Jiangsu Cancer Hospital & Jiangsu Institute of Cancer Research & Nanjing Medical University Affiliated Cancer Hospital

4 ARTICLES PUBLISHED IN JoVE

Environment

Measuring Rates of Herbicide Metabolism in Dicot Weeds with an Excised Leaf Assay

Rong Ma¹, Joshua J. Skelton¹, Dean E. Riechers¹

¹Department of Crop Sciences, University of Illinois

This manuscript describes how herbicide metabolism rates can be effectively quantified with excised leaves from a dicot weed, thereby reducing variability and removing any possible confounding effects of herbicide uptake or translocation typically observed in whole-plant assays.

Biology

An In Vitro Model to Study the Effect of 5-Aminolevulinic Acid-mediated Photodynamic Therapy on Staphylococcus aureus Biofilm

Ke-Qing Zhao^*1, Yang Wu^*2, Yu-Xi Yi², Si-Jia Feng², Ruo-Yan Wei², Ying Ma³, Chun-Quan Zheng¹, Di Qu²

¹Department of Otorhinolaryngology-Head and Neck Surgery, Eye & ENT Hospital, Shanghai Key Clinical Disciplines of otorhinolaryngology, Fudan University, ²Key Laboratory of Medical Molecular Virology of Ministries of Education and Health, Department of Medical Microbiology and Parasitology, School of Basic Medical Science, Shanghai Medical College of Fudan University, ³Department of Dermatology, Huashan Hospital, Fudan University

This manuscript describes a protocol to study the antimicrobial effect of 5-aminolevulinic acid-mediated photodynamic therapy (ALA-PDT) on a Staphylococcus aureus biofilm. This protocol can be used to develop an in vitro model to study the treatment of bacterial biofilms with PDT in the future.

Chemistry

Methionine Functionalized Biocompatible Block Copolymers for Targeted Plasmid DNA Delivery

Yang Wu^*1, Wei Zhang^*2, Jian Zhang², Zhi-Xiang Mao³, Li Ding², Hao Li³, Rong Ma¹, Jin-Hai Tang²

¹Research Center of Clinical Oncology, Jiangsu Cancer Hospital & Jiangsu Institute of Cancer Research & Nanjing Medical University Affiliated Cancer Hospital, ²Department of General Surgery, The First Affiliated Hospital with Nanjing Medical University, ³School of Clinical Medicine, Xuzhou Medical University

This work presents the preparation of methionine functionalized biocompatible block copolymers (mBG) via the reversible addition-fragmentation chain transfer (RAFT) method. The plasmid DNA complexing ability of the obtained mBG and their transfection efficiency were also investigated. The RAFT method is very beneficial for polymerizing monomers containing special functional groups.

Bioengineering

DNA Tension Probes to Map the Transient Piconewton Receptor Forces by Immune Cells

Rong Ma¹, Anna V. Kellner², Yuesong Hu¹, Brendan R. Deal¹, Aaron T. Blanchard², Khalid Salaita^1,2

¹Department of Chemistry, Emory University, ²Wallace H. Coulter Department of Biomedical Engineering, Georgia Institute of Technology and Emory University

This paper describes a detailed protocol for using DNA-based tension probes to image the receptor forces applied by immune cells. This approach can map receptor forces >4.7pN in real-time and can integrate forces over time.