Protein target identification of ginsenosides in skeletal muscle tissues: discovery of natural small-molecule activators of muscle-type creatine kinase

Chen, Feiyan,Zhu, Kexuan,Chen, Lin,Ouyang, Liufeng,Chen, Cuihua,Gu, Ling,Jiang, Yucui,Wang, Zhongli,Lin, Zixuan,Zhang, Qiang,Shao, Xiao,Dai, Jianguo,Zhao, Yunan The Korean Society of Ginseng 2020 Journal of Ginseng Research Vol.44 No.3

Background: Ginseng effectively reduces fatigue in both animal models and clinical trials. However, the mechanism of action is not completely understood, and its molecular targets remain largely unknown. Methods: By screening for proteins that interact with the primary components of ginseng (ginsenosides) in an affinity chromatography assay, we have identified muscle-type creatine kinase (CK-MM) as a potential target in skeletal muscle tissues. Results: Biolayer interferometry analysis showed that ginsenoside metabolites, instead of parent ginsenosides, had direct interaction with recombinant human CK-MM. Subsequently, 20(S)-protopanaxadiol (PPD), which is a ginsenoside metabolite and displayed the strongest interaction with CK-MM in the study, was selected as a representative to confirm direct binding and its biological importance. Biolayer interferometry kinetics analysis and isothermal titration calorimetry assay demonstrated that PPD specifically bound to human CK-MM. Moreover, the mutation of key amino acids predicted by molecular docking decreased the affinity between PPD and CK-MM. The direct binding activated CK-MM activity in vitro and in vivo, which increased the levels of tissue phosphocreatine and strengthened the function of the creatine kinase/phosphocreatine system in skeletal muscle, thus buffering cellular ATP, delaying exercise-induced lactate accumulation, and improving exercise performance in mice. Conclusion: Our results suggest a cellular target and an initiating molecular event by which ginseng reduces fatigue. All these findings indicate PPD as a small molecular activator of CK-MM, which can help in further developing better CK-MM activators based on the dammarane-type triterpenoid structure.

Protein target identifi cation of ginsenosides in skeletal muscle tissues: discovery of natural smallmolecule activators of muscle-type creatine kinase

Feiyan Chen,Kexuan Zhu,Lin Chen,Liufeng Ouyang,Cuihua Chen,Ling Gu,Yucui Jiang,Zhongli Wang,Zixuan Lin,Qiang Zhang,Xiao Shao,Jianguo Dai,Yunan Zhao 고려인삼학회 2020 Journal of Ginseng Research Vol.44 No.3

Background: Ginseng effectively reduces fatigue in both animal models and clinical trials. However, themechanism of action is not completely understood, and its molecular targets remain largely unknown. Methods: By screening for proteins that interact with the primary components of ginseng (ginsenosides)in an affinity chromatography assay, we have identified muscle-type creatine kinase (CK-MM) as a potentialtarget in skeletal muscle tissues. Results: Biolayer interferometry analysis showed that ginsenoside metabolites, instead of parent ginsenosides,had direct interaction with recombinant human CK-MM. Subsequently, 20(S)-protopanaxadiol(PPD), which is a ginsenoside metabolite and displayed the strongest interaction with CK-MM in thestudy, was selected as a representative to confirm direct binding and its biological importance. Biolayerinterferometry kinetics analysis and isothermal titration calorimetry assay demonstrated that PPDspecifically bound to human CK-MM. Moreover, the mutation of key amino acids predicted by moleculardocking decreased the affinity between PPD and CK-MM. The direct binding activated CK-MM activityin vitro and in vivo, which increased the levels of tissue phosphocreatine and strengthened the functionof the creatine kinase/phosphocreatine system in skeletal muscle, thus buffering cellular ATP, delayingexercise-induced lactate accumulation, and improving exercise performance in mice. Conclusion: Our results suggest a cellular target and an initiating molecular event by which ginsengreduces fatigue. All these findings indicate PPD as a small molecular activator of CK-MM, which can helpin further developing better CK-MM activators based on the dammarane-type triterpenoid structure.

Dehydration reaction of bio-ethanol to ethylene over modified SAPO catalysts

Yu Chen,Ling Tao,Bin Dai,Mingde Yang,Zhen Chen,Xiaoyan Zhu,Yulong Wu 한국공업화학회 2010 Journal of Industrial and Engineering Chemistry Vol.16 No.5

Mnmodified SAPO-11 (Mn-SAPO-11), Zn-SAPO-11, Mn-SAPO-34 and Zn-SAPO-34 were first synthesized with hydrothermal method in the laboratory. Dehydration of ethanol to ethylene over SAPO-11, SAPO-34and four materials above as catalysts was carried out and Mn-SAPO-34 exhibited the best conversion and selectivity (99.35% and 98.44%, respectively) at 340 8C. The introduction of Mn2+ or Zn2+ into the SAPO channel generated in Mn-SAPO or Zn-SAPO samples was proved by X-ray diffraction (XRD), scanning electron microscopy (SEM) and nitrogen adsorption. NH3-TPD study revealed that modification of Mn2+or Zn2+ in the SAPO framework led to increase the weak acid strength and give rise to weak acid sites. The effects of operation parameters, such as loading amount, modification methods, reaction time, reaction temperature, mass space velocity and concentration of ethanol have also been investigated experimentally. 2010 The Korean Society of Industrial and Engineering Chemistry. Published by Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.

Using Color Composition Diagrams as a Medium for Promoting Better-balanced Diet

Yao Dai,Yi-Lin Zhuang,Nan-Ling Yeh,Jun Pana,I-Ping Chen 한국색채학회 2017 AIC 2017 Jeju Vol.2017 No.10

We aim to design an App that helps people establish an increased awareness on their daily diet in a highly playful manner. The core concept of this App is to use color information of food photographs people take before meals to give users feedback on how to balance their diets. A healthy food and an unhealthy food color template were created through the following process: using the guideline provided by WHO (World Health Organization), we collected thousands of images of healthy and unhealthy food. The collective color attributes (hue composition, weights of redness, greenness, yellowness, and blueness, average luminance, general contrast) of each of the two groups were derived to render a visualizable color composition template. This way, all the incoming food pictures taken by the user can be compared to the healthy and the unhealthy template. Instead of informing the user ‘You should take more protein.’, our App gives feedback like ‘Maybe you should try more RED.’ Our user experience assessment shows that users enjoy playing with such graphic interface and will potentially pay more attention to their daily diets.

miR-148b-3p, miR-190b, and miR-429 Regulate Cell Progression and Act as Potential Biomarkers for Breast Cancer

Wenzhu Dai,Jixiang He,Ling Zheng,Mingyu Bi,Fei Hu,Minju Chen,Heng Niu,Jingyu Yang,Ying Luo,Wenru Tang,Miaomiao Sheng 한국유방암학회 2019 Journal of breast cancer Vol.22 No.2

Purpose: Breast cancer is the most frequently diagnosed malignancy in women worldwide. MicroRNAs (miRNAs) are thought to serve as potential biomarkers in various cancers, including breast cancer. Methods: We evaluated the miRNA expression profiles in 1,083 breast cancer samples and 104 normal breast tissues from The Cancer Genome Atlas database. We used the edgeR package of R software to analyze the differentially expressed miRNAs in normal and cancer tissues, and screened survival-related miRNAs by Kaplan-Meier analysis. A receiver operating characteristic curve was generated to evaluate the accuracy of these miRNAs as molecular markers for breast cancer diagnosis. Furthermore, the functional role of these miRNAs was verified using cell experiments. Targets of candidate miRNAs were predicted using 9 online databases, and Gene Ontology (GO) functional annotation and pathway analyses were conducted using Database for Annotation, Visualization and Integrated Discovery online tool. Results: A total of 68 miRNAs showed significantly different expression patterns between the groups (p < 0.001), and 13 of these miRNAs were significantly associated with poor survival (p < 0.05). Three miRNAs with high specificity and sensitivity, namely, miR-148b-3p, miR-190b, and miR-429, were selected. In vitro experiments showed that the overexpression of these 3 miRNAs significantly promoted the proliferation and migration of MDA-MB-468 and T47D cells and reduced the apoptosis of T47D cells. GO and pathway enrichment analyses revealed that the targets of these dysregulated miRNAs were involved in many critical cancer-related biological processes and pathways. Conclusion: The miR-148b-3p, miR-190b, and miR-429 may serve as potential diagnostic and prognostic markers for breast cancer. This study demonstrated the roles of these 3 miRNAs in the initiation and progression of breast cancer.

Separation and Characterization of Waste Cotton/polyester Blend Fabric with Hydrothermal Method

Wensheng Hou,Chen Ling,Sheng Shi,Zhifeng Yan,Meiling Zhang,Bonan Zhang,Jinming Dai 한국섬유공학회 2018 Fibers and polymers Vol.19 No.4

In the study, a good separation efficiency of waste cotton/polyester blended fabrics (WBFs) was achieved, with dilute hydrochloric acid as the catalyst under hydrothermal conditions. The morphology and structure of the hydrothermal products including solid and liquid products were characterized by scanning electron microscopy, Fourier transform Infrared spectroscopy, X-ray diffraction, and high-performance liquid chromatography techniques and compared to the untreated polyester and cotton. The results show that the cotton fiber decomposed completely while polyester still retained its fiber characteristics after 3 h of reaction time at 150 oC and 1.5 wt% dilute hydrochloric acid. The hydrolysis of cellulose resulted in a recovery of 96.24 % of the polyester without significant change in its properties; 48.21 % of cellulose powder can be further used as the raw material of microcrystalline cellulose (MCC) and 15.57 % of glucose.

Spectral Clustering with Sparse Graph Construction Based on Markov Random Walk

( Jiangzhong Cao ),( Pei Chen ),( Bingo Wing-kuen Ling ),( Zhijing Yang ),( Qingyun Dai ) 한국인터넷정보학회 2015 KSII Transactions on Internet and Information Syst Vol.9 No.7

Spectral clustering has become one of the most popular clustering approaches in recent years. Similarity graph constructed on the data is one of the key factors that influence the performance of spectral clustering. However, the similarity graphs constructed by existing methods usually contain some unreliable edges. To construct reliable similarity graph for spectral clustering, an efficient method based on Markov random walk (MRW) is proposed in this paper. In the proposed method, theMRW model is defined on the raw k-NN graph and the neighbors of each sample are determined by the probability of the MRW. Since the high order transition probabilities carry complex relationships among data, the neighbors in the graph determined by our proposed method are more reliable than those of the existing methods. Experiments are performed on the synthetic and real-world datasets for performance evaluation and comparison. The results show that the graph obtained by our proposed method reflects the structure of the data better than those of the state-of-the-art methods and can effectively improve the performance of spectral clustering.

Removal of phenol from gas streams via combined plasma catalysis

Kuan Lun Pan,Dai Ling Chen,Guan Ting Pan,Siewhui Chong,Moo Been Chang 한국공업화학회 2017 Journal of Industrial and Engineering Chemistry Vol.52 No.-

A hybrid system consisting of non-thermal plasma and perovskite-like catalyst is developed andevaluated for the effectiveness in removing phenol from gas streams. For thermal catalysis,La0.8Sr0.2Mn0.8Cu0.2O3 shows high activity for phenol removal. Further, La0.8Sr0.2Mn0.8Cu0.2O3 is appliedfor combined plasma catalysis (CPC). The results indicate that phenol removal efficiency with CPCremains 100% at applied voltage range of 13–16 kV. Importantly, secondary pollutants (O3 and NOx) andenergy efficiency can be inhibited and increased, respectively, as CPC is applied. Overall, this studydemonstrates that combining non-thermal plasma with perovskite-like catalyst is effective in removingphenol from gas streams.

A Population-based Case-control Study on Risk Factors for Gastric Cardia Cancer in Rural Areas of Linzhou

Sun, Chang-Qing,Chang, Yu-Bo,Cui, Ling-Ling,Chen, Jia-Jun,Sun, Nan,Zhang, Wei-Jie,Jia, Xiao-Can,Tian, Yuan,Dai, Li-Ping Asian Pacific Journal of Cancer Prevention 2013 Asian Pacific journal of cancer prevention Vol.14 No.5

Gastric cancer is the second most common cause of cancer-related deaths in the world. Although certain dietary factors and lifestyles have been suggested to be associated with gastric carcinogenesis, there have been few investigations focusing on rural areas. A case-control study was therefore carried out to investigate the risk factors of gastric cardia cancer (GCC) in rural areas of Linzhou. A total of 470 newly diagnosed cases of GCC and 470 healthy controls were included. Face-to-face interviews were conducted, using a uniform questionnaire containing questions on demographics, per capita income, living habits, dietary habits and family history of tumors. The relationship between putative risk factors and GCC was assessed by odds ratios (OR) and their 95% confidence intervals (95%CI) derived from conditional logistic regression model by the COXREG command using SPSS 12.00. Multivariate logistic regression analysis was used to evaluate simultaneously the effects of multiple factors and other potential confounding factors. Multivariate logistic analysis showed that smoking (OR=1.939, 95%CI:1.097-3.426), alcohol drinking (OR=2.360, 95%CI: 1.292-4.311), hot food consumption (OR=2.034, 95%CI: 1.507-2.745), fast eating (OR=1.616, 95%CI: 1.171-2.230), mouldy food (OR=4.564, 95%CI: 2.682-7.767), leftover food (OR=1.881. 95%CI: 1.324-2.671), and family history of tumor (OR=2.831, 95%CI: 1.588-5.050) were risk factors for GCC. High per capita income (OR=0.709, 95%CI: 0.533-0.942), high education level (OR=0.354, 95%CI: 0.163-0.765), consumption of fresh fruits (OR=0.186, 95%CI: 0.111-0.311) and vegetables (OR=0.243, 95%CI: 0.142-0.415), and high BMI (OR=0.367, 95%CI: 0.242-0.557) were protective factors for GCC. Our data indicate that unhealthy lifestyle and dietary habits might be important contributors to GCC in this population.

Crashworthiness design of bionic-shell thin-walled tube under axial impact

Lingyun Qin,Shuyi Yang,Hongzhou Li,Juchuan Dai,Guosheng Wang,Qihui Ling,Zhewu Chen 대한기계학회 2023 JOURNAL OF MECHANICAL SCIENCE AND TECHNOLOGY Vol.37 No.7

Bionic structures have been widely utilized in the crashworthiness design of thin-walled structures due to their superior energy absorption capabilities. This study constructed a bionic-shell thin-walled tube (BST) with excellent crashworthiness based on the structural bionic principle using the shell shape cross-section as the prototype. First, the theoretical model of the mean crushing force (MCF) for BST under axial compression was developed. An experiment was conducted and the reliability of the finite element model was verified. Then, the effects of structural parameters, such as the number of ribs, wall thickness, and inner tube diameter on the crashworthiness of the BST were investigated using the finite element method. Finally, to obtain the ideal configuration of structural parameters, the BST was optimized using the response surface method (RSM) with specific energy absorption (SEA) and crushing force efficiency (CFE) as the optimization objectives and peak crushing force (PCF) as the constraint condition. The results showed that the BST with six ribs exhibited the best crashworthiness under the same mass. The optimized BST-6 was found to have better energy absorption performance than the double circular tube (DCT) and the bionic-horsetail thin-walled tube (BHT). Compared with the DCT, the SEA and CFE increased by 35.15 % and 32.23 %, respectively.