The chemical characterisation of traditional Chinese medicine formulas (TCMFs) using mass spectrometry poses notable challenges owing to their complex and diverse chemical compositions. While acquisition modes such as data-dependent acquisition (DDA) and data-independent acquisition (DIA) offer new insights, DDA's tendency to overlook low-abundance ions and DIA's complicated data processing, particularly in matching MS and MS information, limit the effective annotation of valuable compounds in TCMFs. Herein, we present a new integrated strategy to enhance the coverage of annotated compounds in TCMFs, using Xiao Jian Zhong Tang (XJZ) as a case study.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFChinese herbs are a huge treasure trove of natural products and an important source of many active molecules. The theory of traditional Chinese medicine compatibility (TCMC) is widely applied in clinical practice, but its mechanism is still ambiguous. This study aims to open a new window for this predicament by studying the interaction between the main active ingredients from a drug pair.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFBroadening gene therapy applications requires manufacturable vectors that efficiently transduce target cells in humans and preclinical models. Conventional selections of adeno-associated virus (AAV) capsid libraries are inefficient at searching the vast sequence space for the small fraction of vectors possessing multiple traits essential for clinical translation. Here, we present Fit4Function, a generalizable machine learning (ML) approach for systematically engineering multi-trait AAV capsids.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFBackground: Carbon nano sol (CNS) can markedly affect the plant growth and development. However, few systematic analyses have been conducted on the underlying regulatory mechanisms in plants, including tobacco (Nicotiana tabacum L.).
View Article and Find Full Text PDFDeveloping vehicles that efficiently deliver genes throughout the human central nervous system (CNS) will broaden the range of treatable genetic diseases. We engineered an adeno-associated virus (AAV) capsid, BI-hTFR1, that binds human transferrin receptor (TfR1), a protein expressed on the blood-brain barrier. BI-hTFR1 was actively transported across human brain endothelial cells and, relative to AAV9, provided 40 to 50 times greater reporter expression in the CNS of human knockin mice.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFObjective: Explore the effects of Astragaloside IV and Scorpion Venom Peptide on the activity, migration, apoptosis, cell cycle, autophagy, and the expression of proteins related to the PI3K/AKT signaling pathway in prostate cancer cells.
Methods: The human prostate cancer cell lines LNCaP and PC-3 were randomly divided into blank control group, Astragaloside IV group, Scorpion Venom Peptide group, Astragaloside IV-Scorpion Venom Peptide group, and rapamycin (positive drug group). After corresponding drug treatments for 24 hours, logarithmic growth phase tumor cells were collected for testing.
Ethylene responsive factor (ERF) is a plant-specific transcription factor that plays a pivotal regulatory role in various stress responses. Although the genome of tobacco harbors 375 ER F genes, the functional roles of the majority of these genes remain unknown. Expression pattern analysis revealed that NtERF283 was induced by water deficit and salt stresses and mainly expressed in the roots and leaves.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFDeveloping vehicles that efficiently deliver genes throughout the human central nervous system (CNS) will broaden the range of treatable genetic diseases. We engineered an AAV capsid, BI-hTFR1, that binds human Transferrin Receptor (TfR1), a protein expressed on the blood-brain barrier (BBB). BI-hTFR1 was actively transported across a human brain endothelial cell layer and, relative to AAV9, provided 40-50 times greater reporter expression in the CNS of human knock-in mice.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFBackground: Long noncoding RNAs (lncRNAs) have been shown to play important roles in the response of plants to various abiotic stresses, including drought, heat and salt stress. However, the identification and characterization of genome-wide salt-responsive lncRNAs in tobacco (Nicotiana tabacum L.) have been limited.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFPlants release a mixture of volatile compounds when subjects to environmental stress, allowing them to transmit information to neighboring plants. Here, we find that Nicotiana benthamiana plants infected with tobacco mosaic virus (TMV) induces defense responses in neighboring congeners. Analytical screening of volatiles from N.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFViruses have evolved the ability to bind and enter cells through interactions with a wide variety of cell macromolecules. We engineered peptide-modified adeno-associated virus (AAV) capsids that transduce the brain through the introduction of de novo interactions with 2 proteins expressed on the mouse blood-brain barrier (BBB), LY6A or LY6C1. The in vivo tropisms of these capsids are predictable as they are dependent on the cell- and strain-specific expression of their target protein.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFBackground: The green peach aphid (Myzus persicae Sulzer) is a harmful agricultural pest that causes severe crop damage by directly feeding or indirectly vectoring viruses. 1,8-cineole synthase (CINS) is a multiproduct enzyme that synthesizes monoterpenes, with 1,8-cineole dominating the volatile organic compound profile. However, the relationship between aphid preference and CINS remains elusive.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFData-dependent acquisition (DDA) mode in ultra-high-performance liquid chromatography-high-resolution mass spectrometry (UHPLC-HRMS) can provide massive amounts of MS and MS/MS information of compounds in untargeted metabolomics and can thus facilitate compound identification greatly. In this work, we developed a new platform called AntDAS-DDA for the automatic processing of UHPLC-HRMS data sets acquired under the DDA mode. Several algorithms, including extracted ion chromatogram extraction, feature extraction, MS/MS spectrum construction, fragment ion identification, and MS spectrum construction, were developed within the platform.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFRoot-knot nematode (RKN) disease is a destructive soil disease that affects crop health and causes huge losses in crop production. To explore the relationships between soil environments, rhizobacterial communities, and plant health, rhizosphere bacterial communities were analyzed using metagenomic sequencing in tobacco samples with different grades of RKN disease. The results showed that the community structure and function of the plant rhizosphere were significantly correlated to the RKN disease.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFProteins of the Nitrate Transporter 1/Peptide Transporter (NPF) family transport a diverse variety of substrates, such as nitrate, peptides, hormones and chloride. In this study, a systematic analysis of the tobacco () family was performed in the cultivated 'K326'. In total, 143 genes were identified and phylogenetically classified into eight subfamilies, NPF1 to NPF8, based on the classification of NPF families in other plant species.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFEndothelial cells have a crucial role in nervous system function, and mounting evidence points to endothelial impairment as a major contributor to a wide range of neurological diseases. However, tools to genetically interrogate these cells remain limited. Here, we describe AAV-BI30, a capsid that specifically and efficiently transduces endothelial cells throughout the central nervous system.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFSubstantial deviations in retention times among samples pose a great challenge for the accurate screening and identifying of metabolites by ultrahigh-performance liquid chromatography high-resolution mass spectrometry (UHPLC-HRMS). In this study, a coarse-to-refined time-shift correction methodology was proposed to efficiently address this problem. Metabolites producing multiple fragment ions were automatically selected as landmarks to generate pseudo-mass spectra for a coarse time-shift correction.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFExposure to extended periods of darkness is a common source of abiotic stress that significantly affects plant growth and development. To understand how Nicotiana benthamiana responds to dark stress, the proteomes and metabolomes of leaves treated with darkness were studied. In total, 5763 proteins and 165 primary metabolites were identified following dark treatment.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFBackground: Cigar wrapper leaves are the most important raw material of cigars. Studying the genomic information of cigar tobacco is conducive to improving cigar quality from the perspective of genetic breeding. However, no reference genome or full-length transcripts at the genome-wide scale have been reported for cigar tobacco.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFThere are numerous articles published for geographical discrimination of tea. However, few research works focused on the authentication and traceability of Westlake Longjing green tea from the first- and second-grade producing regions because the tea trees are planted in a limited growing zone with identical cultivate condition. In this work, a comprehensive analytical strategy was proposed by ultrahigh performance liquid chromatography-quadrupole time-of-flight mass spectrometry-based untargeted metabolomics coupled with chemometrics.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFTobacco (Nicotiana tabacum) is one of the most widely cultivated commercial non-food crops with significant social and economic impacts. Here we profiled transcriptome and metabolome from 54 tobacco samples (2-3 replicates; n = 151 in total) collected from three varieties (i.e.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFObjectives: As a traditional Chinese medicine (TCM), Huangqi Jianzhong Tang (HQJZ) has a good efficacy in treating chronic atrophic gastritis (CAG). Our objective was to determine its mechanism based on the urine comprehensive metabolome.
Methods: In the study, a metabolomic approach was applied to reveal the efficacy of HQJZ on the constructed CAG rats coupled with proton nuclear magnetic resonance ( H NMR) and ultra-performance liquid chromatography/quadrupole time-of-flight mass spectrometry (UPLC-Q/TOF MS).
The blast fungus initiates infection using a heavily melanized, dome-shaped infection structure known as the appressorium, which forcibly ruptures the cuticle to enter the rice leaf tissue. How this process takes place remains not fully understood. Here, we used untargeted metabolomics analyses to profile the metabolome of developing appressoria and identified significant changes in six key metabolic pathways, including early sphingolipid biosynthesis.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFTobacco mosaic virus (TMV) is a common source of biological stress that significantly affects plant growth and development. It is also useful as a model in studies designed to clarify the mechanisms involved in plant viral disease. Plant responses to abiotic stress were recently reported to be regulated by complex mechanisms at the post-translational modification (PTM) level.
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