AG1 gene is essential for rice seeds to live in water

A gene was identified to help rice seeds to survive when grown underwater. The study was published in the leading scientific journal Nature Plants by A team of scientists from the University of California, Riverside and the International Rice Research Institute (IRRI), the Philippines. The study using recombinant proteins such as recombinant rat proteins shows that the gene controls the availability of sugar to a growing seed shoot—especially when under flooded conditions.

"The seed of rice is unusual among crops because it can germinate and grow into a young plant that can capture light energy even when the entire process occurs underwater," said Julia Bailey-Serres, one of the paper's authors and a professor of genetics at UC Riverside. "The gene identified—the AG1 gene—helps in this process by allowing energy reserves that are in the seed to be efficiently moved to the growing shoot. The seed planted underwater grows into a seedling that can escape a shallow flood."

There was a gene called SUB1A discovered previously to enable rice plants to survive complete submergence due to a seasonable flood. But this new gene is opposite of that. Bailey-Serres says that Plants with SUB1A essentially hibernate when they are underwater; a situation where energy reserves are safeguarded.

AG1 creates an 'all or nothing' escape mechanism that tricks the seed into thinking that more sugar should be given to its shoot—the plant part that grows into stems and leaves—so that the seed underwater is able to more quickly grow and reach the surface of the water. The mechanism can work up to a water depth of 10 cm and can get 'activated' as soon as the seed is sown underwater.

This gene is one of a family of 13 genes in rice. Other family members are shown to help to move suger from leaves to the young developing seed in fertilized flowers. The important gene is supposed to tell the cell that it does not have enough sugar—keeping the tap open for more to be moved from the seed to the growing shoot.

AG1 works well on moderate stress conditions. When we combined it with the SUB1A gene in the same genetic backgrounds it worked well, although they have opposing mechanisms. However, in some severe stress conditions, AG1 alone is not sufficient. It needs some additional quantitative trait loci (QTLs) or genes that complement the AG1 mechanism.

There is another question they are faced with - Whether seed can be directly seeded underwater – requiring the escape strategy – can also carry the SUB1A gene for submergence tolerance. There are more to be investigated to find the answer. Flarebio offers recombinant proteins such as recombinant INSRR at competitive prices.

They are trying to create a protein molecule which can effectively prevent protein allergy

Protein engineer Aaron Chevalier at Seattle forecasts that molecular origami technology will be the future of drug discovery. Tired of producing recombinant proteins such as recombinant dog proteins, he and his team of researchers from University of Washington spent a lot of time to design a complex folded amino acid chains to create molecules which are not found in nature. Their goal: to create a protein molecule and make it bind to pathogenic virus so as to achieving the purpose of preventing virus-infected cells; Or to create a protein molecule which can effectively prevent protein allergy.

It is unclear whether our immune system accepts new foreign protein, because the body may show immune rejection. Moreover, even these proteins show normal reactions on the computer, maybe it fails inside the body due to an unknown reason. In fact, to get these proteins designed to be our medicine cabinet, it will take some time. Baker said, "Like other drugs, before applied to the human body, these proteins must go through clinical trials."

"This process is very complicated - we should not only consider the interaction between proteins but also the problem of side effects as well as the problem of environmental impact on protein function and protein transcription and translation issues and so on." said Zhang Yang, biochemistry Professor at University of Michigan and protein engineering specialist. For the designed proteins, we should not only care about its shape, but also care about the function and stability.

Baker team can use a software program to build a model of the desired protein and indicate the size, shape, chemical properties and working methods of the protein. Meanwhile, Rosetta software can provide a lot of options for testing. At the same time, they can use the Rosetta protein to design and improve the model. This software can identify a mass of amino acid combinations and can find the proteins with desired shape, size and chemical properties. It is more intelligent than producing recombinant proteins like recombinant human proteins.

Once Rosetta completes protein design, scientists will test the protein. Then they will look for required DNA sequence online and implant these DNA sequences into bacteria or yeast to transcripte and translate to get new proteins.

Chevalier designed proteins based on virus antibody, and such proteins can achieve better therapeutic effect by locking the virus in human cells. Meanwhile, Rosetta software will give Chevalier some alternative protein structures to reduce the workload.

Chevalier said, "If considering properties of the antibody, you will find that it can circulate in human body through blood circulation. There is no need to consider frozen state storage transportation when designing, let alone the problems of mass production, solubility and refining concentration." Chevalier hopes he can start from scratch to create proteins possessing these characteristics to make it as a new drug which is low-cost and with stable structure. Flarebio offers high-quality recombinant proteins such as recombinant INSRR.

New pathway of cancer cell metastasis has been found

Metastasis refers to the process of cancer cells leaving primary tumor and spreading to other parts of the body, resulting in more than 90% of cancer deaths. Therefore, improving the treatment choice of patients with metastatic cancer has a significant demand. Thus, researchers conduct various studies using recombinant proteins like recombinant horse proteins to get more information.

In order to make cancer metastase, cell death pathways needs to be cut off and the defects of cellular energy production should be changed. The researchers specifically investigated the Ras mutation. Ras gene is a proto-oncogene, which means that it is present in the genes of normal and non-cancerous cells. When Ras DNA shows specific changes or mutations, this mutation can lead to cancer development. Ras mutations are most common in lung cancer, colon cancer and pancreatic cancer. Ras is the most common mutated oncogenes which are observed in all human cancers.

"We found that for cancer cells with Ras mutations, it can turn off cell death pathways by adjusting two different proteins: SGK-1 and PHLPP1," Schaefer said, "We found that cancer cells containing Ras mutations lack for adsorption to cellular extracellular matrix, and adsorption of cancer cells in metastasis is also low. It activates SGK-1 protein, which results in an increase in energy production. The improvement of energy increases the survival of these cells. At the same time, Ras also causes the decrease of number of PHLPP1 protein. Therefore, the ability of PHLPP1 causing cell death is reduced. In general, these changes (SGK-1 activation and PHLPP1 reduction) of cells promote the survival of the metastasizing cancer cells."

Although more research needs to be done, the study results show that an effective strategy of using Ras mutation to eliminate cancer metastasis may simultaneously inhibit SGK-1 activity, thereby blocking the production of energy and restoring PHLPP1 activity, leading to cell death.

"We are currently expanding our research to better understand whether PHLPP1 and SGK-1 play an important role in cancer cell aspects of different stages of the control of cancer cell metastasis." Schaefer said.

Flarebio Biotech LLC is a National High-Tech Enterprise with research, production and sales as one. It offers high-quality recombinant proteins such as recombinant INSRR at good prices.

Circadian rhythm and virus infection may affect the process of disease

A study suggests that the relation between time of virus infection and circadian rhythm of the host may affect the process of disease. Interfering circadian rhythm of an organism may affect its immune response, but the impact of host circadian rhythms on virus process remains unclear. Thus, researchers in this study decided to use various recombinant proteins such as recombinant mouse proteins to descend into the problem.

Akhilesh Reddy and his colleagues used a herpes virus to infect mice and mice fibroblast cells at different times of a day. When compared with mice infected with the corresponding matt active phase, mice which were corresponding to light phase in the rest period and beginning to expose to these viruses showed a 10-fold virus replication.

Similarly, the time of infection affects virus replication of the fibroblasts cells in mice, suggesting that the cells rhythm clock controls viral process. In addition, interfering the key clock gene Bmal1 can increase the herpes infections of mice and mice fibroblasts and also increase the A influenza virus infection of mice fibroblasts.

Proteomics analysis showed that intracellular protein transport, biosynthesis, protein synthesis and chromatin assembly may affect such rhythm regulation of viral infections. According to the authors, these findings suggest that interfering rhythm cycle may affect the severity of virus infection and may represent a potential tool for the regulation of viral replication in the host.

Flarebio Biotech LLC is a National High-Tech Enterprise with research, production and sales as one. It provides recombinant proteins of good quality like recombinant INSRR.

The discovery of new mechanism of hepatitis C helps to improve new effective drugs

Recently, researchers from Osaka University redefined the new mechanism of hepatitis C (HCV) transmission from the angle of enhancing the liver function. They used a mouse model to demonstrate that when a particular enzyme is inhibited, virus particles produced by HCV would be reduced so as to improve pathological liver disease, and thus they determined a new drug target. Some recombinant human proteins also can treat the disease.

Currently, nearly 200 million people worldwide are infected with hepatitis C virus. It can cause fatty liver, cirrhosis, liver cancer and other diseases after infection with hepatitis C virus. In Japan, hepatitis C virus is the culprit which causes liver cancer. Although researchers now have developed many enzymes against the copy of hepatitis C to clear HCV, the presence of a lot of viruses with drug resistance and cancer incidence after clearing the virus can't be explained. So far, removing the core protein of virus in host cell is still the main method, but through many research using recombinant mouse proteins and recombinant rat proteins, we are still not very clear about the mechanism in it.

Associate professor Toru Okamoto and Yoshiharu Matsuura at the Institute of Microbial of Osaka University were responsible for the study. When the enzyme SPP is inhibited, the virus particles are reduced, finally improving the pathological liver disease.

γ- secretase inhibitor is a kind of drugs are now developed and used in the Alzheimer's, but from which the researchers discovered a chemical that can inhibit the enzyme SPP. At the same time, they found that the removal of core proteins mainly relied on the enzyme TRC8, and this enzyme is very easy to be degraded. If the degradation ability is inhibited, the cell would receive great harm due to the stress effect of endoplasmic reticulum, and then the synthetic proteins can't properly fold, which leads to cell damage. Therefore, this degradation process is a novel protein controlling mechanism. The SPP mouse model will enhance the treatment outcomes of patients.

The study showed that SPP inhibitor is a new therapeutic drug of hepatitis C. Besides, observing the formation of proteins through SPP / TRC8 signaling pathway also improves the development of a series of drugs. Flarebio provides you with good-quality recombinant proteins such as recombinant INSRR at good prices.

Researchers prevent lung injury in mice by inducing cellular autophagy

Recently, researchers from Drexel University and Yale University found in autophagy research that in the process of autophagy, lung injury caused by exposure to high-concentration oxygen in mice can be reduced. The study has been published American Journal of respiratory and molecular biology in this month, also providing a new way of thinking and methods for the prevention of lung injury in premature children. There are many recombinant proteins used to conduct related research.

Dr. Vineet Bhandari, the head of neonatology at Children's Hospital in St Christopher, said, "When the cells are in extreme stress, autophagy is a process that the cells sacrifice unnecessary organelles to protect themselves. Through research, we believe that if we can enhance the cellular autophagy of lung to effectively reduce cell death, finally protecting the lungs of newborns."

Bhandari is specialized in the study of bronchopulmonary dysplasia (BPD), which is the most common chronic lung disease in preterm children. When the babies are born a few weeks or months before the expected date of birth, their lungs are not fully formed or are not able to make enough surfactant or liquid coating. In order to save their life, doctors often have to manage supplemental oxygen. However, prolonged exposure to excess oxygen can increase lung injury, resulting in lifelong lung problems, which can’t treated easily by recombinant human proteins.

Dr. Vineet Bhandari said, "For some preterm children with a genetic predisposition to lung disease, excessive supplemental oxygen can cause inflammation, leading to cell death. And cell death will cause permanent changes of lung structure. Currently, there are up to 15,000 infants having this problem in United States each year. So the present situation is that babies need supplemental oxygen to save their life, and their lungs should be protected from injury on the other hand.

Autophagy allows cells to survive at ambient pressure. In this process, some unnecessary organelles such as the endoplasmic reticulum or mitochondria disintegrate and fuse into an autophagosome and are swallowed by lysosomes to recycle the contents. "It constitutes the digestion of cellular vacuole and the cells themselves," Bhandari said.

In order to find out whether increasing autophagy in lungs may reduce cell death and ultimately prevent lung injury, Bhandari and his team conducted further studies on a regulatory protein called RPTOR. The research results show that cellular autophagy plays a crucial role on the prevention of lung injury. Flarebio also provides you with excellent recombinant proteins including recombinant INSRR for your research.

The RNA-cutting method which is similar to the method of gene cutting

Researchers who found the molecular "scissors" which cut genes now have developed a similar method for targeting and cutting RNA. The new cutting tools should help researchers better understand the role of RNA in cells and disease. Some people think that it might be used to treat many diseases from Huntington's disease to heart disease one day. Various recombinant proteins have achieved their goal.

In order to develop the "Blade" aimed at this process, Zhang Feng from the Broad Institute in the United States led researchers to make use of CRISPR (clustered, short palindromic repeats at regular intervals), namely the system evolved by bacteria for confrontation pathogen. CRISPR had previously been used to edit DNA, but theoretically it should also be effective for RNA. The study was published in the journal Science. Zhang Feng said that his latest method - making use of C2c2 enzymes to target RNA -relies on existing natural systems, thus it may be more effective than approaches which need more control. Studies have not confirmed that C2c2 system plays a role in mammalian cells, but Zhang Feng said that the results which had not been released make him maintain an optimistic attitude. The application of recombinant human proteins also used to experience some tests.

Professor cellular and molecular medicine Gene Yeo at the University of California, San Diego said, "A large number of such tools will allow us to monitor and study the RNA. This will help us to treat RNA not only as an intermediate molecule between DNA and proteins, but also a tool for the treatment of diseases and developmental problems."

Gene contains double-stranded DNA which produces single-stranded RNA, while single-stranded RNA in turn produces necessary proteins for life. Many diseases are due to too much or too little protein. Theoretically, effects on RNA could help to push the levels of these proteins up or down, and therefore providing methods of treatment. For example, the levels of recombinant INSRR can lead to different health condition.

Compared with "tinkering" basic DNA, manipulating RNA would create fewer ethical concerns. Zhang Feng said that he has always been very interested on the development of RNA system. New research shows that C2c2 is originally a system targeted to RNA. And the same to Cas9 system targeted to specific RNA, C2c2 can be directly "targeted" to the expected RNA sequence, so it was less likely to show off-target effects.