Arabidopsis PDLP7 modulated plasmodesmata function is related to BG10-dependent glucosidase activity required for callose degradation.

The microdomains of plasmodesmata, specialized cell-wall channels responsible for communications between neighboring cells, are composed of various plasmodesmata-located proteins (PDLPs) and lipids. Here, we found that, among all PDLP or homologous proteins in Arabidopsis thaliana genome, PDLP5 and PDLP7 possessed a C-terminal sphingolipid-binding motif, with the latter being the only member that was significantly upregulated upon turnip mosaic virus and cucumber mosaic virus infections. pdlp7 mutant plants exhibited significantly reduced callose deposition, larger plasmodesmata diameters, and faster viral transmission.

Probiotics-Fermented Total Active Components: Better Antioxidation and Microflora Regulation for Alleviating Alcoholic Liver Damage in Mice.

Alcoholic liver damage is caused by long-term drinking, and it further develops into alcoholic liver diseases. In this study, we prepared a probiotic fermentation product of total active components (PFGF) by fermentation with , , and . After fermentation, the total sugar and protein content in the PFGF significantly decreased, while the lactic acid level and antioxidant activity of the PFGF increased.

PROTEIN S-ACYL TRANSFERASE 13/16 modulate disease resistance by S-acylation of the nucleotide binding, leucine-rich repeat protein R5L1 in Arabidopsis.

Nucleotide binding, leucine-rich repeat (NB-LRR) proteins are critical for disease resistance in plants, while we do not know whether S-acylation of these proteins plays a role during bacterial infection. We identified 30 Arabidopsis mutants with mutations in NB-LRR encoding genes from the Nottingham Arabidopsis Stock Center and characterized their contribution to the plant immune response after inoculation with Pseudomonas syringae pv tomato DC3000 (Pst DC3000). Of the five mutants that were hyper-susceptible to the pathogen, three (R5L1, R5L2 and RPS5) proteins contain the conserved S-acylation site in the N-terminal coiled-coil (CC) domain.

Effect of oxymatrine on liver gluconeogenesis is associated with the regulation of PEPCK and G6Pase expression and AKT phosphorylation.

An increase in liver gluconeogenesis is an important pathological phenomenon in type 2 diabetes mellitus (T2DM) and oxymatrine is an effective natural drug used for T2DM treatment. The present study aimed to explore the effect of oxymatrine on gluconeogenesis and elucidate the underlying mechanism. Male Sprague-Dawley rats were treated with a high-fat diet and streptozotocin for 4 weeks to induce T2DM, and HepG2 cells were treated with 55 mM glucose to simulate T2DM .

Recent Advances and Future Perspectives in Cotton Research.

Cotton is not only the world's most important natural fiber crop, but it is also an ideal system in which to study genome evolution, polyploidization, and cell elongation. With the assembly of five different cotton genomes, a cotton-specific whole-genome duplication with an allopolyploidization process that combined the A- and D-genomes became evident. All existing A-genomes seemed to originate from the A-genome as a common ancestor, and several transposable element bursts contributed to A-genome size expansion and speciation.

Phytosphinganine Affects Plasmodesmata Permeability via Facilitating PDLP5-Stimulated Callose Accumulation in Arabidopsis.

Plant plasmodesmata (PDs) are specialized channels that enable communication between neighboring cells. The intercellular permeability of PDs, which affects plant development, defense, and responses to stimuli, must be tightly regulated. However, the lipid compositions of PD membrane and their impact on PD permeability remain elusive.

A special issue to mark the 90th Anniversary of College of Life Sciences, Zhejiang University.

The College of Life Sciences (CLS) remains one of the most prestigious-and the oldest-colleges in Zhejiang University. This special issue, which includes 16 reviews contributed by our alumni and faculties, is dedicated to mark the 90th Anniversary of CLS. The reviews provide a glimpse of current progresses in the areas of life sciences such as biochemical processes and their association with diseases (Ding et al.

An Optically Induced Dielectrophoresis (ODEP)-Based Microfluidic System for the Isolation of High-Purity CD45/EpCAM Cells from the Blood Samples of Cancer Patients-Demonstration and Initial Exploration of the Clinical Significance of These Cells.

Circulating tumour cells (CTCs) in blood circulation play an important role in cancer metastasis. CTCs are generally defined as the cells in circulating blood expressing the surface antigen EpCAM (epithelial cell adhesion molecule). Nevertheless, CTCs with a highly metastatic nature might undergo an epithelial-to-mesenchymal transition (EMT), after which their EpCAM expression is downregulated.

Two-Step Functional Innovation of the Stem-Cell Factors WUS/WOX5 during Plant Evolution.

WUS and WOX5, which are expressed, respectively, in the organizing center (OC) and the quiescent center (QC), are essential for shoot/root apical stem-cell maintenance in flowering plants. However, little is known about how these stem-cell factors evolved their functions in flowering plants. Here, we show that the WUS/WOX5 proteins acquired two distinct capabilities by a two-step functional innovation process in the course of plant evolution.

Recent advances in the research for the homolog of breast cancer associated gene AtROW1 in higher plants.

BARD1 (BRCA1 associated RING domain protein 1), as an important animal tumor suppressor gene associated with many kinds of cancers, has been intensively studied for decades. Surprisingly, homolog of BARD1 was found in plants and it was renamed AtROW1 (repressor of Wuschel-1) according to its extremely important function with regard to plant stem cell homeostasis. Although great advances have been made in human BARD1, the function of this animal tumor-suppressor like gene in plant is not well studied and need to be further elucidated.

Genome-scale analysis of the cotton KCS gene family revealed a binary mode of action for gibberellin A regulated fiber growth.

Production of β-ketoacyl-CoA, which is catalyzed by 3-ketoacyl-CoA synthase (KCS), is the first step in very long chain fatty acid (VLCFA) biosynthesis. Here we identified 58 KCS genes from Gossypium hirsutum, 31 from G. arboreum and 33 from G.

Targeted Lipidomics Studies Reveal that Linolenic Acid Promotes Cotton Fiber Elongation by Activating Phosphatidylinositol and Phosphatidylinositol Monophosphate Biosynthesis.

The membrane lipids from fast-elongating wild-type cotton (Gossypium hirsutum) fibers at 10 days post-anthesis, wild-type ovules with fiber cells removed, and ovules from the fuzzless-lintless mutant harvested at the same age, were extracted, separated, and quantified. Fiber cells contained significantly higher amounts of phosphatidylinositol (PI) than both ovule samples with PI 34:3 being the most predominant species. The genes encoding fatty acid desaturases (Δ(15)GhFAD), PI synthase (PIS) and PI kinase (PIK) were expressed in a fiber-preferential manner.

ROW1 maintains quiescent centre identity by confining WOX5 expression to specific cells.

The quiescent centre (QC) in the Arabidopsis root apical meristem is essential for stem cell organization. Here we show that the loss of REPRESSOR OF WUSCHEL1 (ROW1), a PHD domain-containing protein, leads to QC failure, defects in cell differentiation and ectopic expression of WUSCHEL-RELATED HOMEOBOX 5 (WOX5) in cells that normally express ROW1. The wox5-1/row1-3 double mutants show similar phenotypes to wox5-1 indicating that WOX5 is epistatic to ROW1.

Single-nucleotide resolution mapping of the Gossypium raimondii transcriptome reveals a new mechanism for alternative splicing of introns.

Alternative splicing (AS) is a vital genetic mechanism that enhances the diversity of eukaryotic transcriptomes. Here, we generated 8.3 Gb high-quality RNA-sequencing data from cotton (Gossypium raimondii) and performed a systematic, comparative analysis of AS events.

Using genome-referenced expressed sequence tag assembly to analyze the origin and expression patterns of Gossypium hirsutum transcripts.

We assembled a total of 297,239 Gossypium hirsutum (Gh, a tetraploid cotton, AADD) expressed sequence tag (EST) sequences that were available in the National Center for Biotechnology Information database, with reference to the recently published G. raimondii (Gr, a diploid cotton, DD) genome, and obtained 49,125 UniGenes. The average lengths of the UniGenes were increased from 804 and 791 bp in two previous EST assemblies to 1,019 bp in the current analysis.

The draft genome of a diploid cotton Gossypium raimondii.

We have sequenced and assembled a draft genome of G. raimondii, whose progenitor is the putative contributor of the D subgenome to the economically important fiber-producing cotton species Gossypium hirsutum and Gossypium barbadense. Over 73% of the assembled sequences were anchored on 13 G.

Identification and analyses of miRNA genes in allotetraploid Gossypium hirsutum fiber cells based on the sequenced diploid G. raimondii genome.

The plant genome possesses a large number of microRNAs (miRNAs) mainly 21-24 nucleotides in length. They play a vital role in regulation of target gene expression at various stages throughout the whole plant life cycle. Here we sequenced and analyzed ≈ 10 million non-coding RNAs (ncRNAs) derived from fiber tissue of the allotetraploid cotton (Gossypium hirsutum) 7 days post-anthesis using ncRNA-seq technology.

Scientific publications in nephrology and urology journals from Chinese authors in East Asia: a 10-year survey of the literature.

Background: Diseases of the kidneys and genitourinary tract are common health problems that affect people of all ages and demographic backgrounds. In this study, we compared the quantity and quality of nephrological and urological articles published in international journals from the three major regions of China: the mainland (ML), Hong Kong (HK), and Taiwan (TW).

Methods: Nephrological and urological articles originating from ML, TW, and HK that were published in 61 journals from 1999-2008 were retrieved from the PubMed database.

How cotton fibers elongate: a tale of linear cell-growth mode.

Cotton fibers (cotton lint) are single-celled trichomes that differentiate from the ovule epidermis. Unidirectional and fast-growing cells generally expand at the dome-shaped apical zone (tip-growth mode); however, previous studies suggest that elongating fiber cells expand via a diffuse-growth mode. Tip-localized Ca(2+) gradient and active secretary vesicle trafficking are two important phenomena of tip-growth.

Comparative proteomics indicates that biosynthesis of pectic precursors is important for cotton fiber and Arabidopsis root hair elongation.

The quality of cotton fiber is determined by its final length and strength, which is a function of primary and secondary cell wall deposition. Using a comparative proteomics approach, we identified 104 proteins from cotton ovules 10 days postanthesis with 93 preferentially accumulated in the wild type and 11 accumulated in the fuzzless-lintless mutant. Bioinformatics analysis indicated that nucleotide sugar metabolism was the most significantly up-regulated biochemical process during fiber elongation.

BARD1 may be renamed ROW1 because it functions mainly as a REPRESSOR OF WUSCHEL1.

Human BRCA1 (BRreast CAncer susceptible gene1) is known to involve in cell cycle control, transcriptional regulation, DNA recombination, DNA repair and many other processes. hBARD1 (BRCA1-Associated Ring Domain 1) forms heterodimer via its N-terminal conserved RING domain with BRCA1. In Arabidopsis, two genes, At4g21070 and At1g04020, that share N-terminal RING domain and C-terminal BRCT (for BRCA1 C-Terminal) domains with no substantial similarities for other motifs, have been identified.