基于超高效液相色谱-飞行时间质谱法测定LAMTOR1在肝脏炎症恶性转化中调控的代谢物

LAMTOR1(晚期胞内体/溶酶体接头蛋白,MAPK以及mTOR激活蛋白1)是机体应对营养压力时重要的调控蛋白之一。公共开放基因表达数据库分析显示LAMTOR1在非酒精性脂肪肝炎(NASH)和肝癌中均异常高表达,显示LAMTOR1在NASH和肝癌发生发展中发挥重要作用,探索LAMTOR1在肝脏炎症恶性转化过程中调控的代谢机制具有重要意义。该研究中小鼠给予蛋氨酸胆碱缺乏(MCD)饮食饲养,肝脏组织的苏木精伊红(HE)染色结果显示小鼠肝脏炎症性损伤的成功构建。接下来利用蛋白免疫印迹实验验证了肝脏组织中LAMTOR1基因的特异性敲除以及一些LAMTOR1调控的蛋白变化。紧接着开展了基于超高效液相色谱-飞行时间质谱联用的肝脏组织代谢组学分析,以鉴定LAMTOR1肝脏特异性调控的重要代谢物。对检测到的134个代谢物进行多变量分析,主成分分析模型显示特异性敲除LAMTOR1对小鼠肝脏的代谢过程有明显的扰动。其中45个代谢物发生了显著性变化,表明敲除LAMTOR1可引起肝脏多条代谢通路紊乱。进一步分析显示,UDP-乙酰葡萄糖胺(UDP-GlcNAc)、S-腺苷蛋氨酸、S-腺苷高丝氨酸和三甲基赖氨酸等代谢物在LAMTOR1敲除(LAMTOR1^LKO)小鼠中明显上调,说明LAMTOR1与己糖胺合成通路和生物分子甲基化过程可能存在调控关系。另外,9-氧代十八碳二烯酸、二十碳五烯酸(EPA)和二十二碳六烯酸(DHA)等不饱和脂肪酸等代谢物水平在LAMTOR1^LKO小鼠中明显下降。接下来基于公共开放转录组数据库开展了基因表达相关性的预测分析,得到的相关系数R表征基因间的调控关系,R的绝对值接近或高于0.5属于中强相关,结果提示LAMTOR1可能负调控MAT1A (R=-0.47)基因,同时预测得到LAMTOR1与MGAT1 (R=0.47)和ADSL (R=0.59)等基因存在正调控关系。该研究将代谢组学方法应用于疾病机制研究,通过鉴定小鼠NASH模型中LAMTOR1特异性调控的代谢物,并结合基因表达相关性分析,揭示出LAMTOR1基因在非酒精性脂肪肝炎及恶性转化过程中可能调控的重要代谢通路,为后续NASH及NASH转化的肝癌发病机制和治疗研究提供理论基础。     

Structural,functional, and evolutionary analysis of late embryogenesis abundant proteins (LEA) in Triticum aestivum: A detailed molecular level biochemistry using in silico approach

LEA (Late Embryogenesis Abundant) proteins are abundant in plants and play a crucial role in abiotic stress tolerance. In our work, we primarily focused on the variations in physiochemical properties, conserved domains, secondary structure, gene ontology and evolutionary relationships among 40 LEA proteins of Triticum aestivum (common wheat). Wheat LEA protein belongs to first 6 classes out of the 13 classes present in LEApdB, the comprehensive database for LEA proteins. Proteins belonging to each LEApdB class have structures and functions distinguished from other classes. The study found three different conserved LEA domains in Triticum aestivum. One important domain was dehydrin, present in wheat proteins of classes 1, 2 and 4, though varied in sequence level, have similar biological processes. The study also found sequence level and phylogenetic similarity between dehydrin domains of class 1 and 4, but distinct from that of LEApdB class 2. This study also demonstrated functional diversity in two class 6 proteins occurred due to many destabilizing mutations in the LEA4 domain that caused alteration of ligand binding and conformational shift from 3₁₀-helix → turn within the domain. The LEA4 domains of these proteins also showed functional similarity and evolutionary relatedness with three other proteins of genus Aegilops, denoting that these proteins in Triticum aestivum were derived from its ancestor Aegilops. The study also assigned LEApdB class 4 to an unclassified LEA protein ‘WZY2-1’ based on amino acid composition, conserved domain, motif architecture and phylogenetic relatedness with class 4 proteins. Our study has revealed a detailed analysis of LEA proteins in Triticum aestivum and can serve as a pillar for further investigations and comparative analysis of wheat LEA proteins with other cereal or plant types.     

Understanding molecular mechanism of higher plant plasticity under abiotic stress

Higher plants play the most important role in keeping a stable environment on the earth, which regulate global circumstances in many ways in terms of different levels (molecular, individual, community, and so on), but the nature of the mechanism is gene expression and control temporally and spatially at the molecular level. In persistently changing environment, there are many adverse stress conditions such as cold, drought, salinity and UV-B (280-320 mm), which influence plant growth and crop production greatly. Plants differ from animals in many aspects, but the important may be that plants are more easily influenced by environment than animals. Plants have a series of fine mechanisms for responding to environmental changes, which has been established during their long-period evolution and artificial domestication. These mechanisms are involved in many aspects of anatomy, physiology, biochemistry, genetics, development, evolution and molecular biology, in which the adaptive machinery related to molecular biology is the most important. The elucidation of it will extremely and purposefully promote the sustainable utilization of plant resources and make the best use of its current potential under different scales. This molecular mechanism at least include environmental signal recognition (input), signal transduction (many cascade biochemical reactions are involved in this process), signal output, signal responses and phenotype realization, which is a multi-dimensional network system and contain many levels of gene expression and regulation. We will focus on the molecular adaptive machinery of higher plant plasticity under abiotic stresses.     

干燥过程中LEA-motif蛋白特征重复片段对POPE膜结构的保护研究

通过分子动力学模拟的方法, 模拟了1-棕榈酰基-2-油酰基磷脂酰乙醇胺(1-Palmitoyl-2-oleoyl-sn-glycero-3-phosphoethanolamine, POPE)生物膜在添加胚胎发育晚期丰富蛋白(Late embryogenesis abundant proteins, LEA蛋白)特征重复片段(LEA-motif)前后两种体系在低温下的干燥过程, 对比分析了干燥过程中两种体系在POPE生物膜结构、 扩散系数、 侧链有序性及分子间氢键数目的变化, 从微观角度揭示了POPE生物膜因干燥失水导致的结构变化以及添加LEA-motif之后LEA-motif与POPE生物膜的相互作用. 结果表明, LEA-motif在脱水干燥过程中能够有效地稳定膜的结构, 从而保护生物材料的生物活性.     

干燥过程中LEA-motif蛋白特征重复片段对POPE膜结构的保护研究简

通过分子动力学模拟的方法,模拟了1-棕榈酰基-2-油酰基磷脂酰乙醇胺(1-Palmitoyl-2-oleoyl-sn-glycero-3-phosphoethanolamine,POPE)生物膜在添加胚胎发育晚期丰富蛋白(Late embryogenesis abundant proteins,LEA蛋白)特征重复片段(LEA-motif)前后两种体系在低温下的干燥过程,对比分析了干燥过程中两种体系在POPE生物膜结构、扩散系数、侧链有序性及分子间氢键数目的变化,从微观角度揭示了POPE生物膜因干燥失水导致的结构变化以及添加LEA-motif之后LEA-motif与POPE生物膜的相互作用. 结果表明,LEA-motif在脱水干燥过程中能够有效地稳定膜的结构,从而保护生物材料的生物活性.