Demineralized Bone Matrix Combined Bone Marrow Mesenchymal Stem Cells,Bone Morphogenetic Protein-2 and Transforming Growth Factor-β3 Gene Promoted Pig Cartilage Defect Repair

Objectives

To investigate whether a combination of demineralized bone matrix (DBM) and bone marrow mesenchymal stem cells (BMSCs) infected with adenovirus-mediated- bone morphogenetic protein (Ad-BMP-2) and transforming growth factor-β3 (Ad-TGF-β3) promotes the repair of the full-thickness cartilage lesions in pig model.

Methods

BMSCs isolated from pig were cultured and infected with Ad-BMP-2(B group), Ad-TGF-β3 (T group), Ad-BMP-2 + Ad-TGF-β3(BT group), cells infected with empty Ad served as a negative group(N group), the expression of the BMP-2 and TGF-β3 were confirmed by immunofluorescence, PCR, and ELISA, the expression of SOX-9, type II collagen(COL-2A), aggrecan (ACAN) in each group were evaluated by real-time PCR at 1w, 2w, 3w, respectively. The chondrogenic differentiation of BMSCs was evaluated by type II collagen at 21d with immunohistochemical staining. The third-passage BMSCs infected with Ad-BMP-2 and Ad-TGF-β3 were suspended and cultured with DBM for 6 days to construct a new type of tissue engineering scaffold to repair full-thickness cartilage lesions in the femur condyles of pig knee, the regenerated tissue was evaluated at 1,2 and 3 months after surgery by gross appearance, H&E, safranin O staining and O''driscoll score.

Results

Ad-BMP-2 and Ad-TGF-β3 (BT group) infected cells acquired strong type II collagen staining compared with Ad-BMP-2 (B group) and Ad-TGF-β3 (T group) along. The Ad-BMP-2 and Ad-TGF-β3 infected BMSCs adhered and propagated well in DBM and the new type of tissue engineering scaffold produced hyaline cartilage morphology containing a stronger type II collagen and safranin O staining, the O''driscoll score was higher than other groups.

Conclusions

The DBM compound with Ad-BMP-2 and Ad-TGF-β3 infected BMSCs scaffold has a good biocompatibility and could well induce cartilage regeneration to repair the defects of joint cartilage. This technology may be efficiently employed for cartilage lesions repair in vivo.     

EZH2作为抗肿瘤免疫治疗靶点研究进展

多梳蛋白复合体(PcG)的核心亚基zeste基因增强子同源物2(Enhancer of zeste homolog2,EZH2)是一种组蛋白甲基转移酶,参与维持细胞密度、干细胞多能性、细胞周期调节等重要的生理作用。研究发现,EZH2在多种肿瘤组织中高表达,是促进肿瘤发生和发展的致癌因子。由于EZH2在正常组织中低表达或者不表达,使其新近被鉴定为一种肿瘤相关抗原。已经在EZH2蛋白分子中鉴定出多条特异性抗原肽,这些抗原肽能激发机体免疫细胞对EZH2表达异常增高肿瘤细胞的杀伤活性。上述研究提示,EZH2可能是一种新的抗肿瘤治疗分子靶点,并在肿瘤免疫治疗中具有潜在的应用价值。就该领域的最新研究进展作一简要综述。     

云南的腐霉

本文报道迄今为止在我国云南省发现的腐霉属真菌19个种,其中1个新种,3个中国新记录,5个云南新记录。新种为下雄腐霉Pythium hypoandrum Yu ＆ Y.L.Wang sp.nov.; 云南新记录为:旋柄腐霉P.helicoides、长井腐霉P.nagaii、周雄腐霉P.periilum、喙腐霉P.rostratum和钟器腐霉P.vexans,前3者还是中国新记录。有分种检索表,对其中12个种进行了描述并附形态图。     

社会-经济-自然复合生态系统有效物质(能量、货币)平衡模型的建立及其应用

根据质量守恒定律和有效物质（能量、货币）在系统内外部转化关系建立了社会、神经-自然复合生态系统有效物质（能量、货币）平衡模型,定义了模型特征参数。将模型应用于3个不同的研究领域,获得了相应研究领域的平衡模型,结果表明所建立的平衡模型具有通用性,它对于研究复合生态系统有效物质、能量和货币平衡具有重要的理论和实践意义。     

Plant target of rapamycin signaling network: Complexes,conservations, and specificities

Target of rapamycin (TOR) is an evolutionarily conserved protein kinase that functions as a central signaling hub to integrate diverse internal and external cues to precisely orchestrate cellular and organismal physiology. During evolution, TOR both maintains the highly conserved TOR complex compositions, and cellular and molecular functions, but also evolves distinctive roles and strategies to modulate cell growth, proliferation, metabolism, survival, and stress responses in eukaryotes. Here, we review recent discoveries on the plant TOR signaling network. We present an overview of plant TOR complexes, analyze the signaling landscape of the plant TOR signaling network from the upstream signals that regulate plant TOR activation to the downstream effectors involved in various biological processes, and compare their conservation and specificities within different biological contexts. Finally, we summarize the impact of dysregulation of TOR signaling on every stage of plant growth and development, from embryogenesis and seedling growth, to flowering and senescence.     

Culturing novel and abundant pelagiphages in the ocean

Viruses play a key role in biogeochemical cycling and host mortality, metabolism, physiology and evolution in the ocean. Viruses that infect the globally abundant SAR11 bacteria (pelagiphages) were reported to be an important component of the marine viral communities. Our current knowledge of pelagiphages is based on a few studies and therefore is limited. In this study, 10 new pelagiphages were isolated and genomically characterized. These pelagiphages represent the first cultivated representatives of four viral lineages only found in metagenomic sequencing datasets previously. Many abundant environmental viral sequences, i.e., single-virus vSAG 37-F6 and several Global Ocean Viromes (GOV) viral populations, are now further confirmed with these pelagiphages. Viromic read mapping reveals that these new pelagiphages are globally distributed in the ocean and can be detected throughout the water column. Remarkably, isolation of these pelagiphages contributed up to 12% of all viromic reads annotated in the analysed viromes. Altogether, this study has greatly broadened our understanding of pelagiphages regarding their morphology, genetic diversity, infection strategies, and distribution pattern. The availability of these newly isolated pelagiphages and their genome sequences will allow us to further explore their infectivities and ecological strategies.     

Characterization of a family 5 glycoside hydrolase isolated from the outer membrane of cellulolytic Cytophaga hutchinsonii

Cytophaga hutchinsonii is an abundant aerobic cellulolytic bacterium that rapidly digests crystalline cellulose in a contact-dependent manner. The different roles of various predicted glycoside hydrolases and the detailed mechanism used by C. hutchinsonii in cellulose digestion are, however, not known. In this study, an endoglucanase belonging to glycoside hydrolase family 5 (GH5) named as ChCel5A was isolated from the outer membrane of C. hutchinsonii. The catalytic domain of ChCel5A exhibited typical endoglucanase activity and was capable of hydrolyzing insoluble cellulose with cellobiose and cellotriose as the predominant digestion products. Site-directed mutagenesis identified two aromatic amino acids in ChCle5A, W61 and W308, that dramatically decreased its hydrolytic activity toward filter paper while causing only a slight decrease in carboxymethylcellulase (CMCase) activity. Disruption of chu_1107 encoding ChCel5A caused no drastic effect on the growth parameters on cellulose for the resulting mutant strain with negligible reduction in the specific CMCase activities for intact cells. The demonstration of targeted gene inactivation capability for C. hutchinsonii has provided an opportunity to improve understanding of the details of the mechanism underlying its efficient utilization of cellulose.     

Cloning and molecular characterization of fructose-1,6-bisphosphate aldolase gene regulated by high-salinity and drought in Sesuvium portulacastrum

Sesuvium portulacastrum, a mangrove plant from seashore, is a halophyte species well adapted to salinity and drought. Some efforts have been made to describe its physiological and structural characteristics on salt and drought-tolerance, but the underlying molecular mechanism and key components have not yet been identified. Here, a fructose-1,6-bisphosphate aldolase gene, designated SpFBA, was isolated and characterized from S. portulacastrum roots in response to seawater. The SpFBA cDNA has a total length of 1452 bp with an open reading frame of 1071 bp, and is predicted to encode a precursor protein of 357 amino acid residues sharing high degree of homology with class I FBAs from other plants. Semi-quantitative RT-PCR analysis indicated that the SpFBA was more strongly expressed in roots than in leaves and stems, and the abiotic stimuli such as Seawater, NaCl, ABA, and PEG, could trigger a significant induction of SpFBA in S. portulacastrum roots within 2–12 h. Overproduction of Recombinant SpFBA resulted in an increased tolerance to salinity in transgenic Escherichia coli. All these results suggest that the SpFBA plays very important roles in responding to salt stress and related abiotic stimuli, and in improving the survival ability of S. portulacastrum under high salinity and drought. The GenBank Accession number of S. portulacastrum fructose-1,6-bisphosphate aldolase (SpFBA) is ACG68894.