Dietary Tomato Powder Inhibits High-Fat Diet-Promoted Hepatocellular Carcinoma with Alteration of Gut Microbiota in Mice Lacking Carotenoid Cleavage Enzymes.

Both incidence and death rate due to liver cancer have increased in the United States. Higher consumption of lycopene-rich tomato and tomato products is associated with a decreased risk of cancers. β-Carotene-15, 15'-oxygenase (BCO1), and β-carotene-9', 10'-oxygenase (BCO2) cleave lycopene to produce bioactive apo-lycopenoids.

Tomato Powder Inhibits Hepatic Steatosis and Inflammation Potentially Through Restoring SIRT1 Activity and Adiponectin Function Independent of Carotenoid Cleavage Enzymes in Mice.

Scope: Beta-carotene-15,15'-oxygenase (BCO1) and beta-carotene-9',10'-oxygenase (BCO2) metabolize lycopene to biologically active metabolites, which can ameliorate nonalcoholic fatty liver disease (NAFLD). We investigate the effects of tomato powder (TP containing substantial lycopene (2.3 mg/g)) on NAFLD development and gut microbiome in the absence of both BCO1 and BCO2 in mice.

Signatures of positive selection at hemopexin (PEX) domain of matrix metalloproteinase-9 (MMP-9) gene.

Matrix metalloproteinases-9 (MMP-9) is an important cancer-associated, zinc-dependent endopeptidase. To investigate the natural selection hypothesis of MMP-9, the orthologous sequences from 12 vertebrates were compared and a molecular evolution analysis was performed. Results suggest that amino acid residues present in the middle region of the protein are more selectively constrained, whereas amino acid residues in the C-terminal region of the MMP-9 protein including exon 13 showed lowest conservation level in non-primate species, suggesting that it is an exon with fast evolving rate compared to the others analyzed.

Evidence of positive selection at signal peptide region of interferon gamma.

Interferon gamma (IFNG) is a major cytokine and plays crucial roles in pathogen clearance. About the course of evolution of IFNG, it has been reported that IFNG is being subjected to adaptive selection, which is proved at the level of gene. Neighbor-joining method was used to reconstruct the phylogenetic tree of all IFNG protein-coding sequences.

Signatures of positive selection in LY96 gene in vertebrates.

As a secreted glycoprotein that binds to the extracellular domain of Toll-like receptor 4 (TLR4), Lymphocyte Antigen 96 (LY96), also called myeloid differentiation 2 (MD2), is required for the activation of TLR4 by lipopolysaccharide (LPS) and plays an important role in innate immunity, which is the first line of defence against microbial infections. Previous studies have proposed that mammalian toll-like receptors (TLRs) have evolved under diversifying selection due to their role in pathogen detection. Given the fact that LY96 is highly functionally linked to TLR4, it would be interesting to test whether LY96 is under the intense pressure of natural selection.

Evidence of positive selection at codon sites localized in the C-terminal peptide of ORC6.

Origin recognition complex 6 (Orc6) plays a central role in the initiation of DNA replication in all eukaryotic systems. The exact contribution of Orc6 to replication initiation has yet to be elucidated. Here, we analyzed the evolutionary dynamics of Orc6 in 15 vertebrates.

The evolution of alternative splicing exons in vascular endothelial growth factor A.

The C-terminus alternative splicing in VEGFA (vascular endothelial growth factor A) is known for its impact on physiological and pathological angiogenesis. Based on our prediction and RT-PCR verification, we identified anti-angiogenic VEGFA165b isoforms in mouse and rabbit for the first time. We also found that the relative expression level of VEGFA165b isoform had been increasing from rodents to human, and exon8b may have experienced a minor-to-major form exon conversion, possibly correlated with its gain-of-function.