Molecular protocol to develop β-carotene-biofortified rice events via molecular optimization.

Providing food with nutrition and functionality is crucial for sustaining human life. Rice (Oryza sativa L.) is a representative staple crop with high carbohydrate content but low amounts of essential amino acids, micronutrients, and carotenoids such as provitamin A.

Patient expectations and satisfaction in hand surgery: A new assessment approach through a valid and reliable survey questionnaire.

Introduction: Assessing patient expectations in orthopaedic surgery has gained significant importance over time. However, there have been only a few studies on how to measure such expectations in hand surgery. Against the backdrop, the study was designed to develop a valid and reliable expectations survey for patients undergoing hand surgery and to identify the correlations between preoperative expectations and postoperative satisfaction.

2A-linked bi-, tri-, and quad-cistrons for the stepwise biosynthesis of β-carotene, zeaxanthin, and ketocarotenoids in rice endosperm.

Foot-and-mouth disease virus (FMDV) 2A constructs have been successfully used for the production of "Golden Rice", a β-carotene producing rice strain. However, to allay public fears and opposition to plants carrying a mammalian pathogenic viral sequence, 2A-like synthetic sequences from virus and Infectious myonecrosis virus were used to coordinate the coexpression of carotenoid biosynthetic genes. Here, up to four carotenogenic genes encoding PSY, CRTI, BCH and BKT were concatenated and produced β-carotene, zeaxanthin, and ketocarotenoids (astaxanthin and adonixanthin) in transgenic rice seeds displaying color variation due to the difference in carotenoid content and composition.

Improvement of neutralizing activity of human scFv antibodies against hepatitis B virus binding using CDR3 V(H) mutant library.

CDR3 of the heavy-chain variable region of immunoglobulin is a region in which somatic mutation occurs heavily after secondary antibody response, resulting in an affinity maturation of antibodies in vivo. The aim of this study was to improve the affinity of a human single-chain variable fragment (scFv) specific for pre-S1 of hepatitis B virus (HBV) by introducing random mutagenesis in CDR3 variable region of heavy chain (V(H)) of the parental scFv clone 1E4. By using a BIAcore for panning and screening, we have selected three clones (A9, B2, and B9) with lower highest affinity (K(D)) than 1E4.

TGF-beta1 inhibits Fas-mediated apoptosis by regulating surface Fas and cFLIPL expression in human leukaemia/lymphoma cells.

Transforming growth factor-beta1 (TGF-beta1) is a pleiotrophic cytokine that mediates differentiation, growth, and apoptosis. As a potent immunosuppressive agent, TGF-beta1 induces apoptosis in primary lymphocytes. However, it has been recognized that TGF-beta1 plays certain roles in development or progression of hematopoietic tumours via inhibition of Fas-mediated apoptotic cell death.