The results presented here show that increased hepcidin expression caused by inflammation prevents brain iron efflux via inhibition of the intracellular iron efflux of brain microvascular endothelial cells entering into circulation and aggravating oxidative brain injury and cognition impairment, which identifies a mechanistic target for muting inflammation to promote brain iron efflux and to attenuate oxidative brain injury after ICH.

The lipoxygenase (LOX) in grass carp can catalyze the oxidation of polyunsaturated fatty acids even their esters, resulting in rancidity deterioration of grass carp and its products during the process and storage. Preliminary purification, quantitative determination and distribution of grass carp muscular LOX were investigated in the present study. LOX activity of the grass carp muscle was measured to be 35.17 KU/g and its molecular weight was 95.71 kDa identified by SDS-PAGE. Using previously reported extraction methods such as twice salting-out and once dialysis, the LOX protein content in the crude muscular LOX extraction is about 28%. When salted with graded saturation of ammonium sulfate, we found once salting-out was enough for LOX extraction and the effective percentage saturation of ammonium sulfate for LOX extraction was 40%. Under this condition, the LOX protein content in the crude muscular LOX extract was doubled. The LOX distribution in fish was gradually increased from skin and muscle, gill, viscera to blood, which indicates that it is very important to remove the viscera and bleed fish completely during fish product processing to decrease the risk of lipid oxidation caused by LOX.

A unique residue W544 in the beta18-beta19 loop of the Bacillus thuringiensis Cry1Ac toxin has been implicated in its toxicity. In this study, the effects of mutations at this residue on protein stability during protease treatment, UV irradiation, and preservation were examined. Residue 544 of Cry1Ac was involved in maintaining structural stability, and substitution of a polar group at this position was unfavorable to protein stability. One mutant, W544F, produced larger crystals and was more stable. This mutant showed greater resistance to UV radiation than the wild type Cry1Ac but retained equal toxicity. This is the first report showing that residue 544 in the Cry1Ac domain III plays a significant role in toxin structural stability. Our W544F mutant is a significant development in terms of field applications of Cry1Ac toxin.

Aspergillus niger can produce an acid-stable α-amylase as well as an acid-unstable one, the relation between the structural differences and their acid-resistant capability is of great interest. In this paper, the primary parameters, secondary and tertiary structures of these two types of α-amylases was analyzed and compared, the results shows that they has 67% sequence identity and high homology in secondary and tertiary structure. The acid-stable α-amylase has lower isoelectric point and higher molar percent of acidic amino acid than the acid-unstable one. The four major structural differences of these two types of enzymes is located at residues 132-138, 206-212, 329-335 and 378-382 and formed vary fold pattern.

The effects of germination on the bio-functional components in the germ-remaining polished rice have been investigated. The bio-functional components in the raw GRPR, brown rice and germinated brown rice were also characterized as the comparison. The results showed that a decrease in amylose content and an increase in reducing sugar were observed after germination. The germinated GRPR contains much more bio-functional components (GABA and dietary fiber) than GRPR and brown rice, and slightly less than germinated brown rice. The results also demonstrated that germinated GRPR contained less phytic acid than other three kinds of rice. Consequently, the nutritional value of GRPR had been improved by germination. Germination of GRPR would be a promising processing method to enhance the germinated rice consumption.