Chung Yuan Christian University

About: Chung Yuan Christian University is a education organization based out in Taoyuan City, Taiwan. It is known for research contribution in the topics: Membrane & Fuzzy logic. The organization has 9819 authors who have published 11623 publications receiving 213139 citations. The organization is also known as: Tiong-gôan-tāi-ha̍k & CYCU.

Multiple Nucleic Acid Binding Sites and Intrinsic Disorder of Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome Coronavirus Nucleocapsid Protein: Implications for Ribonucleocapsid Protein Packaging

Abstract: The nucleocapsid protein (N) of the severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus (SARS-CoV) packages the viral genomic RNA and is crucial for viability. However, the RNA-binding mechanism is poorly understood. We have shown previously that the N protein contains two structural domains—the N-terminal domain (NTD; residues 45 to 181) and the C-terminal dimerization domain (CTD; residues 248 to 365)—flanked by long stretches of disordered regions accounting for almost half of the entire sequence. Small-angle X-ray scattering data show that the protein is in an extended conformation and that the two structural domains of the SARS-CoV N protein are far apart. Both the NTD and the CTD have been shown to bind RNA. Here we show that all disordered regions are also capable of binding to RNA. Constructs containing multiple RNA-binding regions showed Hill coefficients greater than 1, suggesting that the N protein binds to RNA cooperatively. The effect can be explained by the “coupled-allostery” model, devised to explain the allosteric effect in a multidomain regulatory system. Although the N proteins of different coronaviruses share very low sequence homology, the physicochemical features described above may be conserved across different groups of Coronaviridae. The current results underscore the important roles of multisite nucleic acid binding and intrinsic disorder in N protein function and RNP packaging. Severe acute respiratory syndrome (SARS) is the first pandemic of the 21st century that spread to multiple nations, with a fatality rate of ca. 8%. The disease is caused by a novel SARS-associated coronavirus (SARS-CoV) closely related to the group II coronaviruses, which include the human coronavirus OC43 and murine hepatitis virus (6, 18). Traditional antiviral treatments have had little success against SARS dur

Nanoplastics Cause Neurobehavioral Impairments, Reproductive and Oxidative Damages, and Biomarker Responses in Zebrafish: Throwing up Alarms of Wide Spread Health Risk of Exposure.

Abstract: Plastic pollution is a growing global emergency and it could serve as a geological indicator of the Anthropocene era. Microplastics are potentially more hazardous than macroplastics, as the former can permeate biological membranes. The toxicity of microplastic exposure on humans and aquatic organisms has been documented, but the toxicity and behavioral changes of nanoplastics (NPs) in mammals are scarce. In spite of their small size, nanoplastics have an enormous surface area, which bears the potential to bind even bigger amounts of toxic compounds in comparison to microplastics. Here, we used polystyrene nanoplastics (PS-NPs) (diameter size at ~70 nm) to investigate the neurobehavioral alterations, tissue distribution, accumulation, and specific health risk of nanoplastics in adult zebrafish. The results demonstrated that PS-NPs accumulated in gonads, intestine, liver, and brain with a tissue distribution pattern that was greatly dependent on the size and shape of the NPs particle. Importantly, an analysis of multiple behavior endpoints and different biochemical biomarkers evidenced that PS-NPs exposure induced disturbance of lipid and energy metabolism as well as oxidative stress and tissue accumulation. Pronounced behavior alterations in their locomotion activity, aggressiveness, shoal formation, and predator avoidance behavior were exhibited by the high concentration of the PS-NPs group, along with the dysregulated circadian rhythm locomotion activity after its chronic exposure. Moreover, several important neurotransmitter biomarkers for neurotoxicity investigation were significantly altered after one week of PS-NPs exposure and these significant changes may indicate the potential toxicity from PS-NPs exposure. In addition, after ~1-month incubation, the fluorescence spectroscopy results revealed the accumulation and distribution of PS-NPs across zebrafish tissues, especially in gonads, which would possibly further affect fish reproductive function. Overall, our results provided new evidence for the adverse consequences of PS-NPs-induced behavioral dysregulation and changes at the molecular level that eventually reduce the survival fitness of zebrafish in the ecosystem.