Two antimicrobial peptides from skin secretions of Rana grahami

Two antimicrobial peptides manifested a broad spectrum of anti microbial activity against various microorganisms have been isolated from skin secretions of Rana grahami. These antimicrobial peptides were named grahamin 1 and grahamin 2. Their primary Stru

RNAi suppression of zebrafish peptidoglycan recognition protein 6 (zfPGRP6) mediated differentially expressed genes involved in Toll-like receptor signaling pathway and caused increased susceptibility to Flavobacterium columnare

In Drosophila, Toll signaling cascade, which resembles the mammalian Toll-like receptor (TLR)/IL-1R signaling pathways and regulates the expression of anti-microbial peptide genes, mainly relies on peptidoglycan recognition proteins (PGRPs) for the detection of bacterial pathogens. To explore the effect of zebrafish peptidoglycan recognition protein 6 (zfPGRP6) on Toll-like receptor signaling pathway, RNA interference (siRNA) and real time quantitative PCR (RQ-PCR) methods were used to identify differentially expressed genes regulated by zfPGRP6. The target genes included TLR2, TLR3, TLR5, TLR7, TLR8, IL1R, Sterile-alpha and Armadillo motif containing protein (SARM), myeloid differentiation factor 88 (MyD88) and nuclear factor (NF)-kappa B2 (p100/p52). The results of RQ-PCR showed that RNAi-mediated Suppression of zfPGRP6 significantly down-regulated the expression of TLR2, TLR5, IL1R, SARM, MyD88 and p100/p52. The expression of beta-defensin-1 was also down-regulated in those embryos silenced by zfPGRP6. In challenge experiments to determine the anti-bacterial response to Gram-negative bacteria, RNAi knock-down of zfPGRP6 markedly increased susceptibility to Flavobacterium columnare. (C) 2008 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.

链霉菌S227抗耐药菌活性成分的研究

本论文以从四川峨嵋山森林土壤中分离筛选获得的一株产抗耐药性活性化合物的链霉菌S227为材料，对发酵液中活性物质的分离纯化及抗耐药性活性进行了研究。 建立了抗耐药性活性的定性、定量检测方法。建立的管蝶法活性定量检测的标准回归方程为：D=4.8229Ln(C)+3.6326 R=0.9972 ；纸片法活性定量检测的标准回归方程为：D=5.5Ln(C)-12.794 R=0.999。 根据建立的样品活性的检测方法，测定了发酵液的初始活性。实验证明活性物质的温度、pH稳定性好。 通过活性的定性、定量追踪方法，分别利用等体积的石油醚、乙酸乙酯、正丁醇在不同的pH梯度下萃取，确定了pH3条件下正丁醇能最大程度的萃取活性物质，说明活性物质极性很大。对正丁醇萃取相经过两次硅胶柱层析及薄层层析分离得到具有抗耐药菌活性的纯化样品S227-4。 经过核磁共振氢谱、碳谱数据分析初步确定S227-4为四聚糖，通过糖的水解实验初步确定S227-4由葡萄糖和半乳糖组成。 纸片法活性检测表明S227-4具有抗耐药菌活性。采用MIC测定法对该样品抗耐药活性进行研究。在证明该样品本身不具有抗菌活性的基础上，以临床分离的耐药性金黄色葡萄球菌为指示菌，考察了该样品与抗生素联合使用时对耐药菌抗生素MIC（最小抑菌浓度）值的影响，结果表明在不影响菌体生长的浓度条件下，该样品能明显降低多株耐药菌对多种抗生素的MIC值，不同程度地恢复所测试耐药菌对相应抗生素的敏感性。如S227-4与青霉素钠联用可以使S. aureus 12352的MIC降低8倍，而与红霉素联用可以使S. aureus 12334的MIC降低128倍。 The purification process and the activity of the anti bacterial drug resistance compounds produced by Streptomyces S227 isolated from the forest soil sample of the Mountain E’MEI in Sichuan Province were studied in this thesis. Quantitative and qualitative activity assay methods of the active compounds were established. The regression equation of the tube method was D=4.8229Ln(C)+3.6326, R=0.9972. The regression equation of the paper method was D=5.5Ln(C)-12.794, R=0.999. According to the established activity assay method, the incipient activity of the broth was evaluated. And it was proved that the stability of the active compounds was good. By quantitative and qualitative activity tracing method, petroleum ether, ethyl acetate and butanol were used to extract the active compounds at different pH. The result showed that butanol was the most effective agent for active component recovery at pH3. From the butanol extraction a purified sample, S227-4, was isolated by silica gel column chromatography and thin-layer chromatography . S227-4 was proved to be a tetra- saccharide by 1H-NMR and 13C-NMR. And its monosaccharides include glucose and galactose by hydrolysate analysis. The anti-drug resistant activity of S227-4 was tested in vitro by MICs assay using different drug resistant Staphylococcus aureus strains isolated clinically. The sample itself showed no anti-microbial activity in growth inhibitory experiment, but when it was used together with different antibiotics, it could remarkably decrease the MICs of different clinically isolated drug-resistant bacterial strains to these antibiotics. For example, when S227-4 was used with penicillin, the MIC of S. aureus 12352 decreased 8 times compared with that when penicillin was used alone. Meanwhile when it was used with erythromycin the MIC of S. aureus 12334 deceased 128 times compared with erythromycin alone.

Stiction and Anti-Stiction in Mems and Nems

Stiction in microelectromechanical systems (MEMS) has been a major failure mode ever since the advent of surface micromachining in the 80s of the last century due to large surface-area-to-volume ratio. Even now when solutions to this problem are emerging, such as self-assembled monolayer (SAM) and other measures, stiction remains one of the most catastrophic failure modes in MEMS. A review is presented in this paper on stiction and anti-stiction in MEMS and nanoelectromechanical systems (NEMS). First, some new experimental observations of stiction in radio frequency (RF) MEMS switch and micromachined accelerometers are presented. Second, some criteria for stiction of microstructures in MEMS and NEMS due to surface forces (such as capillary, electrostatic, van der Waals, Casimir forces, etc.) are reviewed. The influence of surface roughness and environmental conditions (relative humidity and temperature) on stiction are also discussed. As hydrophobic films, the self-assembled monolayers (SAMs) turn out able to prevent release-related stiction effectively. The anti-stiction of SAMs in MEMS is reviewed in the last part.

Stress intensity factors calculation in anti-plane fracture problem by orthogonal integral extraction method based on femol

For an anti-plane problem, the differential operator is self-adjoint and the corresponding eigenfunctions belong to the Hilbert space. The orthogonal property between eigenfunctions (or between the derivatives of eigenfunctions) of anti-plane problem is exploited. We developed for the first time two sets of radius-independent orthogonal integrals for extraction of stress intensity factors (SIFs), so any order SIF can be extracted based on a certain known solution of displacement (an analytic result or a numerical result). Many numerical examples based on the finite element method of lines (FEMOL) show that the present method is very powerful and efficient.

Unloading characteristics of anti-plane shear crack in softening materials

The local characteristics of the anti-plane shear stress and strain field are determined for a material where the stress increases linearly with strain up to a limit and then softens nonlinearly. Two unloading models are considered such that the unloading path always returns to the origin while the other assumes the unloading modulus to be that of the initial shear modulus. As the applied shear increases, an unloading zone is found to prevail between a zone in which the material softens and another zone in which the material is linear-elastic even though the crack does not propagate. The divisions of these zones are displayed graphically.

The Mitogenic and Anti-Apoptotic Activity of Tumor Conditioned Medium on Endothelium

This study was designed to observe the effect of tumor conditioned medium (TCM) on the proliferation and apoptosis of human umbilical vein endothelial cells (HUVECs). HUVECs were exposed to TCM from breast carcinoma cell line MDA-MB-231, then we measured their proliferation, apoptosis and cell cycle distribution by MTT and flow cytometery (FCM). Following the stimulation of TCM, HUVECs showed higher pro-mitogenic and anti-apoptotic ability than did the negative control group (ECGF-free medium with 20% FBS), but a similar ability to the positive control group (medium with ECGF and 20% FBS). From these results, we can conclude that breast carcinoma cell line MDA-MB-231 could secret soluble pro-angiogenic factors that induce HUVEC angiogenic switching, including cell cycle progression, proliferation and growth. The role and character of these factors remain to be further studied.

Imaging properties of coherent anti-Stokes Raman scattering microscope

The coherent anti-Stokes Raman scattering (CARS) microscope with the combination of confocal and CARS techniques is a remarkable alternative for imaging chemical or biological specimens that neither fluoresce nor tolerate labelling. CARS is a nonlinear optical process, the imaging properties of CARS microscopy will be very different from the conventional confocal microscope. In this paper, the intensity distribution and the polarization property of the optical field near the focus was calculated. By using the Green function, the precise analytic solution to the wave equation of a Hertzian dipole source was obtained. We found that the intensity distributions vary considerably with the different experimental configurations and the different specimen shapes. So the conventional description of microscope (e.g. the point spread function) will fail to describe the imaging properties of the CARS microscope.

The intensity distributions of collected signals in coherent anti-Stokes Raman scattering microscopy

Coherent anti-Stokes Raman scattering (CARS) microscopy with the combining of confocal and CARS techniques is a remarkable alternative for imaging chemical or biological specimens that neither fluoresce nor tolerate labeling. The CARS is a nonlinear optical process, the imaging properties of CARS microscopy will be very different from the conventional confocal microscopy. In this paper, we calculated the propagation of CARS signals by using the wave equation in medium and the slowly varying envelope approximation (SVEA), and find that the intensity angular distributions vary considerably with the different experimental configurations and the different specimen shapes. So the conventional description of microscopy (e.g.. the point spread function) will fail to descript the imaging properties of CARS microscopy. (c) 2004 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.

Encoded cell grating array in anti-counterfeit technology

The dot matrix hologram (DMH) has been widely used in anti-counterfeiting label. With the same technology and cell array configuration, we can encode to the incidence beam. These codes can be some image matrix grating with different grating gap and different grating orientation. When the multi-level phase diffractive grating is etched, the incidence beam on the cell appears as an encoding image. When the encoded grating and DMH are used in the same label synchronously, the technology of multi-encoded grating array enhances the anti-counterfeit ability.

Influence of vacuum organic contaminations on laser-induced damage of 1064 nm anti-reflective coatings

We investigate the influence of vacuum organic contaminations on laser-induced damage threshold (LIDT) of optical coatings. Anti-reflective (AR) coatings at 1064 nm made by Ta2O5/SiO2 are deposited by the ion beam sputtering method. The LIDTs of AR coatings are measured in vacuum and in atmosphere, respectively. It is exhibited that contaminations in vacuum are easily to be absorbed onto optical surface because of lower pressure, and they become origins of damage, resulting in the decrease of LIDT from 24.5 J/cm(2) in air to 15.7 J/cm(2) in vacuum. The LIDT of coatings in vacuum has is slightly changed compared with the value in atmosphere after the organic contaminations are wiped off. These results indicate that organic contaminations are the main reason of the LIDT decrease in vacuum. Additionally, damage morphologies have distinct changes from vacuum to atmosphere because of the differences between the residual stress and thermal decomposability of filmy materials.