Composition and toxicity of total water-soluble flavonoids from Lithocarpus litseifolius (Hance) Chun (sweet tea)

ABSTRACTThe material basis and toxicity of Lithocarpus litseifolius (Hance) Chun (sweet tea), which has many health benefits, are not fully understood. In this study, total water-soluble flavonoids were extracted from sweet tea using optimised methods based on RSM. Its composition and toxicity were investigated by LC–MS and mouse models in vivo. The results showed that the optimum extraction conditions were a liquid/solid ratio of 32.98:1 ml/g, a temperature of 60.69°C, a microwave power of 633.70 W, and a microwave time of 164.08 secs. Among the 33 main components in the extract, five flavonoids constituted more than 73.80% of the total compound content. Total flavonoids were safe after oral administration and alleviated reproductive disorders but were highly toxic after intraperitoneal injection in mice. In summary, under the optimum extraction conditions, the total water-soluble flavonoids were safe after oral administration, but the complex compounds hindered their direct injection.Abbreviations: LLHC: Lithocarpus litseifolius (Hance) Chun; SFD: single-factor design; RSM: response surface methodology; CCD: central composite design; ES: extracted solution; CS concentrated solution; LP: lyophilised powder; LC–MS: liquid chromatography–mass spectrometry; NC: negative control; PH: procaine hydrochloride; CP: cyclophosphamide group

Compensatory Genetic and Transcriptional Cytonuclear Coordination in Allopolyploid Lager Yeast (Saccharomyces pastorianus)

Cytonuclear coordination between biparental-nuclear genomes and uniparental-cytoplasmic organellar genomes in plants is often resolved by genetic and transcriptional cytonuclear responses. Whether this mechanism also acts in allopolyploid members of other kingdoms is not clear. Additionally, cytonuclear coordination of interleaved allopolyploid cells/individuals within the same population is underexplored. The yeast Saccharomyces pastorianus provides the opportunity to explore cytonuclear coevolution during different growth stages and from novel dimensions. Using S. pastorianus cells from multiple growth stages in the same environment, we show that nuclear mitochondria-targeted genes have undergone both asymmetric gene conversion and growth stage-specific biased expression favoring genes from the mitochondrial genome donor (Saccharomyces eubayanus). Our results suggest that cytonuclear coordination in allopolyploid lager yeast species entails an orchestrated and compensatory genetic and transcriptional evolutionary regulatory shift. The common as well as unique properties of cytonuclear coordination underlying allopolyploidy between unicellular yeasts and higher plants offers novel insights into mechanisms of cytonuclear evolution associated with allopolyploid speciation.This article is published as Zhang, Keren, Juzuo Li, Guo Li, Yue Zhao, Yuefan Dong, Ying Zhang, Wenqing Sun et al. "Compensatory genetic and transcriptional cytonuclear coordination in allopolyploid lager yeast (Saccharomyces pastorianus)." Molecular Biology and Evolution 39, no. 11 (2022): msac228. doi:10.1093/molbev/msac228. Posted with permission.This is an Open Access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial License (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/), which permits non-commercial re-use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited

Cell type–specific cytonuclear coevolution in three allopolyploid plant species

Cytonuclear disruption may accompany allopolyploid evolution as a consequence of the merger of different nuclear genomes in a cellular environment having only one set of progenitor organellar genomes. One path to reconcile potential cytonuclear mismatch is biased expression for maternal gene duplicates (homoeologs) encoding proteins that target to plastids and/or mitochondria. Assessment of this transcriptional form of cytonuclear coevolution at the level of individual cells or cell types remains unexplored. Using single-cell (sc-) and single-nucleus (sn-) RNAseq data from eight tissues in three allopolyploid species, we characterized cell type–specific variations of cytonuclear coevolutionary homoeologous expression and demonstrated the temporal dynamics of expression patterns across development stages during cotton fiber development. Our results provide unique insights into transcriptional cytonuclear coevolution in plant allopolyploids at the single-cell level.This article is published as Zhang, Keren, Xueru Zhao, Yue Zhao, Zhibin Zhang, Zhijian Liu, Ziyu Liu, Yanan Yu et al. "Cell type–specific cytonuclear coevolution in three allopolyploid plant species." Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences 120, no. 40 (2023): e2310881120. doi:10.1073/pnas.2310881120. Copyright © 2023 the Author(s). Posted with permission.This open access article is distributed under Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives License 4.0 (CC BY-NC-ND)