Search

Nasopharyngeal carcinoma (NPC), is an Epstein-Barr virus (EBV) associated malignancy most common in Southern China and Southeast Asia. In southern China, it is one of the major causes of cancer-related death. Despite improvement in radiotherapy and chemotherapy techniques, locoregional recurrence and distant metastasis remains the major causes for failure of treatment in NPC patients. Therefore, finding new specific drug targets for treatment interventions are urgently needed. Here, we report three potential ZLMP1-C affibody molecules (ZLMP1-C15, ZLMP1-C114 and ZLMP1-C277) that showed specific binding interactions for recombinant and native EBV LMP1 as determined by epitope mapping, co-localization and co-immunoprecipitation assays. The ZLMP1-C affibody molecules exhibited high antitumor effects on EBV-positive NPC cell lines and displayed minimal cytotoxicity towards EBV-negative NPC cell line. Moreover, ZLMP1-C277 showed higher antitumor efficacy than ZLMP1-C15 and ZLMP1-C114 affibody molecules. The ability of ZLMP1-C277 decrease the phosphorylation levels of up-stream activator phospho-Raf-1(Ser338), phospho-MEK1/2(Ser217/Ser221), phospho-ERK1/2(Thr202/Thr204), thereby leading to downstream suppression of phospho-p90RSK(Ser380) and transcription factor c-Fos. Importantly, tumor growth was reduced in tumor-bearing mice treated with ZLMP1-C277 and caused no apparent toxicity. Taken together, our findings provide evidence that ZLMP1-C277 as a promising therapeutic agent in EBV-associated NPC. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In situ and ex situ conservation are two main wild rice (Oryza rufipogon Griff.) protection strategies. Few studies have compared the genetic diversity and genetic structure of wild rice between ex situ and in situ populations. Thus in this study, 278 individuals collected from three in situ and nine ex situ populations of Dongxiang wild rice (DXWR) were genotyped using 32 microsatellite loci to compare their population genetic structure and genetic diversity. Model-based grouping, neighbor-joining tree and principal coordinate analyses showed that there were significant differences in the population structure between in situ and ex situ populations. The in situ populations clustered into three major groups, which were in accordance with their geographical distribution (Anjiashan, Zhangtang and Shuitaoshu). However, the nine ex situ populations of DXWR showed no differences among populations and there was a high heterozygosity for each individual. In addition, one of the in situ populations (Zhangtang) was not represented in the ex situ conservation garden. Given the above results, we concluded that the germplasm of both in situ and ex situ populations are precious and that the combination of these two conservation strategies is necessary to protect the germplasm resources of DXWR, but special emphasis should be placed on in situ conservation to better maintain their genetic identities. In addition, it is necessary to recollect genetic resources from in situ populations for ex situ conservation, especially from the Zhangtang population. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]