BackgroundChinese giant salamander (CGS) is the largest extant amphibian species in the world. Owing to its evolutionary position and four peculiar phenomenon of life (longevity, starvation tolerance, regenerative ability, and hatch without sunshine), it is an invaluable model species for research. However, lack of genomic resources leads to fewer study progresses in these fields, due to its huge genome of ∼50 GB making it extremely difficult to be assembled.ResultsWe reported the sequenced transcriptome of more than 20 tissues from adult CGS using Illumina Hiseq 2000 technology, and a total of 93 366 no-redundancy transcripts with a mean length of 1326 bp were obtained. We developed for the first time an efficient pipeline to construct a high-quality reference gene set of CGS and obtained 26 135 coding genes. BUSCO and homologous assessment showed that our assembly captured 70.6% of vertebrate universal single-copy orthologs, and this coding gene set had a higher proportion of completeness CDS with comparable quality of the protein sets of Tibetan frog.ConclusionsThese highest quality data will provide a valuable reference gene set to the subsequent research of CGS. In addition, our strategy of de novo transcriptome assembly and protein identification is applicable to similar studies.
The objective of this study was to hydrophobically modify fenugreek gum (FG) and to further evaluate the potential application of the obtained derivative in liver-targeted drug delivery system. Stearic acid (C 18 ) was conjugated with FG (FG-C 18 ) by a simple esterification reaction. The obtained FG-C 18 was then characterized on its chemical structure by Fourier transform infrared spectroscopy and 1 H-nuclear magnetic resonance. The self-assembled nanomicelles (NMs) of FG-C 18 in water were prepared by an ultrasonication method. The average diameter and zeta potential of FG-C 18 NMs were 196.70 ± 6.12 nm and À31.79 ± 1.58 mV, respectively. FG-C 18 NMs appeared as spherical particles under transmission electron microscopy and possessed a critical micellar concentration of 0.042 mg/ml by pyrene fluorescence probe method. A low toxicity of FG-C 18 was revealed on both HepG2 and MCF-7 cells at 0.1-100 mg/ ml. Haemolysis of FG-C 18 was less than 5%. Cellular uptake of coumarin-6 into HepG2 cells was enhanced by treating with C6-loaded FG-C 18 NMs compared to free coumarin-6. These results suggest that FG-C 18 have a potential application for a liver targeted drug delivery.
ARTICLE HISTORY
The carbohydrate-active enzyme (CAZyme) genes of Trametes contribute to polysaccharide degradation. However, the comprehensive analysis of the composition of CAZymes and the biosynthetic gene clusters (BGCs) of Trametes remain unclear. Here, we conducted comparative analysis, detected the CAZyme genes, and predicted the BGCs for nine Trametes strains. Among the 82,053 homologous clusters obtained for Trametes, we identified 8518 core genes, 60,441 accessory genes, and 13,094 specific genes. A large proportion of CAZyme genes were cataloged into glycoside hydrolases, glycosyltransferases, and carbohydrate esterases. The predicted BGCs of Trametes were divided into six strategies, and the nine Trametes strains harbored 47.78 BGCs on average. Our study revealed that Trametes exhibits an open pan-genome structure. These findings provide insights into the genetic diversity and explored the synthetic biology of secondary metabolite production for Trametes.
ARTICLE HISTORY
This study aimed to increase the solubility of glycyrrhetinic acid (GA) in water and enhance its liver-targeting ability using self-assembling nanomicelles (NMs) based on stearic acid-modified fenugreek gum . The GA/FG-C 18 NMs were prepared by an ultrasonication dispersion method. The nanomicelles were spherical particles with a particle size of 198.61 ± 1.58 nm and a zeta potential of À30.12 ± 0.28 mV. The drug loading and encapsulation efficiency were 13.34 ± 0.24% and 80.07 ± 1.44%, respectively. The results of differential scanning calorimetry (DSC) and X-ray powder diffraction (XRD) indicated that GA was successfully encapsulated into the nanomicelles in a molecularly dispersed state. An in vitro release test showed that GA/FG-C 18 NMs possessed a slow drug release profile in PBS (pH 7.4) over 200 h. The cytotoxicity assay indicated that GA/FG-C 18 NMs showed much higher inhibitory efficacy in HepG2 cells than in MCF-7 cells. Tissue section studies indicated that the accumulation of DiR-loaded FG-C 18 nanomicelles in the liver of mice was higher than that of the DiR solution, and the fluorescence intensity decreased over time. GA/FG-C 18 NMs showed a larger area under the curve (AUC) and mean residence time (MRT) compared with free GA after intravenous administration in mice. The in vivo studies showed that GA mainly accumulated in the liver after encapsulation by FG-C 18 NMs, and the drug concentration was higher than that of free GA. These results suggested that FG-C 18 NMs could serve as a potential drug delivery system for targeting GA to liver tissue.
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