Antioxidant and antiglycemic potential of Peltophorum pterocarpum plant parts

The leaf and bark extracts of Peltophorum pterocarpum were evaluated for their DPPH, ARTS, and galvinoxyl radicals scavenging activity, phenolic content, alpha-glucosidase, alpha-amylase and aldose reductase inhibition, and advanced glycation end-products formation inhibition activities. These extracts showed a far more significant antiglycemic activity compared to the commercial carbohydrate inhibitor, acarbose. The active compound in P. pterocarpum leaf extracts was identified to be quercetin-3-O-beta-D-galactopyranoside. Our findings provide a strong rationale for further in vivo studies and to establish P. pterocarpum's capability as an antiglycemic agent. (C) 2011 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved

Transcriptome landscape of human primary monocytes at different sequencing depth

Differential gene and transcript expression pattern of human primary monocytes from healthy young subjects were profiled under different sequencing depths (50M, 100M, and 200M reads). The raw data consisted of 1.3 billion reads generated from RNA sequencing (RNA-Seq) experiments. A total of 17,657 genes and 75,392 transcripts were obtained at sequencing depth of 200M. Total splice junction reads showed an even more significant increase. Comparative analysis of the expression patterns of immune-related genes revealed a total of 217 differentially expressed (DE) protein-coding genes and 50 DE novel transcripts, in which 40 DE protein-coding genes were related to the immune system. At higher sequencing depth, more genes, known and novel transcripts were identified and larger proportion of reads were allowed to map across splice junctions. The results also showed that increase in sequencing depth has no effect on the sequence alignment