Search

Comprehensive Summary: Fluorescent silk has potential application in many fields such as bioimaging, tissue engineering scaffolds, luminescent marks, and dazzling fabrics. Among the methods to endow natural silk with fluorescent properties, feeding silkworms with fluorescent additives is facile, low‐cost and environment friendly, which has the prospect of large‐scale production. In this paper, we reviewed the research progress for this aim in the past ten years, and summarized the unified characteristics for the substances that can enter the silk gland by digestive tract of silkworms. The advantages and disadvantages of various fluorescent materials for this application are compared in detail. And the future research directions are suggested to overcome the shortcomings of the present research. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Comprehensive Summary: Fluorescent silk has potential application in many fields such as bioimaging, tissue engineering scaffolds, luminescent marks, and dazzling fabrics. Among the methods to endow natural silk with fluorescent properties, feeding silkworms with fluorescent additives is facile, low‐cost and environment friendly, which has the prospect of large‐scale production. In this paper, we reviewed the research progress for this aim in the past ten years, and summarized the unified characteristics for the substances that can enter the silk gland by digestive tract of silkworms. The advantages and disadvantages of various fluorescent materials for this application are compared in detail. And the future research directions are suggested to overcome the shortcomings of the present research. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Parkinson's disease (PD) is a progressive neurodegenerative disease, leading to tremor, rigidity, bradykinesia, and gait impairment. Salidroside has been reported to exhibit antioxidative and neuroprotective properties in PD. However, the underlying neuroprotective mechanisms effects of salidroside are poorly understood. Recently, a growing body of evidences suggest that silent information regulator 1 (SIRT1) plays important roles in the pathophysiology of PD. Hence, the present study investigated the roles of SIRT1 in neuroprotective effect of salidroside against N-methyl-4-phenylpyridinium (MPP+)- induced SH-SY5Y cell injury. Our findings revealed that salidroside attenuates MPP+-induced neurotoxicity as evidenced by the increase in cell viability, and the decreases in the caspase-3 activity and apoptosis ratio. Simultaneously, salidroside pretreatment remarkably increased SIRT1 activity, SIRT1 mRNA and protein levels in MPP+-treated SH-SY5Y cell. However, sirtinol, a SIRT1 activation inhibitor, significantly blocked the inhibitory effects of salidroside on MPP+-induced cytotoxicity and apoptosis. In addition, salidroside abolished MPP+-induced the production of reactive oxygen species (ROS), the upregulation of NADPH oxidase 2 (NOX2) expression, the down-regulations of superoxide dismutase (SOD) activity and glutathione (GSH) level in SH-SY5Y cells, while these effects were also blocked by sirtinol. Finally, we found that the inhibition of salidroside on MPP+-induced phosphorylation of p38, extracellular signal-regulated kinase (ERK) and c-Jun NH2-terminal kinase (JNK) were also reversed by sirtinol in SH-SY5Y cells. Taken together, these results indicated that SIRT1 contributes to the neuroprotection of salidroside against MPP+-induced apoptosis and oxidative stress, in part through suppressing of mitogen-activated protein kinase (MAPK) pathways. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Parkinson's disease (PD) is a progressive neurodegenerative disease, leading to tremor, rigidity, bradykinesia, and gait impairment. Salidroside has been reported to exhibit antioxidative and neuroprotective properties in PD. However, the underlying neuroprotective mechanisms effects of salidroside are poorly understood. Recently, a growing body of evidences suggest that silent information regulator 1 (SIRT1) plays important roles in the pathophysiology of PD. Hence, the present study investigated the roles of SIRT1 in neuroprotective effect of salidroside against N-methyl-4-phenylpyridinium (MPP + )-induced SH-SY5Y cell injury. Our findings revealed that salidroside attenuates MPP + -induced neurotoxicity as evidenced by the increase in cell viability, and the decreases in the caspase-3 activity and apoptosis ratio. Simultaneously, salidroside pretreatment remarkably increased SIRT1 activity, SIRT1 mRNA and protein levels in MPP + -treated SH-SY5Y cell. However, sirtinol, a SIRT1 activation inhibitor, significantly blocked the inhibitory effects of salidroside on MPP + -induced cytotoxicity and apoptosis. In addition, salidroside abolished MPP + -induced the production of reactive oxygen species (ROS), the up-regulation of NADPH oxidase 2 (NOX2) expression, the down-regulations of superoxide dismutase (SOD) activity and glutathione (GSH) level in SH-SY5Y cells, while these effects were also blocked by sirtinol. Finally, we found that the inhibition of salidroside on MPP + -induced phosphorylation of p38, extracellular signal-regulated kinase (ERK) and c-Jun NH2-terminal kinase (JNK) were also reversed by sirtinol in SH-SY5Y cells. Taken together, these results indicated that SIRT1 contributes to the neuroprotection of salidroside against MPP + -induced apoptosis and oxidative stress, in part through suppressing of mitogen-activated protein kinase (MAPK) pathways., (© 2017 International Federation for Cell Biology.)

Posttranscriptional gene silencing, also known as RNA interference, involves degradation of homologous mRNA sequences in organisms. In plants, posttranscriptional gene silencing is part of a defense mechanism against virus infection, and double-stranded RNA is the pivotal factor that induces gene silencing. In this paper, we got seven hairpin RNAs (hpRNAs) constructs against different hot-spot sequences of Tobacco mosaic virus (TMV) or Potato virus Y (PVY) genome. After expression in Escherichia coli HT115, we extracted the seven hpRNAs for the test in tobacco against TMV or PVY infection. The data suggest that different hpRNAs against different hot-spot sequences of TMV or PVY genome had different ability to protect tobacco plants from viral infection. The resistance to TMV conferred by the hpRNA against the TMV movement protein was stronger than other TMV hpRNAs; the resistance to PVY conferred by the hpRNA against the PVY nuclear inclusion b was better than that induced by any other PVY hpRNAs. Northern blotting of siRNA showed that the resistance was indeed an RNA-mediated virus resistance.