技术资料

BACKGROUND: Human cord blood (hCB) is the main source of hematopoietic stem and progenitor cells (HSCs/PCs) for transplantation. Efforts to overcome relative shortages of HSCs/PCs have led to technologies to expand HSCs/PCs ex vivo. However,methods suitable for clinical practice have yet to be fully established. METHODOLOGY/PRINCIPAL FINDINGS: In this study,we screened biologically active natural products for activity to promote expansion of hCB HSCs/PCs ex vivo,and identified Garcinol,a plant-derived histone acetyltransferase (HAT) inhibitor,as a novel stimulator of hCB HSC/PC expansion. During a 7-day culture of CD34(+)CD38(-) HSCs supplemented with stem cell factor and thrombopoietin,Garcinol increased numbers of CD34(+)CD38(-) HSCs/PCs more than 4.5-fold and Isogarcinol,a derivative of Garcinol,7.4-fold. Furthermore,during a 7-day culture of CD34(+) HSCs/PCs,Garcinol expanded the number of SCID-repopulating cells (SRCs) 2.5-fold. We also demonstrated that the capacity of Garcinol and its derivatives to expand HSCs/PCs was closely correlated with their inhibitory effect on HAT. The Garcinol derivatives which expanded HSCs/PCs inhibited the HAT activity and acetylation of histones,while inactive derivatives did not. CONCLUSIONS/SIGNIFICANCE: Our findings identify Garcinol as the first natural product acting on HSCs/PCs and suggest the inhibition of HAT to be an alternative approach for manipulating HSCs/PCs. View Publication

Many human diseases share a developmental origin that manifests during childhood or maturity. Aneuploid syndromes are caused by supernumerary or reduced number of chromosomes and represent an extreme example of developmental disease,as they have devastating consequences before and after birth. Investigating how alterations in gene dosage drive these conditions is relevant because it might help treat some clinical aspects. It may also provide explanations as to how quantitative differences in gene expression determine phenotypic diversity and disease susceptibility among natural populations. Here,we aimed to produce induced pluripotent stem cell (iPSC) lines that can be used to improve our understanding of aneuploid syndromes. We have generated iPSCs from monosomy X [Turner syndrome (TS)],trisomy 8 (Warkany syndrome 2),trisomy 13 (Patau syndrome) and partial trisomy 11;22 (Emanuel syndrome),using either skin fibroblasts from affected individuals or amniocytes from antenatal diagnostic tests. These cell lines stably maintain the karyotype of the donors and behave like embryonic stem cells in all tested assays. TS iPSCs were used for further studies including global gene expression analysis and tissue-specific directed differentiation. Multiple clones displayed lower levels of the pseudoautosomal genes ASMTL and PPP2R3B than the controls. Moreover,they could be transformed into neural-like,hepatocyte-like and heart-like cells,but displayed insufficient up-regulation of the pseudoautosomal placental gene CSF2RA during embryoid body formation. These data support that abnormal organogenesis and early lethality in TS are not caused by a tissue-specific differentiation blockade,but rather involves other abnormalities including impaired placentation. View Publication

Chylomicron remnants (CMRs) contribute directly to human monocyte activation in vitro,by increasing reactive oxygen species (ROS) production and cell migration. In this study,the effects of the oxidative state of CMR on the degree of monocyte activation was investigated. CMR-like particles (CRLPs) were prepared in three different oxidative states,normal (CRLPs),protected from oxidation by incorporation of the antioxidant,probucol (pCRLPs),or oxidised with CuSO(4) (oxCRLPs). Lipid accumulation and ROS production were significantly increased in primary human monocytes incubated with CRLPs,whilst secretion on monocyte chemoattractant protein-1 was reduced,but oxCRLPs had no additional effect. In contrast,pCRLPs were taken up by monocytes to a lesser extent and had no significant effect on ROS or MCP-1 secretion. These studies suggest that the oxidative state of CMRs modulates their stimulation of the activation of peripheral blood human monocytes and that dietary antioxidants may provide some protection against these atherogenic effects. View Publication

Schizophrenia has been defined as a neurodevelopmental disease that causes changes in the process of thoughts,perceptions,and emotions,usually leading to a mental deterioration and affective blunting. Studies have shown altered cell respiration and oxidative stress response in schizophrenia; however,most of the knowledge has been acquired from postmortem brain analyses or from nonneural cells. Here we describe that neural cells,derived from induced pluripotent stem cells generated from skin fibroblasts of a schizophrenic patient,presented a twofold increase in extramitochondrial oxygen consumption as well as elevated levels of reactive oxygen species (ROS),when compared to controls. This difference in ROS levels was reverted by the mood stabilizer valproic acid. Our model shows evidence that metabolic changes occurring during neurogenesis are associated with schizophrenia,contributing to a better understanding of the development of the disease and highlighting potential targets for treatment and drug screening. View Publication

Classic derivation of mouse embryonic stem (ES) cells from blastocysts is inefficient,strain-dependent,and requires expert skills. Over recent years,several major improvements have greatly increased the success rate for deriving mouse ES cell lines. The first improvement was the establishment of a user-friendly and reproducible medium-alternating protocol that allows isolation of ES cells from C57BL/6 transgenic mice with efficiencies of up to 75%. A recent report describes the use of this protocol in combination with leukemia inhibitory factor and pluripotin treatment,which made it possible to obtain ES cells from F1 strains with high efficiency. We report modifications of these protocols for user-friendly and reproducible derivation of mouse ES cells with efficiencies of up to 100%. Our protocol involves a long initial incubation of primary outgrowths from blastocysts with pluripotin,which results in the formation of large spherical outgrowths. These outgrowths are morphologically distinct from classical inner cell mass (ICM) outgrowths and can be easily picked and trypsinized. Pluripotin was omitted after the first trypsinization because we found that it blocks attachment of ES cells to the feeder layer and its removal facilitated formation of ES cell colonies. The newly established ES cells exhibited normal karyotypes and generated chimeras. In summary,our user-friendly modified protocol allows formation of large spherical ICM outgrowths in a robust and reliable manner. These outgrowths gave rise to ES cell lines with success rates of up to 100%. View Publication

Glucocorticoids are used for treating preterm neonatal infants suffering from life-threatening lung,airway,and cardiovascular conditions. However,several studies have raised concerns about detrimental effects of postnatal glucocorticoid administration on the developing brain leading to cognitive impairment,cerebral palsy,and hypoplasia of the cerebellum,a brain region critical for coordination of movement and higher-order neurological functions. Previously,we showed that glucocorticoids inhibit Sonic hedgehog-Smoothened (Shh-Smo) signaling,the major mitogenic pathway for cerebellar granule neuron precursors. Conversely,activation of Shh-Smo in transgenic mice protects against glucocorticoid-induced neurotoxic effects through induction of the 11β-hydroxysteroid dehydrogenase type 2 (11β-HSD2) pathway. Here,we show that systemic administration of a small-molecule agonist of the Shh-Smo pathway (SAG) prevented the neurotoxic effects of glucocorticoids. SAG did not interfere with the beneficial effects of glucocorticoids on lung maturation,and despite the known associations of the Shh pathway with neoplasia,we found that transient (1-week-long) SAG treatment of neonatal animals was well tolerated and did not promote tumor formation. These findings suggest that a small-molecule agonist of Smo has potential as a neuroprotective agent in neonates at risk for glucocorticoid-induced neonatal cerebellar injury. View Publication

This chapter presents an overview of the current status of studies on the structural and molecular biology of the retinoid X receptor subtypes α,β,and γ (RXRs,NR2B1-3),their nuclear and cytoplasmic functions,post-transcriptional processing,and recently reported ligands. Points of interest are the different changes in the ligand-binding pocket induced by variously shaped agonists,the communication of the ligand-bound pocket with the coactivator binding surface and the heterodimerization interface,and recently identified ligands that are natural products,those that function as environmental toxins or drugs that had been originally designed to interact with other targets,as well as those that were deliberately designed as RXR-selective transcriptional agonists,synergists,or antagonists. Of these synthetic ligands,the general trend in design appears to be away from fully aromatic rigid structures to those containing partial elements of the flexible tetraene side chain of 9-cis-retinoic acid. This article is part of a Special Issue entitled Advances in High Density Lipoprotein Formation and Metabolism: A Tribute to John F. Oram (1945-2010). View Publication

Human embryonic stem cells (hESCs) can be maintained as undifferentiated cells in vitro and induced to differentiate into a variety of somatic cell types. Thus,hESCs provide a source of differentiated cell types that could be used to replace diseased cells of a tissue. The efficient cryopreservation of hESCs is important for establishing effective stem cell banks,however,conventional slow freezing methods usually lead to low rates of recovery after thawing cells and their replating in culture. We have established a method for recovering cryopreserved hESCs using pinacidil and compared it to a method that employs the ROCK inhibitor Y-27632. We show that pinacidil is similar to Y-27632 in promoting survival of hESCs after cryopreservation. The cells exhibited normal hESC morphology,retained a normal karyotype,and expressed characteristic hESC markers (OCT4,SSEA3,SSEA4 and TRA-1-60). Moreover,the cells retained the capacity to differentiate into derivatives of all three embryonic germ layers as demonstrated by differentiation through embryoid body formation. Pinacidil has been used for many years as a vasodilator drug to treat hypertension and its manufacture and traceability are well defined. It is also considerably cheaper than Y-27632. Thus,the use of pinacidil offers an efficient method for recovery of cryopreserved dissociated human ES cells. View Publication

The 26S proteasome,a multicatalytic enzyme complex,is the main intracellular proteolytic system involved in the degradation of ubiquitinated proteins. The ability of proteasome inhibitors to induce apoptosis has been exploited in the recent development of chemotherapeutic agents. Here,we show that inhibition of proteasome by MG132 blocks DNA damage-induced apoptosis. Blockage of apoptosis by MG132 correlates with p53 stabilization and upregulation of p21/WAF1,a p53 transcriptional target. Surprisingly,in the absence of MG132,robust apoptosis induced by a high dose of UV irradiation correlate with rapid p53 degradation. This is in sharp contrast to p53 stabilization when cells were exposed to lower levels of UV irradiation. Our findings highlight a scenario in which severe UV damage can induce rapid p53 degradation by the proteasome. Importantly,these data suggest that the 26S proteasome plays a key role in promoting apoptosis induced by high doses of UV irradiation. View Publication

We tested the interaction of 72 kinase inhibitors with 442 kinases covering textgreater80% of the human catalytic protein kinome. Our data show that,as a class,type II inhibitors are more selective than type I inhibitors,but that there are important exceptions to this trend. The data further illustrate that selective inhibitors have been developed against the majority of kinases targeted by the compounds tested. Analysis of the interaction patterns reveals a class of 'group-selective' inhibitors broadly active against a single subfamily of kinases,but selective outside that subfamily. The data set suggests compounds to use as tools to study kinases for which no dedicated inhibitors exist. It also provides a foundation for further exploring kinase inhibitor biology and toxicity,as well as for studying the structural basis of the observed interaction patterns. Our findings will help to realize the direct enabling potential of genomics for drug development and basic research about cellular signaling. View Publication

The recent development of porcine induced pluripotent stem cells (piPSCs) capable of generating chimeric animals,a feat not previously accomplished with embryonic stem cells or iPSCs in a species outside of rodents,has opened the doors for in-depth study of iPSC tumorigenicity,autologous transplantation,and other key aspects to safely move iPSC therapies to the clinic. The study of iPSC tumorigenicity is critical as previous research in the mouse showed that iPSC-derived chimeras possessed large numbers of tumors,rising significant concerns about the safety of iPSC therapies. Additionally,piPSCs capable of generating germline chimeras could revolutionize the transgenic animal field by enabling complex genetic manipulations (e.g.,knockout or knockin of genes) to produce biomedically important large animal models or improve livestock production. In this study,we demonstrate for the first time in a nonrodent species germline transmission of iPSCs with the live birth of a transgenic piglet that possessed genome integration of the human POU5F1 and NANOG genes. In addition,gross and histological examination of necropsied porcine chimeras at 2,7,and 9 months showed that these animals lacked tumor formation and demonstrated normal development. Tissue samples positive for human POU5F1 DNA showed no C-MYC gene expression,further implicating C-MYC as a cause of tumorigenicity. The development of germline-competent porcine iPSCs that do not produce tumors in young chimeric animals presents an attractive and powerful translational model to study the efficacy and safety of stem cell therapies and perhaps to efficiently produce complex transgenic animals. View Publication

Human induced pluripotent stem (hiPS) cells have potential uses for drug discovery and cell therapy,including generation of pancreatic β-cells for diabetes research and treatment. In this study,we developed a simple protocol for generating insulin-producing cells from hiPS cells. Treatment with activin A and a GSK3β inhibitor enhanced efficient endodermal differentiation,and then combined treatment with retinoic acid,a bone morphogenic protein inhibitor,and a transforming growth factor-β (TGF-β) inhibitor induced efficient differentiation of pancreatic progenitor cells from definitive endoderm. Expression of the pancreatic progenitor markers PDX1 and NGN3 was significantly increased at this step and most cells were positive for anti-PDX1 antibody. Moreover,several compounds,including forskolin,dexamethasone,and a TGF-β inhibitor,were found to induce the differentiation of insulin-producing cells from pancreatic progenitor cells. By combined treatment with these compounds,more than 10% of the cells became insulin positive. The differentiated cells secreted human c-peptide in response to various insulin secretagogues. In addition,all five hiPS cell lines that we examined showed efficient differentiation into insulin-producing cells with this protocol. View Publication