The Role of Siglecs in Immune Signaling Regulation and Immune Pathology / 中国生物化学与分子生物学报

Sialic acid-binding immunoglobulin-like lectins (Siglecs) are members of the immunoglobulin superfamily expressed in most white blood cells of the immune system. The Siglec is a kind of transmembrane proteins that can recognize sialic acid-containing ligands, and it is the most important subgroup of type I lectin. All Siglecs contain at least three domains, including the V-set Ig domain, C2-set Ig domain and transmembrane domain. Some Siglecs contain immune receptor tyrosine-based inhibitory motifs (ITIMs), which are used to transmit inhibitory signals and play an inhibitory role. There are also some Siglecs that do not contain intracellular domains, and they can transmit activation signals through basic amino acids in transmembrane domains to play an activation role. Siglecs not only participate in the regulation of activation, proliferation and apoptosis of immune cells, but also help the immune system to distinguish itself from non-itself by recognizing glycan ligands containing sialic acid. In recent years, studies have shown that Siglecs, as an immune checkpoint, play an important role in the immune regulation in human diseases such as cancer, asthma, allergy, Alzheimer’s disease and autoimmune diseases, and it has received extensive attention. Enhancing or blocking the interaction of sialic acid with Siglecs is an effective strategy for the treatment of cancer, infection, and other diseases. In this review, we describe the classification of Siglecs, their expression in different immune cells and their role in the regulation of immune cell signaling. Emphasis was placed on the role of Siglecs in disease and methods of targeting Siglecs for the treatment of human diseases.

A comparative analysis on risk communication between international and Chinese literature from the perspective of knowledge domain visualization

BACKGROUND@#The outbreak of coronavirus disease (COVID-19) severely damaged and endangered people's lives at the end of 2019. Risk communication plays an important role in the response to it successfully, which has been appreciated by the World Health Organization. Therefore, a comprehensive analysis of risk communication research is necessary, which can understand current research hotspots and reveal new trends.@*METHODS@#In this study, we collected 1134 international articles from the Web of Science database and 3983 Chinese articles from the China National Knowledge Infrastructure database. Bibliometric and mapping knowledge domain analysis methods were used for temporal distribution analysis, cooperation network analysis, co-word network analysis, and burst detection analysis.@*RESULTS@#The first article in this field was published by western scholars earlier, while the first Chinese article in 2002. Research institutions mainly come from universities. The USA plays a key role in this field. Chinese scholars had a closer cooperation network, but there was less cooperation among domestic institutions. Risk perception, trust, risk management, and risk information had always been the research hotspots in this academic. Trust, sentiment research, and public risk events were essential directions for the future. There are 25 burst words for international articles, while 11 burst words for Chinese articles from 2000 to 2020.@*CONCLUSIONS@#In summary, both domestic and international researchers are concerned about risk communication, risk perception, trust, and risk information. International research on risk communication is systematic and comprehensive relatively. However, Chinese scholars take severe acute respiratory syndrome as the research background and reviewing foreign knowledge as the research starting point. With the purpose of practical and applied research based on a public emergency, the risk communication research lacks continuity in Chinese academy in the past years.

Comparison of methods for enriching urine proteins / 生物工程学报

The abundance of proteins in human urine is low and easily to be masked by high-abundance proteins during mass spectrometry analysis. Development of efficient and highly selective enrichment methods is therefore a prerequisite for achieving deep coverage of urine protein markers. Notably, different experimental methods would affect the urine protein enrichment efficacy and the coverage of urine proteome. In this study, ultrafiltration, nitrocellulose membrane enrichment and saturated ammonium sulfate precipitation were used to process 10 mL urine samples from five healthy volunteers and five bladder cancer patients. The urine proteins were enriched and separate by SDS-PAGE to compare the purification efficiency of different methods. Moreover, the peptide identification effects of different purification methods were analyzed by mass spectrometry to determine the best method for enriching urine protein histones. Saturated ammonium sulfate precipitation method outperformed the ultrafiltration and the nitrocellulose membrane enrichment methods in terms of the protein enrichment efficacy and quality. The interference of highly abundant albumin was reduced, whereas the amount of low-abundance protein was increased, and the sensitivity of mass spectrometry identification was increased. The saturated ammonium sulfate precipitation method may be applied for large-scale urine processing for screening clinical diagnostic markers through proteomics.

Fabrication of BiFeO3-g-C3N4-WO3 Z-scheme heterojunction as highly efficient visible-light photocatalyst for water reduction and 2,4-dichlorophenol degradation: Insight mechanism.

In this work, a Z-scheme BiFeO3-g-C3N4-WO3 (BFO-CN-WO) photocatalyst has been synthesized via a wet chemical method and utilized in photocatalysis for hydrogen generation and 2,4-dichlorophenol (2,4-DCP) degradation under visible light irradiation. The resultant photocatalyst showed 90 µmol·h-1 g-1 H2 evolution activity and 63% 2,4-DCP degradation performance, which is 12 and 4.2 times higher than the pristine g-C3N4 respectively. The fascinating photocatalytic performance is attributed to the strong interfacial contact between g-C3N4 and the coupled BiFeO3 and WO3 component, which greatly improved the visible light absorption and charge carriers' separation. The designed Z-scheme heterojunction is a successful strategy for enhancing the separation efficiency of photo-induced charge carriers at the interface while retaining outstanding redox ability. During 2,4-DCP degradation, LC/MS technique was used to detect the reaction intermediates. According to the LC/MS results, several new intermediates such as 2,3-dichloro-6-(2,4-dichlorophenoxy)phenol (m/z = 306), 2,4-dichlorophenyl hydrogen carbonate (m/z = 207), 2,4-dichlorobenzen-1,3-diol (m/z = 177) and phenyl hydrogen carbonate (m/z = 137) were detected. Based on these intermediates, 2,4-DCP degradation pathway is proposed. The fluorescence (FL) and electron paramagnetic resonance (EPR) results reveal that the •OH plays an important role in the 2,4-DCP degradation. The fabricated photocatalyst can be utilized in the field of photocatalysis for practical applications.

Experimental and DFT Studies of Au Deposition Over WO3/g-C3N4 Z-Scheme Heterojunction.

A typical Z-scheme system is composed of two photocatalysts which generate two sets of charge carriers and split water into H2 and O2 at different locations. Scientists are struggling to enhance the efficiencies of these systems by maximizing their light absorption, engineering more stable redox couples, and discovering new O2 and H2 evolutions co-catalysts. In this work, Au decorated WO3/g-C3N4 Z-scheme nanocomposites are fabricated via wet-chemical and photo-deposition methods. The nanocomposites are utilized in photocatalysis for H2 production and 2,4-dichlorophenol (2,4-DCP) degradation. It is investigated that the optimized 4Au/6% WO3/CN nanocomposite is highly efficient for production of 69.9 and 307.3 µmol h-1 g-1 H2 gas, respectively, under visible-light (λ > 420 nm) and UV-visible illumination. Further, the fabricated 4Au/6% WO3/CN nanocomposite is significant (i.e., 100% degradation in 2 h) for 2,4-DCP degradation under visible light and highly stable in photocatalysis. A significant 4.17% quantum efficiency is recorded for H2 production at wavelength 420 nm. This enhanced performance is attributed to the improved charge separation and the surface plasmon resonance effect of Au nanoparticles. Solid-state density functional theory simulations are performed to countercheck and validate our experimental data. Positive surface formation energy, high charge transfer, and strong non-bonding interaction via electrostatic forces confirm the stability of 4Au/6% WO3/CN interface.

[The molecular mechanism of necroptosis].

Programmed necrosis called necroptosis, is different from traditional necrosis and apoptosis, it has attracted considerable attention over the last few years. Necroptosis can be initiated through many factors such as tumor necrosis factor receptor (TNFR) or pattern recognition receptor (PRR), and receptor-interacting protein (RIP) 1 and 3 are two key proteins during the process. A lot of molecules have been characterized as modulators and effectors of necroptosis, including poly(ADP-ribose) polymerase (PARP-1), reactive oxygen species (ROS), Ca(2+), which can destruct mitochondria or other organelles and induce cell dead through caspase-independent pathway. Then, damage-associated molecular pattern (DAMP) molecules were released from necroptosis cells, recognized and internalized by phagocytes. Here, we briefly discuss the initiation and execution of necroptosis and the clearance of death cells.

Cloning and expression analysis of a novel high-mobility group box 2 homologue from Lampetra japonica.

High-mobility group box 2 (HMGB2) is a nonhistone architectural protein that plays important roles in many biological processes. In this study, we cloned a homologue of the HMGB2 from the lymphocyte-like cells of Lampetra japonica (L. japonica). Sequence analysis reveals that L. japonica HMGB2 contains two highly conserved motifs and shares more than 70 % identity with the homologues from other vertebrate species. Subsequently, Lj-HMGB2 was subcloned into the pET-28a(+) and pIRES2 AcGFP1-Nuc vector and expressed in Rosetta blue (DE3) and Hela cell lines, respectively. The recombinant L. japonica HMGB2 (rLj-HMGB2) with apparent molecular mass of 22 kDa was further purified by His-Bind affinity chromatography. Real-time quantitative PCR indicates that the expression level of Lj-HMGB2 was particularly up-regulated in intestines after challenged with lipopolysaccharide, while up-regulated in lymphocyte-like cells and heart after challenged with concanavalin A in vivo. In addition, rLj-HMGB2 could induce the generation of proinflammatory mediators in the activated human acute monocytic leukemia cell line (THP1), which suggested that Lj-HMGB2 may participate in the immune response of the lampreys.

Value of measuring ankle brachial index for diagnosing peripheral arterial disease in Chinese patients with high cardiovascular risk / 中华心血管病杂志

<p><b>OBJECTIVE</b>To evaluate the value of measuring ankle brachial index (ABI) for diagnosing peripheral arterial disease(PAD) compared with conventional digital subtraction angiography (DSA) as the reference standard.</p><p><b>METHODS</b>A total of 383 consecutive inpatients (245 male, mean age 64.1 +/- 11.7 years) underwent both conventional DSA and ABI measurements.</p><p><b>RESULTS</b>The rate of statin intervention was 90.9%, ACEI 69.2%, antiplatelet 96.6% and beta-blockers 67.9%. The intravascular stenosis was classified into six degrees: normal, < 30%, 30% - 49%, 50% - 69%, 70% - 89% and > or = 90%. Compared to the traditional gold standard (DSA) in diagnosis PDA, the ABI value decreased in proportion to the severity of PAD (the ABI value was 1.08 +/- 0.11, 1.05 +/- 0.16, 0.99 +/- 0.17, 0.66 +/- 0.24, 0.55 +/- 0.28 and 0.54 +/- 0.00 respectively in the six ranks). There was a significant correlation between DSA and ABI in diagnosis PAD.</p><p><b>CONCLUSION</b>ABI measurement is an accurate and reliable non-invasive alternative to conventional DSA in the assessment of lower extremity arteries in patients with peripheral arterial disease.</p>

Deepen Teaching Reform for Course of Gene Engineering and Improve Teaching Quality / 微生物学通报

Gene engineering is the main course of biological engineering. It should be adapted to the demand of innovation spirit, practice ability and comprehensive quality of students. Educational reform of gene engineering conducted by constructing system of theory and practice, optimizing course teaching content, strengthening practice teaching content, using modern teaching technology, strengthening web course construction and improving teaching methods. We pay attention to impart specialty knowledge and learning methods to students. Its aim was to increase teaching effects and meet the demands of bioengineering specialty and qualified personal training in 21 century.

Determining the relationship between coronary artery and coronary sinus and its tributaries using multislice computed tomography / 中华心血管病杂志

<p><b>OBJECTIVE</b>To obtain the coronary artery and coronary sinus (CS) and its tributaries imaging with multislice computed tomography (MSCT), measure the distance between coronary artery and CS and its tributaries and analyze their spatial relationships.</p><p><b>METHODS</b>The MSCT scans of 117 patients (67 men, 50 women, age 56 +/- 10 years) were obtained, 3D image reconstructed and the vessels courses evaluated. The concomitant distances and spatial relationships of the vessels were determined.</p><p><b>RESULTS</b>Right coronary artery domination was found in 107 cases (91.4%), left coronary artery domination in 7 cases (6.0%), and co-domination in 3 cases (2.6%). Left circumflex artery (LCX) was concomitant with CS or the great cardiac vein (GCV) in 81 cases (69.2%), intersected with left posterior vein in 62 cases (53.0%) and with middle cardiac vein (MCV) in 5 cases (4.3%), respectively. The dominant coronary artery branched out into the posterior descending artery (PDA) and the left posterior artery (LPA) in 112 cases (95.7%). PDA was concomitant with MCV in 93 cases (79.5%) and intersected with MCV in 44 cases (37.6%). LPA was intersected with MCV in 106 cases (90.6%), and concomitant with CS in 50 cases (42.7%).</p><p><b>CONCLUSIONS</b>MSCT is a reliable tool to visualize the relationship between coronary artery and CS and its tributaries. Owing to the multiple possibilities inherent to this technique, MSCT has broad potential for more clinical use.</p>

GFP reporter gene under the direction of chicken ovalbumin gene promoter expressed in the CHO cell and in the primary cell cultures of chicken oviduct / 生物工程学报

To reseach GFP reporter gene under the control of chick ovalbumin gene regulatory elements express in the CHO cell and in the primary cell cultures of chicken oviduct. 1.5kb fragment and 2.9kb fragment were amplicated by PCR method, two fragments were subeloned to manmalian expression vector pGFP-N2 by recombinant DNA technology, the CMV promoter was cut off from pGFP-N2, so two expression vectors were constructed, one is the P2.9koval-GFP including promoter, first exon, first intron of chicken ovalbumin gene, the other is the P1.5koval-GFP including first intron of chicken ovalbumin gene. Restriction enzyme digestion and DNA sequence analysis revealed that 5'upstream regions of ovalbumin gene were not only identical to those of the published chicken ovalbumin gene, but also were contained in the recombinant vector. They were transfected into the CHO cell and the primary cell cultures of chicken oviduct by Lipofectin, they were used for fluorescence detection. GFP protein existed in GFP transfected the CHO cell and the primary cell cultures of chicken oviduct. It is demonstrated that GFP reporter gene under the direction of chick ovalbumin gene promoter could be expressed in the CHO cell and in the primary cell cultures of chicken oviduct.