Project description:Thirty five-week-old healthy Newzealand meet rabbits were used for bacteria infection. Bb infections were performed as the following: Finally, the dosage was 4.6×109CFU, and the ear vein was used in rabbits in the challenge group. Blood samples were collected for anticoagulant blood cell assay and serum isolation and preservation at 7 days after challenge. Six rabbits in the attack group died 10 days after the attack. All rabbits were euthanatized at the end of the experiment. Nine of the rabbits in each group were taken for spleen extraction.
Project description:Mesenchymal stem cell (MSC) therapy improves liver function in patients with liver cirrhosis. However, the therapeutic mechanism underlying MSC therapy remains unclear. Therefore, this study aimed to elucidate the therapeutic mechanism underlying MSC therapy by analyzing changes in the modification and expression of proteins 1-month post-treatment with MSCs. This prospective study included 11 patients with cirrhosis who received MSC injection in the First Hospital of Lanzhou University. The laboratory indexes before and after treatment were collected to evaluate the clinical treatment effect of MSCs, and peptide segments were extracted from liver tissue before and after treatment to revealed the protein expression and lactylation modification. Meanwhile, weighted gene co-expression network analysis was used to analyze co-expression protein modules and their relationship with clinical features. The patients with liver cirrhosis showed an improvement trend after receiving MSC treatment, specifically, the liver protein synthesis function was significantly improved and coagulation function was also significantly improved. Proteomics combined with lactic acid proteomics revealed 160 Lysine lactylation (Kla) sites of 119 proteins. The downregulated lactylated proteins were associated with metabolic processes. The upregulated lactylated proteins were involved in biological processes. The protein-based co-expression module was significantly related to alkaline phosphatase, total bilirubin (TBIL), indirect bilirubin (IBIL), direct bilirubin (DBIL), and ALB, and 10 proteins significantly related to ALB and 10 proteins significantly related to bilirubin were screened. The changes in clinical indexes before and after treatment indicate that the clinical effects of MSC treatment are related to cell metabolism. Overall, this study is the first study to comprehensively and systematically reveal the changes of lactylated proteins and expression after treatment with MSC by the self-control of patients, and lays a foundation for understanding the functions of lactylation modification in MSC therapy.
Project description:To uncover the underlying mechanism of temperature-responsive flowering in Crocus sativus and unveil flowering regulatory proteins, iTRAQ (isobaric tags for relative or absolute quantitation)-based proteomics were applied to study the differences in protein expression profiles in flowering and non-flowering saffron grown at room- and low-temperatures, respectively. A total of 5,624 proteins were identified,and 201 proteins showed differential accumulations between the flowering and non-flowering groups.
Project description:African swine fever (ASF) is the most dangerous disease of pigs and causes enormous economic losses in the global pig industry. However, the mechanism of ASF virus (ASFV) infection is unclear. Hence, we wanted to understand the host response mechanism upon ASFV infection. We analyzed the differentially expressed proteins (DEPs) between ASFV-infected and un-infected serum samples using quantitative proteomics. Setting the p-value < 0.05 and |log2 (fold change)| > 1.5, we identified 173 DEPs, including 57 upregulated and 116 downregulated proteins, which belonged to various biological processes and pathways according to the Gene Ontology and Kyoto Encyclopedia of Genes and Genomes pathway enrichment analyses. The enriched pathways include the immune system, metabolism, and inflammation.
Project description:Quantitative acetyl-proteomics, a newly identified post-translational modification, is known to regulate transcriptional activity in different organisms. Neurospora crassa is a model ascomycete fungus maintained for biochemistry and molecular biology research; however, extensive studies of the functions of its acylation proteins have yet to be performed. In this study, using LC-MS/MS qualitative proteomics strategies, we identified 1909 modification sites on 940 proteins in N. crassa and analysed the functions of these proteins using GO enrichment, KEGG pathway, and subcellular location experiments. We classified the acetylation protein involvement in diverse pathways, and protein-protein interaction (PPI) network analysis further demonstrated that these proteins participate in diverse biological processes. In summary, our study comprehensively profiles the crosstalk of modified sites, and PPI among these proteins may form a complex network with both similar and distinct regulatory mechanisms, providing improved understanding of their biological functions in N. crassa.
Project description:Small peptides (sPeptides), a class of biological molecules of less than 100 amio acids encoded by small open reading frames (sORFs), play important roles in multiple biological process. Here, we conducted a comprehensive study using mRNA-seq, Ribo-seq, and Mass Spectrometry (MS) on six tissues (each with at least two replicates) of maize, set up a bioinformatic pipeline, and performed a genome-wide scan of sORFs and sPeptides in maize. Our study sets up a guildline for the genome-wide scan of sORFs and sPeptides in plants by integrating Ribo-seq, and MS data, provides a more comprehensive resource of functional sPeptides in maize, and sheds light on the complex biological system of plants in a new perspective.
Project description:Toxoplasma gondii (T. gondii) is an opportunistic parasite that can infect the central nervous system, causing severe toxoplasmosis and behavioral cognitive impairment. Mortality is high in immunocompromised individuals with toxoplasmosis, most commonly due to reactivation of infection in the central nervous system (CNS). There are still no effective vaccines and drugs for the prevention and treatment of toxoplasmosis. There are five developmental stages for T. gondii to complete life cycle, of which the tachyzoite and bradyzoite stages are the key to the acute and chronic infection. In this study, to better understanding of how T. gondii interacts with the host central nervous system at different stages of infection, we constructed acute and chronic infection models of T. gondii in astrocytes, and used lab-free proteomics to detect the proteome changes before and after infection, respectively.
Project description:Protein lysine acetylation is a vital post-translational modification (PTM) that plays important roles in biological processes and human diseases. However, its potential roles in hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC) development remain largely unknown. Here we performed a quantitative acetylome analysis of tumor and normal liver tissues from HCC patients. Overall, we identified 792 lysine acetylation sites in 415 proteins, and almost half of their acetylation levels were significantly changed in HCC tumor tissues. The acetylated proteins mainly consisted of metabolic enzymes, which was consistent with the subcellular location analysis that they were primarily located in mitochondria and cytoplasm. Consistently, Bioinformatics analysis showed that differently acetylated proteins were mainly involved in metabolic pathways, such as glycolysis, the tricarboxylic acid (TCA) cycle, fatty acid oxidation, and glutamine metabolism. Then we selected two down-regulated enzymes and verified their acetylation levels in HCC liver tissues. In addition, transcription factors and proteins associated with oxidative stress were identified with aberrant acetylation levels in HCC tumor tissues. Our findings illustrate abundant lysine acetylation sites in HCC liver tissues, which provides insight into the role of lysine acetylation in HCC development, and further contributes to possible implications for its use in diagnose and therapy in the future.
Project description:Roots are generally the critical drought sensors, but little is known about their molecular response to drought stress. We used the drought-tolerant soybean variety ‘Jiyu 47’ to investigate the differentially expressed proteins (DEPs) in soybean roots during the seedling stage based on the TMT proteomics analysis. Results of enrichment analyses based on a total of 468 DEPs revealed a coordinated expression pattern of proteins involved in various cellular metabolisms responding to drought stress in soybean roots. Our results showed that drought stress caused significant alterations in the expression of proteins involved in several metabolic pathways in soybean roots, including the carbohydrate metabolism, the metabolism of the osmotic regulation substances, and the antioxidant defense system (i.e., the glutathione metabolism). Increased production of reduced glutathione (GSH) enhanced the prevention of the damage caused by reactive oxygen species and the tolerance of the abiotic stress. The glutathione metabolism played a key role in modifying the antioxidant defense system in response to drought stress in soybean roots. Our proteomic study demonstrated that the soybean plants responded to drought stress by coordinating their protein expression during the vegetative stage, providing novel insights into the molecular mechanisms regulating the response to abiotic stress in plants.
Project description:Candida albicans is the most common human fungal pathogen, causing diseases ranging from mucosal to systemic infections for both immunocompetent and immunocompromised individuals. Lysine 2-hydroxyisobutyrylation is a highly conserved posttranslational modification found in a wide variety of organisms. In this study, we survey the biological impact of 2-hydroxyisobutyrylation on lysine residuals (Khib) in C. albicans. Using an antibody-enrichment approach along with the traditional LC-MS/MS method, the pattern of Khib-modified proteins and sites were analyzed in one wild type strain of C. albicans. We identified 1438 Khib-modified proteins with 6659 modified sites in this strain, and a more detailed bioinformatics analysis indicated that the Khib-modified proteins are involved in a wide range of cellular functions with diverse subcellular locations. Functional enrichment analysis featured several prominent functional pathways, including ribosome, biosynthesis of antibiotics, biosynthesis of secondary metabolites, biosynthesis of amino acids and carbon metabolism – of which the ribosome pathway is the most affected pathway. Even when compared with the reported lysine acetylation (Kac) and succinylation (Ksuc), the Khib-modified sites on ribosomal proteins remained the highest for C. albicans. These bioinformatic results suggest that 2-hydroxyisobutyrylation may play an indispensable role in the regulation of the ribosomal biogenesis and protein translation. Confirmation at the biochemical level would enable us to resolve physiological and pathogenic roles of PTM in C. albicans.