Characterization of DNA unwinding properties of three N-terminal fragments of RecQ5β helicase

RecQ5β is one member of the human RecQ family helicases that belong to superfamily 2 (SF2) and are critical for the maintenance of genomic stability. Here, the DNA unwinding kinetics of three N-terminal fragments of RecQ5β helicase, RecQ5β1-467, RecQ5β1-567 and RecQ5β1-662, were studied with stopped-flow method based on fluorescence resonance energy transfer (FRET). Under single-turnover kinetic conditions, we found that both the unwinding amplitude and rate increased with the increase of the 3’-tail length of the DNA substrate for each fragment. The maximum amplitudes were 73.5, 57.6 and 35.5% for RecQ5β1-467, RecQ5β1-567 and RecQ5β1-662, respectively. Obviously, the unwinding amplitude decreased with the increase of the fragment length. For each RecQ5β fragment, when the 3’-tail length of the DNA substrates was short, essentially only one slow unwinding process occurred. When the 3’-tail length was increased, the unwinding amplitude of the fast unwinding process increased obviously; that is, the RecQ5β-catalyzed DNA unwinding depended on the 3’-tail length of the DNA substrate. It indicates that RecQ5β molecules are cooperative in DNA unwinding. This is an interesting new feature for a SF2 helicase.Key words: RecQ5β helicase, stopped-flow technique, fluorescence resonance energy transfer (FRET), DNA unwinding kinetics

Phage Display against Corneal Epithelial Cells Produced Bioactive Peptides That Inhibit Aspergillus Adhesion to the Corneas

Dissection of host-pathogen interactions is important for both understanding the pathogenesis of infectious diseases and developing therapeutics for the infectious diseases like various infectious keratitis. To enhance the knowledge about pathogenesis infectious keratitis, a random 12-mer peptide phage display library was screened against cultured human corneal epithelial cells (HCEC). Fourteen sequences were obtained and BLASTp analysis showed that most of their homologue counterparts in GenBank were for defined or putative proteins in various pathogens. Based on known or predicted functions of the homologue proteins, ten synthetic peptides (Pc-A to Pc-J) were measured for their affinity to bind cells and their potential efficacy to interfere with pathogen adhesion to the cells. Besides binding to HCEC, most of them also bound to human corneal stromal cells and umbilical endothelial cells to different extents. When added to HCEC culture, the peptides induced expression of MyD88 and IL-17 in HCEC, and the stimulated cell culture medium showed fungicidal potency to various extents. While peptides Pc-C and Pc-E inhibited Aspergillus fumigatus (A.f) adhesion to HCEC in a dose-dependent manner, the similar inhibition ability of peptides Pc-A and Pc-B required presence of their homologue ligand Alb1p on A.f. When utilized in an eyeball organ culture model and an in vivo A.f keratitis model established in mouse, Pc-C and Pc-E inhibited fungal adhesion to corneas, hence decreased corneal disruption caused by inflammatory infiltration. Affinity pull-down of HCEC membrane proteins with peptide Pc-C revealed several molecules as potential receptors for this peptide. In conclusion, besides proving that phage display-selected peptides could be utilized to interfere with adhesion of pathogens to host cells, hence could be exploited for managing infectious diseases including infectious keratitis, we also proposed that the phage display technique and the resultant peptides could be used to explore host-pathogen interactions at molecular levels

Prevalence and trend of hepatitis C virus infection among blood donors in Chinese mainland: a systematic review and meta-analysis

<p>Abstract</p> <p>Background</p> <p>Blood transfusion is one of the most common transmission pathways of hepatitis C virus (HCV). This paper aims to provide a comprehensive and reliable tabulation of available data on the epidemiological characteristics and risk factors for HCV infection among blood donors in Chinese mainland, so as to help make prevention strategies and guide further research.</p> <p>Methods</p> <p>A systematic review was constructed based on the computerized literature database. Infection rates and 95% confidence intervals (95% CI) were calculated using the approximate normal distribution model. Odds ratios and 95% CI were calculated by fixed or random effects models. Data manipulation and statistical analyses were performed using STATA 10.0 and ArcGIS 9.3 was used for map construction.</p> <p>Results</p> <p>Two hundred and sixty-five studies met our inclusion criteria. The pooled prevalence of HCV infection among blood donors in Chinese mainland was 8.68% (95% CI: 8.01%-9.39%), and the epidemic was severer in North and Central China, especially in Henan and Hebei. While a significant lower rate was found in Yunnan. Notably, before 1998 the pooled prevalence of HCV infection was 12.87% (95%CI: 11.25%-14.56%) among blood donors, but decreased to 1.71% (95%CI: 1.43%-1.99%) after 1998. No significant difference was found in HCV infection rates between male and female blood donors, or among different blood type donors. The prevalence of HCV infection was found to increase with age. During 1994-1995, the prevalence rate reached the highest with a percentage of 15.78% (95%CI: 12.21%-19.75%), and showed a decreasing trend in the following years. A significant difference was found among groups with different blood donation types, Plasma donors had a relatively higher prevalence than whole blood donors of HCV infection (33.95% <it>vs </it>7.9%).</p> <p>Conclusions</p> <p>The prevalence of HCV infection has rapidly decreased since 1998 and kept a low level in recent years, but some provinces showed relatively higher prevalence than the general population. It is urgent to make efficient measures to prevent HCV secondary transmission and control chronic progress, and the key to reduce the HCV incidence among blood donors is to encourage true voluntary blood donors, strictly implement blood donation law, and avoid cross-infection.</p

Pan-cancer analysis of whole genomes

Cancer is driven by genetic change, and the advent of massively parallel sequencing has enabled systematic documentation of this variation at the whole-genome scale(1-3). Here we report the integrative analysis of 2,658 whole-cancer genomes and their matching normal tissues across 38 tumour types from the Pan-Cancer Analysis of Whole Genomes (PCAWG) Consortium of the International Cancer Genome Consortium (ICGC) and The Cancer Genome Atlas (TCGA). We describe the generation of the PCAWG resource, facilitated by international data sharing using compute clouds. On average, cancer genomes contained 4-5 driver mutations when combining coding and non-coding genomic elements; however, in around 5% of cases no drivers were identified, suggesting that cancer driver discovery is not yet complete. Chromothripsis, in which many clustered structural variants arise in a single catastrophic event, is frequently an early event in tumour evolution; in acral melanoma, for example, these events precede most somatic point mutations and affect several cancer-associated genes simultaneously. Cancers with abnormal telomere maintenance often originate from tissues with low replicative activity and show several mechanisms of preventing telomere attrition to critical levels. Common and rare germline variants affect patterns of somatic mutation, including point mutations, structural variants and somatic retrotransposition. A collection of papers from the PCAWG Consortium describes non-coding mutations that drive cancer beyond those in the TERT promoter(4); identifies new signatures of mutational processes that cause base substitutions, small insertions and deletions and structural variation(5,6); analyses timings and patterns of tumour evolution(7); describes the diverse transcriptional consequences of somatic mutation on splicing, expression levels, fusion genes and promoter activity(8,9); and evaluates a range of more-specialized features of cancer genomes(8,10-18).Peer reviewe

Decomposition of Noncommutative U(1) Gauge Potential

We investigate the decomposition of noncommutative gauge potential (A) over cap (i), and find that it has inner structure, namely, (A) over cap (i) can he decomposed in two parts, (b) over cap (i) and (a) over cap (i), where (b) over cap (i) satisfies gauge transformations while (a) over cap (i) satisfies adjoint transformations, so close the Seiberg-Witten mapping of noncommutative, U(1) gauge potential. By, means of Seiberg-Witten mapping, we construct a mapping of unit vector field between noncommutative space and ordinary space, and find the noncommutative U(1) gauge potential and its gauge field tensor can be expressed in terms of the unit vector field. When the unit vector field has no singularity point, noncommutative gauge potential and gauge field tensor will equal ordinary gauge potential and gauge field tensorTalent Introduction Project of Xianyang Normal University 07XSYK21

Baryon magnetic moment and beta decay ratio in colored quark cluster model

Baryon magnetic moments of p, n, Sigma(+), Sigma(-), Xi(0), Xi(-) and the beta decay ratios (G(A)/G(V)) of n -> p, Sigma(-) -> n and Xi(0) -> Sigma(+) are calculated in a colored quark cluster model. With SU(3) breaking, the model gives a good fit to the experimental values of those baryon magnetic moments and the beta decay ratios. Our results show that the orbital motion has a significant contribution to the spin and magnetic moments of those baryons and the strange component. in nucleon is small

Role of the N*(1535) in eta ' production

We study the near-threshold eta ' production mechanism in nucleon-nucleon and pi N collisions under the assumption that subthreshold resonance N*(1535) is predominant. In an effective Lagrangian approach that gives a reasonable description to the pN -> pN eta and pi(-) p -> n eta reactions, we find that the excitation of N*(1535) resonance from the t- channel p exchange makes the dominate contribution to the pN -> pN eta ' process, and a value of 6.5 for the ratio of s(pp -> pp eta ') to sigma (pp -> pp eta ') is predicted. A strongcoupling strength ofN*(1535) to eta ' N (g(eta ' NN*)(2)/4 pi = 1.1) is extracted from a combined analysis to pp -> pp eta ' and pi N -> N eta ', and the possible implication to the intrinsic component of N*(1535) is explored.CAS KJCX3-SYW-N2 KJCX2-SW-N16 Science Foundation of China 10435080 10575123 1071017