Summary
Drought is a major abiotic stress that threatens maize production globally. A previous genome‐wide association study identified a significant association between the natural variation of ...ZmTIP1 and the drought tolerance of maize seedlings. Here, we report on comprehensive genetic and functional analysis, indicating that ZmTIP1, which encodes a functional S‐acyltransferase, plays a positive role in regulating the length of root hairs and the level of drought tolerance in maize. We show that enhancing ZmTIP1 expression in transgenic Arabidopsis and maize increased root hair length, as well as plant tolerance to water deficit. In contrast, ZmTIP1 transposon‐insertional mutants displayed the opposite phenotype. A calcium‐dependent protein kinase, ZmCPK9, was identified as a substrate protein of ZmTIP1, and ZmTIP1‐mediated palmitoylation of two cysteine residues facilitated the ZmCPK9 PM association. The results of this research enrich our knowledge about ZmTIP1‐mediated protein S‐acylation modifications in relation to the regulation of root hair elongation and drought tolerance. Additionally, the identification of a favourable allele of ZmTIP1 also provides a valuable genetic resource or selection target for the genetic improvement of maize.
Parkinson's disease (PD) is the second most common degenerative disorder of the central nervous system that impairs motor skills and cognitive function. To date, the disease has no effective ...therapies. The identification of new drugs that provide benefit in arresting the decline seen in PD patients is the focus of much recent study. However, the lengthy time frame for the progression of neurodegeneration in PD increases both the time and cost of examining potential therapeutic compounds in mammalian models. An alternative is to first evaluate the efficacy of compounds in Caenorhabditis elegans models, which reduces examination time from months to days. n-Butylidenephthalide is the naturally-occurring component derived from the chloroform extract of Angelica sinensis. It has been shown to have anti-tumor and anti-inflammatory properties, but no reports have yet described the effects of n-butylidenephthalide on PD. The aim of this study was to assess the potential for n-butylidenephthalide to improve PD in C. elegans models.
In the current study, we employed a pharmacological strain that expresses green fluorescent protein specifically in dopaminergic neurons (BZ555) and a transgenic strain that expresses human α-synuclein in muscle cells (OW13) to investigate the antiparkinsonian activities of n-butylidenephthalide. Our results demonstrate that in PD animal models, n-butylidenephthalide significantly attenuates dopaminergic neuron degeneration induced by 6-hydroxydopamine; reduces α-synuclein accumulation; recovers lipid content, food-sensing behavior, and dopamine levels; and prolongs life-span of 6-hydroxydopamine treatment, thus revealing its potential as a possible antiparkinsonian drug. n-Butylidenephthalide may exert its effects by blocking egl-1 expression to inhibit apoptosis pathways and by raising rpn-6 expression to enhance the activity of proteasomes.
n-Butylidenephthalide may be one of the effective neuroprotective agents for PD.
Integrin alphavbeta6 (αvβ6) is correlated with colon cancer progression. To detect the effects of αvβ6 on liver metastasis, the specificity of αvβ6 against the monoclonal antibody (mAb) 2G2 was ...examined by immunoprecipitation. Integrin αvβ6‐immunoreactivity (IR) in liver metastasis tissues (63 cases) and colon carcinoma (358 cases) were examined. These results showed that αvβ6 was specifically recognized by the mAb 2G2, and that rates of αvβ6 positivity in liver metastatic tissues (71.4%, 45/63) were higher than that for primary colon cancer (34.0%, 122/358) (P < 0.01). Patients who were αvβ6‐positive had higher liver metastasis rates (17%, 21/122) than those who were αvβ6‐negative (only 3%, 7/236) (P < 0.01). To examine the underlying mechanisms associated with αvβ6 regulating colonic metastasis in the liver, experimental liver metastasis (intrasplenic injection of HT29 transfectants) and liver colonization assays (direct injection of WiDr transfectants into the liver) in nude mice were performed; these demonstrated that αvβ6 contributed to the promotion of the metastatic potential and the survival of cancer cells in the liver. Matrix metalloproteinase‐9 (MMP‐9) levels in the cultures of both HT29 and WiDr cells were detected by the Biotrak MMP‐9 activity assay system and gelatin zymography assay, and showed that suppression of αvβ6‐IR inhibited MMP‐9 activity and secretion. Transwell migration assay in vitro also showed that αvβ6 promoted migration on fibronectin for HT29/WiDr mock compared with HT29/WiDr antisense β6 transfects (P < 0.01). We concluded that αvβ6 may mediate the potential for colon cancer cells to colonize in and metastasize to the liver. The mechanisms that αvβ6 may be involved in include the promotion of MMP‐9 secretion, the enhancement of migration on fibronectin, and the survival of cancer cells in the liver. (Cancer Sci 2008; 99: 879–887)
Decellularization is the process by which cells are discharged from tissues/organs, but all of the essential cues for cell preservation and homeostasis are retained in a three-dimensional structure ...of the organ and its extracellular matrix components. During tissue decellularization, maintenance of the native ultrastructure and composition of the extracellular matrix (ECM) is extremely acceptable. For recellularization, the scaffold/matrix is seeded with cells, the final goal being to form a practical organ. In this review, we focus on the biological properties of the ECM that remains when a variety of decellularization methods are used, comparing recellularization technologies, including bioreactor expansion for perfusion-based bioartificial organs, and we discuss cell sources. In the future, decellularization–recellularization procedures may solve the problem of organ assembly on demand.
Ginseng extracts are extensively used as raw materials for food supplements and herbal medicines. This study aimed to characterize ginsenosides obtained from six Panax plant extracts (Panax ginseng, ...red ginseng, Panax quinquefolius, Panax notoginseng, Panax japonicus, and Panax japonicus var. major) and compared them with their in vitro metabolic profiles mediated by rat intestinal microbiota. Ultrahigh-performance liquid chromatography/ion mobility–quadrupole time-of-flight mass spectrometry (UHPLC/IM-QTOF-MS) with scheduled multiple reaction monitoring (sMRM) quantitation methods were developed to characterize and compare the ginsenoside composition of the different extracts. After in vitro incubation, 248 ginsenosides/metabolites were identified by UHPLC/IM-QTOF-MS in six biotransformed samples. Deglycosylation was determined to be the main metabolic pathway of ginsenosides, and protopanaxadiol-type and oleanolic acid-type saponins were easier to be easily metabolized. Compared with the ginsenosides in plant extracts, those remaining in six biotransformed samples were considerably fewer after biotransformation for 8 h. However, the compositional differences in four subtypes of the ginsenosides among the six Panax plants became more distinct.
Research of calcium carbide production is of great importance to the utilization of coal. In order to assess and compare two different calcium carbide processes, oxygen-thermal calcium carbide ...manufacturing process system (OTMP) and electro-thermal calcium carbide manufacturing process system (ETMP) were established in which processed middle coke (PMC) refined from low-rank coal was used as feedstock. Two systems that have significantly different process conditions and multi-product characteristics are difficult to assess comprehensively and objectively by using traditional energy and exergy analysis methods, thus new indexes were proposed. The two systems were analyzed by using three new multi-product system indexes, namely, multi-product comprehensive energy consumption, multi-product comprehensive exergy consumption, and multi-product comprehensive carbon emission. The analysis shows that the percentages of all three indexes of OTMP are lower than those of ETMP at 56.47%, 39.02%, and 79.08%, respectively. Unlike the assessment of energy and exergy consumption, carbon footprint analysis indicates that OTMP has significantly better environmental performance. The carbon footprint flow diagram analysis proposed in this study suggests that indirect emission caused by material processing and utilities' utilization accounts for most of the total carbon emission in both systems. Direct emissions from OTMP and ETMP are only 0.92% and 0.38%, respectively, of the total carbon emission. This study suggests that from the point of view of a multi-product chemical process. OTMP is characterized by low energy consumption, exergy consumption, and carbon emission. Thus, a key point in developing OTMP as an alternative technique for calcium carbide production is determining whether high-purity CO produced in OTMP can be used effectively as a product.
Irisflorentin is an isoflavone component derived from the roots of Belamcanda chinensis (L.) DC. In traditional Chinese medicine, this herb has pharmacological properties to treat inflammatory ...disorders. Dendritic cells (DCs) are crucial modulators for the development of optimal T-cell immunity and maintenance of tolerance. Aberrant activation of DCs can induce harmful immune responses, and so agents that effectively improve DC properties have great clinical value. We herein investigated the effects of irisflorentin on lipopolysaccharide (LPS)-stimulated maturation of mouse bone marrow-derived DCs in vitro and in the contact hypersensitivity response (CHSR) in vivo. Our results demonstrated that treatment with up to 40 μM irisflorentin does not cause cellular toxicity. Irisflorentin significantly lessened the proinflammatory cytokine production (tumor necrosis factor-α, interleukin-6, and interleukin-12p70) by LPS-stimulated DCs. Irisflorentin also inhibited the expression of LPS-induced major histocompatibility complex class II and costimulatory molecules (CD40 and CD86) on LPS-stimulated DCs. In addition, irisflorentin diminished LPS-stimulated DC-elicited allogeneic T-cell proliferation. Furthermore, irisflorentin significantly interfered with LPS-induced activation of IκB kinase, c-Jun N-terminal kinase, and p38, as well as the nuclear translocation of NF-κB p65. Subsequently, treatment with irisflorentin obviously weakened 2,4-dinitro-1-fluorobenzene-induced delayed-type hypersensitivity. These findings suggest new insights into the role of irisflorentin as an immunotherapeutic adjuvant through its capability to modulate the properties of DCs.
With the popularity of smart mobile devices, "context-aware" applications have attracted intense interest, for which location is one of the most essential contexts. Compared with outdoor ...localization, indoor localization has received much more attention from both academia and industry these days. Given the widespread use of WiFi hotspots, the received signal strength (RSS) fingerprint-based indoor localization technique is considered as a promising and practical solution because of its relatively high accuracy and low infrastructure cost. Inspired by our observation that sparsity is inherent to the WiFi signal, we present a new RSS fingerprint-based indoor localization approach, called SparseLoc . Through sparse representation of the fingerprints, SparseLoc can estimate a smart mobile device's location with a small error most of the time. Although the correlation between neighboring fingerprints affects the localization accuracy, SparseLoc uses the similarity between principal components of fingerprints to alleviate this effect. Based on the empirical experiments, we demonstrate that SparseLoc improves the localization accuracy by over 25% compared with the existing WiFi signal-based localization methods.
Dendritic cells (DCs) are the major specialized antigen-presenting cells for the development of optimal T-cell immunity. DCs can be used as pharmacological targets to monitor novel biological ...modifiers for the cure of harmful immune responses, such as transplantation rejection. Dryopteris crassirhizoma Nakai (Aspiadaceae) is used for traditional herbal medicine in the region of East Asia. The root of this fern plant has been listed for treating inflammatory diseases. Dryocrassin is the tetrameric phlorophenone component derived from Dryopteris. Here we tested the immunomodulatory potential of dryocrassin on lipopolysaccharide (LPS)-stimulated activation of mouse bone marrow-derived DCs in vitro and in skin allograft transplantation in vivo. Results demonstrated that dryocrassin reduced the emission of tumor necrosis factor-α, interleukin-6, and interleukin-12p70 by LPS-stimulated DCs. The expression of LPS-induced major histocompatibility complex class II, CD40, and CD86 on DCs was also blocked by dryocrassin. Moreover, LPS-stimulated DC-elicited allogeneic T-cell proliferation was alleviated by dryocrassin. In addition, dryocrassin inhibited LPS-induced activation of IkB kinase, JNK/p38 mitogen-activated protein kinase, and the translocation of NF-κB. Treatment with dryocrassin noticeably diminished 2,4-dinitro-1-fluorobenzene-reduced delayed-type hypersensitivity and extended skin allograft survival. Dryocrassin may be one of the potent immunosuppressive agents for transplant rejection via the destruction of DC maturation and function.
Parkinson’s disease (PD) is a degenerative disorder of the central nervous system that is characterized by progressive loss of dopaminergic neurons in the substantia nigra pars compacta as well as ...motor impairment. Aggregation of α-synuclein in neuronal cells plays a key role in this disease. At present, therapeutics for PD provides moderate symptomatic benefits, but it is not able to delay the development of the disease. Current efforts toward the treatment of PD are to identify new drugs that slow or arrest the progressive course of PD by interfering with a disease-specific pathogenetic process in PD patients. Irisflorentin derived from the roots of
Belamcanda chinensis
(L.) DC. is an herb which has been used for the treatment of inflammatory disorders in traditional Chinese medicine. The purpose of the present study was to assess the potential for irisflorentin to ameliorate PD in
Caenorhabditis elegans
models. Our data reveal that irisflorentin prevents α-synuclein accumulation in the transgenic
Caenorhabditis elegans
model and also improves dopaminergic neuron degeneration, food-sensing behavior, and life-span in a 6-hydroxydopamine-induced Caenorhabditis elegans model, thus indicating its potential as a anti-parkinsonian drug candidate. Irisflorentin may exert its effects by promoting
rpn-3
expression to enhance the activity of proteasomes and down-regulating egl-1 expression to block apoptosis pathways. These findings encourage further investigation on irisflorentin as a possible potent agent for PD treatment.
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