Enzyme Kinetics Studies of Nucleoside Diphosphate Kinase in Human Erythrocytes and Frequency Distribution in Healthy Subjects and Transplant Recipients in Chinese Han Population

ABSTRACT Nucleoside diphosphate kinase (NDPK), as a house-keeping protein, involves in various molecular processes including signal transduction, energy and drug metabolism. The main objective was to investigate NDPK kinetics in human erythrocytes and to monitor the frequency distribution of NDPK activity levels in Chinese healthy subjects and transplant recipients. METHODS: NDPK activity in erythrocytes was detected by a validated ion-pair high-performance liquid chromatogram method. NDPK kinetics studies were carried out systematically. NDPK activity levels were determined in 500 healthy subjects, 250 kidney and 250 liver transplant recipients in Chinese Han population. RESULTS: Thermal and pH stability studies indicated NDPK was relatively stable at temperature 30-45ºC and pH 6.0-9.0. In substrate dependency study, the apparent Michaelis-Menten constant (K m ) and maximum velocity of enzymatic reaction (V max ) increased with concentration of substrates. Meanwhile, in product inhibition study, with the increasing concentration of dATP, the V max of dADP decreased with constant K m and K m of dGTP increased with constant V max . NDPK activity levels revealed a 7-fold variability and were not normally distributed in all groups. NDPK activity levels were significantly (P<0.05) higher in transplant group than those in health group. Additionally, much higher NDPK activity levels had been shown (P<0.001) in liver transplant recipients when compared to kidney transplant cases. CONCLUSIONS: NDPK kinetics studies indicated substrate dependency of NDPK and a "ping-pong" mechanism for production inhibition. Skewness distributions of NDPK activity levels were shown in the study population. The transplant recipients showed higher NDPK activity levels when compared to healthy subjects

Landscape practices and representations in eighteenth-century Dongchuan, Southwest China

My doctorial thesis, entitled ‘Landscape Practices and Representations in Dongchuan, Southwest Eighteenth-Century China’, focuses on the interdisciplinary study of landscape, space and architecture in Southwest eighteenth-century China. Through intensive archival research and contemporary ethnographic fieldwork I demonstrate that despite the Qing Empire’s remaking of the indigenous landscape in the eighteenth century, indigenous concepts of landscape and space have survived to the present in people’s stories and myths.LEI Universiteit LeidenAsian Studie