A Potentially Practicable Halotolerant Yeast Meyerozyma guilliermondii A4 for Decolorizing and Detoxifying Azo Dyes and Its Possible Halotolerance Mechanisms.

In this study, a halotolerant yeast that is capable of efficiently decolorizing and detoxifying azo dyes was isolated, identified and characterized for coping with the treatment of azo-dye-containing wastewaters. A characterization of the yeast, including the optimization of its metabolism and growth conditions, its detoxification effectiveness and the degradation pathway of the target azo dye, as well as a determination of the key activities of the enzyme, was performed. Finally, the possible halotolerance mechanisms of the yeast were proposed through a comparative transcriptome analysis. The results show that a halotolerant yeast, A4, which could decolorize various azo dyes, was isolated from a marine environment and was identified as Meyerozyma guilliermondii. Its optimal conditions for dye decolorization were ≥1.0 g/L of sucrose, ≥0.2 g/L of (NH4)2SO4, 0.06 g/L of yeast extract, pH 6.0, a temperature of 35 °C and a rotation speed of ≥160 rpm. The yeast, A4, degraded and detoxified ARB through a series of steps, relying on the key enzymes that might be involved in the degradation of azo dye and aromatic compounds. The halotolerance of the yeast, A4, was mainly related to the regulation of the cell wall components and the excessive uptake of Na+/K+ and/or compatible organic solutes into the cells under different salinity conditions. The up-regulation of genes encoding Ca2+-ATPase and casein kinase II as well as the enrichment of KEGG pathways associated with proteasome and ribosome might also be responsible for its halotolerance.

Integrated Omics of Metastatic Colorectal Cancer.

We integrate the genomics, proteomics, and phosphoproteomics of 480 clinical tissues from 146 patients in a Chinese colorectal cancer (CRC) cohort, among which 70 had metastatic CRC (mCRC). Proteomic profiling differentiates three CRC subtypes characterized by distinct clinical prognosis and molecular signatures. Proteomic and phosphoproteomic profiling of primary tumors alone successfully distinguishes cases with metastasis. Metastatic tissues exhibit high similarities with primary tumors at the genetic but not the proteomic level, and kinase network analysis reveals significant heterogeneity between primary colorectal tumors and their liver metastases. In vivo xenograft-based drug tests using 31 primary and metastatic tumors show personalized responses, which could also be predicted by kinase-substrate network analysis no matter whether tumors carry mutations in the drug-targeted genes. Our study provides a valuable resource for better understanding of mCRC and has potential for clinical application.

Dysfunction of PLA2G6 and CYP2C44-associated network signals imminent carcinogenesis from chronic inflammation to hepatocellular carcinoma.

Little is known about how chronic inflammation contributes to the progression of hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC), especially the initiation of cancer. To uncover the critical transition from chronic inflammation to HCC and the molecular mechanisms at a network level, we analyzed the time-series proteomic data of woodchuck hepatitis virus/c-myc mice and age-matched wt-C57BL/6 mice using our dynamical network biomarker (DNB) model. DNB analysis indicated that the 5th month after birth of transgenic mice was the critical period of cancer initiation, just before the critical transition, which is consistent with clinical symptoms. Meanwhile, the DNB-associated network showed a drastic inversion of protein expression and coexpression levels before and after the critical transition. Two members of DNB, PLA2G6 and CYP2C44, along with their associated differentially expressed proteins, were found to induce dysfunction of arachidonic acid metabolism, further activate inflammatory responses through inflammatory mediator regulation of transient receptor potential channels, and finally lead to impairments of liver detoxification and malignant transition to cancer. As a c-Myc target, PLA2G6 positively correlated with c-Myc in expression, showing a trend from decreasing to increasing during carcinogenesis, with the minimal point at the critical transition or tipping point. Such trend of homologous PLA2G6 and c-Myc was also observed during human hepatocarcinogenesis, with the minimal point at high-grade dysplastic nodules (a stage just before the carcinogenesis). Our study implies that PLA2G6 might function as an oncogene like famous c-Myc during hepatocarcinogenesis, while downregulation of PLA2G6 and c-Myc could be a warning signal indicating imminent carcinogenesis.

R-Phycoerythrin Induces SGC-7901 Apoptosis by Arresting Cell Cycle at S Phase.

R-Phycoerythrin (R-PE), one of the chemical constituents of red algae, could produce singlet oxygen upon excitation with the appropriate radiation and possibly be used in photodynamic therapy (PDT) for cancer. Documents reported that R-PE could inhibit cell proliferation in HepG2 and A549 cells, which was significative for cancer therapy. This is due to the fact that R-PE could kill cancer cells directly as well as by PDT. However, little is known about the cytotoxicity of R-PE to the SGC-7901 cell. In this study, it has been found that R-PE could inhibit SGC-7901 proliferation and induce cell apoptosis, which was achieved by arresting the SGC-7901 cell at S phase. CyclinA, CDK2 and CDC25A are proteins associated with the S phase, and it was found that R-PE could increase the expression of cyclin A protein and decrease the expression of CDK2 and CDC25A proteins. Thus, it was concluded that R-PE reduced the CDK2 protein activated through decreasing the CDC25A factor, which reduced the formation of Cyclin-CDK complex. The reduction of Cyclin-CDK complex made the SGC-7901 cells arrest at the S phase. Therefore, R-PE induced apoptosis by arresting the SGC-7901 cell at S phase was successful, which was achieved by the expression of the CDC25A protein, which reduced the CDK2 protein actived and the formation of Cyclin-CDK complex.

Bioinspired Carbon/SnO2 Composite Anodes Prepared from a Photonic Hierarchical Structure for Lithium Batteries.

A carbon/SnO2 composite (C-SnO2) with hierarchical photonic structure was fabricated from the templates of butterfly wings. We have investigated for the first time its application as the anode material for lithium-ion batteries. It was demonstrated to have high reversible capacities, good cycling stability, and excellent high-rate discharge performance, as shown by a capacitance of ∼572 mAh g(-1) after 100 cycles, 4.18 times that of commercial SnO2 powder (137 mAh g(-1)); a far better recovery capability of 94.3% was observed after a step-increase and sudden-recovery current. An obvious synergistic effect was found between the porous, hierarchically photonic microstructure and the presence of carbon; the synergy guarantees an effective flow of electrolyte and a short diffusion length of lithium ions, provides considerable buffering room, and prevents aggregation of SnO2 particles in the discharge/charge processes. This nature-inspired strategy points out a new direction for the fabrication of alternative anode materials.

Identifying arsenic trioxide (ATO) functions in leukemia cells by using time series gene expression profiles.

Arsenic trioxide (ATO) is presently the most active single agent in the treatment of acute promyelocytic leukemia (APL). In order to explore the molecular mechanism of ATO in leukemia cells with time series, we adopted bioinformatics strategy to analyze expression changing patterns and changes in transcription regulation modules of time series genes filtered from Gene Expression Omnibus database (GSE24946). We totally screened out 1847 time series genes for subsequent analysis. The KEGG (Kyoto encyclopedia of genes and genomes) pathways enrichment analysis of these genes showed that oxidative phosphorylation and ribosome were the top 2 significantly enriched pathways. STEM software was employed to compare changing patterns of gene expression with assigned 50 expression patterns. We screened out 7 significantly enriched patterns and 4 tendency charts of time series genes. The result of Gene Ontology showed that functions of times series genes mainly distributed in profiles 41, 40, 39 and 38. Seven genes with positive regulation of cell adhesion function were enriched in profile 40, and presented the same first increased model then decreased model as profile 40. The transcription module analysis showed that they mainly involved in oxidative phosphorylation pathway and ribosome pathway. Overall, our data summarized the gene expression changes in ATO treated K562-r cell lines with time and suggested that time series genes mainly regulated cell adhesive. Furthermore, our result may provide theoretical basis of molecular biology in treating acute promyelocytic leukemia.