Transcriptomic Analysis of Marine Gastropod Hemifusus tuba Provides Novel Insights into Conotoxin Genes.

The marine gastropod Hemifusus tuba is served as a luxury food in Asian countries and used in traditional Chinese medicine to treat lumbago and deafness. The lack of genomic data on H. tuba is a barrier to aquaculture development and functional characteristics of potential bioactive molecules are poorly understood. In the present study, we used high-throughput sequencing technologies to generate the first transcriptomic database of H. tuba. A total of 41 unique conopeptides were retrieved from 44 unigenes, containing 6-cysteine frameworks belonging to four superfamilies. Duplication of mature regions and alternative splicing were also found in some of the conopeptides, and the de novo assembly identified a total of 76,306 transcripts with an average length of 824.6 nt, of which including 75,620 (99.1%) were annotated. In addition, simple sequence repeats (SSRs) detection identified 14,000 unigenes containing 20,735 SSRs, among which, 23 polymorphic SSRs were screened. Thirteen of these markers could be amplified in Hemifusus ternatanus and seven in Rapana venosa. This study provides reports of conopeptide genes in Buccinidae for the first time as well as genomic resources for further drug development, gene discovery and population resource studies of this species.

Theaflavin Attenuates TBHP-Induced Endothelial Cells Oxidative Stress by Activating PI3K/AKT/Nrf2 and Accelerates Wound Healing in Rats.

The treatment of wounds remains a clinical challenge because of poor angiogenesis under the wound bed, and increasingly, the patients' need for functional and aesthetically pleasing scars. Previous reports have shown that Theaflavin can induce angiogenesis and terminate the progression of ischemic cardiovascular disease, but limited therapy is available for the management of cutaneous wounds. In this study, our in vitro work discovered that human umbilical vein endothelial cells (HUVECs) exposed to Theaflavin can alleviate apoptosis and cell dysfunction induced by tert-butyl hydroperoxide (TBHP). The cellular activity of HUVECs were assessed by cell tube formation, migration and adhesion. Mechanistically, Theaflavin protected HUVECs from TBHP-stimulated cell apoptosis through the activation of the phosphatidylinositol-3-kinase (PI3K)/protein kinase B (AKT)/nuclear factor (erythroid-derived 2)-like 2 (Nrf2) axis, so Nrf2 silencing can partly eliminate the cytoprotective effect of Theaflavin treatment. In in vivo experiments, administering Theaflavin orally can enhance vascularization in regenerated tissues and accelerate wound healing. In summary, our data served as a novel evidence for the wound healing treatment with Theaflavin, and certified the potential mechanism of Theaflavin, which can be used as a potential agent for cutaneous wound therapy.

The feasibility of modified pancreatogastrostomy in vivo and its effect on intestinal microecology.

PURPOSE: To evaluate the feasibility of modified binding pancreatogastrostomy (MBPA) by comparing it with traditional pancreatogastrostomy (TPA) and to determine the surgical effects on the intestinal microecology. METHODS: The surgical effects on the intestinal microecology of female Bama minipigs (n = 20) were determined by measuring the expressions of the intestinal microbial proteins in the gastric juice, gastric mucosa, and feces before and after MBPA and TPA. We then constructed an integrated interaction network based on the metabolomics and 16S amplicon data, the microbiota, the metabolites, and the associated pathways. RESULTS: The average time required for anastomosis was significantly lower after MBPA than after TPA, but the breaking force did not significantly differ between them. We identified 25 and 51 differentially expressed metabolites and microbiota, respectively. An interaction network was constructed using 16 metabolites (including pyruvic and lactic acids), 27 microbiota (including Ruminococcaceae_UCG-00) and six pathways (including pyruvate metabolism). CONCLUSION: Anastomosis might be achieved sooner and with less pancreatic leakage using MBPA compared with TPA. Pancreatogastrostomy inhibits Ruminococcaceae activity, leading to increased expressions of pyruvic and lactic acids in the gut.

Cloning and expression of a transcription factor activator protein-1 (AP-1) member identified from manila clam Venerupis philippinarum.

The transcription factor activator protein-1 (AP-1) proteins are implicated to play a major role in the regulation of numerous genes involved in the function and development of the immune system, cell differentiation, proliferation, apoptosis, etc. It can bind to promoter of its target genes in a sequence-specific manner to transactivate or repress them. In this study, the full-length cDNA of an AP-1 was identified from Venerupis philippinarum (denoted as VpAP-1) by EST analysis and RACE approaches. Phylogenetic analysis indicated that VpAP-1 had higher evolutional conservation to invertebrate than vertebrate counterparts and should be a new member of the AP-1 protein family. Spatial expression analysis found that VpAP-1 transcript was most abundantly expressed in the hemocytes and hepatopancreas, weakly expressed in the tissues of the gills, mantle and muscle. After Vibrio anguillarum challenge, the expression of VpAP-1 transcript in overall hemocyte population was up-regulated in the first 6h, and then decreased to 1.5-fold of the control group at 12h. As time progressed, a second peak of VpAP-1 expression was detected at 24h post-infection, which was 5-fold compared with that of the control group (P<0.01). After that, the expression level was sharply decreased and dropped to 0.5-fold of the control at 96h. The above results indicated that VpAP-1 was perhaps involved in the immune responses against microbe infection and might be contributed to the clearance of bacterial pathogens.