Brucellosis has become a global zoonotic disease, seriously endangering the health of people all over the world. Vaccination is an effective strategy for protection against Brucella infection in ...livestock in developed countries. However, current vaccines are pathogenic to humans and pregnant animals, which limits their use. Therefore, it is very important to improve the safety and immune protection of Brucella vaccine. In this study, different bioinformatics approaches were carried out to predict the physicochemical properties, T/B epitope, and tertiary structure of Omp2b and Omp31. Then, these two proteins were sequentially linked, and the Cytotoxic T lymphocyte associated antigen-4 (CTLA-4) variable region was fused to the N-terminal of the epitope sequence. In addition, molecular docking was performed to show that the structure of the fusion protein vaccine had strong affinity with B7 (B7-1, B7-2). This study showed that the designed vaccine containing CTLA-4 had high potency against Brucella, which could provide a reference for the future development of efficient brucellosis vaccines.
Summary
T‐box transcription factor T (TBXT), encoding the brachyury protein, is an embryonic nuclear transcription factor involved in mesoderm formation and differentiation. Previous studies indicate ...that TBXT mutations are responsible for the tailless or short‐tailed phenotype of many vertebrates. To verify whether the tailless phenotype in fat‐rumped sheep is associated with TBXT mutations, exon 2 of the TBXT gene for 301 individuals belonging to 13 Chinese and Iranian sheep breeds was directly sequenced. Meanwhile, 380 samples were used to detect the genotypes of the candidate variations by mapping to their reads databases in the Sequence Read Archive repository of GenBank. The results showed that one missense mutation, c.334G>T (GGG>TGG) with a completely linked synonymous variant c.333G>C (CCG>CCC) was found to be associated with the ‘tailless’ characteristic in typical fat‐rumped sheep breeds. The c.334G>T transversion led to the conversion of glycine to tryptophan at the 112th amino acid in the T‐box domain of the brachyury protein. In addition, crossbreeding experiments for long‐tailed and tailless sheep showed that CT/CT allele of nucleotides (nt) 333 and 334, a recessive mutation, would cause sheep tails to be shorter, suggesting that these two linked variants at nucleotides 333 and 334 in TBXT are probably causative mutations responsible for the tailless phenotype in sheep.
Abstract
Multiwavelength simultaneous observations are essential to the constraints on the origin of fast radio bursts (FRBs). However, it is a significant observational challenge due to the nature ...of FRBs as transients with a radio millisecond duration, which occur randomly in the sky regardless of time and position. Here, we report the search for short-time fast optical bursts in the Ground-based Wide Angle Camera (GWAC) archived data associated with FRB 20181130B, which were detected by the Five-hundred-meter Aperture Spherical radio Telescope and recently reported. No new credible sources were detected in all single GWAC images with an exposure time of 10 s, including images with coverage of the expected arrival time in optical wavelength by taking the high dispersion measurements into account. Our results provide a limiting magnitude of 15.43 ± 0.04 mag in the
R
band, corresponding to a flux density of 1.66 Jy or 8.35 mag in AB system by assuming that the duration of the optical band is similar to that of the radio band of about 10 ms. This limiting magnitude makes the spectral index of
α
< 0.367 from optical to radio wavelength. The possible existence of longer-duration optical emission was also investigated with upper limits of 0.33 Jy (10.10 mag), 1.74 mJy (15.80 mag), and 0.16 mJy (18.39 mag) for the durations of 50 ms, 10 s, and 6060 s, respectively. This undetected scenario could be partially attributed to the shallow detection capability, as well as the high inferred distance of FRB 20181130B and the low fluence in radio wavelength. The future detectability of optical flashes associated with nearby and bright FRBs are also discussed in this paper.
Hyperlipidemia is an important risk factor for cardiovascular diseases. Agents for the treatment of hyperlipidemia are well-developed in the clinic while PPARα is a target for lipid-lowering agents. ...Shan-Zha (Crataegus pinnatifida) is a traditional Chinese medicine used to increase digestion. Also, Shan-Zha fruit extract showed merit to improve obesity and hyperlipidemia in hamsters; however, the mechanism remained obscure. In the present study, hypertriglycemia and hypercholesterolemia were induced by high fat diet in C57BL/6 J male mice. Then, they were orally administered with Shan-Zha fruit extract at an effective dose of 250 mg/kg for 7 days. The liver was removed to estimate the expressions of PPARα and β-oxidation-related enzyme. Oral intake of Shan-Zha extract significantly improved hyperlipidemia in high fat diet-fed mice with an increase of PPARα expression in liver. Also, expression of PPARα-regulated β-oxidation-related enzymes was raised in liver by Shan-Zha extract. However, adipose tissue and others were not modified by this treatment of Shan-Zha fruit extract. Thus, Shan-Zha can increase the expression of PPARα to facilitate β-oxidation-related enzymes in liver for lipid degradation and blood lipid decrement. Also, this is the first report showing Shan-Zha fruit extract can influence liver to lower hyperlipidemia prior to the action in adipose tissue.
To investigate the effect of cinnamaldehyde (CA) on transcription from selected quorum sensing (QS) promoters. The action of CA on QS was assayed using three E. coli green fluorescent protein (GFP) ...based bioreporters (two inducible and the other constitutive) and two Vibrio harveyi bioluminescent reporter strains. LuxR-mediated transcription from the PluxI promoter, which is induced by 3-oxo-C6-homoserine lactone (HSL), was reduced by 70 per cent following exposure to 200 μmol l⁻¹ CA (26 ppm). The bioluminescence of Vibrio harveyi BB886, which is mediated by 3-hydroxy-C4-HSL, was reduced by 55 per cent after exposure to 60 μmol l⁻¹ CA (8 ppm), and 100 μmol l⁻¹ CA (13 ppm) inhibited the bioluminescence of the autoinducer-2 (AI-2) responsive reporter strain V. harveyi BB170 by nearly 60 per cent. CA did not inhibit the growth of the bioreporter strains at these concentrations. CA had a minimal effect on LasR promoter activity, induced by 3-oxo-C12-HSL. Low concentrations of CA were effective at inhibiting two types of acyl homoserine lactone mediated QS, and also autoinducer-2 mediated QS. Because CA is widely used in the food and flavour industries, its potential to affect bacterial QS regulated processes should be recognized.
Canola meal has been previously demonstrated to be an attractive biomaterial for dehydrating wet ethanol vapours in bioethanol manufacture. Extrusion–spheronisation was employed to prepare reasonably ...spherical pellets of canola meal for use in dehydration units. Canola meal pastes were prepared at water volume fractions of 57–70% and extruded through single and multi-holed dies with diameters 2, 3.5 and 4.5 mm. The pressure required to extrude the pastes, size and shape distribution of pellets and strength of dried pellets were measured. Formulations with a water volume fraction of 70% gave low extrusion pressures and highest pellet strength. Die land diameters of 2 mm gave the best combination of specific surface area, size and shape distribution, packing density and ethanol adsorption. Dehydration testing confirmed that the canola meal pellets could dehydrate water/ethanol vapour from an ethanol mass fraction of 92.5% (below the azeotrope at 1 bara) to 99%. The equilibrium water loading of 47.3 mg water per g adsorbent is larger than other biomass-based adsorbents reported for this application.
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•Near-spherical pellets were successfully prepared from canola meal powder.•The effects of water content and die geometry on pelletization were investigated.•Pellets were characterized in terms of density, surface area, tensile strength, size and distributions.•The pellets successfully dehydrated lower grade ethanol–water vapour to fuel grade.•The pellets gave higher equilibrium water loading than that of other bioadsorbent materials.