Valuing ecological functions of biodiversity in changbaishan mountain biosphere reserve in northeast china

Conservation of biodiversity can generate considerable indirect economic value and this is being increasingly recognized in China. For a forest ecosystem type of a nature reserve, the most important of its values are its ecological functions which provide human beings and other living things with beneficial environmental services. These services include water conservancy, soil protection, CO2 fixation and O-2 release, nutrient cycling, pollutant decomposition, and disease and pest control. Based on a case study in Changbaishan Mountain Biosphere Reserve in Northeast China, this paper provides a monetary valuation of these services by using opportunity cost and alternative cost methods. Using such an approach, this reserve is valued at 510.11 million yuan (USD 61.68 mill.) per year, 10 times higher than the opportunity cost (51.78 mill. yuan/ha.a) for regular timber production. While China has heeded United Nations Environmental Program (UNEP)'s call for economic evaluation of ecological functions, the assessment techniques used need to be improved in China and in the West for reasons mentioned.

Production of the baculovirus-expressed dengue virus glycoprotein NS1 can be improved dramatically with optimised regimes for fed-batch cultures and the addition of the insect moulting hormone, 20-Hydroxyecdysone

A perennial problem in recombinant protein expression is low yield of the product of interest. A strategy which has been shown to increase the production of baculovirus-expressed proteins is to utilise fed-batch cultures. One disadvantage of this approach is the time-consuming task of optimising the feeding strategy. Previously, a statistical optimisation routine was applied to develop a feeding strategy that increased the yield of beta-Galactosidase (beta-Gal) by 2.4-fold (Biotechnol. Bioeng, 59 (1998) 178). This involves the single addition of nutrient concentrates (amino acids, lipids. glucose and yeastolate ultrafiltrate) into Sf9 cell cultures grown in SF900II medium. In this study, it is demonstrated that this optimised fed-batch strategy developed for a high-yielding intracellular product beta-Gal could be applied successfully to a relatively low-yielding glycosylated and secreted product such as the dengue virus glycoprotein NS1. Optimised batch infections yielded 4 mug/ml of NS1 at a peak cell density of 4.2 x 10(6) cells/ml. In contrast. optimised fed-batch infections exhibited a 3-fold improvement in yield, with 12 mug ml of NS1 produced at a peak cell density of 11.3 x 10(6) cells/ml. No further improvements in yield were recorded when the feed volumes were doubled and the peak cell density was increased to 23 x 10(6) cells/ml, unless the cultures were stimulated by the addition of 4 mug/ml of 20-Hydroxyecdysone (an insect moulting hormone). In this case, the NS1 yield was increased to 20 mug/ml. which was nearly 5-fold higher than optimised batch cultures. (C) 2002 Elsevier Science B.V. All rights reserved.

Matrix metalloproteinase-2 and-9 involvement in canine tumors

Matrix metalloproteinases (MMPs) are a family of enzymes implicated in the degradation and remodeling of extracellular matrix and in vascularization. They are also involved in pathologic processes such as tumor invasion and metastasis in experimental cancer models and in human malignancies. We used gelatin zymography and inummohistochemistry to determine whether MMP-2 and MMP-9 are present in canine tumors and normal tissues and whether MMP production correlates with clinicopathologic parameters of prognostic importance. High levels of pro-MMP-9, pro-MMP-2, and active MMP-2 were detected in most canine tumors. Significantly higher MMP levels were measured in canine tumors than in nontumors, malignancies had higher MMP levels than benign tumors, and sarcomas had higher active MMP-2 than carcinomas. Cartilaginous tumors produced higher MMP levels than did nonsarcomatous malignancies, benign tumors, and normal tissues, and significantly greater MMP-2 than osteosarcomas and fibrosarcomas. Pro-MMP-9 production correlated with the histologic grade of osteosarcomas. The 62-kd form of active MMP-2 was detected only in high-grade, p53-positive, metastatic malignancies. Zymography proved to be a sensitive and quantitative technique for the assessment of MMP presence but has the limitation of requiring fresh tissue; inummohistochemistry is qualitative and comparatively insensitive but could be of value in archival studies. MMP presence was shown in a range of canine tumors, and their link to tumor type and grade was demonstrated for the first time. This study will allow a substantially improved evaluation of veterinary cancer patients and provides baseline information necessary for the design of clinical trials targeting MMPs.