The effects of changes in glutathione levels through exogenous agents on intracellular cysteine content and protein adduct formation in chronic alcohol-treated VL17A cells.

Alcohol-mediated liver injury is associated with changes in the level of the major cellular antioxidant glutathione (GSH). It is interesting to investigate if the changes in intracellular GSH level through exogenous agents affect the intracellular cysteine content and the protein adduct formation indicative of oxidative insult in chronic alcohol treated liver cells. In VL-17A cells treated with 2 mM N-acetyl cysteine (NAC) or 0.1 mM ursodeoxycholic acid (UDCA) plus 100 mM ethanol, an increase in cysteine concentration which was accompanied by decreases in hydroxynonenal (HNE) and glutathionylated protein adducts were observed. Pretreatment of 100 mM ethanol treated VL-17A cells with 0.4 mM buthionine sulfoximine (BSO) or 1 mM diethyl maleate (DEM) had opposite effects. Thus, altered GSH level through exogenous agents may either potentiate or ameliorate chronic alcohol-mediated protein adduct formation and change the cysteine level in chronic alcohol treated VL-17A cells. The gene expression of non-treated and ethanol-treated hepatocytes in 2 microarray datasets was also compared to locate differentially expressed genes involved in cysteine metabolism. The study demonstrates that increased protein adducts formation and changes in cysteine concentration occur under chronic alcohol condition in liver cells which may increase alcohol-mediated oxidative injury.

A mycobacterial phosphoribosyltransferase promotes bacillary survival by inhibiting oxidative stress and autophagy pathways in macrophages and zebrafish.

Mycobacterium tuberculosis employs various strategies to modulate host immune responses to facilitate its persistence in macrophages. The M. tuberculosis cell wall contains numerous glycoproteins with unknown roles in pathogenesis. Here, by using Concanavalin A and LC-MS analysis, we identified a novel mannosylated glycoprotein phosphoribosyltransferase, encoded by Rv3242c from M. tuberculosis cell walls. Homology modeling, bioinformatic analyses, and an assay of phosphoribosyltransferase activity in Mycobacterium smegmatis expressing recombinant Rv3242c (MsmRv3242c) confirmed the mass spectrometry data. Using Mycobacterium marinum-zebrafish and the surrogate MsmRv3242c infection models, we proved that phosphoribosyltransferase is involved in mycobacterial virulence. Histological and infection assays showed that the M. marinum mimG mutant, an Rv3242c orthologue in a pathogenic M. marinum strain, was strongly attenuated in adult zebrafish and also survived less in macrophages. In contrast, infection with wild type and the complemented ΔmimG:Rv3242c M. marinum strains showed prominent pathological features, such as severe emaciation, skin lesions, hemorrhaging, and more zebrafish death. Similarly, recombinant MsmRv3242c bacteria showed increased invasion in non-phagocytic epithelial cells and longer intracellular survival in macrophages as compared with wild type and vector control M. smegmatis strains. Further mechanistic studies revealed that the Rv3242c- and mimG-mediated enhancement of intramacrophagic survival was due to inhibition of autophagy, reactive oxygen species, and reduced activities of superoxide dismutase and catalase enzymes. Infection with MsmRv3242c also activated the MAPK pathway, NF-κB, and inflammatory cytokines. In summary, we show that a novel mycobacterial mannosylated phosphoribosyltransferase acts as a virulence and immunomodulatory factor, suggesting that it may constitute a novel target for antimycobacterial drugs.

CRCDA--Comprehensive resources for cancer NGS data analysis.

Next generation sequencing (NGS) innovations put a compelling landmark in life science and changed the direction of research in clinical oncology with its productivity to diagnose and treat cancer. The aim of our portal comprehensive resources for cancer NGS data analysis (CRCDA) is to provide a collection of different NGS tools and pipelines under diverse classes with cancer pathways and databases and furthermore, literature information from PubMed. The literature data was constrained to 18 most common cancer types such as breast cancer, colon cancer and other cancers that exhibit in worldwide population. NGS-cancer tools for the convenience have been categorized into cancer genomics, cancer transcriptomics, cancer epigenomics, quality control and visualization. Pipelines for variant detection, quality control and data analysis were listed to provide out-of-the box solution for NGS data analysis, which may help researchers to overcome challenges in selecting and configuring individual tools for analysing exome, whole genome and transcriptome data. An extensive search page was developed that can be queried by using (i) type of data [literature, gene data and sequence read archive (SRA) data] and (ii) type of cancer (selected based on global incidence and accessibility of data). For each category of analysis, variety of tools are available and the biggest challenge is in searching and using the right tool for the right application. The objective of the work is collecting tools in each category available at various places and arranging the tools and other data in a simple and user-friendly manner for biologists and oncologists to find information easier. To the best of our knowledge, we have collected and presented a comprehensive package of most of the resources available in cancer for NGS data analysis. Given these factors, we believe that this website will be an useful resource to the NGS research community working on cancer. Database URL: http://bioinfo.au-kbc.org.in/ngs/ngshome.html.

Bioinformatics in crosslinking chemistry of collagen with selective cross linkers.

BACKGROUND: Identifying the molecular interactions using bioinformatics tools before venturing into wet lab studies saves the energy and time considerably. The present study summarizes, molecular interactions and binding energy calculations made for major structural protein, collagen of Type I and Type III with the chosen cross-linkers, namely, coenzyme Q10, dopaquinone, embelin, embelin complex-1 & 2, idebenone, 5-O-methyl embelin, potassium embelate and vilangin. RESULTS: Molecular descriptive analyses suggest, dopaquinone, embelin, idebenone, 5-O-methyl embelin, and potassium embelate display nil violations. And results of docking analyses revealed, best affinity for Type I (- 4.74 kcal/mol) and type III (-4.94 kcal/mol) collagen was with dopaquinone. CONCLUSIONS: Among the selected cross-linkers, dopaquinone, embelin, potassium embelate and 5-O-methyl embelin were the suitable cross-linkers for both Type I and Type III collagen and stabilizes the collagen at the expected level.