There is both animal and human evidence that inadequate nutrition during early development may affect risk for developing metabolic pathologies in adult life including type 2 diabetes (T2D). In populations of different countries, most findings indicating a causative relationship between undernutrition early in life and subsequent risk for T2D have been obtained from quasiexperimental investigations (“natural experiments”). Exposure to famine throughout prenatal and/or early postnatal development was shown to be associated with higher risk of T2D in many populations around the world. The epigenetic regulation of gene activity has been highlighted as a major mechanism linking early-life famine exposure and adult T2D. Prenatal exposure to the famine can induce persistent epigenetic alterations that have adaptive significance in early post-natal development but may predispose to metabolic dysfunctions including T2D in later life. In this review, findings from quasi-experimental studies on the developmental programming of T2D are summarized and discussed.

There is a point of view that the chronological aging (CA) of yeast and the stationary phase aging (SPA) of cultured animal and human cells are a consequence of growth medium acidification. However, a number of recent publications indicate that the process influences, to a certain extent, on the rate of “aging” of cells in the stationary phase of growth but does not determines it completely. Apparently, the key factor in this case is the cell proliferation restriction which leads to “aging” of the cells even under physiologically optimal conditions. During yeast CA and SPA of mammalian cells the medium is getting acidified to pH≤4. Preventing the medium acidification could make it possible to increase the culture life span, but the cells will still die out, albeit at a slower rate. Effects of the medium acidification observed during CA and SPA can be explained by the activation of highly conserved growth signaling pathways leading to the oxidative stress development; these processes, in turn, can be involved in aging of multicellular organisms and play a role in their age-related diseases. A while ago we studied the effect of buffer capacity of growth medium on SPA of transformed Chinese hamster cells. We found that HEPES at 20 mM had no effect on the cell growth, and both control and experimental growth curves reached plateau level on the same day. However, the cells grown with HEPES, on the one hand, reached lower saturation density than the control ones (i.e., were “older” in terms of the gerontological cell kinetics model), and on the other – underwent SPA at much slower rate (though still were “getting older”). It can be assumed that extracellular pH which, by the way, is well correlated with intracellular pH, is very important (I.A. Arshavsky’s concept on a role of the acidic alteration in aging) but not the key factor determining survival of cells in a stationary culture.

Diatom species composition in the ice of Velikaya Salma straight of Kandalaksha bay of the White Sea was studied in 5 stations in March, 2013–2014 – prior to the spring algal bloom. Under- ice water salinity and ice thickness did not differ significantly between the two years. In total 59 diatom taxa (47 species and 12 taxa of higher taxonomic ranks) were found in the ice of Velikaya Salma straight, which makes 61% of the number of diatom taxa found in Velikaya Salma ice during the whole ice period and 22% of all the White Sea ice species. Species Stenoneis obtuserostrata (Hustedt) Poulin and Gyrosigma concilians (Cleve) Okolodkov were identified in the White Sea ice for the first time. Szymkiewicz-Simpson similarity coefficient for pairs of the stations with significant difference was 0.44–0.80.

We report on investigation of early stage interactions between powdery mildew pathogen and host plant. We demonstrated that treatment of wheat leaves with various concentrations of hydrogen peroxide and 3-amino-1,2,4-triazole resulted in formation of morphological anomalies of germ tubes and non-viable colonies on host plant leaves. The observed effect of oxidative stress on germination anomalies of powdery mildew is similar to previously reported interactions between the pathogen and mildew resistant plants. Based on this work we conclude that abnormal infectious structure formation of wheat powdery mildew may be associated with increased presence of reactive oxygen species during plant defense responses.

Production and application of therapeutic monoclonal antibodies take second place in the global pharmaceutical market after vaccines. Nowadays the IgG1 is one of the prevailing monoclonal antibodies type for the therapeutic use that are produced in CHO cells. Recently the possibility of developing therapeutic drugs based on antibodies of IgA-isotype has demonstrated a broad range of effector functions on human mucous membranes, which has caused a significant interest in this research field. In our research about level of IgA1 antibody expression in mammal cells, we designed a set of bipromoter (CMV, EF1α) vectors containing variable regions of heavy chain (VH) and light chain (VL) genes from human monoclonal antibody FI6v3 against influenza A virus, constant regions IgA1 of heavy and light chains of human antibody (with or without introns). The vectors differed in mutual orientation of promoters and presence or lack of introns. Two versions of the full-length light and heavy chains were cloned in eukaryotic expressing vector in “head-head”/ “head-tail” orientations and then transfected into HEK-293T and CHO/dhfr-cells. The level of antibody production was determined using ELISA test for transfection of CHO DG44 and HEK-293T cell culture. The results of the experiments showed a significant increase in the production of FI6v3-IgA1 antibodies when eukaryotic cells were transfected with a plasmid pBiPr-ABIgA1FI6-Iht containing introns in constant regions of IgA1 and with orientation of transcription in the “head-tail” direction.

Voltage-gated potassium channel Kv10.2 is expressed in the nervous system, but its functions and involvement in the development of human disease remain poorly understood. Mutant forms of Kv10.2 channel were found in patients with epileptic encephalopathy and autistic features. Molecular modeling of the channel spatial structure is an important tool for gaining knowledge about the molecular aspects of the channel functioning and mechanisms responsible for the pathogenesis. In the present work, we performed molecular modeling of the helical fragment of the human Kv10.2 (hEAG2) C-terminal domain in dimeric, trimeric and tetrameric forms. The stability of all forms was confirmed by molecular dynamics simulation. Contacts and interactions, stabilizing the structure, were identified.

Ion-exchange properties of root cell walls of Triticum aestivum L. plants grown in hydroponic nutrient medium with nitrate or without nitrogen source were investigated. The root cell walls contained four types of ion-exchange groups irrespective of the nitrogen nutrition: primary amino groups (рКа < 3) of structural cell wall proteins, carboxyl groups of polygalacturonic acid (рКа ~4.7) of pectin, carboxyl groups of hydroxycinnamic acids (рКа ~7.3), and phenolic OH-groups of lignin (рКа ~10.2). Content of ion-exchange groups, the cell wall dry weight to root dry weight ratio, and the swelling coefficient of the cell walls were influenced by the presence of nitrate in the medium. The root cell walls of N-deficient plants had 2.4 times higher content of phenolic OH-groups, 1.24 times higher cell wall dry weight to root dry weight ratio, and 10% lower cell wall swelling coefficient, than nitrate-supplied plants. The obtained results indicate that nitrogen deficiency causes an increase in cell wall thickness, which probably is a result of increased lignin content.

An important task of biomedical research is the functional characterization of new regulatory glyproline peptides, which are able to provide regulatory effect on the functional state of the haemostatic system, lipid and carbohydrate metabolism in the organism. In the present study used a model of experimental metabolic syndrome that involves continuous feeding rats of high calorie food. This leads to increased clotting, glucose concentration, levels of total cholesterol, LDL cholesterol, triglycerides in the blood and to the development of obesity. 6 weeks after development of metabolic syndrome arginine-containing peptides (Arg-Glu-Arg-Pro-Gly-Pro, Arg-Glu-Arg-Val-Gly-Pro, Arg-Glu-Arg-Gly-Pro) were administrated to rats intranasal way once daily for 7 days. It was found that these peptides have the unique combined effects on organism, because they normalized the parameters of lipid metabolism, haemostatic system and the concentration of glucose in the blood. This corrective effect of the peptides was detected 20 h after the last drug administration and persisted for 168 h even in the continued maintenance of rats on a high-calorie diet. The investigated glyproline can be attributed to the therapeutic normoglycemic and lipid-lowering drugs. They block the accumulation of new fat deposits in the body and also have anticoagulant and antithrombotic effects in case of the disturbances of carbohydrate and fat metabolism. The most pronounced and stable positive effects on the organism it was established for peptide Arg-Glu-Arg-Pro-Gly-Pro.

Substrate topography influences cell shape, direction, and rate of migration, nucleus shape, gene expression levels. This influence is commonly studied using substrates with pre-defined surface structure and chemical composition. In the current work, we studied the state of HaCaT keratinocytes nuclei and actin cytoskeleton on poly(ε- caprolactone) scaffolds obtained by electrospinning. Two types of fibrous scaffolds were prepared and characterized. In the random scaffolds the fibers were arranged in a non-systematic fashion, but in the aligned scaffolds most of the fibers had the same direction. When cultured on the aligned scaffolds, HaCaT cells exhibited oriented actin fibers and had more elongated nuclei.

The dynamics of carbon dioxide exchange in the common spruce (Picea abies L.) in relation to environmental factors was monitored for several seasons. A direct linear dependence of photosynthesis intensity on the levels of air temperature and illumination was established (the correlation coefficient was 0,860 (p <0.001) and 0,704 (p <0.001)). It was revealed that the seasonal maximum of net photosynthesis production was attained at temperatures of 23–25°C. A decrease in temperature optimum was associated with a reduced level of CO2 assimilation intensity. The impact of environmental factors on photosynthesis intensity was considered in terms of a model developed by us. Using the model, we demonstrated that the temperature and illumination dynamics in toto accounts for 82% of changes in photosynthesis intensity. It is the air temperature that exerts the strongest influence on the process of photosynthesis. According to our calculations, the net photosynthesis level was three times higher than the respiration level. This is indicative of a positive carbon dioxide balance in the needles of the common spruce.