Effect of cyanobacterial extracellular products on high-frequency in vitro induction and elongation of Gossypium hirsutum L organs through shoot apex explants

The challenging task of bringing high efficiency transformed plants attracts lot of attention in recent times. In search for this, there have been many attempts made using, different techniques like tissue culture and plant breeding methods. Here we report a suitable alternative facile route, where cyanobacterial extracellular products are utilized as growth regulators and its performance validated on Gossypium hirsutum L. MS medium is tested with cyanobacterial extracellular products of Nostoc ellipsosporum, Dolichospermum flos-aquae and Oscillatoria acuminata .Our best results show that the addition of O. acuminata extracellular product with plant growth hormones gives the excellent induction and elongation in cotton. In addition to this, the multiple shoot was obtained on MS medium fortified with 1.0 mg L^?1 BA with 8% O. acuminata and 1.5 mg L^?1 TDZ with 12% O. acuminata. High frequency of shoot elongation supplemented with MS medium, iP 2.5 mg L^?1 and 16% O. acuminata and root production MS medium fortified with 12% O. acuminata best responsible for regeneration in cotton plants. The rooted plants were hardened and transferred to soil with 90% survival rate.     

利用表型数据构建陆地棉核心种质

以5963份陆地棉种质资源为材料,根据品种主要突变性状和品种类型分组成11组群,在分组的基础上利用21个表型性状,用非加权类平均聚类分析法,构建了281份陆地棉核心种质,占全部种质资源总量的4.71%。利用不同性状的均值t测验、方差F测验、变异系数、多样性指数t检验、均值、极差、表型方差、变异系数、均值差异百分率、方差差异百分率、极差符合率、变异系数变化率、主成分分析等参数进行核心种质代表性检验和评价。结果表明,所构建的陆地棉核心种质可以代表全部种质的遗传多样性。     

Lovastatin reversed the enhanced sphingomyelin caused by 27-hydroxycholesterol in cultured vascular endothelial cells

Statins have pleiotropic properties which are involved in inhibiting the thrombogenic response. In this study, the effects of lovastatin on two phospholipids, phosphatidylcholine and sphingomyelin, were studied in cultured endothelial cells in the presence of an oxysterol, 27-hydroxycholesterol. After the cells were cultured with 50 nM of lovastatin for 60 h, lovastatin was found to decrease the incorporation of [³H]choline into phosphatidylcholine and sphingomyelin, inhibited CTP: phosphocholine cytidylyltransferase (CT) activity without altering the activity of sphingomyelin synthase and neutral sphingomyelinase. And lovastatin was not found to have a direct inhibitive effect on activity of CT. Exogenous mevalonic acid or cholesterol reversed the reduction of cholesterol concentration that was caused by lovastatin, but had no significant effect on the diminished [³H]sphingomyelin by lovastatin. The increase of [³H]sphingomyelin by 27-hydroxycholesterol was not detected in the presence of lovastatin. These findings suggest that (1) lovastatin can reduce sphingomyelin content by means of inhibiting phosphatidylcholine synthesis; and (2) The decrease in sphingomyelin is not related to the diminished cholesterol concentration or mevalonate-derived intermediates. This inhibitive effect of lovastatin on sphingomyelin may benefit cellular calcification caused by sphingomyelin.     

The effect of two cryopreservation methods on human sperm DNA damage

Several methods are currently available for selection when conducting sperm cryopreservation, however, these methods might cause different degrees of damage on sperm DNA. The aim of the this study is to compare the effects of storage at −80 °C (in ultra-low temperature refrigerator) and at −196 °C (in liquid nitrogen) on sperm DNA damage, thus to provide a reference for choosing the right method according to different aims. We randomly collected 28 semen samples from college students of Chongqing city. The samples stored at −80 °C were neat semen samples and the samples stored at −196 °C were mixed with additional cryoprotectants. Each sample was subjected to two freezing-thawing cycles, and the sperm DNA damage levels of fresh and thawed samples were measured by single cell gel electrophoresis (SCGE) and sperm chromatin structure assay (SCSA). Both SCGE and SCSA assays showed cryopreservation induced significant damage to sperm DNA. However, storage at −196 °C lead to more severe damage to sperm DNA than storage at −80 °C measured by SCSA. Sperm DNA damage increased simultaneously with the higher frequency of freezing-thawing cycles. We concluded that storage of neat semen samples at −80 °C had milder damage to sperm DNA than storage at −196 °C mixed with cryoprotectants. To avoid additional sperm DNA damage, repeated freezing and thawing should be prevented.     

3-Substituted-4-hydroxycoumarin as a new scaffold with potent CDK inhibition and promising anticancer effect: Synthesis,molecular modeling and QSAR studies

A new series of 3-substituted-4-hydroxycoumarin derivatives was designed, synthesized, and evaluated for CDK inhibiting and anticancer activities. All the synthesized target compounds showed remarkably high affinity and selectivity towards CDK1B, compared to flavopiridol, with Ki values in the low nanomolar range (Ki = 0.35–0.88 nM). Most of them elicited considerable inhibiting effect against CDK9T1 (Ki = 3.26–23.45 nM). Moreover, all the target compounds were tested in vitro against eighteen types of human tumor cell lines. The hydrazone 3a, N-phenylpyrazoline derivative 6b and 2-aminopyridyl-3-carbonitrile derivative 8c were the most potent anticancer agents against MCF-7 breast cancer cell line (IC₅₀ = 0.21, 0.21 and 0.23 nM, respectively). The target compounds 3a, 6b and 8c were further evaluated in MCF-7 breast cancer mouse xenograft model and showed in vivo efficacy at 10 mg/kg dose. The docking study confirmed a unique binding mode in the active site of CDK1B with better score than flavopiridol. Quantitative structure activity relationship study was done and revealed a highly predictive power R² of 0.81.     

Synthesis,characterization and thermoluminescence studies of Mn‐doped ZnS nanoparticles

ZnS:Mn nanoparticles were prepared by a chemical precipitation method and characterized by X‐ray diffraction (XRD), field emission gun scanning electron microscope (FEGSEM), and high resolution transmission electron microscopy (HRTEM). Capping agent (mercaptoethanol) concentrations used were 0 M, 0.005 M, 0.01 M, 0.015 M, 0.025 M, 0.040 M, and 0.060 M, and resulted in nanoparticles sizes of 2.98 nm, 2.9 nm, 2.8 nm, 2.7 nm, 2.61 nm, 2.2 nm and 2.1 nm, respectively. The thermoluminescence (TL) glow curve was recorded by heating the sample exposed to UV‐radiation, at a fixed heating rate 1°C sec^–1. The TL intensity initially increased with temperature, attained a peak value I_m for a particular temperature, and then decreased with further increase in temperature. The peak TL intensity increased with decreasing nanoparticle size, whereas the temperature corresponding to the peak TL intensity decreased slightly with reducing nanocrystal size. As a consequence of increase in surface‐to‐volume ratio and increased carrier recombination rates, the TL intensity increased with decreasing nanoparticle size. It was found that, whereas activation energy slightly decreased with decreasing nanoparticle size, the frequency factor decreased significantly with reduction in nanoparticle size. Copyright © 2015 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

A multi‐resolution model to capture both global fluctuations of an enzyme and molecular recognition in the ligand‐binding site

In multi‐resolution simulations, different system components are simultaneously modeled at different levels of resolution, these being smoothly coupled together. In the case of enzyme systems, computationally expensive atomistic detail is needed in the active site to capture the chemistry of ligand binding. Global properties of the rest of the protein also play an essential role, determining the structure and fluctuations of the binding site; however, these can be modeled on a coarser level. Similarly, in the most computationally efficient scheme only the solvent hydrating the active site requires atomistic detail. We present a methodology to couple atomistic and coarse‐grained protein models, while solvating the atomistic part of the protein in atomistic water. This allows a free choice of which protein and solvent degrees of freedom to include atomistically. This multi‐resolution methodology can successfully model stable ligand binding, and we further confirm its validity by exploring the reproduction of system properties relevant to enzymatic function. In addition to a computational speedup, such an approach can allow the identification of the essential degrees of freedom playing a role in a given process, potentially yielding new insights into biomolecular function. Proteins 2016; 84:1902–1913. © 2016 Wiley Periodicals, Inc.