Increasing NADPH Availability for Xylitol Production via Pentose-Phosphate-Pathway Gene Overexpression and Embden-Meyerhof-Parnas-Pathway Gene Deletion in Escherichia coli.

Cofactor availability is often a rate-limiting factor in the bioconversion of xylose to xylitol. The overexpression of pentose phosphate pathway genes and the deletion of Embden-Meyerhof-Parnas pathway genes can modulate the glucose metabolic flux and increase the intracellular NADPH supply, enabling Escherichia coli cells to produce xylitol from corncob hydrolysates. The effects of zwf and/or gnd overexpression and pfkA, pfkB, and/or pgi deletion on the intracellular redox environment and xylitol production were examined. The NADPH-enhanced strain 2bpgi produced 162 g/L xylitol from corncob hydrolysates after a 76 h fed-batch fermentation in a 15 L bioreactor, which was 13.3% greater than the 143 g/L xylitol produced by the IS5-d control strain. Additionally, the xylitol productivity and xylitol yield per glucose for 2bpgi were 2.13 g/L/h and 2.50 g/g, respectively. Thus, the genetic modifications in 2bpgi significantly enhanced NADPH regeneration, making 2bpgi a potentially useful strain for the industrial-scale production of xylitol from detoxified corncob hydrolysates.

Holistic Integration in the Processing of Chinese Characters as Revealed by Electroencephalography Frequency Tagging.

It is debated whether perceptual expertise of nonface objects, such as visual words, is indicated by holistic processing, which is regarded as a marker of perceptual expertise of faces. We address this question by frequency-tagged electroencephalography. Different parts of real or pseudo Chinese characters are presented at distinctive frequencies (6 or 7.2 Hz), which induce frequency-tagged steady-state visual-evoked potentials at occipital brain areas. The intermodulation response (e.g., 6 + 7.2 = 13.2 Hz) would emerge when holistic integration takes place. Our results suggest that the intermodulation response to the real characters is left lateralized, which is contralateral to previous findings with faces. Furthermore, at the left occipital area, the intermodulation response to real characters is more prominent than pseudo characters, suggesting that holistic integration is enhanced for real characters than for pseudo ones. Taken together, our findings suggest that holistic integration is potentially a general expertise marker for both faces and non-face objects.

Enhanced Regeneration and Hepatoprotective Effects of Interleukin 22 Fusion Protein on a Predamaged Liver Undergoing Partial Hepatectomy.

Liver ischemia-reperfusion injury (IRI) and regeneration deficiency are two major challenges for surgery patients with chronic liver disease. As a survival factor for hepatocytes, interleukin 22 (IL-22) plays an important role in hepatoprotection and the promotion of regeneration after hepatectomy. In this study, we aim to investigate the roles of an interleukin 22 fusion protein (IL-22-FP) in mice with a predamaged liver after a two-third partial hepatectomy (PHx). Predamaged livers in mice were induced by concanavalin A (ConA)/carbon tetrachloride (CCl4) following PHx with or without IL-22-FP treatment. A hepatic IRI mouse model was also used to determine the hepatoprotective effects of IL-22-FP. In the ConA/CCl4 model, IL-22-FP treatment alleviated liver injury and accelerated hepatocyte proliferation. Administration of IL-22-FP activated the hepatic signal transducer and activator of transcription 3 (STAT3) and upregulated the expression of many mitogenic proteins. IL-22-FP treatment prior to IRI effectively reduced liver damage through decreased aminotransferase and improved liver histology. In conclusion, IL-22-FP promotes liver regeneration in mice with predamaged livers following PHx and alleviates IRI-induced liver injury. Our study suggests that IL-22-FP may represent a promising therapeutic drug against regeneration deficiency and liver IRI in patients who have undergone PHx.

Genome-wide expression profiling and bioinformatics analysis of deregulated genes in human gastric cancer tissue after gastroscopy.

AIM: The aim of this study was to analyze the gene expression profile and biological processes enriched in gastric cancer. METHODS: We collected five human advanced gastric cancer tissues by gastroscopy and five peritumor normal tissues as controls and examined the gene expression changes by microarray. KEGG Orthology Based Annotation System annotation was used to identify pathways and biological processes regulated by the deregulated genes. Protein-protein interaction network analysis identified protein complex and functional modules. We also selected 14 genes for further verification by real-time quantitative Polymerase Chain Reaction (PCR). RESULTS: Human gene expression profile analysis showed that 2028 deregulated genes were detected in gastric cancer compared with the control group (at least a 2.0-fold change and P < 0.05), among which there were 689 upregulated and 1339 downregulated genes. Interestingly, we identified some important genes, such as CXCL17, OTX1 and CCDC125, which have not previously been reported in gastric cancer. Real-time quantitative PCR results verified that CXCL8, OTX1, CEBPB, FOSL1, FOXS1, ARFRP1 and IRF9 were upregulated in gastric cancer and CCDC125, PPP1R36, SOX2, JUN and MIA2 were downregulated. Moreover, bioinformatics analysis demonstrated that the biological processes of inflammatory response, angiogenesis, cell migration and pathways of chemokine signaling pathway, TNF signaling pathway were enriched. We also selected the top 30 significant Gene Ontology terms and select pathways for a brief summary. CONCLUSION: We performed a global analysis of the mRNA landscape in gastric cancer. Our results may stimulate a deeper understanding of the disease, and lead to the development of potential therapies and the identification of novel biomarkers.