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The chilling stress induced by the global climate change harms rice production, especially at seedling and booting stage, which feed half the population of the world. Although there are key quantitative trait locus genes identified in the individual stage, few genes have been reported and functioned at both stages. Utilizing chromosome segment substitution lines (CSSLs) and a combination of map-based cloning and phenotypes of the mutants and overexpression lines, we identified the major gene Chilling-tolerance in Geng/japonica rice 3 (COG3) of q chilling-tolerance at the booting and seedling stage 11 (qCTBS11) conferred chilling tolerance at both seedling and booting stages. COG3 was significantly upregulated in Nipponbare under chilling treatment compared with its expression in 93-11. The loss-of-function mutants cog3 showed a reduced chilling tolerance. On the contrary, overexpression enhanced chilling tolerance. Genome evolution and genetic analysis suggested that COG3 may have undergone strong selection in temperate japonica during domestication. COG3, a putative calmodulin-binding protein, physically interacted with OsFtsH2 at chloroplast. In cog3-1, OsFtsH2-mediated D1 degradation was impaired under chilling treatment compared with wild-type. Our results suggest that COG3 is necessary for maintaining OsFtsH2 protease activity to regulate chilling tolerance at the booting and seedling stage., (© 2024 The Authors. New Phytologist © 2024 New Phytologist Foundation.)

Background: The P-stalk is a conserved and vital structural element of ribosome. The eukaryotic P-stalk exists as a P0-(P1-P2) 2 pentameric complex, in which P0 function as a base structure for incorporating the stalk onto 60S pre-ribosome. Prior studies have suggested that P0 genes are indispensable for survival in yeast and animals. However, the functions of P0 genes in plants remain elusive., Results: In the present study, we show that rice has three P0 genes predicted to encode highly conserved proteins OsP0A, OsP0B and OsP0C. All of these P0 proteins were localized both in cytoplasm and nucleus, and all interacted with OsP1. Intriguingly, the transcripts of OsP0A presented more than 90% of the total P0 transcripts. Moreover, knockout of OsP0A led to embryo lethality, while single or double knockout of OsP0B and OsP0C did not show any visible defects in rice. The genomic DNA of OsP0A could well complement the lethal phenotypes of osp0a mutant. Finally, sequence and syntenic analyses revealed that OsP0C evolved from OsP0A, and that duplication of genomic fragment harboring OsP0C further gave birth to OsP0B, and both of these duplication events might happen prior to the differentiation of indica and japonica subspecies in rice ancestor., Conclusion: These data suggested that OsP0A functions as the predominant P0 gene, playing an essential role in embryo development in rice. Our findings highlighted the importance of P0 genes in plant development., (© 2023. BioMed Central Ltd., part of Springer Nature.)

Three strains, including L. fermentum, L. plantarum and S. thermophilus, were combined to ferment blueberry juice. Through the sequential simplex lattice mixture design, regression modeling and genetic algorithm optimization, it was found that the combination of S. thermophilus with either L. fermentum or L. plantarum weakened the capacity of Lactobacillus strains to enrich phenolics, and the combinations of these strains had no synergistic effect of synthesizing lactic acid. The resulting optimal inoculation proportion to enrich phenolics was the mixed L. fermentum and L. plantarum at 0.5:0.5. After fermentation for 48 h, total phenolic, ferulic acid, rutin, and quercetin-3-rhamnoside of mixed fermented samples were 82.19 %, 15.22 %, 79.08 % and 98.59 % higher than the unfermented juice, and their contents were all highest among the fermented samples. Moreover, the samples fermented by mixed strains possessed higher amounts of 3-methyl-1-butanol, 2-methyl-1-propanol, 2-heptanone and 2-pentanone than samples fermented by L. fermentum, S. thermophilus and unfermented samples., Competing Interests: Declaration of Competing Interest The authors declare that they have no known competing financial interests or personal relationships that could have appeared to influence the work reported in this paper., (Copyright © 2022 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.)

Fertilizer management can influence soil microbes, soil properties, enzymatic activities, abundance and community structure. However, information on the effects of biochar in combination with organic-inorganic fertilizer after 3 years under pomelo orchard on soil bacterial abundance, soil properties and enzyme activities are not clear. Therefore, we conducted a field experiment with seven treatments, i.e., (1) Ck (control), (2) T1 (2 kg biochar plant -1 ), (3) T2 (4 kg biochar plant -1 ), (4) T3 (2 kg organic-inorganic mixed fertilizer plant -1 ), (5) T4 (4 kg biochar + 1.7 kg organic-inorganic mixed fertilizer plant -1 ), (6) T5 (4 kg biochar + 1.4 kg organic-inorganic mixed fertilizer plant -1 ), and (7) T6 (4 kg biochar + 1.1 kg organic-inorganic mixed fertilizer plant -1 ). The soil microbial communities were characterized using high-throughput sequencing of 16S and internal transcribed spacer (ITS) ribosomal RNA gene amplicons. The results showed that biochar combined with organic-organic fertilizer significantly improved soil properties (pH, alkali hydrolysable nitrogen, available phosphorus, available potassium, and available magnesium) and soil enzymatic activities [urease, dehydrogenase (DHO), invertase and nitrate reductase (NR) activities]. Furthermore, soil bacterial relative abundance was higher in biochar and organic-inorganic treatments as compared to control plots and the most abundant phyla were Acidobacteria (40%), Proteobacteria (21%), Chloroflexi (17%), Planctomycetes (8%), Bacteroidetes (4%), Verrucomicrobia (2%), and Gemmatimonadetes (1%) among others. Among the treatments, Acidothermus, Acidibacter , Candidatus Solibacter and F473 bacterial genera were highest in combined biochar and organic-inorganic treatments. The lowest bacterial abundance and bacterial compositions were recorded in control plots. The correlation analysis showed that soil attributes, including soil enzymes, were positively correlated with Chloroflexi, Planctomycetes, verrucomicrobia, GAL15 and WPS-2 bacterial abundance. This study demonstrated that biochar with organic-inorganic fertilizer improves soil nutrients, enzymatic activities and bacterial abundance., Competing Interests: The authors declare that the research was conducted in the absence of any commercial or financial relationships that could be construed as a potential conflict of interest., (Copyright © 2022 Song, Zhao, Guo, Ali, Li, Lin and Liu.)

Citrate salts (CSs), as one type of organic salts, have been widely used in the food and pharmaceutical industries. Accurate and quantitative detection of CSs in food and medicine is very important for health and safety. In this study, an asymmetric double-opening ring metamaterial sensor is designed, fabricated, and used to detect citrate salts combined with THz spectroscopy. Factors that influence the sensitivity of the metamaterial sensor including the opening positions and the arrangement of the metal opening ring unit, the refraction index and the thickness of the analyte deposited on the metamaterial sensor were analyzed and discussed from electromagnetic simulations and THz spectroscopy measurements. Based on the high sensitivity of the metamaterial sensor to the refractive index of the analyte, six different citrate salt solutions with low concentrations were well identified. Therefore, THz spectroscopy combined with a metamaterials sensor can provide a new, rapid, and accurate detection of citrate salts.

In this investigation, the combinations of exogenous pretreatment (melatonin or vitamin C) and contact ultrasound-assisted air drying were utilized to dry broccoli florets. To understand the influences of the studied dehydration methods on the conversion of glucoraphanin to bioactive sulforaphane in broccoli, various components (like glucoraphanin, sulforaphane, myrosinase, etc.) and factors (temperature and moisture) involved in the metabolism pathway were analyzed. The results showed that compared with direct air drying, the sequential exogenous pretreatment and contact ultrasound drying shortened the drying time by 19.0-22.7%. Meanwhile, contact sonication could promote the degradation of glucoraphanin. Both melatonin pretreatment and vitamin C pretreatment showed protective effects on the sulforaphane content and myrosinase activity during the subsequent drying process. At the end of drying, the sulforaphane content in samples dehydrated by the sequential melatonin (or vitamin C) pretreatment and ultrasound-intensified drying was 14.4% (or 26.5%) higher than only air-dried samples. The correlation analysis revealed that the exogenous pretreatment or ultrasound could affect the enzymatic degradation of glucoraphanin and the generation of sulforaphane through weakening the connections of sulforaphane-myrosinase, sulforaphane-VC, and VC-myrosinase. Overall, the reported results can enrich the biochemistry knowledge about the transformation of glucoraphanin to sulforaphane in cruciferous vegetables during drying, and the combined VC/melatonin pretreatment and ultrasound drying is conducive to protect bioactive sulforaphane in dehydrated broccoli., (Copyright © 2022 The Authors. Published by Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.)

Using Shanghai Tennis Masters as an example, this study seeks to explore the psychic income associated with major sports events hosting and whether the psychic income would predict the attitudes of local residents toward events hosting. In addition, the moderating effect of sport involvement on the relationship between psychic income and attitude is also tested. In this study, a questionnaire survey is adopted. The structured questionnaire was developed based on 4 parts, including the demographics of the residents, involvement in the sport event, psychic income from the sport event, and their attitudes toward the sports event, there were 47 items in total. Data were collected from the local residents of Shanghai (including 16 districts or counties), as a result, 1,302 valid questionnaires were collected. A series of statistical analyses were conducted by using SPSS25.0 and AMOS 24.0 to examine the reliability and validity of the scales and to test the hypotheses. The results showed that the event has brought a significant level of psychic income to the local community, and the perceived psychic income would predict the attitudes of the residents toward the event hosting. The moderating effect of sports involvement on the relationship between psychic income and attitude is also confirmed., Competing Interests: The authors declare that the research was conducted in the absence of any commercial or financial relationships that could be construed as a potential conflict of interest., (Copyright © 2022 Zhang, Liu, Plumley and Chai.)

The bacterium Xanthomonas oryzae pv. Oryzae (Xoo) causes blight in rice worldwide, resulting in significant crop loss. However, no gene underlying a quantitative trait locus (QTL) for resistance against Xoo has been cloned yet. Here, we report the map-based cloning of a QTL, in which the NBS8R gene confers quantitative resistance to Xoo. NBS8R encodes an NB-ARC protein, which is involved in pathogen/microbe-associated molecular pattern-triggered immunity and whose expression is regulated by non-TAL effector XopQ-inducible Osa-miR1876 through DNA methylation. Sequence analysis of NBS8R in wild rice species and rice cultivars suggests that the Osa-miR1876 binding sites in the 5' UTR of NBS8R are inserted by chance and have undergone variations with Osa-miR1876 throughout evolution. The interaction between NBS8R and XopQ-inducible Osa-miR1876 is partially in keeping with the zigzag model, revealing that quantitative genes may also follow this model to control the innate immune response or basal disease resistance, and may prove valuable in utilizing the existing landraces that harbor the NBS8R gene but with no Osa-miR1876 binding site in rice breeding for bacterial blight resistance., (Copyright © 2020 The Author. Published by Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.)

Treatment of Parkinson's disease with levodopa/carbidopa/entacapone (LCE) has been studied for a long time. However, the efficacy and safety of LCE in the treatment of early Parkinson's disease (PD) still need to be assessed. Our objective was to do a meta-analysis of relevant randomized controlled trials (RCTs) to evaluate the efficacy and safety of LCE for early PD. PubMed, Embase, the Cochrane Library, and the Web of Science were searched for RCTs with "levodopa/carbidopa/entacapone" and "Parkinson's disease" as keywords. The search period was from inception to October 2018. The quality of included studies was strictly evaluated. We evaluated the quality of included studies strictly and six studies met all inclusion criteria. The results showed that LCE could improve activities of daily living and motor function in PD patients. However, LCE therapy was associated with higher risks of total AEs and single AEs compared with traditional therapy.

Dysregulation of long noncoding RNAs (lncRNAs) has been found in a large number of human cancers, including colon cancer. Therefore, the implementation of potential lncRNAs biomarkers with prognostic prediction value are very much essential. GSE39582 data set was downloaded from database of Gene Expression Omnibus. Re-annotation analysis of lncRNA expression profiles was performed by NetAffx annotation files. Univariate and multivariate Cox proportional analyses helped select prognostic lncRNAs. Algorithm of random survival forest-variable hunting (RSF-VH) together with stepwise multivariate Cox proportional analysis were performed to establish lncRNA signature. The log-rank test was carried out to analyze and compare the Kaplan-Meier survival curves of patients' overall survival (OS). Receiver operating characteristic (ROC) analysis was used for comparing the survival prediction regarding its specificity and sensitivity based on lncRNA risk score, followed by calculating the values of area under the curve (AUC). The single-sample GSEA (ssGSEA) analysis was used to describe biological functions associated with this signature. Finally, to determine the robustness of this model, we used the validation sets including GSE17536 and The Cancer Genome Atlas data set. After re-annotation analysis of lncRNAs, a total of 14 lncRNA probes were obtained by univariate and multivariate Cox proportional analysis. Then, the RSF-VH algorithm and stepwise multivariate Cox analysis helped to build a five-lncRNA prognostic signature for colon cancer. The patients in group with high risk showed an obviously shorter survival time compared with patients in group with low risk with AUC of 0.75. In addition, the five-lncRNA signature can be used to independently predict the survival of patients with colon cancer. The ssGSEA analysis revealed that pathways such as extracellular matrix-receptor interaction was activated with an increase in risk score. These findings determined the strong power of prognostic prediction value of this five-lncRNA signature for colon cancer., (© 2019 Wiley Periodicals, Inc.)

MicroRNAs (miRNAs) are crucial player in plant-pathogen interaction. While the evidence has demonstrated that rice miRNAs mediate immune response to pathogens invasion, the roles of miRNAs on Xanthomonas oryzae pv. oryzae ( Xoo ) attack remain be in place. Herein, we monitored the responsive changes of rice miRNAs at 0, 8, 24 h across Xoo strain PXO86 infection in its compatible rice variety IR24 and incompatible variety IRBB5 by small RNA sequencing, and the genes targeted by miRNAs were also detected via degradome technology. The faithfulness of sequencing data was validated through quantitative real-time stem-loop reverse transcription-polymerase chain reaction assay. Bioinformatic analysis showed that the differentially expressed miRNAs could be divided into three immunity-related clusters, and 80 regulatory units were emerged in infection process, which comprises 29 differentially expressed known miRNAs and 38 cleaved targets. Furthermore, the miRNA presumptive function of separate immunity cluster in rice-Xoo interplay was confirmed through overexpressing osa-miR164a, osa-miR167d and osa-miR159b, and the disruption of regulatory units, osa-miR164a/ OsNAC60, osa-miR167d-5p/ OsWD40-174 and osa-miR159b/ OsMYBGA , OsLRR-RLK2 , OsMPK20-4 , may reset rice defense response to Xoo infestation in a controllable manner . These findings provide new insights into the complex roles of characteristic miRNAs and their targets in rice- Xoo interactions., Competing Interests: The authors declare that they have no competing interests.

Generalized anxiety disorder (GAD) is characterized by a chronic, continuous symptom of worry and exaggerated startle response. Although functional abnormality in GAD has been widely studied using functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI), the dynamic signatures of GAD are not fully understood. As a vital index of brain function, brain signal variability (BSV) reflects the capacity of state transition of neural activities. In this study, we recruited 47 patients with GAD and 38 healthy controls (HCs) to investigate whether or not BSV is altered in patients with GAD by measuring the standard deviation of fMRI signal of each voxel. We found that patients with GAD exhibited decreased BSV in widespread regions including the visual network, sensorimotor network, frontoparietal network, limbic system, and thalamus, indicating an inflexible brain state transfer pattern in these systems. Furthermore, the correlation between BSV and trait anxiety score was prone to be positive in patients with GAD but negative in HCs. The opposite relationships between BSV and anxiety level in the two groups indicate that the brain with moderate anxiety level may stay in the most stable rather than in the flexible state. As the first study of BSV in GAD, we revealed extensively decreased BSV in patients with GAD similar to that in other mental disorders but with a non-linear relationship between BSV and anxiety level indicating a novel neurodynamic mechanism of the anxious brain.

Background: Is it healthy to be chaotic? Recent studies have argued that mental disorders are associated with more orderly neural activities, corresponding to a less flexible functional system. These conclusions were derived from altered temporal complexity. However, the relationship between spatial complexity and health is unknown, although spatial configuration is of importance for normal brain function., Methods: Based on resting-state functional magnetic resonance imaging data, we used Sample entropy (SampEn) to evaluate the altered spatial complexity in patients with generalized anxiety disorder (GAD; n = 47) compared to healthy controls (HCs; n = 38) and the relationship between spatial complexity and anxiety level., Results: Converging results showed increased spatial complexity in patients with GAD, indicating more chaotic spatial configuration. Interestingly, inverted-U relationship was revealed between spatial complexity and anxiety level, suggesting complex relationship between health and the chaos of human brain., Limitations: Anxiety-related alteration of spatial complexity should be verified at voxel level in a larger sample and compared with results of other indices to clarify the mechanism of spatial chaotic of anxiety., Conclusions: Altered spatial complexity in the brain of GAD patients mirrors inverted-U relationship between anxiety and behavioral performance, which may reflect an important characteristic of anxiety. These results indicate that SampEn is a good reflection of human health or trait mental characteristic., (Copyright © 2018 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.)

Background: Hexaploid bread wheat (Triticum aestivum L) arose by two polyploidisation events from three diploid species with homoeologous genomes. Nullisomic-tetrasomic (nulli-tetra or NT) lines are aneuploid wheat plants lacking two and adding two of six homoeologous chromosomes. These plants can grow normally, but with significantly morphological variations because the adding two chromosomes or the remaining four chromosomes compensate for those absent. Despite these interesting phenomena, detailed molecular mechanisms underlying dosage deletion and compensation in these useful genetic materials have not been determined., Results: By sequencing the transcriptomes of leaves in two-week-old seedlings, we showed that the profiles of differentially expressed genes between NT stocks for homoeologous group 7 and the parent hexaploid Chinese Spring (CS) occurred throughout the whole genome with a subgenome and chromosome preference. The deletion effect of nulli-chromosomes was compensated partly by the tetra-chromosomes via the dose level of expressed genes, according to the types of homoeologous genes. The functions of differentially regulated genes primarily focused on carbon metabolic process, photosynthesis process, hormone metabolism, and responding to stimulus, and etc., which might be related to the defective phenotypes that included reductions in plant height, flag leaf length, spikelet number, and kernels per spike., Conclusions: The perturbation of the expression levels of transcriptional genes among the NT stocks for homoeologous group 7 demonstrated the gene dosage effect of the subgenome at the genome-wide level. The gene dosage deletion and compensation can be used as a model to elucidate the functions of the subgenomes in modern polyploid plants.

To survive under cold temperatures plants must be able to perceive a cold signal and transduce it into downstream components that induce appropriate defense mechanisms. In addition to inducing adaptive defenses, such as the production of osmotic factors to prevent freezing and the reprogramming of transcriptional pathways, cold temperatures induce changes in plant growth and development which can affect the plant life cycle. In this review, we summarize recent progress in characterizing cold-related genes and the pathways that allow transduction of the cold signal in plants, focusing primarily on studies in Arabidopsis thaliana and rice (Oryza sativa). We summarize cold perception and signal transduction from the plasma membrane to the nucleus, which involves cold sensors, calcium signals, calcium-binding proteins, mitogen-activated protein kinase cascades, and the C-repeat binding factor/dehydration-responsive element binding pathways, as well as trehalose metabolism. Finally, we describe the balance between plant organogenesis and cold tolerance mechanisms in rice. This review encapsulates the known cold signaling factors in plants and provides perspectives for ongoing cold signaling research., (© 2018 Institute of Botany, Chinese Academy of Sciences.)

Nonlinear optical refractive index changes (RICs) with polaron effects are studied in this Letter. The energy levels and wave functions of the polaron Schrödinger equation are calculated and brought into the nonlinear RICs to analyze the difference between the effects of the presence and absence of polarons, as well as the specific representation of RICs with polarons.

A nearly two-octave wide coherent mid-infrared supercontinuum is demonstrated in a dispersion-engineered step-index indium fluoride fiber pumped near 2 µm. The pump source is an all-fiber femtosecond laser with 100 fs pulse width, 570 mW average power and 50 MHz repetition rate. The supercontinuum spectrum spans from 1.25 µm to 4.6 µm. Numerical modelling of the supercontinuum spectra show good agreement with the measurements. The coherence of the supercontinuum is calculated using a numerical model and shows a high degree of coherence across the generated bandwidth allowing it to be used for frequency comb applications.

A pollen defective male sterile rice mutant, osms55, was isolated from an elite indica cultivar HHZ using EMS (ethyl methanesulfonate) mutagenesis strategy. Genetic analysis showed that osms55 was controlled by a single recessive gene. Genome-wide SNP analysis using the high-throughput Illumina Infinium iSelect SNP (50 K) microarray technology indicated that the genetic makeup of osms55 is the same as wild type (WT) HHZ. Using a modified MutMap method, we successfully identified a mutation in the LOC_Os02g40450 (MER3) gene that is co-segregated with the male sterility phenotype. The mutation is located at the intron splice-recognition site, leading to a 15 nucleotide deletion in the fifth exon. Different from the published MutMap method that aligns the mutant pool DNA sequence with the assembled WT genome, the method used in this study was to align the re-sequencing data of the mutant pool DNA and WT HHZ with the Nipponbare reference genome. The resulting SNPs of mutant/Nipponbare and WT HHZ/Nipponbare were further compared to determine the candidate mutant gene. This modified method does not need an assembled WT genome as reference and thus is more cost-effective and widely applicable.

The highly conserved florigen gene FLOWERING LOCUS T (FT) functions at the core of the flowering pathways. Extensive studies have examined the transcriptional regulation of FT; however, other layers of FT regulation remain unclear. Here, we identified miR5200 a Pooideae-specific microRNA that is expressed in leaves and targets Brachypodium distachyon FT orthologs for mRNA cleavage. miR5200 was abundantly expressed in plants grown under short-day (SD) conditions but was dramatically repressed in plants transferred to long-day (LD) conditions. We also found that the epigenetic chromatin status, specifically the levels of histone methylation marks, at miR5200 precursor loci changed in response to daylength. Moreover, artificial interruption of miR5200 activity by target mimicry in B. distachyon altered flowering time in SD but not in LD conditions, suggesting that miR5200 functions in photoperiod-mediated flowering time regulation. Together, these findings illustrate a posttranscriptional regulation mechanism of FT and provide insights into understanding of the multiple concerted pathways for flowering time control in plants.

Background: MicroRNAs (miRNAs) are identified in nearly all plants where they play important roles in development and stress responses by target mRNA cleavage or translation repression. MiRNAs exert their functions by sequence complementation with target genes and hence their targets can be predicted using bioinformatics algorithms. In the past two decades, microarray technology has been employed to study genes involved in important biological processes such as biotic response, abiotic response, and specific tissues and developmental stages, many of which are miRNA targets. Despite their value in assisting research work for plant biologists, miRNA target genes are difficult to access without pre-processing and assistance of necessary analytical and visualization tools because they are embedded in a large body of microarray data that are scattered around in public databases., Description: Plant MiRNA Target Expression Database (PMTED) is designed to retrieve and analyze expression profiles of miRNA targets represented in the plethora of existing microarray data that are manually curated. It provides a Basic Information query function for miRNAs and their target sequences, gene ontology, and differential expression profiles. It also provides searching and browsing functions for a global Meta-network among species, bioprocesses, conditions, and miRNAs, meta-terms curated from well annotated microarray experiments. Networks are displayed through a Cytoscape Web-based graphical interface. In addition to conserved miRNAs, PMTED provides a target prediction portal for user-defined novel miRNAs and corresponding target expression profile retrieval. Hypotheses that are suggested by miRNA-target networks should provide starting points for further experimental validation., Conclusions: PMTED exploits value-added microarray data to study the contextual significance of miRNA target genes and should assist functional investigation for both miRNAs and their targets. PMTED will be updated over time and is freely available for non-commercial use at http://pmted.agrinome.org.

Background: Bud dormancy is a critical developmental process that allows perennial plants to survive unfavorable environmental conditions. Pear is one of the most important deciduous fruit trees in the world, but the mechanisms regulating bud dormancy in this species are unknown. Because genomic information for pear is currently unavailable, transcriptome and digital gene expression data for this species would be valuable resources to better understand the molecular and biological mechanisms regulating its bud dormancy., Results: We performed de novo transcriptome assembly and digital gene expression (DGE) profiling analyses of 'Suli' pear (Pyrus pyrifolia white pear group) using the Illumina RNA-seq system. RNA-Seq generated approximately 100 M high-quality reads that were assembled into 69,393 unigenes (mean length = 853 bp), including 14,531 clusters and 34,194 singletons. A total of 51,448 (74.1%) unigenes were annotated using public protein databases with a cut-off E-value above 10-5. We mainly compared gene expression levels at four time-points during bud dormancy. Between Nov. 15 and Dec. 15, Dec. 15 and Jan. 15, and Jan. 15 and Feb. 15, 1,978, 1,024, and 3,468 genes were differentially expressed, respectively. Hierarchical clustering analysis arranged 190 significantly differentially-expressed genes into seven groups. Seven genes were randomly selected to confirm their expression levels using quantitative real-time PCR., Conclusions: The new transcriptomes offer comprehensive sequence and DGE profiling data for a dynamic view of transcriptomic variation during bud dormancy in pear. These data provided a basis for future studies of metabolism during bud dormancy in non-model but economically-important perennial species.

The cross-coupling reactions of 1,1,1-trifluoro-2-iodoethane with aryl and heteroaryl boronic acid esters have been successfully achieved. The new protocol allows for a convenient introduction of trifluoroethyl groups into a variety of aryl and heteroaryl moieties under mild conditions.

Rice OsERF922, encoding an APETELA2/ethylene response factor (AP2/ERF) type transcription factor, is rapidly and strongly induced by abscisic acid (ABA) and salt treatments, as well as by both virulent and avirulent pathovars of Magnaporthe oryzae, the causal agent of rice blast disease. OsERF922 is localized to the nucleus, binds specifically to the GCC box sequence, and acts as a transcriptional activator in plant cells. Knockdown of OsERF922 by means of RNAi enhanced resistance against M. oryzae. The elevated disease resistance of the RNAi plants was associated with increased expression of PR, PAL, and the other genes encoding phytoalexin biosynthetic enzymes and without M. oryzae infection. In contrast, OsERF922-overexpressing plants showed reduced expression of these defence-related genes and enhanced susceptibility to M. oryzae. In addition, the OsERF922-overexpressing lines exhibited decreased tolerance to salt stress with an increased Na(+)/K(+) ratio in the shoots. The ABA levels were found increased in the overexpressing lines and decreased in the RNAi plants. Expression of the ABA biosynthesis-related genes, 9-cis-epoxycarotenoid dioxygenase (NCED) 3 and 4, was upregulated in the OsERF922-overexpressing plants, and NCED4 was downregulated in the RNAi lines. These results suggest that OsERF922 is integrated into the cross-talk between biotic and abiotic stress-signalling networks perhaps through modulation of the ABA levels.

We report an all-normal-dispersion, low-repetition-rate, high-energy, twin-pulse, passively mode locked ytterbium-doped fiber laser. The mode-locking mechanism of the laser is based on nonlinear polarization evolution and strong pulse shaping with a cascade long-period fiber grating bandpass filtering in a highly chirped pulse. The laser generates a highly stable twin-pulse group with 248 ps and 296 ps duration simultaneously and maximum pulse energy of 26.8 nJ-each pulse at a 2.5445 MHz repetition rate. Energy quantization is observed, which demonstrates the nonparabolic nature of these pulses. The laser can also work in third-harmonic mode locking with 17.8 nJ energy (at a repetition rate of 7.65 MHz and pulse width of 780 ps).

Objective: This study was to measure the expression of TGF-beta1 in larynx squamous carcinoma, to investigate the relationship between TGF-beta1 and the expressions of CD44V5 , bcl-2 and p53, and the relationship between TGF-beta1 and pathological grading of tumours, the clinical staging and the survival rate of the patients, through which the effect of TGF-beta1 on the pathogenesis of the larynx squamous carcinoma was to be known., Method: With immunohistochemistry, the expressions of TGF-beta1, CD44V6, bcl-2 and p53 were measured in the paraffin sections of the larynx squamous carcinoma tissues of 43 patients., Result: In pathological grading I, II, III, respectively, the positive expression ratios of TGF-beta1 were 86.96%, 82.35%, 100.00%; CD44V6 were 60.87%, 70.59%, 100.00%; bcl-2 were 82.61%, 94.12%, 100.00%; p53 were 26.09%, 35.29%, 66.67%., Conclusion: (1) TGF-beta1 had some relationships to the pathological grading, the clinical staging, the metastasis to cervical lymph node, the survival rates of patients in 3 and 5 years. TGF-beta1 can be used as a marker to evaluate the development and predict the metastasis of tumors and the prognosis of patients. (2) The expression of TGF-beta1 in larynx carcinoma had some correlation to CD44V6, bcl-2 and p53.

Objective: This study was to measure the expression of TGF-beta 1 in larynx squamous carcinoma, to investigate the relationship between TGF-beta 1 and pathological grading of tumours, the clinical staging and, through which the effect of TGF-beta 1 on the pathogenesis of the larynx squamous carcinoma was to be known., Method: RNA was extracted from the larynx squamous carcinoma tissues of 21 patients and from normal laryngeal tissues of 15 cases. Reverse transcriptional polymerase chain reaction (RT-PCR) was applied to detect the expression of the TGF-beta 1 mRNA., Result: Ten of the 21 specimens of the larynx squamous carcinoma showed positive expression of TGF-beta 1 mRNA, then the expression ratio was 47.62%. The expression of TGF-beta 1 mRNA had relationship to the pathological grading and the clinical staging of the larynx carcinoma., Conclusion: TGF-beta 1 can be used as a marker to evaluate the progression of laryngeal squamous cell carcinoma.

Through theoretical modeling, we find that the dynamics of photogenerated carriers play a very important role in shaping the temporal waveform of terahertz (THz) radiation pulses emitted from biased low-temperature (LT-grown GaAs antenna. Our modeling gives successful analyses for the sharp and short, slow and long negative parts of temporal THz waveforms. By including intraband, carrier relaxation effect in the modeled mobility, we find an obvious dependence of the THz conversion efficiency on the material of THz emitter and experimental parameters such as the optical duration, the center wavelength, and the fluence of the laser pulses. Our research also shows that electron-hole and electron-electron collisions in LT-GaAs contribute to the saturation phenomenon with an increase of laser fluence.