The Research Progress on Immortalization of Human B Cells.

Human B cell immortalization that maintains the constant growth characteristics and antibody expression of B cells in vitro is very critical for the development of antibody drugs and products for the diagnosis and bio-therapeutics of human diseases. Human B cell immortalization methods include Epstein-Barr virus (EBV) transformation, Simian virus 40 (SV40) virus infection, in vitro genetic modification, and activating CD40, etc. Immortalized human B cells produce monoclonal antibodies (mAbs) very efficiently, and the antibodies produced in this way can overcome the immune rejection caused by heterologous antibodies. It is an effective way to prepare mAbs and an important method for developing therapeutic monoclonal antibodies. Currently, the US FDA has approved more than 100 mAbs against a wide range of illnesses such as cancer, autoimmune diseases, infectious diseases, and neurological disorders. This paper reviews the research progress of human B cell immortalization, its methods, and future directions as it is a powerful tool for the development of monoclonal antibody preparation technology.

Identification of the effective α-amylase inhibitors from Dalbergia odorifera: Virtual screening, spectroscopy, molecular docking, and molecular dynamic simulation.

Inhibiting the activity of α-amylase has been considered as one efficient way to prevent and treat type 2 diabetes recently. Dalbergia odorifera, a kind of Leguminosae plant, has a positive therapeutic effect on type 2 diabetes, possibly contributing by some constituents that can inhibit the activity of α-amylase. In this study, we found that eriodictyol was one potential constituent through virtual screening. The interaction mode between eriodictyol and α-amylase was elucidated by molecular docking, multi-spectroscopic analysis, and molecular dynamic simulation. The results revealed that eriodictyol quenched the intrinsic fluorescence of α-amylase, and the quenching mode was static quenching. Eriodictyol could spontaneously interact with α-amylase, mostly stabilized and influenced by the hydrophobic interaction, while the binding sites (n) was 1.13 ± 0.07 and binding constant (Kb) was (1.43 ± 0.14) × 105 at 310 K, respectively. In addition, FT-IR and CD had been applied to identify that eriodictyol can trigger the conformational change of α-amylase. Taken together, the results provided some experimental data for developing new α-amylase inhibitors from Dalbergia odorifera, which may further prevent and treat diabetes and diabetes complications.

Combining multi-dimensional molecular fingerprints to predict the hERG cardiotoxicity of compounds.

Recently, drug toxicity has become a critical problem with heavy medical and economic burdens. Acquired long QT syndrome (acLQTS) is an acquired cardiac ion channel disease caused by drugs blocking the hERG channel. Therefore, it is necessary to avoid cardiotoxicity in drug design, and computer models have been widely used to fix this predicament. In this study, we collected a hERG inhibitor dataset containing 8671 compounds, and then, these compounds were featurized by traditional molecular fingerprints (including Baseline2D, ECFP4, PropertyFP, and 3DFP) and the newly proposed molecular dynamics fingerprint (MDFP). Subsequently, regression prediction models were established by using four machine learning algorithms based on these fingerprints and the combined multi-dimensional molecular fingerprints (MultiFP). After cross-validation and independent test dataset validation, the results show that the best model was built by the consensus of four algorithms with MultiFP, and this model bests recently published methods in terms of hERG cardiotoxicity prediction with a RMSE of 0.531 and a R2 of 0.653 on the test dataset. Feature importance analysis and correlation analysis identified some novel structural features and molecular dynamics features that are highly associated with the hERG inhibition of compounds. Our findings provide new insight into multi-dimensional molecular fingerprints and consensus models for hERG cardiotoxicity prediction.

Exploring the Potential Mechanism of Costunolide-Induced MCF-7 Cells Apoptosis by Multi-Spectroscopy, Molecular Docking and Cell Experiments.

Breast cancer is one of the most common cancer with high morbidity and mortality in women. This study aimed to explore the potential mechanism of costunolide inducing MCF-7 cells apoptosis by multi-spectroscopy, molecular docking, and cell experiments. The results manifested that costunolide interacted with calf thymus DNA (ct-DNA) in a spontaneous manner, and the minor groove as the preferential binding mode. Furthermore, costunolide inhibited cell proliferation and colony formation. Hoechst 33258 staining showed that cell apoptosis induced by costunolide might be related to DNA damage. The apoptosis mechanism relied on regulating the protein expression of Bax, Bcl-2, p53, Caspase-3 and the activation of p38MAPK and nuclear factor κB (NF-κB) pathways. This study will provide some experimental basis and potential therapeutic strategy for breast cancer treatment.