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Topic Review
Biopesticides
Biopesticides are a type of pesticides derived from natural materials including plants and bacteria. In this entry, we reviewed the structural and biological features of Jaburetox and Soyuretox, two plant urease-derived recombinant peptides that present entomotoxic and fungitoxic effects without harming beneficial species or the environment. We also discussed other bioactive peptides in the context of their action mechanism.
  • 881
  • 15 Dec 2020
Topic Review
The Role of Flavonoids in Plant Terrestrialization
Plants evolved an impressive arsenal of specialized metabolites to cope with the novel environmental pressures imposed by the terrestrial habitat when moving from water. Flavonoids are maybe the most important specilized metabolites that show multifarious roles in the sucess of plant terrestrialization. These compounds modulated auxin transport and signaling and promoted the symbiosis between plants and fungi (e.g., arbuscular mycorrhizal, AM), a central event for the conquest of land by plants. AM improved the ability of early plants to take up nutrients and water from highly impoverished soils. Therefore, flavonoids were essential to plant development in the “new world” scarce of water and nutrients.
  • 881
  • 30 May 2022
Topic Review
Long Non-Coding RNA Epigenetics
Long noncoding RNAs exceeding a length of 200 nucleotides play an important role in ensuring cell functions and proper organism development by interacting with cellular compounds such as miRNA, mRNA, DNA and proteins. However, there is an additional level of lncRNA regulation, called lncRNA epigenetics, in gene expression control.
  • 881
  • 25 Jun 2021
Topic Review
Extracellular vesicles in embryo–maternal communication
The establishment of proper conceptus–endometrial communication is essential for conceptus implantation and subsequent successful placentation in mammals including ruminants. Extracellular vesicles (EVs) present in uterine lumen are now considered to play a role in conceptus–endometrial interactions during the preimplantation period. In fact, EV transport a variety of bioactive molecules, including soluble and membrane-bound proteins, lipids, DNA, and RNAs, into target cells. EVs thus regulate gene expression and elicit biological effects including increased cell proliferation, migration, and adhesion in recipient cells. EVs of conceptus as well as endometrial origins are interactive in the uterine microenvironment for improved pregnancy success.
  • 878
  • 06 Aug 2020
Topic Review
Intrapancreatic Parenchymal Cell Transplantation
In vivo inoculation of cells such as cancer cells and induced pluripotent stem (iPS)/embryonic stem (ES) cells into immunocompromised mice, such as nude mice, has been considered a powerful technique for evaluating these cells' potential to form solid tumors made of proliferating cells or teratomas made of various types of differentiated cells originating from three germ cell layers. Two major approaches, i.e., subcutaneous grafting and grafting under the kidney capsule, have been widely utilized for this purpose. Unfortunately, large numbers of tumor cells are required for successful inoculation, and often, failure of tumorigenesis is encountered. This is attributable to dispersion/escaping of grafted cells from the inoculation site. To avoid such cell dispersion/escaping, choosing an appropriate inoculation site from where grafted cells cannot easily disperse is important. Intrapancreatic parenchymal injection of tumorigenic cells is apparently very effective for this purpose; the grafted cells seldom escape from the injection site and are found to form solid tumors even from small numbers (~15 × 103 cells) of cells. The procedure is very simple—it requires only surgical exposure of the pancreas over the dorsal skin under anesthesia and subsequent injection of cells toward the pancreatic parenchyma under dissecting microscope-based observation using a mouthpiece-controlled glass micropipette. The inoculated cells generally grow as solid tumors 1–1.5 months after surgery. This novel technique is known as “intrapancreatic parenchymal cell transplantation (IPPCT).” Apart from the abovementioned benefit, IPPCT may be useful for those wanting to obtain large amounts of tumorigenic cells for biochemical or molecular biological analyses or for those rescuing specific cells that are difficult to cultivate in vitro.
  • 878
  • 30 Oct 2020
Topic Review
Choroid Plexus
Cerebrospinal fluid (CSF) is the liquid that fills the brain ventricles. CSF represents not only a mechanical brain protection but also a rich source of signalling factors modulating diverse processes during brain development and adulthood. The choroid plexus (CP) is a major source of CSF and as such it has recently emerged as an important mediator of extracellular signalling within the brain. Growing interest in the CP revealed its capacity to release a broad variety of bioactive molecules that, via CSF, regulate processes across the whole central nervous system (CNS). Moreover, CP has been also recognized as a sensor, responding to altered composition of CSF associated with changes in the patterns of CNS activity. In this review, we summarize the recent advances in our understanding of the CP as a signalling centre that mediates long-range communication in the CNS. By providing a detailed account of the CP secretory repertoire, we describe how the CP contributes to the regulation of the extracellular environment—in the context of both the embryonal as well as the adult CNS. We highlight the role of the CP as an important regulator of CNS function that acts via CSF-mediated signalling. Further studies of CP–CSF signalling hold the potential to provide key insights into the biology of the CNS, with implications for better understanding and treatment of neuropathological conditions.
  • 878
  • 06 Nov 2020
Topic Review
Thermophilic Nucleic Acid Polymerases
Nucleic acid polymerases are enzymes that catalyze DNA or RNA synthesis, including DNA polymerases (DNAPs), RNA polymerases (RNAPs), reverse transcriptases (RTs), and RNA-dependent RNA polymerases (RdRps), which play central roles in the storage and transmission of genetic information in living organisms, and have been widely applied in molecular biology and biotechnology. Their unique activities and functions have laid the foundation of many broadly used or modern techniques, including polymerase chain reaction (PCR), DNA sequencing, and DNA information storage. Thermostability is a desired property of nucleic acid polymerases for many of their applications, especially those involving thermocycling.
  • 877
  • 09 Dec 2022
Topic Review
Forkhead Box Protein O1 (FOXO1)
Forkhead box protein O1 (FOXO1) also known as forkhead in rhabdomyosarcoma (FKHR) is a protein that in humans is encoded by the FOXO1 gene. FOXO1 is a transcription factor that plays important roles in regulation of gluconeogenesis and glycogenolysis by insulin signaling, and is also central to the decision for a preadipocyte to commit to adipogenesis. It is primarily regulated through phosphorylation on multiple residues; its transcriptional activity is dependent on its phosphorylation state.
  • 877
  • 30 Nov 2022
Topic Review
Biological Properties of Essential Oils
Essential oils (EOs) are a mixture of natural, volatile, and aromatic compounds obtained from plants. In recent years, several studies have shown that some of their benefits can be attributed to their antimicrobial, antioxidant, anti-inflammatory, and also immunomodulatory properties. Therefore, EOs have been proposed as a natural alternative to antibiotics or for use in combination with antibiotics against multidrug-resistant bacteria in animal feed and food preservation. 
  • 876
  • 29 Jul 2021
Topic Review
TRPC, TRPV and Vascular Disease
Ion channels play an important role in vascular function and pathology. In this review we gave an overview of recent findings and discussed the role of TRPC and TRPV channels as major regulators of cellular remodeling and consequent vascular disorders. Here, we focused on their implication in 4 relevant vascular diseases: systemic and pulmonary artery hypertension, atherosclerosis and restenosis.  
  • 875
  • 22 Apr 2021
Topic Review
PET Radiotracers for CNS-Adrenergic Receptors
Epinephrine (E) and norepinephrine (NE) play diverse roles in our body’s physiology. In addition to their role in the peripheral nervous system (PNS), E/NE systems including their receptors are critical to the central nervous system (CNS) and to mental health.
  • 874
  • 27 Oct 2020
Topic Review
Ceramide Metabolism and Parkinson’s Disease
Ceramide is a bioactive sphingolipid involved in numerous cellular processes. In addition to being the precursor of complex sphingolipids, ceramides can act as second messengers, especially when they are generated at the plasma membrane of cells. Its metabolic dysfunction may lead to or be a consequence of an underlying disease. Recent reports on transcriptomics and electrospray ionization mass spectrometry analysis have demonstrated the variation of specific levels of sphingolipids and enzymes involved in their metabolism in different neurodegenerative diseases. In the present review, we highlight the most relevant discoveries related to ceramide and neurodegeneration, with a special focus on Parkinson's disease. 
  • 874
  • 30 Jun 2021
Topic Review
Molecular Mechanisms of Eosinophilic Esophagitis
Eosinophilic esophagitis is a recently recognized allergic-mediated disease with eosinophil-predominant esophagus inflammation. Its pathogenesis is a complicated network of interactions and signaling between epithelial, mesenchymal, and immune cells on molecular and intercellular levels.
  • 873
  • 14 Dec 2021
Topic Review
Activity-Dependent Neuroprotective Protein
The activity-dependent neuroprotective protein (ADNP), a double-edged sword, sex-dependently regulates multiple genes and was previously associated with the control of early muscle development and aging.
  • 872
  • 12 Jul 2021
Topic Review
Exosome Isolation Techniques
Extracellular vesicles (EVs) are lipid-binding vesicles secreted by cells into the extracellular space. The technologies and tools that have been used to purify exosomes from blood and other biofluids have evolved greatly, and this evolution has been driven by the need to accurately assess their biological function, but also and most importantly to decipher their molecular content, with a particular focus on tumor exosome biomarkers 
  • 871
  • 20 Jul 2022
Topic Review
Angiopoietin-like Proteins
Angiopoietin-like proteins (ANGPTLs) are a family of eight proteins with a diversity of applications, including pro- and anti-angiogenic properties.
  • 870
  • 25 Aug 2021
Topic Review
Computational NMR of Carbohydrates
Nowadays, computational NMR is widely used for structural and stereochemical studies of a wide series of carbohydrates including mono-, di-, and polysaccharides together with their functional derivatives. Stereochemical analysis of carbohydrates could mostly be performed by using computational versus experimental 1H and 13C-NMR chemical shifts and spin-spin coupling constants in view of their marked stereochemical dependences providing a new guide in stereochemical structure of carbohydrates together with fundamental factors controlling molecular recognition and catalysis in biochemical systems.
  • 870
  • 05 May 2021
Topic Review
Protein Arginine Methyltransferase PRMT7
PRMT7 is a member of the protein arginine methyltransferase (PRMT) family, which methylates a diverse set of substrates. Arginine methylation as a posttranslational modification regulates protein–protein and protein–nucleic acid interactions, and as such, has been implicated in various biological functions. PRMT7 is a unique, evolutionarily conserved PRMT family member that catalyzes the mono-methylation of arginine. The structural features, functional aspects, and compounds that inhibit PRMT7 are discussed here. Several studies have identified physiological substrates of PRMT7 and investigated the substrate methylation outcomes which link PRMT7 activity to the stress response and RNA biology. PRMT7-driven substrate methylation further leads to the biological outcomes of gene expression regulation, cell stemness, stress response, and cancer-associated phenotypes such as cell migration. Furthermore, organismal level phenotypes of PRMT7 deficiency have uncovered roles in muscle cell physiology, B cell biology, immunity, and brain function. 
  • 870
  • 10 Aug 2021
Topic Review
E3 Ligases in Muscle Atrophy
Skeletal muscle loss is a detrimental side-effect of numerous chronic diseases that dramatically increases mortality and morbidity. The alteration of protein homeostasis is generally due to increased protein breakdown while, protein synthesis may also be down-regulated. The ubiquitin proteasome system (UPS) is a master regulator of skeletal muscle that impacts muscle contractile properties and metabolism through multiple levers like signaling pathways, contractile apparatus degradation, etc. Among the different actors of the UPS, the E3 ubiquitin ligases specifically target key proteins for either degradation or activity modulation, thus controlling both pro-anabolic or pro-catabolic factors. The atrogenes MuRF1/TRIM63 and MAFbx/Atrogin-1 encode for key E3 ligases that target contractile proteins and key actors of protein synthesis respectively. However, several other E3 ligases are involved upstream in the atrophy program, from signal transduction control to modulation of energy balance. Controlling E3 ligases activity is thus a tempting approach for preserving muscle mass.
  • 869
  • 31 May 2021
Topic Review
PVT1: novel colorectal cancer biomarker
Colorectal cancer is a very deadly disease with a current lack of a reliable biomarker for early detection, non-invasive diagnosis, treatment, prognostication, and monitoring of treatment. This entry provides information that indicates that PVT1 is a novel biomarker in colorectal cancer. Further research is required to establish how this knowledge can be used for clinical applications.
  • 868
  • 04 Aug 2020
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