Advances in the development of constraint-based genome-scale metabolic network models / 生物工程学报

Genome-scale metabolic network model (GSMM) is becoming an important tool for studying cellular metabolic characteristics, and remarkable advances in relevant theories and methods have been made. Recently, various constraint-based GSMMs that integrated genomic, transcriptomic, proteomic, and thermodynamic data have been developed. These developments, together with the theoretical breakthroughs, have greatly contributed to identification of target genes, systems metabolic engineering, drug discovery, understanding disease mechanism, and many others. This review summarizes how to incorporate transcriptomic, proteomic, and thermodynamic-constraints into GSMM, and illustrates the shortcomings and challenges of applying each of these methods. Finally, we illustrate how to develop and refine a fully integrated GSMM by incorporating transcriptomic, proteomic, and thermodynamic constraints, and discuss future perspectives of constraint-based GSMM.

Mechanism of Inhibition of Neuroblastoma Cell Proliferation by Elemene / 中国医科大学学报

Objective To investigate the effect of elemene and the mechanism of this effect on the proliferation of neuroblastoma.Methods We treated cultured SK-N-SH cells with elemene and used the MTT assay to determine the inhibition of cell proliferation.We used RT-qPCR and Western blotting to measure the effect of elemene on mRNA and protein expression,respectively,of repressor element-1 silencing transcription factor (REST) in SK-N-SH cells and evaluated the mRNA expression of CCND1 and CCNE1 in SK-N-SH cells by using RT-qPCR.Results Elemene significantly inhibited the proliferation of SK-N-SH cells in a dose-and time-dependent manner (P =0.001 16).Moreover,the mRNA (P =0.000 38) and protein (P =0.003 39) expression of REST were markedly suppressed by elemene.Furthermore,elemene significantly reduced the mRNA expression of CCND1 (P =0.001 91) and CCNE1 (P =0.000 15),which are related to the cell cycle.Conclusion Elemene significantly suppressed the proliferation of neuroblastoma cells through the reduction of REST,CCND1,and CCNE1.

Progress in the study of biological characteristics of mesenchymal stem cells derived from human umbilical cord / 基础医学与临床

Recent research found that human umbilical cord is rich in mesenchymal stem cells. These cells have the potencies of expressing many surface markers of mesenchymal stem cell and of differentiating into a variety of cells of three germ layers, synthesizing and secreting a set of trophic factors and other cytokines, and supporting the expansion and function of other cells hematopoietic stem cells and other cells. In addition, immunogenicity of these cells is realatively low.