Advances in Mechanism Research on Polygonatum in Prevention and Treatment of Diabetes.

Diabetes mellitus is a fast-growing disease with a major influence on people's quality of life. Oral hypoglycemic drugs and insulin are currently the main effective drugs in the treatment of diabetes, but chronic consumption of these drugs has certain side effects. Polysaccharides, saponins, flavonoids, and phenolics are the primary secondary metabolites isolated from the rhizomes of Polygonatum sibiricum Redouté [Asparagaceae], Polygonatum kingianum Collett & Hemsl [Asparagaceae], or Polygonatum cyrtonema Hua [Asparagaceae], which have attracted much more attention owing to their unique therapeutic role in the treatment and prevention of diabetes. However, the research on the mechanism of these three Polygonatum spp. in diabetes has not been reviewed. This review provides a summary of the research progress of three Polygonatum spp. on diabetes and its complications, reveals the potential antidiabetic mechanism of three Polygonatum spp., and discusses the effect of different processed products of three Polygonatum spp. in treating diabetes, for the sake of a thorough understanding of its effects on the prevention and treatment of diabetes and diabetes complications.

Current advances in environmental stimuli regulating the glycyrrhizic acid biosynthesis pathway.

Glycyrrhizic acid, the main active ingredient of licorice, has good antibacterial, anti-tumor, anti-viral, anti-inflammatory, and immunostimulatory activities. However, the content of glycyrrhizic acid fluctuates greatly in different licorice cultivars, and production depends on plant sources, which greatly limits its development and applications. Therefore, increasing glycyrrhizic acid content has become a research priority. In recent years, regulation of the glycyrrhizic acid biosynthesis pathway has been analyzed, the downstream synthesis pathway in licorice has been fully investigated, some key genes have been cloned, polymorphisms have been studied, and the content of glycyrrhizic acid was shown to be regulated by environmental stimuli. This work has provided a basis for studying the regulation mechanism of the glycyrrhizic acid synthesis pathway. This review summarizes and discusses relevant research to provide a current understanding of the glycyrrhizic acid synthesis pathway and its regulation in licorice.

Roles of miRNA and lncRNA in triple-negative breast cancer.

Triple-negative breast cancer (TNBC) is currently the most malignant subtype of breast cancer without effective targeted therapies, which makes its pathogenesis an important target for research. A growing number of studies have shown that non-coding RNA (ncRNA), including microRNA (miRNA) and long non-coding RNA (lncRNA), plays a significant role in tumorigenesis. This review summarizes the roles of miRNA and lncRNA in the progression, diagnosis, and neoadjuvant chemotherapy of TNBC. Aberrantly expressed miRNA and lncRNA are listed according to their roles. Further, it describes the multiple mechanisms that lncRNA shows for regulating gene expression in the nucleus and cytoplasm, and more importantly, describes lncRNA-regulated TNBC progression through complete combining with miRNA at the post-transcriptional level. Focusing on miRNA and lncRNA associated with TNBC can provide new insights for early diagnosis and treatment-they can be targeted in the future as a novel anticancer target of TNBC.

Assessment of genetic diversity by simple sequence repeat markers among forty elite varieties in the germplasm for malting barley breeding.

The genetic diversity and relationship among 40 elite barley varieties were analyzed based on simple sequence repeat (SSR) genotyping data. The amplified fragments from SSR primers were highly polymorphic in the barley accessions investigated. A total of 85 alleles were detected at 35 SSR loci, and allelic variations existed at 29 SSR loci. The allele number per locus ranged from 1 to 5 with an average of 2.4 alleles per locus detected from the 40 barley accessions. A cluster analysis based on the genetic similarity coefficients was conducted and the 40 varieties were classified into two groups. Seven malting barley varieties from China fell into the same subgroup. It was found that the genetic diversity within the Chinese malting barley varieties was narrower than that in other barley germplasm sources, suggesting the importance and feasibility of introducing elite genotypes from different origins for malting barley breeding in China.

[A preliminary analysis of the function of the OsRab5a gene in rice (Oryza sativa L.)].

OsRab5a encodes a Rab5 protein in rice, which belongs to the Rab family of small GTP-binding protein superfamily. Transgenic plants with POsrab5a::beta-glucuronidase (GUS) gene indicate that OsRab5a is expressed in callus, root, stem, leaf, root base and spikelet (Figs.1, 2H-1). Using the transgenic Arabidopsis with fused gene of GFP::OsRab5a and GFP::OsRab5aCA and by using FM4-64 (the lipophilic styryl dye) staining, we have demonstrated that OsRab5a is involved in vesicular transport and GFP-OsRab5a is localized on the plasma membrane and early endosomes (Fig.2A-C), while GFP-OsRab5aCA is localized in the cell membrane (Fig.2D-F). The reduction of expression of OsRab5a in callus RNA interference, however, led to the lethality of callus during differentiation (Fig.3D-F). The expression of OsRab5a was upregulated slightly by exogenous cytokinin (Fig.4), and was higher in the differentiation medium than that in selection medium (Fig.3G-I). These results suggest that OsRab5a plays an important role in callus differentiation probably through mediating hormone signal transduction.