Comparison of infection of different cell lines by uropathogenic Escherichia coli

Studying the interaction between uropathogenic Escherichia coil （UPEC） and uroepithelial cells is important in elucidating the pathogenesis of urinary tract infection. In this study, the African green monkey kidney cells （Vero）, human kidney carcinoma cells （Ketr-3） and bladder carcinoma cells （EJ） were infected by UPEC132, a clinical strain isolated from Tianjin, China, and were compared for their capacities to allow the adherence and invasion by this strain. The results revealed that all these cell lines could be attached and invaded by UPEC132. The adherence rates for Vero, Ketr-3 and EJ cells were （49,20 ±7.55）%, （55.22 ±4.09）% and （73.20 ±5.26）%, respectively, and invasion frequencies were （2.61 ±0.32）×10^-3, （3.00 ±0.34）×10^-3 and （3.25 ± 0.20）×10^-3, respectively. The statistical analysis showed that the adherence rate for EJ cells was significantly higher than those for the other two cell lines （P〈0.05）, and the invasion frequencies for EJ and Ketr-3 cells had no statistical differences （P〉0.05） but were higher than that for Vero cells （P〈0.05）. Three cell lines were detected for the receptors for P pill of UPEC by using indirect immunofluorescence. The results showed that receptors existed on the surfaces of all cell lines, and the highest distribution was found on the surface of EJ cells. Additionally, the invasion of EJ cells by recombinant UPEC132/pSELECT-GFP could be directly visualized using confocal microscopy. These data strongly implicated that EJ cells could be more easily infected by UPEC132 than the other cells, and thus could serve as a good experimental target for further investigation of UPEC infection.     

Enhancement of transfection efficiency for HeLa cells via incorporating arsinine moiety into chitosan

Arginine-rich peptides have attracted considerable attention due to their distinct internalization mechanism. It was reported that arginine and guanidino moieties were able to translocate through cell membranes and played a critical role in the process of membrane permeation. In this work, arginine was conjugated to the backbone of chitosan to form a novel chitosan derivative, arginine modified chitosan （Arg-CS）. Arg-CS/DNA complexes were prepared according to the method of coacervation process. The physicochemical properties of Arg-CS and Arg-CS/DNA complexes were characterized and the transfection activity and efficiency mediated by Arg-CS/DNA complexes were investigated taking HeLa cells as target cells. Arg-CS was characterized by FTIR and ^13C NMR. Arg-CS/DNA polyelectrolyte complexes were investigated by agarose gel retardation, dynamic light scattering （DLS） and atomic force microscopy （AFM）. The results revealed that the Arg-CS/DNA complexes started to form at N/P ratio of 2：1, and the size of particles varied from 100 to 180 nm. The cytotoxicity of Arg-CS and their complexes with plasmid DNA were determined by MTT assay for HeLa cells, and the results suggested that Arg-CS/DNA complexes were slightly less toxic than Arg-CS. Moreover, the derivative alone and their complexes showed significantly lower toxicity than PEI and PEI/DNA complexes, respectively. Taking HeLa cells as target cells and using pGL3-control as reporter gene, the luciferase expression mediated by Arg-CS was greatly enhanced to about 100 folds compared with the luciferase expression mediated by chitosan at different pH media. These results suggest that Arg-CS is a promising candidate as a safe and efficient vector for gene delivery and transfection.     

Effect of Extractant and Cold-drawing on the Structure and Performance of FIDPE Hollow Fiber Membranes Fabricated via Thermally Induced Phase Separation Method

Microporous polyolefin hollow fiber membranes were prepared from high density polyethylene （HDPE）-paraffin solution via thermally induced phase separation （TIPS） method. Effects of extraction and cold-drawing condition on membrane structure and performance were investigated.Five volatile solvents were used as extractant. Dimension of hollow fiber and gas permeation rate of membrane were measured. Mierostructure of membrane was examined by Scanning Electronic Microscope （SEM）. The results show that the membrane treated by pentane possesses a higher porosity, nitrogen permeability and lower shrinkage than those of membranes extracted by other three extractants. It is also found that the membrane stretched 133% shows the highest porosity and gas permeability in this study.     

Structural dependences of the <Emphasis Type="Italic">η</Emphasis><Superscript>6</Superscript> complexes of 3-amino-9-ethylcarbazole with chromium tricarbonyl fragment on third-order optical nonlinearities

Degenerate four-wave mixing measurements, using the 35 ps pulses at 532 nm, have been employed to investigate the third-order nonlinear optical parameters of two chromium tricarbonyl complexes η6-bonded to 3-amino-9-ethylcarbazole at either the NH2-substituted aryl ring （1） or the unsubstituted ring （2） and their precursor 3-amino-9-ethylcarbazole （AECz）. The second-order hyperpolarizability y of the compounds 1 and 2 were found to be 42.9×10^-31 and 35.9×10^-31 esu, respectively, approximately one order of magnitude greater than AECz. The relation between the molecular structure and second-order hyperpolarizability of the compounds I and 2 was explored in detail based on the three-level model and the density functional theory （DFT） calculation. The theoretical results indicate that the spatial distribution of electron density has the profound role in the third-order nonlinear optical properties.     

A novel Pd/silicalite-1 composite membrane for hydrogen separation

A novel Pd/silicalite-1 composite membrane supported on the macroporous tubular stainless steel substrate was successfully fabricated by electroless plating at 303 K. The structure, morphology and gaseous permeability of the membrane were detected by X-ray diffractiometry （XRD）, scanning electron microscopy （SEM） and single-gas permeation test, respectively. Results confirm the formation of a thin, smooth, and continuous Pd/silicalite-1 composite membrane. The obtained composite membrane shows a high H2 permeance of 1.15×10^-6 mol. m^-2. s^-1. Pa^-1 with moderate H2 selectivity of 250 for H2/N2 at 773 K, at 0.1 MPa pressure drop, suggesting the potential application for H2 separation.     

Enhancement of transfection efficiency for HeLa cells via incorporating arginine moiety into chitosan

Arginine-rich peptides have attracted considerable attention due to their distinct internalization mechanism. It was reported that arginine and guanidino moieties were able to translocate through cell membranes and played a critical role in the process of membrane permeation. In this work, arginine was conjugated to the backbone of chitosan to form a novel chitosan derivative, arginine modified chitosan (Arg-CS). Arg-CS/DNA complexes were prepared according to the method of coacervation process. The physicochemical properties of Arg-CS and Arg-CS/DNA complexes were characterized and the transfection activity and efficiency mediated by Arg-CS/DNA complexes were investigated taking HeLa cells as target cells. Arg-CS was characterized by FTIR and 13C NMR. Arg-CS/DNA polye- lectrolyte complexes were investigated by agarose gel retardation, dynamic light scattering (DLS) and atomic force microscopy (AFM). The results revealed that the Arg-CS/DNA complexes started to form at N/P ratio of 2:1, and the size of particles varied from 100 to 180 nm. The cytotoxicity of Arg-CS and their complexes with plasmid DNA were determined by MTT assay for HeLa cells, and the results suggested that Arg-CS/DNA complexes were slightly less toxic than Arg-CS. Moreover, the derivative alone and their complexes showed significantly lower toxicity than PEI and PEI/DNA complexes, respectively. Taking HeLa cells as target cells and using pGL3-control as reporter gene, the luciferase expression mediated by Arg-CS was greatly enhanced to about 100 folds compared with the luciferase expression mediated by chitosan at different pH media. These results suggest that Arg-CS is a promising candi- date as a safe and efficient vector for gene delivery and transfection.     

Dynamic changes of apoptosis in duck embryo fibroblasts induced by new type Gosling viral enteritis virus

The monolayer duck embryo fibroblast （DEF） cells were experimentally infected with new type Gosling viral enteritis virus （NGVEV） and the dynamic changes of apoptosis were detected at different time points after NGVEV infection by transmission electron microscopy （TEM）, DNA agarose gel electrophoresis and Annexin V-FITC/PI stained fluorescence-activated cell sorter （FACS）. The result shows that NGVEV can induce infected cells undergoing apoptosis and changing regularly. A series of characteristic apoptotic morphological changes including shrinkage of the cells, chromatin condensation and margination, as well as formation of apoptotic bodies, were observed by TEM. The typical ladder pattern of DNA fragmentation was demonstrated by agarose gel electrophoresis. And using flow cytometry analysis of Annexin V-FITC/PI staining, the dead, viable, apoptotic and necrotic cells could be analyzed quantitatively.     

The molecular mechanism of embryonic stem cell pluripotency maintenance

In vitro cultured embryonic stem （ES） cells are derived from the inner cell mass （ICM） of pre-implantation embryos, and are capable of giving rise to all cell and tissue types of the three germ layers upon being injected back into blastocysts. These ceils are therefore said to possess pluripotency that can be maintained infinitely in culture under optimal conditions. Such pluripotency maintenance is believed to be due to the symmetrical cleavage of the cells in an undifferentiated state. The pluripotency of ES cells is the basis for their various practical and potential applications. ES cells can be used as donor cells to generate knockout or transgenic animals, as in vitro models of mammalian development, and as cell resources for cell therapy in regenerative medicine. The further success in these applications, particularly in the last two, is dependent on the establishment of a culture system with components in the medium clearly defined and the subsequent procedures for controlled differentiation of the cells into specific lineages. In turn, elucidating the molecular mechanism for pluripotency maintenance of ES cells is the prerequisite. This paper summarizes the recent progresses in this area, focusing mainly on the LIF/STAT3, BMPs/Smads, canonical Wnt, TGFβ/activin/nodal, PI3K and FGF signaling pathways and the genes such as oct4, nanog that are crucial in ES cell pluripotency maintenance. The regulatory systems of pluripotency maintenance in both mouse and human ES cells are also discussed. We believe that the cross-talkings between these signaling pathways, as well as the regulatory system underlying pluripotency maintenance will be the main focus in the area of ES cell researches in the future.     

IBCIS: intelligent blood cell identification system

The analysis of blood cells in microscope images can provide useful information concerning the health of patients. There are three major blood cell types, namely, erythrocytes （red）, leukocytes （white）, and platelets. Manual classification is time consuming and suscep- tible to error due to the different morphological features of the cells. This paper presents an intelligent system that simulates a human visual inspection and classification of the three blood cell types, The proposed system comprises two phases： The image preprocessing phase where blood cell features are extracted via global pattern averaging, and the neural network arbitration phase where training is the first and then classification is carried out. Experimental results suggest that the proposed method performs well in identifying blood cell types regardless of their irregular shapes, sizes and orientation, thus providing a fast, simple and efficient rotational and scale invariant blood cell identification system which can be used in automating laboratory reporting.     

Spectrofluorimetric determination of artemisinin with pyronine B as the substrate for horseradish peroxidase

Enzyme-catalytic fluorescence determination of artemisinin （qinghaosu, QHS） was developed using pyronine B （PB） as substrate of horseradish peroxidase （HRP）. The interaction between HRP and QHS was an enzyme-substrate model. The catalytic characteristic of HRP in the oxidation reaction, in which the fluorescence of PB was decreased in the presence of QHS, was studied. The steady-state catalytic rate depended upon enzyme and substrate concentrations, and the Michaelis-Menten parameters Km, Vmax and Kcat were 8.4×10^-5mol·L^-1, 7.4×10^-6mol·L^-1s^-1 and 50.23s^-1. The catalytic activity of enzyme was inhibited in the presence of deactivated agents and at high temperature, respectively. Under optimum conditions, linear relationship between fluorescence intensity change （F0-F） of pyronine B and concen- tration of QHS was in the range of 1.41×10^-7-1.27×10^-6mol·L^-1. The detection limit （3σ） was determined to be 2.7×10^-8mol·L^-1. The proposed method was applied to the concentration determination of QHS in the media of plasma or urine samples.     

高氯酸银-苯配合物结构的重新测定和从头计算

在低温下对高氯酸银-苯配合物AgClO₄&;#8226;C₆H₆的晶体结构进行了重新测定，晶体属斜方晶系，空间群Cmcm（#63）.晶胞参数：a=8.154 0(6)×10^-10 m， b=7.918(4)×10^-10 m， c=11.717(1)×10^-10 m，V=756.4(4)×10-³⁰m³, Z = 4, 精度偏离因子R=0.023, Rw =0.050.根据该配合物晶体结构特征和从头计算的研究结果, 与前人报道的结构数据进行了对比, 指出两次测定在结构上的差异.据此, 提出了目前在中外教科书中有关苯在与银离子配位时发生严重变形的描述有待更正的必要性.     

PVC碳糊修饰电极测定Pb2+

 介绍了一种用PVC碳糊电极测定Pb²⁺的方法.该法在开路电路条件,富集介质为0.1 mol/L KNO₃(pH 11.0),检测底液为0.15 mol/L HNO₃.用微分脉冲阳极溶出伏安法扫描,有一灵敏Pb氧化峰出现,峰电位为-0.496 V(vs.Ag/AgCl),溶出峰电流与Pb²⁺在1.0×10-7～2~2.0×10^-5mol/L浓度范围内成很好的线性关系,线性相关系数为0.9960,检出限为5.0×10^-8mol/L.     

缺位磷钨杂多阴离子PW11O7-39电催化降解邻苯二甲酸二甲酯

 以Keggin型缺位磷钨杂多阴离子PW₁₁O^7-₃₉(PW₁₁)为电催化剂,邻苯二甲酸二甲酯(DMP)为模型污染物,详细研究了PW₁₁对DMP降解的电催化作用。实验结果表明,在pH=2.5,E=-0.6 V和60 mL·min^-1O₂流速下,0.05 mmol·L^-1DMP反应120 min的降解率达96%,总有机碳(TOC)去除约34%。DMP的电催化降解服从准一级反应动力学模型,准一级表观速率常数(k obs)与DMP的初始浓度有关, 当DMP的初始浓度为0.05, 0.2 和0.3 mmol·L^-1时,kobs分别为2.9×10^-2, 7.5×10^-3和4.9×10^-3min^-1。     

Zn(OH)4-6和Zn(H2O)2+6系列配合物的电子结构

采用密度泛函理论(DFT)的B3PW91方法，在Lanl2dz、6-31G(d,p)、6-311++G(d,p)基组水平上对具有不同点群对称性的Zn(OH)^4-₆及Zn(H₂O)²⁺₆系列配合物的几何构型进行了全优化并在B3PW91/6/311++G(d,p)水平上对前线轨道、振动频率等性质进行了分析。Zn(OH)^4-₆系列配合物中具有D_3d点群对称性的构型最稳定，Zn(H₂O)²⁺₆系列配合物中具有T_h点群对称性的构型最稳定。从体系能量角度考虑，Zn(OH)^4-₆·6H₂O体系比Zn(H₂O)²⁺₆·6OH^-体系稳定。通过振动分析得到的O—H键吸收峰在3816和1638cm^-1位置处，Zn—O键的吸收峰在541和391cm^-1位置处，与文献报道的实验数值相符，证明所采用的理论方法及基组适用于研究Zn(OH)₆^4-和Zn(H₂O)²⁺₆系列配合物的电子结构。     

甲醇与O[3P]反应机理的从头算及动力学

采用UQCISD/ 6-311G (d,p )从头算方法,优化甲醇和O [³P ]的反应两个通道、反应物、过渡态和产物的几何构型。进一步运用G2方法进行单点能量校正,得出通道 (1)和通道 (2)的位垒分别是48.86kJ/mol和28.89kJ/mol。并指出通道 (1 )是吸热反应,而通道 (2 )是放热反应。在300～3200K温度范围内,采用传统过渡态理论计算两个反应通道各自的速率常数k₁ 和k₂ ,由此采用非线性最小二乘法,得出这两个反应通道各自的速率方程为k₁=2.43×10^-18×T^2.23×exp(- 32.97/T)cm³mol^-1 s^-1 (300K≤T≦3200K), k₂=6.12× 1 0 ^-18×T^2.19×exp(- 1396/T)cm³mol^-1s^-1(300K≤T≦3200K) 2/k₁对温度变化的依赖关系。计算得出CH₃OH和O[³P]反应的总速率常数k₁₊₂ ,与实验结果取得很好的一致。     

基于层层自组装的{壳聚糖/多壁碳纳米管}9/玻碳电极电催化氧化H2 O2

 基于带正电荷的壳聚糖(CHIT)和功能化的带负电荷的多壁碳纳米管(MWNTs)之间的静电吸附,通过层层自组装的方法制备了均一、 稳定的{CHIT/MWNTs}₉多层膜。组装{CHIT/MWNTs}₉多层膜的玻碳(GC)电极用来研究H₂ O₂的电催化氧化,测定H₂ O₂的线性范围﹑响应时间和检测下限分别为：8×10^-6～1.0×10^-2 mol/L (相关性系数为0.997)﹑2 s 和4×10^-6 mol/L。另外,{CHIT/MWNTs}₉/GC电极具有较好的稳定性能。     

Keggin型铬取代杂多离子PW11O39Cr(Ⅲ)(H2O)4-的电化学性质

 用循环伏安、交流伏安和交流阻抗法详细研究了Keggin型铬取代杂多离子PW₁₁Cr(Ⅲ)O^4-₃₉(PW₁₁Cr) 的电化学性质。循环伏安扫描表明,1.0 mmol·L^-1 PW₁₁Cr的H₃PO₄-HAc-H₃BO₃ 缓冲溶液(pH2.16)在玻碳电极上有三对氧化-还原波,发生在1.30/0.631 V处的准可逆波属于Cr(Ⅲ)/Cr(Ⅴ)电对的双电子氧化-还原响应,而位于-0.553/-0.505 V和-0.782/-0.725 V处的两对可逆波则对应于W-O骨架的双电子还原-氧化响应。PW₁₁Cr三对氧化-还原波的峰电位皆与溶液的pH有关,随着溶液pH的增大,峰电位负移,峰电流降低,阴极和阳极的峰电位差增大,电极过程的可逆性降低。由第一个W O骨架还原波的峰电流与电位扫描速率平方根的关系得到PW₁₁Cr在H₃PO₄-HAc-H₃BO₃ 溶液(pH 2.16)中的扩散系数为4.4×10^-6 cm²·s^-1。交流阻抗谱表明,Cr(Ⅲ)/Cr(Ⅴ)电对的电极过程受异相电荷传递动力学控制,由相角与频率的关系得到其动力学参数k^o 为0.67 cm·s^-1;而W-O骨架的两个电极过程则受扩散控制。PW₁₁Cr的电极过程存在吸附步骤。     

Fluorescence study on the interaction between apoCopC and cupric

The interaction between apoCopC and cupric was investigated by fluorescence spectra, in phosphate （20 mmol/L） buffer at pH 6.0. Results suggest that the environment is measured to be hydrophobic completely around tryptophan （83）. At the same time, apoCopC fluorescence at 320 nm was significantly quenched with the addition of cupric and the 1：1 stoichiometric ratio of apoCopC to cupric was confirmed by fluorescence. In addition, the conditional binding constants were calculated to be Kcu-copc=（1.8±0.58）×10^13 mol^-1 L on the basis of the results of fluorescence titration curves. The apoCopC has the ability to bind specifically cupric ion.     

电喷雾质谱法研究N-苯甲酰基-脱氢枞胺-7-酮与DNA的相互作用

采用电喷雾质谱(ESI-MS)法研究了N-苯甲酰基-脱氢枞胺-7-酮与4种DNA—dC6,dT6,dA6,d(AT)3的相互作用,考察了N-苯甲酰基-脱氢枞胺-7-酮与DNA形成复合物的电喷雾质谱行为及N-苯甲酰基-脱氢枞胺-7-酮-DNA复合物-4价离子的二级质谱(MS/MS)行为。结果表明,N-苯甲酰基-脱氢枞胺-7-酮与4种DNA均可形成非共价复合物,且复合物离子主要以-4价形式存在;N-苯甲酰基-脱氢枞胺-7-酮与4种不同的DNA形成的-4价复合物离子均在碰撞能(CE)约20%时发生裂解,并且具有大致相同的裂解方式。