Construction and imaging of a neurovascular unit model

In 2001,the concept of the neurovascular unit was introduced at the Stroke Progress Review Group meeting.The neurovascular unit is an important element of the health and disease status of blood vessels and nerves in the central nervous system.Since then,the neurovascular unit has attracted increasing interest from research teams,who have contributed greatly to the prevention,treatment,and prognosis of stroke and neurodegenerative diseases.However,additional research is needed to establish an efficient,low-cost,and low-energy in vitro model of the neurovascular unit,as well as enable noninvasive observation of neurovascular units in vivo and in vitro.In this review,we first summarize the composition of neurovascular units,then investigate the efficacy of different types of stem cells and cell culture methods in the construction of neurovascular unit models,and finally assess the progress of imaging methods used to observe neurovascular units in recent years and their positive role in the monitoring and investigation of the mechanisms of a variety of central nervous system diseases.

Characterization and comparison of two C-type lectins with novel key motifs from mud crab Scylla paramamosain

As an important pattern recognition receptor(PRR)in the innate immune system,C-type lectin plays an important role in the innate immune process of invertebrates.Two C-type lectins Sp CTL-C and Sp CTL-D were characterized from mud crab(Scylla paramamosain).The predicted Sp CTL-C and Sp CTL-D proteins both contain a single carbohydrate-recognition domain(CRD)with key motif Gln-Pro-Ala(QPA)and Met-Pro-Ala(MPA),respectively.Sp CTL-C and Sp CTL-D transcripts distributed in all examined tissues,and the expression level was the highest in hepatopancreas.As PRR,the purifi ed recombinant proteins r Sp CTL-C and r Sp CTL-D have high affi nity for three kinds of pathogen-associated molecular patterns(PAMPs):β-glucan,lipopolysaccharide,and peptidoglycan.Besides,r Sp CTL-D can bind to all nine microorganisms tested,while r Sp CTL-C can bind to seven microorganisms except for Staphylococcus aureus and Micrococcus luteus.Both r Sp CTL-C and r Sp CTL-D showed agglutination activity towards fungi Pichia pastoris and Saccharomyces cerevisiae.However,r Sp CTL-C and r Sp CTL-D exhibited diff erent antimicrobial activities:r Sp CTL-D has a certain inhibitory eff ect on the growth of Vibrio fl uvialis and M.luteus,while r Sp CTL-C has no obvious inhibitory activity.The results show that r Sp CTL-C and r Sp CTL-D had better phagocytosis-promoting eff ect on M.luteus than the negative control.Meanwhile,both r Sp CTL-C and r Sp CTL-D had certain encapsulation-promoting activity.Collectively,two C-type lectins with novel key motifs make an important impact as PRR in immune response towards pathogens.At the same time,they play diff erent functions in the innate immunity of mud crab S.paramamosain.