Protein lactylation is an emerging field. To advance the exploration of its biological functions, here we develop a comprehensive workflow that integrates proteomics to identify lactylated sites, genetic code expansion (GCE) for the expression of site-specifically lactylated proteins in living cells, and an integrated functional analysis (IFA) platform to evaluate their biological effects. Using a combined wet-and-dry-lab proteomics strategy, we identify a conserved lactylation at ALDOA-K147, which we hypothesize plays a significant biological role.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFMelanoma, recognized as one of the most aggressive forms of skin cancer, continues to show a steady rise in global incidence. While Bacillus Calmette-Guérin (BCG) has been identified as a potential intralesional therapy for melanoma, its therapeutic efficacy remains suboptimal. This study introduces a novel thermosensitive hydrogel formulated with BCG lysates and either OVA peptide or tumor cell lysates (PPP-BCG-OVA/TL).
View Article and Find Full Text PDFInt J Biol Macromol
December 2024
Lignin is the most abundant natural aromatic polymer in the world. Currently, researchers have developed a number of lignin-based composite materials that are widely used in various fields, including industry, agriculture and medicine. Especially in recent years, lignin has attracted great interest as a high-value product for biomedical applications.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFHybrid physics-based data-driven models, namely, augmented physics-based models (APBMs), are capable of learning complex state dynamics while maintaining some level of model interpretability that can be controlled through appropriate regularizations of the data-driven component. In this article, we extend the APBM formulation for high-order Markov models, where the state space is further augmented with past states (AG-APBM). Typically, state augmentation is a powerful method for state estimation for a high-order Markov model, but it requires the exact knowledge of the system dynamics.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFTo explore the impacts of galactose side-chain on the prebiotic activity of xyloglucan oligosaccharides (XGOS), XGOS and de-galactosylated XGOS (DG-XGOS) were prepared from tamarind using an enzymatic method. The differences in structural features of XGOS and DG-XGOS were systematically analyzed. Their fermentation characteristics of human fecal microbiota were explored.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFFront Bioeng Biotechnol
August 2024
The arabinogalactan in the representative softwood biomass of larch was degraded using an environmentally friendly hydrogen peroxide and vitamin C (HO-V) system to improve its immunomodulatory activity. Through the HO-V degradation mechanism, hydroxyl radicals are generated, which then target the hydrogen atoms within polysaccharides, resulting in the breaking of glycosidic bonds. Given the impact of oxidative degradation on polysaccharides, we identified three specific arabinogalactan degradation products distinguished by their arabinosyl side chain compositions.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFBackground: Hyaluronic acid (HA) injection in the auricular base is one of the most popular and non-surgical cosmetic procedures for correcting lying ears and optimizing the facial profile because of its minimal invasiveness, immediate effect and safety (Li et al. in Aesthet Surg J 44: 746-75, 2024). But we have recently discovered that this treatment may lead to a new and rare complication called peripheral facial paralysis that has never been reported before.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFNano-hydroxyapatite (n-HA) is the main inorganic component of natural bone, which has been widely used as a reinforcing filler for polymers in bone materials, and it can promote cell adhesion, proliferation, and differentiation. It can also produce interactions between cells and material surfaces through selective protein adsorption and has therefore always been a research hotspot in orthopedic materials. However, n-HA nano-particles are inherently easy to agglomerate and difficult to disperse evenly in the polymer.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFGenetically encoding proximal-reactive unnatural amino acids (PrUaas), such as fluorosulfate-l-tyrosine (FSY), into natural proteins of interest (POI) confer the POI with the ability to covalently bind to its interacting proteins (IPs). The PrUaa-incorporated POIs hold promise for blocking undesirable POI-IP interactions. Selecting appropriate PrUaa anchor sites is crucial, but it remains challenging with the current methodology, which heavily relies on crystallography to identify the proximal residues between the POIs and the IPs for the PrUaa anchorage.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFIn the process of the intelligent inspection of belt conveyor systems, due to problems such as its long duration, the large number of rollers, and the complex working environment, fault diagnosis by acoustic signals is easily affected by signal coupling interference, which poses a great challenge to selecting denoising methods of signal preprocessing. This paper proposes a novel wavelet threshold denoising algorithm by integrating a new biparameter and trisegment threshold function. Firstly, we elaborate on the mutual influence and optimization process of two adjustment parameters and three wavelet coefficient processing intervals in the BT-WTD (the biparameter and trisegment of wavelet threshold denoising, BT-WTD) denoising model.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFThe editors introduce the feature issue on "Novel Techniques in Microscopy," which was the topic of a symposium held on April 24-27, 2023, in Vancouver, BC. This symposium was part of the Optics in the Life Sciences Congress.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFAlgae plays a key role in carbon capture and utilization (CCU) as it can capture and use the atmospheric CO for conversion of value-added products. Concentrated CO is common in flue gas and provides opportunities for algae cultivation. The drawbacks are mass transfer limitation, poor CO dissolution, and challenges to reach optimal levels for algal growth at given flue gas levels.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFThe innovation in recombinant protein technology has brought forth a host of challenges related to the purification of these therapeutic proteins. This article delves into the intricate landscape of developing purification processes for artificially designed therapeutic proteins. The key hurdles include controlling protein reduction, protein capture, ensuring stability, eliminating aggregates, removing host cell proteins and optimizing protein recovery.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFWe report on a compact multimodal imaging system that can acquire two-photon microscopy (2PM) and three-photon microscopy (3PM) images simultaneously. With dual excitation wavelengths, multiple contrasts including two-photon-excitation-fluorescence (2PEF), second harmonic generation (SHG), and third harmonic generation (THG) are acquired simultaneously from cells, collagen fibers, and interfaces, all label-free. Challenges related to the excitation by two wavelengths and the effective separation of 2PM and 3PM signals are discussed and addressed.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFIrreversible eye lesions, such as glaucoma and traumatic optic neuropathy, can cause blindness; however, no effective treatments exist. The optic nerve, in particular, lacks the capacity to spontaneously regenerate, requiring the development of an effective approach for optic nerve repair, which has proven challenging. Here, we demonstrate that a combination of the small molecules 3BDO and trichostatin A (TSA)-which regulate mTOR and HDAC, respectively-packaged in thermosensitive hydrogel for 4-week-sustained release after intravitreal injection, effectively induced optic nerve regeneration in a mouse model of optic nerve crush injury.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFA novel co-hybrid nano-apatite (n-HA) by introducing lignin derivatives (LDs) and alendronate (ALE) was designed to reinforce poly(lactide-co-glycolide) (PLGA). The effect of different addition methods and contents of LDs, lignin derivatives sorts of lignosulfonate (LS), alkali lignin (AL) and carboxymethyl lignin (CML), and the addition order of ALE on the dispersion of hybrid n-HA, and reinforce effective for PLGA were investigated by FTIR, XRD, TEM, TGA, XPS, N adsorption/desorption, zeta potential, dispersion experiments, universal testing machine, SEM, DSC and POM. The results showed that the addition order could regulate the growth of n-HA crystal planes by binding with Ca, and co-hybrid HA by LDs and ALE possessed better dispersion owing to the synergistic effect.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFBackground: Zhu-Tokita-Takenouchi-Kim (ZTTK, OMIM 617140) syndrome is a severe multisystem developmental disorder characterized by intellectual disability, developmental delay, cortical malformations, epilepsy, visual problems, musculoskeletal abnormalities, and congenital malformations. ZTTK syndrome is caused by a heterozygous pathogenic variant of the SON gene (NM_138927) at chromosome 21q22.1.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFA proximity-enabled protein cross-linking strategy with additional spatiotemporal control is highly desirable. Here, we report an oxidation-induced protein cross-linking strategy involving the incorporation of a vinyl thioether group into proteins in both and mammalian cells via genetic code expansion. We demonstrated that vinyl thioether can be selectively induced by exogenously added oxidant or by reactive oxygen species from the cellular environment, as well as by photocatalysts, and converted into a Michael acceptor, enabling fluorescence labeling and protein cross-linking.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFBone injury caused changes to surrounding tissues, leading to a large number of osteoclasts appeared to clear the damaged bone tissue before bone regeneration. However, overactive osteoclasts will inhibit bone formation. In this study, we prepared methacrylylated gelatin (GelMA)-based hydrogel to co-crosslink with OP3-4 peptide, a receptor activator of NF-κB ligand (RANKL) binding agent, to achieve the slow release of OP3-4 peptide to inhibit the activation of osteoclasts, thus preventing the long-term existence of osteoclasts from affecting bone regeneration, and promoting osteogenic differentiation.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFThe copolymerization of carbon dioxide (CO) with epoxides demonstrates promise as a new synthetic method for low-carbon polymer materials, such as aliphatic polycarbonate materials. In this study, a binary Schiff base cobalt system was successfully used to catalyze the copolymerization of 1,2-butylene oxide (BO) and CO and its terpolymerization with other epoxides such as propylene oxide (PO) and cyclohexene oxide (CHO). H nuclear magnetic resonance (H NMR), diffusion-ordered spectroscopy (DOSY), gel permeation chromatography (GPC), and differential scanning calorimetry (DSC) confirmed the successful synthesis of the alternating terpolymer.
View Article and Find Full Text PDF