Design, synthesis and structure-activity relationship studies of 4-indole-2-arylaminopyrimidine derivatives as anti-inflammatory agents for acute lung injury.

Acute lung injury/acute respiratory distress syndrome (ALI/ARDS), a clinically high mortality disease, has not been effectively treated till now, and the development of anti-acute lung injury drugs is imminent. Acute lung injury was efficiently treated by inhibiting the cascade of inflammation, and reducing the inflammatory response in the lung. A series of novel compounds with highly efficient inhibiting the expression of inflammatory factors were designed by using 4-indolyl-2-aminopyrimidine as the core skeleton. Totally eleven 4-indolyl-2-arylaminopyrimidine derivatives were designed and synthesized. As well, the related anti-ALI activity of these compounds was evaluated. Compounds 6c and 6h showed a superior activity among these compounds, and the inhibition rate of IL-6 and IL-8 release ranged from 62% to 77%, and from 65% to 72%, respectively. Furthermore, most of compounds had no significant cytotoxicity in vitro. The infiltration of inflammatory cells into lung tissue significantly reduced by using compound 6h (20 mg/kg) in the ALI mice model, which achieved the effect of protecting lung tissue and improving ALI. In addition, the inflammatory response was inhibited by using compound 6h through inhibiting phosphorylation of p-38 and ERK in MAPK signaling pathway, and resulted in protective effect on ALI. These data indicated that compound 6h showed good anti-inflammatory activity in vitro and in vivo, which was expected to become a leading compound for the treatment of ALI.

Emerging Roles of the Tumor Suppressor p53 in Metabolism.

Metabolism plays critical roles in maintaining the homeostasis of cells. Metabolic abnormalities are often considered as one of the main driving forces for cancer progression, providing energy and substrates of biosynthesis to support neoplastic proliferation effectively. The tumor suppressor p53 is well known for its roles in inducing cell cycle arrest, apoptosis, senescence and ferroptosis. Recently, emerging evidence has shown that p53 is also actively involved in the reprogramming of cellular metabolism. In this review, we focus on recent advances in our understanding of the interplay between p53 and metabolism of glucose, fatty acid as well as amino acid, and discuss how the deregulation of p53 in these processes could lead to cancer.

Mutant p53 in Cancer Progression and Targeted Therapies.

TP53 is the most frequently mutated tumor suppressor gene in human cancer. The majority of mutations of p53 are missense mutations, leading to the expression of the full length p53 mutant proteins. Mutant p53 (Mutp53) proteins not only lose wild-type p53-dependent tumor suppressive functions, but also frequently acquire oncogenic gain-of-functions (GOF) that promote tumorigenesis. In this review, we summarize the recent advances in our understanding of the oncogenic GOF of mutp53 and the potential therapies targeting mutp53 in human cancers. In particular, we discuss the promising drugs that are currently under clinical trials as well as the emerging therapeutic strategies, including CRISPR/Cas9 based genome edition of mutant TP53 allele, small peptide mediated restoration of wild-type p53 function, and immunotherapies that directly eliminate mutp53 expressing tumor cells.

p53 coordinates glucose and choline metabolism during the mesendoderm differentiation of human embryonic stem cells.

Metabolism plays crucial roles in the fate decision of human embryonic stem cells (hESCs). Here, we show that the depletion of p53 in hESCs enhances glycolysis and reduces oxidative phosphorylation, and delays mesendoderm differentiation of hESCs. More intriguingly, the disruption of p53 in hESCs leads to dramatic upregulation of phosphatidylcholine and decrease of total choline in both pluripotent and differentiated state of hESCs, suggesting abnormal choline metabolism in the absence of p53. Collectively, our study reveals the indispensable role of p53 in orchestrating both glucose and lipid metabolism to maintain proper hESC identity.

Recent developments of small molecules with anti-inflammatory activities for the treatment of acute lung injury.

Acute Lung Injury (ALI) can be caused by various diseases or conditions such as sepsis, pneumonia, trauma, shock, and inhalation of toxic gases. Many efforts have been made to identify new agents capable of treating ALI, and many compounds have shown interesting activities in the treatment of ALI. However, most of these compounds have only been tested for their clinical significance using in vitro and in vivo animal models. In this review, the developments in the design and structural modification of effective active agents for the treatment of ALI is summarized. Firstly, the application of α, ß-unsaturated carbonyl moieties as an importantly superior framework in the development of natural product-derived anti-ALI agents is described. As well, the biological activities of the hybrid derivatives from natural products are discussed. Secondly, the potential of synthetic small molecule active compounds in the treatment of ALI is demonstrated. In addition, the structure activity relationship (SAR) and possible mechanisms of action in new chemical molecular entities were investigated. This present mini-review will be useful to scientists in research fields of medicinal chemistry, organic synthesis, and also various biological applications particularly for the development of novel anti-ALI agents.

Application of Logging While Drilling Tool in Formation Boundary Detection and Geo-steering.

Logging while drilling (LWD) plays a crucial role in geo-steering, which can determine the formation boundary and resistivity in real time. In this study, an efficient inversion, which can accurately invert formation information in real time on the basis of fast-forward modeling, is presented. In forward modeling, the Gauss-Legendre quadrature combined with the continued fraction method is used to calculate the response of the LWD instrument in a layered formation. In inversion modeling, the Levenberg-Marquardt (LM) algorithm, combined with the line search method of the Armijo criterion, are used to minimize the cost function, and a constraint algorithm is added to ensure the stability of the inversion. A positive and negative sign is added to the distance parameter to determine whether the LWD instrument is located above or below the formation boundary. We have carried out a series of experiments to verify the accuracy of the inversion. The experimental results suggest that the forward algorithm can make the infinite integral of the Bessel function rapidly converge, and accurately obtain the response of the LWD instrument in a layered formation. The inversion can accurately determine the formation resistivity and boundary in real time. This is significant for geological exploration.

Activin/Smad2-induced Histone H3 Lys-27 Trimethylation (H3K27me3) Reduction Is Crucial to Initiate Mesendoderm Differentiation of Human Embryonic Stem Cells.

Differentiation of human embryonic stem cells into mesendoderm (ME) is directed by extrinsic signals and intrinsic epigenetic modifications. However, the dynamics of these epigenetic modifications and the mechanisms by which extrinsic signals regulate the epigenetic modifications during the initiation of ME differentiation remain elusive. In this study, we report that levels of histone H3 Lys-27 trimethylation (H3K27me3) decrease during ME initiation, which is essential for subsequent differentiation induced by the combined effects of activin and Wnt signaling. Furthermore, we demonstrate that activin mediates the H3K27me3 decrease via the Smad2-mediated reduction of EZH2 protein level. Our results suggest a two-step process of ME initiation: first, epigenetic priming via removal of H3K27me3 marks and, second, transcription activation. Our findings demonstrate a critical role of H3K27me3 priming and a direct interaction between extrinsic signals and epigenetic modifications during ME initiation.

Activin Regulates Self-renewal and Differentiation of Trophoblast Stem Cells by Down-regulating the X Chromosome Gene Bcor.

The development of a functional placenta is largely dependent upon proper proliferation and differentiation of trophoblast stem cells (TSCs). Activin signaling has long been regarded to play important roles during this process, but the exact mechanism is largely unknown. Here, we demonstrate that the X chromosome gene BCL-6 corepressor (Bcor) is a critical downstream effector of activin to fine-tune mouse TSC fate decision. Bcor was specifically down-regulated by activin A in TSCs in a dose-dependent manner, and immediately up-regulated upon TSC differentiation. Knockdown of Bcor partially compensated for the absence of activin A in maintaining the self-renewal of TSCs together with FGF4, while promoting syncytiotrophoblast differentiation in the absence of FGF4. Moreover, the impaired trophoblast giant cell and spongiotrophoblast differentiation upon Bcor knockdown also resembled the function of activin. Reporter analysis showed that BCOR inhibited the expression of the key trophoblast regulator genes Eomes and Cebpa by binding to their promoter regions. Our findings provide us with a better understanding of placental development and placenta-related diseases.

Maternal Eomesodermin regulates zygotic nodal gene expression for mesendoderm induction in zebrafish embryos.

Development of animal embryos before zygotic genome activation at the midblastula transition (MBT) is essentially supported by egg-derived maternal products. Nodal proteins are crucial signals for mesoderm and endoderm induction after the MBT. It remains unclear which maternal factors activate zygotic expression of nodal genes in the ventrolateral blastodermal margin of the zebrafish blastulas. In this study, we show that loss of maternal Eomesodermin a (Eomesa), a T-box transcription factor, impairs zygotic expression of the nodal genes ndr1 and ndr2 as well as mesodermal and endodermal markers, indicating an involvement in mesendoderm induction. Maternal Eomesa is also required for timely zygotic expression of the transcription factor gene mxtx2, a regulator of nodal gene expression. Eomesa directly binds to the Eomes-binding sites in the promoter or enhancer of ndr1, ndr2, and mxtx2 to activate their transcription. Furthermore, human and mouse Nodal genes are also regulated by Eomes. Transfection of zebrafish eomesa into murine embryonic stem cells promotes mesendodermal differentiation with constant higher levels of endogenous Nodal expression, suggesting a conserved function of Eomes. Taken together, our findings reveal a conserved role of maternal T-box transcription factors in regulating nodal gene expression and mesendoderm induction in vertebrate embryos.

BMP induces cochlin expression to facilitate self-renewal and suppress neural differentiation of mouse embryonic stem cells.

BMP4 maintains self-renewal of mouse embryonic stem cells (ESCs) in collaboration with LIF. Here, we report the identification of a novel key BMP target gene, cochlin (Coch) in mouse ESCs. Coch can be significantly up-regulated by BMP4 specifically in ESCs but not in somatic differentiated cells, and this up-regulation is dependent on the BMP signaling mediators Smad1/5 and Smad4. Overexpression of Coch can partially substitute BMP4 to promote self-renewal of mouse ESCs together with LIF, whereas knockdown of Coch impairs self-renewal marker gene expression even in the presence of both BMP4 and LIF. Further studies showed that COCH could mimic BMP4 in repressing neural differentiation of mouse ESCs upon LIF withdrawal and the inhibitory effect of BMP4 on neural differentiation is compromised by Coch knockdown. Taken together, our data suggest that COCH is a part of the downstream target network of BMP signaling and serves as another important effector to fine-tune mouse ESC fates.

BMP4 Signaling Acts via dual-specificity phosphatase 9 to control ERK activity in mouse embryonic stem cells.

Extrinsic BMP and LIF signaling collaboratively maintain mouse embryonic stem cell (ESC) pluripotency, whereas appropriate ERK activity is essential for ESC fate commitment. However, how the extrinsic signals restrain appropriate ERK activity remains elusive. Here, we show that, whereas LIF sustains relatively high ERK activity, BMP4 can steadily attenuate ERK activity by upregulating ERK-specific dual-specificity phosphatase 9 (DUSP9). This upregulation requires Smad1/5 and Smad4 and specifically occurs to DUSP9, but not other DUSPs, and only in ESCs. Through DUSP9-mediated inhibition of ERK activity, BMP signaling reinforces the self-renewal status of mouse ESCs together with LIF. Upon LIF withdrawal, ESCs spontaneously undergo neural differentiation, during which process DUSP9 can partially mediate BMP inhibition on neural commitment. Collectively, our findings identify DUSP9 as a critical mediator of BMP signaling to control appropriate ERK activity critical for ESC fate determination.