Vol 4, No 4 (2012)

-

The 2012 Nobel Prize in chemistry has been awarded to Robert Lefkowitz, professor at Duke University Medical Center, and Brian Kobilka, professor at Stanford University School of Medicine, for “research into G protein-coupled receptors.” The wording “research,” rather than “discovery, elucidation, or identification of something,” speaks to the fact that such studies have been under way for nearly 40 years, from almost the zero level to the peaks conquered over the past few years.

By the end of 2012, the Government of the Russian Federation is to approve the State Program “Development of the Pharmaceutical and Medical Industries” for 2013–2020, which includes the current Federal Target-Oriented Program “Pharma-2020.” One of the objectives within the State Program prepared by the Ministry of Industry and Trade is to “increase the share of domestically produced drugs and medicinal products in overall consumption by the public healthcare services of the Russian Federation by 48%.” However, the term “domestically produced drug” still remains to be legislatively defined. According to the draft resolution issued by the Ministry of Industry and Trade in May 2012, a “domestic drug” should mean a drug whose production cycle in the territory of the Russian Federation starts from a substance or a ready-toconsume formulation. Until 2014, the Ministry was ready to regard even those drugs whose packaging was made in Russia as Russian ones. However, no further steps followed. Therefore, the question pertaining to which drugs and which produced by which pharmaceutical companies should be regarded as domestic drugs remains open. Actors of the Russian pharmaceutical industry share their opinions.

This review covers the problems encountered in the construction and production of new recombinant influenza vaccines. New approaches to the development of influenza vaccines are investigated; they include reverse genetics methods, production of virus-like particles, and DNA- and viral vector-based vaccines. Such approaches as the delivery of foreign genes by DNA- and viral vector-based vaccines can preserve the native structure of antigens. Adenoviral vectors are a promising gene-delivery platform for a variety of genetic vaccines. Adenoviruses can efficiently penetrate the human organism through mucosal epithelium, thus providing long-term antigen persistence and induction of the innate immune response. This review provides an overview of the practicability of the production of new recombinant influenza cross-protective vaccines on the basis of adenoviral vectors expressing hemagglutinin genes of different influenza strains.

Cellular therapy of endodermal organs is one of the most important issues in modern cellular biology and biotechnology. One of the most promising directions in this field is the study of the transdifferentiation abilities of cells within the same germ layer. A method for an in vitro investigation of the cell differentiation potential (the cell culture in a three-dimensional matrix) is described in this article. Cell cultures of postnatal salivary gland cells and postnatal liver progenitor cells were obtained; their comparative analysis under 2D and 3D cultivation conditions was carried out. Both cell types have high proliferative abilities and can be cultivated for more than 20 passages. Under 2D cultivation conditions, the cells remain in an undifferentiated state. Under 3D conditions, they undergo differentiation, which was confirmed by a lower cell proliferation and by an increase in the differentiation marker expression. Salivary gland cells can undergo hepatic and pancreatic differentiation under 3D cultivation conditions. Liver progenitor cells also acquire a pancreatic differentiation capability under conditions of 3D cultivation. Thus, postnatal salivary gland cells exhibit a considerable differentiation potential within the endodermal germ layer and can be used as a promising source of endodermal cells for the cellular therapy of liver pathologies. Cultivation of cells under 3D conditions is a useful model for the in vitro analysis of the cell differentiation potential.

For prokaryotes in vitro, 16S rRNA and 20 ribosomal proteins are capable of hierarchical self- assembly yielding a 30S ribosomal subunit. The self-assembly is initiated by interactions between 16S rRNA and three key ribosomal proteins: S4, S8, and S7. These proteins also have a regulatory function in the translation of their polycistronic operons recognizing a specific region of mRNA. Therefore, studying the RNA–protein interactions within binary complexes is obligatory for understanding ribosome biogenesis. The non-conventional RNA–protein contact within the binary complex of recombinant ribosomal protein S7 and its 16S rRNA binding site (236 nucleotides) was identified. UV–induced RNA–protein cross-links revealed that S7 cross-links to nucleotide U1321 of 16S rRNA. The careful consideration of the published RNA– protein cross-links for protein S7 within the 30S subunit and their correlation with the X-ray data for the 30S subunit have been performed. The RNA – protein cross–link within the binary complex identified in this study is not the same as the previously found cross-links for a subunit both in a solution, and in acrystal. The structure of the binary RNA–protein complex formed at the initial steps of self-assembly of the small subunit appears to be rearranged during the formation of the final structure of the subunit.

This work is devoted to the investigation of the methanogenic archaea involved in anaerobic digestion of cattle manure and maize straw on the basis of terminal restriction fragment length polymorphism (TRFLP) analysis of archaeal 16S rRNA genes. The biological diversity and dynamics of methanogenic communities leading to anaerobic degradation of agricultural organic wastes with biogas production were evaluated in laboratory-scale digesters. T-RFLP analysis, along with the establishment of archaeal 16S rRNA gene clone libraries, showed that the methanogenic consortium consisted mainly of members of the genera Methanosarcina and Methanoculleus, with a predominance of Methanosarcina spp. throughout the experiment.