Cell-free extract from porcine induced pluripotent stem cells can affect porcine somatic cell nuclear reprogramming

Pretreatment of somatic cells with undifferentiated cell extracts, such as embryonic stem cells and mammalian oocytes, is an attractive alternative method for reprogramming control. The properties of induced pluripotent stem cells (iPSCs) are similar to those of embryonic stem cells; however, no studies have reported somatic cell nuclear reprogramming using iPSC extracts. Therefore, this study aimed to evaluate the effects of porcine iPSC extracts treatment on porcine ear fibroblasts and early development of porcine cloned embryos produced from porcine ear skin fibroblasts pretreated with the porcine iPSC extracts. The Chariot^TM reagent system was used to deliver the iPSC extracts into cultured porcine ear skin fibroblasts. The iPSC extracts-treated cells (iPSC-treated cells) were cultured for 3 days and used for analyzing histone modification and somatic cell nuclear transfer. Compared to the results for nontreated cells, the trimethylation status of histone H3 lysine residue 9 (H3K9) in the iPSC-treated cells significantly decreased. The expression of Jmjd2b, the H3K9 trimethylation-specific demethylase gene, significantly increased in the iPSC-treated cells; conversely, the expression of the proapoptotic genes, Bax and p53, significantly decreased. When the iPSC-treated cells were transferred into enucleated porcine oocytes, no differences were observed in blastocyst development and total cell number in blastocysts compared with the results for control cells. However, H3K9 trimethylation of pronuclear-stage-cloned embryos significantly decreased in the iPSC-treated cells. Additionally, Bax and p53 gene expression in the blastocysts was significantly lower in iPSC-treated cells than in control cells. To our knowledge, this study is the first to show that an extracts of porcine iPSCs can affect histone modification and gene expression in porcine ear skin fibroblasts and cloned embryos.     

Quantitative morphology in canine cutaneous soft tissue sarcomas

Stained cytological specimens from 24 dogs with spontaneous soft tissue sarcomas [fibrosarcoma (n = 8), liposarcoma (n = 8) and haemangiopericytoma (n = 8)], and 24 dogs with reactive connective tissue lesions [granulation tissue (n = 12) and dermal fibrosis (n = 12)] were analysed by computer‐assisted nuclear morphometry. The studied morphometric parameters were: mean nuclear area (MNA; µm²), mean nuclear perimeter (MNP; µm), mean nuclear diameter (MND mean; µm), minimum nuclear diameter (D_min; µm) and maximum nuclear diameter (D_max; µm). The study aimed to evaluate (1) possibility for quantitative differentiation of soft tissue sarcomas from reactive connective tissue lesions and (2) by using cytomorphometry, to differentiate the various histopathological soft tissue sarcomas subtypes in dogs. The mean values of all nuclear cytomorphometric parameters (except for D_max) were statistically significantly higher in reactive connective tissue processes than in soft tissue sarcomas. At the same time, however, there were no considerable differences among the different sarcoma subtypes. The results demonstrated that the quantitative differentiation of reactive connective tissue processes from soft tissue sarcomas in dogs is possible, but the same was not true for the different canine soft tissue sarcoma subtypes. Further investigations on this topic are necessary for thorough explication of the role of quantitative morphology in the diagnostics of mesenchymal neoplasms and tumour‐like fibrous lesions in dogs     

抗流感病毒药物研究进展

季节性和爆发性流感引起了高发病率和死亡率,不仅严重危害人体健康,还影响社会稳定和经济发展。目前对抗流感的主要措施是预防接种,然而流感病毒变异速度非常快,使得现有的疫苗对新变异的流感病毒无效或者预防效果不好。因此,抗病毒药物的研究显得非常必要,而被深入研究的流感病毒的生命周期和病毒结构蛋白也推进了抗流感病毒药物设计的进展。本文将对抗流感药物设计靶向进行概述,旨在为今后研究开发出更高效、更理想的多靶向抗流感病毒药物提供借鉴。     

激光切割对马铃薯组培苗移栽后生长指标的影响

以机械剪切方式作为对照,使用以CO_2激光器在垂直照射、离焦量12 mm、光输出功率10 W的条件下的激光,对马铃薯组培苗进行无接触式切割,并对激光切割和机械剪切后马铃薯组培苗的生长情况进行对比试验。试验结果显示:使用激光进行马铃薯组培苗切割不会影响其生物活性;在培养21 d后,无论是单切口茎段还是双切口茎段,激光切割马铃薯组培苗的存活率、株高、节间数、节间长度、茎粗、根长、去根鲜质量等生长指标均优于机械剪切方式。试验结果表明,以激光切割方式代替传统机械剪切方式进行马铃薯组培苗的无接触式切割,极大简化了组培苗移栽时的动作,能有效避免组培苗交叉感染,促进移栽的组培苗茎段成活。     

Influence of phosphate-buffered sucrose solution on early graft function in feline renal autotransplantation

Graft perfusion with cold heparinized saline has known to induce ischemia and reperfusion injury in feline kidney transplantation. In this study, the effects of phosphate-buffered sucrose solution and heparinized saline solution on early kidney graft function were compared in feline kidney autotransplantation. Perfusion of grafts with or without hypothermic storage with chilled phosphate-buffered sucrose solution prevented ischemia and reperfusion injury despite a very short ischemic time. The results of our study suggest that phosphate-buffered sucrose perfusion and storage solution should be effective to reduce ischemia and reperfusion injury despite a very short ischemic time in feline kidney transplantation.     

A Cathepsin B Inhibitor,E-64, Improves the Preimplantation Development of Bovine Somatic Cell Nuclear Transfer Embryos

Bovine somatic cell nuclear transfer (SCNT) is an important and powerful tool for basic research and biomedical and agricultural applications, however, the efficiency of SCNT has remained extremely low. In this study, we investigated the effects of cathepsin B inhibitor (E-64) supplementation of culture medium on in vitro development of bovine SCNT embryos. We initially used three concentrations of E-64 (0.1, 0.5, 1.0 μm), among which 0.5 μm resulted in the highest rate of blastocysts production after in vitro fertilization (IVF), and was therefore used for further experiments. Blastocyst development of SCNT embryos in the E-64 treatment group also increased relative to the control. Moreover, the cryosurvival rates of IVF and SCNT blastocysts were increased in E-64 treatment groups when compared with the control. On the other hand, we found that IVF and SCNT blastocysts derived from E-64-treated groups had increased total cell numbers and decreased apoptotic nuclei. Furthermore, assessment of the expression of apoptosis-related genes (Bax and Bcl-xL) in bovine IVF and SCNT blastocysts treated with E-64 by real-time RT-PCR analysis revealed suppressed expression of the pro-apoptotic gene Bax and stimulated expression of the anti-apoptotic gene Bcl-xL. Taken together, these finding indicate that addition of E-64 to embryo culture medium may have important implications for improving developmental competence and preimplantation quality in bovine IVF and SCNT embryos.     

A simplified one-step nuclear transfer procedure alters the gene expression patterns and developmental potential of cloned porcine embryos

Various somatic cell nuclear transfer (SCNT) techniques for mammalian species have been developed to adjust species-specific procedures to oocyte-associated differences among species. Species-specific SCNT protocols may result in different expression levels of developmentally important genes that may affect embryonic development and pregnancy. In the present study, porcine oocytes were treated with demecolcine that facilitated enucleation with protruding genetic material. Enucleation and donor cell injection were performed either simultaneously with a single pipette (simplified one-step SCNT; SONT) or separately with different pipettes (conventional two-step SCNT; CTNT) as the control procedure. After blastocysts from both groups were cultured in vitro, the expression levels of developmentally important genes (OCT4, NANOG, EOMES, CDX2, GLUT-1, PolyA, and HSP70) were analyzed by real-time quantitative polymerase chain reaction. Both the developmental rate according to blastocyst stage as well as the expression levels CDX2, EOMES, and HSP70 were elevated with SONT compared to CTNT. The genes with elevated expression are known to influence trophectoderm formation and heat stress-induced arrest. These results showed that our SONT technique improved the development of SCNT porcine embryos, and increased the expression of genes that are important for placental formation and stress-induced arrest.     

Characterization of a cDNA encoding a homolog of actin-related protein 4 from a marine red alga Porphyra yezoensis

ABSTRACT:   A cDNA ( PyARP4 ) containing an open reading frame for a protein of 573 amino acids was identified in the marine red alga Porphyra yezoensis . The conceptual PyARP4 protein exhibits significant similarity to actin-related protein (ARP) 4 in the terrestrial plant Arabidopsis . Comparison of the deduced amino acid sequence showed moderate sequence identity (30%) to a conventional actin in P. yezoensis , as seen in comparisons between ARP and conventional actins of other organisms. A putative bipartite nuclear localization signal and an actin motif were found within the PyARP4 amino acid sequence. In a phylogenetic analysis, the PyARP4 was found to cluster with the ARP4 of other organisms. The expression level of PyARP4 did not change significantly among four developmental stages of life cycle and was lower than that of a conventional actin. This cDNA therefore may serve as a useful internal standard in gene expression analyses of differentially expressed genes in P. yezoensis .     

不同预处理对铁皮石斛热风干燥特性及品质的影响

为了优化铁皮石斛干燥工艺,降低其品质劣变风险,对热风干燥前的铁皮石斛鲜条进行直接剪切、烫漂和冻融预处理。研究不同预处理条件的铁皮石斛干燥特性和品质变化;利用低场核磁共振技术分析预处理对铁皮石斛干燥过程中水分迁移的影响。结果表明,预处理是影响铁皮石斛热风干燥过程的重要因素。与直接剪切相比,烫漂和冻融预处理提高了水分有效扩散系数,缩短了干燥时间,降低了能耗,尤以冻融预处理最为显著,干燥时间缩短了44.4%,能耗降低了42.76%（P<0.05）。微观结构观察表明,烫漂和冻融预处理使铁皮石斛组织间隙变大,细胞壁受到破坏,减弱了铁皮石斛组织对水分的束缚并增强了水分流动性,引起水分的重新分布,有利于水分迁移。低场核磁共振技术分析显示,干燥过程中去除的主要是自由水,烫漂和冻融预处理均降低了自由水的脱除时间,冻融预处理去除自由水的时间最少,为120 min。与直接剪切相比,冻融预处理提高了铁皮石斛干品中多糖和多酚的含量,分别提高了10.66%和12.32%,而烫漂预处理降低了铁皮石斛多糖和多酚的含量,分别降低了11.73%和14.73%,3种预处理铁皮石斛生物碱含量差异不显著（P>0.05）。总之,冻融预处理方法可以降低铁皮石斛干燥品质劣变风险,研究结果为石斛加工规范化生产提供参考。