AIM To investigate the effect of puerarin (Pue) on tumor necrosis factor (TNF) ?, interleukin (IL) 6 secreted by neonatal rat cardiomyocytes during hypoxia/reoxygenation injury. METHOD The activities of TNF ? and IL 6 in the supernatants of cultured myocytes, which were sampled from different groups (control, model, and therapeutic groups with 1 g?L -1 Pue, 0 1 g?L -1 Pue, 0 01 g?L -1 Pue) at different time, were assayed by bioassay method. RESULTS TNF ? and IL 6 activity increased compared with that of control ( P

Objective: To analyze the semen quality parameters of sperm donor volunteers, so as to provide insights into male infertility control and related research. Methods: A total of 155 sperm donors were recruited from the Human Sperm Bank of Zhejiang Province using the convenience sampling method from January to March 2021. Demographic information were collected through questionnaire surveys. Semen were collected, and parameters including semen volume, sperm concentration, total number of sperm, forward motility rate and total sperm viability were measured. Semen quality was evaluated according to the WHO Laboratory Manual for the Examination and Processing of Human Semen. : Results Conclusion There were 20.65% of the 155 sperm donors with unqualified semen, and the unqualified rates of forward motility rate and total sperm viability were relatively high.

The recent explosive outbreak of Zika virus (ZIKV) infection has been reported in South and Central America and the Caribbean. Neonatal microcephaly associated with ZIKV infection has already caused a public health emergency of international concern. No specific vaccines or drugs are currently available to treat ZIKV infection. The ZIKV helicase, which plays a pivotal role in viral RNA replication, is an attractive target for therapy. We determined the crystal structures of ZIKV helicase-ATP-Mn(2+) and ZIKV helicase-RNA. This is the first structure of any flavivirus helicase bound to ATP. Comparisons with related flavivirus helicases have shown that although the critical P-loop in the active site has variable conformations among different species, it adopts an identical mode to recognize ATP/Mn(2+). The structure of ZIKV helicase-RNA has revealed that upon RNA binding, rotations of the motor domains can cause significant conformational changes. Strikingly, although ZIKV and dengue virus (DENV) apo-helicases share conserved residues for RNA binding, their different manners of motor domain rotations result in distinct individual modes for RNA recognition. It suggests that flavivirus helicases could have evolved a conserved engine to convert chemical energy from nucleoside triphosphate to mechanical energy for RNA unwinding, but different motor domain rotations result in variable RNA recognition modes to adapt to individual viral replication.
Crystallography, X-Ray ; Protein Domains ; RNA Helicases ; chemistry ; RNA, Viral ; chemistry ; Viral Proteins ; chemistry ; Zika Virus ; enzymology