Peptide derived from RAGE efficiently improves oocyte development through attenuating oxidative stress in oocytes of mice with polycystic ovary syndrome.

Polycystic ovary syndrome (PCOS) is a common and complex endocrine disorder in reproductive-aged women that frequently leads to infertility due to poor oocyte quality. In this study, we identified a new active peptide (advanced glycation end products receptors RAGE344-355 ) from PCOS follicular fluid using mass spectrometry. We found that supplementing PCOS-like mouse oocytes with RAGE344-355 attenuated both meiotic defects and oxidative stress levels, ultimately preventing developmental defects. Additionally, our results suggest that RAGE344-355 may interact with eEF1a1 to mitigate oxidative meiotic defects in PCOS-like mouse oocytes. These findings highlight the potential for further clinical development of RAGE344-355 as a potent supplement and therapeutic option for women with PCOS. This research addresses an important clinical problem and offers promising opportunities for improving oocyte quality in PCOS patients.

Batch and continuous enzymatic interesterification of beef tallow: Interesterification degree, reaction relationship, and physicochemical properties.

The relationship between batch and continuous enzymatic interesterification was studied through enzymatic interesterification of beef tallow. The interesterification degree (ID) during the batch reaction was monitored based on triacylglycerol composition, sn-2 fatty acid composition, solid fat content, and melting profile and was described by an exponential model. A relationship equation featuring reaction parameters of the two reations was established to predict the ID and physicochemical characteristics in continuous interesterification. The prediction of the ID based on triacylglycerol composition was reliable, with an R2 value greater than 0.85. Interesterification produced more high-melting-point components for both reactions, but the acyl migration in the batch-stirring reactor was much greater, resulting in faster crystallization, a more delicate crystal network, and lower hardness. The relationship equation can be employed to predict the ID, but the prediction of physicochemical properties was constrained by the difference in acyl migration degree between the two reactions.

Identification of Superior Haplotypes and Haplotype Combinations for Grain Size- and Weight-Related Genes for Breeding Applications in Rice (Oryza sativa L.).

The identification of superior haplotypes and haplotype combinations is essential for haplotype-based breeding (HBB), which provides selection targets for genomics-assisted breeding. In this study, genotypes of 42 functional genes in rice were analyzed by targeted capture sequencing in a panel of 180 Indica rice accessions. In total, 69 SNPs/Indels in seven genes were detected to be associated with grain length (GL), grain width (GW), ratio of grain length-width (L/W) and thousand-grain weight (TGW) using candidate gene-based association analysis, including BG1 and GS3 for GL, GW5 for GW, BG1 and GW5 for L/W, and AET1, SNAC1, qTGW3, DHD1 and GW5 for TGW. Furthermore, two haplotypes were identified for each of the seven genes according to these associated SNPs/Indels, and the amount of genetic variation explained by different haplotypes ranged from 3.24% to 27.66%. Additionally, three, three and eight haplotype combinations for GL, L/W and TGW explained 25.38%, 5.5% and 22.49% of the total genetic variation for each trait, respectively. Further analysis showed that Minghui63 had the superior haplotype combination Haplotype Combination 4 (HC4) for TGW. The most interesting finding was that some widely used restorer lines derived from Minghui63 also have the superior haplotype combination HC4, and our breeding varieties and lines using the haplotype-specific marker panel also confirmed that the TGW of the lines was much higher than that of their sister lines without HC4, suggesting that TGW-HC4 is the superior haplotype combination for TGW and can be utilized in rice breeding.

Triethylamine-Promoted Henry Reaction/Elimination of HNO2/Cyclization Sequence of Functionalized Nitroalkanes and 2-Oxoaldehydes: Diversity-Oriented Synthesis of Oxacycles.

The triethylamine-promoted cascade Henry reaction/elimination of HNO2/cyclization reaction of 2-oxoaldehydes with nitroalkanes bearing various remote functionalities is described. Both chiral and achiral nitroalkanes were applicable to this protocol, leading to a variety of oxacycles, such as chromenes, chromanes, cyclic hemiacetals, and polycyclic acetals. An unexpected regioselective photooxygenation occurred without sensitizer during derivatization to convert a derived diene product into a dioxetane by reaction with singlet oxygen, which provided chromen-2-one and benzaldehyde after fragmentation.

Genome-Wide Analysis of Wheat GATA Transcription Factor Genes Reveals Their Molecular Evolutionary Characteristics and Involvement in Salt and Drought Tolerance.

GATA transcription factor genes participate in plant growth, development, morphogenesis, and stress response. In this study, we carried out a comprehensive genome-wide analysis of wheat GATA transcription factor genes to reveal their molecular evolutionary characteristics and involvement in salt and drought tolerance. In total, 79 TaGATA genes containing a conserved GATA domain were identified in the wheat genome, which were classified into four subfamilies. Collinear analysis indicated that fragment duplication plays an important role in the amplification of the wheat GATA gene family. Functional disproportionation analysis between subfamilies found that both type I and type II functional divergence simultaneously occurs in wheat GATA genes, which might result in functional differentiation of the TaGATA gene family. Transcriptional expression analysis showed that TaGATA genes generally have a high expression level in leaves and in response to drought and salt stresses. Overexpression of TaGATA62 and TaGATA73 genes significantly enhanced the drought and salt tolerance of yeast and Arabidopsis. Protein-protein docking indicated that TaGATAs can enhance drought and salt tolerance by interacting between the DNA-binding motif of GATA transcription factors and photomorphogenesis-related protein TaCOP9-5A. Our results provided a base for further understanding the molecular evolution and functional characterization of the plant GATA gene family in response to abiotic stresses.

Effect of Additional Clostridium butyricum on the Intestinal Flora of Chronic Hepatitis B Patients Treated with Entecavir.

INTRODUCTION: To explore the influence of intestinal flora on the occurrence, development and antiviral therapy of chronic hepatitis B (CHB), 16S rDNA amplification sequencing was performed to investigate the intestinal flora in CHB patients treated with entecavir (ETV) and Clostridium butyricum (CB). METHODS: CHB patients were divided into the ETV group (treatment with ETV alone) and ETV + CB group (treatment with ETV and CB). After 8-week treatment, feces samples were collected and processed for 16S rDNA amplicon sequencing; blood samples were collected for the biochemical, immunologic and virologic evaluations, which were compared between groups. RESULTS: ETV treatment for 8 weeks significantly decreased the serum levels of alanine aminotransferase (ALT), interleukin-6 (IL-6), IL-8, tumor necrosis factor-α (TNF-α) and HBV DNA compared to those before treatment, but there were no marked differences between the ETV group and ETV + CB group. The intestinal flora changed significantly in the CHB patients after ETV + CB treatment: there were marked differences in 13 unique species before treatment and 4 unique species after ETV + CB treatment; at the phylum level, the top five bacteria with significant difference between patients before treatment and ETV + CB patients were Firmicutes, Actinobacteria, Cyanobacteria, Euryarchaeota and Synergistetes. There were significant differences in 25 unique species in the ETV group and 4 unique species in the ETV + CB group; at the phylum level, the top five bacteria with significant difference between ETV patients and ETV + CB patients were Actinobacteria, Fusobacteria, Proteobacteria, Saccharibacteria and Synergistetes. CONCLUSION: ETV treatment improves the serum biochemical, immunologic and virologic variables, but additional CB fails to further improve these variables. Of note, additional CB affects the intestinal flora in the CHB patients treated with ETV.

Effect of Entecavir on the Intestinal Microflora in Patients with Chronic Hepatitis B: A Controlled Cross-Sectional and Longitudinal Real-World Study.

INTRODUCTION: This study aimed to analyze the diversity of intestinal flora in patients with chronic hepatitis B (CHB) and investigate the effect of entecavir on the intestinal flora in these patients. METHODS: Thirty patients with CHB and 30 healthy controls were recruited from the Department of Infectious Diseases and Department of Gastroenterology of Shanghai Tongji Hospital between January 2017 and December 2018. Stool samples were collected for the detection of intestinal flora by high-throughput sequencing. Patients with CHB received antivirus therapy with entecavir for 8 weeks. The biochemical and virological responses were assessed and the intestinal flora were compared. RESULTS: After entecavir treatment, the blood levels of alanine aminotransferase (ALT), interleukin-6 (IL-6), IL-8, tumor necrosis factor (TNF), and hepatitis B virus (HBV) DNA reduced significantly in patients with CHB and the species abundance of intestinal flora increased markedly. In patients with CHB, the unique genera included Butyrivibrio, Phaseolus acutifolius, and Prevotellaceae NK3B31 group before treatment and Howardella, Candidatus Stoquefichus, Citrobacter, Dysgonomonas, Faecalicoccus, Methanobrevibacter, Mitsuokella, Mobilitalea, Succinivibrio, Gluconobacter, and Plesiomonas after treatment. The abundance of the following genera increased significantly after entecavir treatment in patients with CHB: Clostridium sensu stricto 1, Erysipelotrichaceae UCG-007, and Intestinibacter. The abundance of Streptococcus, Atopobium, and Murdochiella reduced markedly after entecavir treatment in patients with CHB. CONCLUSION: After 8-week entecavir treatment, the blood biochemical, immunological, and virological responses improved significantly, the species abundance of intestinal flora increased markedly, and there were unique genera in patients with CHB before and after treatment.

Identification of stress defensive proteins in common wheat-Thinopyron intermedium translocation line YW642 developing grains via comparative proteome analysis.

Thinopyrum intermedium (2n = 6x = 42, E1E1E2E2XX) serves as an important gene source of desirable traits for genetic improvement of wheat cultivars resistant to stresses. This study used the comparative proteomic approach to identify stress defense related proteins in the developing grains of common wheat (Zhongmai 8601)-Thinopyron intermedium 7XL/7DS translocation line YW642 and to explore their potential values for improving wheat stress resistance. Two-dimensional electrophoresis identified 124 differentially accumulated protein spots representing 100 unique proteins, which mainly participated in stress defense, energy metabolism, protein metabolism and folding and storage protein synthesis. Among these, 16 were unique and 35 were upregulated in YW642. The upregulated DAPs were mainly involved in biotic and abiotic stress defense. Further cis-elements analysis of these stress-related DAP genes revealed that phytohormone responsive elements such as ABREs, G-box, CGTCA-motif and TGACG-motif, and environment responsive element As-1 were particularly abundant, which could play important roles in response to various stressors. Transcription expression analysis by RNA-seq and qRT-PCR demonstrated a large part of the stress-related DAP genes showed an upregulated expression in the early-to-middle stages of grain development. Our results proved that Thinopyron intermedium contains abundant stress responsive proteins that have potential values for the genetic improvement of wheat stress resistance.

Molecular and Conventional Analysis of Acute Diarrheal Isolates Identifies Epidemiological Trends, Antibiotic Resistance and Virulence Profiles of Common Enteropathogens in Shanghai.

Objective: To investigate prevalence of acute diarrhea in Shanghai and analyze virulence associated-genes and antibiotic resistance of major enteropathogens using combination of conventional and molecular epidemiology methods. Method: The 412 stool specimens were obtained by systematic sampling from diarrhea patients throughout entire year 2016. Bacterial and viral pathogens were identified and bacterial isolates were cultured and screened for antibiotic resistance profiles. Two most prevalent bacteria, Vibrio parahaemolyticus and Salmonella were further typed by multi-locus sequence typing (MLST) and analyzed for presence of virulence-associated genes. The association between virulence genes, resistance phenotypes and genetic diversities was analyzed. Results: Among stool specimens testing positive for pathogens (23.1%), 59 bacterial and 36 viral pathogens were identified. V. parahaemolyticus (27/412, 6.6%), Salmonella (23/412, 5.6%) and norovirus GII (21/412, 5.1%) were three most-commonly found. Most bacterial isolates exhibited high levels of antibiotic resistance with high percentage of MDR. The drug resistance rates of V. parahaemolyticus and Salmonella isolates to cephalosporins were high, such as 100.0 and 34.8% to CFX, 55.6 and 43.4% to CTX, 92.6 and 95.7% to CXM, respectively. The most common resistance combination of V. parahaemolyticus and Salmonella was cephalosporins and quinolone. The dominant sequence types (STs) of V. parahaemolyticus and Salmonella were ST3 (70.4%) and ST11 (43.5%), respectively. The detection rates of virulence genes in V. parahaemolyticus were tlh (100%) and tdh (92.6%), without trh and ureR. Most of the Salmonella isolates were positive for the Salmonella pathogenicity islands (SPIs) genes (87-100%), and some for Salmonella plasmid virulence (SPV) genes (34.8% for spvA and spvB, 43.5% for spvC). In addition, just like the drug resistance, virulence genes exhibited wide-spread distribution among the different STs albeit with some detectable frequency linkage among Salmonella STs. Conclusion: Bacterial infections are still the major cause of severe diarrheas in Shanghai. The most common bacteria V. parahaemolyticus and Salmonella show molecular characteristics consistent with preselection of highly virulent types with exceedingly high level of antibiotic resistance.

Adjuvant probiotics improve the eradication effect of triple therapy for Helicobacter pylori infection.

AIM: To investigate whether the addition of probiotics can improve the eradication effect of triple therapy for Helicobacter pylori (H. pylori) infection. METHODS: This open randomized trial recruited 234 H. pylori positive gastritis patients from seven local centers. The patients were randomized to one-week standard triple therapy (omeprazole 20 mg bid, clarithromycin 500 mg bid, and amoxicillin 1000 mg bid; OCA group, n = 79); two weeks of pre-treatment with probiotics, containing 3 × 10(7)Lactobacillus acidophilus per day, prior to one week of triple therapy (POCA group, n = 78); or one week of triple therapy followed by two weeks of the same probiotics (OCAP group, n = 77). Successful eradication was defined as a negative C13 or C14 urease breath test four weeks after triple therapy. Patients were asked to report associated symptoms at baseline and during follow-up, and side effects related to therapy were recorded. Data were analyzed by both intention-to-treat (ITT) and per-protocol (PP) methods. RESULTS: PP analysis involved 228 patients, 78 in the OCA, 76 in the POCA and 74 in the OCAP group. Successful eradication was observed in 171 patients; by PP analysis, the eradication rates were significantly higher (P = 0.007 each) in the POCA (62/76; 81.6%, 95% CI 72.8%-90.4%) and OCAP (61/74; 82.4%, 95% CI 73.6%-91.2%) groups than in the OCA group (48/78; 61.5%, 95% CI 50.6%-72.4%). ITT analysis also showed that eradication rates were significantly higher in the POCA (62/78; 79.5%, 95% CI 70.4%-88.6%) and OCAP (61/77; 79.2%, 95% CI 70%-88.4%) groups than in the OCA group (48/79; 60.8%, 95% CI 49.9%-71.7%), (P = 0.014 and P = 0.015). The symptom relieving rates in the POCA, OCAP and OCA groups were 85.5%, 89.2% and 87.2%, respectively. Only one of the 228 patients experienced an adverse reaction. CONCLUSION: Administration of probiotics before or after standard triple therapy may improve H. pylori eradication rates.

[Research advances of leukemia mouse hematopoietic stem cell transplantation model].

Mouse model of leukemia hematopoietic stem cell transplantation is the key platform to study leukemia experimental treatment, which has been widely used in anticancer drug screening and in the studies of leukemia pathogenesis and experimental treatment. Transplantation mouse model has several advantages such as short cycle of model establishment, good repetitiveness, and the more stable biological characteristics of the tumor cell lines. The source of leukemia and tumor cell lines, choice of mouse species, the establishment of transplantation model, the recent advances of GVHD model and other aspects of transplantation mouse model are summarized in this review.

[Detecting minimal residual disease status in allogeneic hematopoietic stem cell transplantation of patients with high-risk acute leukemia].

OBJECTIVE: To explore the relationship between minimal residual disease (MRD) and the outcome of patients with high-risk acute leukemia (AL) undergoing allogeneic hematopoietic stem cell transplantation (HSCT). METHODS: By 4/5-color multi-parameter flow cytometry (MFC, CD45/SSC gating) for detecting MRD at pre-(day-30) and post-transplant (day +30, +60, +100, 6 months, 9 months and 12 months), the investigators retrospectively analyzed the MRD levels and the prognosis of 90 high-risk patients. According to the MRD cutoff value of 0.1%, the low-level and high-level groups were defined. In the high-level group, the patients were divided into two sub groups according to the subsequent treatment (intervention therapy group and non-intervention therapy group). RESULTS: MRD pre-transplant had no predictive value for the clinical outcome. The patients with high levels of MRD post-transplant (+60 d and +100 d) showed higher relapse rates than those of the low-level group. In addition, regarding MRD +100 d post-transplant, differences were significant among 3 groups (high-level MRD and intervention therapy group, high-level MRD and non-intervention therapy group and low-level MRD group) including 1-year relapse-free survival (RFS) (100% vs 60.87% vs 91.30%, P < 0.05) and 3-year RFS (85.71% vs 44.72% vs 68.48%, P < 0.05). The median time from first high level MRD detected to clinical relapse was 2.5 (1 - 26) months. In the high level MRD group (+100 d post-transplant), 7 of 30 patients received intervention therapy without relapse. However another 23 patients had no intervention treatment and 11 of them relapsed latter (P < 0.05). CONCLUSION: The MFC-based quantification of MRD post-transplant reveals important prognostic information in patients with high-risk AL. MRD check point at day +100 (cutoff: 0.1%) may discriminate different risk populations. Those patients with MRD levels ≥ 0.1% should receive early intervention at an early stage and a low tumor burden so as to reduce the relapse rate and boost survival.

Bid integrates intrinsic and extrinsic signaling in apoptosis induced by alpha-tocopheryl succinate in human gastric carcinoma cells.

The underlying mechanisms of alpha-tocopheryl succinate (alpha-TOS)-mediated apoptosis are not understood in detail, although the redox-silent vitamin E analog is a potent apoptogen and anti-cancer agent. Our previous studies showed the important role of Fas signaling in apoptosis induced by the mitocan. The objective of the present study was to investigate whether apoptosis triggered by alpha-TOS in gastric carcinomas cells involves both mitochondria- and death receptor-dependent pathways. alpha-TOS induced apoptosis and mitochondrial permeability transition in a concentration- and time-dependent manner. As a consequence, cytochrome c and the apoptosis-inducing factor were released and caspases were activated. Bax was translocated from the cytosol to mitochondria and Bid was cleaved into its truncated form, tBid. Knocking down Bid by RNAi and Fas antisense oligodeoxynucleotides resulted in a decreased release and cleavage. The results imply that Bid may serve as a critical integrating factor of the death receptor and mitochondrial pathway in alpha-TOS-mediated apoptosis.