Articles

Enhancing antitumor immunogenicity of HPV16-E7 DNA vaccine by fusing DNA encoding E7-antigenic peptide to DNA encoding capsid protein L1 of Bovine papillomavirus

Human papillomavirus (HPV) has been identified as the primary etiologic factor of cervical cancer, the fourth leading cause of cancer death in females worldwide. We have previously shown that coadministration ...

Authors: Andrew Yang, Shiwen Peng, Emily Farmer, Qi Zeng, Max A. Cheng, Xiaowu Pang, T. -C. Wu and Chien-Fu Hung

Investigation of host–pathogen interaction between Burkholderia pseudomallei and autophagy-related protein LC3 using hydrophobic chromatography-based technique

Burkholderia pseudomallei is an intracellular bacteria causing Melioidosis, the disease widely disseminates in Southeast Asia and Northern Australia. B. pseudomallei has ability to inv...

Authors: Pattamaporn Joompa, Saranyoo Ponnikorn, Sittiruk Roytrakul and Sumalee Tungpradabkul

Phosphorylation of astrocytic connexin43 by ERK1/2 impairs blood–brain barrier in acute cerebral ischemia

Connexins are a family of transmembrane proteins that form gap junctions, which are important for diffusion of cytosolic factors such as ions and second messenger signaling molecules. Our previous study has sh...

Authors: Wei Chen, Jiugeng Feng and Wusong Tong

Diabetic retinopathy: reversibility of epigenetic modifications and new therapeutic targets

In recent years, considerable progress has been made in the molecular mechanisms of epigenetics in disease development and progression, the reversible characteristics of epigenetic modification provide new ins...

Authors: Xinyuan Zhang, Lin Zhao, Brett Hambly, Shisan Bao and Kaiyue Wang

A human plasma derived supplement preserves function of human vascular cells in absence of fetal bovine serum

Current techniques for cell culture routinely use animal-derived components. Fetal bovine serum (FBS) is the most widely applied supplement, but it often displays significant batch-to-batch variations and is g...

Authors: C. Castells-Sala, J. Martorell and M. Balcells

The 2016 Ming K Jeang Award for Excellence in Cell & Bioscience

Two research groups led by Dr. Jim Hu of University of Toronto, Canada and Dr. Renping Zhou of Rutgers University, USA, respectively, won the 2016 Ming K Jeang Award for Excellence in Cell & Bioscience. ...

Authors: Yun-Bo Shi

TGF-β in pancreatic cancer initiation and progression: two sides of the same coin

Pancreatic cancer is highly lethal malignant tumor with characterised rapid progression, invasiveness and resistance to radiochemotherapy. Transforming growth factor-β (TGF-β) signaling plays a dual role in bo...

Authors: Wei Shen, Guo-qing Tao, Yu Zhang, Bing Cai, Jian Sun and Zhi-qiang Tian

The miR-290-295 cluster as multi-faceted players in mouse embryonic stem cells

Increasing evidence indicates that embryonic stem cell specific microRNAs (miRNAs) play an essential role in the early development of embryo. Among them, the miR-290-295 cluster is the most highly expressed in...

Authors: Kai Yuan, Wen-Bing Ai, Lin-Yan Wan, Xiao Tan and Jiang-Feng Wu

Isocitrate dehydrogenases in physiology and cancer: biochemical and molecular insight

Isocitrate dehydrogenases play important roles in cellular metabolism and cancer. This review will discuss how the roles of isoforms 1 and 2 in normal cell and cancer metabolism are distinct from those of isof...

Authors: Hamoud Al-Khallaf

Stromal Senp1 promotes mouse early folliculogenesis by regulating BMP4 expression

Mammalian folliculogenesis, maturation of the ovarian follicles, require both growth factors derived from oocyte and surrounding cells, including stromal cells. However, the mechanism by which stromal cells an...

Authors: Shu Tan, Boya Feng, Mingzhu Yin, Huanjiao Jenny Zhou, Ge Lou, Weidong Ji, Yonghao Li and Wang Min

Genome editing is revolutionizing biology

Authors: Yiping Qi

The roles of microRNA families in hepatic fibrosis

When hepatocytes are damaged severely, a variety of signaling pathways will be triggered by inflammatory factors and cytokines involving in the process of hepatic fibrosis. The microRNA (miRNA) family consists...

Authors: Xue-Ping Jiang, Wen-Bing Ai, Lin-Yan Wan, Yan-Qiong Zhang and Jiang-Feng Wu

ZNF300 tight self-regulation and functioning through DNA methylation and histone acetylation

Accumulating evidence demonstrates that the KRAB-ZNFs involve in various biological processes. As a typical member of KRAB-ZNFs, dysregulation of ZNF300 contributes to multiple pathologies such as leukemia and...

Authors: Feng-Juan Yan, Jingyi Fan, Zan Huang and Jun-Jian Zhang

Erratum to: A new paradigm of DNA synthesis: three-metal-ion catalysis

Authors: Wei Yang, Peter J. Weng and Yang Gao

Kv1.3 channel blocker (ImKTx88) maintains blood–brain barrier in experimental autoimmune encephalomyelitis

Disruption of blood–brain barrier (BBB) and subsequent infiltration of auto-reactive T lymphocytes are major characteristics of multiple sclerosis (MS) and experimental autoimmune encephalomyelitis (EAE). Kv1....

Authors: Jie Huang, Song Han, Qi Sun, Yipeng Zhao, Junchen Liu, Xiaolu Yuan, Wenqian Mao, Biwen Peng, Wanhong Liu, Jun Yin and Xiaohua He

iPSCs are safe!

Induced pluripotent stem cells (iPSCs) hold great promises in cell therapy. However, the potential safety issues have dampened the enthusiasm of their clinical development. One of the biggest concerns came fro...

Authors: Hualong Yan, Yun-Bo Shi and Jing Huang

APOBEC3B, a molecular driver of mutagenesis in human cancers

Human cancers results in large part from the accumulation of multiple mutations. The progression of premalignant cells is an evolutionary process in which mutations provide the fundamental driving force for ge...

Authors: Jun Zou, Chen Wang, Xiangyi Ma, Edward Wang and Guang Peng

Chloroquine inhibits Ca²⁺ permeable ion channels-mediated Ca²⁺ signaling in primary B lymphocytes

Chloroquine, a bitter tastant, inhibits Ca²⁺ signaling, resulting in suppression of B cell activation; however, the inhibitory mechanism remains unclear.

Authors: Yi-Fan Wu, Ping Zhao, Xi Luo, Jin-Chao Xu, Lu Xue, Qi Zhou, Mingrui Xiong, Jinhua Shen, Yong-Bo Peng, Meng-Fei Yu, Weiwei Chen, Liqun Ma and Qing-Hua Liu

Epigenetic regulation of Runx2 transcription and osteoblast differentiation by nicotinamide phosphoribosyltransferase

Bone degenerative disorders like osteoporosis may be initiated by age-related shifts in anabolic and catabolic responses that control bone homeostasis. Although there are studies suggesting that metabolic chan...

Authors: Min Ling, Peixin Huang, Shamima Islam, Daniel P. Heruth, Xuanan Li, Li Qin Zhang, Ding-You Li, Zhaohui Hu and Shui Qing Ye

Control of gene expression through the nonsense-mediated RNA decay pathway

Nonsense-mediated RNA decay (NMD) was originally discovered as a cellular surveillance pathway that safeguards the quality of mRNA transcripts in eukaryotic cells. In its canonical function, NMD prevents trans...

Authors: Andrew Nickless, Julie M. Bailis and Zhongsheng You

Histone demethylases UTX and JMJD3 are required for NKT cell development in mice

Natural killer (NK)T cells and conventional T cells share phenotypic characteristic however they differ in transcription factor requirements and functional properties. The role of histone modifying enzymes in ...

Authors: Daniel Northrup, Ryoji Yagi, Kairong Cui, William R. Proctor, Chaochen Wang, Katarzyna Placek, Lance R. Pohl, Rongfu Wang, Kai Ge, Jinfang Zhu and Keji Zhao

Brothers in arms: emerging roles of RNA epigenetics in DNA damage repair

N6-methyladenosine (m⁶A) is a widespread posttranscriptional RNA modification that occurs in tRNA, rRNA, snRNA, viral RNAs, and more recently is shown to occur in mRNA in a dynamic, reversible manner. At the epic...

Authors: Jinwei Zhang

Gene expression profiling discerns molecular pathways elicited by ligand signaling to enhance the specification of embryonic stem cells into skeletal muscle lineage

Regulation of lineage specification and differentiation in embryonic stem (ES) cells can be achieved through the activation of endogenous signaling, an avenue for potential application in regenerative medicine...

Authors: Katherine Dixon, Jihong Chen and Qiao Li

Retrospective analysis in oculocutaneous albinism patients for the 2.7 kb deletion in the OCA2 gene revealed a co-segregation of the controversial variant, p.R305W

Oculocutaneous albinism (OCA) is an autosomal recessive disorder. A significant portion of OCA patients has been found with a single pathogenic variant either in the TYR or the OCA2 gene. Diagnostic sequencing of...

Authors: Jackson Gao, Leera D’Souza, Keith Wetherby, Christian Antolik, Melissa Reeves, David R. Adams, Santa Tumminia and Xinjing Wang

Plant genome editing with TALEN and CRISPR

Genome editing promises giant leaps forward in advancing biotechnology, agriculture, and basic research. The process relies on the use of sequence specific nucleases (SSNs) to make DNA double stranded breaks a...

Authors: Aimee Malzahn, Levi Lowder and Yiping Qi

Upregulation of heme oxygenase-1 expression by curcumin conferring protection from hydrogen peroxide-induced apoptosis in H9c2 cardiomyoblasts

Curcumin is a major constituent of rhizomes of Curcuma longa that elicits beneficial effects for oxidative damage. The aim of this study was to investigate whether curcumin could attenuate hydrogen peroxide (H₂O₂

Authors: Xiaobo Yang, Hong Jiang and Yao Shi

Long non-coding RNA MALAT1 contributes to cell apoptosis by sponging miR-124 in Parkinson disease

Parkinson disease (PD) is the most common movement disturbance characterized by the loss of dopaminergic (DA) neurons in midbrain. Metastasis-associated lung adenocarcinoma transcript 1 (MALAT1) is aberrantly ...

Authors: Wei Liu, Qishun Zhang, Jianlei Zhang, Wujun Pan, Jingya Zhao and Yuming Xu

Large is required for normal astrocyte migration and retinal vasculature development

Persistent fetal vasculature (PFV) is a congenital developmental anomaly of the eye that accounts for about 5% of childhood blindness. The molecular mechanism of PFV remains unclear. As a glycosyltransferase o...

Authors: Min Zhou, Herui Wang, Hui Ren, Rui Jiang, Chi Zhang, Xiaohui Wu and Gezhi Xu

The role of GLI1 for 5-Fu resistance in colorectal cancer

Colorectal cancer is a leading cause of cancer-related mortality worldwide, with Fluorouracil (5-FU)-based chemotherapy as the major treatment for advanced disease. Many patients with advanced colorectal cance...

Authors: Lining Zhang, Ruolan Song, Dongsheng Gu, Xiaoli Zhang, Beiqin Yu, Bingya Liu and Jingwu Xie

Hepatitis B virus promotes cancer cell migration by downregulating miR-340-5p expression to induce STAT3 overexpression

Hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC) is the third leading cause of cancer-related deaths worldwide, and infection with hepatitis B virus (HBV) is a leading cause of HCC. Previous studies have demonstrated that expre...

Authors: Qiushuang Xiong, Shaoshuai Wu, Jingwen Wang, Xianhuang Zeng, Jianwen Chen, Mingcong Wei, Haotong Guan, Chengpeng Fan, Lang Chen, Deyin Guo and Guihong Sun

Phosphorylation of LSD1 by PLK1 promotes its chromatin release during mitosis

Lysine-specific histone demethylase 1 (LSD1) modulates chromatin status through demethylation of H3K4 and H3K9. It has been demonstrated that LSD1 is hyperphosphorylated and dissociates from chromatin during m...

Authors: Bin Peng, Ruifeng Shi, Weiwei Jiang, Yue-He Ding, Meng-Qiu Dong, Wei-Guo Zhu and Xingzhi Xu

microRNA and thyroid hormone signaling in cardiac and skeletal muscle

Thyroid hormone (TH) signaling plays critical roles in the differentiation, growth, metabolism, and physiological function of all organs or tissues, including heart and skeletal muscle. Due to the significant ...

Authors: Duo Zhang, Yan Li, Shengnan Liu, Yu-cheng Wang, Feifan Guo, Qiwei Zhai, Jingjing Jiang and Hao Ying

New insights on thyroid hormone mediated regulation of herpesvirus infections

Thyroid hormone (T₃) has been suggested to participate in the regulation of herpesvirus replication during reactivation. Clinical observations and in vivo experiments suggest that T₃ are involved in the suppressi...

Authors: Robert W. Figliozzi, Feng Chen and S. Victor Hsia

Mechanism of transcription-coupled DNA modification recognition

As a key enzyme for gene expression, RNA polymerase II (pol II) reads along the DNA template and catalyzes accurate mRNA synthesis during transcription. On the other hand, genomic DNA is under constant attack ...

Authors: Ji Hyun Shin, Liang Xu and Dong Wang

Maintenance of genome stability by Fanconi anemia proteins

Persistent dysregulation of the DNA damage response and repair in cells causes genomic instability. The resulting genetic changes permit alterations in growth and proliferation observed in virtually all cancer...

Authors: Anna Palovcak, Wenjun Liu, Fenghua Yuan and Yanbin Zhang

Yeast help identify cytopathic factors of Zika virus

Accumulating evidence implicates Zika virus (ZIKV) in pathogenesis of microcephaly in newborns and Guillain-Barré syndrome in adults. However, it remains unclear which viral proteins are responsible for these ...

Authors: Michael Bukrinsky

Comparative analysis of pre- and post-parasitic transcriptomes and mining pioneer effectors of Heterodera avenae

The cereal cyst nematode (CCN, Heterodera avenae) is a devastating pathogen of wheat and barley crops in many countries. We aimed to prioritize genetic and molecular targets for H. avenae control via the powerful...

Authors: Dan Yang, Changlong Chen, Qian Liu and Heng Jian

New insights into genome maintenance

Authors: Guo-Min Li

Hsa-let-7c-5p augments enterovirus 71 replication through viral subversion of cell signaling in rhabdomyosarcoma cells

Human enterovirus 71 (EV71) causes severe hand, foot and mouse disease, accompanied by neurological complications. During the interaction between EV71 and the host, the virus subverts host cell machinery for i...

Authors: Bingfei Zhou, Min Chu, Shanshan Xu, Xiong Chen, Yongjuan Liu, Zhihao Wang, Fengfeng Zhang, Song Han, Jun Yin, Biwen Peng, Xiaohua He and Wanhong Liu

Microhomology-mediated end joining: new players join the team

DNA double-strand breaks (DSBs) are the most deleterious type of DNA damage in cells arising from endogenous and exogenous attacks on the genomic DNA. Timely and properly repair of DSBs is important for genomi...

Authors: Hailong Wang and Xingzhi Xu

A fission yeast cell-based system for multidrug resistant HIV-1 proteases

HIV-1 protease (PR) is an essential enzyme for viral production. Thus, PR inhibitors (PIs) are the most effective class of anti-HIV drugs. However, the main challenge to the successful use of PI drugs in patie...

Authors: Zsigmond Benko, Dong Liang, Ge Li, Robert T. Elder, Anindya Sarkar, Jun Takayama, Arun K. Ghosh and Richard Y. Zhao

Identification of target genes for spermatogenic cell-specific KRAB transcription factor ZFP819 in a male germ cell line

Zfp819, a member of the Krüppel-associated box (KRAB) family, encodes a spermatogenic cell-specific transcription factor. Zfp819-overexpression induces apoptosis and inhibits prolifera...

Authors: Sora Jin, Heejin Choi, Jun Tae Kwon, Jihye Kim, Juri Jeong, Jaehwan Kim, Seong Hyeon Hong and Chunghee Cho

Characterization of tubular liquid crystal structure in embryonic stem cell derived embryoid bodies

Massive liquid crystal droplets have been found during embryonic development in more than twenty different tissues and organs, including the liver, brain and kidney. Liquid crystal deposits have also been iden...

Authors: MengMeng Xu, Odell D. Jones, Liyang Wang, Xin Zhou, Harry G. Davis, Joseph L. Bryant, Jianjie Ma, Willian B. Isaacs and Xuehong Xu

Ultrastructural changes during osteogenic differentiation in mesenchymal stromal cells cultured in alginate hydrogel

Osteogenic differentiation of mesenchymal stem cells has been extensively investigated with regards to different aspects, including the analysis of cell intracellular and extracellular proteome, cell gene expr...

Authors: Jakub Grzesiak, Agnieszka Śmieszek and Krzysztof Marycz

Vincristine alleviates adriamycin-induced nephropathy through stabilizing actin cytoskeleton

Antimicrotubule agent vincristine (VCR) has long been known as an alternative treatment for frequent relapse nephrotic syndrome and steroid-dependent nephrotic syndrome (SDNS). However, the mechanism is unknow...

Authors: Lei Yin, Youying Mao, Hejie Song, Ye Wang, Wei Zhou and Zhen Zhang

The emerging role of deubiquitinating enzymes in genomic integrity, diseases, and therapeutics

The addition of mono-ubiquitin or poly-ubiquitin chain to signaling proteins in response to DNA damage signal is thought to be a critical event that facilitates the recognition of DNA damage lesion site, the a...

Authors: Mingjing He, Zhuan Zhou, Anil A. Shah, Haojing Zou, Jin Tao, Qianming Chen and Yong Wan

Small GTPase Arl6 controls RH30 rhabdomyosarcoma cell growth through ciliogenesis and Hedgehog signaling

Rhabdomyosarcoma (RMS) originates from skeletal muscle precursors that fail to differentiate. Hedgehog (Hh) signaling and primary cilia contribute to the pathobiology of RMS.

Authors: Xiaotong Liu, Qiuhong Shen, Tingting Yu, Huijie Huang, Ziyu Zhang, Jie Ding, Ying Tang, Ning Xu and Shen Yue

Targeted genome engineering in Caenorhabditis elegans

The generation of mutants and transgenes are indispensible for biomedical research. In the nematode Caenorhabditis elegans, a series of methods have been developed to introduce genome modifications, including ran...

Authors: Xiangyang Chen, Xuezhu Feng and Shouhong Guang

Function and regulation of tau conformations in the development and treatment of traumatic brain injury and neurodegeneration

One of the two common hallmark lesions of Alzheimer’s disease (AD) brains is neurofibrillary tangles (NFTs), which are composed of hyperphosphorylated tau protein (p-tau). NFTs are also a defining feature of o...

Authors: Onder Albayram, Megan K. Herbert, Asami Kondo, Cheng-Yu Tsai, Sean Baxley, Xiaolan Lian, Madison Hansen, Xiao Zhen Zhou and Kun Ping Lu

Downregulation of long non-coding RNA H19 promotes P19CL6 cells proliferation and inhibits apoptosis during late-stage cardiac differentiation via miR-19b-modulated Sox6

Regulating cardiac differentiation to maintain normal heart development and function is very important. At present, biological functions of H19 in cardiac differentiation is not completely clear.

Authors: Yu Han, Hongdang Xu, Jiangtao Cheng, Yanwei Zhang, Chuanyu Gao, Taibing Fan, Bangtian Peng, Bin Li, Lin Liu and Zhaoyun Cheng