牛乳铁蛋白肽转基因小鼠的构建

目的:探讨牛乳铁蛋白肽在转基因鼠乳汁中的表达及其抑菌活性。方法:将实验室构建并保存的包含山羊β-酪蛋白基因启动子和牛乳铁蛋白肽基因的乳腺特异表达载体PI-bcp-LfcinB,用Xho I和Nru I双酶切,得到含有全部表达盒的显微注射DNA片段,采用常规显微注射技术获得转基因小鼠。并通过对泌乳期转基因雌鼠乳腺组织的RT-PCR检测,确定了牛乳铁蛋白肽在mRNA水平的表达,同时利用琼脂板扩散法检测了转基因鼠乳汁中表达产物的抑菌活性。结果:获得了牛乳铁蛋白肽转基因小鼠,且转基因小鼠乳汁中能够表达具有抑菌活性的牛乳铁蛋白肽。结论:通过转基因动物乳腺可以获得具有生物活性的牛乳铁蛋白肽,为进一步研究抗菌肽转基因牛、培育抗乳房炎奶牛新品种以及通过建立转基因动物生物反应器进行抗菌肽的大量生产奠定了基础。     

Triterpenoids from the Stem Bark of Melia toosendan and Determination of Their Absolute Configurations at C(24)

Six new triterpenoids, meliasenins S–X ( 1 – 6 , resp.), were isolated from the stem bark of Melia toosendan. Their structures were elucidated by mass spectrometry, NMR experiments, and comparison with the known compounds. Particularly, the absolute configuration at C(24) in new compounds was determined through their CD spectra of the [Pr(FOD)₃] complex (fod=1,1,1,2,2,3,3,7,7,7‐decafluoroheptane‐4,6‐dione) in CCl₄, as well as by using Mosher's method.     

Identification of miR-7 as an oncogene in renal cell carcinoma

MicroRNA-7 (miR-7) has been described as a tumor suppressor in several human cancers, but the results of a study to identify miRNAs associated with metastatic capability in breast cancer suggested that miR-7 may be characterized as an oncogene. The present study was to determine the expression and function of miR-7 in renal cell carcinoma. Quantitative real-time polymerase chain reaction was used to validate the expressions of miR-7 in 48 paired renal cell carcinomas (RCC) and normal tissues, based on the preliminary sequencing results of miRNAs. Furthermore, the impacts of miR-7 on cell migration, proliferation and apoptosis were analyzed using wound scratch assay, MTT and flow cytometry, respectively. The results demonstrated that miR-7 was up-regulated in RCC compared with normal tissues (p = 0.001). Down-regulation of miR-7 with synthesized inhibitor inhibited cell migration in vitro, suppressed cell proliferation and induced renal cancer cell apoptosis, prompting that miR-7 could be characterized as an oncogene in RCC. The present study was the first to reveal that miR-7 was up-regulated in RCC and it played an important role in RCC by affecting cellular migration, proliferation and apoptosis. Further researches should be conducted to explore the roles and target genes of miR-7 in RCC and other cancers.     

Probabilistic Inference of Biochemical Reactions in Microbial Communities from Metagenomic Sequences

Shotgun metagenomics has been applied to the studies of the functionality of various microbial communities. As a critical analysis step in these studies, biological pathways are reconstructed based on the genes predicted from metagenomic shotgun sequences. Pathway reconstruction provides insights into the functionality of a microbial community and can be used for comparing multiple microbial communities. The utilization of pathway reconstruction, however, can be jeopardized because of imperfect functional annotation of genes, and ambiguity in the assignment of predicted enzymes to biochemical reactions (e.g., some enzymes are involved in multiple biochemical reactions). Considering that metabolic functions in a microbial community are carried out by many enzymes in a collaborative manner, we present a probabilistic sampling approach to profiling functional content in a metagenomic dataset, by sampling functions of catalytically promiscuous enzymes within the context of the entire metabolic network defined by the annotated metagenome. We test our approach on metagenomic datasets from environmental and human-associated microbial communities. The results show that our approach provides a more accurate representation of the metabolic activities encoded in a metagenome, and thus improves the comparative analysis of multiple microbial communities. In addition, our approach reports likelihood scores of putative reactions, which can be used to identify important reactions and metabolic pathways that reflect the environmental adaptation of the microbial communities. Source code for sampling metabolic networks is available online at http://omics.informatics.indiana.edu/mg/MetaNetSam/.     

Comparison of the Efficiency of Banna Miniature Inbred Pig Somatic Cell Nuclear Transfer among Different Donor Cells

Somatic cell nuclear transfer (SCNT) is an important method of breeding quality varieties, expanding groups, and preserving endangered species. However, the viability of SCNT embryos is poor, and the cloned rate of animal production is low in pig. This study aims to investigate the gene function and establish a disease model of Banna miniature inbred pig. SCNT with donor cells derived from fetal, newborn, and adult fibroblasts was performed, and the cloning efficiencies among the donor cells were compared. The results showed that the cleavage and blastocyst formation rates did not significantly differ between the reconstructed embryos derived from the fetal (74.3% and 27.4%) and newborn (76.4% and 21.8%) fibroblasts of the Banna miniature inbred pig (P>0.05). However, both fetal and newborn fibroblast groups showed significantly higher rates than the adult fibroblast group (61.9% and 13.0%; P<0.05). The pregnancy rates of the recipients in the fetal and newborn fibroblast groups (60% and 80%, respectively) were higher than those in the adult fibroblast group. Eight, three, and one cloned piglet were obtained from reconstructed embryos of the fetal, newborn, and adult fibroblasts, respectively. Microsatellite analyses results indicated that the genotypes of all cloning piglets were identical to their donor cells and that the genetic homozygosity of the Banna miniature inbred pig was higher than those of the recipients. Therefore, the offspring was successfully cloned using the fetal, newborn, and adult fibroblasts of Banna miniature inbred pig as donor cells.     

Maintenance Therapy with Immunomodulatory Drugs after Autologous Stem Cell Transplantation in Patients with Multiple Myeloma: A Meta-Analysis of Randomized Controlled Trials

Background

Although high-dose therapy (HDT) with autologous stem cell transplantation (ASCT) has been confirmed to result in longer remission time than conventional chemotherapy, multiple myeloma (MM) remains incurable. Post-ASCT maintenance is considered as a strategy for obtaining durable remissions and preventing tumor progression. Randomized controlled trials (RCTs) studying maintenance therapy with immunomodulatory drugs (IMiDs) after ASCT have shown some valuable survival improvements. This meta-analysis of RCTs therefore assesses the effect of post-ASCT IMiDs maintenance on MM patients.

Methods

We performed a meta-analysis to evaluate the impact of IMiDs (thalidomide or lenalidomide) as post-ASCT maintenance therapy on the survival of newly diagnosed MM patients. The outcomes for this meta-analysis were progression-free survival (PFS) and overall survival (OS).

Results

Eight RCTs enrolling 3514 patients were included for analysis. An obvious improvement in Os (hazard ratio [HR] 0.75) and a significant PFS advantage (HR 0.58) with post-ASCT IMiDs maintenance was revealed. Thalidomide maintenance after ASCT can result in significant benefit in Os (HR 0.72), particularly combined with corticosteroids (HR 0.66).

Conclusions

MM patients after ASCT have a significant overall survival benefit with IMiDs maintenance. IMiDs maintenance was justified for MM patients who received HDT with ASCT.