The biosafety issue of nanoscale materials is getting more and more attention with their increasing manufacture and application.In the research of cellular effects and underlying mechanisms related to toxicity of nanomaterials,most emphasis were placed on processes such as apoptosis,metabolic inhibition and oxidative stress.Recent evidence suggests that autophagy is part of the biological effects by nanomaterials and various kinds of nanomaterials are capable of disturbing the autophagic process.This review will highlight the importance of autophagy as an emerging mechanism of nanomaterial toxicity and the implication in the therapy of autophagy-related diseases.We summarize current research status of interaction between nanomaterials and autophagic pathways.It is of note that nanomaterials can either induce or block autophagy,which result in similar phenotype but completely different biological consequence.It is therefore important to perform comprehensive analysis of the whole autophagic flux in the future research.
Prof.Liu Feng’s laboratory at the Institute of Zoology,Chinese Academy of Sciences,published their research findings in an article"Inhibition of endothelial ERK signalling by Smadl/5 is essential for haematopoietic stem cell emergence"in Nature Communications(2014,5:3431).The earliest hematopoietic stem cells(HSCs)are derived from hemogenic endothelium(HE)via en-
Technological advances are important for innovative biological research. Development of molecular tools for DNA manipulation, such as zinc finger nucleases(ZFNs), transcription activator-like effector nucleases(TALENs), and the clustered regularly-interspaced short palindromic repeat(CRISPR)/CRISPR-associated(Cas), has revolutionized genome editing. These approaches can be used to develop potential therapeutic strategies to effectively treat heritable diseases. In the last few years, substantial progress has been made in CRISPR/Cas technology, including technical improvements and wide application in many model systems. This review describes recent advancements in genome editing with a particular focus on CRISPR/Cas, covering the underlying principles, technological optimization, and its application in zebrafish and other model organisms, disease modeling, and gene therapy used for personalized medicine.
