The existing technical disadvantages of culture systems so far developed have limited the molecular biological study of tubulogenesis. Recently, a newly developed Minu3D system creates controllable growth conditions and allows the generation of tubules from renal stem/progenitor cells. It is for the first time indicated that aldosterone is able to induce the formation of tubules. Aldosterone may trigger some of mineralocorticoid receptor-mediated signaling'pathways for the initiation and the regulation of the tubulogenesis. The implication of these studies toward unveiling tubulogenesis is discussed.

Aptamers are short nucleic acids or peptides that strongly bind to a protein of interest and functionally inhibit a given target protein at the intracellular level. Besides high affinity and specificity, aptamers have several advantages over traditional antibodies. Hence, they have been broadly selected to develop antiviral agents for therapeutic applications against hepatitis B and C viruses (HBV, HCV). This review provides a summary of in vitro selection and characterization of aptamers against viral hepatitis, which is of practical significance in drug discovery.

In recent years, the in silico epitopes prediction tools have facilitated the progress of vaccines development significantly and many have been applied to predict epitopes in viruses successfully. Herein, a general overview of different tools currently available, including T cell and B cell epitopes prediction tools, is presented. And the principles of different prediction algorithms are reviewed briefly. Finally, several examples are present to illustrate the application of the prediction tools.

The Ebola virus belongs to the Filovirus family, which causes Ebola hemorrhagic fever (mortality, 25%-90%). An outbreak of infection by the Ebola virus is sweeping across West Africa, leading to high mortality and worldwide panic. The Ebola virus has caused a serious threat to public health, so intensive scientific studies have been carried out. Several vaccines (e.g., rVSV-ZEBOV, ChAd3-ZEBOV) have been put into clinical trials and antiviral drugs (e.g., TKM-Ebola, ZMAPP) have been administered in the emergency setting to patients infected by the Ebola virus. Here, recent advances in vaccines and drugs against the Ebola virus are reviewed.
Animals ; Antiviral Agents ; administration & dosage ; Ebola Vaccines ; administration & dosage ; genetics ; immunology ; Ebolavirus ; drug effects ; genetics ; immunology ; physiology ; Hemorrhagic Fever, Ebola ; drug therapy ; prevention & control ; virology ; Humans

Objective To study the effects of angiotensin Ⅱ (AngⅡ) on insulin signal transduction pathway in skeletal myoblast of L6 rats,and further to explore the possible mechanism of AngⅡ on glucose utilization.Methods Myoblast cells of L6 rats were cultured and induced to differentiate.They were divided into 4 groups according to different treatment by AngⅡ or JAK2-PKA inhibitor H89:normal control group ( NC group),insulin group,insulin + AngⅡ group and insulin + AngⅡ + H89 group.Expression of IRS1 and GLUT4 mRNA was detected by RT-PCR.Expression of IRS1,Ptyr-IRS1 and GLUT4 (total and membrane protein) were detected by Western blot.Results The difference of GLUT4 mRNA expression in the 4 groups detected by RT-PCR had no statistical significance(P ＞ 0.05).The difference of IRS1 mRNA expression among the latter 3 groups had no statistical significance(P ＞ 0.05),however,IRS1 expression in the latter 3 groups was higher than that in NC group(P ＜ 0.05).Western blot results showed expression of IRS1,Ptyr-IRS1 and GLUT4 (membrane protein)was higher in the latter 3 groups than in NC group(P ＜0.05).The difference of IRS1 expression among the latter 3 groups(P ＞ 0.05 ) and GLUT4 (total protein) expression among the 4 groups had no statistical significance (P ＞ 0.05).The expression of of ptyr-IRS1 and GLUT4 membrane protein in Ins + AngⅡ + H89 group was much higher than that in Ins + AngⅡ group,and lower than that in insulin group(P ＜0.05).Conclusion AngⅡ inhibits IRS1's tyrosine phosphorylation and GLUT4's transfer from cytoplasm to plasma membrane in skeletal muscle cells through JAK2-PKA signaling pathway,and therefore induces insulin resistance.