9^th International Conference on Bioinformatics November 13-14, 2017 Paris, France

Biography:

Lungu N. Claudiu is a last year  PhD in organic chemistry at “Babes-Bolyai” University, Cluj, Romania. He has a degree in medicine (MD)  and in pharmacy.  His areas of interest are: computational chemistry, drug discovery and materials science. He wrote a number of papers regarding nano bio assemblies, polymers, bio nano interactions and quantitative structure activity relationship (QSAR). In the last time, his  areas of interest are bioinformatics and bioactivity study. He delivered several oral presentations in: Berlin (Germany), Warsaw (Poland) and Bergen (Norway) regarding nano assemblies, as a part of an European research grant in the fiel of nanoscience. 

Abstract:

Cell surface molecules (CSM) like L selectin, VLA-4, LFA-1, CD2, CD4, TCR, CD44, CD45RA and CD45RO play a major role in cell interaction, signalling and function. CSM are in a “mosaic” of activated–inactivated states. These states determine cell behaviour. Cells are controlled by a “cocktail” of molecules that act on CSM modulating their states. Nano system was designed using computational methods like molecular dynamics, docking, ligand design, virtual screening and experimental methods like isothermal titration calorimetry (ITC) and single cell imaging techniques. The system is composed of nano polymers, graphene and fullerene patches on witch wild or synthetic “ligands”-amino acids or small peptide for CSM are incorporated. Physico chemical triggers were used to activate MSMC. Cellular meshing by MSCM allows controlling and guiding of cellular dynamic interaction with all the pathways involving the cell. MSMC by its nano polymer mesh can protect or stabilize a certain cell or tissue. MSMC was made cell specific by incorporating Ig motifs against different types of cells. Computational models of L-selectin, VLA-4, LFA-1, CD2, CD4, TCR, CD44, CD45RA and CD45RO were designed and incorporated into a nano polymer mesh. MSMC outer surface was coated with phosphatidilinositol, sphingnomielin and cholesterol mono layer. The system goal is to be administrated iv. In the first stage of development, the attention was focused on single cell manipulation. The viability of the cell (unintended cell death) and the lack of adverse effects like aggregation, hemolysis⁴, toxicity were tested. Each receptor was characterized individualy and a series of proteic motifs were developed for incorporation into MSMC. In conclusion, a bio-nano-device⁵ was designed to control a cell by stimulating/inhibiting the CD’s. System was designed to be cell specific and tissue specific; device is ,,controlled’’ by physico-chemical stimuli. The ultimate goal of this system is to control large volumes of cells eventually tissues.

Biography:

Aviwe Ntsethe has completed his Honour’s degree in Medical Science (Physiology) from University of KwaZulu Natal, School of Laboratory Medicine and Medical Science. He is now doing his Master’s degree in Physiology in the same university.

Abstract:

Myocardial infarction (MI) is one of the leading causes of death worldwide. The pathogenesis and aetiology of MI is still unclear. Cardiac troponin is the only known cardiac-specific marker for the diagnosis of MI but due to the delayed release of troponin in the circulation, a novel cardiac biomarker is needed in the early stages of development of MI to reduce MI mortality. Exosomes are reported to be highly regulated by stress. Thus we assessed the hypothesis that exosome secretion is increased following MI and thereby serve as biomarker for MI. The aim of this study was to quantify exosomes in an isoproterenol (ISO)-induced MI rats. Twelve rats were used in this study, Group-A (n=6) was the normal control rats and group-B (n=6) was the ISO-treated group. Group-B animals were injected with isoproterenol for two consecutive days to induce MI. Blood pressure, heart rate and body weight were monitored in all animals prior the ISO injection and throughout the experiment. After the second ISO-injection, all animals were sacrificed and blood, heart tissues were obtained. Histopathological analysis was performed in heart tissue samples and levels of cardiac markers were measured from the serum. Exosomes were isolated from the plasma and quantified by differential ultracentrifugation, nanoparticle tracking analysis, transmission electron microscope and ELISA respectively. MI was confirmed by the increase in BP and cardiac markers in ISO-induced rats. The concentration of exosomes was elevated in plasma of ISO-treated animals. The study revealed that exosomes are potential biomarkers of myocardial infarction.

Biography:

Laura Ion has completed her PhD at Alexandru Ioan Cuza University of Iasi, RO and currently she is a Postdoctoral Fellow at the same university. Her research area is focused on peptide and protein chemistry by using SDS-PAGE electrophoresis, mass spectrometry, liquid chromatography, etc. During her studies, she obtained several research stages at Konstanz University and Steinbeis Center of Biopolymer Analysis and Biomedical Mass Spectrometry in Rüsselsheim, Germany.

Abstract:

Currently, the development of proteomic approaches (e.g. mass spectrometry, electrophoresis) became a key tool for characterization of non-covalent bio-molecular complexes, such as those with heavy metal ions, small organic molecules or even in presence of sodium dodecyl sulfate (SDS). Moreover, various proteins can form oligomers (ex. Amyloid beta peptide) and the relationship between different states of proteins (starting with monomeric to oligomeric state) is important for the protein activity. Therefore, a critical step for a better understanding of the cell is to determine the protein complexes structure. Therefore, our research work was focused on conformational studies by using small peptides, such as tetraglycine, newly model peptides (histidine-containing Ala- and Gly-based peptides) and large peptides, such as amyloid beta peptide under various environmental conditions (ex. SDS, stearic acid, metal ions, ammonium acetate or trifluoroethanol solution). Our results show that (i) SDS is able to reduce the proportion of peptide oligomers; (ii) SDS solution added to the Aβ solution severely changes the peptide conformation, with disappearance of the β-sheet conformers and doubling the proportion of β-turn isomers; (iii) on investigating histidine containing peptides, the proportion of conformers was found dependent on the amino acid sequence.

Biography:

Leila Nasehi received her Master’s in Microbiology in 2008 and PhD degree in Molecular Medicine in 2017 from Tehran University of Medical Sciences. Her research activities take place in the field of antibiotic resistance in patient’s samples, particularly in the field of resistance genes in microorganisms (ESBL), and genetic manipulation by employing plasmids or lentiviruses vectors for silencing or stable silencing in adherent & suspension cells. She is a faculty member of Zanjan University of Medical Sciences.

Abstract:

The high expression of insulin-like growth factors and their receptors is a common phenomenon in the process of invasion and metastasis of many malignancies such as lymphoma. Rituximab is the first monoclonal antibody to be approved for the treatment of lymphoma. Epitope complex of rituximab has been determined by co-crystallizing a synthetic peptide mimic of the extracellular loop epitope of CD20 (residues 163–187) in complex with the antigen-binding fragment of rituximab. Genetic mutations in the rituximab epitope can reduce the binding and efficacy of the antibody and these mutations are important causes of failure to treatment. Sequencing and bioinformatics analysis exhibits mutations in CD20 gene indicative of resistance and therefore it seems the synergistic effect of combined therapy with the stable system of lentiviral gene therapy and immunotherapy can provide a promising therapeutic approach for the treatment of lymphoma. We made lentiviruses using six lentiviral cassettes against IGF-IR and used to transduct HEK293T cells. Then we compared them to non-silencing control cassette and the reduction in mRNA and protein expression level was determined using real time PCR and Western Blot techniques. The most effective cassette was selected and used to transduct Raji cells. The expression of IGF-IR and Bcl2 at mRNA and protein level was assessed and the cell growth and cytotoxicity were assessed using MTT assay. We evaluated the role of IGF-1 receptor in growth and proliferation of Raji tumor cells by reducing the expression of IGF-IR. Finally, we detected sensitivity to rituximab- immunotherapy in the lymphoma cells.

Biography:

Susan Sabbagh is an educated physiotherapy at Shiraz University of Medical Science and she has post graduated from anatomical science in Ahwaz University of Medical Science. Since then she started teaching at Dezful University of Medical Science as a faculty member. Her main research was on neurology field and done some researches on multiple sclerosis, neural tube defects and hearing loss and published 8 papers in reputed journals. From 2014, she was attracted to proteomics and learned about it. Her project on sperm tail proteomics was published in journal of assisted reproduction and genetics on 2015.    

Abstract:

Introduction: Asthenozoospermia is a common cause of human male infertility characterized by reduced sperm motility. The molecular mechanism that impairs sperm motility is not fully understood. This study purposed to identify novel biomarkers by focusing on sperm tail proteomic analysis of asthenozoospermic patients.

Materials & Method: Sperm were isolated from normozoospermic and asthenozoospermic semen samples. Tail fractions were obtained by sonication followed by Percoll gradient. The proteins were extracted by solubilization and subjected to two-dimensional gel electrophoresis (2-DE); then, the spots were analyzed using ImageMaster 2D Platinum software. The significantly increased/decreased amounts of proteins in the two groups were exploited by matrix-assisted laser desorption-ionization time-of-flight/time-of-flight (MALDI-TOF-TOF) mass spectrometry.

Results: Three hundred and ninety protein spots were detected in both groups. Twenty-one protein spots that had significantly altered amounts (p<0.05) were excised and exploited using MALDI-TOF-TOF mass spectrometry. They led to the identification of the following 14 unique proteins: Tubulin beta 2B; glutathione S-transferase Mu 3; keratin, type II cytoskeletal 1; outer dense fiber protein 2; voltage-dependent anion-selective channel protein 2; A-kinase anchor protein 4; cytochrome c oxidase subunit 6B; sperm protein associated with the nucleus on the X chromosome B; phospholipid hydroperoxide glutathione peroxidase-mitochondrial; isoaspartyl peptidase/L-asparaginase; heat shock-related 70 kDa protein 2; stress-70 protein, mitochondrial; glyceraldehyde-3-phosphate dehydrogenase, testis-specific and clusterin.

Conclusion: Fourteen proteins present in different amounts in asthenozoospermic sperm tail samples were identified, 4 of which are reported here for the first time. These proteins might be used as markers of male infertility, targets for male contraceptive development, and to predict embryo quality.