Molecular features and functional studies of transcription factor, Cap ‘n’ collar C, in the brown planthopper, Nilaparvata lugens Stål (Hemiptera Delphacidae)

Zeng Bin,Feng Ze-Rui,Liu Ya-Ting,Chen Fu-Rong,Wang Shuai,Wu Shun-Fan,Yu Zhi-Tao,Gao Cong-Fen 한국응용곤충학회 2022 Journal of Asia-Pacific Entomology Vol.25 No.4

Cap ‘n’ collar C (CncC), a transcription factor, plays a vital role in the development of insect resistance by regulating the expression of multiple detoxifying genes. Clarifying the molecular characteristics of CncC and its pathway regulating insecticide resistance will aid the development of integrated pest control strategies. Here we cloned and identified the molecular feature of CncC genes from the brown planthopper (BPH), Nilaparvata lugens (Stål), (Hemiptera Delphacidae). The full-length open reading frame of NlCncC was 3015 nucleotides with 1005 amino acids. The deduced amino acid sequence has a high similarity with other insect homologs and contains the characteristic Cnc/bZip domain architecture. Functional studies showed that silencing NlCncC by RNA interference (RNAi) could downregulate the transcript expression of NlCYP6ER1, NlCYP6CW1, and NlCYP6AY1, which increase the susceptibility to imidacloprid in N. lugens. The identification of molecular characteristics of NlCncC and func tional studies in this paper will contribute to designing effective control strategies for N. lugens.

Bidirectional two-sample mendelian randomization analysis identifies causal associations between age at menarche and sarcopenia-related traits

Fan Wei,Gu Peng,Pu Bin,Yue Dan,Xin Qiao,Zheng XiaoHui,Zeng ZhanPeng,Fan Shaoyong 한국유전학회 2023 Genes & Genomics Vol.45 No.8

Background Observational studies have shown that the age of menarche is associated with sarcopenia, but confounding factors make the causal relationship difficult to infer. Objective Therefore, we conducted a bidirectional two-sample Mendelian randomized (MR) analysis to evaluate the potential causal relationship between age at menarche and sarcopenia-related traits (hand grip strength, lean mass, walking pace). Methods We obtained the latest aggregate statistics from the Genome-wide association studies (GWAS) database on the age of menarche of 182,416 participants from ReproGen, the appendicular lean mass of 244,730 participants from EMBL’s European Bioinformatics Institute, the left-hand grip strength of 401,026 participants, the right-hand grip strength of 461,089 participants and the usual walking pace of 459,915 participants from the UK Biobank. The inverse variance weighting (IVW) method and other MR methods were used to evaluate the bidirectional causal relationship between the age of menarche and sarcopenia. Results The forward MR results showed that the age of menarche predicted by the gene was positively correlated with left-hand grip strength (IVWβ=0.041, P = 2.00 × 10−10), right-hand grip strength (IVWβ=0.053, P = 1.97 × 10−18), appendicular lean mass (IVWβ=0.012, P = 4.38 × 10−13) and usual walking pace (IVWβ=0.033, P = 1.62 × 10−8).In the reverse MR analysis, we also found that the usual walking pace was positively correlated with the age of menarche predicted by genes (IVWβ=0.532, P = 1.65 × 10−4). Still, there was no causal relationship between grip strength and appendicular lean mass and the age at menarche. Conclusion Our results show that earlier menarche will increase the risk of sarcopenia. In addition, people with higher muscle function tend to have menarche later. These findings may provide a reference for prevention strategies and interventions for menarche in advance and sarcopenia.

Ratiometric and discriminative visualization of autophagic processes with a novel dual-responded lysosome-specific fluorescent probe

Fan Zheng,Yeshuo Ma,Jipeng Ding,Shuai Huang,Shengwang Zhang,Xueyan Huang,Bin Feng,Hongliang Zeng,Fei Chen,Wenbin Zeng 한국생체재료학회 2023 생체재료학회지 Vol.27 No.00

Background Autophagy is a critical self-eating pathway involved in numerous physiological and pathological processes. Lysosomal degradation of dysfunctional organelles and invading microorganisms is central to the autophagy mechanism and essential for combating disease-related conditions. Therefore, monitoring fluctuations in the lysosomal microenvironment is vital for tracking the dynamic process of autophagy. Although much effort has been put into designing probes for measuring lysosomal viscosity or pH separately, there is a need to validate the concurrent imaging of the two elements to enhance the understanding of the dynamic progression of autophagy. Methods Probe HFI was synthesized in three steps and was developed to visualize changes in viscosity and pH within lysosomes for real-time autophagy tracking. Then, the spectrometric determination was carried out. Next, the probe was applied to image autophagy in cells under nutrient-deprivation or external stress. Additionally, the performance of HFI to monitor autophagy was employed to evaluate acetaminophen-induced liver injury. Results We constructed a ratiometric dual-responsive probe, HFI, with a large Stokes shift over 200 nm, dualwavelength emission, and small background interference. The ratiometric fluorescent signal (R = I610/I460) of HFI had an excellent correlation with both viscosity and pH. More importantly, high viscosity and low pH had a synergistic promotion effect on the emission intensity of HFI, which enabled it to specially lit lysosomes without disturbing the inherent microenvironment. We then successfully used HFI to monitor intracellular autophagy induced by starvation or drugs in real-time. Interestingly, HFI also enabled us to visualize the occurrence of autophagy in the liver tissue of a DILI model, as well as the reversible effect of hepatoprotective drugs on this event. Conclusions In this study, we developed the first ratiometric dual-responsive fluorescent probe, HFI, for real-time revealing autophagic details. It could image lysosomes with minimal perturbation to their inherent pH, allowing us to track changes in lysosomal viscosity and pH in living cells. Ultimately, HFI has great potential to serve as a useful indicator for autophagic changes in viscosity and pH in complex biological samples and can also be used to assess drug safety.

Stable colonization of Akkermansia muciniphila educates host intestinal microecology and immunity to battle against inflammatory intestinal diseases

Wang Bin,Chen Xuheng,Chen Zhiyuan,Xiao Huiwen,Dong Jiali,Li Yuan,Zeng Xiaozhou,Liu Jinjian,Wan Guoyun,Fan Saijun,Cui Ming 생화학분자생물학회 2023 Experimental and molecular medicine Vol.55 No.-

Gut microbial preparations are widely used in treating intestinal diseases but show mixed success. In this study, we found that the therapeutic efficacy of A. muciniphila for dextran sodium sulfate (DSS)-induced colitis as well as intestinal radiation toxicity was ~50%, and mice experiencing a positive prognosis harbored a high frequency of A. muciniphila in the gastrointestinal (GI) tract. Stable GI colonization of A. muciniphila elicited more profound shifts in the gut microbial community structure of hosts. Coexisting with A. muciniphila facilitated proliferation and reprogrammed the gene expression profile of Lactobacillus murinus, a classic probiotic that overtly responded to A. muciniphila addition in a time-dependent manner. Then, a magnetic-drove, mannose-loaded nanophase material was designed and linked to the surface of A. muciniphila. The modified A. muciniphila exhibited enhancements in inflammation targeting and intestinal colonization under an external magnetic field, elevating the positive-response rate and therapeutic efficacy against intestinal diseases. However, the unlinked cocktail containing A. muciniphila and the delivery system only induced negligible improvement of therapeutic efficacy. Importantly, heat-inactivated A. muciniphila lost therapeutic effects on DSS-induced colitis and was even retained in the GI tract for a long time. Further investigations revealed that the modified A. muciniphila was able to drive M2 macrophage polarization by upregulating the protein level of IL-4 at inflammatory loci. Together, our findings demonstrate that stable colonization of live A. muciniphila at lesion sites is essential for its anti-inflammatory function.

The Effects of Puerarin on CYP2D6 and CYP1A2 Activities In Vivo

Jiao Zheng,Bin Chen,Bing Jiang,Ling Zeng,Zhi-Rong Tang,Lan Fan,Hong-Hao Zhou 대한약학회 2010 Archives of Pharmacal Research Vol.33 No.2

Ge-gen (Radix Puerariae) is used in traditional oriental medicine for various medicinal purposes. The drug is the root of a wild leguminous creeper, Pueraria lobata (Willd) Ohwi. It possesses a high content of avonoid derivatives, the most abundant of which is puerarin. Our goal was to find the effect of puerarin on cytochrome P450 enzymes in vivo. The study was conducted in 18 male volunteers of different genotypes (CYP2D6 *1/*1, *1/*10, *10/*10). Plasma was obtained at 6 h after oral administration and urine was collected from 0 to 8 h after probe drug administration. The logarithm value of metabolic rate decrease from -0.0055 ± 0.1887 to -0.1754 ± 0.2411 implied puerarin inhibited activity of CYP2D6. There was no significant relationship between the inhibition with the CYP2D6 genotypes. The paraxanthin/caffeine ratio in the plasma sample at 6th hour was increased by 30 ± 47% (p = 0.003), implied puerarin induced the activity of CYP1A2. While puerarin used together with the substrates of both enzymes, drug interaction worth the attention and at sometimes precautions are needed.

A Resilience Model for Engineered Slopes Subject to Anchor Corrosion

Xue-You Li,Zeng-Bin Fan,Tao Lu,Te Xiao,Li-Min Zhang 대한토목학회 2018 KSCE JOURNAL OF CIVIL ENGINEERING Vol.22 No.3

Many high engineered slopes are stabilized using anchors, which may corrode over time. Proper maintenance is essential to recover the system performance and upkeep slope functions. This paper presents a resilience model for maintenance decision by analysing the degradation of an anchor-stabilized slope due to corrosion and evaluating the recovery of slope performance after maintenance. Failure probability is used as an indicator to characterize the evolution of slope performance within its service life. The timing for maintenance is determined when the failure probability reaches an intolerable value. Information obtained from regular inspections is used to reduce the uncertainty in the determined maintenance time. The effectiveness of possible repair schemes is measured by a resilience index for the slope attained after maintenance, which considers the reduction in the failure probability and the duration over which the failure probability remains acceptable. A benefit index, which incorporates both the effectiveness and cost of a repair measure, is defined and used to quantitatively evaluate possible maintenance schemes. The proposed model is illustrated using an anchor-stabilized rock slope example, which provides a means to quantitatively assess different repair measures and enables engineers to select an effective and economic measure for slope maintenance.

De novo design of a novel AIE fluorescent probe tailored to autophagy visualization via pH manipulation

Huang Xueyan,Chen Fei,Ma Yeshuo,Zheng Fan,Fang Yanpeng,Feng Bin,Huang Shuai,Zeng Hongliang,Zeng Wenbin 한국생체재료학회 2023 생체재료학회지 Vol.27 No.00

Macroautophagy is an essential cellular self-protection mechanism, and defective autophagy has been considered to contribute to a variety of diseases. During the process, cytoplasmic components are transported via autophagosomes to acidic lysosomes for metabolism and recycling, which represents application niches for lysosome-targeted fluorescent probes. Additionally, in view of the complexity of the autophagy pathway, it entails more stringent requirements for probes suitable for monitoring autophagy. Meanwhile, aggregation-induced emission (AIE) fluorescent probes have been impressively demonstrated in the biomedical field, which bring fascinating possibilities to the autophagy visualization.We reported a generalizable de novo design of a novel pH-sensitive AIE probe ASMP-AP tailored to lysosome targeting for the interpretation of autophagy. Firstly, the theoretical calculation was carried out followed by the investigation of optical properties. Then, the performance of ASMP-AP in visualizing autophagy was corroborated by starvation or drugs treatments. Furthermore, the capability of ASMP-AP to monitor autophagy was demonstrated in ex vivo liver tissue and zebrafish in vivo.ASMP-AP displays a large stokes shift, great cell permeability and good biocompatibility. More importantly, ASMP-AP enables a good linear response to pH, which derives from the fact that its aggregation state can be manipulated by the acidity. It was successfully applied for imaging autophagy in living cells and was proved capable of monitoring mitophagy. Moreover, this novel molecular tool was validated by ex vivo visualization of activated autophagy in drug-induced liver injury model. Interestingly, it provided a meaningful pharmacological insight that the melanin inhibitor 1-phenyl-2-thiourea (PTU)-induced autophagy was clearly presented in wild-type zebrafish.ASMP-AP offers a simple yet effective tool for studying lysosome and autophagy. This is the first instance to visualize autophagy in zebrafish using a small-molecule probe with AIE characters, accurate lysosome targeting and simultaneous pH sensitivity. Ultimately, this novel fluorescent system has great potential for in vivo translation to fuel autophagy research.