Arctigenin from Arctium lappa inhibits interleukin-2 and interferon gene expression in primary human T lymphocytes

<p>Abstract</p> <p>Background</p> <p><it>Arctium lappa </it>(<it>Niubang</it>), a Chinese herbal medicine, is used to treat tissue inflammation. This study investigates the effects of arctigenin (AC), isolated from <it>A. lappa</it>, on anti-CD3/CD28 Ab-stimulated cell proliferation and cytokine gene expression in primary human T lymphocytes.</p> <p>Methods</p> <p>Cell proliferation was determined with enzyme immunoassays and the tritiated thymidine uptake method. Cytokine production and gene expression were analyzed with reverse transcription-polymerase chain reaction.</p> <p>Results</p> <p>AC inhibited primary human T lymphocytes proliferation activated by anti-CD3/CD28 Ab. Cell viability test indicated that the inhibitory effects of AC on primary human T lymphocyte proliferation were not due to direct cytotoxicity. AC suppressed interleukin-2 (IL-2) and interferon-γ (IFN-γ) production in a concentration-dependent manner. Furthermore, AC decreased the IL-2 and IFN-γ gene expression in primary human T lymphocytes induced by anti-CD3/CD28 Ab. Reporter gene analyses revealed that AC decreased NF-AT-mediated reporter gene expression.</p> <p>Conclusion</p> <p>AC inhibited T lymphocyte proliferation and decreased the gene expression of IL-2, IFN-γ and NF-AT.</p

Recent work on sprite spectrum in Taiwan

campaigns in Taiwan. We first introduce two types of spectroimagers, the slit and slitless types, and discuss their advantages and shortcomings. Next we explore the instrument development and procedures undertaken for this study. In 2006, a slit spectroimager was installed for a sprite campaign and on 15 August of that year, two sprite spectra were recorded using the slit spectroimager along with seven sprites, one halo, one ELVES emission and two jets. By the end of 2015, a slitless spectroimager had been successfully constructed and was ready to conduct additional investigations. On 7 May 2016, a sprite spectrum was recorded using the slitless spectroimager. Following an examination of the calibrations (comprising detection region field of view, wavelength calibration, and response curve), data analysis, and additional calibrations (comprising elevation and azimuthal angles, atmospheric transmittance, and theoretical wavelength calculations) performed in this study, we present the results from our observed sprite spectra using the slit and slitless spectroimagers

KinasePhos 2.0: a web server for identifying protein kinase-specific phosphorylation sites based on sequences and coupling patterns

Due to the importance of protein phosphorylation in cellular control, many researches are undertaken to predict the kinase-specific phosphorylation sites. Referred to our previous work, KinasePhos 1.0, incorporated profile hidden Markov model (HMM) with flanking residues of the kinase-specific phosphorylation sites. Herein, a new web server, KinasePhos 2.0, incorporates support vector machines (SVM) with the protein sequence profile and protein coupling pattern, which is a novel feature used for identifying phosphorylation sites. The coupling pattern [XdZ] denotes the amino acid coupling-pattern of amino acid types X and Z that are separated by d amino acids. The differences or quotients of coupling strength CXdZ between the positive set of phosphorylation sites and the background set of whole protein sequences from Swiss-Prot are computed to determine the number of coupling patterns for training SVM models. After the evaluation based on k-fold cross-validation and Jackknife cross-validation, the average predictive accuracy of phosphorylated serine, threonine, tyrosine and histidine are 90, 93, 88 and 93%, respectively. KinasePhos 2.0 performs better than other tools previously developed. The proposed web server is freely available at http://KinasePhos2.mbc.nctu.edu.tw/

Secondary Metabolites with Anti-Inflammatory Activities from an Actinobacteria&nbsp;Herbidospora daliensis

Bioassay-guided fractionation of extracts derived from solid cultures of a Herbidospora&nbsp;daliensis originating from Taiwan led to the isolation of five new compounds, for which we propose the name herbidosporadalins A&ndash;E (1&ndash;5), one isolated for the first time, herbidosporadalin F (6), together with two known compounds (7 &amp; 8). Their structures were elucidated by spectroscopic analyses, including 1D- and 2D-NMR experiments with those of known analogues, and on the basis of HR-EI-MS mass spectrometry, their anti-inflammatory activities were also evaluated. Of these isolates, herbidosporadalin A (1), B (2), F (6) and G (8) showed NO inhibitory activity, with IC50 values of 11.8 &plusmn; 0.9, 7.1 &plusmn; 2.9, 17.8 &plusmn; 1.7, and 13.3 &plusmn; 6.5 &mu;M, stronger than the positive control quercetin (IC50 = 36.8 &plusmn; 1.3 &mu;M). To the best of our knowledge, this is the first report on 3,4-seco-friedelane metabolites (5, 6 &amp; 8) from the genus Herbidospora