In this paper, we present a novel PCR method, termed SiteFinding-PCR, for gene or chromosome walking. The PCR was primed by a SiteFinder at a low temperature, and then the target molecules were amplified exponentially with gene-specific and SiteFinder primers, and screened out by another gene-specific primerand a vector primer.However, non-target molecules could not be amplified exponentially owing to the suppression effect of stem-loop structure and could notbescreenedout. This simplemethodproved to be efficient, reliable, inexpensive and time-saving, andmay be suitable for themolecules for which genespecific primers are available. More importantly, large DNA fragments can be obtained easily using this method. To demonstrate the feasibility and efficiency of SiteFinding-PCR, we employed this method to do chromosomewalkingandobtained 16positive results from 17 samples.

Dozens of PCR-based methods are available for chromosome walking from a known sequence to an unknown region. These methods are of three types: inverse PCR, ligation-mediated PCR and randomly primed PCR. However, none of them has been generally applied for this purpose, because they are either difficult or inefficient. Here we describe a simple and efficient PCR strategy

Huwentoxin-I (HWTX-I) is a novel neurotoxin isolated from the venom of Orinithoctonus huwena. Based on its biological activity, HWTX-I could be developed as a pain-killer for clinical purpose. Production of HWTX-I by the bacterium or yeast expression systems resulted in poor yields and the puriWed protein was proved to have lower biological activity than that of native one. So, for the Wrst time, we introduced a new method to express HWTX-I gene in Sf9 cells using baculovirus expression system. Recombinant HWTX-I was recognized by Western blotting and then puriWed by nickel-chelating aYnity chromatography under native conditions. Recombinant HWTX-I showed identical amino acid sequence as native form and exhibited similar eVect on muscular transmission with that of native form. These results indicate that the baculovirus expression system and native puriWcation strategy are viable ways to produce active HWTX-I.

The type-I ribosome-inactivating protein trichosanthin (TCS) has a broad spectrum of biological and pharmacological activities, including abortifacient, anti-tumor and anti-human-immunodeficiency-virus (anti-HIV). In this study, circular dichroism (CD) and capillary electrophoresis were used for the first time to study TCS and its two TCS mutants of Y55G TCS (tyrosine 55 converted to glycine) and FYY140-142GSA TCS (tripeptide phenylalanine-tyrosine-tyrosine 140-142 converted to glycine-serine-alanine). The results indicated that the substitution of amino acids changed the secondary structures and the hydrophobility of TCS. Moreover, both Y55G TCS and FYY140-142GSA TCS demonstrated attenuated cytotoxicity and reactive oxygen species (ROS) production in human choriocarcinoma cells (JAR cells) as compared to natural TCS and wild-type TCS. Our results demonstrated the cytotoxicity of TCS on JAR cells and TCS-induced production of ROS might be TCS-conformational related, suggesting that CD and capillary electrophoresis study might throw new insight into the anti-tumor and anti-HIV mechanism of TCS.