Plant regeneration via organogenesis from adventitious bud explants of a medicinal herb species, <Emphasis Type="Italic">Polygonatum cyrtonema</Emphasis>

Summary Explants derived from adventitious buds, rhizomes, stems, and leaves of a medicinal plant, Polygonatum cyrtonema, were studied for plantlet regeneration, and only adventitious bud explants were able to be regenerated into plantlets. Regeneration was also accompanied by the formation of rhizome-like tissue, the medicinal portion of the plant. The optimum hormone combination for plantlet regenertion was 4.44 μM benzyladenine plus 2.26 μM 2,4-dichlorophenoxyacetic acid, at which new adventitious buds were obtained from 96.6% of the adventitious bud explants, with an average of 5.2 buds per explant. The best medium for root induction was half-strength Murashige and Skoog medium with 4.57 μM α-naphthaleneacetic acid, as 92% of regenerated buds rooted. Regenerated plantlets were successfully transferred to a greenhouse with 86% survival. Histological observation indicated that new adventitious buds originated from the superficial meristematic cell cluster of the granular callus induced from adventitious bud explants via organogenesis.     

作物数量遗传学基础 二、遗传力及其估算

两栖类染色体的研究,过去多使用以生殖 细胞和端蚌尾部上皮细胞为材料的水低渗压片 法^[6]。然而,生殖细胞和峪蚌组织受季节的限 制颇大,所得的中期分裂相亦不甚多。随着 低等脊稚动物组织培养技术^[1,2]与血液培养技 术^[3]的发展,近年来已更多的使用离体培养的 细胞来进行研究。     

血管钠肽抑制低氧刺激心脏成纤维细胞增殖的机制研究

目的：研究血管钠肽（VNP）抑制低氧刺激的心脏成纤维细胞增殖的机制。方法：发离、培养乳鼠心脏成纤维细胞,随机分为四组：对照组、低氧组、低氧＋VNP组和低氧＋8－Bromo-cGMP组。以MTT法观察各组细胞的生长情况,分别采用放射免疫和免疫组化的方法研究了VNP对细胞内cGMP水平和增殖细胞核抗原（PCNA）表达的影响。结果：低氧24h可以使培养的乳鼠心脏成纤维细胞MTT A490nm值显著升高（P＜0．05vs对照组）,VNP（10^-7mol/L和8－Bromo-cGMP(10^-3mol/L)均可以显著降低低氧刺激的心脏成纤维细胞MTT A490nm值（P＜0．05vs低氧组）;对照组和低氧组细胞内cGMP水平无显著差异,而VNP（10^-7mol/L）能升高细胞内cGMP水平（P＜0．05vs对照组、低氧组）;低氧组PCNA的表达显著强于对照组（P＜0．05vs对照组）,VNP（10^-7mol/L可以使低氧刺激的心脏成纤维细胞PCNA表达减弱（P＜0．05vs低氧组）。结论：VNP抑制低氧刺激的心脏成纤维细胞增殖与升高细胞内cGMP水平、减弱PCNA的表达有关。     

Metabolism of biodiesel-derived glycerol in probiotic Lactobacillus strains

Three probiotic Lactobacillus strains, Lactobacillus acidophilus, Lactobacillus plantarum, and Lactobacillus delbrueckii, were tested for their ability to assimilate and metabolize glycerol. Biodiesel-derived glycerol was used as the main carbon and energy source in batch microaerobic growth. Here, we show that the tested strains were able to assimilate glycerol, consuming between 38 and 48 % in approximately 24 h. L. acidophilus and L. delbrueckii showed a similar growth, higher than L. plantarum. The highest biomass reached was 2.11 g?L^?1 for L. acidophilus, with a cell mass yield (Y _X/S) of 0.37 g?g^?1. L. delbrueckii and L. plantarum reached a biomass of 2.06 and 1.36 g?L^?1. All strains catabolize glycerol mainly through glycerol kinase (EC 2.7.1.30). For these lactobacillus species, kinetic parameters for glycerol kinase showed Michaelis–Menten constant (K _m) ranging from 1.2 to 3.8 mM. The specific activities for glycerol kinase in these strains were in the range of 0.18 to 0.58 U?mg?protein^?1, with L. acidophilus ATCC 4356 showing the maximum specific activity after 24 h of cultivation. Glycerol dehydrogenase activity was also detected in all strains studied but only for the reduction of glyceraldehyde with NADPH (K _m for DL-glyceraldehyde ranging from 12.8 to 32.3 mM). This enzyme shows a very low oxidative activity with glycerol and NADP⁺ and, most likely, under physiological conditions, the oxidative reaction does not occur, supporting the assumption that the main metabolic flux concerning glycerol metabolism is through the glycerol kinase pathway.     

Enhanced production of (+)-terrein in fed-batch cultivation of Aspergillus terreus strain PF26 with sodium citrate

(+)-Terrein is a fungal metabolite with multiple biological activities, especially with great value in medicine. However, the mass production of single configuration terrein is still a big challenge. In this study, the effects of acetic acid, sodium acetate, citric acid and sodium citrate on the (+)-terrein production by Aspergillus terreus strain PF26 derived from marine sponge Phakellia fusca were investigated. Sodium citrate was selected for fed-batch cultivation because it showed the best effect on (+)-terrein production among the four regulators tested. As a result, 5.38 g/L (+)-terrein production was achieved by feeding 10 mM sodium citrate on the 3rd day in shake flask, which was 33.8 % higher than the control and represented the highest yield of (+)-terrein. In a 7.5-L stirred bioreactor, 2.58 g/L of (+)-terrein production was achieved by the feeding of 10 mM sodium citrate on the 8th day. The results from this study lay a basis for the high-yield production of (+)-terrein by fermentation.     

A meta-analysis of the association of glutathione S-transferase P1 gene polymorphism with the susceptibility of breast cancer

Glutathione S-transferase P1 (GSTP1) is one of the important mutant sites for the cancer risk at present. The conclusions of the published reports on the relationship between GSTP1 A/G gene polymorphism and the risk of breast cancer are still debated. This meta-analysis was performed to evaluate the association between GSTP1 and the risk of breast cancer. The association reports were identified from PubMed and Cochrane Library, and eligible studies were included and synthesized using meta-analysis method. 35 investigations were included into this meta-analysis for the association of GSTP1 A/G gene polymorphism and breast cancer susceptibility, consisting of 40,347 subjects (18,665 patients with breast cancer and 21,682 controls). The association between GSTP1 A/G gene polymorphism and breast cancer risk was not found for overall population, Caucasians and Africans. Interestingly, the GSTP1 A/G gene polymorphism was associated with the susceptibility of breast cancer in Asians (G allele: OR = 1.10, 95 % CI: 1.04–1.17, P = 0.001; GG genotype: OR = 1.36, 95 % CI: 1.14–1.62, P = 0.0008; AA genotype: OR = 0.92, 95 % CI: 0.85–0.98, P = 0.02). Furthermore, the GSTP1 A/G gene polymorphism was associated with the susceptibility of breast cancer for the analysis of the controls from hospital. In conclusion, GSTP1 A/G gene polymorphism is associated with the breast cancer susceptibility in Asians. However, more studies on the relationship between GSTP1 A/G gene polymorphism and the risk of breast cancer should be performed in further.     

原生质体融合技术选育分解草酸乳酸菌菌株的研究

将具有草酸分解能力的乳双歧杆菌和具有耐氧特性的嗜酸乳杆菌进行原生质体融合,其最佳条件为:50%的PEG6000,融合温度30℃,融合时间为7 min,CaCl2浓度为0.02 mol/L,MgCl2浓度为0.5 mol/L,在此条件下融合率可达7.6%。从中筛选出同时具有耐氧特性和草酸分解能力的融合子,草酸分解率为13.4%。     

M-Finder: Uncovering functionally associated proteins from interactome data integrated with GO annotations

Background

Protein-protein interactions (PPIs) play a key role in understanding the mechanisms of cellular processes. The availability of interactome data has catalyzed the development of computational approaches to elucidate functional behaviors of proteins on a system level. Gene Ontology (GO) and its annotations are a significant resource for functional characterization of proteins. Because of wide coverage, GO data have often been adopted as a benchmark for protein function prediction on the genomic scale.

Results

We propose a computational approach, called M-Finder, for functional association pattern mining. This method employs semantic analytics to integrate the genome-wide PPIs with GO data. We also introduce an interactive web application tool that visualizes a functional association network linked to a protein specified by a user. The proposed approach comprises two major components. First, the PPIs that have been generated by high-throughput methods are weighted in terms of their functional consistency using GO and its annotations. We assess two advanced semantic similarity metrics which quantify the functional association level of each interacting protein pair. We demonstrate that these measures outperform the other existing methods by evaluating their agreement to other biological features, such as sequence similarity, the presence of common Pfam domains, and core PPIs. Second, the information flow-based algorithm is employed to discover a set of proteins functionally associated with the protein in a query and their links efficiently. This algorithm reconstructs a functional association network of the query protein. The output network size can be flexibly determined by parameters.

Conclusions

M-Finder provides a useful framework to investigate functional association patterns with any protein. This software will also allow users to perform further systematic analysis of a set of proteins for any specific function. It is available online at http://bionet.ecs.baylor.edu/mfinder

     

Reproductive measures and chick provisioning of Cory's Shearwater Calonectris diomedea borealis in the Azores

Capsule Timing of breeding influenced wing-length at fledging, and egg size may be an indicator of fledging weight and the amount of food received by chicks.

Aims To investigate chick growth, temporal patterns of chick food provisioning and the importance of indices of parental condition or quality, egg size and hatching date, to predict nestling body mass and wing-length at fledging, and compare breeding and chick feeding characteristics between colonies in the northeast Atlantic.

Methods A survey of Cory's Shearwater nests was carried out at Vila islet. A sample of 52 chicks, ringed and weighed at hatching, was selected to study chick growth and food provisioning.

Results Hatching success (51%) was much lower than fledging success (87%). Both hatching date and egg size contributed to explain wing-length at fledging, but hatching date, which was negatively correlated with wing-length at fledging, had the most important contribution (22%). There was some indication that egg size may explain variation in fledging weight and the amount of food received by chicks. Food delivery and feeding frequency of chicks varied throughout the chick development stage and three phases were distinguished: (1) 0–29 days, the highest feeding frequency values and a linear increase in food delivery; (2) 30–69 days, an oscillation in food delivery and medium feeding frequencies; (3) 70–90+ days, a sharp decrease in both food delivery and feeding frequency.

Conclusion Variation in food availability did not seem sufficient to override the overall importance of indices of parental quality in determining reproductive measures and chick provisioning. Breeding and feeding characteristics were similar between colonies in the northeast Atlantic, with variability in chick provisioning higher further south.