An engineered multidomain fungicidal peptide against plant fungal pathogens / 生理学报

Fungal pathogens represent major problems for human health and agriculture. As eukaryotic organisms, fungi share some important features with mammalian cells. Therefore, current anti-fungal antibiotics often can not distinguish between fungi and mammalian cells, resulting in serious side effects in mammalian cells. Accordingly, there is strong impetus to develop antifungal alternatives that are both safe and effective. The E1 family of colicin are channel-forming bacteriocins produced by Escherichia coli, which are bactericidal only to E. coli and related species. To target the channel-forming domain of colicin to fungal cell membrane, we engineered a sexual mating pheromone of Candida albicans, α-factor pheromone to colicin Ia. A peptide was constructed consisting of an α mating pheromone of C. albicans fused to the channel-forming domain of colicin Ia to create a new fusion protein, pheromonicin-CA (PMC-CA). Indirect immunolabeling showed that the PMC-CA bound to fungal cells and inhibited growth in the laboratory and field. In the field, the protective activity of pheromonicin against rice blast disease was significantly greater, on a molar basis, than that of triazoles, tricyclazole or isoprothiolane. These results suggest that fusion peptides may be of value as fungicidal agents under agricultural conditions.

Experimental study on the induced differentiation of human amnion mesenchymal cells into osteoblasts / 中华整形外科杂志

<p><b>OBJECTIVE</b>To investigate the feasibility of inducing differentiation of the human amniotic mesenchymal cells (hAMCs) into osteoblasts in vitro, so as to provide the seed cells for bone tissue engineering.</p><p><b>METHODS</b>The hAMCs were isolated from abandoned human amnion and cultured in osteogenic media to induce the osteogenic differentiation in vitro. After hAMCs were induced by osteogenic media for 15 days, morphological observation, immunocytochemistry and western blot were used to study the cellular morphology and expression of alkaline phosphatase (ALP), type I collagen, osteopontin and osteocalcin.</p><p><b>RESULTS</b>The primary cultured hAMCs had long spindle shape or irregular shape, which were distributed evenly. The cells were usually suheultured in 5 or 7 days. After subculture, the cells became larger. After cultured by osteogenic media for 15 days, the hAMCs were detected to express ALP, osteocalcin and osteopontin, and secrete type I collagen.</p><p><b>CONCLUSIONS</b>The hAMCs are isolated, cultured and amplified easily in vitro. The induced differentiated cells by osteogenic media have typical osteoblast morphological and functional characteristics, which can be used as seed cells for bone tissue engineering.</p>