Glutathione S-transferase gene polymorphism,cigarette smoking and DNA damage

Several factors such as smoking habits, diet, occupational, and environmental exposure to chemical carcinogens influence the overall level of DNA damage. In 69 healthy adult volunteers’ polymorphisms of glutathione S-transferase (GST), an enzyme which participates in the metabolism of a broad range of carcinogens and endogenous compounds were determined. The level of DNA damage was assessed by comet assay and classified according to GSTT1/M1 genotype and smoking habits. GSTM1 null genotype was recognized in 48% of studied subjects and GSTT1 null genotype in only two cases (3%). In subjects carrying GSTT1/M1 alleles a significantly lower degree of DNA damage, determined as % DNA in the comet's tail, than in null individuals was noted. However, the results obtained did not indicate that in studied subjects an elevated endogenous level of DNA damage may be significantly related to smoking habits.     

生物样品体外致突变高通量检测方法研究进展

评述了几种常用的体外致突变检测方法及其用于生物样品检测的可行性,有些方法经改进可用于高通量检测生物样品体外致突变性.经典Ames实验受生物样品中组氨酸的影响,易产生假阳性结果,尽管经过修正可以排除组氨酸的干扰,但操作繁琐,不适合高通量检测.基于SOS反应的检测体系避开了组氨酸的影响,且简单易行,适合高通量检测:以β-半乳糖苷酶基因(lacZ)作为报告基因的检测体系灵敏度高,且经过离心洗涤或后培养的方式可降低样品颜色的影响;以绿色荧光蛋白(GFP)基因作为报告基因的检测体系避开了颜色的干扰,但这类方法灵敏度普遍不高,可以寻找信号更强的荧光蛋白以替代GFP;荧光素酶(lux)基因集lacZ和GFP的优点于一身,但检测时需要额外添加辅助因子,限制了其应用.也对单细胞凝胶电泳、tk基因突变实验、染色体损伤检测等方法进行了分析,有些适合生物样品高通量检测,但由于缺少国际通用的标准,很难推广使用.     

石油烃对栉孔扇贝血淋巴细胞DNA损伤的初步研究

为研究石油烃对海洋生物的毒性效应,将栉孔扇贝(Chlamys farreri)暴露于0.08、0.21和0.88mg·L-1石油烃中,采用单细胞凝胶电泳实验(彗星实验)技术检测不同暴露时间扇贝血淋巴细胞的DNA损伤程度,对照组中石油烃背景浓度为0.04mg·L-1。结果显示,低浓度(0.08mg·L-1)的石油烃短期(<7d)内即可导致栉孔扇贝血淋巴细胞的DNA损伤,并且随石油烃浓度的增大和暴露时间的延长,DNA损伤程度增加,石油烃浓度达0.88mg·L-1时,DNA损伤程度已非常严重。3d恢复实验后,各浓度组DNA损伤又均有不同程度的恢复。研究表明,彗星实验是检测石油烃对海洋贝类DNA损伤的一种有效手段,贝类血淋巴细胞DNA损伤有望成为石油烃污染的一种生物标志物,用于海洋污染的早期预警监测。     

亚麻温水脱胶液中细菌菌群结构分析

为了探讨实验室条件下模拟的工厂亚麻温水脱胶液中细菌菌群结构,采用纯培养技术和PCR-DGGE技术(Denaturing gradient gel electrophoresis)对细菌菌群结构进行了研究.用纯培养方法分离获得9类菌落,其中假单胞菌属(Pseudomonas)在有氧培养条件下总是处于优势.梭菌属(Clostridium)在厌氧培养过程中总是处于优势.微球菌属(Micrococcus)和葡萄球菌属(Staphylococcus)只有亚麻脱胶初期才有发现.PCR-DGGE指纹图谱显示,亚麻温水脱胶过程中条带数量较少且没有明显种群群落结构演替过程.通过对不同时期沤麻液中16S rDNAV3片段PCR产物d、e两个DGGE条带进行分子克隆、序列测定和Blas份析,发现e条带包含的16S rDNAV3片段除e 35外均属于假单胞菌属.d条带包含着较多不同的16S rDNAV3片段,其中有传统方法没有分离到的泛菌属(Pantoea)细菌、一些NCBI未收录的序列及一些非可培养微生物序列.纯培养技术和PCR-DGGE技术的共同使用,可以更全面准确地提供细菌多样性方面的信息.图4参15     

Application of proteomics in environmental science

Proteomics involves the separation of proteins, identification of the amino acid sequence of the interested or target proteins, study of the function of the proteins, modification, structure and ultimate assignments to functional pathways in the cell. The proteomic investigations have contributed greatly to human diseases studies, new drugs discovery researches, and environmental science in recent years. This article provides a review on the development of the main proteomic technologies, including both the gel based and non-gel based technologies, and their applications in environmental science. Proteomic technologies have been utilized in the environmental stresses studies to analyze the induction or reduction of proteins at expression level and identify the target proteins to investigate their function in response to environmental stresses, such as high or low pH, oxidation stress, and toxic chemicals. Such protein responses are also helpful to understand the mechanisms of some cellular activities and the functions of some proteins.     

Monitoring impact of mefenacet treatment on soil microbial communities by PCR-DGGE fingerprinting and conventional testing procedures

The effect of acetanilide herbicide mefenacet on soil microbial communities was studied using paddy soil samples with different short-term treatments. The culturable bacteria （plate counts）, dehydrogenase activity and changes in community structure （denaturing gradient gel electrophoresis （DGGE） analysis） were used for biological community assessments. Mefenacet was a significant stimulus to cultural aerobic bacteria and dehydrogenase activity while Sphingobacterium multivorum Y1, a bacterium efficiently degrading the mefenacet, only induced the increasing colony-forming unit （CFU） of bacteria but little effect on dehydrogenase activity during the whole experiment. The degree of similarity between the 16S rDNA profiles of the communities was quantified by numerically analyzing the DGGE band patterns. Similarity dendrograms showed that the microbial community structures of the mefenacet-treated and non-treated soils were not significantly different. But supplement of S. multivorum Y1 could increase the diversity of the microbial community in the mefenacet-polluted paddy soil. This work is a new attempt to apply the S. multivorum Y1 for remediation of the mefenacet-polluted environments.     

Metagenomic assessment of the microbial diversity in ground pork products from markets in the North Central Region of South Korea

The purpose of this study was to characterize the microbial community in ground pork using molecular approaches. Forty six ground pork products were purchased from local stores in the north central area of South Korea. Aerobic plate counts varied 4.23 ± 5.14 × 10⁵ CFU/g with the range between 5.00 × 10³ and 1.85 × 10⁶ CFU/g for ground pork samples. Four ground meat samples were further processed for metagenomic analysis. Pseudomonas species was the most relative abundant with a wide range occurring (1.72 to 77.7%) as part of the microbial genera in ground pork. Bacteria such as Carnobacterium, Yersinia, Photobacterium were also identified in ground pork. Despite the prominence of certain genera across all samples there was still extensive microbial diversity among ground pork products that originated from different slaughter houses and were processed in different markets. Such diversity indicates that designing interventions to extend shelf life may be hampered by the extensive variability in the microbial consortia associated with pork products. However, this diversity may be useful for developing microbial traceability signatures unique to a slaughter house or a particular market.     

Influence of tetracycline exposure on the growth of wheat seedlings and the rhizosphere microbial community structure in hydroponic culture

In this study, the effects of tetracycline exposure on wheat growth and the microbial community structure in the rhizosphere were investigated under hydroponic culture conditions. Exposure to various concentrations of tetracycline resulted in significant suppression of the growth of wheat roots and shoots, with minimum doses of 0.8 mg L^?1 and 4 mg L^?1 resulting in inhibition rates of 32% and 15.4%, respectively. Complete inhibition of the growth of these two parts of wheat plants was observed in response to treatment with tetracycline at 20 mg L^?1 and 100 mg L^?1, respectively. However, the germination of wheat seeds was not sensitive to exposure to tetracycline. The effects of tetracycline exposure on the microbial community in the wheat rhizosphere were evaluated through traditional cultivation and molecular biological analyses. The cultivation results indicated that bacteria were the dominant population, being present in concentrations of 1× 10⁸–2.45× 10⁹CFUs mL^?1, although 39% to 87% inhibition occurred in response to tetracycline. The concentration of fungi increased in all tetracycline treated samples to 2.5 to 15.8 times that of the control. The highest concentration of fungi (4.27× 10⁸ CFU mL^?1) was observed in response to 60 mg L^?1 tetracycline after 15 days of cultivation. In this stage, a large amount of fungal colonies was observed on the surface of the culture solution, the wheat roots became rotted and the plants became atrophic or even died. Molecular biological analysis indicated that the bacterial community structure was significantly different in samples that were exposed to high levels of tetracycline (over 20 mg L^?1) than in samples that were exposed to lower concentrations. As the concentration of tetracycline increased, the diversity of the bacteria decreased. Additionally, several dominant sensitive species such as Sphingobacterium multivorum were suppressed by tetracycline, while some resistant species such as Acinetobacter sp. appeared or were conserved. The bacteria population tended to stabilize when the drug concentration exceeded 40 mg L^?1.     

铜暴露下赤子爱胜蚓（Eisenia foetida）活体基因的损伤研究

通过碱性单细胞凝胶电泳法研究了Cu2+暴露剂量对赤子爱胜蚓(Eiseniafoetida)活体基因损伤的动态影响.结果显示:不添加Cu2+的对照组和添加Cu2+的处理组蚯蚓体腔细胞尾部DNA含量和尾长均呈非正态分布(p<0.05);在暴露72h时,125mg·L-1Cu2+处理组尾部DNA含量值最大,为41.44%,100mg·L-1Cu2+处理组尾长值最大,为33.79μm;随着Cu2+暴露剂量的增加,尾部DNA含量和尾长损伤频率增加;对照组和处理组的尾部DNA含量和尾长之间均存在显著性差异(p<0.05),Spearman非参数相关分析表明,尾部DNA百分含量和尾长之间呈显著相关(p<0.01,n=21),Cu2+暴露浓度与尾部DNA百分含量、尾长具有良好的剂量-构效关系(p<0.01).在125mg·L-1Cu2+浓度下暴露72h时蚯蚓的基因损伤程度达到最大,损伤程度为3级.可见,蚯蚓DNA生物标志物是重金属污染基因毒理诊断的重要指标,碱性SCGE试验是检测Cu2+暴露对赤子爱胜蚓活体基因损伤的有效手段.     

Mechanism on minimization of excess sludge in oxic-settlinganaerobic (OSA) process

The oxic-settling-anaerobic (OSA) process is a promising wastewater treatment technique for efficiently reducing sludge production and improving the stability of process operation. In this paper, the possible factors of sludge reduction such as sludge decay, uncoupled metabolism, and anaerobic oxidation with low sludge production were discussed in the OSA process. It has been confirmed that sludge decay is the decisive cause in the OSA process, accounting for 66.7% of sludge production reduction. Sludge decay includes hydrolysis and acidogenesis of dead microorganisms and particle organic carbon adsorbed in sludge floc and endogenous metabolism. By batch experiments, it has been proven that there is energetic uncoupling in the OSA system since microorganisms were exposed to alternative anaerobic and aerobic environment. It accounts for about 7.5% of sludge production reduction. Soluble chemical oxygen demand (SCOD) released from the anaerobic sludge tank in the OSA process was used as the substrate for cryptic growth. The substrate was used for anoxic denitrifying, anaerobic phosphorus release, sulfate reduction, and methane production. These anaerobic reactions in the sludge anaerobic tank have lower sludge production than in the aerobic oxidation when equivalent SCOD is consumed, which may lead to approximately 23% of sludge reduction in the OSA process. It has been concluded that multiple causes resulted in the minimization of excess sludge in the OSA system. The microbial community structure and diversity of sludge samples from the CAS (conventional activated sludge) and OSA systems were investigated by 16 SrDNA PCR-DG-DGGE (polymerase chain reaction-double gradient-denaturing gradient gel electrophoresis). DGGE profile and cluster analysis showed more abundant species in the OSA system contrasting to microbial communities in the CAS system.