Construction of recombinant monoclonal antibodies from a chicken hybridoma line secreting specific antibody

The chicken is a useful animal for the development of the specificantibodies against the mammalian conserved proteins. We generated twotypes of recombinant chicken monoclonal antibodies (mAbs), using a phagedisplay technique from a chicken hybridoma HUC2-13 which secreted themAb to the N-terminal of the mammalian prion protein (PrP). Althoughthe mAb HUC2-13 is a useful antibody for the prion research, thehybridoma produces a low level of antibody production. In order to producea large amount of the mAb, we have constructed a single chain fragmentvariable region (scF_V) mAb by using the variable heavy(V_H) and light (V_L)genes which were amplified by using the two primer pairs and theflexible linker. The two phage display mAbs (HUC2p3 and HUC2p5)expressed on a M13 filamentous phage and their soluble type mAbs(HUC2s3 and HUC2s5) were reacted with the PrP peptide antigen in theELISA. In the Western blot analysis, the mAbs HUC2p3 and HUC2s3 wereas reactive to PrP^c from mouse brains as the mAb HUC2-13 was. The nucleotide sequences of V_H and V_L genes from HUC2-13 and the two cloneswere identical except for only one residue. These results indicate that themethods presented here provide an effective tool for the improvement ofthe low levels of antibody production in the chicken hybridoma system.     

Regulation of orexin neurons by the monoaminergic and cholinergic systems

Orexins are a pair of neuropeptides implicated in energy homeostasis and arousal. Here we characterize the electrophysiological properties of orexin neurons using slice preparations from transgenic mice in which orexin neurons specifically express green fluorescent protein. Orexin neurons showed high frequency firing with little adaptation by injecting a positive current. The hyperpolarization-activated current was observed in orexin neurons by a negative current injection. The neurotransmitters, which were implicated in sleep/wake regulation, affected the activity of orexin neurons; noradrenaline and serotonin hyperpolarized, while carbachol depolarized orexin neurons in either the presence or absence of tetrodotoxin. It has been reported that orexins directly or indirectly activate the nuclei that are the origin of the neurons containing these neurotransmitters. Our data suggest that orexin neurons have reciprocal neural circuitries between these nuclei for either a positive or negative feedback loop and orchestrate the activity of these neurons to regulate the vigilance states.     

Isoelectric focusing of isoenzymes of monkey brain monoamine oxidase

The multiple forms of monoamine oxidase (MAO) in monkey brain were investigated using an electrofocusing technique. When beta-phenylethylamine (beta-PEA) was used as substrate, two peaks (peak I and peak II) could be clearly distinguished from the profile; the isoelectric point (pI) values were near 7.8 and 6.3, respectively. When serotonin (5-HT) was used, MAO activity was observed in peak I enzyme. The peak I enzyme with a pI value of 7.8 contains AB-form MAO and oxidizes 5-HT and beta-PEA, while peak II enzyme with a pI value of 6.3 contains B-form MAO and oxidizes beta-PEA, respectively. However, when peak II enzyme was incubated in a pH 8.8 reaction medium, MAO activity toward 5-HT in peak II enzyme was seen.     

Regulation of orexin neurons by the monoaminergic and cholinergic systems

Sleep and Biological Rhythms -     

Purification and characterization of an acid amidase selective for N-palmitoylethanolamine, a putative endogenous anti-inflammatory substance.

N-Arachidonoylethanolamine (anandamide) is cannabimimetic, and N-palmitoylethanolamine is anti-inflammatory and immunosuppressive. We found an amidase that is more active with the latter than the former in contrast to the previously known anandamide amidohydrolase for which N-palmitoylethanolamine is a poor substrate. Proteins solubilized by freezing and thawing from the 12,000 x g pellet of various rat organs hydrolyzed [(14)C]N-palmitoylethanolamine to palmitic acid and ethanolamine. The specific enzyme activity was higher in the order of lung > spleen > small intestine > thymus > cecum, and high activity was found in peritoneal and alveolar macrophages. The enzyme with a molecular mass of 31 kDa was purified from rat lung to a specific activity of 1.8 micromol/min/mg protein. Relative reactivities of the enzyme with various N-acylethanolamines (100 microm) were as follows: N-palmitoylethanolamine, 100%; N-myristoylethanolamine, 48%; N-stearoylethanolamine, 21%; N-oleoylethanolamine, 20%; N-linoleoylethanolamine, 13%; anandamide, 8%. The enzyme was the most active at pH 5 and was activated 7-fold by Triton X-100. The enzyme was almost insensitive to methyl arachidonyl fluorophosphonate, which inhibited anandamide amidohydrolase potently. Thus, the new enzyme referred to as N-palmitoylethanolamine hydrolase was clearly distinguishable from anandamide amidohydrolase.     

Harnessing Diversity towards the Reconstructing of Large Scale Gene Regulatory Networks

Elucidating gene regulatory network (GRN) from large scale experimental data remains a central challenge in systems biology. Recently, numerous techniques, particularly consensus driven approaches combining different algorithms, have become a potentially promising strategy to infer accurate GRNs. Here, we develop a novel consensus inference algorithm, TopkNet that can integrate multiple algorithms to infer GRNs. Comprehensive performance benchmarking on a cloud computing framework demonstrated that (i) a simple strategy to combine many algorithms does not always lead to performance improvement compared to the cost of consensus and (ii) TopkNet integrating only high-performance algorithms provide significant performance improvement compared to the best individual algorithms and community prediction. These results suggest that a priori determination of high-performance algorithms is a key to reconstruct an unknown regulatory network. Similarity among gene-expression datasets can be useful to determine potential optimal algorithms for reconstruction of unknown regulatory networks, i.e., if expression-data associated with known regulatory network is similar to that with unknown regulatory network, optimal algorithms determined for the known regulatory network can be repurposed to infer the unknown regulatory network. Based on this observation, we developed a quantitative measure of similarity among gene-expression datasets and demonstrated that, if similarity between the two expression datasets is high, TopkNet integrating algorithms that are optimal for known dataset perform well on the unknown dataset. The consensus framework, TopkNet, together with the similarity measure proposed in this study provides a powerful strategy towards harnessing the wisdom of the crowds in reconstruction of unknown regulatory networks.