Identification and characterization of a pig FKBP5 gene with a novel expression pattern in lymphocytes and granulocytes.

The immunophilins are an important group of regulatory molecules in the immune system. FKBP5, expressed throughout mammals and in fish and birds, functions in both physiological and pathogenic pathways, including innate immunity and steroid-based diseases. In this study, we cloned the first porcine FKBP5 from Rongchang pig by the rapid amplification of cDNA ends technique. The full-length cDNA is 4097 bp, with an open reading frame of 1371 bp that codes for a 457-aa protein. Western blotting detected the porcine FKBP5 protein at highest levels in thymus, followed by spleen and lung. Immunohistochemistry detected the porcine FKBP5 protein in lymphocytes and granulocytes of the blood, and flow cytometry identified greater expression in unactivated (vs. activated) T lymphocytes. Finally, the expression level of porcine FKBP5 in the granulocytes was found to decline significantly from the time of birth to one-year-old. These collective data suggest that the newly identified porcine FKBP5 may function in activation of T cells in pig and in innate immunity in the newborn pig in particular.

Catalytic conversion of mercury over Ce doped Mn/SAPO-34 catalyst: Sulphur tolerance and SO2/SO3 conversion.

A series of Mn-Ce/SAPO-34 catalysts were prepared to study the catalytic oxidisation of elemental mercury (Hg0). Sulphur tolerance and SO3 formation over the catalyst were studied further. Hg0 was transported by compressed air from PSA Cavkit. NO, SO2, and NH3 are standard gases, and H2O is produced by gas carrying. Mn could incorporate into the cerium oxide lattice to form capping oxygen and well-dispersed high valance manganese ions after the addition of Ce, which was conducive to NO removal and Hg0 oxidisation. 9 Mn-9Ce showed the best performance regarding Hg0 conversion, achieving more than 92% Hg0 conversion efficiency at 50-300 °C. The sulphur resistance of the Mn-based catalyst was significantly improved after the addition of cerium due to the high affinity of Ce for SO2, and the relative content of HgSO4 was exceeded 72% on the 9 Mn-9Ce catalyst with SO2; SO3 formation over the 9 Mn-9Ce decreased by 17% compared with the 9 Mn. H2O not only reduced the available active site, but also decreased the oxidation rate of SO2. The active sites were preferentially occupied by NH3 rather than Hg0 and SO2, generated NH4+ occupied cation vacancies. Therefore, both H2O and NH3 have inhibitory effects on Hg0 conversion and SO3 formation.

Miniaturized Intracerebral Potential Recorder for Long-Term Local Field Potential of Deep Brain Signals.

A miniaturized intracerebral potential recorder for long-term local field potential (LFP) of deep brain signals is proposed. LFP can be recorded by deep brain electrodes. The abnormal beta-band oscillation of LFP in subthalamic nucleus and internal globus pallidus in patients with Parkinson's disease (PD) are associated with the severity of the symptoms. The LFP signal from patients who have been implanted with deep brain electrode can be monitored by our system for at least 24 hours in real time. Graphical user interface has also been developed for use by medical personnel. Imitation experiments and in vivo experiments were performed to successfully verify that our system can measure LFP signals. With 24-hour intracerebral signals, researchers can analyze what is happened in the brain in daily life. In the future, more effective PD treatment can be developed, such as intelligent closed-loop deep brain stimulation.

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 C(XdZ) 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/.