Chemical ligation and cleavage on solid support facilitate recombinant peptide purification

Recombinant peptide technology offers a promising means alternative to chemical synthesis and natural extraction of peptides. The bottleneck in the process of recombinant peptide production is the paucity of efficient purification protocols to eliminate heterogeneity of the desired preparation. Here, we introduce a combination strategy to facilitate purification of recombinant therapeutic peptide via native chemical ligation and chemical cleavage on a solid support. In this study, one promising therapeutic peptide called for type-2 diabetes, GLP-1(7-37), was prepared with high yield and purity without an expensive HPLC purification. Furthermore, this method is also useful for the preparation of isotopically labeled NMR peptide samples. Hopefully, this strategy combining chemical ligation with chemical cleavage on a solid support will ameliorate the production of important recombinant pharmaceutical peptides.     

Monomeric solution structure of the helicase-binding domain of Escherichia coli DnaG primase

DnaG is the primase that lays down RNA primers on single-stranded DNA during bacterial DNA replication. The solution structure of the DnaB-helicase-binding C-terminal domain of Escherichia coli DnaG was determined by NMR spectroscopy at near-neutral pH. The structure is a rare fold that, besides occurring in DnaG C-terminal domains, has been described only for the N-terminal domain of DnaB. The C-terminal helix hairpin present in the DnaG C-terminal domain, however, is either less stable or absent in DnaB, as evidenced by high mobility of the C-terminal 35 residues in a construct comprising residues 1-171. The present structure identifies the previous crystal structure of the E. coli DnaG C-terminal domain as a domain-swapped dimer. It is also significantly different from the NMR structure reported for the corresponding domain of DnaG from the thermophile Bacillus stearothermophilus. NMR experiments showed that the DnaG C-terminal domain does not bind to residues 1-171 of the E. coli DnaB helicase with significant affinity.     

龟纹瓢虫对豆蚜的捕食功能反应及寻找效应研究

龟纹瓢虫雌虫和雄虫对豆蚜的功能反应符台Holling Ⅱ型模型,其模型为：Na=0．9233N／(1 0．0171N)(雌虫)和Na=0．8641N／(1 0．0164N)(雄虫),瓢虫捕食豆蚜的数量随豆蚜密度增加而增加．但寻找效应随豆蚜密度增加而降低。日最大捕食量和最佳寻找密度分别为37.42(雌)、34．11头(雄)和17．25（雌)、15．8头(雄)。龟纹瓢虫寻找效应随自身密度的增加而降低,其数学模型为：E=0．3032·P^-15634(雌)和E=0．3048·P^-1.1697(雄)。干扰反应的教学模型为：E=0．8104·P^-2.1721(雌),E=0．7125·P^-2.2660,E=0．5963·P^-2.1751(雌雄混台种群)。     

人乳头瘤病毒L1基因与丹毒丝菌SpaA-N优势抗原表位序列的嵌合重组质粒构建及活性鉴定

为确定丹毒丝菌表面保护性抗原A的N-末端(SpaA-N)优势抗原表位,研发新型表位DNA嵌合疫苗,利用生物信息学软件对丹毒丝菌SpaA-N的优势B细胞抗原表位进行预测,以重叠PCR将优势表位插入人乳头瘤病毒16型的主要衣壳蛋白( HPV-16 LI) HI环结构的编码序列中,构建获得重组嵌合质粒pcDNA3-HPV-LI -△spaA.该重组质粒经体内、外瞬时特染后,RT-PCR均扩增获得了1 500 bp左右的目的片段.免疫印迹试验显示,体外转染嵌合质粒的细胞总蛋白能够与GST-SpaA-N重组蛋白免疫血清在56 kD处产生特异性结合.ELISA分析显示嵌合质粒可在小鼠体内产生差异显著的特异性抗体(P＜0.01),抗体滴度为1:1 000.此外,pcDNA3-HPV-L1-△spaA制备的抗血清至少可在1∶10稀释度条件下,介导外源补体对半数以上的菌体进行杀伤.该研究表明,获得的SpaA-N表位DNA嵌合疫苗具有免疫活性,为研发安全有效的丹毒丝菌新型DNA疫苗提供了一个新思路.     

HIF-1α acts downstream of TNF-α to inhibit vasodilator-stimulated phosphoprotein expression and modulates the adhesion and proliferation of breast cancer cells

Metastasis is the leading cause of death in breast cancer patients. Recent evidence suggests that inflammation-related cytokine tumor necrosis factor-alpha (TNF-α) is implicated in tumor invasion and metastasis, but the mechanism of its involvement remains elusive. In this study, we employed MCF-7 breast cancer cells as an experimental model to demonstrate that TNF-α inhibits breast cancer cell adhesion and cell proliferation through hypoxia inducible factor-1alpha (HIF-1α) mediated suppression of vasodilator-stimulated phosphoprotein (VASP). We observed that TNF-α treatment attenuated the adhesion and proliferation of MCF-7 cells it also dramatically increased HIF-1α expression and decreased VASP expression. Through a variety of approaches, including promoter assay, electrophoretic mobility shift assay (EMSA), and chromatin immunoprecipitation (ChIP), we identified VASP as a direct target gene of HIF-1α. In addition, we confirmed that HIF-1α mediated the repression of VASP expression by TNF-α in MCF-7 cells. We also demonstrated that exogenous VASP expression or knockdown of HIF-1α relieved TNF-α induced inhibition of cell adhesion and proliferation. We identified a novel TNF-α/HIF-1α/VASP axis in which HIF-1α acts downstream of TNF-α to inhibit VASP expression and modulate the adhesion and proliferation of breast cancer cells. These data provide new insight into the potential anti-tumor effects of TNF-α.     

艾滋病病毒蛋白酶高效表达载体及体外活性检测系统的构建

艾滋病是本世纪80年代初发现的一种烈性传染病,5年病死率为100％,致病因子为人免疫缺陷病毒,该病毒的蛋白酶在病毒复制和成熟中具有决定性的意义。由于目前国内外尚未获得艾滋病病毒蛋白酶的高效表达的重组子及活性检测系统,限制了它的研究与应用。本文利用PCR技术修饰了艾滋病病毒蛋白酶的基因,使其具有便于克隆及表达用的限制酶切位点及转录终止码,井在其C末端设置了一个可用于检验该酶活性的特殊序列。DNA序列分析揭示上述突变策略成功,将修饰后的艾滋病病毒蛋白酶基因克隆入大肠杆菌表达系统,并获得高效表达(>30％),Western-Bolt鉴定结果表明所表达的蛋白为艾滋病病毒所特有,并具有较好的生物活性。     

城市污泥处理处置技术及资源化利用研究

城市污泥的产量巨大并且成分复杂,如何对城市污泥处置与利用已成为人们所关注的问题.污泥是有用的生物资源,如能合理利用则不仅能变废为宝,还能增加经济效益,所以,探讨适合我国国情的有效处理处置和利用污泥的技术具有重要的现实意义.本文对城市污泥的特性、国内外处理、处置技术和污泥资源化技术的现状进行了分析,认为对污泥进行资源化利用是符合我国国情的一种经济、有效的途径,污泥的资源化利用尤其是农业利用不但可以节省大量的污泥终端处置费用,更可以为肥力低下的农田增添有机质、提高肥力,促进农业生产发展、实现农业生态环境的良性循环.     

Transport functions and expression analysis of vacuolar membrane aquaporins in response to various stresses in rice

The vacuole, a multifunctional organelle of most plant cells, has very important roles in space filling, osmotic adjustment, storage and digestion. Previous researches suggested that aquaporins in the tonoplast were involved in vacuolar functions. The rice genome contains 33 aquaporin genes, 10 of which encode tonoplast intrinsic proteins (TIPs). However, the function of each individual TIP isoform and the integrated function of TIPs under various physiological conditions remain elusive. Here, five rice TIP members were characterized with water and/or glycerol transport activities using the Xenopus oocyte expression system. OsTIP1;2, OsTIP2;2, OsTIP4;1 and OsTIP5;1 possessed water transport activity. OsTIP1;2, OsTIP3;2 and OsTIP4;1 were demonstrated with glycerol transport activity. Rice TIP expression patterns under various abiotic stress conditions including dehydration, high salinity, abscisic acid (ABA) and during seed germination were investigated by real-time PCR. OsTIP1s (OsTIP1;1 and OsTIP1;2) were highly expressed during seed germination, whereas OsTIP3s (OsTIP3;1 and OsTIP3;2) were specifically expressed in mature seeds with a decrease in expression levels upon germination. The results of this research provided a functional and expression profiles of rice TIPs.