Isolation, Biosynthesis, and Biological Activity of Polycyclic Xanthones From Actinomycetes.

Natural products from actinomycetes serve as a crucial source of clinical pharmaceuticals, especially antibiotics and anticancer agents. Among them, polycyclic xanthones belong to a growing group of highly oxygenated aromatic polyketides with a xanthone-containing angular hexacyclic framework. These biosynthetically unique small molecules are of great interest due to their wide spectrum of biological activities, especially the remarkable antibacterial activity against gram-positive bacteria and the significant antineoplastic effects toward various cancer cells at nanomolar concentrations. Their complex structures and significant bioactivities have aroused considerable attention in the chemical and biological communities in recent decades. This review covers the isolation, the biosynthesis, and the biological studies toward these structurally complex and biologically active molecules.

HE4 as a biomarker for diagnosis of lung cancer: A meta-analysis.

BACKGROUND: The aim of our study was to assess the value of serum human epididymis protein 4 (HE4) to diagnose lung cancer and provide reliable scientific conclusions to guide clinical practice. METHODS: A systematic search of the PubMed, EMBASE, Cochrane Library, Chinese National Knowledge Infrastructure, Chinese Biomedical Literature, and WANFANG databases was conducted to identify all studies examining serum HE4 in the diagnosis of lung cancer published up to June, 2017. The Quality Assessment of Diagnostic Accuracy Studies tool was used to evaluate the methodological quality of each trial. The meta-analysis was performed using STATA software and Review Manager 5.3. RESULTS: There were 21 studies involving 1883 cases and 1696 controls included in our meta-analysis. The pooled sensitivity and specificity of HE4 for diagnosing lung cancer were 0.73 (95% confidence interval [CI] 0.68-0.78) and 0.86 (95% CI 0.81-0.91), respectively. The positive likelihood ratio and negative likelihood ratio were 5.4 (95% CI 3.8-7.5) and 0.31 (95% CI 0.26-0.37), respectively. The diagnostic odds ratio was 17 (95% CI 12-26). The area under the curve of the summary receiver-operating characteristic curve was 0.86 (95% CI 0.83-0.89). Race, assay method, type of cancer, sample size, and publication date might be sources of heterogeneity in our meta-analysis. Subgroup analyses showed that the sensitivity in Caucasians was higher than that in Asians (0.81, 95% CI 0.71-0.91; and 0.71, 95% CI 0.66-0.77, respectively), but the specificity in Asians was better than that in Caucasians (0.87, 95% CI 0.81-0.92; and 0.85, 95% CI 0.73-0.97, respectively). The chemiluminescent microparticle immunoassay had the highest sensitivity, with 0.79 (95% CI 0.73-0.97), and the enzyme-linked immunosorbent assay had the highest specificity, with 0.87 (95% CI 0.79-0.94). HE4 had high diagnostic efficacy when screening for small cell lung cancer with the highest specificity (0.90, 95% CI 0.77-1.00). CONCLUSIONS: HE4 is a relatively promising and effective biomarker for the diagnosis of lung cancer. Furthermore, given the limitations of our study, additional large-scale and well-designed studies are needed in the future.

[Effect of Raw Materials and Preparing Process on the Composition of Lime-Ash].

As the saying goes that "no ash, no glaze", lime-ash has been the core material widely used to prepare glaze in ancient China. Among all the lime-ashes, those made in Jingdezhen are the most influential and representative ones. Not only did lime-ash contribute greatly to the prosperity of porcelain making of Jingdezhen in Song, Yuan, Ming and Qing Dynasty, but also it has a complicated, rigorous and a touch of "mysterious" in its preparation process, technical principle and glaze mechanism. Therefore, the research of the lime-ash has been an important subject in exploring the "secret" of ancient Chinese porcelain production by Chinese and foreign researchers. In this paper, four representative firewood and two lime stones as the raw materials were collected for the comparative studies, and three kinds of lime-ash with different smolder times were collected from one of the only two traditional lime-ash workshops in Shou'an town nearby Jingdezhen urban area. The chemical composition and phase composition of the raw materials and lime-ash with different smolder times made in Jingdezhen were discussed by testing with the Energy Dispersive X Ray Fluorescence (EDXRF) and X-Ray Diffraction (XRD). The results showed that Fe(2)O(3), MnO contents reaches 1.41% and 1.52% respectively, but the P(2)O(5) content is just 0.54% of Langqi grass which is lower than other firewood that is not only benefited to form the characteristic of "Green in the white" in Jingdezhen traditional glaze, but also is favor to enhance the transparency of glaze and promote the coloration of traditional under-glazed color painted porcelain, such as the blue and white porcelain. The CaO content of grey lime stone is lower than that of the black lime stone with MgO content of 35.79%.This could be the main reason why the craftsmen prefer to use black lime stone to prepare lime-ash. In addition, the EDXRF results show that the K(2)O, P(2)O(5), MnO and Fe(2)O(3) contents have increased as the time of smoldering increases. In the meanwhile, the calcium carbonate (CaCO(3)) phase has also increased, but the calcium hydroxide (Ca(OH)(2)) phase has decreased. The study helps Jingdezhen porcelain "look like jade" and is also good to avoid the "thickness" of glaze when there is a certain amount of Ca(OH)(2) in glaze. So it could be concluded that the unique raw materials and smolder technology of the lime-ash which have provided the technical support for the development of lime-ash glaze are the unique features of ancient Jingdezhen ash glaze.

[Expression of goat beta-casein gene targeting vector in mammary gland cell].

The study of mammary gland bioreactor is in the ascendant. In order to generate transgenic goats of well-controlled expression of exogenic genes, we constructed a human lactoferrin (hLF) gene targeting vector containing promoter, exon 1, intron1 and some of exon 2 (about 6.1 kb fragment) and exon 6 approximately 9 (about 3.3 kb fragment) of the goat beta-casein gene as well as hLF minigene, neo gene inserted into them and tk gene ligated to the 3' end of the construct. The 9.4 kb goat genomic sequences as homologous arms were initially amplified by PCR with local goat tissue DNA. The expression vector was named pBC-tk-neo-hlf. Then the recombinant plasmid pBC-tk-neo-hlf containing hLF minigene was transfected into mice mammary tumor cell line C127 by liposome, cell clones were selected with G418. After proliferating, the transfected cells were induced with insulin, luteotropic hormone and hydrocortisone. The result of Western-blotting analysis showed that the transfected cells can secrete hLF protein, and the recombinant protein expressed in cultured cell supernatant has the similar molecular weight as the native protein. The expression level detected by ELISA was 0.21 microg/mL. This result indicated that the targeting vector could efficiently direct the expression of hLF in mammary cells,and it confirmed the validity of the constructed vector. At the same time, C127 cell line proved to be useful for evaluating the regulation of a foreign gene expression in mammary gland specific expression vector.