Effects of exposure to 1.8 GHz radiofrequency field on the expression of Hsps and phosphorylation of MAPKs in human lens epithelial cells

The growing public concerns about the possible health effects of exposure to radio frequency （RF） fields from mobile telephones have arisen in many countries because of the increased use of mobile telecommunication devices. This in turn has led to an increase in cognate epidemiological and experimental investigations. However, the results of these studies are conflicting.

Spatio-temporal reconstruction of air temperature maps and their application to estimate rice growing season heat accumulation using multi-temporal MODIS data

The accumulation of thermal time usually represents the local heat resources to drive crop growth.Maps of temperature-based agro-meteorological indices are commonly generated by the spatial interpolation of data collected from meteorological stations with coarse geographic continuity.To solve the critical problems of estimating air temperature(T a) and filling in missing pixels due to cloudy and low-quality images in growing degree days(GDDs) calculation from remotely sensed data,a novel spatio-temporal algorithm for T a estimation from Terra and Aqua moderate resolution imaging spectroradiometer(MODIS) data was proposed.This is a preliminary study to calculate heat accumulation,expressed in accumulative growing degree days(AGDDs) above 10 ℃,from reconstructed T a based on MODIS land surface temperature(LST) data.The verification results of maximum T a,minimum T a,GDD,and AGDD from MODIS-derived data to meteorological calculation were all satisfied with high correlations over 0.01 significant levels.Overall,MODIS-derived AGDD was slightly underestimated with almost 10% relative error.However,the feasibility of employing AGDD anomaly maps to characterize the 2001-2010 spatio-temporal variability of heat accumulation and estimating the 2011 heat accumulation distribution using only MODIS data was finally demonstrated in the current paper.Our study may supply a novel way to calculate AGDD in heat-related study concerning crop growth monitoring,agricultural climatic regionalization,and agro-meteorological disaster detection at the regional scale.

Effect of NaCl treatments on glucosinolate metabolism in broccoli sprouts

To understand the regulation mechanism of NaCI on glucosinolate metabolism in broccoli sprouts, the germination rate, fresh weight, contents of glucosinolates and sulforaphane, as well as myrosinase activity of broccoli sprouts germinated under 0, 20, 40, 60, 80, and 100 mmol/L of NaCI were investigated in our experiment. The results showed that glucoerucin, glucobrassicin, and 4-hydroxy glucobrassicin in 7-d-old broccoli sprouts were significantly enhanced and the activity of myrosinase was inhibited by 100 mmol/L of NaCI. However, the total glucosinolate content in 7-d-old broccoli sprouts was markedly decreased although the fresh weight was significantly increased after treatment with NaCI at relatively low concentrations （20, 40, and 60 mmol/L）. NaCI treatment at the concentration of 60 mmol/L for 5 d maintained higher biomass and comparatively higher content of glucosinolates in sprouts of broccoli with decreased myrosinase activity. A relatively high level of NaCI treatment （100 mmol/L） significantly increased the content of sulforaphane in 7-d-old broccoli sprouts compared with the control. These results indicate that broccoli sprouts grown under a suitable concentration of NaCI could be desirable for human nutrition.

Optimization of biotransformation from phytosterol to androstenedione by a mutant Mycobacterium neoaurum ZJUVN-08

Biotransformation of phytosterol(PS) by a newly isolated mutant Mycobacterium neoaurum ZJUVN-08 to produce androstenedione has been investigated in this paper.The parameters of the biotransformation process were optimized using fractional factorial design and response surface methodology.Androstenedione was the sole product in the fermentation broth catalyzed by the mutant M.neoaurum ZJUVN-08 strain.Results showed that molar ratio of hydroxypropyl-β-cyclodextrin(HP-β-CD) to PS and substrate concentrations were the two most significant factors affecting androstenedione production.By analyzing the statistical model of three-dimensional surface plot,the optimal process conditions were observed at 0.1 g/L inducer,pH 7.0,molar ratio of HP-β-CD to PS 1.92:1,8.98 g/L PS,and at 120 h of incubation time.Under these conditions,the maximum androstenedione yield was 5.96 g/L and nearly the same with the non-optimized(5.99 g/L),while the maximum PS conversion rate was 94.69% which increased by 10.66% compared with the non-optimized(84.03%).The predicted optimum conditions from the mathematical model were in agreement with the verification experimental results.It is considered that response surface methodology was a powerful and efficient method to optimize the parameters of PS biotransformation process.

Conjugated linoleic acid isomers and their precursor fatty acids regulate peroxisome proliferator-activated receptor subtypes and major peroxisome proliferator responsive element-bearing target genes in HepG2 cell model

The purpose of this study was to examine the induction profiles （as judged by quantitative reverse tran- scription polymerase chain reaction （qRT-PCR）） of peroxisome proliferator-activated receptor （PPAR） α,β, y subtypes and major PPAR-target genes bearing a functional peroxisome proliferator responsive element （PPRE） in HepG2 cell model upon feeding with cis-9,trans-11-octadecadienoic acid （9-CLA） or trans-10,cis-12-octadecadienoic acid （10-CLA） or their precursor fatty acids （FAs）. HepG2 cells were treated with 100 pmol/L 9-CLA or 10-CLA or their precursor FAs, viz., oleic, linoleic, and trans-11-vaccenic acids against bezafibrate control to evaluate the induc- tion/expression profiles of PPAR （α, β, γ subtypes and major PPAR-target genes bearing a functional PPRE, i.e., fatty acid transporter （FAT）, glucose transporter-2 （GLUT-2）, liver-type FA binding protein （L-FABP）, acyl CoA oxidase-1 （ACOX-1）, and peroxisomal bifunctional enzyme （PBE） with reference to β-actin as house keeping gene. Of the three housekeeping genes （glyceraldehyde 3-phosphate dehydrogenase （GAPDH）, β-actin, and ubiquitin）, β-actin was found to be stable. Dimethyl sulfoxide （DMSO）, the common solubilizer of agonists, showed a significantly higher induction of genes analyzed, qRT-PCR profiles of CLAs and their precursor FAs clearly showed upregulation of FAT, GLUT-2, and L-FABP （-0.5-.0-fold）. Compared to 10-CLA, 9-CLA decreased the induction of the FA metabolizing gene ACOX-1 less than did PBE, while 10-CLA decreased the induction of PBE less than did ACOX-I. Both CLAs and precursor FAs upregulated PPRE-beadng genes, but with comparatively less or marginal activation of PPAR subtypes This indicates that the binding of CLAs and their precursor FAs to PPAR subtypes results in PPAR activation, thereby induction of the target transporter genes coupled with downstream lipid metabolising genes such as ACOX-1 and PBE. To sum up, the expression profiles of these candidate genes showed that CLAs and their precursor FAs are involved in lipid signalling by modulating the PPAR a, 13, or ~ subtype for the indirect activation of the PPAR-target genes, which may in turn be responsible for the supposed health effects of CLA, and that care should be taken while calculating the actual fold induction values of candidate genes with reference to housekeeping gene and DMSO as they may impart false positive results.

Effect of the scale of quantitative trait data on the representativeness of a cotton germplasm sub-core collection

A cotton germplasm collection with data for 20 quantitative traits was used to investigate the effect of the scale of quantitative trait data on the representativeness of plant sub-core collections.The relationship between the representativeness of a sub-core collection and two influencing factors,the number of traits and the sampling percentage,was studied.A mixed linear model approach was used to eliminate environmental errors and predict genotypic values of accessions.Sub-core collections were constructed using a least distance stepwise sampling(LDSS) method combining standardized Euclidean distance and an unweighted pair-group method with arithmetic means(UPGMA) cluster method.The mean difference percentage(MD),variance difference percentage(VD),coincidence rate of range(CR),and variable rate of coefficient of variation(VR) served as evaluation parameters.Monte Carlo simulation was conducted to study the relationship among the number of traits,the sampling percentage,and the four evaluation parameters.The results showed that the representativeness of a sub-core collection was affected greatly by the number of traits and the sampling percentage,and that these two influencing factors were closely connected.Increasing the number of traits improved the representativeness of a sub-core collection when the data of genotypic values were used.The change in the genetic diversity of sub-core collections with different sampling percentages showed a linear tendency when the number of traits was small,and a logarithmic tendency when the number of traits was large.However,the change in the genetic diversity of sub-core collections with different numbers of traits always showed a strong logarithmic tendency when the sampling percentage was changing.A CR threshold method based on Monte Carlo simulation is proposed to determine the rational number of traits for a relevant sampling percentage of a sub-core collection.