Detection of the freshness of rice by chemiluminescence.

Reactive oxygen species (ROS) are usually produced in rice under aerobic environmental conditions, resulting in peroxidative changes in polyunsaturated fatty acids, and affecting the deterioration of rice during storage. In addition, as an important enzyme that participates in removing ROS, peroxidase is also present in rice, and takes part in protecting rice from attack by ROS. Moreover, loss of peroxidase activity may give rise to rice deterioration during storage. Therefore, measuring peroxidase activity makes it possible to ascertain the freshness of rice. In addition, peroxidase can also catalyze the luminol-hydrogen peroxide system. Based on this, in this work we established a new chemiluminescence (CL) method that was used to detect the freshness of stored rice. Under optimal experimental conditions, we showed that the freshness of rice can be measured using this CL method. This study is the first to detect the freshness of rice using a CL method, opening up a novel direction for the application of CL.

Identification of key miRNAs and targeted genes involved in the progression of oral squamous cell carcinoma.

Background/purpose: Oral squamous cell carcinoma (OSCC) is one of the most common types of head and neck squamous cell carcinoma. Accurate biomarkers are needed for early diagnosis and prognosis of OSCC. MicroRNAs (miRNAs) have shown great values in different types of cancers including OSCC. However, most of the miRNAs involved in the development of OSCC remain uncovered. This study aimed to identify hub miRNAs and mRNAs in OSCC. Materials and methods: We explored the roles of key miRNAs, target genes and their relationships in OSCC using an integrated bioinformatics approach. Initially, Two OSCC microarray datasets from the Gene Expression Omnibus database were obtained to analyze miRNA expression. MiRNA-targeted mRNAs were acquired, and gene ontology/kyoto encyclopedia of genes and genomes analyses were performed. Thereafter, we constructed a protein-protein interaction (PPI) network to identify hub genes and a miRNA-mRNA interaction network was used to identify key miRNAs. Furthermore, differential gene expression and Kaplan-Meier Plotter survival analysis was performed to evaluate their potential clinical application values. Results: Four upregulated, two downregulated miRNAs and 608 target genes of the differentially expressed miRNAs were identified. The PPI and miRNA-mRNA interaction networks highlighted 10 hub genes and two key miRNAs, and pathway analyses showed their correlative involvement in tumorigenesis-related processes. Of these miRNAs and genes, miR-125b, ß-actin, vinculin and histone deacetylase 1 were correlated with overall survival (P < 0.05). Conclusion: These findings indicate that miR-21 and miR-125b, associated with the 10 hub genes, jointly participate in OSCC tumorigenesis, offering insight into the molecular mechanisms underlying OSCC as potential targets for early diagnosis, treatment and prognosis.

Synthesis and structure-activity relationship study of new biaryl amide derivatives and their inhibitory effects against hepatitis C virus.

A series of novel biaryl amide derivatives were synthesized and evaluated for anti-HCV virus activity. Some significant SARs were uncovered. The intensive structural modifications led to fifteen novel compounds with more potent inhibitory activity compared to the hit compounds IMB 26 and IMB1f. Among them, compound 80 was the most active, with EC50 values almost equivalent to the clinical drug telaprevir (EC50 = 15 nM). Furthermore, it also had a good safety and in vitro and oral pharmacokinetic (oral bioavailability in rats: 34%) profile, suggesting a highly drug-like nature. Compound 80represents a more promising scaffold for anti-HCV virus activity for further study.

A pan-cancer analysis of the prognostic and immunological role of ß-actin (ACTB) in human cancers.

Beta-actin (ACTB), a highly conserved cytoskeleton structural protein, has been regarded as a common housekeep gene and used as a reference gene for years. However, accumulating evidence indicates that ACTB is abnormally expressed in multiple cancers and hence changes the cytoskeleton to affect the invasiveness and metastasis of tumors. This study aimed to investigate the function and clinical significance of ACTB in pan-cancer. The role of ACTB for prognosis and immune regulation across 33 tumors was explored based on the datasets of gene expression omnibus and the cancer genome atlas. Differential expression of ACTB was found between cancer and adjacent normal tissues, and significant associations was found between ACTB expression and prognosis of tumor patients. In most cancers, ACTB expression was associated with immune cells infiltration, immune checkpoints and other immune modulators. Relevance between ACTB and metastasis and invasion was identified in various types of cancers by CancerSEA. Moreover, focal adhesion and actin regulation-associated pathways were included in the functional mechanisms of ACTB. The expression of ACTB was verified by quantitative real-time polymerase chain reaction. Knockdown of ACTB inhibited head and neck squamous carcinoma cell migration and invasion by NF-κB and Wnt/ß-catenin pathways. Our first pan-cancer study of ACTB offers insight into the prognostic and immunological roles of ACTB across different tumors, indicating ACTB may be a potential biomarker for poor prognosis and immune infiltration in cancers, and the role of ACTB as a reference gene in cancers was challenged.

Synthesis and structure-activity relationship study of water-soluble carbazole sulfonamide derivatives as new anticancer agents.

Here, we formulated and investigated the structure-activity relationships of novel N-substituted carbazole sulfonamide derivatives with improved physicochemical properties. Most of these new compounds displayed good aqueous solubility. Certain molecules presented strong in vitro antiproliferative and in vivo antitumor activity. Relative to the control, 50 mg/kg compound 3v substantially reduced human HepG2 xenograft mouse tumor growth by 54.5% and its efficacy was comparable to that of CA-4P. Compound 3h demonstrated anticancer efficacy in both subcutaneous and orthotopic HepG2 xenograft mouse models. We also developed a novel synthetic method for 7-hydroxy-substituted carbazole sulfonamides. Compared with the control, 25 mg/kg compound 4c inhibited human HepG2 xenograft mouse tumor growth by 71.7% and was more potent than 50 mg/kg CA-4P with only 50% tumor shrinkage efficacy. Among the three water-soluble carbazole sulfonamide derivatives formulated in the present study, compound 4c displayed the most effective tumor growth inhibition in vivo and merit further investigation as potential antitumor agents for cancer therapy.

JcZFP8, a C2H2 zinc finger protein gene from Jatropha curcas, influences plant development in transgenic tobacco

Background: Jatropha curcas L., as an important strategic biofuel resource with considerable economic potential, has attracted worldwide attention. However, J. curcas has yet to be domesticated. Plant height, an important agronomic trait of J. curcas, has not been sufficiently improved, and the genetic regulation of this trait in J. curcas is not fully understood. Zinc finger proteins (ZFPs), a class of transcription factors, have previously been shown to play critical roles in regulating multiple aspects of plant growth and development and may accordingly be implicated in the genetic regulation of plant height in J. curcas. Results: In this study, we cloned JcZFP8, a C2H2 ZFP gene in J. curcas. We found that the JcZFP8 protein was localized in the nucleus and contained a conserved QALGGH motif in its C2H2 structure. Furthermore, ectopic expression of JcZFP8 under the control of the 35S promoter in transgenic tobacco resulted in dwarf plants with malformed leaves. However, when JcZFP8 was knocked out, the transgenic tobacco did not show the dwarf phenotype. After treatment with the gibberellic acid (GA) biosynthesis inhibitor paclobutrazol (PAC), the dwarf phenotype was more severe than plants that did not receive the PAC treatment, whereas application of exogenous gibberellin3 (GA3) reduced the dwarf phenotype in transgenic plants. Conclusions: The results of this study indicate that JcZFP8 may play a role in J. curcas plant phenotype through GA-related pathways. Our findings may help us to understand the genetic regulation of plant development in J. curcas and to accelerate breeding progress through engineering of the GA metabolic pathway in this plant. How to cite: Shi X,Wu Y, Dai T, et al. JcZFP8, a C2H2 zinc-finger protein gene from Jatropha curcas, influences plant development in transgenic tobacco.

Regulation of trichome development in tobacco by JcZFP8, a C2H2 zinc finger protein gene from Jatropha curcas L.

Trichomes are epidermal outgrowths of plant tissues that can secrete or store large quantities of secondary metabolites, which contribute to plant defense responses against stress. The use of bioengineering methods for regulating the development of trichomes and metabolism is a widely researched topic. In the present study, we demonstrate that JcZFP8, a C2H2 zinc finger protein gene from Jatropha curcas L., can regulate trichome development in transgenic tobacco. To understand the underlying mechanisms, we performed transcriptome profiling of overexpression JcZFP8 transgenic plants and wild-type tobacco. Based on the analysis of differentially expressed genes, we determined that genes of the plant hormone signal transduction pathway was significantly enriched, suggesting that these pathways were modulated in the transgenic plants. In addition, the transcript levels of the known trichome-related genes in Arabidopsis were not significantly changed, whereas CycB2 and MYB genes were differentially expressed in the transgenic plants. Despite tobacco and Arabidopsis have different types of trichomes, all the pathways were associated with C2H2 zinc finger protein genes. Our findings help us to understand the regulation of multicellular trichome formation and suggest a new metabolic engineering method for the improvement of plants.

The rational search for PDE10A inhibitors from Sophora flavescens roots using pharmacophore­ and docking­based virtual screening.

Phosphodiesterase 10A (PDE10A) has been confirmed to be an important target for the treatment of central nervous system (CNS) disorders. The purpose of the present study was to identify PDE10A inhibitors from herbs used in traditional Chinese medicine. Pharmacophore and molecular docking techniques were used to virtually screen the chemical molecule database of Sophora flavescens, a well­known Chinese herb that has been used for improving mental health and regulating the CNS. The pharmacophore model generated recognized the common functional groups of known PDE10A inhibitors. In addition, molecular docking was used to calculate the binding affinity of ligand­PDE10A interactions and to investigate the possible binding pattern. Virtual screening based on the pharmacophore model and molecular docking was performed to identify potential PDE10A inhibitors from S. flavescens. The results demonstrated that nine hits from S. flavescens were potential PDE10A inhibitors, and their biological activity was further validated using literature mining. A total of two compounds were reported to inhibit cyclic adenosine monophosphate phosphodiesterase, and one protected against glutamate­induced oxidative stress in the CNS. The remaining six compounds require further bioactivity validation. The results of the present study demonstrated that this method was a time­ and cost­saving strategy for the identification of bioactive compounds from traditional Chinese medicine.