STAT1 inhibitor alleviates spinal cord injury by decreasing apoptosis.

Spinal cord injury (SCI) is typically caused by trauma or disease, and it severely affects patients' motor function. The relationship between signal transducers and activators of transcription-1 (STAT1) and neuronal death after cerebral focal ischemia has been comprehensively studied, but its role in SCI remains largely unknown. This study investigated the protective effect of an STAT1 inhibitor on SCI. Thirty SD rats were SCI-induced and were then randomly divided into two groups (N = 15 each), either receiving STAT1 or the STAT1 inhibitor S1491 by intraperitoneal injection. The motor dysfunction of the rats was evaluated by behavioral scores, followed by the examination of SCI by hematoxylin and eosin staining. Apoptosis was also detected by Western blot and terminal deoxynucleotidyl transferase-mediated dUTP nick-end-labeling (TUNEL) assay. The motor functions of rats receiving STAT1 did not score as well as the STAT1 inhibitor group (P < 0.01). Further assays showed remarkable improvements in pathological damage to spinal code tissue in STAT1 inhibitor-treated rats, along with lower Bax and higher Bcl-2 expression. The STAT1 inhibitor also suppressed the occurrence of TUNEL-positive cells compared to the STAT1-treated group. In summary, we suggest that the STAT1 inhibitor alleviates SCI by decreasing apoptosis.

A new strategy for complete identification of sea buckthorn cultivars by using random amplified polymorphic DNA markers.

DNA fingerprinting is both a popular and important technique with several advantages in plant cultivar identification. However, this technique has not been used widely and efficiently in practical plant identification because the analysis and recording of data generated from fingerprinting and genotyping are tedious and difficult. We developed a novel approach known as a cultivar identification diagram (CID) strategy that uses DNA markers to separate plant individuals in a more efficient, practical, and referable manner. A CID was manually constructed and a polymorphic marker was generated from each polymerase chain reaction for sample separation. In this study, 67 important sea buckthorn cultivars cultivated in China were successfully separated with random amplified polymorphic DNA markers using the CID analysis strategy, with only seven 11-nucleotide primers employed. The utilization of the CID of these 67 sea buckthorn cultivars was verified by identifying 2 randomly chosen groups of cultivars among the 67 cultivars. The main advantages of this identification strategy include fewer primers used and separation of all cultivars using the corresponding primers. This sea buckthorn CID was able to separate any sea buckthorn cultivars among the 67 studied, which is useful for sea buckthorn cultivar identification, cultivar-right-protection, and for the sea buckthorn nursery industry in China.