Investigation of polyethylenimine‐grafted‐triamcinolone acetonide as nucleus‐targeting gene delivery systems

Background

Nuclear membrane is one of the main barriers in polymer mediated intracellular gene delivery. To improve the transgenic activity and safety of nonviral vector, triamcinolone acetonide (TA) as a nuclear localization signal was conjugated with different molecular weight polyethylenimine (PEI).

Methods

Different molecular weight PEI [600, 1800, 25 000 (25k)] was conjugated with TA to synthesize PEI‐TA by two‐step reaction. Their physicochemical characteristics, in vitro cytotoxicity and transfection efficiency were evaluated. To investigate the difference of transfection efficiency of various molecular weight PEI‐TA, their transfection mechanism was further investigated by confocal microscopy and competition assay. Transgenic expression in vivo was evaluated by injection into hepatic portal vein of mice.

Results

All PEI‐TA could form nanosize polyplexes with DNA and their physicochemical properties resemble each other. Their cytotoxicities were negligible compared to PEI 25k. The order of transfection efficiency was PEI 1800‐TA > PEI 600‐TA > PEI 25k‐TA. A transfection mechanism study displayed that TA could inhibit considerably the transgenic activity of PEI 1800‐TA and PEI 600‐TA, but that of PEI 25k‐TA was not inhibited. It was suggested that PEI 1800‐TA and PEI 600‐TA might translocate into the nucleus. Confocal microscopy investigation verified this suggestion. The data strongly suggested that the transfection efficiency of PEI 1800‐TA in vivo was much higher than that of PEI 25k, which was consistent with the results obtained in vitro.

Conclusions

Low molecular weight PEI‐TA could translocate into the nucleus efficiently. PEI 1800‐TA presented higher transgenic activity and it has a great potential for gene therapy as a nonviral carrier. Copyright © 2010 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

An S/MAR-based L1 retrotransposition cassette mediates sustained levels of insertional mutagenesis without suffering from epigenetic silencing of DNA methylation

L1 is an insertional mutagen that is capable of mediating permanent gene disruption in mammalian genomes. However, currently available L1 retrotransposition vectors exhibit low or unstable transgene expression when expressed in somatic cells and tissues. This restriction limits their potential utility in long-term screening procedures or somatic mutagenesis applications. In this study, we addressed this problem by developing a minicircle, nonviral L1 retrotransposition vector using a scaffold/matrix attachment region (S/MAR) in the vector backbone and evaluated its utility in human cell lines. The S/MAR-based L1 retrotransposition vector provides stable, elevated levels of L1 expression compared to the currently used EBNA1-based L1 vector. In addition, the S/MAR elements effectively mediate sustained levels of L1 retrotransposition in prolonged cell culturing without suffering from epigenetic silencing by DNA methylation or from vector integration problems even in the absence of selection pressure. These findings indicate that the simple inclusion of S/MAR in the vector backbone increased levels of L1 expression and retrotransposition that can be used as an effective tool to generate insertional mutagenesis in large-scale somatic mutagenesis applications in mammalian cells.     

过表达Nanog基因的小鼠骨髓间质干细胞对NF-κB表达的影响

核因子κB(nuclear factor kappa B,NF-κB) 的激活被认为与中枢神经系统变性疾病的进展有关。新近报告Nanog能抑制NF-κB的表达,为验证这一发现,通过限制性内切酶酶切和基因重组的方法,构建携带Nanog基因的重组慢病毒表达载体质粒pNL-Nanog-IRES2-EGFP,经PCR检测以及测序鉴定后,在脂质体介导下与包装质粒HELPER、包膜质粒VSVG共转染293T细胞包装生产慢病毒。所获慢病毒感染小鼠骨髓间充质干细胞 (mMSCs) 后,Western blotting法检测在mMSCs中Nanog 基因的表达,PCR、Western blotting和免疫细胞化学法检测NF-κB基因的表达。结果显示所克隆的Nanog基因测序结果与GenBank报道序列完全一致。构建的慢病毒载体质粒PNL-Nanog-IRES2-EGFP经Sal I和BamH I双酶切后电泳鉴定正确。所获慢病毒感染mMSCs后荧光激发mMSCs可见绿色荧光,Western blotting检测显示Nanog-mMSCs 组表达Nanog,其他两组基本不表达。RT-PCR和Western blotting检测显示Nanog-mMSCs组的NF-κB表达较空载体-mMSCs组及mMSCs组低,有显著性差异。构建携带Nanog基因慢病毒载体并在小鼠骨髓间质干细胞中成功表达,Nanog基因的表达可抑制NF-κB表达,这结果为神经变性疾病的治疗提供了新思路。     

心钠素表达细胞移植降低高血压大鼠的血压和增加其尿量

为探讨心钠素基因转移治疗高血压和慢性心肾功能衰竭等慢性疾病的潜力,首先利用逆转录病毒载体获得可表达和分泌人心钠素的遗传工程细胞,然后将这种细胞植于自发性高血压大鼠SHR的皮下。结果发现,人心钠素遗传工程细胞的移植可使动物血浆中的心钠素浓度在移植后第7天时明显升高。在整个实验期间,虽然实验组动物的血压会随个体发育而逐渐升高,但在实验开始后的42 d内却始终明显低于空载体组,其中第14天血压的差异高达33 mm Hg。在实验开始后的第14天和第21天,实验组动物的尿量也明显增加。以上结果说明,人心钠素遗传工程细胞的皮下移植可明显抑制SHR大鼠血压的上升趋势和改善其泌尿功能,提示该方法具有治疗高血压和慢性心肾功能衰竭等慢性疾病的潜力。     

表达ApxIA的血清7型胸膜肺炎放线杆菌弱毒菌株的构建及特性分析

猪传染性胸膜肺炎是由胸膜肺炎放线杆菌引起的一种高度接触传染疾病,严重阻碍着全球养猪业的发展,疫苗接种是控制该病的有效措施。为提高胸膜肺炎放线杆菌弱毒疫苗的免疫效力,以及探索胸膜肺炎放线杆菌弱毒疫苗作为呼吸系统病原疫苗载体的可行性,通过穿梭质粒pJFF224-XN将完整的apxIA基因导入apxIIC基因缺失突变株HB04C-中,构建了含有apxIA和apxIIA基因的弱毒疫苗菌株HB04C2(apxIIC-/apxIIA+/apxIA+)。通过对HB04C2的生物学特性分析发现,穿梭质粒可稳定传代,并表达ApxIA,其生长特性未受穿梭质粒的影响。将HB04C2以气管接种方式免疫仔猪,可产生针对ApxIA和ApxIIA的抗体。二免后2周以高致病性的血清1型胸膜肺炎放线杆菌攻毒,该弱毒疫苗可提供良好的免疫保护效果。     

辣椒ML基因植物表达载体的构建及其转化

为分析辣椒ML基因在抗辣椒疫病方面的作用,构建了ML基因的植物表达载体pBI121-ML,采用快速冻融法将表达载体导入农杆菌EHA105,并用农杆菌介导法转化辣椒感病品种B12,对得到的转化植株经PCR和RT-PCR分子检测,结果显示,获得了4个辣椒转基因株系.     

靶向XBP1S的RNA干扰质粒对细胞增殖的影响

目的 构建靶向人XBP1S的siRNA真核表达载体（pSUPER-XBP1S）并观察其对人HeLa细胞和HepG2细胞增殖能力的影响.方法 设计并合成针对XBP1S基因的siRNA,退火成互补双链后克隆至真核表达载体pSUPER构建重组质粒,并将其转染入HeLa细胞和HepG2细胞中.采用RT-PCR检测转染前后XBP1S在HeLa细胞和HepG2细胞中的转录,Western印迹检测转染前后XBP1S蛋白的表达;MTT法、细胞计数检测重组质粒对HeLa细胞和HepG2细胞增殖能力的影响.结果 重组质粒能有效地抑制HeLa细胞和HepG2细胞中XBP1S基因的转录和表达;转染HeLa细胞和HepG2细胞后,细胞增殖抑制率及细胞增殖数与对照组比较,差异有统计学意义（P〈0.05）.结论 成功构建了靶向人XBP1S的siRNA表达载体pSUPER-XBP1S,并且有效的抑制了HeLa细胞和HepG2细胞中XBP1S的转录和表达,有效抑制了细胞的增殖能力.     

丙型肝炎病毒（HCV）实验性疫苗的研究进展

丙型肝炎病毒是引起输血相关肝炎及慢性肝炎、肝硬化、肝癌的主要病原,目前尚无有效的治疗与预防手段。本文将综述HCV感染所引起的机体免疫应答及近年来实验性疫苗（主要是DNA疫苗、病毒载体疫苗及联合疫苗）的研究进展。     

Tumor-specific gene expression patterns with gene expression profiles

Gene expression profiles of 14 common tumors and their counterpart normal tissues were analyzed with machine learning methods to address the problem of selection of tumor-specific genes and analysis of their differential expressions in tumor tissues. First, a variation of the Relief algorithm, "RFE_Relief algorithm" was proposed to learn the relations between genes and tissue types. Then, a support vector machine was employed to find the gene subset with the best classification performance for distinguishing cancerous tissues and their counterparts. After tissue-specific genes were removed, cross validation experiments were employed to demonstrate the common deregulated expressions of the selected gene in tumor tissues. The results indicate the existence of a specific expression fingerprint of these genes that is shared in different tumor tissues, and the hallmarks of the expression patterns of these genes in cancerous tissues are summarized at the end of this paper.     

Support-vector-machine classification of linear functional motifs in proteins

Our algorithm predicts short linear functional motifs in proteins using only sequence information. Statistical models for short linear functional motifs in proteins are built using the database of short sequence fragments taken from proteins in the current release of the Swiss-Prot database. Those segments are confirmed by experiments to have single-residue post-translational modification. The sensitivities of the classification for various types of short linear motifs are in the range of 70%. The query protein sequence is dissected into short overlapping fragments. All segments are represented as vectors. Each vector is then classified by a machine learning algorithm (Support Vector Machine) as potentially modifiable or not. The resulting list of plausible post-translational sites in the query protein is returned to the user. We also present a study of the human protein kinase C family as a biological application of our method.