| 1. |
- Klionsky, Daniel J., et al.
(författare)
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Guidelines for the use and interpretation of assays for monitoring autophagy
- 2012
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Ingår i: Autophagy. - : Informa UK Limited. - 1554-8635 .- 1554-8627. ; 8:4, s. 445-544
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Forskningsöversikt (refereegranskat)abstract
- In 2008 we published the first set of guidelines for standardizing research in autophagy. Since then, research on this topic has continued to accelerate, and many new scientists have entered the field. Our knowledge base and relevant new technologies have also been expanding. Accordingly, it is important to update these guidelines for monitoring autophagy in different organisms. Various reviews have described the range of assays that have been used for this purpose. Nevertheless, there continues to be confusion regarding acceptable methods to measure autophagy, especially in multicellular eukaryotes. A key point that needs to be emphasized is that there is a difference between measurements that monitor the numbers or volume of autophagic elements (e.g., autophagosomes or autolysosomes) at any stage of the autophagic process vs. those that measure flux through the autophagy pathway (i.e., the complete process); thus, a block in macroautophagy that results in autophagosome accumulation needs to be differentiated from stimuli that result in increased autophagic activity, defined as increased autophagy induction coupled with increased delivery to, and degradation within, lysosomes (in most higher eukaryotes and some protists such as Dictyostelium) or the vacuole (in plants and fungi). In other words, it is especially important that investigators new to the field understand that the appearance of more autophagosomes does not necessarily equate with more autophagy. In fact, in many cases, autophagosomes accumulate because of a block in trafficking to lysosomes without a concomitant change in autophagosome biogenesis, whereas an increase in autolysosomes may reflect a reduction in degradative activity. Here, we present a set of guidelines for the selection and interpretation of methods for use by investigators who aim to examine macroautophagy and related processes, as well as for reviewers who need to provide realistic and reasonable critiques of papers that are focused on these processes. These guidelines are not meant to be a formulaic set of rules, because the appropriate assays depend in part on the question being asked and the system being used. In addition, we emphasize that no individual assay is guaranteed to be the most appropriate one in every situation, and we strongly recommend the use of multiple assays to monitor autophagy. In these guidelines, we consider these various methods of assessing autophagy and what information can, or cannot, be obtained from them. Finally, by discussing the merits and limits of particular autophagy assays, we hope to encourage technical innovation in the field.
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| 2. |
- Li, Yadi, et al.
(författare)
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Virtual and In vitro bioassay screening of phytochemical inhibitors from flavonoids and isoflavones against Xanthine oxidase and Cyclooxygenase-2 for gout treatment
- 2013
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Ingår i: Chemical Biology and Drug Design. - : John Wiley & Sons. - 1747-0277 .- 1747-0285. ; 81:4, s. 537-544
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Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- Synthetic drugs such as allopurinol and benzbroarone are commonly used to treat the complex pathogenesis of gout, a metabolic disease that results from an inflammation of the joints caused by precipitation of uric acid. We seek to discover novel phytochemicals that could treat gout, by targeting the xanthine oxidase (XO) and cyclooxygenase 2 (COX-2) enzymes. In this study, we report the screening of 9 compounds of flavonoids from the ZINC and PubChem databases (containing 2,092 flavonoids) using the iGEMDOCK software tool against the XO and COX-2 3D protein structures. Each compound was also evaluated by an in vitro bioassay testing the inhibition of XO and COX-2. Myricetin and luteolin were found to be the potential dual inhibitors of XO and COX-2 as demonstrated by IC50: 62.7 and 3.29μg/mL (XO) / 70.8 and 16.38μg/mL (COX-2), respectively. In addition, structure activity relationships and other important factors of the flavonoids binding to the active site of XO and COX-2 were discussed, which is expected for further rational drug design.
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| 3. |
- Chen, Long, et al.
(författare)
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5,6-Bis(octyloxy)benzo[c][1,2,5]thiadiazole-Bridged Dyes for Dye-Sensitized Solar Cells with High Open-Circuit Voltage Performance
- 2013
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Ingår i: European Journal of Organic Chemistry. - : Wiley. - 1434-193X .- 1099-0690. ; :9, s. 1770-1780
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Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- Three new metal-free dyes with a 5,6-bis(octyloxy) benzo[c][1,2,5] thiadiazole core (DOBT-I-III) have been designed and synthesized for use as DSSCs. Their absorption properties and electrochemical and photovoltaic performances have been investigated systematically. The DSSCs based on DOBT-I-III show high open-circuit voltages (V-oc) of 829, 818, and 784 mV, respectively. Of the three dyes, DOBT-III, which contains a thiophene-bridging linker, exhibits the best photovoltaic performance: a short-circuit photocurrent density (J(sc)) of 12.74 mA cm(-2) and a fill factor (FF) of 0.73, which corresponds to an overall conversion efficiency of 7.29% under standard global AM 1.5 solar conditions.
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| 4. |
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| 5. |
- Guan, Rui, et al.
(författare)
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Bottlenecks in erucic acid accumulation in genetically engineered ultrahigh erucic acid Crambe abyssinica
- 2014
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Ingår i: Plant Biotechnology Journal. - : Wiley. - 1467-7644 .- 1467-7652. ; 12, s. 193-203
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Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- Erucic acid is a valuable industrial fatty acid with many applications. The main producers of this acid are today high erucic rapeseed (Brassica napus) and mustard (Brassica juncea), which have 45%-50% of erucic acid in their seed oils. Crambe abyssinica is an alternative promising producer of this acid as it has 55%-60% of erucic acid in its oil. Through genetic modification (GM) of three genes, we have previously increased the level of erucic acid to 71% (68mol%) in Crambe seed oil. In this study, we further investigated different aspects of oil biosynthesis in the developing GM Crambe seeds in comparison with wild-type (Wt) Crambe, rapeseed and safflower (Carthamus tinctorius). We show that Crambe seeds have very low phosphatidylcholine-diacylglycerol interconversion, suggesting it to be the main reason why erucic acid is limited in the membrane lipids during oil biosynthesis. We further show that GM Crambe seeds have slower seed development than Wt, accompanied by slower oil accumulation during the first 20days after flowering (DAF). Despite low accumulation of erucic acid during early stages of GM seed development, nearly 86mol% of all fatty acids accumulated between 27 and 50 DAF was erucic acid, when 40% of the total oil is laid down. Likely bottlenecks in the accumulation of erucic acid during early stages of GM Crambe seed development are discussed.
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| 6. |
- Han, Yang, et al.
(författare)
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X-radiation inhibits histone deacetylase 1 and 2, upregulates Axin expression and induces apoptosis in non-small cell lung cancer
- 2012
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Ingår i: Radiation Oncology. - : BioMed Central. - 1748-717X .- 1748-717X. ; 7:183
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Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- BackgroundHistone deacetylase (HDAC) plays an important role in the deacetylation of histone, which can alter gene expression patterns and affect cell behavior associated with malignant transformation. The aims of this study were to investigate the relationships between HDAC1, HDAC2, clinicopathologic characteristics, patient prognosis and apoptosis, to clarify the mechanism of upregulation of the Axis inhibitor Axin (an important regulator of the Wnt pathway) by X-radiation and to elucidate the effect of siRNA on radiation therapy of non-small cell lung cancer (NSCLC).MethodsHDAC1 and HDAC2 expression levels were measured by immunohistochemistry and reverse transcription PCR. Apoptosis was determined by terminal deoxynucleotidyl transferase-mediated dUTP-nick end labeling and fluorescence activated cell sorting. BE1 cells expressing Axin were exposed to 2 Gy of X-radiation.ResultsExpression of HDAC1 and that of HDAC2 were correlated, and significantly higher in NSCLC tissues than in normal lung tissues (P < 0.05). HDAC1 and HDAC2 expression was correlated with pTNM stage and negatively correlated with differentiation of NSCLC and apoptotic index (P < 0.05). The prognosis of patients with low expression of HDAC1 and HDAC2 was better than that of those with high expression. X-radiation and siRNA inhibited HDAC1 and HDAC2 expression in NSCLC cells and Axin levels were significantly higher in BE1 cells.ConclusionsX-radiation and siRNA inhibit expression of HDAC1 and HDAC2, weaken the inhibitory effect of HDAC on Axin, upregulate Axin expression and induce apoptosis of lung cancer cells. Inhibition of HDAC1 and HDAC2 is a means of enhancing the radiosensitivity of NSCLC.
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| 7. |
- Hua, Shugui, et al.
(författare)
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An Efficient Implementation of the Generalized Energy-Based Fragmentation Approach for General Large Molecules
- 2010
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Ingår i: Journal of Physical Chemistry A. - : American Chemical Society (ACS). - 1089-5639 .- 1520-5215. ; 114:31, s. 8126-8134
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Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- An efficient implementation of the generalized energy-based fragmentation (GEBF) approach (Li, W.; Li, S.; Jiang, Y. J Phys. Chem. A 2007, 111, 2193) for treating a wide range of large molecules is presented. In this implementation, the fragmentation process can be automatically done for a general molecule, with only some functional groups defined by users. A new and fast scheme is designed for the generation of various subsystems and the derivation of their coefficients. The newly implemented GEBF approach has been applied to several large molecules including proteins, nucleic acids, and supermolecules with fused aromatic rings. Test calculations within the Hartree-Fock (HF) and density functional theory (DFT) framework demonstrate that the GEBF approach can provide reasonably accurate ground-state energies and optimized structures, which are in good agreement with those from conventional HF or DFT calculations. The GEBF approach implemented in this work can now be employed by nonexpert users to compute energies, optimized structures, and some molecular properties at various ab initio levels for a broad range of large molecules on ordinary PC workstations.
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| 8. |
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| 9. |
- Koettgen, Anna, et al.
(författare)
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Genome-wide association analyses identify 18 new loci associated with serum urate concentrations
- 2013
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Ingår i: Nature Genetics. - : Springer Science and Business Media LLC. - 1061-4036 .- 1546-1718. ; 45:2, s. 145-154
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Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- Elevated serum urate concentrations can cause gout, a prevalent and painful inflammatory arthritis. By combining data from >140,000 individuals of European ancestry within the Global Urate Genetics Consortium (GUGC), we identified and replicated 28 genome-wide significant loci in association with serum urate concentrations (18 new regions in or near TRIM46, INHBB, SEMBT1, TMEM171, VEGFA, BAZ1B, PRKAG2, STC1, HNF4G, A1CF, ATXN2, UBE2Q2, IGF1R, NFAT5, MAF, HLF, ACVR1B-ACVRL1 and B3GNT4). Associations for many of the loci were of similar magnitude in individuals of non-European ancestry. We further characterized these loci for associations with gout, transcript expression and the fractional excretion of urate. Network analyses implicate the inhibins-activins signaling pathways and glucose metabolism in systemic urate control. New candidate genes for serum urate concentration highlight the importance of metabolic control of urate production and excretion, which may have implications for the treatment and prevention of gout.
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| 10. |
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