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Recently, we demonstrated the capability of the ketogenic diet (KD) to influence the microRNA (miR) expression profile. Here, we report that KD is able to normalize miR expression in obese subjects when compared with lean subjects. By applying two different bioinformatics tools, we found that, amongst the miRs returning to comparable levels in lean subjects, four of them are linked to antioxidant biochemical pathways specifically, and the others are linked to both antioxidant and anti-inflammatory biochemical pathways. Of particular interest is the upregulation of hsa-miR-30a-5p, which correlates with the decrease of catalase expression protein in red blood cells.

Herein, we reported an Escherichia coli-based expression and purification method of recombinant porcine interferon alpha (rPoIFN-α). PoIFN-α coding sequence was cloned into pMD18-T vector and then subcloned into pET-32a (+) vector using standard recombinant DNA techniques and the resulting plasmid was transformed into BL21(DE3) competent cells. After induction with isopropyl-β-D-1-thiogalactopyranoside (IPTG), rPoIFN-α was purified from the supernatant of the bacteria lysate using a simple two-step chromatography process consisting of a Ni2+ affinity chromatography and a DEAE anion exchange chromatography. rPoIFN-α was purified to >95% homogeneity with a yield of 48 mg/L of culture. It has isoelectic point of 6.09 and bacterial endotoxin was less than 1 EU/mg. N-terminal amino acid sequence and the peptide map digested by trypsin provided additional evidence for the authenticity of rPoIFN-α. The biological activity of rPoIFN-α was 1.1×106 IU/ mL in HEp-2/ Vesicular Stomatitis Virus (VSV) titration system and its specific activity reached to 1.0×106 IU/mg. In conclusion, we obtained high-level expression of a soluble form of bioactive rPoIFN-α by using pET-32a (+) prokaryotic expression system.