Biodegradable Interpolyelectrolyte Complexes Based on Methoxy Poly(ethylene glycol)-b-poly(alpha,L-glutamic acid) and Chitosan

We synthesized methoxy poly(ethylene glycol)-b-poly(alpha,L-glutamic acid) (mPEGGA) diblock copolymer by ring-opening polymerization of N-carboxy anhydride of gamma-benzyl-L-glutamate (NCA) using amino-terminated methoxy polyethylene glycol (mPEG) as macroinitiator. Polyelectrolyte complexation between mPEGGA as neutral-block-polyanion and chitosan (CS) as polycation has been scrutinized in aqueous solution as well as in the solid state.

Consumption of fa cai Nostoc soup: A Potential for BMAA exposure from Nostoc cyanobacteria in China?

Grown in arid regions of western China the cyanobacterium Nostoc flagelliforme - called fa cai in Mandarin and fat choy in Cantonese - is wild-harvested and used to make soup consumed during New Year's celebrations. High prices, up to $125 USD/kg, led to overharvesting in Inner Mongolia, Ningxia, Gansu, Qinghai, and Xinjiang. Degradation of arid ecosystems, desertification, and conflicts between Nostoc harvesters and Mongol herdsman concerned the Chinese environmental authorities, leading to a government ban of Nostoc commerce. This ban stimulated increased marketing of a substitute made from starch. We analysed samples purchased throughout China as well as in Chinese markets in the United States and the United Kingdom. Some were counterfeits consisting of dyed starch noodles. A few samples from California contained Nostoc flagelliforme but were adulterated with starch noodles. Other samples, including those from the United Kingdom, consisted of pure Nostoc flagelliforme. A recent survey of markets in Cheng Du showed no real Nostoc flagelliforme to be marketed. Real and artificial fa cai differ in the presence of beta-N-methylamino-L-alanine (BMAA). Given its status as a high-priced luxury food, the government ban on collection and marketing, and the replacement of real fa cai with starch substitutes consumed only on special occasions, it is anticipated that dietary exposure to BMAA from fa cai will be reduced in the future in China.

沙棘(Hippophae rhamnoides L.)在低温和增强UV-B胁迫下的生态生理反应

植物生长和生产力受到自然界各种形式的生物和非生物胁迫因子的影响。这些胁迫包括低温、高温、盐碱、干旱、洪水、重金属、虫害、病害和紫外线辐射等等。而人类活动大大加剧了这些胁迫所带来的影响。由于人类污染而导致臭氧层衰减以及由此产生的地球表面紫外辐射增强已经成为全球气候变化的一个主要方面。UV-B胁迫，甚至当前的辐射水平，所带来的影响已经引起科学工作者的广泛关注。 为了生存和繁殖，植物不得不面临环境中各种潜在胁迫所带来的负面影响。然而，植物生活型的不可移动性决定了其逃避胁迫的局限性。因此，绝大多数植物都是通过对胁迫作出反应，通过修复或者更新组织来降低伤害。而植物应对环境变化的能力则是由其生长模式的种属特异性和本身的遗传组成所决定。在自然界，植物常常同时面临多种胁迫，这些胁迫所引发的植物反应可能具有叠加、协同或者拮抗作用。沙棘是一种具刺、具有固氮功能的多年生雌雄异株灌木，广泛分布于亚欧大陆的温带地区和亚洲亚热带的高海拔地区。在中国，沙棘常常被用作植被恢复中的先锋树种而大量栽培。本文采用沙棘作为模式植物，试图探索木本植物对低温，UV-B辐射增强以及其与干旱的复合胁迫的响应以及沙棘对这些胁迫响应是否具有种群差异性。 对来自南北两个种群的沙棘进行短日照和低温处理，检测了其在抗寒锻炼和抗寒性发育过程中存在的性别差异。结果表明，短日照和低温都分别能够诱导抗寒锻炼的发生，而两者同时存在对所有实验植株抗寒性的大小具有叠加效应。然而，短日照和低温所诱导的抗寒性在两个种群中都具有性别差异性，雄性植株比雌雄植株对短日照和低温更为敏感。同时，南北种群间也存在差异性，北方种群的植物比南方种群的植物对短日照和低温敏感，从而在短日照下抗寒锻炼的发生时间更早，低温诱导的抗寒性更大。短日照和低温诱导植物增加抗寒性的同时伴随着脱落酸的变化。脱落酸的变化因处理，种群和性别的不同而不同。这些生理反应表明不同的沙棘种群，不同的植株性别对同一环境胁迫可能存在不同的生存策略。 比较了来自高低两个海拔的沙棘种群对于干旱和UV-B辐射增强以及两者复合胁迫条件下的生理生态反应。干旱使两个种群中植株总的生物量，总叶面积，比叶面积，叶片含碳量，含磷量，木质素含量和碳氮比显著降低，使根冠比，粗根细根比和叶片脱落酸含量显著增加。干旱而非UV-B使得δ13C 值显著增加。但是，比较而言，来自高海拔的种群对干旱反应更为强烈，而来自低海拔的种群对UV-B更敏感。在UV-B辐射增强的处理下，干旱所诱导的脱落酸的积累被显著抑制。而且我们检测到在一些指标上存在显著的干旱×UV-B交互作用，如两个种群中在总生物量上，低海拔种群中在总叶面积，粗根细根比上，高海拔种群中在比叶面积，δ13C值，木质素含量上都存在明显的交互作用。这些结果表明这两个种群对胁迫具有不同的适应性反应，来自高海拔的种群比来自低海拔的种群更能够抵御干旱和UV-B胁迫。 室外实验表明，UV-B 去除/增补对沙棘高低两个海拔种群的影响都不大。对生物量的积累，植株高度以及一些常见的胁迫反应生理指标比如丙二醛、ABA 和游离脯氨酸都没有显著影响。UV-B 的效应比UV-A 大，植物反应在无UV 和仅有UV-A 的处理间没有什么区别。然而，UV-B 去除的两个处理和UV-B 存在的两个处理间存在显著区别。UV-B 使得两个种群都显著降低了比叶面积(SLA)，但却使长期用水效率增加。但UV-B对光合色素和光合系统II 的影响不大。总体看来，来自低海拔的种群对UV-B 更为敏感。 Plant is adversely affected by various abiotic and biotic stress factors. These stressors includelow temperature, heat, salt, drought, flooding, heavy metal toxicity, wounding by herbivores,infecting by pathogenic microorganisms, ultraviolet (UV) radiation and so on. Variousanthropogenic activities have accentuated the existing stress factors. One of the mostimportant aspects of global change is that of stratospheric ozone depletion caused by seriousanthropogenic pollution and the resulting increase in UV radiation reaching the surface of theEarth. Scientists have become concerned about the effects that considerable UV-B stress, evenat current levels. In order to survive and reproduce, plants have to be able to cope with lots of potentiallyharmful stress factors that are almost constantly present in their environment. Most plants’responses under stress are to neutralize the stress, repairing the damage or regrowing newtissue rather than to avoid it due to their sessile life style. The plant defense capacity dependson plant-specific modular growth patterns and genetic make-up that allows for flexibleresponses to changing environments. Plants usually encounter several stresses simultaneouslyunder field conditions, and the stresses may cause a variety of plant responses, which can beadditive, synergistic or antagonistic. Sea buckthorn (Hippophae rhamnoides L.), a thorny nitrogen fixing deciduously perennialshrub, which is widely distributed throughout the temperate zones of Asia and Europe and thesubtropical zones of Asia at high altitudes. It has been widely used in forest restoration as thepioneer species in China. In this paper, we used sea buckthorn as a model, tried to get some understand of how plants fight low temperature, enhanced UV-B radiation level and thatcombination of drought. And also, want to know whether does there exist some populationspecific responses to such stressors. Sexual differences in cold acclimation and freezing tolerance development of two contrastingsea buckthorn (Hippophae rhamnoides L.) ecotypes from northern and southern regions inChina were recorded after exposure to short day photoperiod (SD) and low temperature (LT).The results demonstrated that cold acclimation could be triggered by exposing the plants toSD or LT alone, and that a combination of both treatments had an additive effect on freezingtolerance in all plants tested. However, development of freezing tolerance was dependent onthe sex of plants under SD and LT, the males were clearly more responsive to SD and LT thanthe females in both ecotypes studied. On the other hand, development of freezing tolerancewas also ecotype-dependent, the northern ecotype was more responsive to SD and LT than thesouthern ecotype, resulting in earlier cold acclimation under SD and higher freezing toleranceunder LT. Moreover, development of freezing tolerance induced by SD and LT wasaccompanied by changes in ABA levels. These alterations in ABA levels were different indifferent treatments, ecotypes and sexes. Therefore, the differences in SD and LT-inducedphysiological responses showed that the different ecotypes and the different sexes mightemploy different survival strategies under environmental stress. Two contrasting populations from the low and high altitudinal regions were employed toinvestigate the effects of drought, UV-B and their combination on sea buckthorn. Droughtsignificantly decreased total biomass, total leaf area, specific leaf area，leaf carbon (C),phophous (P), lignin content and the ratio of C: N in both populations, and increasedroot/shoot ratio, fine root/coarse root ratio and abscisic acid content (ABA), in bothpopulations. Drought but not UV-B resulted in significantly greater carbon isotopecomposition (δ13C) values in both populations. However, the high altitudinal population wasmore responsive to drought than the low altitudinal population. The drought-inducedenhancement of ABA in the high altitudinal population was significantly suppressed in thecombination of drought and elevated UV-B. Moreover, significant drought × UV-B interactionwas detected on total biomass in both populations, total leaf area and fine root/coarse root inthe low altitudinal population, specific leaf area, δ13C value and leaf lignin content in the high altitudinal population. These results demonstrated that there were different adaptive responsesbetween two contrasting populations, the high altitudinal population exhibited highertolerance to drought and UV-B than the low altitudinal population. A field experiment was conducted to investigate effects of UV-B exclusion/supplementationon two altitudinal populations of sea buckthorn. UV-B exclusion or supplementation had littleeffects on both populations investigated. For instance, the total biomass, plant height andsome physiological index such as Malondialdehyde (MDA), ABA and free proline were notchanged significantly. The UV-B effects are more significant than that of UV-A, nodifferences were found between treatments of excluded UV and excluded UV-B. However,compared with treatments of UV-B exclusion (including absent of UV-B and all UV band),the present of UV-B (including near ambient environment and enhanced UV-B) significantdecreased specific leaf area, and increased long time water use efficiency as evaluated by δ13Cvalue. UV-B had little effects on photosynthetic pigments and Photosystem II (PSII). The lowaltitude population is more sensitive to UV-B than that of the high altitude population.

L-B膜

L-B膜即 Langmuir-Blodgett单分子膜,它是人为地利用分子间相互作用而建立起来的特殊分子体系。在L-B膜中分子是有序的准晶体排列,其性质有别于固体和晶体,因而有人将其称为物质的第五相。用米制备L-B膜的技术称为L-B技术。

Anti-HIV-1 Activities of Hemslecins A and B

目的:研究从药用植物金佛山雪胆分离的雪胆素A和雪胆素B两个三萜类化合物的体外抗HIV活性.方法:应用合胞体抑制实验、p24抗原产生的抑制实验、慢性感染细胞和正常细胞间的细胞融合抑制实验等技术检测化合物的体外抗HIV-l活性;利用HIV-l逆转录酶、蛋白酶抑制实验,NCp7锌离子逐出实验探讨化合物的作用机制.结果:雪胆素A和雪胆素B在体外有较好的抑制HIV-l活性,其活性主要表现为:(1)抑制HIV-l诱导合胞体形成,EC50值分别为3.09 μg·mL-1和2.53μg·mL-1;(2)抑制HIV- 急性感染的C8106细胞p24抗原产生,EC50值分别为3.97μg·mL-1和18.90μg·mL-1;(3)抑制HIV-1 慢性感染H9与正常C8166细胞间融合,EC50分别为1.76μg·mL-1和11.95μg·mL-1.雪胆素A和雪胆素B对HIV-l逆转录酶、蛋白酶、NCp7锌离子逐出均没有抑制作用.雪胆素A对HIV-1整合酶有微弱的结合活性,而雪胆素B对HIV-1整合酶没有结合活性.在共培养实验中,雪胆素A和雪胆素B预处理C8166细胞组比未经预处理细胞组能够更有效的抑制HIV-l活性.结论:化合物雪胆素A和雪胆素B体外有较好的抗HIV-1活性,可能主要作用于HIV-1病毒进入细胞阶段.

Diode-pumped room-temperature continuous wave Tm3+ doped Lu2SiO5 laser

We report on room temperature laser actions of a novel thulium-doped crystal Tm center dot Lu2SiO5 (LSO) under diode pumping. An optical optical conversion efficiency of 12% and a slope efficiency of 21% were obtained with the maximum continuous wave (CW) output power of 0.67 W. The emission wavelengths of Tm LSO laser were centered at 2058.4 nm with bandwidth of similar to 13.6 nm.

Holmium laser in-band pumped by a thulium laser in the same host of YAlO3

We report on the room-temperature continuous-wave (CW) operation of a Ho:YAlO3 laser that is resonantly end pumped at 1.94 mu m by a diode-pumped thulium-doped laser in the same host. Through the use of a 1 at % Ho3+-doped 20-mm-long YAlO3 crystal (b cut), the Ho:YAlO3 laser generated 1 W of linearly polarized (E//c) output at 2118 nm and 0.55 W of E//a output at 2128.5 nm for an incident pump power of 5 W, with an output coupler transmission of 14 and 3%, respectively. An optical-to-optical conversion efficiency of 20% and a slope efficiency of 33% were achieved at 2118 nm corresponding to an incident pump power.

三种萝藦科植物中C21甾类成分的研究

　　本实验对三种萝藦科植物通光散(Marsdenia tenacissima)、黑水藤（Biondia insignis Tsiang）和徐长卿（Cynanchum Paniculatum）中的C21甾体化合物进行了研究。从通光散藤茎乙酸乙酯提取物的水解产物中，分离得到两类八个C21甾类甙元。经光谱鉴定，它们的结构分别为11α-O-(2-甲基)-丁酰基-12β-O-顺芷酰通光藤甙元乙（1），11α-O-乙酰基-12β-O-乙酰基通光藤甙元乙（2），11α-O-（2-甲基）-丁酰基-12β-O-乙酰基通光藤甙元乙(3), 11α-O-苯甲酰基-12β-O-乙酰基通光藤甙元乙(4)， 11α-O-顺芷酰基-12β-O-乙酰基通光藤甙元乙（5）11α-O-顺芷酰基-12β-O-顺芷酰基通光藤甙元乙（6），12β-O-乙酰基通光藤甙元甲（7）和12β-O-顺芷酰基通光藤甙元甲（8）。其中，化合物2和8为新化合物。从黑水藤乙醇提取物的水解产物中，分离得到了两个C21甾体化合物。经1D、2D NMR技术鉴定，分别为（3β，14β，15β，17β）-3, 14-二羟基-15，16-裂-孕甾-5-烯-15-醛-16-半缩醛-20-酮（1）和白前甙元C（2）。其中1为15，16-裂环的新骨架类型的C21甾体化合物，命名为黑水藤甙元甲。从采购于昆明、浙江、湖南三地药材市场的徐长卿的根及根茎中，分离得到了18个化合物（其中昆明徐长卿6个，浙江徐长卿9个，湖南徐长卿3个）。经光谱数据分析，这些化合物被鉴定为：cynapanoside-C (1), cynapanoside-A (2), 白前甙元B 3-O-β-D-磁嘛吡喃糖甙(3)，白前甙元C 3-O-β-D-葡萄吡喃糖基-(1 → 4)-α-L-2-脱氧洋地黄吡喃糖基-（1 → 4）-β-D-洋地黄吡喃糖基-（1 → 4）-β-D-夹竹吡喃糖甙（4），白前甙元C3-O-β-D-葡萄吡喃糖基-(1 → 4)-α-D-夹竹桃吡喃糖基-(1 → 4)-β-D-洋地黄吡喃糖基-(1 → 4)-β-D-夹竹桃吡喃糖甙（5），白前甙元C 3-O-β-D-葡萄吡喃糖基-（1 → 4）-β-D-葡萄吡喃糖基-（1 → 4）-α-D-夹竹桃吡喃糖基-（1 → 4）-β-D-洋地黄吡喃糖基-（1 → 4）-β-D-夹竹桃吡喃糖甙（6），cynatratoside-B (7)，cynatratoside-C (8);glaucoside A(9)，新白薇甙元B 3-O-β-L-磁嘛吡喃糖基-（1 → 4）-β-D-洋黄吡喃糖基-（1 → 4）-β-D-夹竹桃吡喃糖甙（10），白前甙元 A 3-O-α-L-磁嘛吡喃糖基-（1 → 4）-β-D-洋地黄吡喃糖基-（1 → 4）-β-D-磁嘛吡喃糖甙（11），白前甙元 B 3-O-α-L-磁糖基吡喃糖基-(1 → 4)-β-D-磁嘛吡喃糖基-(1 → 4)-β-D-磁嘛吡喃糖甙(12)，白前甙元D 3-O-α-L-磁嘛吡喃糖基（1 → 4）-β-D-洋地黄吡喃糖基-（1 → 4）-β-D-磁嘛吡喃糖甙（13），白前甙元 C 3-O-β-D-葡萄吡喃糖基-（1 → 4）-β-D-葡萄吡喃糖基-（1 → 4）-α-L-2-脱氧洋地黄吡喃糖基-（1 → 4）-β-D-磁嘛吡喃糖基-（1 → 4）-β-D-夹竹桃吡喃糖甙（14），白前甙元 C 3-O-β-D-葡萄吡喃糖基-（1 → 4）-β-D-葡萄吡喃糖基-（1 → 4）-α-L-磁嘛吡喃糖基-（1 → 4）-β-D-洋地黄吡喃糖基-（1 → 4）-β-D-夹竹桃吡喃糖甙（15），白前甙元 B 3-O-α-D-夹竹桃吡喃糖基-(1 → 4)-β-D-洋地黄吡喃糖基-（1 → 4）-β-D-磁嘛吡喃糖甙（16），白前甙元 D 3-O-α-D-夹竹桃吡喃糖基-(1 → 4)-β-D-洋地黄吡喃糖基-(1 → 4)-β-D-磁嘛吡喃糖甙(17)，白前甙元月B 3-O-α-L-磁嘛吡喃糖基-(1 → 4)-β-D-洋地黄吡喃糖基-(1 → 4)-β-D-磁嘛吡喃糖甙（18）。其中，化合物3-6，10-18为新化合物，10的甙元为一个新甙元，命名为新白薇甙无B。

铃蟾肽

两栖类动物皮肤中富含多种与哺乳类动 物调节有关的活性肤，是获取多肤的巨大储 存库。铃蟾肤(Bombesin, BN)是1971年由 Erspamer和Anastasi等从欧洲铃蟾。. bombin。的皮肤中分离到的一种活性多肤。 1986年，国内陈枫等也从东方铃蟾B . o riento l皮肤中分离到了BN。人们对BN进行了 大量的研究，发现它具有广泛而复杂的生物 学效应。

Short and long peptidoglycan recognition proteins (PGRPs) in zebrafish, with findings of multiple PGRP homologs in teleost fish

Peptidoglycan recognition protein (PGRP) specifically binds to peptidoglycan and is considered to be one of the pattern recognition proteins in the innate immunity of insect and mammals. Using a database mining approach and RT-PCR, multiple peptidoglycan recognition protein (PGRP) like genes have been discovered in fish including zebrafish Danio rerio, Japanese pufferfish TakiFugu rubripes and spotted green pufferfish Tetraodon nigroviridis. They share the common features of those PGRPs in arthropod and mammals, by containing a conserved PGRP domain. Based on the predicted structures, the identified zebrafish PGRP homologs resemble short and long PGRP members in arthropod and mammals. The identified PGRP genes in T. nigroviridis and TakiFugu rubripes resemble the long PGRPs, and the short PGRP genes have not been found in T. nigroviridis and TakiFugu rubripes databases. Computer modelling of these molecules revealed the presence of three alpha-helices and five or six beta-strands in all fish PGRPs reported in the present study. The long PGRP in teleost fish have multiple alternatively spliced forms, and some of the identified spliced variants, e.g., tnPGRP-L3 and tnPGRP-L4 (in: Tetraodon nigroviridis), exhibited no characters present in the PGRP homologs domain. The coding regions of zfPGRP6 (zf: zebrafish), zfPGRP2-A, zfPGRP2-B and zfPGRP-L contain five exons and four introns; however, the other PGRP-like genes including zfPGRPSC1a, zfPGRPSC2, tnPGRP-L1-, tnPGRP-L2 and frPGRP-L (fr: Takifugu rubripes) contain four exons and three introns. In zebrafish, long and short PGRP genes identified are located in different chromosomes, and an unknown locus containing another long PGRP-like gene has also been found in zebrafish, demonstrating that multiple PGRP loci may be present in fish. In zebrafish, the constitutive expressions of zfPGRP-L, zfPGRP-6 and zfPGRP-SC during ontogeny from unfertilized eggs to larvae, in different organs of adult, and the inductive expression following stimulation by Flavobacterium columnare, were detected by real-time PCR, but the levels and patterns varied for different PGRP genes, implying that different short and long PGRPs may play different roles in innate immune response. (c) 2007 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

Zinc phthalocyanine (ZnPc) incorporated into silicon matrix grown by plasma enhanced chemical vapor deposition (PECVD)

Hybrid composites composed of zinc phthalocyanine embedded in silicon matrixes have attracted attention because of the potential for solar energy conversion. We produce hybrid composites by thermal evaporation for the plithalocyanine and PECVD (Plasma Enhanced Chemical Vapor Deposition) for the silicon matrix. Deposition of ZnPc/a-Si(amorphous silicon) composites was achieved in a sequential manner. The compound films were characterized by optical transmittance spectra and photoconductivity measurement. The optical transmittance measurements were carried out in the visible region (500 - 800 nm). Compared to pure silicon film, the photosensitivity of compound functional films was enhanced by one order of magnitude. This demonstrates the Si sensitized by adding ZnPc.