Advance of AMPK in Ischemic Stroke (review) / 中国康复理论与实践

AMP-activated protein kinase (AMPK) is an evolutionarily conserved serine/threonine kinase that plays a vital role in regulating the homeostasis of cellular energy metabolism. Under normal physiological conditions, AMPK can promote brain development and regulate neuronal polarization. In ischemic stroke, the upregulation of AMPK can reduce oxidative stress, inhibit neuroinflammation, regulate neuronal autophagy and apoptosis, improve mitochondrial function, inhibit glutamate excitotoxicity and promote neovascularization. AMPK can promote functional recovery in the treatment of ischemic stroke. The current treatment methods based on AMPK mainly include drug therapy, physical therapy and receptor targeted therapy. However, the evidence and mechanism of the application of targeting AMPK in the clinic are still not sufficient, and need further research.

Improving baculovirus transduction of mammalian cells by spinoculation / 生物工程学报

Recently many reports have described that recombinant baculovirus could serve as a new gene transfer vehicle for mammalian cells with many unique advantages. In this study, the constructed recombinant baculovirus BacV-CMV-EGFPA containing the enhanced green fluorescent protein (eGFP) gene driven by CMV promoter was used to explore the feasibility of improving the efficiencies of transduction experiment in CV-1 cells by centrifugal method. Refer to the centrifugal transduction protocol of recombinant lentivirus, CV-1 cells were incubated with the culture supematant of Sf-21 cells infected by BacV-CMV-ECFPA (moi = 30) and then centrifuged at 600g for 1 h at RT, reporter gene transfer and expression efficiencies were analyzed by flow cytometry (FCM) 48h post transduction. Results showed that centrifugal method can achieve higher gene delivery and expression efficiencies than transduction by simple virus-cell mixing for 4h at 27 t with least impairment to cell viability. The centrifugal transduction protocol was further optimized by testing different centrifugal times, post-centrifugation incubation times and surrounding solutions. We found that centrifugation at 600g for 1 h at RT is sufficient to achieve the highest transduction efficiencies in target cells and PBS is more suitable than other surrounding solutions. Compared with previous protocol in which tranduction occurs for 4 - 8h at 27 degrees C, centrifugal method developed in this study could achieve more higher transduction efficiencies in more shorter time. Nine different mammalian cell lines (CV-1, 293FT, HepG2, 293T, CHO, C127, MT4, H9, Molt-4) were used to investigate the feasibility of delivering exogenous genes into different mammalian cells with the BacV-CMV-EGFPA supernatant (moi = 30) at 600g for 1h in PBS surrounding solution at RT. Results showed that most mammalian cell lines used in this study could be effectively transduced with recombinant baculoviruses by centrifugal method, and more higher and satisfactory transduction efficiencies could be achieved in primate adherent culture cells than in suspended culture cells. These results show that the baculovirus centrifugal transduction protocol have notable advantages: more rapid, efficient and nontoxic, and could be easily used in daily common experiments.

Determination of nerolidol in volatile oil of Dalbergia odorifera by GC / 中国中药杂志

<p><b>OBJECTIVE</b>To develop a method for determination of nerolidol in the volatile oil of Dalbergia odorifera.</p><p><b>METHOD</b>GC method was used. The samples were separated on Agilent HP-5 column (320 microm x 30 m, 0.25 microm) with the mobile phase of highly pure N2. Flow rate was 2 mL x min(-1).</p><p><b>RESULT</b>Linearity of nemlidol was good linearity in the range of 0.059-1.97 mg x mL(-1), and the average recovery was 97.5%, RSD 2.3%.</p><p><b>CONCLUSION</b>This method is simple, accurate, rapid and reproducible.</p>

Particulate recombinant hepatitis E virus capsid protein and its antigenicity and immunogenicity / 生物工程学报

An E. coli expressed recombinant antigen NE2 was reported to aggregate into homo-oligomer, and can induce protective antibodies on rhesus monkey, but its immunogenicty was much weak after being purified. In this study, three N-terminal extension mutant of NE2 were expressed in E. coli, one of which named HEV 239 was found to aggregate into particle. HEV 239 antigen had good reactivity with sera of hepatitis E patients. The reactivity of HEV 239 against neutralization monoclonal antibody 8C11 was similar as NE2 antigen, while the reactivity of it against another neutralization monoclonal antibody 8H3 is much better than NE2 antigen, which indicated better antigenicity of HEV 239 than NE2. The diameter of purified HEV 239 particulate antigen was between 15 nm to 30 nm. The ED50 of immunization of HEV 239 particle adsorbed by aluminum adjuvant to BALB/c mice was between 0.08 microg to 0.25 microg. In contrast, the seraconversion rate of mice immunized by NE2 antigen adsorbed by aluminium adjuvant was only 25% on 60 microg vaccination. These results suggested that HEV 239 antigen particle has better immunogenicity as well as antigenicity than those of NE2 antigen, so it is a better vaccine candidate against HEV.

Mammalian gene-transfer and expression efficiencies of baculovirus bacV-CMV-EGFPA / 生物工程学报

It has been reported that baculoviruses could serve as a new gene-transfer vehicle for mammalian cells. We have previously constructed recombinant baculovirus BacV-CMV-EGFPA and have proven that mammalian cells could be effectively infected by the recombinant baculovirus. In this report, we studied the efficiency of baculovirus to deliver exogenous gene into twenty mammalian cells, including twelve human cell lines (WI-38, Hela, HepG2, 293, PLC/PRF/5, 143B, MCF-7, BGC-223, DMS 114, CNE, Raji, LCL-cm), seven murine cell lines (BNL 1ME A.7R.1, CHO-K1, L-929, JC, PT67, NIH3T3, P815) and one monkey cell line (CV1). Results showed that most mammalian cell lines could be transduced by the recombinant baculovirus, the transduction efficiencies of the human and monkey cell lines were markedly higher than that of murine cell lines, and the transduction efficiencies in adherent culture cell lines higher than that of suspend culture cell lines, implying that the infection efficiency of the baculovirus may be correlative with the organism used and the growth properties of the cell lines. The plasmid pcDNA3. 1-EGFP, which contains the CMV promoter and EGFP reporter gene, was next transfected by LipofectAMINE into a number of mammalian cells, especially those cells that were low in the baculovirus transfection. Results showed that the CMV promoter could effectively direct the expression of the reporter gene in these mammalian cells. Therefore the gene-expression efficiencies in different mammalian cell lines by the recombinant baculovirus which contains the same CMV promoter were dictated by the ability of the baculovirus to enter the cell lines. This study suggested that the recombinant baculovirus vector is more suitable for gene expression in primate adherent culture cells than in murine cells and suspend culture cells.

Interface domain of hepatitis E virus capsid protein homodimer / 生物工程学报

Hepatitis E is a main cause of acute viral hepatitis in developing countries where it occurs as sporadic cases and in epidemics form. The causative agent, hepatitis E virus, is transmitted primarily by the fecal-oral route. The approximately 7.5 kb positive-sense single-strand RNA genome includes three open reading frames (ORFs), one of which (ORF2) is postulated to encode the major viral capsid protein (pORF2) of 660 amino acid residues. We earlier showed that a bacterially expressed peptide, designated as NE2, located from amino acid residues 394 to 606 of ORF2, was found to aggregate into homodimer to at least hexamer. To understand the interface domains within this peptide vital for dimerization and formation of major neutralizing epitopes, NE2 protein underwent terminal-truncated and site-directed mutation. The hydrophobic region, ORF2 aa597-aa602 (AVAVLA), played a key role in oligomerization. Any amino acid residue of this region replaced with glutamic acid residue, the peptide can not refold as homodimer and/or oligomer. The immunoreactivities of these mutant peptides, blotted with anti-HEV neutralizing monoclonal antibody (8C11) and convalescent human sera, show associated to the formation of homodimer. The intermolecular contact region on homodimer was investigated by chemical cross-linking of two site-directed cysteines. When the alanine on aa597 site mutated with cysteine, two different homodimers were found in SDS-PAGE analysis. One (42kD) can be disassociated with 8mol/L urea, which is postulated to form by virtue of hydrophobic interaction, and the other (60kD) falls apart with the reductant DTT present. The exact conformation, generating the cross-linking reaction of cysteines, was further investigated by induced-oxidation on monomer and hydrophobic homodimer of A597C protein with GSH/GSSG. And the results revealed, it is the conformation of hydrophobic homodimer that induces the disulfide bond come into being, instead of the one of monomer. So the aa597 site was verified to be located on interface domain of hydrophobically interacting homodimeric complex. To evaluate the biological significance of hydrophobicity of interface domain, we searched natural variations as to the region on all available databases with NCBI blast program. All variations on these amino acid residues kept higher hydrophobicity, which suggests that the hydrophobic domain is critical for the assemblage and propagation of HEV. NE2 N-terminal deletions up to aa458 had no effect on dimerization and took no exact part in formation of major neutralizing epitopes, but the fragment may act as helper for the formation of major neutralizing epitopes on NE2. Interestingly, the C-terminus aa605-aa660 of ORF2 can also act as helper instead of the N-terminus of NE2. This study suggests an interface domain of NE2 might be vital for HEV capsomer assembly and formation of major neutralizing epitopes. These results may offer clues to the rational design of recombinant anti-HEV vaccine.

Rapid and efficient expression of foreign genes in mammalian cells by baculovirus vectors / 生物工程学报

The baculovirus insect cell expression system has been used extensively for the expression of recombinant proteins in insect cells. Recently, reports have described that recombinant baculoviruses can transduce a broad spectrum of primary and established mammalian cells, which shows the baculoviruses could serve as a new gene-transfer vehicle for mammalian cells. In this report, we further research the modification of baculovirus vector and the way to deliver exogenous gene into mammalian cells. On the base of Bac-to-Bac baculovirus insect cell expression system, two recombinant baculoviruses (BacV-CMV-EGFPA, BacV-CMV-EGFPB) were constructed containing different direction of CMV promoters which controll the expression of a reporter gene (EGFP). We found that CMV promoter could direct expression of reporter gene in Sf9 cells with relatively low efficiency. The culture supernatant of Sf9 cells which have been infected by the recombinant baculoviruses for four days were collected and the titers of the viruses in culture supernatant were determined by plaque assay on Sf9 cells. The HepG2 cells, an human hepatocellular carcinoma cell line, were directly incubated with the collected culture supernatant which contains the recombinant baculoviruses for 8 hours in 37 degrees C CO2 incubator (moi = 100). Twenty-four hours post transduction the efficiencies of gene-transfer and expression were analyzed by flow cytometry (FCM) which detect the green fluorescence of individual cells. Results show that these two recombinant baculoviruses have similar gene-transfer and expression efficiency in HepG2 cells, which means the direction of CMV promoters has no effects on reporter gene expression. The optimal transduction conditions of incubating the mammalian cells with the culture supernatant of Sf9 cells infected by recombinant baculoviruses for four days were determined by FCM assay in HepG2 cells. The HepG2 cells inoculated in 24-well plate (5 x 10(4)/well) were incubated with the culture supernatant (BacV-CMV-EGFPA, 1.2 x 10(7) pfu/mL) serially diluted by DMEM culture medium containing 10% FBS and the transduction times ranged from 1 to 24 hours. Twenty-four hours post transduction the efficiencies of gene-transfer and expression were analyzed by FCM. Results show that incubating the target cells with the 1:1 diluted culture supernatant (moi = 50) for 12 hours in 37 degrees C CO2 incubator would achieve the highest infection and expression efficiency with the least impairment on cell viability. We compared the gene-transfer and expression efficiency of recombinant baculovirus in HepG2 and CV1 cells with lipofectAMINE and recombinant retrovirus system, results show that under the similar conditions the recombinant baculovirus could achieve the highest gene-transfer and expression efficiency than the other two systems. So we can draw a conclusion that directly incubating the mammalian cells with the culture supernantant of the infected Sf9 cells could serve as a very convenient way for rapid and efficient expression of foreign gene in mammalian cells.

Selection of a peptide mimic the neutralization epitope of hepatitis E virus with phage peptide display technology / 生物工程学报

Hepatitis E is an acute hepatitis casused by hepatitis E virus (HEV) in developing countries, where it occurs as cases sporadic and in epidemics form. The causative agent, hepatitis E virus, is transmitted primarily by the fecal-oral route. HEV is icosahedron non-enveloped virus, and its genome is a single-stranded, positive-sense, 3'-polyadenylated RNA about 7.5 kb in length. It contains three open reading frames (ORFs). Of which ORF1 codes for a polyprotein of 1693 amino acids and contain domains homologous to a viral methyltransferase, a papainlike cysteine protease, an RNA helicasre, and an RNA-dependent RNA polymerase, besides the most hypervariable region of the HEV genome. And ORF3 codes for a 123-amino-acide-long polypeptide with unknown function. While the major viral capsid protein (pORF2, ORF2 codes) of 660 amino acid was showed to contain the protective epitope. The bacterially expressed polypeptide disignated as NE2 has been proved to be a protective antige. And the anti-NE2 monoclonal antibodies (mAb) was screend, two of these mAbs 8C11 and 8H3 were showed to be against separate conformational neutralization epitope of hepatitis E virus (HEV). And these two mAb were used to screen for binding peptides from a 7-peptides phage display library. After four rounds of panning, tweenty-one positive monoclonal phages (11 for 8C11, and 10 for 8H3) were selected and the inserted fragments were sequenced. The DNA sequence coding for the obtained dominant peptide 8C11 (N'-His-Pro-Thr-Leu-Leu-Arg-Ile-C', named 8C11A) and 8H3 (N'-Ser-Ile-Leu-Pro-Tyr-Pro-Tyr-C', named 8H3A) were then synthesized and cloned to insert between amino acid 78 to 83 of hepatitis B core antigen (HBcAg), then expressed in E. coli. The recombinant proteins aggregate into homodimer or polymer on SDS-PAGE, and could bind with mAb 8C11 and 8H3 in Western blotting. Respectively, the recombinant protein C8C11A showed to be dimer mainly, which can bind with mAb 8C11. The monomer and dimer of C8H3A are in the same amount on SDS-PAGE, but only the dimer could bind with mAb 8H3 on Western blotting. The renatured recombinant proteins were all showed to aggregate into virus like particles which were similar as HBcAg on transmission electron micrograph. The dominant peptide 8H3A (N'-Ser-Ile-Leu-Pro-Tyr-ProTyr-C') that selected out by mAb 8H3 was further chemo-synthesized, and its binding activity was confirmed by BIAcore biosensor. The result showed that this 7-peptide can bind with mAb 8H3 in a big Ka and Kd form, which means the binding is not stable. These results implicated that conformational dependent neutralization epitope could be partially modeled by short peptide, which provided a feasible route for subunit vaccine development.