The universality and biological significance of signal molecules with intracellular-extracellular compatible functions

Generally, cell signal molecules are classified into the extracellular signal molecules (the first messengers) and the intracellular signal ones (the second messengers). Cyclic adenosine monophosphate (CAMP), calcium ions and calmodulin (CaM) are the traditional intracellular messengers, but they are also present in extracellular matrix (ECM). Some of them have been discovered to act as the first messengers through cell surface receptors. Other second messengers, such as cyclic guanosine monophosphate (cGMP), cyclic adenosine diphosphate ribose (cADPR) and annexin, are also found existing outside animal and plant cells. The existence of these messengers with intracellular-extracellular compatible functions in cells may be a regular biological phenomenon. These compatible messengers might be the communication factors between intracellular and extracellular regions or among the cell populations, and are also important in regulating cell development procedure.     

Induction of embryonic stem cells to hematopoietic cellsin vitro

In order to get hematopoietic cells from embryonic stem (ES) cells and to study development mechanisms of hematopoietic cells, the method of inducing embryonic stem cells to hematopoietic cells was explored by differenciating mouse ES cells and human embryonic cells in three stages. The differentiated cells were identified by flow cytometry, immunohistochemistry and Wright’s staining. The results showed that embryoid bodies (EBs) could form when ES cells were cultured in the medium with 2-mercaptoethanol (2-ME). However, cytokines, such as stem cell factor (SCF), thrombopoietin (TPO), interleukin-3 (IL-3), interleukin-6 (IL-6), erythropoietin (EPO) and granular colony stimulating factor (G-CSF), were not helpful for forming EBs. SCF, TPO and embryonic cell conditional medium were useful for the differentiation of mouse EBs to hematopoietic progenitors. Eighty-six percent of these cells were CD34⁺ after 6-d culture. Hematopoietic progenitors differentiated to B lymphocytes when they were cocultured with primary bone marrow stroma cells in the DMEM medium with SCF and IL-6. 14 d later, most of the cells were CD34^－CD38⁺. Wright’s staining and immunohistochemistry showed that 80% of these cells were plasma-like morphologically and immunoglubolin positive. The study of hematopoietic cells from human embryonic cells showed that human embryonic cell differentiation was very similar to that of mouse ES cells. They could form EBs in the first stage and the CD34 positive cells account for about 48.5% in the second stage.     

On the “plasticity”of adult stem cells and its application in regenerative medicine

In recent years, with the increasingly further studies on embryonic stem cells and the recognition of the biologic characteristics of adult stem cells, it has been discovered that adult stem cells have another phenomenon of “plasticity” in addition to the characteristics of strong potential for self-renewal, proliferation and multi-differentiation, which brings us the hope for regenerative medicine—renewing new organ or tissue cells to replace those damaged by injury or diseases. Although the mechanism of “plasticity” and its application in the regenerative medicine are still in doubt, thorough exploration in these subjects would open up broad prospects for the use in cell and tissue engineering in the near future.     

水分胁迫下植物体内的信号传递

本文综述了水分胁迫下植物体内的干旱信号传递，包括水分胁迫下信号的识别、信号通过第二信使、蛋白磷酸化/去磷酸化参与的胞内传递，水分胁迫下木质部汁液中蛋白质、pH值的变化及化学物质脱落酸(ABA)、茉莉酸(JA)等参与的化学信号传递等。     

植物细胞第二信使研究进展

介绍了植物细胞信号转导中的主要第二信使钙离子、三磷酸肌醇、二酯酰甘油、环腺苷酸的研究进展，特别对它们的产生及其在信号转导中的地位和作用进行了重点介绍。     

成纤维细胞生长因子9的研究进展

成纤维细胞生长因子9（fibroblast growth factor 9,FGF 9）最初发现于人类神经胶质瘤细胞,是成纤维细胞生长因子家族的成员之一,广泛分布于人体各种组织中,是一个在胚胎发育过程中以及成年后许多生物学功能所需的有效促进有丝分裂和细胞生长的因子。本文综述了FGF 9的基因特点以及研究现状。     

Teratogenic drugs inhibit tumour cell attachment to lectin-coated surfaces

Interactions between embryonic cells are generally thought to have a central role in the control of development. When these morphogenic interactions are interrupted by either physical intervention or genetic defects, normal development is impaired. In accord with these experiments, specific interactions between embryonic cells have been demonstrated in several in vitro systems. Many investigators have described homotypic aggregation of chick embryo cells, and heterotypic specificity has been described. Because of the importance of morphogenic cell-cell interactions in development it follows that agents that interfere with these interactions, regardless of the interference mechanism, are potential teratogens. Here we have used a simple in vitro cell to surface recognition system in an attempt to screen for potential teratogens. We have found a very high correlation between inhibitory activity in the in vitro assay and reported teratogenic activity in human or animal studies. This suggests that many teratogenic agents may act by interfering, in an as yet unknown way, in normal cell to cell interactions.     

Derivation of pluripotent epiblast stem cells from mammalian embryos

Although the first mouse embryonic stem (ES) cell lines were derived 25 years ago using feeder-layer-based blastocyst cultures, subsequent efforts to extend the approach to other mammals, including both laboratory and domestic species, have been relatively unsuccessful. The most notable exceptions were the derivation of non-human primate ES cell lines followed shortly thereafter by their derivation of human ES cells. Despite the apparent common origin and the similar pluripotency of mouse and human embryonic stem cells, recent studies have revealed that they use different signalling pathways to maintain their pluripotent status. Mouse ES cells depend on leukaemia inhibitory factor and bone morphogenetic protein, whereas their human counterparts rely on activin (INHBA)/nodal (NODAL) and fibroblast growth factor (FGF). Here we show that pluripotent stem cells can be derived from the late epiblast layer of post-implantation mouse and rat embryos using chemically defined, activin-containing culture medium that is sufficient for long-term maintenance of human embryonic stem cells. Our results demonstrate that activin/Nodal signalling has an evolutionarily conserved role in the derivation and the maintenance of pluripotency in these novel stem cells. Epiblast stem cells provide a valuable experimental system for determining whether distinctions between mouse and human embryonic stem cells reflect species differences or diverse temporal origins.     

MHC class I surface expression in embryo-derived cell lines inducible with peptide or interferon.

It has long been recognized that the absence of expression of products of the major histocompatibility complex (MHC) during early development might allow the fetus to escape recognition by maternal lymphocytes. In addition to the MHC class I heavy chain and beta 2-microglobulin, antigenic peptide is an essential structural component of the class I molecule. Indeed, there is evidence that MHC-linked genes encoding peptide transporter molecules and possibly components of a proteolytic complex are necessary for MHC class I assembly and stability at the cell surface. Here we demonstrate that embryonic cells in general show a defect in MHC class I assembly. Surface expression was rescued in the presence of an appropriate antigenic peptide, or by treatment with interferon. Consistent with this, HAM1 messenger RNA was not constitutively expressed, but was inducible by interferon, and during differentiation in vitro. Thus, tolerance of the fetal allograft may in part be controlled at the level of peptide-dependent MHC class I assembly.     

Effects of the steel gene product on mouse primordial germ cells in culture.

Mutations at the steel (sl) and dominant white spotting (W) loci in the mouse affect primordial germ cells (PGC), melanoblasts and haemopoietic stem cells. The W gene encodes a cell-surface receptor of the tyrosine kinase family, the proto-oncogene c-kit. In situ analysis has shown c-kit messenger RNA expression in PGC in the early genital ridges. The Sl gene encodes the ligand for this receptor, a peptide growth factor, called here stem cell factor (SCF). SCF mRNA is expressed in many regions of the early mouse embryo, including the areas of migration of these cell types. It is important now to identify the role of the Sl-W interaction in the development of these migratory embryonic stem cell populations. Using an in vitro assay system, we show that SCF increases both the overall numbers and colony sizes of migratory PGC isolated from wild-type mouse embryos, and cultured on irradiated feeder layers of STO cells (a mouse embryonic fibroblast line). In the absence of feeder cells, SCF causes a large increase in the initial survival and apparent motility of PGC in culture. But labelling with bromodeoxyuridine shows that SCF is not, by itself, a mitogen for PGC. SCF does not exert a chemotropic effect on PGC in in vitro assays. These results suggest that SCF in vivo is an essential requirement for PGC survival. This demonstrates the control of the early germ-line population by a specific trophic factor.     

Induction of embryonic stem cells to hematopoietic cells in vitro

In order to get hematopoietic cells from embryonic stem (ES) cells and to study development mechanisms of hematopoietic cells, the method of inducing embryonic stem cells to hematopoietic cells was explored by differenciating mouse ES cells and human embryonic cells in three stages. The differentiated cells were identified by flow cytometry, immunohistochemistry and Wright's staining. The results showed that embryoid bodies (EBs) could form when ES cells were cultured in the medium with 2-mercaptoethanol (2-ME). However, cytokines, such as stem cell factor (SCF), thrombopoietin (TPO), interleukin-3 (IL-3), interleukin-6 (IL-6), erythropoietin (EPO) and granular colony stimulating factor (G-CSF), were not helpful for forming EBs. SCF, TPO and embryonic cell conditional medium were useful for the differentiation of mouse EBs to hematopoietic progenitors. Eighty-six percent of these cells were CD34+ after 6-d culture. Hematopoietic progenitors differentiated to B lymphocytes when they were cocultured with primary bone marrow stroma cells in the DMEM medium with SCF and IL-6. 14 d later, most of the cells were CD34-CD38+. Wright's staining and immunohistochemistry showed that 80% of these cells were plasma-like morphologically and immunoglubolin positive. The study of hematopoietic cells from human embryonic cells showed that human embryonic cell differentiation was very similar to that of mouse ES cells. They could form EBs in the first stage and the CD34 positive cells account for about 48.5% in the second stage.     

Cloned goats (Gapra hircus) from foetal fibroblast cell lines

Mammalian cloning has been one of the most active research topics in the world. Cloning within vitro culured foetal fibroblast cells, in comparison with embryonic cells, can be used not only to theoretically study the embryonic or cellular development and differentiation in mammals, but also to utilize the unlimited fibroblast cells to produce large numbers of clonings. The preliminary results are as follows: (i) The division and development of the cloned embryos with embryonic donor cells and goat foetal fibroblast donor cells were 55%, 77% and 35%, 31%, respectively. There is no significant statistical difference between them, (ii) These studies result in the birth of two cloned goats derived from two 30-day foetal fibroblast cell lines, which are the first cloned mammals from somatic cells in China. This project has established a technological data base for the furture research on adult mammalian somatic cloning and nucleocytoplasmic interactions in animal development, and a novel technique for the cloning of animals with a high-level expression of transgene(s).     

Evidence from reversal of handedness in C. elegans embryos for early cell interactions determining cell fates

Many animals with overall bilateral symmetry also exhibit some left-right asymmetries with generally invariant handedness. Therefore, the left-right embryonic axis must have a consistent polarity, whose origins and subsequent effects on development are not understood. Caenorhabditis elegans exhibits such left-right asymmetries at all developmental stages. The embryonic cell lineage is asymmetric as well: although the animal is generally bilaterally symmetric, many of its contralaterally analogous cells arise from different lineages on the two sides of the embryo. I accomplished reversal of embryonic handedness by micromanipulation at the 6-cell stage, which resulted in mirror-image but otherwise normal development into healthy, fertile animals with all the usual left-right asymmetries reversed. This result demonstrates that in the 6-cell embryo the pair of anterior (AB) blastomeres on the right is equivalent to the pair on the left, and that the extensive differences in fates between lineally homologous derivatives of these cells on the two sides of the animal must be dictated by cell interactions, most of which are likely to occur early in embryogenesis.     

拟南芥信号传递途径

探讨拟南芥发育过程中一些调控基因表达的信号是如何传递的。广泛查阅近期有关发育生物学方面的文章,综述了拟南介信号传递的过程。发现植物体有许多与动物相同的信号传递途径,如磷酸化级联途径。在拟南芥中Raf1激酶,蛋白激酶（MEK）、蛋白激酶激酶（MAPK）都与信号转导直接有关。另外发现磷酸化过程在一定程度上依赖于卷须蛋白（CLV1）的自动磷酸化。植物信号转导途径类似于动物,通过磷酸化作用传递各种信号,来保持细胞增殖和分化的平衡。     

Developmental reprogramming after chromosome transfer into mitotic mouse zygotes

Until now, animal cloning and the production of embryonic stem cell lines by somatic cell nuclear transfer have relied on introducing nuclei into meiotic oocytes. In contrast, attempts at somatic cell nuclear transfer into fertilized interphase zygotes have failed. As a result, it has generally been assumed that unfertilized human oocytes will be required for the generation of tailored human embryonic stem cell lines from patients by somatic cell nuclear transfer. Here we report, however, that, unlike interphase zygotes, mouse zygotes temporarily arrested in mitosis can support somatic cell reprogramming, the production of embryonic stem cell lines and the full-term development of cloned animals. Thus, human zygotes and perhaps human embryonic blastomeres may be useful supplements to human oocytes for the creation of patient-derived human embryonic stem cells.     

Extracellular but not intracellular application of peptide hormones activates pancreatic acinar cells.

Peptide hormones, like neurotransmitters, are traditionally thought to activate cells by interacting with receptor sites accessible only from the extracellular space. However, there is no available evidence that establishes whether intracellular injections of peptide secretagogues can or cannot initiate cell activation. In view of recent demonstration that peptide hormones can penetrate the intracellular space in some tissues and the reports that intracellular injections of the neurotransmitter, dopamine, into acinar cells of cockroach salivary gland cause stimulation it seems of fundamental importance to test directly whether introduction of peptide secretagogues inside acinar cells of mammalian exocrine tissue can induce cell activation without first interacting with the outer surface of the external cell membrane. The data presented here show that injections of the secretagogue peptides caerulein and bombesinnonapeptide (bombesin-NP) into pancreatic acinar cells fail to evoke the characteristic potential and conductance changes that are observed following extracellular applications of these peptides.     

A community effect in animal development

In animal development, the first tissues to be formed include such major components as muscle, nerve cord, notochord and the eye. In the vertebrates, all of these tissues are formed by embryonic induction, a process by which some of the cells within a mass of tissue are caused to change their direction of differentiation as a result of close proximity to cells of another kind. The induced cells typically form a solid coherent mass with a distinct border between them and the remaining uninduced cells. This clean separation between induced and uninduced cells is much sharper than can readily be explained as a result of the induction process. We describe here the culture of amphibian cell and tissue recombinations in solid gels containing cytochalasin in which cell division and cell movement is inhibited during response to induction. This has revealed an effect in which the ability of a cell to respond to induction by differentiating as muscle is enhanced by, or even dependent on, other neighbouring cells differentiating in the same way at the same time. This seems to be a newly described process in animal development, termed the community effect. It helps to explain the formation of blocks of tissue from sheets of cells, and could be of widespread occurrence and significance in morphogenesis resulting from embryonic induction.     

玉米叶片愈伤组织体细胞胚胎发生的细胞形态学观察

应用ＭＳ＋２．０ｍｇ．Ｌ＾－１，２，４－Ｄ＋０．５ｍｇ．Ｌ＾－１ＢＡ作为培养基，附加５００ｍｇ．Ｌ＾－１水解酪蛋白和ｗ＝３０％蔗糖、可以从玉米叶片愈 直接诱导出体细胞胚胎。观察表明，玉米胚性细胞同非胚性细胞差别显著。玉米幼叶体细胞胚胎可能起源于单细胞；发育早期的胚性细胞团与周围薄壁细胞存在着明显的界限，推测可能同体细胞胚胎发生初期的生理隔离有关，它随着胚胎发育而逐渐消失。