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Fine-tuning of the substrate binding mode was successfully applied for enhancing the catalytic efficiency of an ortho-haloacetophenone-specific carbonyl reductase.

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A growing body of evidence has shown bisphenol A (BPA), an estrogen-like industrial chemical, has adverse effects on the nervous system. In this study, we investigated the transcriptional behavior of long non-coding RNAs (lncRNAs) and mRNAs to provide the information to explore neurotoxic effects induced by BPA. By microarray expression profiling, we discovered 151 differentially expressed lncRNAs and 794 differentially expressed mRNAs in the BPA intervention group compared with the control group. Gene ontology analysis indicated the differentially expressed mRNAs were mainly involved in fundamental metabolic processes and physiological and pathological conditions, such as development, synaptic transmission, homeostasis, injury, and neuroinflammation responses. In the expression network of the BPA-induced group, a great number of nodes and connections were found in comparison to the control-derived network. We identified lncRNAs that were aberrantly expressed in the BPA group, among which, growth arrest specific 5 (GAS5) might participate in the BPA-induced neurotoxicity by regulating Jun, RAS, and other pathways indirectly through these differentially expressed genes. This study provides the first investigation of genome-wide lncRNA expression and correlation between lncRNA and mRNA expression in the BPA-induced neurotoxicity. Our results suggest that the elevated expression of lncRNAs is a major biomarker in the neurotoxicity induced by BPA.

Fruit bromelain is a proteolytic enzyme harbouring cysteine catalytic residue found abundantly in pineapple fruit. The expression of cysteine proteases is usually regulated during fruit ripening. In the present study, we aimed to study the expression and proteolytic activity level of fruit bromelain during the ripening stage of A. comosus cultivar MD 2. The gene expression of fruit bromelain was investigated via relative gene expression analysis using qPCR while the proteolytic activity of fruit bromelain was analysed via enzymatic assay using casein as a substrate. The qPCR analysis revealed that the expression of fruit bromelain was down-regulated 10-fold in ripe pineapple fruits. Besides that, the unripe pineapple fruits [1.9101 ± 0.0831 U/mL] had a higher proteolytic activity than the ripe MD 2 pineapple fruits [1.1333 ± 0.0896 U/mL]. This result showed that the function of fruit bromelain may be related to the protection of young pineapple fruits during the fruit development stage.