎舌红苔黄和舌淡苔白者在有监督的学习模式下具有良好的分开趋势,慢乙肝不同舌象者较健康者的差异代谢物谱主要与能量代谢、氨基酸代谢、核苷酸代谢以及肠道菌群代谢相关。结论：舌象是机体变化的重要窗口,不同舌象的外在表观潜在体内的代谢差异。     

Reversed Hyperbolic Plasmonic Responses in Phosphorene Under Uniaxial Strain

In this paper, hyperbolic plasmonic responses of phosphorene under uniaxial strains have been explored within density functional theory. In the hyperbolic regime, plasmonic slab waveguide modes are found only along armchair direction. Then, uniaxial strains up to 10% have been applied along zigzag and armchair directions, which can significantly modify its plasmonic responses. Under appropriate strain, the signs of permittivities along two in-plane directions can be even reversed, causing switching of the propagating direction of the plasmonic modes into zigzag direction. Our investigations may give a general idea about how to control the hyperbolic plasmonic modes in phosphorene via strain.

     

Early secreted antigenic target of 6-kDa of Mycobacterium tuberculosis promotes caspase-9/caspase-3-mediated apoptosis in macrophages

Molecular and Cellular Biochemistry - Mycoplasma pneumoniae pneumonia (MPP) is the most common respiratory infection in young children and its incidence has increased worldwide. In this study, high...     

江苏菜豆同工凝集素的分离纯化及性质研究

江苏菜豆经酸水(PH2.0)抽提,硫酸铵分级沉淀,分离植物血球凝集素(PHA-P),分子量为128000的糖蛋白,活性回收率在80％以上,PHA-P经SP-sephadexc-50离子交换层析,分成L_4,L_3E_1,L_2E_2,L_1E_3,和E_4同工凝集素。 L_4和E_4等电点为5.4和6.5。亚基分子量分别是31000和33000,并有类似的氨基酸组成。PAGE分析为单一蛋白带。红细胞凝集活性随电泳迁移速度的加快而增强,促淋性细胞分裂活性则减弱。E_4血凝活性受CalNAc,EDTA抑制和Zn~(++)的促进。     

Identification of blapsins A and B as potent small-molecule 14-3-3 inhibitors from the insect Blaps japanensis

In this study, we report three novel naturally occurring compounds, blapsins A (1) and B (2), and blapsamide (3) from the ethanol extract of the stink beetle, Blaps japanensis. The structures of these compounds were determined using spectroscopic methods. Compound 3 is a phenolic compound bearing a formamido group in the structure. Functional studies revealed that compounds 1 and 2 potently inhibited 14-3-3 protein-protein interactions (PPIs) with IC(50) values of 9.2 and 10.0 μM as determined by an ELISA assay, and 2.0 and 2.5 μM in an FP assay, respectively. These compounds represent the first example of natural small-molecule 14-3-3 inhibitors.     

A Novel Immunodiagnostic Assay to Detect Serum Antibody Response against Selected Soluble Egg Antigen Fractions from Schistosoma japonicum

Background

Schistosomiasis japonica remains a real threat to public health in China. The currently used immunodiagnostic assays are sensitive and have a certain degree of specificity, however, they all use complex crude antigens, are based on detection of schistosome-specific antibodies, and have been shown to cross-react with other parasitic diseases. Therefore, these assays cannot be used to evaluate chemotherapy efficacy. The development of highly sensitive and highly specific immunodiagnostic techniques that can monitor the decline of antibodies specific for S. japonica will be extremely valuable as part of the ongoing strategy to control schistosomiasis in endemic areas. Here we report on the identification of unique fraction antigens of soluble egg antigen (SEA) to which the antibodies disappear 7 weeks after effective treatment. Furthermore, we use these SEA fractions to develop a modified assay with both high sensitivity and specificity.

Methodology/Principal Findings

SEA of S. japonicum was fractionated by electrophoresis using 7.5% SDS-PAGE under non-reducing conditions. The SEA fraction antigens to which antibodies were decreased soon after treatment were collected and used as the detection antigens to establish the FA-ELISA. Sera from patients with acute and chronic schistosomiasis infection, healthy people, and those with other parasitic diseases, were used to evaluate their sensitivity and specificity. Furthermore, sera from patients with chronic schistosomiasis infection were evaluated before and after treatment at different time points to evaluate their chemotherapeutic efficacy.

Conclusion/Significance

We demonstrated that this novel FA-ELISA provided high sensitivity and specificity, with very low cross-reactivity, and can serve as an effective tool to determine the efficacy of chemotherapy against S. japonicum.     

Toll-like receptor 3 contributes to spinal glial activation and tactile allodynia after nerve injury

Toll-like receptors (TLRs) play an essential role in innate immune responses and in the initiation of adaptive immune responses. Microglia, the resident innate immune cells in the CNS, express TLRs. In this study, we show that TLR3 is crucial for spinal cord glial activation and tactile allodynia after peripheral nerve injury. Intrathecal administration of TLR3 antisense oligodeoxynucleotide suppressed nerve injury-induced tactile allodynia, and decreased the phosphorylation of p38 mitogen-activated protein kinase, but not extracellular signal-regulated protein kinases 1/2, in spinal glial cells. Antisense knockdown of TLR3 also attenuated the activation of spinal microglia, but not astrocytes, caused by nerve injury. Furthermore, down-regulation of TLR3 inhibited nerve injury-induced up-regulation of spinal pro-inflammatory cytokines, such as interleukin-1β, interleukin-6, and tumor necrosis factor-α. Conversely, intrathecal injection of the TLR3 agonist polyinosine–polycytidylic acid induced behavioral, morphological, and biochemical changes similar to those observed after nerve injury. Indeed, TLR3-deficient mice did not develop tactile allodynia after nerve injury or polyinosine–polycytidylic acid injection. Our results indicate that TLR3 has a substantial role in the activation of spinal glial cells and the development of tactile allodynia after nerve injury. Thus, blocking TLR3 in the spinal glial cells might provide a fruitful strategy for treating neuropathic pain.     

Structural basis for the evolutionary inactivation of Ca2+ binding to synaptotagmin 4

The neuronal protein synaptotagmin 1 functions as a Ca(2+) sensor in exocytosis via two Ca(2+)-binding C(2) domains. The very similar synaptotagmin 4, which includes all the predicted Ca(2+)-binding residues in the C(2)B domain but not in the C(2)A domain, is also thought to function as a neuronal Ca(2+) sensor. Here we show that, unexpectedly, both C(2) domains of fly synaptotagmin 4 exhibit Ca(2+)-dependent phospholipid binding, whereas neither C(2) domain of rat synaptotagmin 4 binds Ca(2+) or phospholipids efficiently. Crystallography reveals that changes in the orientations of critical Ca(2+) ligands, and perhaps their flexibility, render the rat synaptotagmin 4 C(2)B domain unable to form full Ca(2+)-binding sites. These results indicate that synaptotagmin 4 is a Ca(2+) sensor in the fly but not in the rat, that the Ca(2+)-binding properties of C(2) domains cannot be reliably predicted from sequence analyses, and that proteins clearly identified as orthologs may nevertheless have markedly different functional properties.