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•Melatonin may alleviate cold-induced membrane lipid peroxidation.•Melatonin treatment increased the ratio of unsaturated to saturated fatty acids.•Melatonin lightened phospholipids ...degradation and gene expression of CaPLD and CaLOX.•Melatonin treatment may activate an antioxidant defense system of bell peppers.•Melatonin treatment may be a reliable method to relieve chilling injury.
Melatonin is a kind of indoleamine that plays an important role against abiotic stress. In the current study, we investigated the effect of exogenous melatonin (100 μM) on bell pepper during storage at 4 °C for 20 d and afterward shelf at 20 °C for 3 d. Melatonin treatment reduced cell structure damage and lightened the increase in chilling injury incidence, membrane permeability, and malonaldehyde (MDA) content under cold stress. The membrane lipid content and the ratio of unsaturated to saturated fatty acids increased by reducing the enzymatic activity and transcripts of phospholipase D (PLD) and lipoxygenase (LOX). Besides, melatonin application also inhibited the transcription of CaNAC1, which is the direct targeted regulator of the CaPLD gene. In addition, peppers treated with melatonin had a higher proline content than untreated peppers. Moreover, melatonin triggered the antioxidation protection system in peppers to resist oxidative damage by up-regulating the transcription level of the CaSOD, CaPOD, CaCAT, and CaAPX genes. Our results show that melatonin treatment may be a reliable method to relieve chilling injury in bell pepper fruit via the alleviation of cold-induced membrane lipid peroxidation and activating an antioxidant defense system.
Long non‐coding RNAs have important roles in the occurrence and progression of various cancers. However, the molecular mechanism of lncRNAs in colorectal cancer (CRC) is not well illustrated. Thus, ...we used bioinformatics methods to find potential lncRNAs associated with CRC progression, and chose SH3PXD2A‐AS1 as a candidate for further analysis. The roles of SH3PXD2A‐AS1 in CRC cells were determined by CCK‐8, transwell invasion, wound healing and flow cytometry assays. Besides, we established the CRC tumor models in nude mice to study the effect of SH3PXD2A‐AS1 on the tumor growth. Based on the ceRNA hypothesis, we used miRDB and miRTarBase websites to identify the SH3PXD2A‐AS1‐related ceRNA regulatory network, and measured the roles of this network in CRC cells. The results revealed that the expression profiles of SH3PXD2A‐AS1 from GEO and TCGA databases showed an aberrant high level in CRC tissues compared with colorectal normal tissues. SH3PXD2A‐AS1 over‐expression was also found in CRC cells. SH3PXD2A‐AS1 knockdown inhibited the CRC cellular proliferation, invasion and migration but induced apoptosis. Besides, SH3PXD2A‐AS1 knockdown also suppressed the growth of CRC tumors. Furthermore, SH3PXD2A‐AS1 could function as a ceRNA of miR‐330‐5p. Additionally, UBA2 was proved to be a target gene of miR‐330‐5p. Moreover, SH3PXD2A‐AS1 knockdown downregulated UBA2 expression through sponging miR‐330‐5p to inactivate the Wnt/β‐catenin signaling pathway, thereby inhibiting the cell growth and promoting apoptosis. Therefore, the SH3PXD2A‐AS1/miR‐330‐5p/UBA2 network could regulate the progression of CRC through the Wnt/β‐catenin pathway. These findings offer new sights for understanding the pathogenesis of CRC and provide potential biomarkers for CRC treatment.
The lateral periaqueductal gray (LPAG), which mainly contains glutamatergic neurons, plays an important role in social responses, pain, and offensive and defensive behaviors. Currently, the ...whole-brain monosynaptic inputs to LPAG glutamatergic neurons are unknown. This study aims to explore the structural framework of the underlying neural mechanisms of LPAG glutamatergic neurons.
This study used retrograde tracing systems based on the rabies virus, Cre-LoxP technology, and immunofluorescence analysis.
We found that 59 nuclei projected monosynaptic inputs to the LPAG glutamatergic neurons. In addition, seven hypothalamic nuclei, namely the lateral hypothalamic area (LH), lateral preoptic area (LPO), substantia innominata (SI), medial preoptic area, ventral pallidum, posterior hypothalamic area, and lateral globus pallidus, projected most densely to the LPAG glutamatergic neurons. Notably, we discovered through further immunofluorescence analysis that the inputs to the LPAG glutamatergic neurons were colocalized with several markers related to important neurological functions associated with physiological behaviors.
The LPAG glutamatergic neurons received dense projections from the hypothalamus, especially nuclei such as LH, LPO, and SI. The input neurons were colocalized with several markers of physiological behaviors, which show the pivotal role of glutamatergic neurons in the physiological behaviors regulation by LPAG.
Cold storage of green bell pepper fruit causes increased production of CaNAC1, which activates CaPLDα4 and results in chilling injury via degradation of membrane phospholipids.
Abstract
Phospholipids ...constitute the main component of biomembranes. During low-temperature storage and transportation of harvested bell peppers (Capsicum annuum), chilling injury participates in their decay. A primary cause of this chilling injury is phospholipid degradation. In this study, three genes encoding phospholipase D (PLD) were identified from bell peppers and their activities were examined under cold stress. Low temperature (4 °C) induced strong accumulation of the CaPLDα4 transcript, suggesting that it is associated with the phenomenon of phospholipid degradation and destruction of cell membranes. Low temperature also significantly induced increased amounts of NAM-ATAF1/2-CUC2 (NAC) domain transcription factors. CaNAC1 was found to interact with the promoter of CaPLD4 in a yeast one-hybrid screen. Electrophoretic mobility shift and ß-glucuronidase reporter assays demonstrated that CaNAC1 binds to the CTGCAG motif in the CaPLDα4 promoter, thereby activating its transcription and controlling phospholipid degradation. The ubiquitination sites of the CaNAC1 protein were characterized by liquid chromatography–tandem mass spectrometry. We conclude that CaNAC1 is a transcriptional activator of CaPLDα4 and suggested that it participates in the degradation of membrane lipids in bell peppers when they are stored at low temperature.
The purpose of this study was to investigate the effects of astragalus polysaccharides (APS) on the proliferation and apoptosis of bone marrow mesenchymal stem cells (BMSCs) induced by X-ray ...radiation-induced A549 cells bystander effect (RIBE), and to explore their mechanisms. In this study, APS increased the reduced cell proliferation rate induced by RIBE and inhibiting the apoptosis of bystander cells. In terms of mechanism, APS up-regulates the proteins Bcl-2, Bcl-xl, and down-regulates the proteins Bax and Bak, which induces a decrease in mitochondrial membrane potential, which induces the release of Cyt-c and AIF, which leads to caspase-dependent and caspase-independent pathway to cause apoptosis. In addition, we believe that ROS may be the main cause of these protein changes. APS can inhibit the generation of ROS in bystander cells and thus inhibit the activation of the mitochondrial pathway, further preventing cellular damage caused by RIBE.
Sleep, torpor, and hibernation are three distinct hypometabolic states. However, they have some similar physiological features, such as decreased core body temperature and slowing heart rate. In ...addition, the accumulation of adenosine seems to be a common feature before entry into these three states, suggesting that adenosine and its receptors, also known as P1 receptors, may mediate the initiation and maintenance of these states. This review, therefore, summarizes the current research on the roles and possible neurobiological mechanisms of adenosine and P1 receptors in sleep, torpor, and hibernation. Understanding these aspects will give us better prospects in sleep disorders, therapeutic hypothermia, and aerospace medicine.
Bell peppers are valued for their plentiful vitamin C and nutritional content. Pepper fruits are susceptible to cold storage, which leads to chilling injury (CI); however, the crucial metabolic ...product and molecular basis response to cold stress have not been elucidated definitely yet. To comprehensively understand the gene regulation network and CI mechanisms in response to cold stress on a molecular level, we performed high-throughput RNA-Seq analysis to investigate genome-wide expression profiles in bell peppers at different storage temperatures (4 °C and 10 °C). A total of 61.55 Gb of clean data were produced; 3863 differentially expressed genes (DEGs) including 1669 up-regulated and 2194 down-regulated were annotated and classified between the CI group and control. Together, a total of 41 cold-induced transcription factor families comprising 250 transcription factors (TFs) were identified. Notably, numerous DEGs involved in biomembrane stability, dehydration and osmoregulation, and plant hormone signal transduction processes were discovered. The transcriptional level of 20 DEGs was verified by reverse transcription quantitative polymerase chain reaction (RT-qPCR). Our results present transcriptome profiles of bell peppers in response to cold stress; the data obtained may be useful for the identification of key candidate genes and elucidation of the mechanisms underlying membrane damage during chilling injury.
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•Genome-wide expression profiles of bell peppers at 4 °C and 10 °C were obtained.•3863 differentially expressed genes were identified in response to chilling injury.•41 cold-induced transcription factor families were identified.•The findings reveal how cold stress affects bell pepper biochemistry.
Periaqueductal gray (PAG), an integration center for neuronal signals, is located in the midbrain and regulates multiple physiological and pathological behaviors, including pain, defensive and ...aggressive behaviors, anxiety and depression, cardiovascular response, respiration, and sleep-wake behaviors. Due to the different neuroanatomical connections and functional characteristics of the four functional columns of PAG, different subregions of PAG synergistically regulate various instinctual behaviors. In the current review, we summarized the role and possible neurobiological mechanism of different subregions of PAG in the regulation of pain, defensive and aggressive behaviors, anxiety, and depression from the perspective of the up-down neuronal circuits of PAG. Furthermore, we proposed the potential clinical applications of PAG. Knowledge of these aspects will give us a better understanding of the key role of PAG in physiological and pathological behaviors and provide directions for future clinical treatments.
The gut microbiota is important in metabolism and immune modulation, and compositional disruption of the gut microbiota population is closely associated with inflammation caused by ionizing radiation ...(IR). Guiqi Baizhu decoction (GQBZD) is a medicinal compound used in traditional Chinese medicine with anti-inflammatory and antioxidation effects, especially in the process of radiotherapy. However, the effect of GQBZD on reducing the damage to the normal immune system in radiotherapy remains unclear. Here, we show that GQBZD reduces body weights, water intake, food intake, diarrhea level and quality of life score, and inflammation and enhances immunity function in rats treated with X-ray radiation. Meanwhile, our data indicate that GQBZD not only reverses IR-induced gut dysbiosis as indicated change of α-diversity and β-diversity of microbiota, the composition of Desulfovibrio, Bacteroides, and Parabacteroides, except for Roseburia and Lachnoclostridium, but also maintains intestinal barrier integrity and promoting the formation of short-chain fatty acids (SCFAs). GQBZD can also reduce the level of phosphorylation P65 (p-P65). Our results demonstrate that GQBZD can significantly alleviate the inflammatory responses and improve the immune damage against IR, and may be used as prebiotic agents to prevent gut dysbiosis and radiation-related metabolic disorders in radiotherapy.
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