Light Regulation on Growth, Development, and Secondary Metabolism of Marine-Derived Filamentous Fungi.
Light regulation on growth, development, and secondary metabolism of marine-derived filamentous fungi.
Folia Microbiol (Praha). 2013 Apr 2;
Cai M, Fang Z, Niu C, Zhou X, Zhang Y
Effects of different light conditions on development, growth, and secondary metabolism of three marine-derived filamentous fungi were investigated. Darkness irritated sexual development of Aspergillus glaucus HB1-19, while white, red, and blue lights improved its asexual behavior. The red and blue lights improved asexual stroma formation of Xylaria sp. (no. 2508), but the darkness and white light inhibited it. Differently, development of Halorosellinia sp. (no. 1403) turned out to be insensitive to any tested light irradiation. Upon the experimental data, no regularity was observed linking development with secondary metabolism. However, fungal growth showed inversely correlation with productions of major bioactive compounds (aspergiolide A, 1403C, and xyloketal B) from various strains. The results indicated that aspergiolide A biosynthesis favored blue light illumination, while 1403C and xyloketal B preferred red light irradiation. With the favorite light sensing conditions, productions of aspergiolide A, 1403C, and xyloketal B were enhanced by 32.9, 21.9, and 30.8 % compared with those in the dark, respectively. The phylogenetic analysis comparing the light-responding proteins of A. glaucus HB 1-19 with those in other systems indicated that A. glaucus HB 1-19 was closely related to Aspergillus spp. especially A. nidulans in spite of its role of marine-derived fungus. It indicated that marine fungi might conserve its light response system when adapting the marine environment. This work also offers useful information for process optimization involving light regulation on growth and metabolism for drug candidate production from light-sensitive marine fungi. HubMed – drug
Microsatellite analysis of malaria parasites.
Methods Mol Biol. 2013; 1006: 247-58
Orjuela-Sánchez P, Brandi MC, Ferreira MU
Microsatellites have been increasingly used to investigate the population structure of malaria parasites, to map genetic loci contributing to phenotypes such as drug resistance and virulence in laboratory crosses and genome-wide association studies and to distinguish between treatment failures and new infections in clinical trials. Here, we provide optimized protocols for genotyping highly polymorphic microsatellites sampled from across the genomes of the human malaria parasites Plasmodium falciparum and P. vivax that have been extensively used in research laboratories worldwide. HubMed – drug
Time-lapse microscopy approaches to track cell cycle and lineage progression at the single-cell level.
Curr Protoc Cytom. 2013 Apr; Chapter 12: Unit12.4
Errington RJ, Chappell SC, Khan IA, Marquez N, Wiltshire M, Griesdoorn VD, Smith PJ
Time-lapse microscopy can be described as the repeated collection of an image (in n-dimensions; x, y, z, ?) or field of view from a microscope at discrete time intervals. The duration of the time interval defines the temporal resolution, which in turn characterizes the type of event detected. This unit describes the implementation of time-lapse microscopy to link initial cell cycle position during acute exposures to anti-cancer agents with anti-proliferative consequences for individual cells. The approach incorporates fundamental concepts arising from the ability to capture simple video sequences of cells from which it is possible to extract kinetic descriptors that reflect the interplay of mitosis and cell death in the growth of an unsynchronized tumor population. Utilizing a multi-well format enables the user to screen different drug derivatives, multiple dose ranges, or cell cultures with unique genetic backgrounds. The objective of this unit is to present the basic methodology for capturing time-lapse sequences and touch upon subsequent mining of the data for deriving event curves and possible cell lineage maps. Curr. Protoc. Cytom. 64:12.4.1-12.4.13. © 2013 by John Wiley & Sons, Inc. HubMed – drug
A Novel Knowledge Representation Framework for the Statistical Validation of Quantitative Imaging Biomarkers.
J Digit Imaging. 2013 Apr 2;
Buckler AJ, Paik D, Ouellette M, Danagoulian J, Wernsing G, Suzek BE
Quantitative imaging biomarkers are of particular interest in drug development for their potential to accelerate the drug development pipeline. The lack of consensus methods and carefully characterized performance hampers the widespread availability of these quantitative measures. A framework to support collaborative work on quantitative imaging biomarkers would entail advanced statistical techniques, the development of controlled vocabularies, and a service-oriented architecture for processing large image archives. Until now, this framework has not been developed. With the availability of tools for automatic ontology-based annotation of datasets, coupled with image archives, and a means for batch selection and processing of image and clinical data, imaging will go through a similar increase in capability analogous to what advanced genetic profiling techniques have brought to molecular biology. We report on our current progress on developing an informatics infrastructure to store, query, and retrieve imaging biomarker data across a wide range of resources in a semantically meaningful way that facilitates the collaborative development and validation of potential imaging biomarkers by many stakeholders. Specifically, we describe the semantic components of our system, QI-Bench, that are used to specify and support experimental activities for statistical validation in quantitative imaging. HubMed – drug