Digital gene expression analysis of transcriptomes in lipopolysaccharide-induced acute respiratory distress syndrome.

BACKGROUND: The mortality from acute respiratory distress syndrome (ARDS) is high, and its exact pathogenesis remains unclear, which forms a major obstacle for prevention and treatment of this disease. In the present study, we used digital gene expression (DGE) to detect the differentially expressed genes of the lung at 4h after lipopolysaccharide (LPS) exposure in a mouse model. METHODS: Mice were treated with LPS or control saline by intratracheal instillation for 4h, and their lung tissues were collected for DGE analysis. We used a false discovery rate ≤0.001 and an absolute value of the log2 ratio≥1 as the thresholds for judging the significance of any difference in gene expression between the two members of each pair of mice. RESULTS: We obtained 3,387,842 clean tags (i.e., after filtering to remove potentially erroneous tags) and about 84,513 corresponding distinct clean tags (i.e., types of tag). Approximately 91.20% of the clean tags could be mapped, and 82.71% could be uniquely mapped, to the reference tags, and 3.82% were unknown tags. At least 2200 differentially expressed genes were identified and analyzed for enrichment of Gene Ontology and Kyoto Encyclopedia of Genes and Genomes pathway. Twenty genes with the greatest difference in expression levels between the two members of every pair of mice were chosen. The majority of these genes are involved in signaling transduction, molecular adhesion, and metabolic pathways. CONCLUSIONS: Using the powerful technology of DGE, we present, to our knowledge, the first in-depth transcriptomic analysis of mouse lungs after LPS exposure. We found some differentially expressed genes that might play important roles in the pathogenesis of ARDS.

Electricity production from molasses wastewater in two-chamber microbial fuel cell.

Molasses wastewater contains large amounts of glucose, and it can provide enough energy for microbial decomposition. The microbial fuel cell (MFC) in this study was demonstrated to be able to treat real wastewater with the benefit of harvesting electricity energy. Efficient operation of this MFC requires a molasses wastewater and preferably an inexpensive anode electrolyte. The results from a batch of experiments showed that molasses wastewater could not only serve as the electron acceptor in anode, but also generate electricity stably. A maximum voltage output of 514.5 mV and a maximum power density of 65.82 mW/m(2) were recorded at external resistance of 1,000 Ω. The MFC not only effectively dealt with the molasses wastewater, the chemical oxygen demand removal rate is 81.22%, but also had a significant effect in the processing of analog silver wastewater. At the end of the experiment, after disassembling the device, silver precipitation was found stacked on the cathode carbon paper electrode, and some black sediment was found at the side of the proton membrane anode.

[Electricity generation performance of two-chamber microbial full cell in the treatment of simulated wastewater].

The start-up procedures, the degradation efficiency of organics at the anode and the removal efficiency of Cu2+ at the cathode of the cell were studied, based on which the performance of MFC (microbial fuel cell) in electricity generation and wastewater treatment was evaluated. A simple two-chamber microbial fuel cell was established with simulated molasses wastewater as substrate at the anode and simulated electroplating wastewater as an electron acceptor at the cathode. The results from a batch of experiments showed that the highest voltage output of 417.00 mV was obtained at an external resistance of 800 Omega, and that the maximum power density of 44.17 mW x m(-2) was obtained with an internal resistance of 293 Omega based on the polarization curve. In addition, COD removal rate reached its highest value (47.31%) in the fifth cycle, and the maximum removal rate (59.76%) for Cu2+ was recorded in the fourth cycle. In summary, the application of MFC in the treatment of organic wastewater and electroplating wastewater is feasible.

Over-expression of caveolin-1 aggravate LPS-induced inflammatory response in AT-1 cells via up-regulation of cPLA2/p38 MAPK.

OBJECTIVE AND DESIGN: The aim of this study was to study the effect of caveolin-1 on the cytosolic phospholipase A2 (cPLA2), p38 mitogen-activated protein kinase (p38 MAPK) and nuclear factor kappaB (NF-kappaB) in mouse lung alveolar type-1 cells' (AT-1 cells) inflammatory response induced by LPS. MATERIALS AND METHODS: Gene clone technique was used to over-express caveolin-1 in AT-1 cells by lentivirus vector. The level of tumor necrosis factor alpha (TNF-alpha), interleukin 6 (IL-6), cPLA2, p38 MAPK and NF-kappaB was measured by ELISA, western blotting and EMSA. TREATMENT: AT-1 cells were treated with LPS. RESULTS: Over-expression of caveolin-1 not only increased the production of pro-inflammatory cytokine TNF-alpha and IL-6, but also enhanced the expression of the cPLA2, p38 MAPK, and NF-kappaB. CONCLUSIONS: Our data demonstrated that over-expression of caveolin-1 aggravates the AT-1 injury induced by LPS, involving in modulation of the cPLA2 mediated by the cPLA2/p38 MAPK pathway.

[Mapping of QTLs controlling leaf chlorphyll content and chlorphyll degradation speed of detached leaves in rice].

A recombinant inbred (RI) population derived from the cross between an indica variety, IR24, and a japonica variety, Asominori, was used to map QTLs controlling leaf chlorophyll content (LCC) and chlorophyll degradation speed (CDS) of detached leaves collected at the tillering stage of rice through composite interval mapping analysis (CIM). Resultantly, four QTLs (qLCC-3, qLCC-5, qLCC-7, qLCC-12) controlling LCC and three QTLs (qCDS-1, qCDS-6, qCDS-7) associated with CDS were detected respectively. Among them, qCDS-7 with the largest effect for CDS, located on chromosome 7, coincided with the genomic region of qLCC-7 for LCC detected. Those results from this study basically can explicate the genetic basis associated with leaf chlorophyll content and chlorophyll degradation speed of detached leaves in rice, which might be available for a rapid determination of leaf senescence at early growth-stages and breeding of high-photosynthetic efficiency in rice.