Iron Plaque: A Shield against Soil Contamination and Key to Sustainable Agriculture.

Soils play a dominant role in supporting the survival and growth of crops and they are also extremely important for human health and food safety. At present, the contamination of soil by heavy metals remains a globally concerning environmental issue that needs to be resolved. In the environment, iron plaque, naturally occurring on the root surface of wetland plants, is found to be equipped with an excellent ability at blocking the migration of heavy metals from soils to plants, which can be further developed as an environmentally friendly strategy for soil remediation to ensure food security.

Rapamycin ameliorates brain damage and maintains mitochondrial dynamic balance in diabetic rats subjected to middle cerebral artery occlusion.

To investigate the effect of rapamycin on mitochondrial dynamic balance in diabetic rats subjected to cerebral ischemia-reperfusion injury. Male Sprague Dawley (SD) rats (n = 78) were treated with high fat diet combined with streptozotocin injection to construct diabetic model in rats. Transient middle cerebral artery occlusion (MCAO) of 2 hours was induced and the brains were harvested after 1 and 3 days of reperfusion.

Antioxidation of a proteoglycan from Ganoderma lucidum protects pancreatic β-cells against oxidative stress-induced apoptosis in vitro and in vivo.

Oxidative stress is one of the major factors in induction of pancreatic β-cell apoptosis and diabetes. Here, we investigated systematically the roles of a proteoglycan (namely, FYGL) from Ganoderma lucidum in protection and repair of pancreatic β-cells against oxidative stress-induced injury and apoptosis on molecular, cellular and animal basis. FYGL in vitro had antioxidant activity in terms of scavenging of free radicals and reduction power.

Multiomics interrogation into HBV (Hepatitis B virus)-host interaction reveals novel coding potential in human genome, and identifies canonical and non-canonical proteins as host restriction factors against HBV.

Hepatitis B Virus (HBV) constitutes a major threat to global public health. Current understanding of HBV-host interaction is yet limited. Here, ribosome profiling, quantitative mass spectrometry and RNA-sequencing were conducted on a recently established HBV replication system, through which we identified multiomic differentially expressed genes (DEGs) that HBV orchestrated to remodel host proteostasis networks.

Translatomic profiling reveals novel self-restricting virus-host interactions during HBV infection.

Background & Aims: HBV remains a global threat to human health. It remains incompletely understood how HBV self-restricts in the host during most adult infections. Thus, we performed multi-omics analyses to systematically interrogate HBV-host interactions and the life cycle of HBV.

Pancreatic cancer cell apoptosis is induced by a proteoglycan extracted from .

The Traditional Chinese Medicine, , has been widely used for its immunity-related and anti-cancer effects. Fudan-Yueyang-Ganoderma lucidum (FYGL) is a proteoglycan, extracted from , that has shown safe anti-diabetic activity . The present study demonstrated that FYGL could selectively inhibit the viability of PANC-1 and BxPC-3 pancreatic cancer cells in a dose dependent manner, but not in Mia PaCa-2 pancreatic cancer cells and HepG2 liver cancer cells.

A proteoglycan extract from protects pancreatic beta-cells against STZ-induced apoptosis.

The pancreatic β-cell death or dysfunction induced by oxidative stress plays an important effect on the development and progression of diabetes mellitus. Based on our previous findings, a natural proteoglycan extracted from , named , could treat T2DM . In this study, we investigated the effects of on STZ-induced apoptosis of INS-1 cells and its underlying mechanisms.

Amelioration of the Lipogenesis, Oxidative Stress and Apoptosis of Hepatocytes by a Novel Proteoglycan from Ganoderma lucidum.

The steatosis and resultant oxidative stress and apoptosis play the important roles in the progression of nonalcoholic fatty liver disease (NAFLD), therefore, searching for the effective drugs against NAFLD has been a hot topic. In this work, we investigated a hyperbranched proteoglycan, namely FYGL extracted from Ganoderma lucidum, inhibiting the palmitic acid (PA)-induced steatosis in HepG2 hepatocytes. FYGL compose of hydrophilic polysaccharide and lipophilic protein.

Ubiquitination of IGF2BP3 by E3 ligase MKRN2 regulates the proliferation and migration of human neuroblastoma SHSY5Y cells.

Neuroblastoma (NB) is a paediatric tumour that shows great biomolecule and clinical heterogeneity, and patients with NB often develop various neurological complications. Currently, the disease is mainly treated by surgery and still lacks specific therapeutic drugs; therefore, targets are urgently needed. Makorin ring finger protein 2 (MKRN2) is an E3 ligase whose effects on neuroblastoma have not been illustrated.

Characterization of three small molecule inhibitors of enterovirus 71 identified from screening of a library of natural products.

Enterovirus 71 (EV-A71) is a major cause of hand, foot, and mouth disease (HFMD). Infection with EV-A71 is more often associated with neurological complications in children and is responsible for the majority of fatalities, but currently there is no approved antiviral therapy for treatment. Here, we identified auraptene, formononetin, and yangonin as effective inhibitors of EV-A71 infection in the low-micromolar range from screening of a natural product library.

In Vitro Assessment of Combinations of Enterovirus Inhibitors against Enterovirus 71.

Enterovirus 71 (EV-A71) is a major causative pathogen of hand, foot, and mouth disease (HFMD) epidemics. No antiviral therapies are currently available for treating EV-A71 infections. Here, we selected five reported enterovirus inhibitors (suramin, itraconazole [ITZ], GW5074, rupintrivir, and favipiravir) with different mechanisms of action to test their abilities to inhibit EV-A71 replication alone and in combination.

Teicoplanin inhibits Ebola pseudovirus infection in cell culture.

There is currently no approved antiviral therapy for treatment of Ebola virus disease. To discover readily available approved drugs that can be rapidly repurposed for treatment of Ebola virus infections, we screened 1280 FDA-approved drugs and identified glycopeptide antibiotic teicoplanin inhibiting Ebola pseudovirus infection by blocking virus entry in the low micromolar range. Teicoplanin could be evaluated further and incorporated into ongoing clinical studies.

Identification of Positively Charged Residues in Enterovirus 71 Capsid Protein VP1 Essential for Production of Infectious Particles.

Unlabelled: Enterovirus 71 (EV71), a positive-stranded RNA virus, is the major cause of hand, foot, and mouth disease (HFMD) in children, which can cause severe central nervous system disease and death. The capsids of EV71 consist of 60 copies of each of four viral structural proteins (VP1 to VP4), with VP1, VP2, and VP3 exposed on the surface and VP4 arranged internally. VP1 plays a central role in particle assembly and cell entry.

Enterovirus 71 infection in children with hand, foot, and mouth disease in Shanghai, China: epidemiology, clinical feature and diagnosis.

Background: In 2012 a large outbreak of hand, foot, and mouth disease (HFMD) widely spread over China, causing more than 2 million cases and 567 deaths. Our purpose was to characterize the major pathogens responsible for the 2012 HFMD outbreak and analyze the genetic characterization of the enterovirus 71 (EV71) strains in Shanghai; also, to analyze the dynamic patterns of neutralizing antibody (NAb) against EV71 and evaluate the diagnostic value of several methods for clinical detection of EV71.

Methods: Clinical samples including stool, serum and CSF were collected from 396 enrolled HFMD inpatients during the peak seasons in 2012.

Discovery of itraconazole with broad-spectrum in vitro antienterovirus activity that targets nonstructural protein 3A.

There is currently no approved antiviral therapy for the prophylaxis or treatment of enterovirus infections, which remain a substantial threat to public health. To discover inhibitors that can be immediately repurposed for treatment of enterovirus infections, we developed a high-throughput screening assay that measures the cytopathic effect induced by enterovirus 71 (EV71) to screen an FDA-approved drug library. Itraconazole (ITZ), a triazole antifungal agent, was identified as an effective inhibitor of EV71 replication in the low-micromolar range (50% effective concentrations [EC50s], 1.

[Fast determination of melamine content in milk base on Vis/NIR spectroscopy method].

In order to investigate the feasibility of near infrared reflectance spectroscopy (NIRS) method for detecting if milk was adulterated with melamine or not, the present work has done the following research. Through adulterating different content of melamine into pure milk, altogether 160 samples were prepared. Using the Handheld Field Spec spectrometer spectral data of the samples were obtained, followed by different pretreatment methods to carry on processing the spectrum data, then establishing the mathematical model separately through comparison with different calibration models using different pretreatment methods, thus we got smoothing of moving average as the pretreatment method.