U19/Eaf2 knockout causes lung adenocarcinoma, B-cell lymphoma, hepatocellular carcinoma and prostatic intraepithelial neoplasia

Upregulated gene 19 (U19)/ELL-associated factor 2 (Eaf2) is a potential human tumor suppressor that exhibits frequent allelic loss and downregulation in high-grade prostate cancer. U19/Eaf2, along with its homolog Eaf1, has been reported to regulate transcriptional elongation via interaction with the eleven-nineteen lysine-rich leukemia (ELL) family of proteins. To further explore the tumor-suppressive effects of U19/Eaf2, we constructed and characterized a murine U19/Eaf2-knockout model. Homozygous or heterozygous deletion of U19/Eaf2 resulted in high rates of lung adenocarcinoma, B-cell lymphoma, hepato cellular carcinoma and prostate intraepithelial neoplasia. Within the mouse prostate, U19/Eaf2 defficiency enhanced cell proliferation and increased epithelial cell size. The knockout mice also exhibited cardiac cell hypertrophy. These data indicate a role for U19/Eaf2 in growth suppression and cell size control as well as argue for U19/Eaf2 as a novel tumor suppressor in multiple mouse tissues. The U19/Eaf2 knockout mouse also provides a unique animal model for three important cancers: lung adenocarcinoma, B-cell lymphoma and hepatocellular carcinoma.

Description of two new myxosporean species parasitic in freshwater fishes from the Yangtze River in China

Two new species of myxosporeans (Myxosporea: Myxidiidae), Myxidium tuanfengensis sp. n. and Zschokkella saurogobionis sp. n., Parasitic in freshwater fishes collected from the Yangtze River of China are described in this paper. M. tuanfengensis was found in the liver parenchyma and intestine lumen of Leptobotia taeniops Sauvage, 1878, while Z. saurogobionis was found in the gall bladder of Saurogobio dumerili Bleeker, 1871. The diagnostic characters of M. tuanfengensis are: round or elliptical polysporous plasmodia averaging 118 mum in size; spore oval in frontal view with smooth surface and nearly spindle-shape in sutural view with slightly sinuous sutural ridge, averaging 19.5 x 9.75 x 8.9 mum in size; two large spherical polar capsules 6.8 mum in diameter, with polar filament wound in 4 to 5 coils. The diagnostic characters of Z. saurogobionis are: spore elliptical in both frontal and sutural view measuring 18.3 x 9.8 x 10.8 mum in size; fine sutural ridge in S-form, spore shell marked with 10 to 12 distinct lines paralleled with the sutural line; two spherical polar capsules, 6.7 mum in diameter, with polar filament in 5 coils.

Research of Face Detection System Applied for Detecting Faces with Complex Background and Illumination

An effective face detection system used for detecting multi pose frontal face in gray images is presented. Image preprocessing approaches are applied to reduce the influence of the complex illumination. Eye-analog pairing and improved multiple related template matching are used to glancing and accurate face detecting, respectively. To shorten the time cost of detecting process, we employ prejudge rules in checking candidate image segments before template matching. Test by our own face database with complicated illumination and background, the system has high calculation speed and illumination independency, and obtains good experimental results.

肿瘤耐药与心肌肥厚两种生物医学体系的比较蛋白质组学研究

随着人类基因组计划的完成，蛋白质组学研究已成为生命科学乃至自然科学中最活跃的学科领域之一。蛋白质组学将对我们理解后基因组学时代的基因功能有极大的帮助。差异表达蛋白质组学通过对不同样品蛋白质表达水平的比较，已经被广泛地应用在疾病的研究领域。P糖蛋白已经被证实参与介导了在急性粒白血病中发生的多药耐药，然而越来越多的研究结果表明，在急性粒白血病中多药耐药的机制是多因素的。为了寻找白血病肿瘤细胞中与耐药相关的靶蛋白，我们采用蛋白质组学研究技术，对多药耐药细胞系K562／A02的蛋白质表达谱进行了分析。 本研究采用蛋白质组学研究技术，对多药耐药细胞系K562／A02和药物敏感细胞系K562／S的总蛋白质进行双向凝胶电泳（2 DE）的差异分析，结果发现在K562／A02细胞中有41个蛋白质点差异显著，并用基质辅助激光解离飞行时间质谱（MALDI-MS）成功鉴定了大多数的蛋自点。在被鉴定出的差异蛋白质中，有一些是首次发现与耐药相关，包括chloride intracellular charmel，chaperonin，proteindisulfide-isomerase ER6o precursor and constitutive heat shock protein 70等。所得结果不但能够使我们更加深入的理解肿瘤耐药的病理机制，更重要的是通过找到肿瘤细胞发生耐药的标志性蛋白，可以为开发肿瘤耐药预测方法和寻找抗耐药肿瘤靶标新药的线索，同时也为计算机虚拟筛选设计抗耐药肿瘤新药奠定基础。除了详细的研究了K562／A02细胞系差异蛋白质组，我们还采用蛋白质组学的方法，以乳鼠心肌细胞为实验模型，研究在ARs激动的不同清况下心肌细胞蛋白质表达谱的变化。心肌肥厚是心脏工作超负荷的一种代偿反应。目前，越来越多的证据表明ARs在心肌肥厚的发生中起着非常重要的作用，但人们对其机制了解尚不全面。通过检测心肌肥厚时全蛋白表达的变化，将有助于我们全面、深入了解ARs在心肌肥厚中的作用机制。通过严格的2D胶图象分析，蛋白取点后胶内水解，高灵敏度的质谱鉴定及数据库检索，我们成功地进行了乳鼠心肌细胞肥厚为模型的蛋白质组学的研究。本实验通过比较研究不同肾上腺素受体激动剂norePinephrine伽E），phenylephxine（PE）and isoprenaline（ISO）诱导组与未诱导对照组的蛋白质组学变化，分析确定蛋白丰度差异在2倍以上的蛋白质点，并通过MALDI-MS进行蛋白鉴定。20个具有显著差异的蛋白质被鉴定，包括caspase-11，vimeniin，4-hydroxyphenylpyruvic acid dioxygenase，Modl protein，Txndcs protein等，其中一些蛋白在此之前并没发现与心肌肥厚相关，对它们在心肌肥厚中的意义和机制我们将做进一步的探讨。本研究结果将为我们更好理解肾上腺素受体之间以及肾上腺素受体与心肌肥厚之间的关系提供有益的线索，并将为最终发现可应用于临床的新的诊断和治疗心血管疾病的标志性蛋白打下基础。

Recent advances in the study of biomolecular interactions by capillary electrophoresis

Capillary electrophoresis (CE) has been abundantly used in the study of molecular interactions owing to such advantages as short analysis time, low sample size requirement, high separation efficiency, and flexible applications. The focus of this paper is to 2 review recent studies and advances (mainly from 1998 to now) in biomolecular interactions using CE. Five CE modes: zone migration CE, affinity CE, frontal analysis (FA), Hummel-Dreyer (HD) and vacancy peak (VP) are cited and compared. Quantitative aspects of the thermodynamics and kinetics of biomolecular interaction are reviewed. Several biomolecular binding systems, including protein-protein (polypeptide), protein-DNA (RNA), protein(polypeptide)-carbohydrate, protein-small molecule, DNA-small molecule, small molecule-small molecule, have been well characterized by CE. CE is shown to be a powerful tool for the determination of the binding parameters of various bioaffinity interactions.

Synthesis and characteristics of the human serum albumin-triazine chiral stationary phase

Human serum albumin (HSA) was successfully bonded to silica with s-triazine as activator. The coupling reaction by this method was rapid and effective. The triazine-activated silica is relatively stable and can be installed for at least 1 month without obvious loss of reactivity when stored below 30 degreesC, pH below 7. It was observed that the amount of bound HSA reached 120 mg/g silica calculated from the UV absorbance difference of the HSA solution. d,l-tryptophan was selected as the probe solute to characterize the properties of HSA bonded s-triazine chiral stationary phase, and separation factor of 9.4 was obtained for d,l-tryptophan. Furthermore, the amount of effective HSA on silica was measured by high-performance frontal analysis, and only 16.8 mg/g silica was responsible for the resolution of d,l-tryptophan. These results indicate that the amount of both the bound and effective HSA on silica with triazine as activator was much higher than those by the Schiff base coupling method. Different kinds of enantiomers were resolved successfully on the aminopropylsilica-bonded HSA s-triazine chiral stationary phase. (C) 2000 Wiley-Liss, Inc.

Changes in RNA, DNA, protein contents and growth of turbot Scophthalmus maximus larvae and juveniles

The growth potential of turbot Scophthalmus maximus larvae and juveniles was studied using nucleic acid-based indices and protein variables. The experiment was carried out from 4 to 60 days post hatching (dph). A significant increase in instantaneous growth rate during metamorphosis and retarded growth rate during post-metamorphic phase were observed. Ontogenetic patterns of DNA, RNA and protein all showed developmental stage-specific traits. The RNA:DNA ratio decreased up to 12 dph, then increased rapidly till 19 dph and fluctuated until 35 dph followed by a decline to the end. The RNA:DNA ratio was positively correlated with growth rate of juveniles during the post-metamorphic phase, whereas this ratio was not a sensitive indicator of growth during the pre-metamorphic phase and metamorphosis. The protein:DNA ratio showed a similar tendency to the RNA:DNA ratio. Changes of DNA content and protein:DNA ratio revealed that growth of S. maximus performed mainly by hyperplasia from 4 to 12 dph and hypertrophy until 21 dph during the pre-metamorphic larval phase. Growth was dominantly hypertrophical from the early- to mid-metamorphosing phase and hyperplastic thereafter. The results show that the DNA content and protein:DNA ratio can evaluate growth rates of larval and juvenile S. maximus on a cellular level.

Features of Late Cenozoic Deepwater Sedimentation in Southern Qiongdongnan Basin, Northwestern South China Sea

Based on high resolution 2D and 3D seismic data acquired in recent years, using sequence stratigraphy analysis and geophysical methods, we discuss the features of Late Cenozoic deepwater sedimentation in the southern Qiongdongnan (sic) basin. The study area entered a bathyal slope environment in the Miocene. The channel developed in the Sanya (sic) Formation was controlled by a fault break, and its shingled seismic characteristics represent multiple erosion and fill, which may indicate that turbidite current developed in the slope environment. The polygon faults found in mudstone of the Meishan (sic) Formation represent the deepwater hungry sedimentary environment. The large-scale channels developed on the top of Huangliu (sic) Formation could be the result of a big sea level drop and an increase of sediment supply. The fantastic turbidite channel developed in Late Quaternary in the slope environment has "fan-like" body and long frontal tiny avulsion channel. The analysis of these features suggests that the sediment supply of the study area in the post-rifting period was dominant from the Vietnam uplift in the southwest. These deepwater sedimentary features could be potential reservoirs or migration pathways for deepwater petroleum systems.

Tidally induced upwelling off Yangtze River estuary and in Zhejiang coastal waters in summer

MASNUM wave-tide-circulation coupled numerical model (MASNUM coupled model, hereinafter) is developed based on the Princeton Ocean Model (POM). Both POM and MASNUM coupled model are applied in the numerical simulation of the upwelling off Yangtze River estuary and in Zhejiang coastal waters in summer. The upwelling mechanisms are analyzed from the viewpoint of tide, and a new mechanism is proposed. The study suggests that the tidally inducing mechanism of the upwelling includes two dynamic aspects: the barotropic and the baroclinic process. On the one hand, the residual currents induced by barotropic tides converge near the seabed, and upwelling is generated to maintain mass conservation. The climbing of the residual currents along the sea bottom slope also contributes to the upwelling. On the other hand, tidal mixing plays a very important role in inducing the upwelling in the baroclinic sea circumstances. Strong tidal mixing leads to conspicuous front in the coastal waters. The considerable horizontal density gradient across the front elicits a secondary circulation clinging to the tidal front, and the upwelling branch appears near the frontal zone. Numerical experiments are designed to determine the importance of tide in inducing the upwelling. The results indicate that tide is a key and dominant inducement of the upwelling. Experiments also show that coupling calculation of the four main tidal constituents(M-2, S-2, K-1, and O-1), rather than dealing with the single M-2 constituent, improves the modeling precision of the barotropic tide-induced upwelling.

Feeding and egg production of the planktonic copepod Calanus sinicus in spring and autumn in the Yellow Sea, China

Shipboard incubations were conducted in spring (April) and autumn (October/November) 2006 to measure the feeding and egg production rates (EPR) of Calanus sinicus in the Yellow Sea, China. The ingestion rate (2.08-11.46 and 0.26-3.70 mu g C female(-1) day(-1) in spring and autumn, respectively) was positively correlated with microplankton carbon concentrations. In the northern part of the Yellow Sea, feeding on microplankton easily covers the respiratory and production requirements, whereas in the southern part in spring and in the frontal zone in autumn, C. sinicus must ingest alternative food sources. Low ingestion rates, no egg production and the dominance of the fifth copepodite (CV) stage indicated that C. sinicus was in quiescence inside the Yellow Sea Cold Bottom Water (YSCBW) area in autumn. Calanus sinicus ingested ciliates preferentially over other components of the microplankton. The EPR (0.16-12.6 eggs female(-1) day(-1) in spring and 11.4 eggs female(-1) day(-1) at only one station in autumn) increased with ciliate standing stock. Gross growth efficiency (GGE) was 13.4% (3-39%) in spring, which was correlated with the proportion of ciliates in the diet. These results indicate that ciliates have higher nutrient quality than other food items, but the low GGE indicates that the diet of C. sinicus is nutritionally incomplete.

Impact of tidal front on the distribution of bacterioplankton in the southern Yellow Sea, China

Three surveys were carried out in anchovy spawning periods in southern Yellow Sea in May and June 2001, and June 2002. Chlorophyll a (Chl-a) concentration, bacterioplankton abundance, biomass and their variations along the zone of tidal fronts were investigated. The results showed that (1) high Synechococcus abundance distributed more often in frontal area and middle-surface layer of a stratified zone; and (2) the maximal abundance of bacteria occurred in stratified and mixed zone. 2006 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.

Morphology and infraciliature of three species of Metaurostylopsis (Ciliophora, Stichotrichia): M. songi n. sp., M. salina n. sp., and M. marina (Kahl 1932) from sediments, saline ponds, and coastal waters.

Two new urostylid ciliates, Metaurostylopsis songi n. sp. and Metaurostylopsis salina n. sp. and Metaurostylopsis marina (Kahl 1932) are investigated using live observation and protargol impregnation. These species were isolated in Korea from intertidal sediments, saline ponds, and coastal waters. Metaurostylopsis songi is in vivo about 120 pm x 25 mu m, has a slenderly ellipsoidal body, colorless cortical granules in rows on ventral and dorsal body sides, about 54 macronuclear nodules, 28-47 adoral membranelles, five frontal, two or three frontoterminal and six or seven transverse cirri, and 9-12 midventral cirral pairs followed posteriorly by 1-3 single cirri. In vivo M. salina is about 60 pin x 25 mu m, has a pyriform body, colorless cortical granules irregularly arranged, about 45 macronuclear nodules, 18-23 adoral membranelles, three frontal, three to five frontoterminal and two to five transverse cirri, and four or five midventral cirral pairs followed posteriorly by five to seven single cirri. Both species have three marginal cirral rows on each body side and 3 long dorsal kineties. The Korean specimens of M. marina match the Chinese population in all main features. Metaurostylopsis songi differs from M. marina by the more slender body, the number of frontal cirri (invariably five vs. four), and the arrangement of cortical granules (in rows on dorsal and ventral cortex vs. only along dorsal kinetics and anterior body margin). Metaurostylopsis salina differs from its congeners by the distinctly smaller size, the pyriform body shape, the scattered cortical granules (vs. in rows), and number of frontal cirri. It differs from M. marina also by the number of midventral cirral pairs (four or five vs. seven to 11).

Description of a new genus and two new species of Ioninae (Isopoda : Epicaridea : Bopyridae) parasites of Leucosiidae (Decapoda : Brachyura) from Beibu Gulf

A new genus, Onkokepon n. gen., and two new species, O. articulatus n. sp. and O. beibuensis n. sp., infesting Leucosia longibranchia Shen & Chen and Leucosia unidentata de Haan, respectively, are described from Beibu Gulf in China and Vietnam. Neither of these species of Leucosia has previously been reported as bopyrid hosts. The new genus differs from other ionine bopyrid genera in the presence of a well-developed tubercular frontal lamina, a deeply digitate barbula, rudimentary subcircular pleopodal endopodites, and lacking coxal plates. O. articulatus n. sp. is distinguished from O. beibuensis n. sp. by having articulated maxillipedal palp, blunt posterolateral point of oostegite 1 and setose triangular frontal lamina of the female.

A new spirofilid ciliate from the yellow sea: Metastrongylidium distichum n gen, n sp (ciliophora, stichotrichia)

The morphology and infraciliature of a new ciliate, Metastrongylidium distichum, isolated from the Yellow Sea, are investigated using live observation and protargol impregnation. Metastrongylidium distichum is about 170 x 40 pm in vivo, clavate to elongate ellipsoidal with bluntly pointed posterior end, and has two macronuclear nodules, six distinctly large buccal and frontal cirri, three dorsal kineties and two each of spiralled ventral and marginal cirral rows. These features indicate a generic allocation in Strongylidium Sterki, 1878. However, the new ciliate has a distinct feature not recognizable in Strongylidiurn, viz., the presence of (three or four) transverse cirri. Thus, we propose a new genus Metastrongylidium for the new species, M distichum nov. gen., n. sp. Metastrongylidium belongs to the family Spirofilidae, where it differs from Mucotrichidium by the lack of postperistomial cirrus and the different frontal and ventral cirral pattern. Metastrongylidium distichum is easily distinguishable from the seemingly similar species Strongylidium californicum Kahl, 1932 by the macronuclear pattern (invariably 2 vs. many nodules). It highly resembles the poorly known species S. contortum (Gelei 1954) Borror, 1972 in the body outline and nuclear pattern, differing in the biotope, the posterior cirral pattern, and the arrangement of right marginal row.

Effect of graded levels of rapeseed oil in isonitrogenous diets on the development of the gastrointestinal tract, and utilisation of protein, fat and energy in broiler chickens

The effect of feeding 0, 4, 8 and 16% rapeseed oil from 12-42 days of age was studied in broiler chickens on performance, digestibility of nutrients, and development of gastrointestinal tract, protein and energy metabolism. Thirty six female chickens (Ross 208) with initial body weight average 246 g were allocated to the four groups and kept pair-wise in metabolism cages. The chickens were fed similar amounts of metabolisable energy (ME) per day and similar amounts of essential amino acids relative to ME by adjusting with crystalline amino acids. The chickens were subjected to four balance periods each of five days with two 24 h measurements of gas exchange in two open-air-circuit respiration chambers inserted on the second and third day of each period. The addition of rapeseed oil increased the amount of gutfill indicating a reduced rate of passage and causing a hypertrophy of the gastrointestinal tract. There was a positive effect on feed utilisation as well as on digestibility especially of dietary fat together with higher utilisation of protein with addition of rapeseed oil. The partial fat digestibility of rapeseed oil estimated by regression was 91.1% and the partial metabolisability (ME/GE) of the rapeseed oil was estimated to 85% yielding an apparent metabolisable energy value of 34.30 MJ/kg.