Antitumor effects of apoptin expressed by the dual cancer-specific oncolytic adenovirus - a review.

Apoptin is a small molecular weight protein derived from chicken anemia virus, which can induce the apoptosis of transformed cells and tumor cells and leave primary and nontransformed cells unharmed. Apoptin's cell localization depends on its own phosphorylation state and cell type. In tumor cells, phosphorylated apoptin enters the nucleus and induces apoptosis. While, in normal cells apoptin mainly exists in the cytoplasm. Apoptin, as a disordered protein in cells, interacts with many proteins in cell signal pathways to induce apoptosis of tumor cells. The specific mechanism of apoptosis induced by apoptin has not been completely elucidated. Therefore, apoptin has become a potential anticancer agent. This review summarizes the research results of apoptin in our laboratory and reveals the specific antitumor mechanism of apoptin expressed by oncolytic virus vector on a variety of tumor cells and mouse models.

Sequence-based typing identification of a novel HLA-C allele, C*12:214, in a Han Chinese individual.

One nucleotide substitution at position 497 of HLA-C*12:02:01 results in a novel allele, HLA-C*12:214.

Anti-diabetic effect of methylswertianin and bellidifolin from Swertia punicea Hemsl. and its potential mechanism.

In this study, we continued to investigate the hypoglycemic activity of Swertia punicea Helmsl., the hypoglycemic and hypolipidemic effects of methylswertianin and bellidifolin from the active ethyl acetate (EtOAc) fraction, and the potential mechanism(s) underlying the improvement of insulin resistance. Streptozotocin (STZ)-induced type 2 diabetic male BABL/c mice treated with methylswertianin and bellidifolin at different doses (orally, 200 and 100mg/kg body wt./day) for 4 weeks were analyzed in comparison to untreated mice. The results proved that methylswertianin and bellidifolin significantly reduced fasting blood glucose (FBG). The administration of both compounds also improved the oral glucose tolerance and lowered fasting serum insulin (FINS). Moreover, post-administration evaluation revealed lower serum total cholesterol (TC), low density lipoprotein cholesterol (LDL) and triglyceride (TG) levels and increased relative high density lipoprotein cholesterol (HDL) concentrations (HDL/TC). Methylswertianin and bellidifolin appeared to improve insulin resistance by enhancing insulin signaling. The expression levels of insulin-receptor alpha subunit (InsR-alpha), insulin-receptor substrate-1 (IRS-1), and phosphatidylinositol 3-kinase (PI3K) were also increased after administration. Meanwhile, methylswertianin and bellidifolin increased hepatic glycogen content, decreased glucokinase (GK) activities and increased glucose-6-phosphatase (G6Pase) activities. In conclusion, these result indicated that methylswertianin and bellidifolin could be useful for treating type-2 diabetes, likely via the improvement of insulin resistance (IR).