轻度支气管哮喘儿童的诱导痰菌群特征

目的探讨轻度支气管哮喘儿童的诱导痰菌群特征及临床意义。方法纳入年龄为6~12周岁于2018年11月至2019年1月在深圳市儿童医院呼吸科门诊定期复诊的轻度支气管哮喘患儿51例(哮喘组),留取诱导痰,匹配同年龄段97例健康无过敏儿童的口咽拭子作为对照。诱导痰及口咽拭子提取总DNA并扩增,对16S rRNA基因进行高通量测序并对测序结果进行生物信息学分析。结果NMDS分析结果显示哮喘组与健康对照组研究对象菌群结构存在差异;哮喘组的诱导痰菌群多样性指数(Shannon index)高于健康对照组(2.34±0.53 vs 1.87±0.50,P<0.05)。门水平分析显示,哮喘组与健康对照组的菌群均主要为厚壁菌门(38.34%vs 44.74%,P<0.05)、变形杆菌门(31.14%vs 19.78%,P<0.05)、拟杆菌门(14.59%vs 20.52%,P<0.05)、放线菌门(10.41%vs 7.85%,P<0.05)和梭杆菌门(2.82%vs 6.67%,P<0.05),但两组之间的构成比有明显差异。与健康对照组相比,在属水平上哮喘组韦荣球菌属(5.27%vs 8.96%)、普雷沃菌属(8.38%vs 17.35%)、罗斯菌属(1.50%vs 5.46%)、纤毛菌属(1.37%vs 4.39%)等非条件致病菌属比例明显下降(均P<0.05),而嗜血杆菌属(9.83%vs 6.17%)、卟啉单胞菌属(2.48%vs 1.41%)、莫拉菌属(5.66%vs 0.42%)、诺卡菌属(3.40%vs 0.00%)等条件致病菌属比例明显上升(均P<0.05)。结论尽管轻度支气管哮喘患儿已临床控制,但诱导痰内菌群仍存在结构紊乱。气道菌群紊乱可能是儿童支气管哮喘的发病机制之一。除了致病菌属外,非致病菌菌属的构成变化可能也是儿童哮喘的一个发生机制。     

Large-Scale Screens of miRNA-mRNA Interactions Unveiled That the 3′UTR of a Gene Is Targeted by Multiple miRNAs

Animal microRNA (miRNA) target prediction is still a challenge, although many prediction programs have been exploited. MiRNAs exert their function through partially binding the messenger RNAs (mRNAs; likely at 3′ untranslated regions [3′UTRs]), which makes it possible to detect the miRNA-mRNA interactions in vitro by co-transfection of miRNA and a luciferase reporter gene containing the target mRNA fragment into mammalian cells under a dual-luciferase assay system. Here, we constructed a human miRNA expression library and used a dual-luciferase assay system to perform large-scale screens of interactions between miRNAs and the 3′UTRs of seven genes, which included more than 3,000 interactions with triplicate experiments for each interaction. The screening results showed that the 3′UTR of one gene can be targeted by multiple miRNAs. Among the prediction algorithms, a Bayesian phylogenetic miRNA target identification algorithm and a support vector machine (SVM) presented a relatively better performance (27% for EIMMo and 24.7% for miRDB) against the average precision (17.3%) of the nine prediction programs used here. Additionally, we noticed that a relatively high conservation level was shown at the miRNA 3′ end targeted regions, as well as the 5′ end (seed region) binding sites.     

双歧杆菌体外对STM拮抗作用的实验研究

研究休外双歧杆菌对鼠伤寒沙门菌的拮抗作用,方法将两歧双歧杆菌ＳＴＭ混合培养。观察ＳＴＭ生长情况。结果ＳＴＭ和Ｂ．ｂｉｆｉｄｕｍ混合培养与ＳＴＭ单独培养对照相比较,菌量明显降低。结论Ｂ．ｂｉｆｉｄｕｍ在体外对ＳＴＭ有拮抗作用。     

Efficient silencing of gene expression by an ASON-bulge-DNAzyme complex

Background

DNAzymes are DNA molecules that can directly cleave cognate mRNA, and have been developed to silence gene expression for research and clinical purposes. The advantage of DNAzymes over ribozymes is that they are inexpensive to produce and exhibit good stability. The “10-23 DNA enzyme” is composed of a catalytic domain of 15 deoxynucleotides, flanked by two substrate-recognition domains of approximately eight nucleotides in each direction, which provides the complementary sequence required for specific binding to RNA substrates. However, these eight nucleotides might not afford sufficient binding energy to hold the RNA substrate along with the DNAzyme, which would interfere with the efficiency of the DNAzyme or cause side effects, such as the cleavage of non-cognate mRNAs.

Methodology

In this study, we inserted a nonpairing bulge at the 5′ end of the “10–23 DNA enzyme” to enhance its efficiency and specificity. Different sizes of bulges were inserted at different positions in the 5′ end of the DNAzyme. The non-matching bulge will avoid strong binding between the DNAzyme and target mRNA, which may interfere with the efficiency of the DNAzyme.

Conclusions

Our novel DNAzyme constructs could efficiently silence the expression of target genes, proving a powerful tool for gene silencing. The results showed that the six oligo bulge was the most effective when the six oligo bulge was 12–15 bp away from the core catalytic domain.     

Myostatin induces tumor necrosis factor-α expression in rheumatoid arthritis synovial fibroblasts through the PI3K–Akt signaling pathway

In rheumatoid arthritis (RA), a chronic inflammatory disease, loss of muscle mass is an important contributor to the loss of muscle strength in RA patients. Myostatin, a myokine involved in the process of muscle hypertrophy and myogenesis, enhances osteoclast differentiation and inflammation. Here, we investigated the mechanisms of myostatin in RA synovial inflammation. We found a positive correlation between myostatin and tumor necrosis factor-α (TNF-α), a well-known proinflammatory cytokine, in RA synovial tissue. Our in vitro results also showed that myostatin dose-dependently induced TNF-α expression through the phosphatidylinositol 3-kinase (PI3K)–Akt–AP-1 signaling pathway. Myostatin treatment of human MH7A cells stimulated AP-1-induced luciferase activity and activation of the c-Jun binding site on the TNF-α promoter. Our results indicated that myostatin increases TNF-α expression via the PI3K–Akt–AP-1 signaling pathway in human RA synovial fibroblasts. Myostatin appears to be a promising target in RA therapy.     

Pharmacological Targeting of STK19 Inhibits Oncogenic NRAS-Driven Melanomagenesis

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Synthesis and glucose-stimulate insulin secretion (GSIS) evaluation of vindoline derivatives

It is demonstrated that natural product vindoline can enhance the glucose-stimulated insulin secretion (GSIS) in MIN6 cells with the EC₅₀ value of 50.2 μM. In order to improve the activities, a series of vindoline derivatives are synthesized and evaluated in MIN6 cells. Compounds 4, 8, 17 and 24 show about 4.5 times more effective stimulation insulin secretion ability (EC₅₀: 10.4, 14.2, 11.0 and 12.7 μM, respectively) than vindoline.     

Comparative metabolomics reveals defence-related modification of citrinin by Penicillium citrinum within a synthetic Penicillium–Pseudomonas community

Co-occurring microorganisms have been proved to influence the performance of each other by metabolic means in nature. Here we generated a synthetic fungal-bacterial community comprising Penicillium citrinum and Pseudomonas aeruginosa employing the previously described membrane-separated co-culture device. By applying a newly designed molecular networking routine, new citrinin-related metabolites induced by the fungal-bacterial cross-talk were unveiled in trace amounts. A mechanically cycled co-culture setup with external pumping forces accelerating the chemically interspecies communication was then developed to boost the production of cross-talk-induced metabolites. Multivariate data analysis combined with molecular networking revealed the accumulation of a pair of co-culture-induced molecules whose productions were positively correlated to the exchange rate in the new co-cultures, facilitating the discovery of the previously undescribed antibiotic citrinolide with a novel skeleton. This highly oxidized citrinin adduct showed significantly enhanced antibiotic property against the partner strain P. aeruginosa than its precursor citrinin, suggesting a role in the microbial competition. Thus, we propose competitive-advantage-oriented structural modification driven by microbial defence response mechanism in the interspecies cross-talk might be a promising approach in the search for novel antibiotics. Besides, this study highlights the utility of MS-based metabolomics as an effective tool in the direct biochemical analysis of the community metabolism.     

93例糖尿病住院患者的营养状况评价

对糖尿病住院患者入院时进行营养评价,分别对93例30～60岁糖尿病患者入院时做人体测量和生化检查,与正常人群作对照.结果显示,观察组患者的体质量、体质指数、总蛋白、白蛋白、低密度酯蛋白以及三酰甘油的平均值均高于正常组、而高密度脂蛋白低于正常组,差异有显著性意义(p＜0.05).结果表明,采用多项综合指标评价糖尿病患者的...