The phytohormone auxin plays a central role in many aspects of plant growth and development. IAA is the most studied natural auxin that possesses the property of polar transport in plants. ...Phenylacetic acid (PAA) has also been recognized as a natural auxin for >40 years, but its role in plant growth and development remains unclear. In this study, we show that IAA and PAA have overlapping regulatory roles but distinct transport characteristics as auxins in plants. PAA is widely distributed in vascular and non-vascular plants. Although the biological activities of PAA are lower than those of IAA, the endogenous levels of PAA are much higher than those of IAA in various plant tissues in Arabidopsis. PAA and IAA can regulate the same set of auxin-responsive genes through the TIR1/AFB pathway in Arabidopsis. IAA actively forms concentration gradients in maize coleoptiles in response to gravitropic stimulation, whereas PAA does not, indicating that PAA is not actively transported in a polar manner. The induction of the YUCCA (YUC) genes increases PAA metabolite levels in Arabidopsis, indicating that YUC flavin-containing monooxygenases may play a role in PAA biosynthesis. Our results provide new insights into the regulation of plant growth and development by different types of auxins.
Magnetic nanomaterials are widely used, but co-adsorption of impurities will lead to saturation. In this study, the aim was to prepare a magnetic nano-immunosorbent material based on orienting ...immobilization that can purify and separate 25-hydroxyvitamin D (25OHD) from serum and provides a new concept of sample pretreatment technology. Streptococcus protein G (SPG) was modified on the surface of the chitosan magnetic material, and the antibody was oriented immobilized using the ability of SPG to specifically bind to the Fc region of the monoclonal antibody. The antigen-binding domain was fully exposed and made up for the deficiency of the antibody random immobilization. Compared with the antibody in the random binding format, this oriented immobilization strategy can increase the effective activity of the antibody, and the amount of antibody consumed is saved to a quarter of the former. The new method is simple, rapid, and sensitive, without consuming a lot of organic reagents, and can enrich 25OHD after simple protein precipitation. Combining with liquid chromatography-tandem mass spectrometry (LC-MS/MS), the analysis can be completed in less than 30 min. For 25OHD
2
and 25OHD
3
, the LOD was 0.021 and 0.017 ng mL
−1
, respectively, and the LOQ was 0.070 and 0.058 ng mL
−1
, respectively. The results indicated that the magnetic nanomaterials based on oriented immobilization can be applied as an effective, sensitive, and attractive adsorbent to the enrichment of serum 25OHD.
Graphical Abstract
Quantitative Nuclear Magnetic Resonance (qNMR) is widely used to determine the purity of organic compounds. For the compounds with lower purity especially molecular weight more than 500, qNMR is at ...risk of error for the purity, because the impurity peaks are likely to be incompletely separated from the peak of major component. In this study, an offline ISRC-HPLC-qNMR (internal standard recovery correction - high performance liquid chromatography - qNMR) was developed to overcome this problem. It is accurate by excluding the influence of impurity; it is low-cost by using common mobile phase; and it extends the applicable scope of qNMR. In this method, a mix solution of the sample and an internal standard was separated by HPLC with common mobile phases, and only the eluents of the analyte and the internal standard were collected in the same tube. After evaporation and re-dissolution, it was determined by qNMR. A recovery correction factor was determined by comparison of the solutions before and after these procedures. After correction, the mass fraction of analyte was constant and it was accurate and precise, even though the sample loss varied during these procedures, or even in bad resolution of HPLC. Avermectin B1a with the purity of ~93% and the molecular weight of 873 was analyzed. Moreover, the homologues of avermectin B1a were determined based on the identification and quantitative analysis by tandem mass spectrometry and HPLC, and the results were consistent with the results of traditional mass balance method. The result showed that the method could be widely used for the organic compounds, and could further promote qNMR to become a primary method in the international metrological systems.
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•Low cost HPLC-qNMR by common mobile phase; replace to deuterated solvent after HPLC.•Accurate assessment of complex compound with low purity by excluding all impurities.•Internal standard recovery correction method was used to correct the sample loss.•Assessment for highly overlapped peaks in NMR and incompletely resolved HPLC peaks.•The result is accurate and precise, though the sample loss varied during replacement.
The phytohormone auxin regulates a wide range of developmental processes in plants. Indole-3-acetic acid (IAA) is the main auxin that moves in a polar manner and forms concentration gradients, ...whereas phenylacetic acid (PAA), another natural auxin, does not exhibit polar movement. Although these auxins occur widely in plants, the differences between IAA and PAA metabolism remain largely unknown. In this study, we investigated the role of Arabidopsis IAA CARBOXYL METHYLTRANSFERASE 1 (IAMT1) in IAA and PAA metabolism. IAMT1 proteins expressed in Escherichia coli could convert both IAA and PAA to their respective methyl esters. Overexpression of IAMT1 caused severe auxin-deficient phenotypes and reduced the levels of IAA, but not PAA, in the root tips of Arabidopsis, suggesting that IAMT1 exclusively metabolizes IAA in vivo. We generated iamt1 null mutants via CRISPR/Cas9-mediated genome editing and found that the single knockout mutants had normal auxin levels and did not exhibit visibly altered phenotypes. These results suggest that other proteins, namely the IAMT1 homologs in the SABATH family of carboxyl methyltransferases, may also regulate IAA levels in Arabidopsis.
•Arabidopsis IAMT1 protein can catalyze the methylation of both IAA and PAA in vitro.•Overexpression of IAMT1 reduces IAA levels and results in auxin-deficient phenotypes.•No reduction in PAA levels was observed following overexpression of IAMT1.•Knockout of IAMT1 did not affect auxin levels in Arabidopsis.•IAMT1 homologs may also participate in Arabidopsis IAA homeostasis.
The coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) pandemic caused by severe acute respiratory coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2) is still raging all over the world. Hence, the rapid and sensitive screening of the ...suspected population is in high demand. The nucleocapsid protein (NP) of SARS-CoV-2 has been selected as an ideal marker for viral antigen detection. This study describes a lateral flow immunoassay (LFIA) based on colloidal gold nanoparticles for rapid NP antigen detection, in which sensitivity was improved through copper deposition-induced signal amplification. The detection sensitivity of the developed LFIA for NP antigen detection (using certified reference materials) under the optimized parameters was 0.01 μg/mL and was promoted by three orders of magnitude to 10 pg/mL after copper deposition signal amplification. The LFIA coupled with the copper enhancement technique has many merits such as low cost, high efficiency, and high sensitivity. It provides an effective approach to the rapid screening, diagnosis, and monitoring of the suspected population in the COVID-19 outbreak.
•GC/MS was applied to investigate metabolic profiling of dichlorvos poisoned blood.•SVR models established by different combinations of metabolites were compared.•Optimal SVR model had good ...predictive ability for postmortem interval estimation.
The estimation of the postmortem interval (PMI) is always a key issue in forensic science. Although many attempts based on metabolomics approaches have been proven to be feasible and accurate for PMI estimation, there have been no reports regarding the determination of the PMI in acute dichlorvos (DDVP) poisoning. In this study, all rats were killed by acute DDVP poisoning at a dose three fold the oral LD50 (240 mg/kg). Gas chromatography-mass spectrometry (GC/MS) was applied to investigate the metabolic profiling of blood samples at various times after death up to 72 h. A total of 39 metabolites were found to be associated with PMI, and the combinations of various numbers of metabolites were used to establish support vector regression (SVR) models to investigate the PMI. The SVR model constructed by 23 metabolites had a minimum mean squared error (MSE) of 5.49 h for the training set. Then, the SVR model was validated by prediction set with an MSE of 10.33 h, suggesting good predictive ability of the model for investigating the PMI. The findings demonstrated the great potential of GC/MS-based metabolomics combined with the SVR model in determining the PMI of DDVP poisoned rats and provided an experimental basis for the application of this approach in investigating the PMI of other toxicants.
Carbohydrate antigen 199 (CA199) is a serum biomarker which has certain value and significance in the diagnosis, prognosis, treatment, and postoperative monitoring of cancer. In this study, a lateral ...flow immunoassay based on europium (III) polystyrene time-resolved fluorescence microspheres (TRFM-based LFIA), integrated with a portable fluorescence reader, has been successfully establish for rapid and quantitative analysis of CA199 in human serum. Briefly, time-resolved fluorescence microspheres (TRFMs) were conjugated with antibody I (Ab1) against CA199 as detection probes, and antibody II (Ab2) was coated as capture element, and a “TRFMs-Ab1-CA199-Ab2” sandwich format would form when CA199 was detected by the TRFM-based LFIA. Under the optimal parameters, the detection limit of the TRFM-based LFIA for visible quantitation with the help of an ultraviolet light was 4.125 U/mL, which was four times lower than that of LFIA based on gold nanoparticles. Additionally, the fluorescence ratio is well linearly correlated with the CA199 concentration (0.00–66.0 U/mL) and logarithmic concentration (66.0–264.0 U/mL) for quantitative detection. Serum samples from 10 healthy people and 10 liver cancer patients were tested to confirm the performances of the point-of-care application of the TRFM-based LFIA, 20.0 U/mL of CA199 in human serum was defined as the threshold for distinguishing healthy people from liver cancer patients with an accuracy of about 60%. The establishment of TRFM-based LFIA will provide a sensitive, convenient, and efficient technical support for rapid screening of CA199 in cancer diagnosis and prognosis.
Although auxin response factors (ARFs) are the first well-characterized proteins that bind to the auxin response elements, elucidation of the roles of each ARF gene in auxin responses and plant ...development has been challenging. Here we show that ARF19 and ARF7 not only participate in auxin signaling, but also play a critical role in ethylene responses in Arabidopsis (Arabidopsis thaliana) roots, indicating that the ARFs serve as a cross talk point between the two hormones. Both arf19 and arf7 mutants isolated from our forward genetic screens are auxin resistant and the arf19arf7 double mutant had stronger auxin resistance than the single mutants and displayed phenotypes not seen in the single mutants. Furthermore, we show that a genomic fragment of ARF19 not only complements arf19, but also rescues arf7. We conclude that ARF19 complements ARF7 at the protein level and that the ARF7 target sequences are also recognized by ARF19. Therefore, it is the differences in expression level/pattern and not the differences in protein sequences between the two ARFs that determines the relative contribution of the two ARFs in auxin signaling and plant development. In addition to being auxin resistant, arf19 has also ethylene-insensitive roots and ARF19 expression is induced by ethylene treatment. This work provides a sensitive genetic screen for uncovering auxin-resistant mutants including the described arf mutants. This study also provides a likely mechanism for coordination and integration of hormonal signals to regulate plant growth and development.
Precise measurement for the purity of organic compounds will fundamentally improve the capabilities and measurement services of the organic chemical analysis. Quantitative nuclear magnetic resonance ...(qNMR) is an important method to assess the purity of organic compounds. We presented a precise measurement method for the purity of small molecule with identification of impurities. In addition, the qNMR was rarely applied to purity of large compounds such as peptide, for which qNMR peaks are too crowded. Other than general idea of qNMR, we removed unwanted exchangeable peaks by proton exchange, as a new approach for qNMR, to make the quantitative protons of peptide isolated, which can ensure precise measurement. Moreover, a suitable internal standard, acesulfame potassium, was applied. The analytes were valine and peptide T5, due to their importance for protein analysis. For valine, the intraday CV was 0.052%, and the interday CV during 8 months was 0.071%. For peptide T5, simpler operation, shorter analytical time (1h vs. 3 days) and smaller CV (0.36% vs. 0.93%) were achieved by qNMR, compared with a traditional method (amino acid based isotope labeled mass spectrometry) via a hydrolysis reaction. This method has greatly increased the quantitative precision of qNMR for small compounds, and extended application scope of qNMR from small compounds to peptides.
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•High precision for valine: interday CV (0.071%) and intraday CV (0.052%).•Proton exchange approach is first used in quantitative NMR.•For peptide qNMR, we first remove unwanted peaks from crowded NMR spectrum.•Shorter time and less CV (1h, 0.36%) than the traditional method (3–4 days, 0.93%).•We extended qNMR from small compounds to peptides, and even small proteins.
A highly purified and bioactive immunoglobulin G monoclonal antibody against receptor-binding domain of SARS-CoV-2 (RBD-IgG-MAb) has been accurately quantified by amino acid determination using ...isotope dilution liquid chromatography–mass spectrometry. Absolute quantification of RBD-IgG-MAb was achieved by averaging 4 amino acid certified reference materials, which allows the quantitative value (66.1 ± 5.8 μg/L) to be traced to SI unit (mol). Afterwards, the RBD-IgG-MAb was employed as control and calibration compound for the development of a point-of-care testing (POCT) system based on colloidal gold lateral flow immunoassay, which aimed to rapidly and accurately detect the level of protective RBD-IgG after vaccination. Under the detection parameters, a sigmoidal curve has been plotted between signal intensity and the logarithmic concentration for quantitative detection with the limit of detection of about 0.39 μg/mL. The relative standard deviations of intra-assay and inter-assay were lower than 2.3% and 14%, and the recoveries ranged from 87 to 100%, respectively. Fingertip blood samples from 37 volunteers after vaccination were analyzed by the POCT system; results showed that levels of RBD-IgG in 33 out of 37 samples ranged from 0.45 to 2.46 μg/mL with the average level of 0.91 μg/mL. The developed POCT system has been successfully established with the quantity-traceability RBD-IgG-MAb as control and calibration compound, and the scientific contribution of this work can be promoted to other areas.
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