Excellent appearance of Dao-di Ginseng Radix et Rhizoma and interaction mechanism between genetic and environmental factors: a review / 中国中药杂志

Dao-di medicinal materials produced in a specific environment always present excellent appearance and high quality. Because of the unique appearance, Ginseng Radix et Rhizoma is regarded as a paradigm in the research on excellent appearance. This paper systematically summarized the research progress in the genetic and environmental factors influencing the formation of the excellent appearance of Ginseng Radix et Rhizoma, aiming to provide reference for the quality improvement of Ginseng Radix et Rhizoma and the scientific connotation of Dao-di Chinese medicinal materials. The Ginseng Radix et Rhizoma with high quality generally has a robust and long rhizome, a large angle between branch roots, and the simultaneous presence of a robust basal part of rhizome, adventitious roots, rhizome bark with circular wrinkles, and fibrous roots with pearl points. The cultivated and wild Ginseng Radix et Rhizoma have significant differences in the appearance and no significant difference in the population genetic diversity. The differences in the appearance are associated with cell wall modification, transcriptional regulation of genes involved in plant hormone transduction, DNA methylation, and miRNA regulation. The rhizosphere soil microorganisms including Fusarium and Alternaria, as well as the endophytes Trichoderma hamatum and Nectria haematococca, may be the key microorganisms affecting the growth and development of Panax ginseng. Cultivation mode, variety, and root exudates may be the main factors influencing the stability of rhizosphere microbial community. Ginsenosides may be involved in the formation of the excellent appearance. However, most of the available studies focus on the partial or single factors in the formation of Dao-di medicinal materials, ignoring the relationship within the complex ecosystems, which limits the research on the formation mechanism of Dao-di medicinal materials. In the future, the experimental models for the research involving genetic and environmental factors should be established and mutant materials should be developed to clarify the internal relationship between factors and provide scientific support for the research on Dao-di medicinal materials.

Role of DNA methylation in the pathogenesis of ophthalmic diseases / 国际眼科杂志(Guoji Yanke Zazhi)

The occurrence and development of many eye diseases are closely related to genetic and environmental factors, among which epigenetic modification is an important bridge connecting genetic and environmental factors. It can affect the levels of related genes by influencing gene transcription or translation, thereby playing a role in the pathogenesis of ocular diseases. DNA methylation is an important part of epigenetic modification which is usually regulated by three processes: de novo methylation, maintenance methylation, and demethylation, and plays an essential role in regulating gene expression. At present, researchers have conducted that DNA methylation plays an important role in repair of damage to corneal endothelium, mitochondrial dynamics regulation and diabetic retinopathy, oxidative stress response and cataracts and other eye diseases, providing new ideas in the treatment of related ocular diseases. This study presented a brief review of the role of DNA methylation in the development of related ocular diseases and provided new perspectives and directions for the screening, diagnosis, and treatment of eye diseases.

Paternal environmental exposure-induced spermatozoal small noncoding RNA alteration meditates the intergenerational epigenetic inheritance of multiple diseases / 医学前沿

Studies of human and mammalian have revealed that environmental exposure can affect paternal health conditions as well as those of the offspring. However, studies that explore the mechanisms that meditate this transmission are rare. Recently, small noncoding RNAs (sncRNAs) in sperm have seemed crucial to this transmission due to their alteration in sperm in response to environmental exposure, and the methodology of microinjection of isolated total RNA or sncRNAs or synthetically identified sncRNAs gradually lifted the veil of sncRNA regulation during intergenerational inheritance along the male line. Hence, by reviewing relevant literature, this study intends to answer the following research concepts: (1) paternal environmental factors that can be passed on to offspring and are attributed to spermatozoal sncRNAs, (2) potential role of paternal spermatozoal sncRNAs during the intergenerational inheritance process, and (3) the potential mechanism by which spermatozoal sncRNAs meditate intergenerational inheritance. In summary, increased attention highlights the hidden wonder of spermatozoal sncRNAs during intergenerational inheritance. Therefore, in the future, more studies should focus on the origin of RNA alteration, the target of RNA regulation, and how sncRNA regulation during embryonic development can be sustained even in adult offspring.

Effect of histone methylation and its inhibitors on the progression of colorectal cancer / 国际生物医学工程杂志

Colorectal cancer is a malignant tumor occurring in the colon or rectum, which has a high incidence rate. In order to improve the prognosis of colorectal cancer, the pathogenesis of colorectal cancer still needs to be further clarified. Epigenetics can directly affect the progression and metastasis of colorectal cancer, and histone methylation is an important means of histone modification, which can regulate the transcriptional activation and inhibition of downstream genes. A large number of studies have confirmed the effects of histone methylation on the progression of colorectal cancer, and inhibitors of related methylation and demethylation may play a role as potential therapeutic drugs for colorectal cancer. In this article, the colorectal cancer and its related methylation regulation were introduced, the types of histone methylation modifications and their regulation were summarized, and the regulation of histone methyltransferases and demethylases involved in the progression of colorectal cancer was demonstrated. In addition, the potential significance of histone methylation inhibitors for the treatment of colorectal cancer was summarized, and the possibility of related inhibitors as treatment drugs for colorectal cancer was explored.

Non-coding RNAs and chromatin: key epigenetic factors from spermatogenesis to transgenerational inheritance

Cellular fate and gene expression patterns are modulated by different epigenetic factors including non-coding RNAs (ncRNAs) and chromatin organization. Both factors are dynamic throughout male germ cell differentiation on the seminiferous tubule, despite the transcriptional inactivation in the last stages of spermatogenesis. Sperm maturation during the caput-to-cauda transit on the epididymis involves changes in chromatin organization and the soma-to-germ line transference of ncRNAs that are essential to obtain a functional sperm for fertilization and embryo development. Here, the male environment (diseases, drugs, mental stress) is crucial to modulate these epigenetic factors throughout sperm maturation, affecting the corresponding offspring. Paternal transgenerational inheritance has been directly related to sperm epigenetic changes, most of them associated with variations in the ncRNA content and chromatin marks. Our aim is to give an overview about how epigenetics, focused on ncRNAs and chromatin, is pivotal to understand spermatogenesis and sperm maturation, and how the male environment impacts the sperm epigenome modulating the offspring gene expression pattern.

Histone deacetylases inhibition and retinopathy / 中华实验眼科杂志

Histone acetyltransferases(HATs) faciliate histone acetylation and histone deacetylases(HDACs) serve to remove acetyl groups from histones.The activation and repression of gene expression can be regulated by the acetylation of histone or specific genes.It is certified that acetylation of related genes is down-regulated in diabetic retinopathy,retinal ischemia-reperfusion,degenerative retinopathy,infective retinopathy and retinal tumors,which results in cell apoptosis and retinal dysfunction.So the physiology and pathology of retina have a close relation.The effects of histone acetylation and deacetylases on retinal diseases are still studying because of the complexity and diversity of genetic modification io epigenetic inheritance.This article reviewed the classification of HATs and HDACs and their inhibitors,their effects and function,their relationship to retinopathy,and discuss the protection of their inhibitors to retina.

The conversion of spring wheat into winter wheat and vice versa: false claim or Lamarckian inheritance.

Paul Kammerer, an Austrian biologist, argued strongly in favour of the Lamarkian view on the inheritance of acquired characters. In his most controversial experiment, Kammerer forced midwife toads, which live and mate on land, to mate and lay their eggs in water. Most of the eggs died, but a few (3–5%) of offspring that survived had lost the terrestrial habits of their parents and, by the third generation, they began to develop black nuptial pads on their forelimbs, a character common to water-dwelling species. This experiment is often cited as an example of scientifi c fraud. Recently, however, Vargas (2009) has re-examined Kammerer’s midwife toad experiments and argues that these experiments show signs of epigenetic inheritance. An immediate discussion on this topic has been published in a recent issue of Science (Pennisi 2009). This new analysis reminds us of several recent reports on the inheritance of acquired behaviour adaptations and brain gene expression in chickens, which may have been transmitted to the offspring by means of epigenetic mechanisms (Lindqvist et al. 2007; Natt et al. 2009). It especially reminds us of Trofi m Lysenko’s converted wheat, a situation exactly analogous to Kammerer’s midwife toad. The characteristic of winter wheat is that if sown in the spring it fails to form ears. It has been shown that the capacity to form ears depends on the plant’s passing through a defi nite internal qualitative change. It was Lysenko who coined the term jarovization, which was later translated into vernalization. It is defi ned as ‘the acquisition or acceleration of the ability to fl ower by a chilling treatment’. The characteristic feature of winter wheat is its requirement of rather low temperature for vernalization. The usual duration of the process of vernalization in most winter wheat at low temperatures (0o–10oC) is 30–50 days, depending upon the variety. Once this stage has been accomplished, the plant becomes capable of forming fl owers in favourable conditions. Spring wheat differs from winter wheat in that it does not require vernalization, and is thus able to ear when sown in spring. Winter and spring habit, as a Mendelian character transmitted by gametes, is a hereditary property in wheat. Before 1930, Lysenko had shown that vernalization of winter wheat can be accomplished before it is sown. The process is to allow the grains to take up water and swell, and then to keep them for the required time at a temperature of 0–3°C. The grains are then dried off: they show no signs of germination but when subsequently sown in spring they ear normally, indicating that they have passed the phase of vernalization. This treatment has no effect on the hereditary behaviour of the plants. That is to say, the progeny of the pre-vernalized spring-sown wheat is still winter wheat; if sown (without pre-vernalization) in the following spring it will not form ears (Morton 1951; Lysenko 1954). However, in a series of experiments carried out between 1935 and 1940, Lysenko and his colleagues established that permanent changes in heredity can be induced by appropriate changes in external conditions at the critical period of vernalization. In the earliest experiments, winter wheat was sown in the greenhouse and kept at a temperature higher than the temperature required for vernalization in normal conditions. After 152 days, 30–40% of the plants eared and gave ripe seed, indicating that these plants had succeeded in completing the vernalization stage, although very slowly, at the higher temperature. The seeds were sown and raised again in the same conditions. This time the plants eared in 77 days. A third generation was raised in the same way and gave ears at 46 days. The seed from the three generations that had passed the vernalization stage at the higher temperature was then sown in the fi eld. The experimental plants behaved as spring forms and eared, but the control plants from the original seed material did not ear at all. Lysenko suggested that the later stage of vernalization was the critical period, in which the change would become hereditarily fi xed. Thus, concretely, to change winter wheat.

Soft inheritance: challenging the modern synthesis: [review]

This paper presents some of the recent challenges to the Modern Synthesis of evolutionary theory, which has dominated evolutionary thinking for the last sixty years. The focus of the paper is the challenge of soft inheritance - the idea that variations that arise during development can be inherited. There is ample evidence showing that phenotypic variations that are independent of variations in DNA sequence, and targeted DNA changes that are guided by epigenetic control systems, are important sources of hereditary variation, and hence can contribute to evolutionary changes. Furthermore, under certain conditions, the mechanisms underlying epigenetic inheritance can also lead to saltational changes that reorganize the epigenome. These discoveries are clearly incompatible with the tenets of the Modern Synthesis, which denied any significant role for Lamarckian and saltational processes. In view of the data that support soft inheritance, as well as other challenges to the Modern Synthesis, it is concluded that that synthesis no longer offers a satisfactory theoretical framework for evolutionary biology.