Are protein hubs faster folders? Exploration based on Escherichia coli proteome.

Protein hubs in protein-protein interaction network are especially important due to their central roles in the entire network. Despite of their importance, the folding kinetics of hub proteins in comparison with non-hubs is still unknown. In this work, the folding rates for protein hubs and non-hubs were predicted and compared for the interactome of Escherichia coli K12, and the results showed that hub proteins fold faster than non-hub proteins. A possible explanation might be that protein hubs have more and fast-folding structural conformations than non-hubs, which leads to the notion of "hub of hubs" in the protein conformation space. It was found that the sequence and structure features relevant to protein folding rates are also different between hub and non-hub proteins. Moreover, the interacting proteins tend to have similar folding rates. These results gave insightful implications for understanding the interplay between the mechanisms of protein folding and interaction.

Diagnosis and treatment of pancreatic metastases in 22 patients: a retrospective study.

BACKGROUND: Pancreatic metastases (PMs) are rare and lack of guidelines for diagnosis and treatments .The aim of this study is to explore the diagnosis, treatment, and prognosis of pancreatic metastases. METHODS: Twenty-two patients with pancreatic metastases who had been hospitalized at the First Affiliated Hospital of China Medical University from October 1980 to October 2012 were included in the present retrospective study. Seven patients had gastric cancer, five had colon cancer, two each had lung and liver cancer, and one each had bladder cancer, gallbladder cancer, breast cancer, nasopharyngeal cancer, renal cell carcinoma, and carcinoid. RESULTS: No specific syndrome or imageological change was found for the pancreatic metastases. The most common symptoms were abdominal pain and jaundice. Hypo-echoic lesions with well-defined margins were found on ultrasonic examinations, and low-density lesions with heterogeneous enhancement were identified in CT images. Nineteen of the 22 received treatment. Three of the 8 patients (34.1%) that had undergone operation experienced complications, but all patients recovered after conventional treatment. Follow-up studies were performed for 17 patients (77.3%), and the median survival time from the diagnosis of pancreatic metastases was 13.2 months (range, 2 to 68 months). Of the five patients who underwent radical resection, one was lost to follow-up, one died at fifteen months postoperation, and the other three are still alive and free from disease (disease-free survival ranging from five to thirty-three months from the diagnosis of the pancreatic metastases). CONCLUSION: Pancreatic metastases are rare lesions with no specific symptoms. Radical resection should be performed if possible; however, aggressive treatment should be performed for unresectable pancreatic metastases.

Comparative genomic and transcriptomic analyses of chemosensory genes in the citrus fruit fly Bactrocera (Tetradacus) minax.

The citrus fruit fly Bactrocera (Tetradacus) minax is a major and devastating agricultural pest in Asian subtropical countries. Previous studies have shown that B. minax interacts with plant hosts via the efficient chemosensory system. However, the molecular components of the B. minax chemosensory system have not been well characterized. Herein, we identified a total of 25 putative odorant-binding receptors (OBPs), 4 single-copy chemosensory proteins (CSPs) and 53 candidate odorant receptors (ORs) using a newly generated whole-genome dataset for B. minax. This study significantly extended the chemosensation-related gene profiles (particularly, OBPs and ORs) in six other tephritid species. Comparative transcriptome analysis of adult B. minax and Bactrocera dorsalis showed that there were 14 highly expressed OBPs (FPKM > 100) in B. dorsalis and 7 highly expressed ones in B. minax. The expression level of CSP3 gene and CSP4 gene was higher in B. dorsalis than that in B. minax. Comparative genomic and transcriptomic analyses of chemosensory genes in the citrus fruit fly B. minax provided new insights for preventive control of this agriculture important pest and closely related species.

[The polymorphism of four Y-STR loci and its application in forensic medicine].

We have obtained the alleles and haplotype distribution of 100 unrelated males from the Chinese Han and Zhuang populations at the four Y chromosome-specific loci A10, C4, A7.1, A7.2 by fluorescent primers and with 377 DNA sequencer. We observed 7, 6, 6, 6 alleles in loci A10, C4, A7.1, A7.2 respectively, the gene diversity (GD) values are 0.7776/0.629, 0.773/0.732, 0.5978/0.7272, 0.6664/0.6458 (Zhuang/Han). 114 haplotypes were found in 200 males, haplotype diversity (HD) values are 0.9786, 0.9772 (Zhuang/Han). We have confirmed the core repeats and its repeating number of these alleles by sequencing. A tetraplex PCR system consisting of the A10, C4, A7.1 and A7.2 loci was set up and it is of good specificity. We investigated the validation at these four Y-STRs loci in forensic application such as the male specificity, genetic stability and the sensitivity. In conclusion, the four Y-STRs loci are very suitable to forensic medicine analysis and paternity test.