Establishing an EU-China consortium on traditional Chinese medicine research.

Traditional Chinese medicine (TCM) is widely used in the European Union (EU) and attracts intense research interests from European scientists. As an emerging area in Europe, TCM research requires collaboration and coordination of actions. Good Practice in Traditional Chinese Medicine Research in the Post-genomic Era, also known as GP-TCM, is the first ever EU-funded 7th Framework Programme (FP7) coordination action, aiming to inform the best practice and harmonise research on the safety and efficacy of TCM through interdisciplinary exchange of experience and expertise among clinicians and scientists. With its increasingly large pool of expertise across 19 countries including 13 EU member states, Australia, Canada, China, Norway, Thailand and the USA, the consortium provides forums and collaboration platforms on quality control, extraction technology, component analysis, toxicology, pharmacology and regulatory issues of Chinese herbal medicine (CHM), as well as on acupuncture studies, with a particular emphasis on the application of a functional genomics approach. The project officially started in May 2009 and by the time of its conclusion in April 2012 a Europe-based academic society dedicated to TCM research will be founded to carry on the mission of GP-TCM.RIGHTS : This article is licensed under the BioMed Central licence at http://www.biomedcentral.com/about/license which is similar to the 'Creative Commons Attribution Licence'. In brief you may : copy, distribute, and display the work; make derivative works; or make commercial use of the work - under the following conditions: the original author must be given credit; for any reuse or distribution, it must be made clear to others what the license terms of this work are

Probiotics and gut health: A special focus on liver diseases

Probiotic bacteria have well-established beneficial effects in the management of diarrhoeal diseases. Newer evidence suggests that probiotics have the potential to reduce the risk of developing inflammatory bowel diseases and intestinal bacterial overgrowth after gut surgery. In liver health, the main benefits of probiotics might occur through preventing the production and/or uptake of lipopolysaccharides in the gut, and therefore reducing levels of low-grade inflammation. Specific immune stimulation by probiotics through processes involving dendritic cells might also be beneficial to the host immunological status and help prevent pathogen translocation. Hepatic fat metabolism also seems to be influenced by the presence of commensal bacteria, and potentially by probiotics; although the mechanisms by which probiotic might act on the liver are still unclear. However, this might be of major importance in the future because low-grade inflammation, hepatic fat infiltration, and hepatitis might become more prevalent as a result of high fat intake and the increased prevalence of obesity

Response of the Hepatic Transcriptome to Aflatoxin B₁ in Domestic Turkey (<i>Meleagris gallopavo</i>)

<div><p>Dietary exposure to aflatoxin B₁ (AFB₁) is detrimental to avian health and leads to major economic losses for the poultry industry. AFB₁ is especially hepatotoxic in domestic turkeys (<i>Meleagris gallopavo</i>), since these birds are unable to detoxify AFB₁ by glutathione-conjugation. The impacts of AFB₁ on the turkey hepatic transcriptome and the potential protection from pretreatment with a <i>Lactobacillus</i>-based probiotic mixture were investigated through RNA-sequencing. Animals were divided into four treatment groups and RNA was subsequently recovered from liver samples. Four pooled RNA-seq libraries were sequenced to produce over 322 M reads totaling 13.8 Gb of sequence. Approximately 170,000 predicted transcripts were <i>de novo</i> assembled, of which 803 had significant differential expression in at least one pair-wise comparison between treatment groups. Functional analysis linked many of the transcripts significantly affected by AFB₁ exposure to cancer, apoptosis, the cell cycle or lipid regulation. Most notable were transcripts from the genes encoding E3 ubiquitin-protein ligase Mdm2, osteopontin, S-adenosylmethionine synthase isoform type-2, and lipoprotein lipase. Expression was modulated by the probiotics, but treatment did not completely mitigate the effects of AFB₁. Genes identified through transcriptome analysis provide candidates for further study of AFB₁ toxicity and targets for efforts to improve the health of domestic turkeys exposed to AFB₁.</p></div

Transcripts involved in steatosis or lipid metabolism with significant DE in treatment comparisons to CNTL.

<p>Putative functions were identified for transcripts with significant differential expression (DE) (q-value ≤0.05) using IPA, BLAST2GO or primary literature. Log₂ fold change (FC) and q-values were determined for transcripts in the aflatoxin B₁ (AFB), probiotic mixture (PB), and probiotic + aflatoxin B₁ (PBAFB) groups compared to the control (CNTL) group using DESeq <a href="http://www.plosone.org/article/info:doi/10.1371/journal.pone.0100930#pone.0100930-Anders2" target="_blank">[27]</a>. Non-significant transcripts (q-value >0.05) are shown in grey.</p>1<p>See <a href="http://www.plosone.org/article/info:doi/10.1371/journal.pone.0100930#pone.0100930.s011" target="_blank">Table S3</a> for complete BLAST annotation for these transcripts.</p>2<p>Multiple transcripts had significant DE for these genes; only most significant for each pair-wise comparison is shown.</p

Comparative transcriptome content in domestic turkey liver.

<p>The number of transcripts shared or unique to each combination of treatments after filtering is indicated in each section of the diagram. Totals for the control (CNTL), aflatoxin B₁ (AFB), probiotic mixture (PB), and probiotic + aflatoxin B₁ (PBAFB) groups are shown above each ellipse.</p

Magnitude of expression changes in transcripts with significant DE in each comparison between treatments.

<p>The number of significantly up- or down-regulated transcripts in each range of log₂ fold change (FC) is illustrated for each pair-wise comparison. (A) Transcripts with significant differential expression (DE) in the aflatoxin B₁ (AFB), probiotic mixture (PB) and probiotic + aflatoxin B₁ (PBAFB) groups compared to the control (CNTL) group. (B) Transcripts with significant DE in PBAFB compared to AFB and PB.</p

Summary of the <i>de novo</i> liver transcriptome assembly.

1<p>Predicted transcripts were filtered according to a coverage threshold of 0.1 read/million mapped.</p

Transcripts involved in carcinogenesis and/or apoptosis with significant DE in treatment comparisons to CNTL.

<p>Putative functions were identified for transcripts with significant differential expression (DE) (q-value ≤0.05) using IPA, BLAST2GO or through primary literature. Log₂ fold change (FC) and q-values were determined for transcripts in the aflatoxin B₁ (AFB), probiotic mixture (PB), and probiotic + aflatoxin B₁ (PBAFB) groups compared to the control (CNTL) group using DESeq <a href="http://www.plosone.org/article/info:doi/10.1371/journal.pone.0100930#pone.0100930-Anders2" target="_blank">[27]</a>. Non-significant transcripts (q-value >0.05) are shown in grey.</p>1<p>See <a href="http://www.plosone.org/article/info:doi/10.1371/journal.pone.0100930#pone.0100930.s011" target="_blank">Table S3</a> for complete BLAST annotation for these transcripts.</p>2<p>Multiple transcripts had significant DE for these genes; only most significant for each pair-wise comparison is shown.</p