Spatiotemporal distribution of PTEN before directed cell migration in monolayers.

The intracellular distribution of phosphatase and tensin homolog (PTEN) is closely related to directed cell migration. In single cells, PTEN accumulates at the rear of the cell before and during directed migration; however, the spatiotemporal distribution of PTEN in confluent cell monolayers, particularly before directed migration, remains unclear. In this study, we wounded a cell in confluent fetal rat skin keratinocytes (FRSKs) and examined the dynamics of PTEN in the cells adjacent to the wounded cell.

The screening and identification of endogenous retrovirus free CEMPs.

The provirus DNA sequence of porcine endogenous retrovirus (PERV) distributed in the pig genome is the major obstacle that restricts the swine as the organ donors in xenotransplantation, and the copy number of PERV varies greatly among different breeds and individuals. In the experiment, 67 healthy, female Chinese Experimental Mini-Pigs (CEMPs) aged at 3-6 months were selected from the Animal Husbandry Station of China Agricultural University, the copy number of PERV and types of envelope protein gene (env) were then investigated by means of PCR analysis and Southern blotting. It is showed that the distribution of types of envelope protein gene in Landrace and CEMPs makes little difference, but the proportion of individuals carrying two types of envelope protein gene (env-A and env-B, which is denoted as env-AB) is much larger than those which carry only one type of envelope protein gene (env-A or env-B).