An ESRG-interacting protein, COXII, is involved in pro-apoptosis of human embryonic stem cells

The Novel LncRNA AK035396 Drives Cardiomyocyte Apoptosis Through Mterf1 in Myocardial Ischemia/Reperfusion Injury

Background: Myocardial ischaemia/reperfusion (I/R) injury is still a major challenge in clinical treatment. The role of long non-coding RNA (lncRNA) in the regulation of myocardial I/R injury still needs to be elucidated.

Methods: The primary isolated neonatal mousse cardiomyocytes and adult mice were used to construct a myocardial ischemia-reperfusion model. qRT-PCR is used to verify gene expression in myocardial tissue and myocardial cells. The effect of AK035396 in primary cardiomyocytes and mouse myocardium was confirmed by TUNEL staining and in vitro flow cytometry experiments. RNA pulldown and Western blot were used to identify AK035396 interacting proteins. The expression of apoptosis-related proteins was identified by qRT-PCR and Western blot.

Results:In vivo and in vitro MIRI models, AK035396 was up-regulated after myocardial infarction. Functional studies have shown that knockdown of AK035396 reduces the apoptosis of primary cardiomyocytes and mouse myocardial tissue. AK035396 directly interacts with Mterf1 and inhibits the level of Mterf1. Further experiments have shown that inhibiting Mterf1 will promote the expression of mitochondrial genes COXII and CYTb and cause cell apoptosis.

Conclusion: AK035396 plays an important role in myocardial ischaemia-reperfusion injury by regulating the Mterf1-COXII/CYTb pathway.

CD109 is identified as a potential nasopharyngeal carcinoma biomarker using aptamer selected by cell-SELEX

Nasopharyngeal carcinoma (NPC) is one of the most prevailing cancers in southern China and southern Asia. Because of the nonspecific symptoms and lack of effective biomarker, most patients are diagnosed at advanced stages, resulting in poor 5-year survival rate. To identify a novel NPC biomarker facilitating early detection and effective therapy of NPC, a two-step strategy consisting of cancer cell-Systematic Evolution of Ligands by EXponential enrichment (cell-SELEX) procedure and aptamer-based purification approach was developed. Using cell-SELEX procedure, four aptamers (S3, S5, S12 and S27) differentiating the molecular differences between NPC cells and NP cells were successfully screened. Then, using aptamer-based protein purification, membrane protein CD109 was identified as the target of aptamer S3. CD109 protein was further identified to be over-expressed in NPC cell lines and clinic tissues, but not or low in NP cell line and clinic NP tissues, detected by western blot and immunohistochemistry experiments. Our study demonstrated that CD109 identified by cell-SELEX and aptamer-based purification strategy might be used as a potential NPC biomarker for early diagnosis and targeted therapy.

PLCD3, a flotillin2-interacting protein, is involved in proliferation, migration and invasion of nasopharyngeal carcinoma cells

Phospholipase C (PLC) is a pivotal enzyme in the phosphoinositide pathway that promotes the second messengers, diacylglycerol (DAG) and inositol 1,4,5-trisphosphate (IP3), to participate in eukaryotic signal transduction. Several PLC isozymes are associated with cancer, such as PLC-β1, PLC-δ1, PLC-ε and PLC-γ1. However, the role of PLC-δ3 (PLCD3) in nasopharyngeal carcinoma (NPC) has not been investigated to date. In our previous study, we demonstrated that flotillin2 (Flot2) plays a pro-neoplastic role in NPC and is involved in tumour progression and metastasis. In the present study, we screened the interacting proteins of Flot2 using the yeast two-hybrid (Y2H) method and verified the interaction between PLCD3 and Flot2 by co-immunoprecipitation. We also investigated the biological functions of PLCD3 in NPC. Inhibition of PLCD3 expression impaired the malignant potential of 5–8F, a highly metastatic NPC cell line, by restraining its growth, proliferation, mobility and migration. The present study demonstrated that PLCD3 may be an oncogenic protein in NPC and that it plays an important role in the progression of NPC partially by interacting with Flot2.

Pluripotency and the endogenous retrovirus HERVH: Conflict or serendipity?

Remnants of ancient retroviral infections during evolution litter all mammalian genomes. In modern humans, such endogenous retroviral (ERV) sequences comprise at least 8% of the genome. While ERVs and other types of transposable elements undoubtedly contribute to the genomic "junk yard", functions for some ERV sequences have been demonstrated, with growing evidence that ERVs can be important players in gene regulatory processes. Here we focus on one particular large family of human ERVs, termed HERVH, which several recent studies suggest has a key regulatory role in human pluripotent stem cells. Remarkably, this is not the first instance of an ERV controlling pluripotency. We speculate as to why this convergent evolution might have come about, suggesting that it may reflect selection on the virus to extend the time available for transposition. Alternatively it may reflect serendipity alone.

High-Efficient Transfection of Human Embryonic Stem Cells by Single-Cell Plating and Starvation

Nowadays, the low efficiency of small interfering RNA (siRNA) or plasmid DNA (pDNA) transfection is a critical issue in genetic manipulation of human embryonic stem (hES) cells. Development of an efficient transfection method for delivery of siRNAs and plasmids into hES cells becomes more and more imperative. In this study, we tried to modify the traditional transfection protocol by introducing two crucial processes, single-cell plating and starvation, to increase the transfection efficiency in hES cells. Furthermore, we comparatively examined the transfection efficiency of some commercially available siRNA or pDNA transfection reagents in hES cells. Our results showed that the new developed method markedly enhanced the transfection efficiency without influencing the proliferation and pluripotency of hES cells. Lipofectamine RNAiMAX exhibited much higher siRNA transfection efficiency than the other reagents, and FuGENE HD was identified as the best suitable reagent for efficient pDNA transfection of hES cells among the tested reagents.