PubMed Health⌕ Search

Biomedical subjects

Hui Kang

Publications and source records attributed to Hui Kang.

9 recordsLinked to original sources
PubMed2006

Oridonin, a diterpenoid extracted from medicinal herbs, targets AML1-ETO fusion protein and shows potent antitumor activity with low adverse effects on t(8;21) leukemia in vitro and in vivo.

Studies have documented the potential antitumor activities of oridonin, a compound extracted from medicinal herbs. However, whether oridonin can be used in the selected setting of hematology/oncology remains obscure. Here, we reported that oridonin induced apoptosis of t(8;21) acute myeloid leukemic (AML) cells. Intriguingly, the t(8;21) product AML1-ETO (AE) fusion protein, which plays a critical role in leukemogenesis, was degraded with generation of a catabolic fragment, while the expression pattern of AE target genes investigated could be reprogrammed. The ectopic expression of AE enhanced the apoptotic effect of oridonin in U937 cells. Preincubation with caspase inhibitors blocked oridonin-triggered cleavage of AE, while substitution of Ala for Asp at residues 188 in ETO moiety of the fusion abrogated AE degradation. Furthermore, oridonin prolonged lifespan of C57 mice bearing truncated AE-expressing leukemic cells without suppression of bone marrow or reduction of body weight of animals, and exerted synergic effects while combined with cytosine arabinoside. Oridonin also inhibited tumor growth in nude mice inoculated with t(8;21)-harboring Kasumi-1 cells. These results suggest that oridonin may be a potential antileukemia agent that targets AE oncoprotein at residue D188 with low adverse effect, and may be helpful for the treatment of patients with t(8;21) AML.

Animals↗
PubMed2006

Genome-wide analysis of the MADS-box gene family in Populus trichocarpa.

Populus trichocarpa (poplar) is distinguished from its herbaceous counterparts Arabidopsis and rice by its woody structure, perennial life cycle, and dioecious, two-whorled flowers. MADS-box genes are known to be involved in many important processes during plant development. Investigation of the poplar genome revealed 105 putative functional MADS-box genes and 12 pseudogenes. These numbers are comparable to those in Arabidopsis. However, poplar has 64 type II MADS-box genes, implying a higher birth rate when compared with Arabidopsis (64 vs.47). In addition to duplications for floral organ identity genes, TM3-like, StMADS11, ANR1 and Bs clades were significantly increased. As indicated by the phylogenetic analysis, there exist at least two MIKC* MADS-box genes in the poplar genome. In contrast, only 41 putative functional type I genes and 9 pseudogenes were found, suggesting that the poplar type I MADS-box genes have experienced a lower rate in both birth and death. Poplar MADS-box genes were distributed on all linkage groups (LGs), except LG XIX. Like other gene families, poplar MADS-box gene family has expanded through tandem gene duplication and segmental duplication events as demonstrated by two genomic regions where clustered MADS-box genes exhibited high similarities in the MADS-box domains. A survey of poplar EST sequences showed that MADS-box genes were expressed in wood and cambium tissues, which are specific to woody plants. The expression of common MADS-box gene in tree-specific tissues suggests that the novel function combinations of a set of genes similar to those in herbaceous plants may account for the development of woody characteristics in poplar.

Arabidopsis↗
PubMed2006

Different expressions of Nogo-B1 and Nogo-B2 in mouse heart microvascular endothelial cell dysfunction induced by lysophosphatidylcholine.

To investigate Nogo-B expression changes in mouse heart microvascular endothelial H5V cell line induced by lysophosphatidylcholine. Cells were incubated with different concentrations of lysoPC for the same incubation time and with 10 micromol/l lysoPC at different incubation times. Protein and mRNA expression levels of Nogo-B1 and Nogo-B2 were measured with Western blotting and semiquantitative RT-PCR, respectively. Nogo-B1 protein was detected in normal H5V cells by Western blotting. When H5V cells were incubated with lysoPC, Nogo-B1 protein level decreased, and the lowest point fell to 20% of the original level induced by 20 micromol/l lysoPC for 24 h. Incubation of H5V cells with lysoPC of different concentrations or at different time points caused little change in Nogo-B1 mRNA expression level, except for a 50% decrease in 20 micromol/l lysoPC at 24 h, while a transient change was observed in Nogo-B2 mRNA level. These results demonstrate that Nogo-B1 protein expression could be down-regulated with increasing concentrations of lysoPC and lapse of incubation time, though no mRNA transcription down-regulation occurred. However, mRNA expression level of Nogo-B2 showed a transient up-regulation induced by lysoPC. We conclude that the two subtypes of Nogo-B may play different roles in the endothelial cell injury process.

Animals↗
PubMed2005

Reduction of atherosclerosis in cholesterol-fed rabbits and decrease of expressions of intracellular adhesion molecule-1 and vascular endothelial growth factor in foam cells by a water-soluble fraction of Polygonum multiflorum.

Polygonum multiflorum stilbeneglycoside (PMS) is a water-soluble fraction of Polygonum multiflorum Thunb., one of the most famous tonic traditional Chinese medicines, that has protective effects on the cardiovascular system. The purpose of the present study is to elucidate the effects of PMS on macrophage-derived foam cell functions and the reduction of severity of atherosclerosis in hypercholesterolemic New Zealand White (NZW) rabbits. NZW rabbits were fed for 12 weeks with a normal diet, a high cholesterol diet, or a high cholesterol diet associated with irrigation with different doses of PMS (25, 50, or 100 mg/kg). Treatment of NZW rabbits fed with high cholesterol diet with 100 mg/kg PMS attenuated the increase in plasma cholesterol, low-density lipoprotein cholesterol, very low-density lipoprotein cholesterol, and plasma triglyceride. Treatment with 50 and 100 mg/kg PMS caused 43% and 60% decrease in atherosclerotic lesioned area ratio to total surface area, respectively. In U937 foam cells, PMS could decrease the high expression of intercellular adhesion molecule (ICAM)-1 protein and the vascular endothelial growth factor (VEGF) protein levels in the medium induced by oxidized lipoprotein when analyzed by flow cytometry. The results proved that PMS is a powerful agent against atherosclerosis and that PMS action could possibly be through the inhibition of the expression of ICAM-1 and VEGF in foam cells.

Animals↗
PubMed2005

Molecular evolution of the rice miR395 gene family.

MicroRNAs (miRNAs) are 20-22 nucleotide non-coding RNAs that play important roles in plant and animal development. They are usually processed from larger precursors that can form stem-loop structures. Among 20 miRNA families that are conserved between Arabidopsis and rice, the rice miR395 gene family was unique because it was organized into compact clusters that could be transcribed as one single transcript. We show here that in fact this family had four clusters of total 24 genes. Three of these clusters were segmental duplications. They contained miR395 genes of both 120 bp and 66 bp long. However, only the latter was repeatedly duplicated. The fourth cluster contained miR395 genes of two different sizes that could be the consequences of intergenic recombination of genes from the first three clusters. On each cluster, both 1-duplication and 2-duplication histories were observed based on the sequence similarity between miR395 genes, some of which were nearly identical suggesting a recent origin. This was supported by a miR395 locus survey among several species of the genus Oryza, where two clusters were only found in species with an AA genome, the genome of the cultivated rice. A comparative study of the genomic organization of Medicago truncatula miR395 gene family showed significant expansion of intergenic spaces indicating that the originally clustered genes were drifting away from each other. The diverse genomic organizations of a conserved microRNA gene family in different plant genomes indicated that this important negative gene regulation system has undergone dramatic tune-ups in plant genomes.

Base Sequence↗
PubMed2003

[The epidemiological survey of prevalence rate of hypertension in the countryside of Zhangwu county, Liaoning province].

OBJECTIVE: To investigate the prevalence state of essential hypertension in the countryside of Zhangwu county, Liaoning province to confirm whether this county is the high prevalence region of essential hypertension. METHODS: Five thousand, two hundred and eight 15-year olds or older were sampled by means of whole population random sampling. Blood pressure was measured and the related risk factors were investigated with the uniform questionnaire. SPSS 10.0 of statistical software was used for data analysis. RESULTS: The standardized prevalence rate of hypertension was 35.0% at this region, 40.0% in male, 32.0% in female. The prevalence rates of hypertension were increased with the increasing of the age in both males and females. There were significant statistically differences in the prevalence rates of hypertension between the different age groups, different countrysides and different villages. The standardized prevalence rate of hypertension were 43.0% the highest and 29.0% lowest respectively in the countryside, with prevalence rates, were 59.4% highest and 26.9% lowest respectively in the village. In all the patients with hypertension, 72.0% having hypertension II, III. CONCLUSION: The countryside of Zhangwu county was a high prevalence region of essential hypertension which was unusual in our country. The reason of this status was still unknown which called for further study.

Adolescent↗
PubMed2002

Sequence and analysis of rice chromosome 4.

Rice is the principal food for over half of the population of the world. With its genome size of 430 megabase pairs (Mb), the cultivated rice species Oryza sativa is a model plant for genome research. Here we report the sequence analysis of chromosome 4 of O. sativa, one of the first two rice chromosomes to be sequenced completely. The finished sequence spans 34.6 Mb and represents 97.3% of the chromosome. In addition, we report the longest known sequence for a plant centromere, a completely sequenced contig of 1.16 Mb corresponding to the centromeric region of chromosome 4. We predict 4,658 protein coding genes and 70 transfer RNA genes. A total of 1,681 predicted genes match available unique rice expressed sequence tags. Transposable elements have a pronounced bias towards the euchromatic regions, indicating a close correlation of their distributions to genes along the chromosome. Comparative genome analysis between cultivated rice subspecies shows that there is an overall syntenic relationship between the chromosomes and divergence at the level of single-nucleotide polymorphisms and insertions and deletions. By contrast, there is little conservation in gene order between rice and Arabidopsis.

Arabidopsis↗
PubMedDate not supplied

The application of an artificial neural network in the identification of medicinal rhubarbs by near-infrared spectroscopy.

This paper describes a method to combine near-infrared spectroscopy and a three layer back-propagation artificial neural network in order to identify official and unofficial rhubarbs. Thirty-three samples were taken as the training set, and 62 samples as the test set. The effects of input node number, learning rate and momentum on the final error and recognition accuracy for the training set, and on prediction accuracy for the test set were determined. A neural network with eight input nodes, a 0.5 learning rate, and a momentum of 0.3 can achieve a recognition accuracy of 100% for the training set and a prediction accuracy of 96.8% for the test set. The method described offers a quick and efficient means of identifying rhubarbs.

Neural Networks, Computer↗