ORAL COMMUNICATIONS
Oral communications
OC1
Novel biologically active naphthoquinones isolated from
insect associated and endophytic fungi
Paula Garcia-Fraile 1,∗ , Miroslav Kolařík 1,2 , Eva Stodůlková 1 , Jan
Černý 2 , Petr Man 1 , Peter Novák 1 , Ivana Císařová 2 , Tomaš Zelenka 1 ,
Miroslav Flieger 1
1
Institute of Microbiology, A.S.C.R., Videnska 1083, 142 20 Prague, Czech
Republic
2
Faculty of Science, Charles University, Albertov 6, 128 43 Prague, Czech
Republic
E-mail address: garcia@biomed.cas.cz (P. Garcia-Fraile).
The traditional source of naphthoquinones (NQC) are com-
mercially planted medicinal herbs. NQC are synthesized also in
microorganisms and over 70 fungal species (mostly Fusarium,
Aspergillus and Penicillium) are reported as their producers. The
fungal NQC have a broad range of biological activities, including
antimicrobial, anti-inflammatory, antiviral and cytostatic. We
have studied secondary metabolites from Quambalaria cyanescens
(Basidiomycota, Exobasidiomycetes) a fungus known as endo-
phyte, plant saprobe or parasite and bark beetle associate. Next
lineage of fungi includes members of Pleosporales (from Bioa-
triospora marina lineage) known as endophytes of land plants
but living also in marine and estuarine environment. Seven
new together with ten already known NQC were isolated. Their
structures were determined by single-crystal X-ray diffraction
experiments and mass spectrometry. They have antibiotic effect
and are active against various carcinoma cells lineages. Identified
NQC exhibited low cytotoxicity to healthy human cells and
represents attentive to several plant produced NQC with known
potential in anticancer therapy (e.g. shikonin, lapachol).
http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.nbt.2015.10.061
408 www.elsevier.com/locate/nbt
New Biotechnology · Volume 33, Number 3 · May 2016
OC2
CD247 (CD3␨) specifically regulates cell surface expres-
sion of the NKp30b isoform, but not NKp30a or c
A. Blázquez-Moreno ∗ , H.T. Reyburn
Department Immunology and Oncology, National Centre for Biotechnology,
CSIC, Madrid, Spain
E-mail address: ablazquez@cnb.csic.es (A. Blázquez-Moreno).
NKp30 is an important natural killer (NK) cell activating recep-
tor involved in tumour recognition. Alternative splicing of NKp30
gene leads to expression of three isoforms that only differ in
their cytoplasmic tails. NKp30 has raised significant interest since
each isoform and its expression level lead to differential effector
functions, and is a useful marker for the prognosis of gastroin-
testinal sarcoma, neuroblastoma or Sjögren’s syndrome patients.
We have identified an NKp30 isoform-specific cell pattern expres-
sion. We show that not all NKp30 isoforms associate equally
with the Fc␧R␥ and CD247 adaptor molecules. NKp30b isoform
depends on association with adaptor molecules, and preferen-
tially, CD247, for cell surface expression, while isoforms a and c
does not depend on association with any adaptor molecule. These
data were confirmed by experiments showing specific NKp30b sur-
face expression down-regulation when CD247 was silenced in NK
cells using CrispRCas9 technology. Confocal microscopy experi-
ments indicate that NKp30b is mainly expressed intracellularly,
but not Golgi-accumulated or degraded in the absence of CD247.
It is striking that isoforms a and c are able to be stably expressed
in the plasma membrane despite an unpaired arginine residue in
the transmembrane domain. A better understanding of how the
cell biology of each NKp30 isoform leads to a different function
may explain the associations of each isoform with better or worse
disease outcome.
http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.nbt.2015.10.062
1871-6784/$ — see front matter