The objective of this study was to investigate the possible effect of demecolcine, a microtubule-disrupting reagent, on induced enucleation (IE) of sheep meiotically maturing oocytes. Immunofluorescent staining with anti-tubulin antibodies was used to examine the spindle status of the oocytes. When the oocytes with intact germinal vesicles (GV) were cultured in the medium containing various concentrations of demecolcine (0.01 to 0.4 microg.mL-1) for 20 to 22 h, the spindle microtubule organization and first polar body (PB1) extrusion were inhibited by demecolcine in a dose-dependent manner. The highest IE rate (58.1%) was from the treatment with 0.04 microg.mL-1 demecolcine. Demecolcine treatment applied after germinal vesicle breakdown (GVBD) or at metaphase (M) yielded a PB1 extrusion rate and IE efficiency similar to the treatment applied at the onset of maturation. Analysis by immunofluorescence showed that both nonspindle microtubules and spindle microtubules were significantly disorganized by demecolcine. Combination treatment with demecolcine and cycloheximide (CHX) or 6-dimethylaminopurine (6-DMAP) led to single pronuclear formation rather than PB1 extrusion. When demecolcine-treated oocytes were transferred into demecolcine-free medium, the ability to extrude PB1 was quickly restored and a 72.1% IE rate was obtained following such treatment. These results demonstrate that demecolcine can be used as a potential reagent for induced enucleation of sheep meiotically maturing oocytes and may greatly facilitate research in nuclear transfer. 相似文献
Background: Oxidative stress has been identified as an important pathogenesis mechanism in the development of renal interstitial fibrosis in unilateral ureteral obstruction (UUO). Previous studies have demonstrated increased expression of nicotinamide adenine dinucleotide phosphate (NADPH) oxidase (NOXs) in response to UUO. We aimed to investigate whether NOXs activation was involved in the development of renal fibrosis in UUO by contribution to oxidative stress and the potential mechanism in the present study.
Methods: Apocynin, a NOXs inhibitor, was initiated immediately by gavage after UUO was performed on Wistar rats and continued until 7 days after UUO. Changes of markers of oxidative stress, renal macrophage infiltration and fibrosis, TGF-β1 expression, NOXs expression and activity, and ERK activation were evaluated.
Results: Apocynin significantly attenuated the activity of NOXs, accompanied with decreased expression of NOX2, NOX4, and oxidative stress markers in the obstructed kidneys of UUO. Additionally, collagen deposition and renal fibrosis induced by UUO were attenuated by apocynin treatment. Furthermore, apocynin treatment significantly attenuated the phosphorylation of ERK, accumulation of myofibroblast and infiltration of macrophage in obstructed kidneys. No significant effect of apocynin on UUO-induced increased TGF-β1 expression could be observed. And there was no significant change of anti-oxidants enzyme activities in the obstructed kidneys of apocynin-treated rats.
Conclusions: These results suggested that apocynin might exert beneficial effects on renal fibrosis by inhibition of NOXs activation and subsequent reduction of oxidative stress, ERK activation, and myofibroblast accumulation in UUO rats. Targeting NOXs may serve as a therapeutic strategy for the treatment of renal fibrosis. 相似文献
RNA interference (RNAi) mediated inhibition of virus-specific genes has emerged as a potential therapeutic strategy against virus induced diseases. Human hepatitis B virus (HBV) surface antigen (HBsAg) has proven to be a significant risk factor in HBV induced liver diseases, and an increasing number of mutations in HBsAg are known to enhance the difficulty in therapeutic interventions. The key challenge for achieving effective gene silencing in particular for the purpose of the therapeutics is primarily based on the effectiveness and specificity of the RNAi targeting sequence. To explore the therapeutic potential of RNAi on HBV induced diseases in particular resulted from aberrant or persistent expression of HBsAg, we have especially screened and identified the most potent and specific RNAi targeting sequence that directly mediated inhibition of the HBsAg expression. Using an effective DNA vector-based shRNA expression system, we have screened 10 RNAi targeting sequences (HBsAg-1 to 10) that were chosen from HBsAg coding region, in particular the major S region, and have identified four targeting sequences that could mediate sequence specific inhibition of the HBsAg expression. Among these four shRNAs, an extremely potent and highly sequence specific HBsAg-3 shRNA was found to inhibit HBsAg expression in mouse HBV model. The inhibition was not only preventive in cotransfection experiments, but also had therapeutic effect as assessed by post-treatment protocols. Moreover, this HBsAg-3 shRNA also exhibited a great potency of inhibition in transgenic mice that constitutively expressed HBsAg. These results indicate that HBsAg-3 shRNA can be considered as a powerful therapeutic agent on HBsAg induced diseases. 相似文献
The development and testing of functions for the modeling of protein energetics is an important part of current research aimed
at understanding protein structure and function. Knowledge-based mean force potentials are derived from statistical analyses
of interacting groups in experimentally determined protein structures. Current knowledge-based mean force potentials are developed
at the atom or amino acid level. The evolutionary information contained in the profiles is not investigated. Based on these
observations, a class of novel knowledge-based mean force potentials at the profile level has been presented, which uses the
evolutionary information of profiles for developing more powerful statistical potentials. 相似文献