Comprehensive Analysis of Aldehyde Dehydrogenases (ALDHs) and Its Significant Role in Hepatocellular Carcinoma

Biochemical Genetics - Oxidative DNA damage is closely related to the occurrence and progression of cancer. Oxidative stress plays an important role in alcohol-induced hepatocellular carcinoma...     

Cellular and Neural Responses to Sour Stimuli Require the Proton Channel Otop1

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Texture Identification by Bounded Integration of Sensory Cortical Signals

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Quantitation of iptakalim in human plasma by high-performance liquid chromatography-tandem mass spectrometry

This paper describes a rapid and sensitive analytical method for the quantitation of iptakalim, a novel antihypertensive drug, in human plasma. The method is based on liquid chromatography-tandem mass spectrometry (LC-MS/MS) using sildenafil as internal standard. Sample preparation involved liquid-liquid extraction with dichloromethane-diethyl ether (2:3, v/v) in a basic environment. Chromatography was carried out on an amino column with a mobile phase consisting of acetonitrile-water (55:45, v/v, water containing 0.5% formic acid). Detection employed electrospray ionization (ESI) tandem mass spectrometry in the multiple-reaction-monitoring (MRM) mode. The assay was linear in the concentration range of 0.5-100 ng/ml with a lower limit of quantitation (LLOQ) of 0.5 ng/ml. Intra- and inter-day precision (R.S.D.) were <4.5% and <12.0%, respectively and the accuracy (R.E.) was in the range +/-5%. The method was successfully applied to a single oral dose pharmacokinetic study in human volunteers.     

A major triterpenoid saponin from Gypsophila oldhamiana

A new saponin, gypoldoside A (1), was isolated from the roots of Gypsophila oldhamiana. On the basis of in-depth NMR-spectroscopic and mass-spectrometric analysis, in combination with chemical evidence, its structure was established as 3-O-{beta-D-galactopyranosyl-(1-->2)-[beta-D-xylopyranosyl-(1-->3)]-beta-D-glucuronopyranosyl}quillaic acid 28-[alpha-L-arabinopyranosyl-(1-->2)-alpha-L-arabinopyranosyl-(1-->3)-beta-D-xylopyranosyl-(1-->4)-alpha-L-rhamnopyranosyl-(1-->2)-beta-D-fucopyranosyl] ester. Compound 1 was found to be highly active against three different human cancer cell lines, with IC50 values in the low micromolar range.     

A full-genomic sequence-verified protein-coding gene collection for Francisella tularensis

The rapid development of new technologies for the high throughput (HT) study of proteins has increased the demand for comprehensive plasmid clone resources that support protein expression. These clones must be full-length, sequence-verified and in a flexible format. The generation of these resources requires automated pipelines supported by software management systems. Although the availability of clone resources is growing, current collections are either not complete or not fully sequence-verified. We report an automated pipeline, supported by several software applications that enabled the construction of the first comprehensive sequence-verified plasmid clone resource for more than 96% of protein coding sequences of the genome of F. tularensis, a highly virulent human pathogen and the causative agent of tularemia. This clone resource was applied to a HT protein purification pipeline successfully producing recombinant proteins for 72% of the genes. These methods and resources represent significant technological steps towards exploiting the genomic information of F. tularensis in discovery applications.     

Prestin-prestin and prestin-GLUT5 interactions in HEK293T cells

The remarkable hearing sensitivity and frequency selectivity in mammals is attributed to cochlear amplifier in the outer hair cells (OHCs). Prestin, a membrane protein in the lateral wall of OHC plasma membrane, is required for OHC electromotility and cochlear amplifier. In addition, GLUT5, a fructose transporter, is reported to be abundant in the plasma membrane of the OHC lateral wall and has been originally proposed as the OHC motor protein. Here we provide evidence of interactions between prestin/prestin and prestin/GLUT5 in transiently transfected HEK293T cells. We used a combination of techniques: (1) membrane colocalization by confocal microscopy, (2) fluorescence resonance energy transfer (FRET) by fluorescence activated cell sorting (FACS), (3) FRET by acceptor photobleaching, (4) FRET by fluorescence lifetime imaging (FRET-FLIM), and (5) coimmunoprecipitation. Our results suggest that homomeric and heteromeric prestin interactions occur in native OHCs to facilitate its electromotile function and that GLUT5 interacts with prestin for its elusive function.