Chicken IFI6 inhibits avian reovirus replication and affects related innate immune signaling pathways

Interferon-alpha inducible protein 6 (IFI6) is an important interferon-stimulated gene. To date, research on IFI6 has mainly focused on human malignant tumors, virus-related diseases and autoimmune diseases. Previous studies have shown that IFI6 plays an important role in antiviral, antiapoptotic and tumor-promoting cellular functions, but few studies have focused on the structure or function of avian IFI6. Avian reovirus (ARV) is an important virus that can exert immunosuppressive effects on poultry. Preliminary studies have shown that IFI6 expression is upregulated in various tissues and organs of specific-pathogen-free chickens infected with ARV, suggesting that IFI6 plays an important role in ARV infection. To analyze the function of avian IFI6, particularly in ARV infection, the chicken IFI6 gene was cloned, a bioinformatics analysis was conducted, and the roles of IFI6 in ARV replication and the innate immune response were investigated after the overexpression or knockdown of IFI6 in vitro. The results indicated that the molecular weight of the chicken IFI6 protein was approximately 11 kDa and that its structure was similar to that of the human IFI27L1 protein. A phylogenetic tree analysis of the IFI6 amino acid sequence revealed that the evolution of mammals and birds was clearly divided into two branches. The evolutionary history and homology of chickens are similar to those of other birds. Avian IFI6 localized to the cytoplasm and was abundantly expressed in the chicken lung, intestine, pancreas, liver, spleen, glandular stomach, thymus, bursa of Fabricius and trachea. Further studies demonstrated that IFI6 overexpression in DF-1 cells inhibited ARV replication and that the inhibition of IFI6 expression promoted ARV replication. After ARV infection, IFI6 modulated the expression of various innate immunity-related factors. Notably, the expression patterns of MAVS and IFI6 were similar, and the expression patterns of IRF1 and IFN-β were opposite to those of IFI6. The results of this study further advance the research on avian IFI6 and provide a theoretical basis for further research on the role of IFI6 in avian virus infection and innate immunity

Hemagglutinin-mediated Influenza Viral Entry: Identification of Molecular Determinants on Host Tropism

Influenza A virus causes seasonal flu in humans and occasionally pandemics in humans and poultry, resulting in high mortality diseases and huge economic loss. The Biggest threat comes from the highly pathogenic avian influenza which may break species barrier and become the source of a potential flu pandemic. Entry is the first step in viral infection which is mediated by viral glycoprotein hemagglutinin (HA) binding to host cell surface sialic acid (SA)-terminated gangliosides. Species specific SA plays an important role in the determination of influenza host specificity. The SA binding pocket of the HA has been well studied and the important residues for receptor binding have been identified. In this study, we have characterized the new role of the surface located, highly conserved residues within all 16 subtypes of HA1 subunit in influenza A viral entry and host tropism determination. Also, we have evaluated the specificity of H5 HA1 subunit in H5N1 viral entry by using computer modeling and biochemical methods. Our results revealed two major categories of residues which are critical in SA recognition and viral entry. One such residue is Y161 which is highly conserved in all 16 subtypes of HA1. Y161 plays a critical role in influenza host tropism by affecting viral recognition of different species of SAs from different hosts. The other category includes H117 and D241 which are H5 HA1 specific conserved residues, whose charge at a specific position plays an essential role in SA binding affecting viral entry, however, without affecting SA species specificity. Our study contributes to a better understanding of the role of different domains of HA in influenza viral entry. These new insights will help elucidate the mechanism of influenza A viral entry and provides a promising lead to the development of HA inhibitors

Macro and trace elements bioavailability in vegetable and herbal species from polluted and control areas

Several plant species (R. acetosa, S. oleracea, U. dioica, А. Sativum, A. cepa and P. hortense) were studied to determine macro and trace elements content trends and their bioavailable forms. The total contents of 21 elements: (1) macro biogenic elements (Ca, K, Na, Mg, and P), (2) elements that have the essential functionality in microcontents (Ba, Cr, Li, Cu, Fe, Mo, Mn, Sr and Zn), and elements that are toxic even in traces (Ag, Al, As, Cd, Ni, Pb and V) were determined with the application of atomic emission spectrometry with inductively coupled plasma (ICP-AES). The total concentrations were measured in samples after total mineralization with concentrated nitric acid and hydrogen peroxide in a microwave digestion system. Three extraction methods were implemented for determination of bioavailable contents in the soil: (1) Extraction with deionized H2O that provides information on the actual availability of the elements in the soil solution; (2) Extraction with 0.1 M HCl. (3) Extraction of the soluble species of trace elements in a mixed buffered solution (pH= 7.3) of triethanolamine (TEA, 0.1 mol L−1) with CaCl2 (0.01 mol L−1) and diethylenetriaminepentaacetic acid (DTPA, 0.005 mol L−1), which is often recommended for extraction of toxic or biogenic metals. Translocation enrichments were obtained for As, Cd, Cu, Ni, Pb and Zn. All of the analyzed species show potential for phytoextraction and phytostabilization of Cd, Cu, Pb and Zn

Switchmode Hydraulic Power Supply Theory

ABSTRACT Switchmode hydraulic power supply is a new kind of energy-saving pressure converting system, which is originally proposed by the authors. It is mainly applied in multipleactuator hydraulic systems, and installed between hydraulic pump and actuators (one switchmode hydraulic power supply for one actuator). It can provide pressure or flow rate that is adapted to the consumption of each actuator in the system by boosting or bucking the pressure, with low power loss, and conveniently, through high-speed switch valves, just like a hydraulic pressure transformer. There are two basic types of switchmode hydraulic power supply: pressure boost and pressure buck. Their structures and working principles are introduced. The dynamic characteristics of two typical types of switchmode hydraulic power supply, the pressure boost type and the pressure buck type, were analyzed through simulations and experiments. The performances were evaluated, and improvements on the efficiency of switchmode hydraulic power supply were proposed. INTRODUCTION A practical advantage of hydraulic systems is their multipleactuator characteristic, i.e., multiple actuators can be driven simultaneously by a single hydraulic power supply. Currently, there are three kinds of multiple-actuator hydraulic systems in terms of the power supply used, the throttle control systems, the load sensing systems and the secondary regulation systems. To compare the performance of different systems, one can take a three-actuator system as an example. The energy losses of these three kinds of multiple-actuator hydraulic systems are shown i

Characterization of multi-elements content and isotopes ratio profiles for various plant food due to the historical and modern metal pollution

Determination of the geographical origin of food and beverages has been a growing issue over the past decade for all countries around the world, mostly because of the concern of consumers about the authenticity of the food that they eat. An increasing number of research articles in the past years have investigated the elemental composition and the isotope ratios as indicators to determine the origin of food and beverages. The present investigation summarized the data for application of validated method including multi-element and multi-isotope chemical characterization and the statistical tools in order to be used for determination of the geographical origin of food and beverages. Comparative analysis (between samples collected from R. Macedonia vs. samples collected from P. R. China) were used for improving the large-scale application of the implemented proposed method. Inductively coupled plasma with mass spectrometry (quadropole based) was used for the isotopic measurements of the following total 69 elements: Ag, As, Al, Au, B, Ba, Be, Bi, Br, Ca, Cd, Ce, Co, Cr, Cs, Cu, Dy, Er, Eu, Fe, Ga, Gd, Ge, Hf, Hg, Ho, I, In,Ir, K, La, Li, Lu, Mg, Mn, Mo, Na, Nb, Nd, Ni, Os, P,Pb, Pd, Pr, Pt, Rb, Re, Rh, Ru, Sb, Sc, Se, Sm, Sn, Sr, Ta, Tb, Te, Ti, Th, Tl, Tm, V, W, Y, Yb, Zn and Zr

Characterization of Multi-element Profiles and Multi-isotope Ratio Records as a Tool for Determination of the Geographical Origin of Various Plant Species

Determination of food authenticity is an important issue in quality control and food safety. In recent years, many serious diseases appeared related to foodstuffs, so providing the motivation for the scientific community to work more intensively in this area. Authenticity is a quality criterion for food and food ingredients and is required more and more worldwide, as a result of legislative protection for regional foods. Reviews of analytical methods for the determination of geographical origin of food and beverages have been published. However, organic components of a food crop production depend on various conditions (e.g. fertilization, history of the field, climatic conditions in the year of cultivation, geographic location and soil composition), so it is not always possible to determine the origin of a product by analysing the organic components. Additionally, methods based on elemental composition have been reviewed as have methods based on isotope ratios. Over the past decade, with the development of new advanced analytical techniques [e.g. thermal ionization MS (TIMS), inductively coupled plasma MS (ICP-MS) and dynamic reaction cell-ICPMS (DRC-ICPMS)], we can successfully retrieve elemental and isotopic compositions of any given food sample and determine the geographic origin successfully. The growing concern of the consumers stimulated scientific research and publications in recent years, including multi-element and isotope ratio methods of analysis in food authentication after statistical evaluation of the results. Several aspects will be described: (a) propose a new technique for evaluating spatially explicit trace element profile in various environmental samples (with organic and inorganic complex matrixes); (b) evaluate whether element composition of the environmental samples can be attributed to large-scale geographic trace element variation associated with underlying geology or fine-scale spatial differences related to foraging habitat; (c) determine whether element profiles along the individual species are autocorrelated (i.e. occurring in a predictable or random pattern); (d) prove spatially resolved multi-element information that could be used for identification of geographical origin of various environmental samples and foodstuffs

Competition STD experiments for 3′SL and 6′SL binding to HA from subtypes H1, H5 and H9.

<p>Experimental conditions were 2 µM HA, 3 mM 3′SL, and 3 mM 6′SL in PBS, pH 7.4 at 25°C with an identical number of scans.</p

Characterization of Influenza Hemagglutinin Interactions with Receptor by NMR

<div><p>In influenza, the envelope protein hemagglutinin (HA) plays a critical role in viral entry by first binding to sialic acid receptors on the cell surface and subsequently mediating fusion of the viral and target membranes. In this work, the receptor binding properties of influenza A HA from different subtypes (H1 A/California/04/09, H5 A/Vietnam/1205/04, H5 A/bar-headed goose/Qinghai/1A/05, and H9 A/Hong Kong/1073/99) have been characterized by NMR spectroscopy. Using saturation transfer difference (STD) NMR, we find that all HAs bind to the receptor analogs 2,3-sialyllactose and 2,6-sialyllactose, with subtle differences in the binding mode. Using competition STD NMR, we determine the receptor preferences for the HA subtypes. We find that H5-Qinghai and H9-Hong Kong HA bind to both receptor analogs with similar affinity. On the other hand, H1 exhibits a clear preference for 2,6-sialyllactose while H5-Vietnam exhibits a clear preference for 2,3-sialyllactose. Together, these results are interpreted within the context of differences in both the amino acid sequence and structures of HA from the different subtypes in determining receptor preference.</p> </div

Amino acid sequence alignment for the HA1 of subtypes used in the present work.

<p>The numbering corresponds to that of H1 A/California/04/09 HA1. Conserved residues that form interactions with sialic acid <a href="http://www.plosone.org/article/info:doi/10.1371/journal.pone.0033958#pone.0033958-Stevens2" target="_blank">[30]</a> are colored green. Non-conserved residues between H1 and H5-V HA are colored yellow. Non-conserved residues between H5-V and H5-Q are shaded red.</p