Land plants have developed a cuticle preventing uncontrolled water loss. Here we report that an ATP-binding cassette (ABC) subfamily G (ABCG) full transporter is required for leaf water conservation in both wild barley and rice. A spontaneous mutation, eibi1.b , in wild barley has a low capacity to retain leaf water, a phenotype associated with reduced cutin deposition and a thin cuticle. Map-based cloning revealed that Eibi1 encodes an HvABCG31 full transporter. The gene was highly expressed in the elongation zone of a growing leaf (the site of cutin synthesis), and its gene product also was localized in developing, but not in mature tissue. A de novo wild barley mutant named “ eibi1.c ,” along with two transposon insertion lines of rice mutated in the ortholog of HvABCG31 also were unable to restrict water loss from detached leaves. HvABCG31 is hypothesized to function as a transporter involved in cutin formation. Homologs of HvABCG31 were found in green algae, moss, and lycopods, indicating that this full transporter is highly conserved in the evolution of land plants.

This study provides the first independent evidence that MS4A and CD33 loci are associated with the risk of LOAD in northern Han Chinese population. Genotypes at the two loci confer risk predominantly in APOE ε4-negative subjects.

Our results demonstrated that the NLRP3 inflammasome in HDPFs is crucial for IL-1β secretion in response to LPS plus ATP. LPS engaged the TLR4/MyD88/NF-κB pathway to enhance NLRP3 and pro-IL-1β expression in HDPFs. ATP promoted the generation of ROS and activated the NLRP3 inflammasome in a ROS-dependent manner.

BackgroundMT1G inactivation mediated by promoter methylation has been reported in thyroid cancer. However, the role of MT1G in thyroid carcinogenesis remains unclear. The aim of this study is to examine the biological functions and related molecular mechanisms of MT1G in thyroid cancer.MethodsMethylation-specific PCR (MSP) was performed to analyze promoter methylation of MT1G and its relationship with clinicopathological characteristics of papillary thyroid cancer (PTC) patients. Conventional and real-time quantitative RT-PCR assays were used to evaluate mRNA expression. The functions of ectopic MT1G expression were determined by cell proliferation and colony formation, cell cycle and apoptosis, as well as cell migration and invasion assays.ResultsMT1G expression was frequently silenced or down-regulated in thyroid cancer cell lines, and was also significantly decreased in primary thyroid cancer tissues compared with non-malignant thyroid tissues. Promoter methylation, along with histone modification, contributes to MT1G inactivation in thyroid tumorigenesis. Moreover, our data showed that MT1G hypermethylation was significantly positively associated with lymph node metastasis in PTC patients. Importantly, restoring MT1G expression in thyroid cancer cells dramatically suppressed cell growth and invasiveness, and induced cell cycle arrest and apoptosis through inhibiting phosphorylation of Akt and Rb.ConclusionsWe have for the first time revealed that MT1G appears to be functional tumor suppressor involved in thyroid carcinogenesis mainly through modulating the phosphatidylinositol-3-kinase (PI3K)/Akt pathway and partially through regulating the activity of Rb/E2F pathway in this study.

No abstract

No abstract

Sepsis is an inflammatory disorder and leads to severe acute kidney injury (AKI). Circular RNAs (circRNAs) have been identified as a critical type of regulatory noncoding RNAs (ncRNAs) that present the important functions in various diseases. In this study, we identified a novel circRNA circTLK1 in the regulation of sepsis-induced AKI. We observed that circTLK1 expression was elevated in the cecal ligation and puncture (CLP) rat model compared with that in the control rats. The urine levels of neutrophil gelatinase–associated lipocalin (NGAL) and kidney injury molecule-1 (Kim-1) and the serum levels of creatinine (sCr) and blood urea nitrogen (BUN) were increased by the CLP treatment in the rats but were blocked by the circTLK1 shRNA. The circTLK1 shRNA reduced the CLP-induced kidney injury in the rats. The circTLK1 knockdown repressed oxidation stress, inflammation, and apoptosis in the sepsis-related AKI rat model. Moreover, lipopolysaccharide (LPS) treatment increased the production of TNF-α, IL-1β, and IL-6 in the HK-2 cells, while the circTLK1 shRNA could attenuate the enhancement in the cells. Bax and cleaved caspase-3 expression was upregulated, but Bcl-2 expression was downregulated by the LPS in the HK-2 cells, in which circTLK1 depletion reversed this effect in the cells. The depletion of circTLK1 attenuated the LPS-induced apoptosis in the HK-2 cells. CircTLK1 enhanced HMGB1 expression by sponging miR-106a-5p in the HK-2 cells, and miR-106a-5p and HMGB1 were involved in circTLK1-meidated injury of LPS-treated cells. Therefore, we concluded that circTLK1 contributed to sepsis-associated AKI by regulating inflammation and oxidative stress through the miR-106a-5p/HMGB1 axis. CircTLK1 and miR-106a-5p may be employed as the potential targets for the treatment of AKI.

Drought limits plant growth and threatens crop productivity. A barley (Hordeum vulgare) ethylene imine-induced monogenic recessive mutant cer-zv, which is sensitive to drought, was characterized and genetically mapped in the present study. Detached leaves of cer-zv lost 34.2 % of their initial weight after 1 h of dehydration. The transpiration was much higher in cer-zv leaves than in wild-type leaves under both light and dark conditions. The stomata of cer-zv leaves functioned normally, but the cuticle of cer-zv leaves showed increased permeability to ethanol and toluidine blue dye. There was a 50-90 % reduction in four major cutin monomers, but no reduction in wax loads was found in the cer-zv mutant as compared with the wild type. Two F(2) mapping populations were established by the crosses of 23-19 × cer-zv and cer-zv × OUH602. More polymorphisms were found in EST sequences between cer-zv and OUH602 than between cer-zv and 23-19. cer-zv was located in a pericentromeric region on chromosome 4H in a 10.8 cM interval in the 23-19 × cer-zv map based on 186 gametes tested and a 1.7 cM interval in the cer-zv × OUH602 map based on 176 gametes tested. It co-segregated with EST marker AK251484 in both maps. The results indicated that the cer-zv mutant is defective in cutin, which might be responsible for the increased transpiration rate and drought sensitivity, and that the F(2) of cer-zv × OUH602 might better facilitate high resolution mapping of cer-zv.