A Study of the Effect of Shiunko, a Traditional Chinese Herbal Medicine, on Fibroblasts and Its Implication on Wound Healing Processes.

Significance: In China, traditional Chinese medicine (TCM) has been used for thousands of years for various acute and chronic wound care. Thus, there is a growing need to explore the possible benefits of TCM on wound healing.

Recent Advances: Nowadays, in China and some Asian countries including Korea, Japan, and Singapore, Chinese herbal therapy is used as an alternative treatment in wound care.

A novel endogenous induction of ColE7 expression in a csrA mutant of Escherichia coli.

Carbon storage regulator A (CsrA) is an important regulator that controls central metabolic pathways and a variety of physiological functions. We found that disruption of csrA in cells containing the ColE7 operon caused a 12-fold increase in colicin E7 production. Moreover, real-time RT-PCR demonstrated a decrease of around 50 % in the lexA mRNA of the csrA mutant.

The molecular basis of wound healing processes induced by lithospermi radix: a proteomics and biochemical analysis.

Lithospermi Radix (LR) is an effective traditional Chinese herb in various types of wound healing; however, its mechanism of action remains unknown. A biochemical and proteomic platform was generated to explore the biological phenomena associated with LR and its active component shikonin. We found that both LR ethanol extracts and shikonin are able to promote cell proliferation by up to 25%.

A Study of the Wound Healing Mechanism of a Traditional Chinese Medicine, Angelica sinensis, Using a Proteomic Approach.

Angelica sinensis (AS) is a traditional Chinese herbal medicine that has been formulated clinically to treat various form of skin trauma and to help wound healing. However, the mechanism by which it works remains a mystery. In this study we have established a new platform to evaluate the pharmacological effects of total AS herbal extracts as well as its major active component, ferulic acid (FA), using proteomic and biochemical analysis.

Delineation of the translocation of colicin E7 across the inner membrane of Escherichia coli.

The lysis protein of the colicinogenic operon is essential for colicin release and its main function is to activate the outer membrane phospholipase A (OMPLA) for the traverse of colicin across the cell envelope. However, little is known about the involvement of the lysis protein in the translocation of colicin across the inner membrane into the periplasm. The introduction of specific point mutations into the lipobox or sorting signal sequence of the lysE7 gene resulted in the production of various forms of lysis proteins.

Repression of btuB gene transcription in Escherichia coli by the GadX protein.

Background: BtuB (B twelve uptake) is an outer membrane protein of Escherichia coli. It serves as a receptor for cobalamines uptake or bactericidal toxin entry. A decrease in the production of the BtuB protein would cause E.

Interaction of colicin E7 with the major coat protein (g8p) may confer limited protection on colicinogenic Escherichia coli against M13 bacteriophage infection.

Colicin release provides producer strains with a competitive advantage under certain circumstances. We found that propagation of M13 bacteriophage in cells producing colicin E7 is impaired, without alteration in the efficiency of bacteriophage adsorption, as compared with non-producing cells. In contrast to the protective effect of the colicin against M13 bacteriophage infection, the endogenously expressed colicin does not confer limited protection against transfection with M13 bacteriophage DNA.

Posttranscriptional repression of the cel gene of the ColE7 operon by the RNA-binding protein CsrA of Escherichia coli.

Carbon storage regulator (CsrA) is a eubacterial RNA-binding protein that acts as a global regulator of many functionally diverse chromosomal genes. Here, we reveal that CsrA represses expression from an extrachromosomal element of Escherichia coli, the lysis gene (cel) of the ColE7 operon (cea-cei-cel). This operon and colicin expression are activated upon SOS response.

PAL31 may play an important role as inflammatory modulator in the repair process of the spinal cord injury rat.

Functional regeneration in a complete T8 transection model Cheng et al. (1996) and most recently, acidic fibroblast growth factor (aFGF; also known as FGF-1) involved in the repair process of the spinal cord injury (SCI) rat Tsai et al. (2008) have been reported.

Crystal structure of Escherichia coli PNPase: central channel residues are involved in processive RNA degradation.

Bacterial polynucleotide phosphorylase (PNPase) plays a major role in mRNA turnover by the degradation of RNA from the 3'- to 5'-ends. Here, we determined the crystal structures of the wild-type and a C-terminal KH/S1 domain-truncated mutant (DeltaKH/S1) of Escherichia coli PNPase at resolutions of 2.6 A and 2.

Involvement of acidic fibroblast growth factor in spinal cord injury repair processes revealed by a proteomics approach.

Acidic fibroblast growth factor (aFGF; also known as FGF-1) is a potent neurotrophic factor that affects neuronal survival in the injured spinal cord. However, the pathological changes that occur with spinal cord injury (SCI) and the attribution to aFGF of a neuroprotective effect during SCI are still elusive. In this study, we demonstrated that rat SCI, when treated with aFGF, showed significant functional recovery as indicated by the Basso, Beattie, and Bresnahan locomotor rating scale and the combined behavior score (p < 0.

A pilot study for screening blood donors in Taiwan by nucleic acid amplification technology: detecting occult hepatitis B virus infections and closing the serologic window period for hepatitis C virus.

Background: Blood donors in Taiwan currently are screened for hepatitis B virus (HBV), hepatitis C virus (HCV), and human immunodeficiency virus (HIV) infection by immunoassay. The risk of enzyme immunoassay (EIA)-negative, nucleic acid amplification technology (NAT)-reactive donations is not well understood. This study aimed to screen for such donors in Taiwan by a multiplex test (cobas TaqScreen, Roche) on a commercially available NAT system (cobas s 201 system, Roche).

Three missense mutations, including a novel 860C>T transition, and allelic enhancement phenomenon associated with ABO blood subgroups A in Taiwan.

Background: It was estimated that approximately 25 percent of Taiwanese residents were ABO blood group A. Many subgroups of A, however, revealed ambiguous serologic typing results. This study aimed to delineate the molecular basis of the A3, Ax, and weak A phenotypes.

The combination of peripheral nerve grafts and acidic fibroblast growth factor enhances arginase I and polyamine spermine expression in transected rat spinal cords.

Treatment with a combination of peripheral nerve grafts and acidic fibroblast growth factor improves hind limb locomotor function after spinal cord transection. This study examined the effect of treatment on expression of arginase I (Arg I) and polyamines. Arg I expression was low in the spinal cords of normal rats but increased following spinal injury.

A sequence-specific RNase activity derived from the interface of the dimeric immunity protein of the ColE7 operon.

Recently, two sequence-specific cleavage sites were found in the ceiE7 gene of the cea-cei-cel polycistronic transcript from the ColE7 operon. The crystal structure of the ColE7 immunity protein (ImE7) suggested that a novel ribonuclease active site is created at the interface of the dimeric structure of the protein. Frame shift mutation of the ceiE7 gene and mutation of histidine residues at the putative active site of the dimeric ImE7 protein respectively abolished and significantly reduced the observed ribonucleolytic cleavage indicating that the dimeric ImE7 protein is indeed involved in this sequence-specific cleavage at the ceiE7 mRNA.

An E. coli lon mutant conferring partial resistance to colicin may reveal a novel role in regulating proteins involved in the translocation of colicin.

Initially, we found that a lon mutant confers partial resistance against colicin. The results of Western blotting detected a decrease in the protein expression levels of BtuB and OmpF involved in colicin translocation in the lon mutant. Moreover, 2-D gel analysis revealed that the expression level of some scavenger proteins marks the lon mutant as being in a situation similar to oxidative stress.

The critical roles of polyamines in regulating ColE7 production and restricting ColE7 uptake of the colicin-producing Escherichia coli.

The ColE7 operon is an SOS response regulon, which encodes bacteriocin ColE7 to kill susceptible Escherichia coli and its related enterobacteria under conditions of stress. We have observed for the first time that polyamines confer limited resistance against ColE7 on E. coli cells.

High-resolution crystal structure of a truncated ColE7 translocation domain: implications for colicin transport across membranes.

ColE7 is a nuclease-type colicin released from Escherichia coli to kill sensitive bacterial cells by degrading the nucleic acid molecules in their cytoplasm. ColE7 is classified as one of the group A colicins, since the N-terminal translocation domain (T-domain) of the nuclease-type colicins interact with specific membrane-bound or periplasmic Tol proteins during protein import. Here, we show that if the N-terminal tail of ColE7 is deleted, ColE7 (residues 63-576) loses its bactericidal activity against E.

Identification of an essential cleavage site in ColE7 required for import and killing of cells.

Colicin E7 (ColE7), a nuclease toxin released from Escherichia coli, kills susceptible bacteria under environmental stress. Nuclease colicins are processed during translocation with only the cytotoxic nuclease domains traversing the inner membrane to cleave tRNA, rRNA, or DNA in the cytoplasm of target cells. In this study, we show that the E.

Involvement of colicin in the limited protection of the colicin producing cells against bacteriophage.

The restriction/modification system is considered to be the most common machinery of microorganisms for protection against bacteriophage infection. However, we found that mitomycin C induced Escherichia coli containing ColE7-K317 can confer limited protection against bacteriophage M13K07 and lambda infection. Our study showed that degree of protection is correlated with the expression level of the ColE7 operon, indicating that colicin E7 alone or the colicin E7-immunity protein complex is directly involved in this protection mechanism.

Dissection of cry gene profiles of Bacillus thuringiensis isolates in Taiwan.

On the basis of the newly revised nomenclature system of cry genes, the PCR amplification method has been adopted to resolve the cry gene combinations of 294 Bacillus thuringiensis isolates from five selected areas of Taiwan. Our results indicate that cry1 (especially cry1A + 1B + 1F) and cry2 were the most abundant cry genes in Taiwan. In contrast, cry3 and cry6 genes were detected only on Yang Ming Mountain, while the cry13 gene was found only on Snow Mountain.

DNA binding and degradation by the HNH protein ColE7.

The bacterial toxin ColE7 bears an HNH motif which has been identified in hundreds of prokaryotic and eukaryotic endonucleases, involved in DNA homing, restriction, repair, or chromosome degradation. The crystal structure of the nuclease domain of ColE7 in complex with a duplex DNA has been determined at 2.5 A resolution.

A facile analytical method for the identification of protease gene profiles from Bacillus thuringiensis strains.

Five pairs of degenerate universal primers have been designed to identify the general protease gene profiles from some distinct Bacillus thuringiensis strains. Based on the PCR amplification patterns and DNA sequences of the cloned fragments, it was noted that the protease gene profiles of the three distinct strains of B. thuringiensis subsp.

The IspA protease's involvement in the regulation of the sporulation process of Bacillus thuringiensis is revealed by proteomic analysis.

We have observed that the process of sporulation of the ispA-deficient mutant was delayed under phase-contrast microscopy. The protein profiles of the ispA-deficient mutant have been analyzed using two-dimensional gel electrophoresis. The results of a proteomic analysis using MALDI-TOF MS indicated that a sporulation-associated protein, pro- [Formula: see text], was upregulated, while two other sporulation-associated proteins, SpoVD and SpoVR, were downregulated in the ispA-deficient mutant.

Characterization of the specific cleavage of ceiE7-mRNA of the bactericidal ColE7 operon.

Posttranscriptional control of the bactericidal ColE7 operon has been implicated by a feedback endonucleolytic cleavage of its own mRNA. The cleavage site has been located at the coding region of ceiE7, the second cistron of the ColE7 cea-cei-cel polycistronic transcript. Interestingly, Im7 protein, the translation product of ceiE7, is required for the specific cleavage.