In consideration of the results, we highly anticipate an onward use of MA in a broad range of applications based on live cell sorting and imaging, for example, cell synchronisation and monitoring of proliferation as an important experimental and/or diagnostic utility.

Stylophorum lasiocarpum (Oliv.) Fedde (Papaveraceae) belongs to traditional Chinese medicine herbs but there was minimal information on the content of alkaloids in this plant. Extracts from the aerial part and roots were examined by liquid chromatography with UV and mass spectrometric detection, with nineteen alkaloids identified. Changes in alkaloid content over the entire vegetation period of a one-and two-year old plant were studied. The protoberberine alkaloids, coptisine and stylopine, were found to be the main substances in extracts of the aerial part irrespective of the plant's age and time of harvest. Variable amounts of protopine, sanguinarine, chelerythrine, chelirubine, macarpine, chelilutine and berberine were also recorded in the aerial part. The roots contained significantly larger quantities of all alkaloids than the aerial part with the levels of most alkaloids varying from May to October, peaking in the middle of the vegetation period. Coptisine was the dominant alkaloid in all samples. The antiproliferative activities of the root extract and of seven individual alkaloids were tested on A375 human malignant melanoma cells. The significant dose-dependent toxicity of the root extract was attributed largely to the quaternary benzo[c]phenanthridine alkaloids, macarpine and sanguinarine.

NANOG is a transcription factor involved in the regulation of pluripotency and stemness. The functional paralog of NANOG, NANOGP8, differs from NANOG in only three amino acids and exhibits similar reprogramming activity. Given the transcriptional regulatory role played by NANOG, the nuclear localization of NANOG/NANOGP8 has primarily been considered to date. In this study, we investigated the intriguing extranuclear localization of NANOG and demonstrated that a substantial pool of NANOG/NANOGP8 is localized at the centrosome. Using double immunofluorescence, the colocalization of NANOG protein with pericentrin was identified by two independent anti-NANOG antibodies among 11 tumor and non-tumor cell lines. The validity of these observations was confirmed by transient expression of GFP-tagged NANOG, which also colocalized with pericentrin. Mass spectrometry of the anti-NANOG immunoprecipitated samples verified the antibody specificity and revealed the expression of both NANOG and NANOGP8, which was further confirmed by real-time PCR. Using cell fractionation, we show that a considerable amount of NANOG protein is present in the cytoplasm of RD and NTERA-2 cells. Importantly, cytoplasmic NANOG was unevenly distributed at the centrosome pair during the cell cycle and colocalized with the distal region of the mother centriole, and its presence was markedly associated with centriole maturation. Along with the finding that the centrosomal localization of NANOG/NANOGP8 was detected in various tumor and non-tumor cell types, these results provide the first evidence suggesting a common centrosome-specific role of NANOG.

Neutrophils are innate immune cells with important roles in antimicrobial defense. However, impaired or dysregulated neutrophil function can result in host tissue damage, loss of homeostasis, hyperinflammation or pathological immunosuppression. A central link between neutrophil activation and immune outcomes is emerging to be the calcineurin-nuclear factor of activated T cells (NFAT) signaling pathway, which is activated by neutrophil detection of a microbial threat via pattern recognition receptors and results in inflammatory cytokine production. This potent pro-inflammatory pathway is also the target of several immunosuppressive drugs used for the treatment of autoimmune disorders, during solid organ and hematopoietic cell transplantations, and as a part of anti-cancer therapy: but what effects these drugs have on neutrophil function, and their broader consequences for immune homeostasis and microbial defense are not yet known. Here, we bring together the emerging literature describing pathology- and drug- induced neutrophil impairment, with particular focus on their effects on calcineurin-NFAT signaling in the innate immune compartment.