The Traitor

The proteolytic activation of protein kinase Cδ (PKCδ) generates a catalytic fragment called PKCδ-CF, which induces cell death. However, the mechanisms underlying PKCδ-CF-mediated cell death are largely unknown. On the basis of an engineering leukemic cell line with inducible expression of PKCδ-CF, here we employ SILAC-based quantitative phosphoproteomics to systematically and dynamically investigate the overall phosphorylation events during cell death triggered by PKCδ-CF expression. Totally, 3000 phosphorylation sites were analyzed. Considering the fact that early responses to PKCδ-CF expression initiate cell death, we sought to identify pathways possibly related directly with PKCδ by further analyzing the data set of phosphorylation events that occur in the initiation stage of cell death. Interacting analysis of this data set indicates that PKCδ-CF triggers complicated networks to initiate cell death, and motif analysis and biochemistry verification reveal that several kinases in the downstream of PKCδ conduct these networks. By analysis of the specific sequence motif of kinase-substrate, we also find 59 candidate substrates of PKCδ from the up-regulated phosphopeptides, of which 12 were randomly selected for <i>in vitro</i> kinase assay and 9 were consequently verified as substrates of PKCδ. To our greatest understanding, this study provides the most systematic analysis of phosphorylation events initiated by the cleaved activated PKCδ, which would vastly extend the profound understanding of PKCδ-directed signal pathways in cell death. The MS data have been deposited to the ProteomeXchange with identifier PXD000225

Marx for his times. Book Review of: 'Karl Marx : greatness and illusion' by Gareth Stedman Jones

Potential downstream targets for CD274. RNA-sequencing was performed with WT and CD274-null LICs, and the candidate genes related to proliferation and cell cycle was analyzed. (PDF 116 kb

Plastics Derived from Biological Sources: Present and Future: A Technical and Environmental Review

Plastics Derived from Biological Sources: Present and Future: A Technical and Environmental Revie

Iterative Multiscale Computational Fluid Dynamics–Single-Particle Model for Intraparticle Transfer and Catalytic Hydrogenation Reaction of Dimethyl Oxalate in a Fluidized-Bed Reactor

In this work, the coupled model based on an iterative approach was developed to describe the flow behavior and catalytic hydrogenation of dimethyl oxalate (DMO) in a fluidized-bed reactor (FBR). First, a single-particle model (SPM) and a computational fluid dynamics (CFD) model were constructed, respectively. A set of hyperbola-like kinetics equations were included in the SPM. Subsequently, we assumed that all catalyst particles inside each small computational cell for the CFD model experience the same external conditions, which ensures the effective coupling of the two models above. The assumption and the coupled model have been validated by evaluating the above assumption and comparing with the experimental data, respectively. Based on the validated model, the predictions of the two classical diffusion equations (i.e., the Wilke–Bosanquet diffusion equation and the Fick or Wilke diffusion equation) are compared. In addition, the main flow field and reaction parameters in the FBR were investigated numerically. The results indicated that the intrapartice transfer resistance rises with the increase of the particle size, while it is not obvious for the selected studied system. The results also indicated that all of the species mass fraction distributions become more even as the catalyst size becomes smaller and the different diffusion models have little influence on simulation results. The simulated results here also demonstrated that one is capable of investigating reactor behavior at relatively low computational cost by using the proposed multiscale model

A CFD Modeling Approach to Design a New Gas Barrier in a Multizone Circulating Polymerization Reactor

In this work, the CFD modeling approach, which is an old approach in chemical engineering, is extended to the propylene polymerization process in a multizone circulating reactor (MZCR) in order to design a new gas-barrier system in the MZCR from the fluid-dynamics viewpoint. First, the CFD modeling approach based on an Eulerian–Eulerian model, incorporating a kinetic theory of granular flow, is applied to describe the gas–solid flow in a polypropylene MZCR. Furthermore, the modeling approach is used to obtain important operation data of the gas-barrier inlet and to optimize the gas-barrier inlet configuration. Accordingly, the entire field in the MZCR with the optimal gas-barrier system above is predicted. The simulation results show that the four-way tangential gas-barrier configuration is suitable in the MZCR, which is the first use of a gas-barrier inlet that allows an optimal flow field in the MZCR. This article has reported an old approach in chemical engineering that has been applied to a new field for the purpose of designing a new gas barrier, which opens up a new research field in the olefin polymerization process

Microbial Synthesis of 5‑Aminolevulinic Acid and Its Coproduction with Polyhydroxybutyrate

5-Aminolevulinic acid (ALA), an important cell metabolic intermediate useful for cancer treatments or plant growth regulator, was produced by recombinant <i>Escherichia coli</i> expressing the codon optimized mitochondrial 5-aminolevulinic acid synthase (EC: 2.3.1.37, <i>hem1</i>) from <i>Saccharomyces cerevisiae</i> controlled via the plasmid encoding T7 expression system with a T7 RNA polymerase. When a more efficient autoinduced expression approach free of IPTG was applied, the recombinant containing antibiotic-free stabilized plasmid was able to produce 3.6 g/L extracellular ALA in shake flask studies under optimized temperature. A recombinant <i>E. coli</i> expressing synthesis pathways of poly-3-hydroxybutyrate (PHB) and ALA resulted in coproduction of 43% PHB in the cell dry weights and 1.6 g/L extracellular ALA, leading to further reduction on ALA cost as two products were harvested both intracellularly and extracellularly. This was the first study on coproduction of extracellular ALA and intracellular PHB for improving bioprocessing efficiency. The cost of ALA production could be further reduced by employing a <i>Halomonas</i> spp. TD01 able to grow and produce ALA and PHB under continuous and unsterile conditions even though ALA had the highest titer of only 0.7 g/L at the present time

Effects of the overlapping lengths and T4 DNA ligase on fragment assembly using NE-LIC coupled with <i>in vivo</i> circularization.

<p>(A) Flowsheet of the <i>R6K-attL</i> and <i>attR-kan</i> fragment assembly. (B) Comparison of the assembly efficiency of different overlapping lengths using both 3′-end single-stranded annealing (5′-end digestion using Nb.BbvCI) with/without T4 DNA ligase (left) and 5′-end single-stranded annealing (3′-end digestion using Nt.BspQI) without T4 DNA ligase (right). The 3′- and 5′-end overlaps of 5 bp, 10 bp, 15 bp, 20 bp and 25 bp generated by Nb.BbvCI/Nt.BspQI were listed. Overlapping base pairs were underlined. NEase sites were underlined with dotted lines. DNA gel electrophoresis verified the assembly results.</p

Effects of non-complementary nucleotides in the single-stranded DNA tails on assembly efficiency.

<p>Three groups of ss DNA overlaps generation methods: (A) Generation of ss DNA overlapping tails using T4 DNA polymerase led to uncontrollable lengths of the non-complementary nucleotides besides the homologous parts; (B) Nb.BbvCI based generation of ss DNA overlaps with two non-complementary nucleotides designed at the inside end as a small gap; (C) Formation of seamless ss DNA overlaps using Nb.BbvCI. The homologous overlaps were designed with lengths of 5 bp, 10 bp, 15 bp, 20 bp, and 25 bp, respectively. DNA gel electrophoresis of (A), (B) and (C) verified the assembly results. (D) The successful recombinants resulted from of the three (A), (B) and (C) groups, respectively.</p

Comparison of cloning efficiencies of three methods producing different single-stranded overlaps.

<p>Comparison of cloning efficiencies of three methods producing different single-stranded overlaps.</p