Recent advances of flowering locus T gene in higher plants

Flowering Locus T (FT) can promote flowering in the plant photoperiod pathway and also facilitates vernalization flowering pathways and other ways to promote flowering. The expression of products of the FT gene is recognized as important parts of the flowering hormone and can induce flowering by long-distance transportation. In the present study, many FT-like genes were isolated, and the transgenic results show that FT gene can promote flowering in plants. This paper reviews the progress of the FT gene and its expression products to provide meaningful information for further studies of the functions of FT genes.     

Perforin Expression by CD4+ Regulatory T Cells Increases at Multiple Sclerosis Relapse: Sex Differences

Multiple sclerosis (MS) represents the leading cause of neurological deficit among young adults, affecting women more frequently than men. In MS, the extent of central nervous system lesions is determined by the net balance between self-reactive and regulatory T-cells at any given time, among other factors, as well as by the effect of inflammatory response. Here, we studied both CD4+ and CD8+ T(Reg) in parallel in blood and CSF during MS relapse. A recruitment of both regulatory CD4+ and CD8+ T cells (T(Reg)) within the cerebrospinal fluid (CSF) takes place during MS relapse. Not previously described, the presence of CD4+ T(Reg) in CSF was higher in women than in men, which could account for the sexual dimorphism in the incidence of MS. A direct correlation between plasma oestradiol (E2) and IL-2 levels was observed, in line with a putative circuit of E2 and perforin expression by CD4+ T(Reg) playing a role in MS. Also, serum IFN-alpha was higher in females, with direct correlation with serum E2 levels. This is the first study to analyze perforin expression by CD4+ T(Reg) in MS, which was greatly enhanced in CSF, what points out a relevant role of this molecule in the suppressive effects of the CD4+ T(Reg) in MS, and contributes to the understanding of MS pathophysiology.     

Four Novel Cellulose Synthase (CESA) Genes from Birch (Betula platyphylla Suk.) Involved in Primary and Secondary Cell Wall Biosynthesis

Cellulose synthase (CESA), which is an essential catalyst for the generation of plant cell wall biomass, is mainly encoded by the CesA gene family that contains ten or more members. In this study; four full-length cDNAs encoding CESA were isolated from Betula platyphylla Suk., which is an important timber species, using RT-PCR combined with the RACE method and were named as BplCesA3, −4, −7 and −8. These deduced CESAs contained the same typical domains and regions as their Arabidopsis homologs. The cDNA lengths differed among these four genes, as did the locations of the various protein domains inferred from the deduced amino acid sequences, which shared amino acid sequence identities ranging from only 63.8% to 70.5%. Real-time RT-PCR showed that all four BplCesAs were expressed at different levels in diverse tissues. Results indicated that BplCESA8 might be involved in secondary cell wall biosynthesis and floral development. BplCESA3 appeared in a unique expression pattern and was possibly involved in primary cell wall biosynthesis and seed development; it might also be related to the homogalacturonan synthesis. BplCESA7 and BplCESA4 may be related to the formation of a cellulose synthase complex and participate mainly in secondary cell wall biosynthesis. The extremely low expression abundance of the four BplCESAs in mature pollen suggested very little involvement of them in mature pollen formation in Betula. The distinct expression pattern of the four BplCesAs suggested they might participate in developments of various tissues and that they are possibly controlled by distinct mechanisms in Betula.     

Simultaneous purification and site-specific modification of pyrroline-carboxy-lysine proteins

Sticky residue: Pyrroline-carboxy-lysine (Pcl) can be readily incorporated into proteins expressed in E. coli and mammalian cells by using the pyrrolysyl tRNA/tRNA synthetase pair. Pcl can be used as a single amino acid purification tag and can be site-specifically modified with functional probes during the elution process.     

Direct Cloning, Genetic Engineering, and Heterologous Expression of the Syringolin Biosynthetic Gene Cluster in E. coli through Red/ET Recombineering

The reconstruction of a natural product biosynthetic pathway from bacteria in a vector and subsequent heterologous expression in a technically amenable microbial system represents an efficient alternative to empirical traditional methods for functional discovery, yield improvement, and genetic engineering to produce "unnatural" derivatives. However, the traditional cloning procedure based on genomic library construction and screening are complicated due to the large size (>10 kb) of most biosynthetic pathways. Here, we describe the direct cloning of a partial syringolin biosynthetic gene cluster (sylCDE, 19 kb) from a digested genomic DNA mixture of Pseudomonas syringae into a plasmid in which sylCDE is under the control of an inducible promoter by one step linear-plus-linear homologous recombination (LLHR) in Escherichia coli. After expression in E. coli GB05-MtaA, two new syringolin derivatives were discovered. The complete syringolin gene cluster was assembled by addition of sylAB and exchange of a synthetic bidirectional promoter against the native promoter to drive sylB and sylC expression by using Red/ET recombineering. The varying production distribution of syringolin derivatives showed the different efficiencies of native and synthetic promoters in E. coli. The successful reconstitution and expression of the syringolin biosynthetic pathway shows that Red/ET recombineering is an efficient tool to clone and engineer secondary metabolite biosynthetic pathways.     

Heterologous Expression and Structural Characterisation of a Pyrazinone Natural Product Assembly Line

Through a number of strategies nonribosomal peptide assembly lines give rise to a metabolic diversity not possible by ribosomal synthesis. One distinction within nonribosomal assembly is that products are elaborated on an enzyme‐tethered substrate, and their release is enzyme catalysed. Reductive release by NAD(P)H‐dependent catalysts is one observed nonribosomal termination and release strategy. Here we probed the selectivity of a terminal reductase domain by using a full‐length heterologously expressed nonribosomal peptide synthetase for the dipeptide aureusimine and were able to generate 17 new analogues. Further, we generated an X‐ray structure of aureusimine terminal reductase to gain insight into the structural details associated with this enzymatic domain.     

β-葡萄糖苷酶高产菌株的筛选及其基因的克隆与表达

利用栀子苷培养基从滨海新区盐碱地土样中筛选得到一株高产β-葡萄糖苷酶菌株,酶活力达到14.82U·mL-1,经16SrDNA鉴定,命名为短小芽孢杆菌B-4。克隆获得B-4β-葡萄糖苷酶基因,测序结果表明,其大小为1437bp,与GenBank中短小芽孢杆菌SAFR-032β-葡萄糖苷酶基因YP_001488769.1序列比对,核苷酸序列同源性达97%,氨基酸序列同源性达99%。进一步利用表达载体pET-22b（＋）,实现β-葡萄糖苷酶基因bglB在大肠杆菌BL21（DE3）中的高效表达,酶活力达46.85U·mL-1。     

中国传统戏曲符号在艺术设计中的应用

目的在分析了经济全球化背景下戏曲艺术的发展瓶颈后,探究传统戏曲符号在艺术设计中的应用方式及策略。方法立足于传统戏曲符号在艺术设计中的几种应用方式,从包装设计、动漫设计和纤维设计三个方面探究传统戏曲符号在艺术设计中的具体应用,并结合实例进行辅助论证。结论融入了传统戏曲符号的现代艺术设计具有相对独立的欣赏价值和审美意义,并逐渐被应用到更多设计领域,展现出强大的艺术生命力。     

增大住宅楼建筑设计基准期的探讨

目前,我国的建筑设计规范规定设计基准期为50年,而国家对民用建筑出让土地使用权的期限为70年,20年的差值使得住宅房屋在土地使用权的期限内必须进行房屋安全性评估,超役期的建筑投入大量后期维护费用的可能性大大提高,因此,将设计基准期提高到70年是很有必要的。本文就设计基准期提高到70年后,对民用住宅楼建筑的荷载标准值统计参数、构件抗力统计参数及分项系数表达式中各分项系数的取值的变化做了计算分析,根据GB50068-2001《建筑结构可靠度设计统一标准》中建议的计算方法,给出新的便于设计使用的分项系数设计表达式。