Publications by authors named "Chengzhong Zhang"

LINE-1 (L1) retrotransposition is widespread in many cancers, especially those with a high burden of chromosomal rearrangements. However, whether and to what degree L1 activity directly impacts genome integrity is unclear. Here, we apply whole-genome sequencing to experimental models of L1 expression to comprehensively define the spectrum of genomic changes caused by L1.

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Tandem duplications (TD) are among the most frequent type of structural variant (SV) in the cancer genome. They are characterized by a single breakpoint junction that defines the boundaries and the size of the duplicated segment. Cancer-associated TDs often increase oncogene copy number or disrupt tumor suppressor gene function, and thus have important roles in tumor evolution.

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Ethnopharmacological Relevance: The herb of Abrus cantoniensis Hance (AC) is an important Traditional Chinese Medicine (TCM) and is also used as an herbal tea with hepatoprotective action. Soyasaponin Bb is one of the pharmacodynamic substances of AC for the herb's effective pharmacological activity. This study aims to investigate the anti-fibrotic and hepatoprotective activities of soyasaponin Bb in vivo and in vitro experiments, mechanism by network pharmacology and quantification by HPLC.

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The environmental pollution problem caused by azo dyes urgently needs to be solved. FeO@SiO/poly(vinyl alcohol) (PVA) membranes were prepared via an electrostatic spinning process. By blending the prepared FeO@SiO nanoparticles with PVA, a uniform distribution of FeO@SiO nanoparticles within the fibers was achieved, effectively preventing the aggregation of the nanoparticles and demonstrating excellent adsorption performance toward the azo anionic dye methyl orange (MO).

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Article Synopsis
  • DNA rearrangements can occur through two main processes: "cut-and-paste" (breakage and fusion) and "copy-and-paste" (aberrant replication), where the latter can result in DNA gain or loss.
  • Research has shown that unusual nuclear structures like micronuclei and chromosome bridges can lead to DNA fragmentation and ligation, resulting in "cut-and-paste" rearrangements.
  • The study introduces a new process called breakage-replication/fusion (B-R/F) that explains how large duplications and short insertions arise from the replication and fusion of broken DNA ends, linking it to complex rearrangement patterns and enabling DNA amplification.
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  • Xp11 translocation renal cell carcinoma (tRCC) is a rare cancer that mostly affects females and is caused by a fusion of the TFE3 gene on chromosome X with other genes.
  • The study explores how TFE3 fusions occur through rearrangements and whether these fusions arise from the active or inactive X chromosomes, shedding light on tRCC's female predominance.
  • Findings show that TFE3 fusions are typically due to reciprocal translocations and that specific translocations involving the inactive X chromosome contribute to the higher incidence of tRCC in females, revealing important insights into cancer genetics and sex differences.
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A simple and sensitive LC-tandem mass spectrometry method was established and validated for the determination of schaftoside in rat plasma. After prepared by protein precipitation with acetonitrile, schaftoside and internal standard were separated on a Waters HSS T3 column using acetonitrile containing 0.1% formic acid and 0.

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Genomic characterization has revealed widespread structural complexity in cancer karyotypes, however shotgun sequencing cannot resolve genomic rearrangements with chromosome-length continuity. Here, we describe a two-tiered approach to determine the segmental composition of rearranged chromosomes with haplotype resolution. First, we present , a new method for robust determination of chromosomal haplotypes using cancer Hi-C data.

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Ethnopharmacological Relevance: Anoectochilus elatus Lindl. was traditionally used for pain treatment and Gooderoside A (GA) was regarded as its principal constituent.

Aim Of The Study: To investigate whether GA can be responsible for the antinociceptive activity of A.

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The progression of precancerous lesions to malignancy is often accompanied by increasing complexity of chromosomal alterations but how these alterations arise is poorly understood. Here we perform haplotype-specific analysis of chromosomal copy-number evolution in the progression of Barrett's esophagus (BE) to esophageal adenocarcinoma (EAC) on multiregional whole-genome sequencing data of BE with dysplasia and microscopic EAC foci. We identify distinct patterns of copy-number evolution indicating multigenerational chromosomal instability that is initiated by cell division errors but propagated only after p53 loss.

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Article Synopsis
  • Xp11 translocation renal cell carcinoma (tRCC) is a type of kidney cancer that mostly affects females, caused by genetic rearrangements on the X chromosome.
  • The study investigates how these genetic fusions occur, focusing on whether they emerge from active or inactive X chromosomes in females and their link to the female predominance in this cancer.
  • The findings reveal a significant 2:1 ratio of female to male fusions resulting from X:autosomal translocations, suggesting that inactive X chromosomes contribute to this female bias in tRCC and highlight the unique role of sex chromosomes in cancer development.
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A simple and sensitive liquid chromatography tandem mass spectrometry method was established and validated for the quantitative determination of abrine, hypaphorine, schaftoside and soyasaponin Bb in rat plasma. After preparation by protein precipitation with acetonitrile, the analytes and internal standard were separated on a Waters CORTECS T3 column using acetonitrile containing 0.1% formic acid and 0.

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Article Synopsis
  • Transcriptional differences in cancer cells are influenced by changes in the epigenetic state of chromatin, impacting tumor evolution and drug resistance.
  • Micronuclei and chromosome bridges, common in cancer, can lead to lasting reductions in gene expression and change how genes are regulated even after returning to normal cells.
  • These changes may occur due to long-lasting DNA damage, linking epigenetic shifts in gene expression to chromosomal instability and issues in nuclear structure.
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The seeds of Vitex negundo have been used for inflammation-related disease treatment in traditional medicine. This study focused on the anti-osteoarthritis (OA) effects of the total lignans of V. negundo seeds (TOV) in monosodium iodoacetate-induced osteoarthritis rats and its pharmacokinetic properties, as well as the effects and potential mechanism of its main components VN1 (6-hydroxy-4-(4-hydroxy-3-methoxy-phenyl)-3-hydro-xymethyl-7-methoxy-3,4-dihydro-2-naphthaldehydeb) and VN2 (vitedoin A) on receptor activator of NF-κB ligand (RANKL)-induced osteoclast differentiation in bone marrow macrophages (BMMs).

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Ethnopharmacological Relevance: Albizia julibrissin Durazz is a well-known medicinal plant with the Chinese name Hehuan []. Hehuan bark and Hehuan flowers have long been recognized as traditional Chinese herbal medicine for treating anxiety, melancholy, insomnia, bruises, pulmonary abscess, fractures, carbuncle, amnesia, acute conjunctivitis, blurred vision, neonatal tetanus and stroke for thousands of years. They are recorded in Chinese Pharmacopoeia separately with different properties.

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In a departure from previous findings, new results suggest that free-floating pieces of DNA which carry additional copies of cancer-driving genes do not tend to cluster or have increased transcription.

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Expression of the non-coding RNA XIST is essential for initiating X chromosome inactivation (XCI) during early development in female mammals. As the main function of XCI is to enable dosage compensation of chromosome X genes between the sexes, XCI and XIST expression are generally absent in male normal tissues, except in germ cells and in individuals with supernumerary X chromosomes. Via a systematic analysis of public sequencing data of both cancerous and normal tissues, we report that XIST is somatically activated in a subset of male human cancers across diverse lineages.

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Haplotype ("haploid genotype") phase is the combination of genotypes at sites of genetic variation along a chromosome [1]. We previously demonstrated that the complete chromosomal haplotype of diploid human genomes can be determined using molecular linkage from Hi-C sequencing and linked-reads sequencing [2]. In this chapter, we present a step-by-step guide to perform this analysis using mLinker, a software package for haplotype inference.

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Background: Trichoderma species are rich source of bioactive secondary metabolites. In the past decades, a series of secondary metabolites were reported from different Trichoderma fungi, among which terpenoids possessing versatile structural diversities and extensive pharmacological activities are one of the particularly important categories.

Aim Of Review: The review aims to summarize the terpenoids isolated from Trichoderma species regarding their structural diversities, biological activities, and promising biosynthetic potentials.

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The etiology of systemic lupus erythematous (SLE) remains unclear. Pyroptosis, a new model of programmed cell death, was poorly explored in the pathogenesis of SLE. We found cell pyroptosis in CD4+T cells of SLE patients and kidneys from MRL/lpr mice by examining caspase-1 and gasdermin D (GSDMD) in by RT-PCR, Western blot, and levels of IL-1β, IL-18 and TNF-α were detected by RT-PCR and Elisa.

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To further improve the anti-tumor activity of Harmine (HM), we took the hybridization approach and synthesized harmine derivatives-furoxan hybrids containing nitric oxide (NO) releasing parts by connecting NO donors with anti-tumor active fragments to harmine. Then, the synthesized compounds were evaluated for their in vitro cytotoxicity against five human cancer cell lines. Among them, compound 10 was found to have the strongest antiproliferative activity against HepG2 (IC = 1.

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