Monocyte chemoattractant protein 1 (MCP-1) plays a pivotal role in many inflammatory processes, including the progression of atherosclerosis and the response of the arterial wall to injury. We previously demonstrated that dexamethasone (Dex) inhibits MCP-1 mRNA accumulation in smooth muscle cells by decreasing its half-life. The effect of Dex was dependent upon the glucocorticoid receptor (GR) and independent of new transcription. Using RNA affinity and column chromatography, we have identified two proteins involved in regulating MCP-1 mRNA stability: Y-box binding protein 1 (YB-1), a multifunctional DNA/RNA-binding protein, and endoribonuclease UK114 (UK). By immunoprecipitation, YB and GR formed a complex present in equal amounts in extracts from untreated and Dex-treated cells. YB-1, UK, and GR small interfering RNA (siRNA) substantially inhibited the effect of Dex on MCP-1 mRNA accumulation. In addition, YB-1 antibody blocked the degradation of MCP-1 mRNA by cytoplasmic extracts from the Dex-treated cells. The degradative activity of extracts immunoprecipitated with antibodies to either YB-1 or GR was blocked with UK antibody. UK did not degrade MCP-1 mRNA; however, upon addition to nondegrading control extracts, it rapidly degraded MCP-1 mRNA. These studies define new roles for GR, YB-1, and UK in the formation of a molecular complex that degrades MCP-1 mRNA.

A 60-year-old female presented with abdominal pain and tenderness of five-day duration. Contrast enhanced CT showed a mass of 9 × 6 × 5.5 cm in size with almost complete obliteration of the inferior vena cava and massive extension to the extravascular space. CT-guided biopsy demonstrated a low-grade leiomyosarcoma. The patient underwent 125Iodine seeds implantation in two sessions, and another balloon cavoplasty. Abdominal pain and tenderness gradually improved and the patient continues to remain as disease free state for three years after the procedures.

Long-term noninvasive cell tracing by fluorescent probes is of great importance to life science and biomedical engineering. For example, understanding genesis, development, invasion and metastasis of cancerous cells and monitoring tissue regeneration after stem cell transplantation require continual tracing of the biological processes by cytocompatible fluorescent probes over a long period of time. In this work, we successfully developed organic far-red/near-infrared dots with aggregation-induced emission (AIE dots) and demonstrated their utilities as long-term cell trackers. The high emission efficiency, large absorptivity, excellent biocompatibility, and strong photobleaching resistance of the AIE dots functionalized by cell penetrating peptides derived from transactivator of transcription proteins ensured outstanding long-term noninvasive in vitro and in vivo cell tracing. The organic AIE dots outperform their counterparts of inorganic quantum dots, opening a new avenue in the development of fluorescent probes for following biological processes such as carcinogenesis.

AIM: To explore the optimal steroid therapeutic strategy for autoimmune pancreatitis (AIP).

METHODS: This study was conducted retrospectively in two large institutions in China. Patients with clinically, radiologically and biochemically diagnosed AIP were enrolled. The performed radiological investigations and biochemical tests, the regimen of the given steroid treatment, remission and relapse whether with and without steroid therapy were analyzed.

RESULTS: Twenty-eight patients with AIP received steroid treatment, while 40 patients were treated surgically by pancreatoduodenectomy, distal pancreatectomy and choledochojejunostomy, radiofrequency ablation for the enlarged pancreatic head, percutaneous transhepatic biliary drainage and endoscopic biliary drainage. The starting oral prednisolone dose was 30 mg/d in 18 (64.3%) patients and 40 mg/d in 10 (35.7%) patients administered for 3 wk. The remission rate of AIP patients with steroid treatment (96.4%) was significantly higher than in those without steroid treatment (75%). Maintenance therapy (oral prednisolone dose 5 mg/d) was performed after remission for at least 6-12 mo to complete the treatment course. Similarly, the relapse rate was significantly lower in AIP patients with steroid treatment (28.6%) than in those without steroid treatment (42.5%). Steroid re-treatment was effective in all relapsed patients with or without steroid therapy.

CONCLUSION: Steroid therapy should be considered in all patients with active inflammatory phase of AIP. However, the optimal regimen still should be trailed in larger numbers of patients with AIP.

Defective catabolite export from lysosomes results in lysosomal storage diseases in humans. Mutations in the cystine transporter gene CTNS cause cystinosis, but other lysosomal amino acid transporters are poorly characterized at the molecular level. Here we identified the C. elegans lysosomal lysine/arginine transporter, LAAT-1. Loss of laat-1 caused accumulation of lysine and arginine in enlarged, degradation-defective lysosomes. In mutants of ctns-1 (C. elegans homolog of CTNS), LAAT-1 was required to reduce lysosomal cystine levels and suppress lysosome enlargement by cysteamine, a drug that alleviates cystinosis by converting cystine to a lysine analog. LAAT-1 also maintained availability of cytosolic lysine/arginine during embryogenesis. We showed that LAAT-1 is the lysosomal lysine/arginine transporter and suggested a molecular explanation for how cysteamine alleviates a lysosomal storage disease.

Many musculoskeletal disorders (MDs) are associated with irreversible bone and cartilage damage; this is particularly true for osteoarthritis (OA). Therefore, a clinical need exists for modalities which can detect OA and other MDs at early stages. Optical coherence tomography (OCT) is an infrared-based imaging, currently FDA approved in cardiology and ophthalmology, which has a resolution greater than 10 microns and acquisition rate of 120 frames/second. It has shown feasibility for imaging early OA, identifying changes prior to cartilage thinning both in vitro and in vivo in patients and in OA animal models. In addition, OCT has shown an ability to identify early rheumatoid arthritis (RA) and guide tendon repair, but has the potential for an even greater impact. Clinical trials in OA are currently underway, as well as in several other MDs.

Branching is an important trait of plant development regulated by environmental signals. Phytochromes in Arabidopsis mediate branching in response to the changes in the red light:far-red light ratio (R:FR), the mechanisms of which are still elusive. Here it is shown that overexpression of CONSTANS-LIKE 7 (COL7) results in an abundant branching phenotype which could be efficiently suppressed by shade or a simulated shade environment (low R:FR). Moreover, col7 mutants develop shorter hypocotyls and COL7 overexpression lines develop longer hypocotyls in comparison with the wild type in low R:FR, indicating that COL7 acts as an enhancer of the shade avoidance response. In shade or transient low R:FR, transcriptional and post-transcriptional expression levels of COL7 are up-regulated and positively associated with rapid mRNA accumulation of PHYTOCHROME INTERACTING FACTOR 3-LIKE 1 (PIL1), a marker gene of shade avoidance syndrome (SAS). Taken together, the results suggest a dual role for COL7 which promotes branching in high R:FR conditions but enhances SAS in low R:FR conditions.

Background:

The traditional Chinese medicine formula Si-Ni-San has well therapeutic applications in improvement of mental diseases including depression. However, the neuropharmacological and neuroendocrine mechanisms of the formula on antidepressant-like action have not been reported.

Objective:

Herein, we explored the antidepressant-like effect and its mechanism of Si-Ni-San.

Materials and Methods:

Acute effect of Si-Ni-San on the immobility time was assessed in the mouse forced swim test (FST) and tail suspension test (TST). Moreover, we investigated the neurochemical, neuroendocrine, and neurotrophin systems involved in the antidepressant-like effect of this formula.

Results:

Si-Ni-San significantly decreased the immobility time after acute treatment in the mouse TST (1300 mg/kg) but not in the FST compared with the control group. In addition, pretreatment of mice with PCPA or AMPT prevented the anti-immobility effect of Si-Ni-San (1300 mg/kg) in the TST. Moreover, acute Si-Ni-San (1300 mg/kg) decreased serum corticosterone levels, elevated serotonin (5-HT), norepinephrine (NE), and dopamine (DA) levels without affecting brain-derived neurotrophic factor (BDNF) levels in the whole brain exposed to TST.

Conclusion:

The acute antidepressant-like action of Si-Ni-San is mediated by the monoaminergic and neuroendocrine systems although underlying mechanism still remains to be further elucidated, and this formula should be further investigated as an alternative therapeutic approach for the treatment of depression.

Galactic Cosmic Radiation consisting of high-energy, high-charged (HZE) particles poses a significant threat to future astronauts in deep space. Aside from cancer, concerns have been raised about late degenerative risks, including effects on the brain. In this study we examined the effects of 56Fe particle irradiation in an APP/PS1 mouse model of Alzheimer’s disease (AD). We demonstrated 6 months after exposure to 10 and 100 cGy 56Fe radiation at 1 GeV/µ, that APP/PS1 mice show decreased cognitive abilities measured by contextual fear conditioning and novel object recognition tests. Furthermore, in male mice we saw acceleration of Aβ plaque pathology using Congo red and 6E10 staining, which was further confirmed by ELISA measures of Aβ isoforms. Increases were not due to higher levels of amyloid precursor protein (APP) or increased cleavage as measured by levels of the β C-terminal fragment of APP. Additionally, we saw no change in microglial activation levels judging by CD68 and Iba-1 immunoreactivities in and around Aβ plaques or insulin degrading enzyme, which has been shown to degrade Aβ. However, immunohistochemical analysis of ICAM-1 showed evidence of endothelial activation after 100 cGy irradiation in male mice, suggesting possible alterations in Aβ trafficking through the blood brain barrier as a possible cause of plaque increase. Overall, our results show for the first time that HZE particle radiation can increase Aβ plaque pathology in an APP/PS1 mouse model of AD.

AIM: To investigate the role of c-Jun N-terminal kinase (JNK) in thermotherapy-induced apoptosis in human gastric cancer SGC-7901 cells.

METHODS: Human gastric cancer SGC-7901 cells were cultured in vitro. Following thermotherapy at 43 °C for 0, 0.5, 1, 2 or 3 h, the cells were cultured for a further 24 h with or without the JNK specific inhibitor, SP600125 for 2 h. Apoptosis was evaluated by immunohistochemistry [terminal deoxynucleotidyl transferase dUTP nick end labeling (TUNEL)] and flow cytometry (Annexin vs propidium iodide). Cell proliferation was determined by 3-(4,5-Dimethylthiazol-2-yl)-2,5-diphenyltetrazolium bromide. The production of p-JNK, Bcl-2, Bax and caspase-3 proteins was evaluated by Western blotting. The expression of JNK at mRNA level was determined by reverse transcription polymerase chain reaction.

RESULTS: The proliferation of gastric carcinoma SGC-7901 cells was significantly inhibited following thermotherapy, and was 32.7%, 30.6%, 43.8% and 52.9% at 0.5, 1, 2 and 3 h post-thermotherapy, respectively. Flow cytometry analysis revealed an increased population of SGC-790l cells in G0/G1 phase, but a reduced population in S phase following thermotherapy for 1 or 2 h, compared to untreated cells (P < 0.05). The increased number of SGC-790l cells in G0/G1 phase was consistent with induced apoptosis (flow cytometry) following thermotherapy for 0.5, 1, 2 or 3 h, compared to the untreated group (46.5% ± 0.23%, 39.9% ± 0.53%, 56.6% ± 0.35% and 50.4% ± 0.29% vs 7.3% ± 0.10%, P < 0.01), respectively. This was supported by the TUNEL assay (48.2% ± 0.4%, 40.1% ± 0.2%, 61.2% ± 0.29% and 52.0% ± 0.42% vs 12.2% ± 0.22%, P < 0.01) respectively. More importantly, the expression of p-JNK protein and JNK mRNA levels were significantly higher at 0.5 h than at 0 h post-treatment (P < 0.01), and peaked at 2 h. A similar pattern was detected for Bax and caspase-3 proteins. Bcl-2 increased at 0.5 h, peaked at 1 h, and then decreased. Furthermore, the JNK specific inhibitor, SP600125, suppressed p-JNK, Bax and caspase-3 at the protein level in SGC790l cells following thermotherapy, compared to mock-inhibitor treatment, which was in line with the decreased rate of apoptosis. The expression of Bcl-2 was consistent with thermotherapy alone.

CONCLUSION: Thermotherapy induced apoptosis in gastric cancer cells by promoting p-JNK at the mRNA and protein levels, and up-regulated the expression of Bax and caspase-3 proteins. Bcl-2 may play a protective role during thermotherapy. Activation of JNK via the Bax-caspase-3 pathway may be important in thermotherapy-induced apoptosis in gastric cancer cells.

Background

Rapeseed (Brassica napus L.) has spring and winter genotypes adapted to different growing seasons. Winter genotypes do not flower before the onset of winter, thus leading to a longer vegetative growth period that promotes the accumulation and allocation of more resources to seed production. The development of winter genotypes enabled the rapeseed to spread rapidly from southern to northern Europe and other temperate regions of the world. The molecular basis underlying the evolutionary transition from spring- to winter- type rapeseed is not known, however, and needs to be elucidated.

Results

We fine-mapped the spring environment specific quantitative trait locus (QTL) for flowering time, qFT10-4,in a doubled haploid (DH) mapping population of rapeseed derived from a cross between Tapidor (winter-type) and Ningyou7 (semi-winter) and delimited the qFT10-4 to an 80-kb region on chromosome A10 of B. napus. The BnFLC.A10 gene, an ortholog of FLOWERING LOCUS C (FLC) in Arabidopsis, was cloned from the QTL. We identified 12 polymorphic sites between BnFLC.A10 parental alleles of the TN-DH population in the upstream region and in intron 1. Expression of both BnFLC.A10 alleles decreased during vernalization, but decreased more slowly in the winter parent Tapidor. Haplotyping and association analysis showed that one of the polymorphic sites upstream of BnFLC.A10 is strongly associated with the vernalization requirement of rapeseed (r2 = 0.93, χ2 = 0.50). This polymorphic site is derived from a Tourist-like miniature inverted-repeat transposable element (MITE) insertion/deletion in the upstream region of BnFLC.A10. The MITE sequence was not present in the BnFLC.A10 gene in spring-type rapeseed, nor in ancestral ‘A’ genome species B. rapa genotypes. Our results suggest that the insertion may have occurred in winter rapeseed after B. napus speciation.

Conclusions

Our findings strongly suggest that (i) BnFLC.A10 is the gene underlying qFT10-4, the QTL for phenotypic diversity of flowering time in the TN-DH population, (ii) the allelic diversity caused by MITE insertion/deletion upstream of BnFLC.A10 is one of the major causes of differentiation of winter and spring genotypes in rapeseed and (iii) winter rapeseed has evolved from spring genotypes through selection pressure at the BnFLC.A10 locus, enabling expanded cultivation of rapeseed along the route of Brassica domestication.

AIM: To investigate the hepatoprotective effect of baicalein against carbon tetrachloride (CCl4)-induced liver damage in mice.

METHODS: Mice were orally administered with baicalein after CCl4 injection, and therapeutic baicalein was given twice a day for 4 d. The anti-inflammation effects of baicalein were assessed directly by hepatic histology and serum alanine aminotranferease and aspartate aminotransferase measurement. Proliferating cell nuclear antigen was used to evaluate the effect of baicalein in promoting hepatocyte proliferation. Serum interleukin (IL)-6, IL-1β and tumor necrosis factor-α (TNF-α) levels were measured by enzyme-linked immunosorbent assay and liver IL-6, TNF-α, transforming growth factor-α (TGF-α), hepatocyte growth factor (HGF) and epidermal growth factor (EGF) genes expression were determined by quantitative real-time polymerase chain reaction.

RESULTS: CCl4-induced acute liver failure model offers a survival benefit in baicalein-treated mice. The data indicated that the mRNA levels of IL-6 and TNF-α significantly increased within 12 h after CCl4 treatment in baicalein administration groups, but at 24, 48 and 72 h, the expression of IL-6 and TNF-α was kept at lower levels compared with the control. The expression of TGF-α, HGF and EGF was enhanced dramatically in baicalein administration group at 12, 24, 48 and 72 h. Furthermore, we found that baicalein significantly elevated the serum level of TNF-α and IL-6 at the early phase, which indicated that baicalein could facilitate the initiating events in liver regeneration.

CONCLUSION: Baicalein may be a therapeutic candidate for acute liver injury. Baicalein accelerates liver regeneration by regulating TNF-α and IL-6 mediated pathways.

Background

Posterior reversible encephalopathy syndrome (PRES) has been increasingly identified in patients with systemic lupus erythematosus (SLE) owing to the advance in neuroimaging techniques. Prompt diagnosis is pivotal to improve its outcome. To analyze the clinical and radiographic profile of PRES in patients with SLE and search for the appropriate treatment strategy PRES in SLE.

Methods

SLE patients who fulfilled the diagnostic criteria for PRES from August 2008 to January 2011 were evaluated at baseline, and followed to determine clinical outcomes. Data were analysis on clinical characteristics, laboratory abnormalities, treatment details, and outcomes.

Results

Ten episodes of PRES in patients with SLE were identified. All patients were female, mean age of onset was 22.93 ± 2.48 years, and SLEDAI at the onset of PRES were 25.8 ± 5.7. All cases had acute onset of headache, altered mental status, stupor, vomiting, cortical blindness and seizures. Neurological symptoms were the initial manifestation of SLE in three cases. Head magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) demonstrated posterior white matter edema involving the parietal, temporal and occipital lobes, which were more conspicuous on T2 weighted spin echo and diffusion-weighted MR imaging (DWI) than on computed tomography (CT) scan. Complete clinical and radiographic recovery was observed in 8 patients after prompt treatment with corticosteroids.

Conclusions

PRES might be due to lupus per se besides other traditional causative factors such as hypertension. PRES might be an underestimated variant of “reversible neurological deficits” in SLE. Prompt recognition and timely management is important to prevent permanent neurological deficits.

SUMMARY

Activation of Sir2-orthologs is proposed to increase lifespan downstream of dietary restriction (DR). Here we describe an examination of the effect of 32 different lifespan-extending mutations and four methods of dietary restriction on replicative lifespan (RLS) in the short-lived sir2Δ yeast strain. In every case, deletion of SIR2 prevented RLS extension; however, RLS extension was restored when both SIR2 and FOB1 were deleted in several cases, demonstrating that SIR2 is not directly required for RLS extension. These findings indicate that suppression of the sir2Δ lifespan defect is a rare phenotype among longevity interventions and suggest that sir2Δ cells senesce rapidly by a mechanism distinct from that of wild-type cells. They also demonstrate that failure to observe life span extension in a short-lived background, such as cells or animals lacking sirtuins, should be interpreted with caution.

The blue light receptors cryptochromes mediate various light responses in plants. The photoexcited cryptochrome molecules undergo a number of biophysical and biochemical changes, including electron transfer, phosphorylation, and ubiquitination, resulting in conformational changes to propagate light signals. Two modes of cryptochrome signal transduction have been recently discovered, the CIB (cryptochrome-interacting basic-helix-loop-helix 1)-dependent CRY2 regulation of transcription and the SPA1/COP1 (SUPPRESSOR OF PHYA /CONSTITUTIVELY PHOTOMORPHOGENIC1)-dependent cryptochrome regulation of proteolysis. Both cryptochrome signaling pathways rely on blue light-dependent interactions between the cryptochrome photoreceptor and its signaling proteins to modulate gene expression changes in response to blue light, leading to altered developmental programs of plants.

Induced pluripotent stem cells (iPSCs) are of great clinical interest for they are derived from one's own somatic cells and have the potential of committed differentiation without immunological rejection after autografting. However, the use of viral and other modified vectors may still cause tumorigenesis due to chromosome insertion mutation, leading to limited practical use. iPSCs generated by reprogramming proteins overcome the potential safety risk and complicated manipulation procedures, thus they own better application prospective, yet some technical difficulties need to be studied and resolved, for instance, low reprogramming efficiency, unclear transduction, and reprogramming mechanism. In this paper, we summarize the current progress of proteins reprogramming technology for generation of iPSCs and discuss the promising efficiency-improved reprogramming methods by proteins plus other kinds of chemical compounds.

Angiogenesis is essential for tumor growth and metastasis. VEGF has been shown to be a central player in this process. The biological activity of VEGF is mainly mediated by two tyrosine kinase receptors, VEGFR-1 and VEGFR-2. While increasing evidence suggests that VEGF/VEGFR-1 signaling is crucial for tumor angiogenesis, its molecular mechanism is not well understood. Here we show that VEGFR-1 knockdown dramatically inhibits tumor growth. This inhibition is associated with significant decrease of tumor VEGF levels and tumor angiogenesis as well as an increased tumor necrosis. Moreover, we demonstrate that VEGF in CRCC tumors is mainly produced by tumor stromal cells instead of the tumor cells themselves. It has been shown that macrophages constitute a significant part of tumor stromal cells and produce a large amount of VEGF. We therefore examined the macrophage infiltration in the xenograft tumors. Remarkably, VEGFR-1 knockdown attenuates the tumor macrophages infiltration. To understand the mechanism, we investigated the impact of VEGFR-1 knockdown on the expression of monocyte chemoattractant protein-1 (MCP-1), one of the main chemoattractants for macrophages. Significantly, VEGFR-1 knockdown inhibits MCP-1 expression of CRCC cells. Taken together, these data indicate that VEGF/VEGFR-1 signaling plays an essential role in initiating tumor angiogenesis by regulating MCP-1 expression, which in turn, attracts macrophages infiltration and VEGF production. Thus, these studies suggest that blockade of VEGFR-1 function may provide a tumor-specific, VEGF-based therapeutic strategy for treatment of CRCC.

Background

Cyanobacteria can form massive toxic blooms in fresh and brackish bodies of water and are frequently responsible for the poisoning of animals and pose a health risk for humans. Anabaena is a genus of filamentous diazotrophic cyanobacteria commonly implicated as a toxin producer in blooms in aquatic ecosystems throughout the world. The biology of bloom-forming cyanobacteria is poorly understood at the genome level.

Results

Here, we report the complete sequence and comprehensive annotation of the bloom-forming Anabaena sp. strain 90 genome. It comprises two circular chromosomes and three plasmids with a total size of 5.3 Mb, encoding a total of 4,738 genes. The genome is replete with mobile genetic elements. Detailed manual annotation demonstrated that almost 5% of the gene repertoire consists of pseudogenes. A further 5% of the genome is dedicated to the synthesis of small peptides that are the products of both ribosomal and nonribosomal biosynthetic pathways. Inactivation of the hassallidin (an antifungal cyclic peptide) biosynthetic gene cluster through a deletion event and a natural mutation of the buoyancy-permitting gvpG gas vesicle gene were documented. The genome contains a large number of genes encoding restriction-modification systems. Two novel excision elements were found in the nifH gene that is required for nitrogen fixation.

Conclusions

Genome analysis demonstrated that this strain invests heavily in the production of bioactive compounds and restriction-modification systems. This well-annotated genome provides a platform for future studies on the ecology and biology of these important bloom-forming cyanobacteria.

Aplastic anemia (AA) is generally considered as an immune-mediated bone marrow failure syndrome with defective hematopoietic stem cells (HSCs) and marrow microenvironment. Previous studies have demonstrated the defective HSCs and aberrant T cellular-immunity in AA using a microarray approach. However, little is known about the overall specialty of bone marrow mesenchymal stem cells (BM-MSCs). In the present study, we comprehensively compared the biological features and gene expression profile of BM-MSCs between AA patients and healthy volunteers. In comparison with healthy controls, BM-MSCs from AA patients showed aberrant morphology, decreased proliferation and clonogenic potential and increased apoptosis. BM-MSCs from AA patients were susceptible to be induced to differentiate into adipocytes but more difficult to differentiate into osteoblasts. Consistent with abnormal biological features, a large number of genes implicated in cell cycle, cell division, proliferation, chemotaxis and hematopoietic cell lineage showed markedly decreased expression in BM-MSCs from AA patients. Conversely, more related genes with apoptosis, adipogenesis and immune response showed increased expression in BM-MSCs from AA patients. The gene expression profile of BM-MSCs further confirmed the abnormal biological properties and provided significant evidence for the possible mechanism of the destruction of the bone marrow microenvironment in AA.

Measles remains a severe global health threat, and nearly 30 million new cases are reported annually. Although many studies have analyzed measles viruses (MV) at the epidemiologic and phylogenetic levels, no study has yet to integrate these two types of data. To this end, we isolated 16 wild-type MV strains China's Jilin province. The MV genotype H1 was the most prevalent strain. After sequencing the nucleoprotein (N) genes of these strains, a maximum clade credibility tree was constructed by the Bayesian Markov Chain Monte Carlo method using 450 MV strains from GenBank with epidemiological information. The MV N gene evolution rate was 1.127E-3. Analysis of the time of the most recent common ancestor (TMRCA) for genotypes A/B/C/G/H revealed that genotypes D and B had the largest and smallest TMRCA (45.86 and 26.63, respectively). The highest level of genetic diversity for the MV N gene occurred around the year 2000. Here in this study, we uncovered the MV genotypes circulating in China's Jilin Province and estimated the epidemiologic and phylogenetic relationship for the six different genotypes of MV.

Protein remote homology detection is one of the most important problems in bioinformatics. Discriminative methods such as support vector machines (SVM) have shown superior performance. However, the performance of SVM-based methods depends on the vector representations of the protein sequences. Prior works have demonstrated that sequence-order effects are relevant for discrimination, but little work has explored how to incorporate the sequence-order information along with the amino acid physicochemical properties into the prediction. In order to incorporate the sequence-order effects into the protein remote homology detection, the physicochemical distance transformation (PDT) method is proposed. Each protein sequence is converted into a series of numbers by using the physicochemical property scores in the amino acid index (AAIndex), and then the sequence is converted into a fixed length vector by PDT. The sequence-order information can be efficiently included into the feature vector with little computational cost by this approach. Finally, the feature vectors are input into a support vector machine classifier to detect the protein remote homologies. Our experiments on a well-known benchmark show the proposed method SVM-PDT achieves superior or comparable performance with current state-of-the-art methods and its computational cost is considerably superior to those of other methods. When the evolutionary information extracted from the frequency profiles is combined with the PDT method, the profile-based PDT approach can improve the performance by 3.4% and 11.4% in terms of ROC score and ROC50 score respectively. The local sequence-order information of the protein can be efficiently captured by the proposed PDT and the physicochemical properties extracted from the amino acid index are incorporated into the prediction. The physicochemical distance transformation provides a general framework, which would be a valuable tool for protein-level study.

Buyang Huanwu decoction (BYHWD) is a well-known and canonical Chinese medicine formula from “Correction on Errors in Medical Classics” in Qing dynasty. Here, we show that BYHWD could alleviate the ventricular remodeling induced by left anterior descending (LAD) artery ligation in rats. BYHWD treatment (18 g/kg/day) decreased heart weight/body weight (HW/BW), left ventricle (LV) dimension at end diastole (LVDd) and increased LV ejection fraction (LVEF) and LV fractional shortening (LVFS) significantly compared to model group at the end of 12 weeks. The collagen volume of BYHWD group was more significantly decreased than that of model group. Proteomic analysis showed that atrial natriuretic factor (ANF) was downregulated; heat shock protein beta-6 (HSPB6) and peroxiredoxin-6 (PRDX6) were upregulated in BYHWD-treated group among successfully identified proteins. The apoptotic index (AI) was reduced by BYHWD accompanied by decreased expression of Bax and caspase 3 activity, increased Bcl-2/Bax ratio, and phosphorylation of HSPB6 compared to that of model group. Taken together, these results suggest that BYHWD can alleviate ventricular remodeling induced by LAD artery ligation. The antiremodeling effects of BYHWD are conferred by decreasing AI through affecting multiple targets including increased Bcl-2/Bax ratio and decreased caspase 3 activity that might be via upregulated PRDX6, phosphorylation of HSPB6 and subsequently reduction of ANF.

Osteosarcoma is the most common primary malignancy of bone in children, adolescents, and adults. Despite extensive surgery and adjuvant aggressive high-dose systemic chemotherapy with potentially severe bystander side effects, cure is attainable in about 70% of patients with localized disease and only 20%–30% of those patients with metastatic disease. Targeted therapies clearly are warranted in improving our treatment of this adolescent killer. However, a lack of osteosarcoma-associated/specific markers has hindered development of targeted therapeutics. We describe a novel osteosarcoma-associated cell surface antigen, ALCAM. We, then, create an engineered anti-ALCAM-hybrid polymerized liposomal nanoparticle immunoconjugate (α-AL-HPLN) to specifically target osteosarcoma cells and deliver a cytotoxic chemotherapeutic agent, doxorubicin. We have demonstrated that α-AL-HPLNs have significantly enhanced cytotoxicity over untargeted HPLNs and over a conventional liposomal doxorubicin formulation. In this way, α-AL-HPLNs are a promising new strategy to specifically deliver cytotoxic agents in osteosarcoma.

Background

Polycystic Kidney Disease (PKD) kidneys exhibit increased extracellular matrix (ECM) collagen expression and metalloproteinases (MMPs) activity. We investigated the role of these increases on cystic disease progression in PKD kidneys.

Methods

We examined the role of type I collagen (collagen I) and membrane bound type 1 MMP (MT1-MMP) on cyst development using both in vitro 3 dimensional (3D) collagen gel culture and in vivo PCK rat model of PKD.

Results

We found that collagen concentration is critical in controlling the morphogenesis of MDCK cells cultured in 3D gels. MDCK cells did not form 3D structures at collagen I concentrations lower than 1 mg/ml but began forming tubules when the concentration reaches 1 mg/ml. Significantly, these cells began to form cyst when collagen I concentration reached to 1.2 mg/ml, and the ratios of cyst to tubule structures increased as the collagen I concentration increased. These cells exclusively formed cyst structures at a collagen I concentration of 1.8 mg/ml or higher. Overexpression of MT1-MMP in MDCK cells significantly induced cyst growth in 3D collagen gel culture. Conversely, inhibition of MMPs activity with doxycycline, a FDA approved pan-MMPs inhibitor, dramatically slowed cyst growth. More importantly, the treatment of PCK rats with doxycycline significantly decreased renal tubule cell proliferation and markedly inhibited the cystic disease progression.

Conclusions

Our data suggest that increased collagen expression and MMP activity in PKD kidneys may induce cyst formation and expansion. Our findings also suggest that MMPs may serve as a therapeutic target for the treatment of human PKD.

Objective

To investigate the placental proteome differences between pregnant women complicated with gestational diabetes mellitus (GDM) and those with normal glucose tolerance (NGT).

Methods

We used two-dimensional electrophoresis (2DE) to separate and compare placental protein levels from GDM and NGT groups. Differentially expressed proteins between the two groups were identified by MALDI-TOF/TOF mass spectrometry and further confirmed by Western blotting. The mRNA levels of related proteins were measured by realtime RT-PCR. Immunohistochemistry (IHC) was performed to examine the cellular location of the proteins expressed in placenta villi.

Results

Twenty-one protein spots were differentially expressed between GDM and NGT placenta villi in the tested samples, fifteen of which were successfully identified by mass spectrometry. The molecular functions of these differentially expressed proteins include blood coagulation, signal transduction, anti-apoptosis, ATP binding, phospholipid binding, calcium ion binding, platelet activation, and tryptophan-tRNA ligase activity. Both protein and mRNA levels of Annexin A2, Annexin A5 and 14-3-3 protein ζ/δ were up-regulated, while the expression of the Ras-related protein Rap1A was down-regulated in the GDM placenta group.

Conclusion

Placenta villi derived from GDM pregnant women exhibit significant proteome differences compared to those of NGT mothers. The identified differentially expressed proteins are mainly associated with the development of insulin resistance, transplacental transportation of glucose, hyperglucose-mediated coagulation and fibrinolysis disorders in the GDM placenta villi.