Obtaining vacuolar protein sorting 34 gene in Sporothrix globosa by RACE method and analysis of its expression during the mycelium-to-yeast transition / 中华微生物学和免疫学杂志

Objective To obtain the full-length sequence of the vacuolar protein sorting 34 coding gene (vps34) of Sporothrix globosa (S. globosa) and to investigate the role of vps34 gene during the phase transition from mycelium to yeast in S. globosa. -ethods The 3′ end and 5′ end of the vps34 gene of S. globosa were amplified by rapid amplification of cDNA ends ( RACE ) . The obtained sequences were spliced and analyzed by bioinformatics software. Quantitative reverse transcription PCR ( qRT-PCR ) was used to analyze the expression of vps34 gene in mycelial and yeast phases. Results The vps34 gene of S. globosa was 3228 bp in length. The coding sequence was 3000 bp and encoded 999 amino acids with a mo-lecular mass of 111. 49×103 and an isoelectric point of 6. 38. It contained three domains including C2 PI3K class Ⅲ, PI3Ka Ⅲ and PI3Kc Ⅲ. The results of qRT-PCR showed that the expression of vps34 gene in yeast-phase S. globosa was higher than that in mycelial phase at 24 h (P<0. 05), and the greatest difference between them was observed at 48 h (P<0. 01). Conclusions Vps34p participates in the process of dimor-phic transformation of S. globosa. The obtainment of the full-length vps34 gene of S. globosa lays the founda-tions for further study on the function of Vps34p.

Autophagy and new strategy for cancer prevention and treatment / 中国药理学与毒理学杂志

Autophagy is a catabolic process responsible for the degradation and recycling of misfolded proteins and damaged organelles for cellular homeostasis. This degradative pathway,closely related to many diseases including cancer,has become a focus of cancer research. lt can serve as a tumor suppressor,also functions as a protective cell-survival mechanism against chemotherapies. Of the autophagy-related proteins,vacuolar protein sorting 34(VPS34)has attracted major attention over the past decade because of its role in autophagic procedure. Recently,three specific inhibitors of VPS34,PlK-Ⅲ,VPSlN1 and SlR405,have been invented,showing unique implications for autophagy reduction and therapeutic benefit in tumor treatment. This paper summarizes the different roles of autophagy in clinical settings and the functional regulation of VPS34 upon post-translational modification and also discusses the application prospects of inhibitors targeting VPS34 or autophagy in cancer prevention and treatment.