Abstract: The first-line drug artemisinin is widely used against malaria. Commercially available artemisinin is extracted from plants. However, the lack of sufficient raw material, artemisinin and the cost associated with the drug's manufacture have limited the supply of ACT to most malaria sufferers in the Developing World. As such, it is important to develop a low cost, fine to environment and high-quality method to supply sufficient and reliable quantities of artemisinin in the future. The field of synthetic biology, which utilizes cell factories to manipulate microbial metabolism to enhance the production of artemisinin and its intermediates, has a particularly strong impact by providing new platforms for chemical production. After a brief introduction of the artemisinin biosynthetic pathway, the present review focuses on the introduction of artemisinin biosynthetic genes, such as the genes encoding amorpha-4, 11-diene monooxygenase, NADPH: cytochrome P450 oxidoreductase, artemisinic aldehyde delta 11(13) reductase and aldehyde dehydrogenase. The review also addresses general considerations for potential contributions of synthetic biology to artemisinin production, with an emphasis on factors influencing interest compounds production in chassis cells.

Objective To design a pocket diary for cancer pain patients, to explore the effect on improving their knowledge about pain control, and make them actively participate in cancer pain control activities. Methods The study was performed in Sichuan Cancer Hospital, it was conducted on 299 cancer patients, who were randomly divided into the experimental group ( 156 cases ) and the control group (143 cases), undergoing moderate-to-severe cancer pain in six standardized pain control demonstration wards. Patients from the experimental group recorded their adverse reactions and general routine care, with a cancer pain pocket diary, and the patients in the control group only got the general routine care. A questionnaire was used to test their level of cancer pain knowledge and degree of satisfaction before discharge. Results There was no significant difference in the pain assessment and drug use between the two groups (P>0. 05). The scores of adverse reactions prevention, adverse reactions report and misunderstanding identification of the experimental group were (15. 84 ± 1. 70), (15. 84 ± 1. 70) and (18. 52 ± 1. 16), respectively, which were significantly higher than those in the control group (t =5. 25, 2. 38, 13. 53, respectively;P<0. 05). In the experimental group, 98 patients were quite satisfied, 55 patients were satisfied, 3 patients were not satisfied. There was a significant difference between the two groups (Z =8. 87,P <0. 05). Conclusions The cancer pain pocket diary could improve the cancer patients′ knowledge about pain control, and make them actively participate in cancer pain control activities.

To construct an engineered Saccharomyces cerevisiae producing high titres of amorpha-4,11-diene, we investigated the possible synergistic effect of different vectors containing amorpha-4,11-diene synthase(ADS) gene within one yeast cell. We constructed the ADS recombinant plasmid pGADADS. This plasmid and another ADS recombinant plasmid pYeDP60/G/ADS were alone, or co-transformed into yeast Saccharomyces cerevisiae W303-1B and WK1, respectively, resulting in the following engineered yeasts, W303B[pGADADS], W303B[pYGADS], W303B[pYGADS+pGADADS], WK1[pGADADS], WK1[pYGADS] and WK1[pYGADS+pGADADS]. All of the six strains were cultured for GC-MS analysis of amorpha-4,11-diene. The results showed that all of the engineered yeasts could produce amorpha-4,11-diene. The yield of the product was improved with increasing ADS gene copies while no deleterious effect on the strain growth was found. Moreover, the product yield of the engineered yeast co-transformed with multiple plasmids was much higher than the total yield of the different engineered yeasts with only one plasmid, respectively. In conclusion, there was a distinct synergistic effect between different recombinant ADS plasmids within one cell. Our results facilitate the construction of the engineered yeast with high yield of amorpha-4,11-diene, the precursor of artemisinin.
Alkyl and Aryl Transferases ; biosynthesis ; genetics ; Artemisinins ; chemistry ; metabolism ; Genetic Engineering ; methods ; Genetic Vectors ; genetics ; Recombination, Genetic ; Saccharomyces cerevisiae ; genetics ; metabolism