Klíšťata sají obrovské množství krve, která je jejich jediným zdrojem živin a energie. Přesný enzymatický mechanismus zpracování krve ve střevě klíšťat však kupodivu nebyl donedávna vůbec znám. Náš komplexní molekulární model trávení hostitelského hemoglobinu u klíštěte obecného (Ixodes ricinus) poprvé odhalil analogii enzymatického aparátu s krevsajícími ploštěnci a hlísticemi, a zároveň tato znalost představuje zásadní poznatek pro účinný boj s klíšťaty a jimi přenášenými patogeny., Ticks (in this case Ixodidae and Argasidae) feed on enormous amounts of host blood, which provides their ultimate source of energy and nutrients. There has been only limited evidence on the exact molecular mechanisms of blood digestion in ticks. For the first time, our complex enzymatic model of proteolytic digestion in the Common Tick (Ixodes ricinus) reveals the analogy of tick intestinal proteolysis with bloodfeeding platyhelminthes and nematodes and presents a future application potential in tick or tick-borne pathogen interventions., and Daniel Sojka.
Za posledních několik let byla publikována řada významných archeogenetických studií týkajících se datování a geografické lokalizace posledního společného předka lidského chromozomu Y. Je to dáno dramatickým rozvojem molekulárně biologických technik, díky nimž je dnes možné přečíst daleko větší objem dat, než tomu bylo dříve. Dozvěděli jsme se, že „Y chromozomový Adam“ bude asi nakonec starší než „mitochondriální Eva“ a že jeho synové prodělali mnohem bouřlivější demografický vývoj než dcery Eviny., Several important archaeogenetic studies dealing with age estimates and the geographical locations of the last common ancestor of our Y chromosome have been published over the past few years. This is due to the dramatic development of molecular biological techniques, which made it possible to read a much larger amount of data than was possible before. We learned that the "Y chromosome Adam" might be even older than "mitochondrial Eve" and that his sons went through a much more complex demographic history than Eve’s daughters., and Viktor Černý.
Genomy eukaryotických organismů se nesmírně liší svou velikostí, kdy dosahují až 66tisícinásobného rozdílu. Největší v současnosti známý genom byl nalezen u vraního oka japonského (Paris japonica), nápadné byliny z Japonska. Množství jaderné DNA u tohoto druhu bylo odhadnuto na 153,32 pg, jeho genetický kód je tak 50krát delší než ten lidský., Genomes of eukaryotic organisms vary tremendously in size, spanning an approximately 66,000-fold range. Recently the largest genome has been discovered in Paris japonica, a striking plant native to Japan. The amount of nuclear DNA was estimated at 153.32 pg, making the genetic code 50 times longer than that of a human being., and Jan Suda.
The endothelium of different organs displays a remarkable heterogeneity, although it presents many common functional and morphological features. However, despite our knowledge of heterogeneity among endothelial cells from different sites, the differences between brain microvascular endothelial cells (BMEC) and coronary microvascular endothelial cells (CMEC) are poorly defined. The aim of this study was to investigate whether BMEC are distinct from CMEC at the protein level. Using the proteomic approach, we comparatively analyzed the proteome of cultured BMEC and CMEC. We reproducibly separated over 2000 polypeptides by using two-dimensional electrophoresis (2-DE) at pH range of 3-10. Using PDQuest software to process the 2-DE gel images, forty-seven protein spots were differentially expressed in the two-endothelial cells. Of these, thirty-five proteins are highly expressed in BMEC, whereas twelve proteins are highly expressed in CMEC. Fifteen proteins in BMEC and seven proteins in CMEC were identified with high confidence by matrix-associated laser desorption ionization time-of-flight mass spectrometer (MALDI-TOF-MS). Our data suggested that BMEC and CMEC were different in several aspects including cytokine and growth-related molecules, stress-related proteins, metabolic enzymes, signal transduction proteins and others. The identification of a set of proteins preferentially expressed in BMEC and CMEC provided new data on the heterogeneity of the endothelium., L. Lu, P.-Y. Yang, Y.-Ch. Rui, H. Kang, J. Zhang, J.-P. Zhang, W.-H. Feng., and Obsahuje bibliografii a bibliografické odkazy
An important mechanism underlying cochlear hair cell (HC) susceptibility to hypoxia/ischemia is the influx of Ca2+. Two main ATP-dependent mechanisms contribute to maintaining low Ca2+ levels: uptake of Ca2+ into intracellular stores via smooth endoplasmic reticulum calcium ATPase (SERCA) and extrusion of Ca2+ via plasma membrane calcium ATPase (PMCA). The effects of the SERCA inhibitors thapsigargin (10 nM-10 μM) and cyclopiazonic acid (CPA; 10-50 μM) and of the PMCA blockers eosin (1.5-10 μM) and o-vanadate (1-5 mM) on inner and outer hair cells (IHCs/OHCs) were examined in normoxia and ischemia using an in vitro model of the newborn rat cochlea. Exposure of the cultures to ischemia resulted in a significant loss of HCs. Thapsigargin and CPA had no effect. Eosin decreased the numbers of IHCs and OHCs by up to 25 % in normoxia and significantly aggravated the ischemia-induced damage to IHCs at 5 and 10 μM and to OHCs at 10 μM. o-Vanadate had no effect on IHC and OHC counts in normoxia, but aggravated the ischemia-induced HC loss in a dose-dependent manner. The effects of eosin and o-vanadate indicate that PMCA has an important role to play in protecting the HCs from ischemic cell death., N. Amarjargal, B. Mazurek, H. Haupt, N. Andeeva, J. Fuchs, J. Gross., and Obsahuje bibliografii a bibliografické odkazy
Plant virology department of the Institute of Plant Molecular Biology, Biology Centre of the Czech Academy of Sciences, is successful in description and sequencing of mycoviruses and plant viruses, recently. Most of the newly described viruses have unique genome organization and did not induce disease symptoms in their plant of fungal hosts, respectively. By contrast, some mycoviruses debilitate their hosts and are promising as tools for biological control of harmful fungi. and Karel Petrzik, Ondřej Lenz.
The aim of the present study was to define the stress-induced pattern of cytosolic glucocorticoid receptor (GR) and Hsp70 protein in the liver of male Wistar rats exposed to different stress models: acute (2 h/day) immobilization or cold (4 °C); chronic (21 days) isolation, crowding, swimming or isolation plus swimming and combined (chronic plus acute stress). Changes in plasma levels of corticosterone were studied by radioimmunoassay (RIA). The results obtained by Western immunoblotting showed that both acute stressors led to a significant decrease in cytosolic GR and Hsp70 levels. Compared to acute stress effects, only a weak decrease in the levels of GR and Hsp70 was demonstrated in chronic stress models. Chronically stressed rats, which were subsequently exposed to novel acute stressors (immobilization or cold), showed a lower extent of GR down-regulation when compared to acute stress. The exception was swimming, which partially restores this down-regulation. The observed changes in the levels of these major stress-related cellular proteins in liver cytosol lead to the conclusion that chronic stressors compromise intracellular GR down-regulation in the liver., D. Filipović, L. Gavrilović, S. Dronjak, M. Demajo, M. B. Radojčić., and Obsahuje bibliografii a bibliografické odkazy