Identification, In Silico Characterization, and Differential Expression Profiles of Carotenoid, Xanthophyll, Apocarotenoid Biosynthetic Pathways Genes, and Analysis of Carotenoid and Xanthophyll Accumulation in Heracleum moellendorffii Hance.

Heracleum moellendorffii Hance is a non-woody forest plant widely used in China, Korea, and Japan because of its various therapeutic properties. However, the genetic details of the carotenoid pathway (CP), xanthophyll pathway (XP), and apocarotenoid pathway (AP) genes have not been studied. Thus, the CP, XP, and AP genes of H. moellendorffii were detected and analyzed. A total of fifteen genes were identified, of which eight, four, and three belonged to CP, XP, and AP, respectively. All identified genes possessed full open reading frames. Phylogenetic characterization of the identified gene sequences showed the highest similarity with other higher plants. Multiple alignments and 3D dimensional structures showed several diverse conserved motifs, such as the carotene-binding motif, dinucleotide-binding motif, and aspartate or glutamate residues. The results of real-time PCR showed that the CP, XP, and AP genes were highly expressed in leaves, followed by the stems and roots. In total, eight different individual carotenoids were identified using HPLC analysis. The highest individual and total carotenoid content were achieved in the leaves, followed by the stems and roots. This study will provide more information on the gene structure of the CP, XP, and AP genes, which may help to increase the accumulation of carotenoids in H. moellendorffii through genetic engineering. These results could be helpful for further molecular and functional studies of CP, XP, and AP genes.

High zinc ion supplementation of more than 30 µM can increase monoclonal antibody production in recombinant Chinese hamster ovary DG44 cell culture.

Effects of high ZnSO4·7H2O supplementation on cell growth and monoclonal antibody (mAb) production in chemically defined suspension cultures of recombinant Chinese hamster ovary (rCHO) DG44 cells were examined. The supplementation of ZnSO4·7H2O up to 120 µM gradually increased specific mAb production rate of rCHO DG44 cells in the early growth phase (0-4 days of culture). The ZnSO4·7H2O concentration for enhancing mAb production without any cytotoxic effects on cell growth was 30-60 µM. In addition of 60 µM ZnSO4·7H2O to in-house protein-free medium and in-house chemically defined medium, mAb production was increased 2.0-fold and 6.5-fold, respectively. Moreover, addition of ZnSO4·7H2O to three kinds of commercial chemically defined media yielded a greater than 1.2-fold enhancement of mAb production. These data indicate that simple supplementation of a relatively high zinc ion concentration to cell culture media without significant changes of rCHO DG44 cell culture process can be useful for achieving high production of mAb.

Highly tunable low frequency metamaterial cavity for vibration localization.

Metamaterial cavity has gathered much attention recently due to its capability of localizing vibration energy. Despite the active research, however, there are still big technical challenges not solved yet. Especially, there has been no approach to maximize the wave localization performance of metamaterial cavity; therefore, there has been a possibility that obtained cavity mode does not show sufficiently high performance. Also, there is a tunability issue that whole metamaterials should be re-designed to tune the cavity frequency. Here, we present the metamaterial cavity system that can control its cavity mode frequency from 589 to 2184 Hz by adjusting the cavity length from 140 to 60 mm without re-designing the whole metamaterial based on the broad bandgap. Also, the performance of the obtained cavity mode can be improved by adjusting the length of the side beam attached to the metamaterial; the displacements are amplified more than 18-110 times. Consequently, one may easily obtain the highly localized vibration energy at the desired frequency by adjusting two geometric parameters based on the proposed metamaterial cavity system. Numerical and experimental supports are provided to validate our new metamaterial cavity system. This metamaterial cavity system is expected to provide a guideline for localizing vibration energy in various applications, such as energy harvesting, sensing or vibration dissipation.

Study of Abnormal Group Velocities in Flexural Metamaterials.

Generally, it has been known that the optical branch of a simple one-dimensional periodic structure has a negative group velocity at the first Brillouin zone due to the band-folding effect. However, the optical branch of the flexural wave in one-dimensional periodic structure doesn't always have negative group velocity. The problem is that the condition whether the group velocity of the flexural optical branch is negative, positive or positive-negative has not been studied yet. In consequence, who try to achieve negative group velocity has suffered from trial-error process without an analytic guideline. In this paper, the analytic investigation for this abnormal behavior is carried out. In particular, we discovered that the group velocity of the optical branch in flexural metamaterials is determined by a simple condition expressed in terms of a stiffness ratio and inertia ratio of the metamaterial. To derive the analytic condition, an extended mass-spring system is used to calculate the wave dispersion relationship in flexural metamaterials. For the validation, various numerical simulations are carried out, including a dispersion curve calculation and three-dimensional wave simulation. The results studied in this paper are expected to provide new guidelines in designing flexural metamaterials to have desired wave dispersion curves.

Adaptation of Chinese hamster ovary cells to low culture temperature: cell growth and recombinant protein production.

Recombinant Chinese hamster ovary (rCHO) cells producing erythropoietin (EPO) and rCHO cells producing follicle-stimulating hormone (FSH) showed a significant increase in specific productivity (q) when grown at 32 degrees C compared to 37 degrees C. However, low culture temperature suppressed cell growth, and therefore, did not increase volumetric productivity as much as q. In an attempt to increase the volumetric productivity through improvement of hypothermic growth, EPO producing rCHO (CHO-EPO) cells and FSH producing rCHO (CHO-FSH) cells were adapted at 32 degrees C in a repeated batch mode using spinner flasks. Cell growth of both CHO-EPO and CHO-FSH gradually improved during adaptation at 32 degrees C. Specific growth rates of CHO-EPO and CHO-FSH cells at 32 degrees C, through adaptation, were increased by 73% and 20%, respectively. During adaptation at 32 degrees C, mRNA levels of cold-inducible RNA-binding protein (CIRP) of both rCHO cell lines did not change significantly, suggesting that CIRP expression may not be the only cause for growth suppression at low culture temperature. Unlike cell growth, the recombinant protein production of both rCHO cell lines was not increased during adaptation due to decreased specific productivities. The specific EPO productivity and specific FSH productivity were decreased by 49% and 22%, respectively. Southern blot analyses showed that the decreased specific productivities were not due to the loss of foreign gene copies. Taken together, improvement of hypothermic cell growth by adaptation does not appear to be applicable for enhanced recombinant protein production, since specific productivity decreases during adaptation to the low culture temperature.

Tetrahydrofolate increases suspension growth of dihydrofolate reductase-deficient chinese hamster ovary DG44 cells in chemically defined media.

Adaptation of dihydrofolate reductase (DHFR)-deficient Chinese hamster ovary (CHO) DG44 cells to chemically defined suspension culture conditions is a time-consuming and labor-intensive process because nonadapted DHFR-deficient CHO DG44 cells normally show poor growth in chemically defined medium (CDM). We examined the effects of folate derivatives, ribonucleotides, and nucleobases on the growth of suspension-adapted DHFR-deficient CHO DG44 cells in CDM. Among the tested additives, tetrahydrofolate (THF) was identified as an effective component for increasing cell growth. THF supplementation in the range of 0.2-359 µM enhanced cell growth in in-house CDM. Addition of 3.6 µM THF to in-house CDM resulted in a more than 2.5-fold increase in maximum viable cell density. Moreover, supplementation of six different commercial CDMs with 3.6 µM THF yielded up to 2.9-fold enhancement of maximum viable cell density. An anchorage- and serum-dependent DHFR-deficient CHO DG44 cell line was adapted within two consecutive passages to suspension growth in in-house CDM supplemented with 3.6 µM THF. These data indicate that supplementation of chemically defined cell culture media with greater than 0.2 µM THF can help achieve a high density of suspension-adapted DHFR-deficient CHO DG44 cells and may facilitate rapid adaptation of nonadapted DHFR-deficient CHO DG44 cells to suspension culture. © 2016 American Institute of Chemical Engineers Biotechnol. Prog., 32:1539-1546, 2016.

Arginine as an eluent overcomes the hindrance of monoclonal antibody quantification by dextran sulfate in protein A affinity chromatography.

Analytical chromatography using protein A affinity columns was employed for the fast and simple quantitative analysis of monoclonal antibodies (mAb) from suspension cultures of recombinant Chinese hamster ovary (rCHO) cells. Reliable results could not be obtained from analysis of rCHO cell culture supernatants containing dextran sulfate using elution buffers such as phosphate, glycine, or MgCl2 . These problems increased as the number of analysis and the concentration of dextran sulfate in samples increased. Arginine was identified as an alternative eluent to overcome the hindrance by dextran sulfate. When the samples contain dextran sulfate up to 100 mg/L, the elution buffer containing 0.6-1.0 M arginine at pH 3.0-3.8 is useful for the effective analysis. Reproducible results in the mAb quantification could be obtained by this developed arginine elution buffer from rCHO cell culture supernatants containing dextran sulfate.

The Mechanism Underlying the Antibacterial Activity of Shikonin against Methicillin-Resistant Staphylococcus aureus.

Shikonin (SKN), a highly liposoluble naphthoquinone pigment isolated from the roots of Lithospermum erythrorhizon, is known to exert antibacterial, wound-healing, anti-inflammatory, antithrombotic, and antitumor effects. The aim of this study was to examine SKN antibacterial activity against methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus (MRSA). The SKN was analyzed in combination with membrane-permeabilizing agents Tris and Triton X-100, ATPase inhibitors sodium azide and N,N'-dicyclohexylcarbodiimide, and S. aureus-derived peptidoglycan; the effects on MRSA viability were evaluated by the broth microdilution method, time-kill test, and transmission electron microscopy. Addition of membrane-permeabilizing agents or ATPase inhibitors together with a low dose of SKN potentiated SKN anti-MRSA activity, as evidenced by the reduction of MRSA cell density by 75% compared to that observed when SKN was used alone; in contrast, addition of peptidoglycan blocked the antibacterial activity of SKN. The results indicate that the anti-MRSA effect of SKN is associated with its affinity to peptidoglycan, the permeability of the cytoplasmic membrane, and the activity of ATP-binding cassette (ABC) transporters. This study revealed the potential of SKN as an effective natural antibiotic and of its possible use to substantially reduce the use of existing antibiotic may also be important for understanding the mechanism underlying the antibacterial activity of natural compounds.

Photosynthesis rates, growth, and ginsenoside contents of 2-yr-old Panax ginseng grown at different light transmission rates in a greenhouse.

BACKGROUND: Ginseng is a semishade perennial plant cultivated in sloping, sun-shaded areas in Korea. Recently, owing to air-environmental stress and various fungal diseases, greenhouse cultivation has been suggested as an alternative. However, the optimal light transmission rate (LTR) in the greenhouse has not been established. METHODS: The effect of LTR on photosynthesis rate, growth, and ginsenoside content of ginseng was examined by growing ginseng at the greenhouse under 6%, 9%, 13%, and 17% of LTR. RESULTS: The light-saturated net photosynthesis rate (A sat) and stomatal conductance (g s) of ginseng increased until the LTR reached 17% in the early stage of growth, whereas they dropped sharply owing to excessive leaf chlorosis at 17% LTR during the hottest summer period in August. Overall, 6-17% of LTR had no effect on the aerial part of plant length or diameter, whereas 17% and 13% of LRT induced the largest leaf area and the highest root weight, respectively. The total ginsenoside content of the ginseng leaves increased as the LTR increased, and the overall content of protopanaxatriol line ginsenosides was higher than that of protopanaxadiol line ginsenosides. The ginsenoside content of the ginseng roots also increased as the LTR increased, and the total ginsenoside content of ginseng grown at 17% LTR increased by 49.7% and 68.3% more than the ginseng grown at 6% LTR in August and final harvest, respectively. CONCLUSION: These results indicate that 13-17% of LTR should be recommended for greenhouse cultivation of ginseng.

Control of specific growth rate to enhance the production of a novel disintegrin, saxatilin, in recombinant Pichia pastoris.

The methylotrophic yeast Pichia pastoris is one of the best hosts for the production of foreign proteins because of the presence of a strong alcohol oxidase 1 (AOX1) promoter that can be induced by methanol. Feeding the yeast, methanol induces protein production and provides an energy source for the host cells. However, excessive levels of methanol inhibit the growth of host cells, and insufficient methanol levels lead to poor growth and protein production. We have used various methanol feeding strategies to enhance the production of saxatilin. Saxatilin is a novel snake venom-derived disintegrin that inhibits tumor angiogenesis and metastasis and has been shown to suppress ovarian cancer cell invasion. A two-step increase feeding strategy to control the specific growth rate led to the best results in terms of specific protein production rates and final saxatilin amounts within the limited fermentation time.

Initial transcriptome and proteome analyses of low culture temperature-induced expression in CHO cells producing erythropoietin.

Low culture temperature is known to enhance the specific productivity of Chinese hamster ovary (CHO) cells expressing erythropoietin (EPO) (LGE10-9-27). Genomic and proteomic approaches were taken to better understand the intracellular responses of these CHO cells resulting from use of low culture temperature (33 degrees C). For transcriptome analysis, commercially available rat and mouse cDNA microarrays were used. The data obtained from the rat and mouse cDNA chips were only somewhat informative in understanding the gene expression profile of CHO cells because of their different sequence homologies with CHO transcriptomes. Overall, transcriptome analysis revealed that low culture temperature could lead to changes in gene expression in various cellular processes such as metabolism, transport, and signaling pathways. Proteome analysis was carried out using 2-D PAGE. Based on spot intensity, 60 high intensity protein spots, from a total of more than 800, were chosen for MS analysis. Forty of the 60 protein spots, which represent 26 different kinds of proteins, were identified by MALDI-TOF-MS and validated by MS/MS. Compared to the reference temperature (37 degrees C), the expression levels of seven proteins (PDI, vimentin, NDK B, ERp57, RIKEN cDNA, phosphoglycerate kinase, and heat shock cognate 71 kDa protein) were increased over twofold at 33 degrees C and those of two proteins (HSP90-beta and EF2) were decreased over twofold at 33 degrees C. Taken together, the results demonstrate the potential of combined analysis of transcriptome and proteome analyses as a tool for the systematic comprehension of cellular mechanisms in CHO cells.

Tissue engineering of cartilage with chondrocytes cultured in a chemically-defined, serum-free medium.

Cell culture with serum-containing medium has potential problems associated with contamination of infectious agents. This study demonstrates for the first time the feasibility of regenerating cartilage tissues in vivo by implantation of chondrocytes cultured in vitro in a chemically-defined, serum-free medium. Chondrocytes cultured in the serum-free medium grew similarly to those in a serum-containing medium. Implantation of chondrocytes cultured in the serum-free medium and seeded on to polymer scaffolds resulted in the regeneration of cartilage tissues with histological aspects similar to those of cartilage tissues regenerated from chondrocytes cultured in serum-containing medium.

Suspension culture of hematopoietic stem cells in stirred bioreactors.

Hematopoietic stem cells have applications in bone marrow transplantations for the treatment of hematopoietic disorders. When murine hematopoietic stem cells were cultured in 50 ml stirred bioreactors for 14 d, stem-cell-antigen-1 positive cells (hematopoietic primitive progenitor cells) and long-term culture-initiating cells (hematopoietic stem cells) grew by 5-fold and 4-fold, respectively. These results show the possibility of growing hematopoietic stem cells using a stirred bioreactor.