Search Results
You are looking at 1 - 4 of 4 items for :
- Author or Editor: Hong Li x
- Biology and Life Sciences x
- Refine by Access: All Content x
C-reactive protein (CRP) is an established marker of inflammation and has been proposed to play a proinflammatory role in pathologies of several diseases. CRP is primarily produced by the liver and released into circulation as a pentameric molecule composed of five identical subunits. It has been suggested that the activation of the proinflammatory actions of CRP requires sequential conformational changes triggered by local inflammatory conditions. These include the dissociation into the subunit form (monomeric CRP, mCRP) and further reduction of the intra-subunit disulfide bond of mCRP. This model predicts that mCRP is the primary isoform present in inflamed but not healthy tissues, however the supporting evidence is lacking. Herein, we stained tissue samples across multiple anatomical locations from several types of human diseases with highly selective monoclonal antibodies that can differentiate CRP and mCRP. The results indicated that mCRP is the predominant form existing in the lesions. Further immunoblotting of the patient tissue samples revealed the potential presence of reduced mCRP. Together, we conclude that mCRP but not CRP is the major isoform present in local inflammatory lesions, supporting the so-called cascading model of CRP function and regulation.
Trifolium repens Linn (white clover) is the main host of several economically important thrips species in Yunnan Province, in China. The diversity and relative abundance of thrips found on white clover were surveyed weekly via destructive collections from May 2009–May 2010 in Kunming. The 1786 thrips adults were collected and prepared on slides, eight thrips species were identified. The predominant species was western flower thrips (Frankliniella occidentalis), then followed by Megalurothrips distalis, Thrips flavus, Frankliniella intonsa, Thrips palmi, Thrips hawaiiensis, Thrips tabaci and Megalurothrips usitatus. The largest variation in abundance occurred in Mid-Autumn and late Winter, with Thrips flavus dominant at Mid-Autumn and Megalurothrips distalis dominant at late Winter. The correlativity results showed that the population of western flower thrips was significantly negatively correlated to the population of M. distalis (P<0.01), and no significant correlation was found between the population of western flower thrips and the other thrips (P>0.05) in Summer of 2009. In Spring of 2010, the population of western flower thrips was negatively correlated to the population of M. distalis (P<0.05), and it was no significant correlated to the population of the others thrips (P>0.05). However, no significant correlation was found between the population of western flower thrips and the others thrips (P>0.05) in both autumn and winter of 2009.
The mechanism of the fact that Mn deficiency damages the photosynthesis of plants is not yet fully understood. The main aim of the study was to determine Mn deficiency effects in photophosphorylation and key enzymes of CO 2 assimilation of maize. Maize plants were cultivated in Hoagland’s solution. They were subjected to Mn deficiency and to Mn administered in the Mn-deficient Hoagland’s media. The results showed that Mn deficiency was found to cause extensive declines in plant weight and chlorophyll a content, electron transport and oxygen-evolving rate, photophosphorylation rate, activities of Mg 2+ -ATPase, Ca 2+ -ATPase, Rubisco and Rubisco activase, and mRNA expressions of Rubisco and Rubisco activase of maize, but it only slightly affected chlorophyll b and carotenoid formation. However, Mn addition decreased the inhibition of the photosynthesis in maize caused by Mn deficiency.
The housefly is an important resource insect and the housefly larvae are ideal source of food additives. The housefly larvae protein hydrolysates were obtained by enzymatic hydrolysis by alcalase and neutral proteinase. Their antioxidant activities were investigated, including the superoxide and hydroxyl radicalscavenging activity, 1,1-diphenyl-2-picrylhydrazyl (DPPH) scavenging activity, reducing power and metal chelating activity. The antioxidant activities of both hydrolysates increased with their increasing concentrations. The alcalase hydrolysate (AH) showed higher scavenging activities against hydroxyl radical and superoxide anion radical at low concentrations and higher metal-chelating activity than the neutral proteinase hydrolysate (NPH). The NPH exhibited higher scavenging activity against DPPH free radical and higher reducing power than the AH. Both hydrolysates showed more than 50% superoxide anion radical-scavenging activity at 10 μg/mL. These results indicate that both housefly larvae protein hydrolysates display high antioxidant activities and they could serve as potential natural antioxidant food additives.