Journal of Cell and Molecular Research
Volume:10 Issue: 1, Summer and Autumn 2018

The immunomodulation ability of mesenchymal stem cells (MSCs) has attracted interest as a unique property that makes them interesting tools for the treatment of inflammatory and autoimmune diseases. Eugenol is a volatile compound from the phenylpropanoids class of chemical compounds. Despite extensive investigations on the biological and pharmacological properties of Eugenol, its effect on the MSCs characteristics remains to be clarified. Therefore, this study was designed to evaluate the effect of Eugenol on the expression of genes (Tlr3, Tlr4, Ccl2, and Ccl3) involved in immunomodulation potency of MSCs by quantitative real-time PCR (qRT-PCR). To do so, MSCs were isolated from 4-8 weeks old mouse bone marrow (BM). The effect of Eugenol on the viability of BM-MSCs was evaluated by MTT assay at 24, 48, and 72h after treatment. The results showed that Eugenol reduced the number of BM-MSCs in a dose- and time-dependent manner. In addition, the half maximum inhibitory concentration of Eugenol on MSCs was 400μg/ml at 24 and 48h and 200μg/ml at 72h after treatment. Moreover, about 90% of MSCs were alive at the concentration of 12.5μg/ml 24h after treatment. The qRT-PCR results indicated that Tlr3, Tlr4, Ccl2, and Ccl3 genes up-regulated 1.6-, 1.8-, 1.3-, 2.2-fold, respectively, in Eugenol-treated BM-MSCs compared to untreated controls. In conclusion, we declare that Eugenol may somewhat regulate the immunomodulation potency of MSCs and this study provides a background for further studies on the effect of Eugenol on MSCs characteristics and functions, which may finally improve their potency for cell-based therapy applications

Osteoarthritis (OA) is the single most prevalent disorder in older adults having a predicted value of 130 million patients in 2050. Several clinical chemotherapeutic approaches are being applied to treat early or late osteoarthritis. It has been recommended that autologous mesenchymal stem cells (MSCs) from OA patients could be the gold standard to treat OA as these cells have high proliferation and chondrocyte lineage differentiation potential. In this work, human MSCs, derived from adipose tissue (Ad-MSCs), loaded on Polyurethane/Hydroxyapatite (PUHA) and Demineralized Bone Matrix (DBM) and their proliferation, differentiation capabilities were determined by MTT assay and Alizarin Red S staining and the expression of mRNA into osteoblast lineage were determined using Real Time PCR . The result showed that MSCs were more viable on PUHA when compared with DBM and the expression of lineage specific markers showed that differentiation potential of PUHA and DBM was not much different. The osteoblast lineage cells were stained positively with Alizarin Red S in completely similar in both groups. Electron microscopy analysis indicated attachment of Ad-MSCs when cultured on the PUHA and DBM. It was concluded that PUHA can be used in clinics as Osteo-inductive scaffold to treat OA easily, however further investigations are required before moving to clinical studies.

Co-expression analysis is a useful tool to analysis data and detection of genes that act in the same pathway or biological process. Echinacea purpurea is one of the most important medicinal plant of the Asteraceae family that is known as antioxidative and antiviral agent. Despite medicinal importance of E. purpurea, very few reports are available for metabolic mechanisms in this plant. With the aim to elucidate the gene expression profiling and identification of modules in E. purpurea, we performed a systems biology analysis on publicly available transcriptome data. Gene ontology and KEGG pathway enrichment analysis revealed that the unigenes were highly related to the cellular process, primary metabolic process, carbon metabolism and biosynthesis of antibiotics. The co-expression networks divided genes into multiple modules. Of these, module M2 associated with secondary metabolic process. Moreover, a total of 47 transcription factor families such as bHLH, bZIP, C2H2, MYB and WRKY in modules were identified. These findings can provide an overall picture for better understanding the gene expression patterns and common transcriptional mechanisms in E. purpurea.

Staphylococcus aureus is a common pathogen potentially able to cause a wide range of infectious diseases in human and animals and coagulase enzyme is one of the important virulence factors of this bacterium. Polymorphism of the coagulase encoding gene (coa) is one of the molecular-based typing methods of S. aureus isolates. In this study, the polymorphism of the coagulase gene among MRSA and MSSA isolates were investigated using PCR-RFLP analysis. To perform coagulase gene typing, the repeated units encoding hypervariable regions of coagulase gene of 30 clinical isolates of S. aureus were amplified by the PCR technique; this was followed by AluI restriction enzyme digestion and analysis of restriction fragment length polymorphism (RFLP) patterns. In total two amplicons (680 bp and 750 bp) and four distinct RFLP banding patterns (280+400, 340+340, 280+470, and no digested amplicon of 750 bp) were observed. Genotype with PCR-RFLP patterns of 280+400 bp was predominated. The results indicated polymorphism in the investigated regions of coagulase gene. This polymorphism can be used for identification of S. aureus isolates and showing the epidemiological relationship among them.

The influence of ZnSO4, FeSO4, ZnO, and Fe2O3 at 80 µM on the expression of desaturase genes and fatty acid composition of Pleurotus ostreatus was investigated. Fatty acid was extracted by lipid extraction and methylation procedure using acidic methanol: normal saline: hexane solution followed by gas chromatography-mass spectrometry (GC-MS). The most prominent fatty acids in P. ostreatus were linoleic acid (44.7%), palmitic acid (8.6%), oleic acid (8.5%), stearic acid (2.9%), pentadecanoic acid (2.6%) and heptadecanoic acid (2.3%). ZnO strongly and Fe2O3 slightly lead a decrease in unsaturated fatty acid (UFA), polyunsaturated fatty acid (PUFA) and omega-6 and an increase in the monounsaturated fatty acid (MUFA), omega-7 and omega-9 content. Accordingly, our results considerably confirmed the different effects of ZnSO4 and ZnO on fatty acid content. These differential effects for FeSO4 and Fe2O3 were not significant. Δ9-desaturase and Δ12-desaturase expression but not Δ15-desaturase were upregulated in the seeds cultured in media containing ZnO and Fe2O3.

MicroRNAs (miRNAs) are 20-24 nucleotide small RNAs which are processed from nuclear-encoded transcripts. miRNAs control the expression of target transcripts by cleaving or translational inhibition of the target RNAs. Artificial microRNAs (amiRNAs) are modified endogenous miRNA precursors in which the miRNA: miRNA duplex is replaced with sequences to silence a target gene. amiRNAs are used as new transformation techniques in eukaryotes and have been proven to be more effective in specificity and stability than other RNA-mediated gene silencing methods. amiRNA-based antiviral defense is an effective and new approach to engineer resistance to plant viruses. Here, we summarize the role of miRNAs in resistance to plant viruses.

Human activin A is a member of the transforming growth factor-β superfamily consists of two similar beta subunits. Activin A is expressed by different cells and displays numerous biological activities such as control of neuronal cell proliferation and differentiation, promotion of neuronal survival in the body. Therefore, recombinant production of activin A is beneficial because it can be used to treat many neurodegenerative diseases such as Alzheimer's and Parkinson diseases. In this study E. coli as a cheap and fast-growing host was selected to produce recombinant human activin A. As cytoplasmic expression of human activin A with complex structure and disulfide bonds produces inclusion bodies, so periplasmic expression of it can be beneficial. Therefore, we used modified Iranian B. licheniformis α-amylase signal peptide as a new signal peptide in order to translocate the recombinant activin A through the inner membrane. In this study human pro-activin A cDNA and signal sequence were cloned in pET21b vector and resulting vector transformed into the two strains of E. coli BL21. SDS-PAGE and western blot techniques were used to confirm recombinant activin A expression. Finally, our results indicated that the signal peptide used in this study was effective for secretion of activin A into the periplasmic space of E. coli.