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ADP-ribosylation is a post-translational modification involved in regulation of diverse cellular pathways. Interestingly, many pathogens have been identified to utilize ADP-ribosylation as a way for host manipulation. A recent study found that CteC, an effector from the bacterial pathogen Chromobacterium violaceum, hinders host ubiquitin (Ub) signaling pathways via installing mono-ADP-ribosylation on threonine 66 of Ub. However, the molecular basis of substrate recognition by CteC is not well understood. In this article, we probed the substrate specificity of this effector at protein and residue levels. We also determined the crystal structure of CteC in complex with NAD+, which revealed a canonical mono-ADP-ribosyltransferase fold with an additional insertion domain. The AlphaFold-predicted model differed significantly from the experimentally determined structure, even in regions not used in crystal packing. Biochemical and biophysical studies indicated unique features of the NAD+ binding pocket, while showing selectivity distinction between Ub and structurally close Ub-like modifiers and the role of the insertion domain in substrate recognition. Together, this study provides insights into the enzymatic specificities and the key structural features of a novel bacterial ADP-ribosyltransferase involved in host-pathogen interaction. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Background: Cardiac diseases represent the leading cause of sudden death worldwide. During the development of cardiac diseases, the left ventricle (LV) changes obviously in structure and function. LV motion estimation plays an important role for diagnosis and treatment of cardiac diseases. To estimate LV motion accurately for cine magnetic resonance (MR) cardiac images, we develop an algorithm by combining point set matching with surface structure features of myocardium.Methods: The structure features of myocardial wall are described by estimating the normal directions of points locating on the myocardium contours using an approximation approach. The Gaussian mixture model (GMM) of structure features is used to represent LV structure feature distribution. A new cost function is defined to represent the differences between two Gaussian mixture models, which are the GMM of structure features and the GMM of positions of two point sets. To optimize the cost function, its gradient is derived to use the Quasi-Newton (QN). Furthermore, to resolve the dis-convergence issue of Quasi-Newton for high-dimensional parameter space, Stochastic Gradient Descent (SGD) is used and SGD gradient is derived. Finally, the new cost function is solved by optimization combining SGD with QN. With the closed form expression of gradient, this paper provided a computationally efficient registration algorithm.Results: Three public datasets are employed to verify the performance of our algorithm, including cardiac MR image sequences acquired from 33 subjects, 14 inter-subject heart cases, and the data obtained in MICCAI 2009s 3D Segmentation Challenge for Clinical Applications. We compare our results with those of the other point set registration methods for LV motion estimation. The obtained results demonstrate that our algorithm shows inherent statistical robustness, due to the combination of SGD and Quasi-Newton optimization. Furthermore, our method is shown to outperform other point set matching methods in the registration accuracy.Conclusions: We provide a novel effective algorithm for cardiac motion estimation by introducing LV surface structure feature to point set matching. A new cost function is defined to measure the discrepancy between GMMs of two point sets. The GMM of point positions and the GMM of surface structure descriptor are defined at the same time. Optimization by combining SGD and Quasi-Newton is performed to solve the cost function. We experimentally demonstrate that our algorithm shows improved registration accuracy, and is convergent when used in high-dimensional parameter space. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The innate immune system plays a pivotal role in defending invasion of microorganisms for scallops. Previous studies on immune-related genes in the Yesso scallop, Patinopecten yessoensis (Jay, 1857) have mainly focused on characterization and expression pattern in response to bacterial challenge, no research has been carried out on the cytogenetic level yet. In the present study, eight fosmid clones containing the sequences of key immune-related genes (PyNFkB, PyTRAF2, PyTRAF4, PyTRAF7, PyMyd88-1, PyMyd88-3, PyMKK-7 and PyTNFR) were isolated and seven of them were successfully mapped on chromosomes of P. yessoensis utilizing fluorescence in situ hybridization. Wherein, PyMyd88-1, PyMyd88-3 and PyMKK-7 located on the same chromosome pair with adjacent positions and the other genes were mapped on four non-homologous chromosome pairs, showing a similar distribution to another five model species. The isolation and mapping of such genes of the Yesso scallop will lay a foundation for studies such as assignment of interested genes to chromosomes, construction cytogenetic maps and so on. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Construction of cytogenetic maps can provide important information for chromosome identification, chromosome evolution and genomic research. However, it hasn't been conducted in many scallop species yet. In the present study, we attempted to map 12 fosmid clones containing tandem repeats by fluorescence in situ hybridization (FISH) in the Yesso scallop Patinopecten yessoensis (Jay, 1857). The results showed 6 fosmid clones were successfully mapped and distributed in 6 different pairs of chromosomes. Three clones were respectively assigned to a pair of metacentric chromosomes, a pair of submetacentric chromosomes and a pair of telocentric chromosomes and the remaining 3 clones showed their loci on three different pairs of subtelocentric chromosomes by co-hybridization. In summary, totally 8 pairs of chromosomes of the Yesso scallop were identified by 6 fosmid clones and two rDNA probes. Furthermore, 6 tandem repeats of 5 clones were sequenced and could be developed as chromosome specific markers for the Yesso scallop. The successful localization of fosmid clones will undoubtedly facilitate the integration of linkage groups with cytogenetic map and genomic research for the Yesso scallop. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]