Statistics of the size distributions of contigs and unigenes.

<p>(X-axes indicates the sequence size (nt), Y-axes indicates the number of assembled contigs and unigenes.).</p

Changes in the Organics Metabolism in the Hepatopancreas Induced by Eyestalk Ablation of the Chinese Mitten Crab <i>Eriocheir sinensis</i> Determined via Transcriptome and DGE Analysis

<div><p>Background</p><p>To understand the regulation mechanism of eyestalk ablation on the activities of hepatopancreas, Illumina RNA-Seq and digital gene expression (DGE) analyses were performed to investigate the transcriptome of the eyestalk, Y-organ, and hepatopancreas of <i>E. sinensis</i> and to identify the genes associated with the hepatopancreas metabolism that are differentially expressed under eyestalk ablation conditions.</p><p>Results</p><p>A total of 58,582 unigenes were constructed from 157,168 contigs with SOAPdenovo. A BlastX search against the NCBI Nr database identified 21,678 unigenes with an E-value higher than 10⁻⁵. Using the BLAST2Go and BlastAll software programs, 6,883 unigenes (11.75% of the total) were annotated to the Gene Ontology (GO) database, 7,386 (12.6%) unigenes were classified into 25 Clusters of Orthologous Groups of Proteins (COGs), 16,200 (27.7%) unigenes were assigned to 242 Kyoto Encyclopedia of Genes and Genomes (KEGG) pathways, and1,846 unigenes were matched to “metabolism pathways”. The DGE analysis revealed that 1,416 unigenes were significantly differentially expressed in the hepatopancreas, of which 890 unigenes were up-regulated and 526 unigenes were down-regulated. Of the differentially expressed genes, 382 unigenes were annotated and 63 were classified into metabolism pathways. The results of the real-time polymerase chain reaction (PCR) analysis of four unigenes related to carbohydrate metabolism were consistent with those obtained from the DGE analysis, which demonstrates that the sequencing data were satisfactory for further gene expression analyses.</p><p>Conclusion</p><p>This paper reported the transcriptom of the eyestalk, Y-organ, and hepatopancreas from <i>E. sinensis</i>. DGE analysis provided the different expressed genes of the metabolism processes in hepatopancreas that are affected by eyestalk ablation. These findings will facilitate further investigations on the mechanisms of the metabolism of organic substances during development and reproduction in crustaceans.</p></div

Injectable Fullerenol/Alginate Hydrogel for Suppression of Oxidative Stress Damage in Brown Adipose-Derived Stem Cells and Cardiac Repair

Stem cell implantation strategy has exhibited potential to treat the myocardial infarction (MI), however, the low retention and survival limit their applications due to the reactive oxygen species (ROS) microenvironment after MI. In this study, the fullerenol nanoparticles are introduced into alginate hydrogel to create an injectable cell delivery vehicle with antioxidant activity. Results suggest that the prepared hydrogels exhibit excellent injectable and mechanical strength. In addition, the fullerenol/alginate hydrogel can effectively scavenge the superoxide anion and hydroxyl radicals. Based on these results, the biological behaviors of brown adipose-derived stem cells (BADSCs) seeded in fullerenol/alginate hydrogel were investigated in the presence of H₂O₂. Results suggest that the fullerenol/alginate hydrogels have no cytotoxicity effects on BADSCs. Moreover, they can suppress the oxidative stress damage of BADSCs and improve their survival capacity under ROS microenvironment via activating the ERK and p38 pathways while inhibiting JNK pathway. Further, the addition of fullerenol can improve the cardiomyogenic differentiation of BADSCs even under ROS microenvironment. To assess its therapeutic effects <i>in vivo</i>, the fullerenol/alginate hydrogel loaded with BADSCs were implanted in the MI area in rats. Results suggest that the fullerenol/alginate hydrogel can effectively decrease ROS level in MI zone, improve the retention and survival of implanted BADSCs, and induce angiogenesis, which in turn promote cardiac functional recovery. Therefore, the fullerenol/alginate hydrogel can act as injectable cell delivery vehicles for cardiac repair

Statistics of mainly different expression genes from <i>E. sinensis</i> (A0 and A1) mapped to metabolism pathways.

<p><b>*Ko00010:Glycolysis/Gluconeogenesis; Ko00051:Fructose and mannose metabolism; Ko00052:Galactose metabolism; Ko00500:Starch and sucrose metabolism; Ko00520:Amino sugar and nucleotide sugar metabolism; Ko00061:Fatty acid biosynthese; Ko00071:Fatty acid metabolism; Ko00561:Glycerolipid metabolism; Ko00250:Alanine, aspartate and glutamate metabolism; Ko00260:Glycine, serine and threonine metabolism; Ko00270:Cysteine and methionine metabolism; Ko00350:Tyrosine metabolism; Ko00380:Tryptophan metabolism; Ko00480:Glutathione metabolism.</b></p

Statistics of DGE sequencing data from <i>E. sinensis</i> (A0 and A1).

<p>Statistics of DGE sequencing data from <i>E. sinensis</i> (A0 and A1).</p

The unigenes for validation of DGE analysis and real-time PCR primers.

<p>The unigenes for validation of DGE analysis and real-time PCR primers.</p

Summary of annotation results in <i>E.sinensis</i>.

<p>Summary of annotation results in <i>E.sinensis</i>.</p

GO categories of the unigenes.

<p>6883 unigenes were assigned 50 GO annotations, which were divided into three categories: biological processes, cellular components, and molecular functions.</p

Validation of the DGE analysis.

<p>(A): 4 assembled unigenes related to carbohydrate metabolism were selected for Real-time PCR validation of the relative expression levels of transcripts selected from the DGE analysis. (B): Glucose concentration in hemolymph after eyestalk ablation at 0 and 48 hours. Experiments were performed three times with similar results. Bars display mean+SEM, and statistical analysis was performed using Student's T test. **, P<0.01; *, P<0.05.</p

COG Classification of the unigenes.

<p>7386 unigenes were classified into 25 COG categories.</p