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Various proteins with antibacterial, anticoagulant, and anti-inflammatory properties have been identified in the buccal glands of jawless blood-sucking vertebrate lampreys. However, studies on endogenous peptides in the buccal gland of lampreys are limited. In this study, 4528 endogenous peptides were identified from 1224 precursor proteins using peptidomics and screened for bioactivity in the buccal glands of the lamprey, Lethenteron camtschaticum . We synthesized four candidate bioactive peptides (VSLNLPYSVVRGEQFVVQA, DIPVPEVPILE, VVQLPPVVLGTFG, and VPPPPLVLPPASVK), calculated their secondary structures, and validated their bioactivity. The results showed that the peptide VSLNLPYSVVRGEQFVVQA possessed anti-inflammatory activity, which significantly increased the expression of anti-inflammatory factors and decreased the expression of inflammatory factors in THP-1 cells. The peptide VVQLPPVVLGTFG showed antibacterial activity against some gram-positive bacteria. The peptide VSLNLPYSVVRGEQFVQA possessed good ACE inhibitory activity at low concentrations, but no dose-related correlation was observed. Our study revealed that the buccal glands of the jawless vertebrate lamprey are a source of multiple bioactive peptides, which will provide new insights into the blood-sucking mechanism of lamprey.

Mastitis causes serious economic losses in the dairy industry, but there are no effective treatments or preventive measures. In this study, the ZRANB3 , PIAS1 , ACTR3 , LPCAT2 , MGAT5 , and SLC37A2 genes in Xinjiang brown cattle, which are associated with mastitis resistance, were identified using a GWAS. Pyrosequencing analysis showed that the promoter methylation levels of the FHIT and PIAS1 genes in the mastitis group were higher and lower, respectively, than those in the healthy group (65.97 ± 19.82% and 58.00 ± 23.52%). However, the methylation level of the PIAS1 gene promoter region in the mastitis group was lower than that in the healthy group (11.48 ± 4.12% and 12.17 ± 4.25%). Meanwhile, the methylation levels of CpG3, CpG5, CpG8, and CpG15 in the promoter region of the FHIT and PIAS1 genes in the mastitis group were significantly higher than those in the healthy group ( p < 0.01), respectively. RT-qPCR showed that the expression levels of the FHIT and PIAS1 genes were significantly higher in the healthy group than those in the mastitis group ( p < 0.01). Correlation analysis showed that the promoter methylation level of the FHIT gene was negatively correlated with its expression. Hence, increased methylation in the promoter of the FHIT gene reduces the mastitis resistance in Xinjiang brown cattle. Finally, this study provides a reference for the molecular-marker-assisted selection of mastitis resistance in dairy cattle.

In this paper, an oblique aperture ridge waveguide operating at 2450 MHz is proposed, and, using the ridge waveguide, a permittivity measurement system is constructed which can measure the permittivity of materials during microwave heating. The system calculates the amplitudes of the scattering parameters by using the forward, reflected and transmitted powers of the power meters, and it reconstructs the permittivity of the material by combining the scattering parameters with an artificial neural network. The system is used to measure the complex permittivity of mixed solutions of methanol and ethanol with different ratios at room temperature, and the permittivity of methanol and ethanol with increasing temperature, from room temperature to 50 °C. The measured results are in good agreement with the reference data. The system allows simultaneous measurement of the permittivity with microwave heating and provides real-time, rapid changes in the permittivity during heating, avoiding thermal runaway and providing a reference for applications of microwave energy in the chemical industry.

In this study, an egg white dual cross-linked hydrogel was developed based on the principle that the external stimulus can denature proteins and cause them to aggregate, forming hydrogel. The sodium hydroxide was used to induce gelation of the egg white protein, subsequently introducing calcium ions to cross-link with protein chains, thereby producing a dual cross-linked hydrogel. The characteristics of the dual cross-linked hydrogels-including the secondary structure, stability, microstructure, swelling performance, texture properties, and biosafety-were investigated to determine the effects of calcium ion on the egg white hydrogel (EWG) and evaluate the potential application in the field of tissue engineering. Results showed that calcium ions could change the β-sheet content of the protein in EWG after soaking it in different concentrations of CaCl 2 solution, leading to changes in the hydrogen bonds and the secondary structure of polypeptide chains. It was confirmed that calcium ions promoted the secondary cross-linking of the protein chain, which facilitated polypeptide folding and aggregation, resulting in enhanced stability of the egg white dual cross-linked hydrogel. Furthermore, the swelling capacity of the EWG decreased with increasing concentration of calcium ions, and the texture properties including hardness, cohesiveness and springiness of the hydrogels were improved. In addition, the calcium cross-linked EWG hydrogels exhibited biocompatibility and cell-surface adhesion in vitro. Hence, this work develops a versatile strategy to fabricate dual cross-linked protein hydrogel with biosafety and cell-surface adhesion, and both the strategy and calcium-egg white cross-linked hydrogels have potential for use in bone tissue engineering., Competing Interests: The authors declare no conflict of interest.

Human B cell adaptor for phosphoinositide 3-kinase (BCAP) is identified as an adaptor protein expressed in B cells and plays a critical immunomodulatory role in B cell receptor signaling and humoral immune response. In the current study, a homolog of BCAP (Lja-BCAP) was identified in Lampetra japonica. The open reading frame of Lja-BCAP contains 2181bp nucleotides and encodes a protein of 726 amino acids. After being stimulated by mixed bacteria, the mRNA and protein expression levels of Lja-BCAP and the activation levels of tyrosine kinases increased significantly in peripheral blood lymphocytes, gills and supraneural myeloid bodies, respectively. However, after the knockdown of Lja-BCAP by RNAi in vivo, the activation of tyrosine kinases was inhibited in the above tissues, which indicated that Lja-BCAP participated in the anti-bacterial immune response of lampreys. After lipopolysaccharide (LPS) stimulation, the expression of Lja-BCAP in peripheral blood lymphocytes, gills and supraneural myeloid bodies were significantly up-regulated 2.5, 2.2, and 11.1 times (p < 0.05) compared to the control group, respectively; while after phytohemagglutinin (PHA) stimulation, the up-regulation of Lja-BCAP was only detected in peripheral blood lymphocytes. The above results show that Lja-BCAP mainly participates in the LPS-mediated immune response of lampreys.

Common wheat, Triticum aestivum , is the most widely grown staple crop worldwide. To catch up with the increasing global population and cope with the changing climate, it is valuable to breed wheat cultivars that are tolerant to abiotic or shade stresses for density farming. Arabidopsis LONG HYPOCOTYL IN FAR-RED 1 (AtHFR1), a photomorphogenesis-promoting factor, is involved in multiple light-related signaling pathways and inhibits seedling etiolation and shade avoidance. We report that overexpression of AtHFR1 in wheat inhibits etiolation phenotypes under various light and shade conditions, leading to shortened plant height and increased spike number relative to non-transgenic plants in the field. Ectopic expression of AtHFR1 in wheat increases the transcript levels of TaCAB and TaCHS as observed previously in Arabidopsis , indicating that the AtHFR1 transgene can activate the light signal transduction pathway in wheat. AtHFR1 transgenic seedlings significantly exhibit tolerance to osmotic stress during seed germination compared to non-transgenic wheat. The AtHFR1 transgene represses transcription of TaFT1 , TaCO1 , and TaCO2 , delaying development of the shoot apex and heading in wheat. Furthermore, the AtHFR1 transgene in wheat inhibits transcript levels of PHYTOCHROME-INTERACTING FACTOR 3-LIKEs ( TaPIL13 , TaPIL15-1B , and TaPIL15-1D ), downregulating the target gene STAYGREEN ( TaSGR ), and thus delaying dark-induced leaf senescence. In the field, grain yields of three AtHFR1 transgenic lines were 18.2-48.1% higher than those of non-transgenic wheat. In summary, genetic modification of light signaling pathways using a photomorphogenesis-promoting factor has positive effects on grain yield due to changes in plant architecture and resource allocation and enhances tolerances to osmotic stress and shade avoidance response.

The traditional cover modification steganography method only has low steganography ability. We propose a steganography method based on the convolutional neural network architecture (Xception) of deep separable convolutional layers in order to solve this problem. The Xception architecture is used for image steganography for the first time, which not only increases the width of the network, but also improves the adaptability of network expansion, and adds different receiving fields to carry out multi-scale information in it. By introducing jump connections, we solved the problems of gradient dissipation and gradient descent in the Xception architecture. After cascading the secret image and the mask image, high-quality images can be reconstructed through the network, which greatly improves the speed of steganography. When hiding, only the secret image and the cover image are cascaded, and then the secret image can be embedded in the cover image through the hidden network in order to obtain the secret image. After extraction, the secret image can be reconstructed by bypassing the secret image through the extraction network. The results show that the results that are obtained by our model have high peak signal-to-noise ratio (PSNR) and structural similarity (SSIM), and the average high load capacity is 23.96 bpp (bit per pixel), thus realizing large-capacity image steganography surgery.

Image-to-image steganography is hiding one image in another image. However, hiding two secret images into one carrier image is a challenge today. The application of image steganography based on deep learning in real-life is relatively rare. In this paper, a new Steganography Convolution Neural Network (SteganoCNN) model is proposed, which solves the problem of two images embedded in a carrier image and can effectively reconstruct two secret images. SteganoCNN has two modules, an encoding network, and a decoding network, whereas the decoding network includes two extraction networks. First, the entire network is trained end-to-end, the encoding network automatically embeds the secret image into the carrier image, and the decoding network is used to reconstruct two different secret images. The experimental results show that the proposed steganography scheme has a maximum image payload capacity of 47.92 bits per pixel, and at the same time, it can effectively avoid the detection of steganalysis tools while keeping the stego-image undistorted. Meanwhile, StegaoCNN has good generalization capabilities and can realize the steganography of different data types, such as remote sensing images and aerial images.

Based on differential scanning calorimetry (DSC), X-ray diffraction (XRD) analysis, polarizing microscope (POM), and scanning electron microscopy (SEM) analysis, strategies to close the gap on applying conventional processing optimizations for the field of 3D printing and to specifically increase the mechanical performance of extrusion-based additive manufacturing of poly(lactic acid) (PLA) filaments by annealing and/or blending with poly(3-hydroxybutyrate) (PHB) were reported. For filament printing at 210 °C, the PLA crystallinity increased significantly upon annealing. Specifically, for 2 h of annealing at 100 °C, the fracture surface became sufficiently coarse such that the PLA notched impact strength increased significantly (15 kJ m -2 ). The Vicat softening temperature (VST) increased to 160 °C, starting from an annealing time of 0.5 h. Similar increases in VST were obtained by blending with PHB (20 wt.%) at a lower printing temperature of 190 °C due to crystallization control. For the blend, the strain at break increased due to the presence of a second phase, with annealing only relevant for enhancing the modulus.

β-dicalcium silicate (β-C 2 S) minerals were prepared. The compositions, microstructures, and distributions of the carbonation products of hardened β-C 2 S paste were revealed by X-ray diffraction (XRD), Fourier transform-infrared (FT-IR) spectroscopy, and backscattered electron (BSE) image analysis. The results show that a dense hardened paste of β-C 2 S can be obtained after 24 h of carbonation curing. The hardened pastes are composed of pores, silica gel, calcium carbonate, and unreacted dicalcium silicate, with relative volume fractions of 1.3%, 42.1%, 44.9%, and 11.7%, respectively. The unreacted dicalcium silicate is encapsulated with a silica gel rim, and the pores between the original dicalcium silicate particles are filled with calcium carbonate. The sufficient carbonation products that rapidly formed during the carbonation curing process, forming a dense microstructure, are responsible for the carbonation hardening of the β-C 2 S mineral.

Peperomin E is a natural secolignan existing distributed in the plants of the genus Peperomia . Previous investigations demonstrated that peperomin E showed potential antitumor activity in some cancer lines, but it is unclear whether peperomin E has an effect on prostate cancer cell lines. The aim of the present study is to investigate its effects on proliferation inhibition, apoptosis-inducing and cell-cycle arrest activity using a prostate cancer PC-3 cell line. The proliferation inhibition was evaluated by MTT assay, apoptosis was detected by Annexin V/propidium iodide (PI) staining and Hoechst 33258 staining, cell cycle distributions were measured by flow cytometry, and western blot analysis was used to determine specific cellular apoptotic protein expressions of Bcl-2, Bax, caspase-3 and cleaved-caspase-3. According to the results of this study, peperomin E exhibited significant anti-proliferation activity on PC-3 cell lines in vitro in a dose-dependent manner. Peperomin E treatments lead to marked morphological changes. Apoptotic cell count and cell-cycle distribution at G2/M phase significantly increased with increasing concentrations of peperomin E. The down-regulated expression level of Bcl-2 and up-regulated expression level of Bax and cleaved-caspase-3 compared with the controls were also observed after peperomin E treatment. These data suggest that peperomin E exhibited proliferation inhabitation, apoptosis-inducing and cell-cycle arrest activity on PC-3 cell lines. The anti-proliferation effect of peperomin E on PC-3 cells should result partly from its cell-cycle arrest and apoptosis-inducing activity, whereas the increasing of the Bax/Bcl-2 ratio and activation of caspases-3 play an important role in the development of apoptosis.

Vav guanine nucleotide exchange factor 3 (Vav3), a Rho family GTPase, regulates multiple cell signaling pathways including those of T- and B-cell receptors in vertebrates through mediating the activities of the Rho family members. Whether the lamprey possesses Vav3 homolog and what role it plays in immune response remain unknown. Gene cloning, recombinant expression, antibody production and expression pattern analyses were performed to characterize the lamprey Vav3 in the current study. The lamprey Vav3 is closer to jawed vertebrates' Vav3 molecules (about 53% identities in general) than to Vav2 molecules of jawless and jawed vertebrates (about 51% identities in general) in sequence similarity. Conserved motif analysis showed that the most distinguished parts between Vav3 and Vav2 proteins are their two Src-homology 3 domains. The relative expression levels of lamprey vav3 mRNA and protein were significantly up-regulated in lamprey lymphocytes and supraneural myeloid bodies after mixed-antigens stimulation, respectively. In addition, lamprey Vav3 were up-regulated drastically in lymphocytes and supraneural myeloid bodies after lipopolysaccharide (LPS) rather than phytohemagglutinin (PHA) stimulation. Lamprey Vav3 distributed in the cytoplasm of variable lymphocyte receptor B positive (VLRB⁺) lymphocytes, and the number of plasmacytes (VLRB and lamprey Vav3 double positive) in blood lymphocytes also increased after LPS stimulation. Our results proved that lamprey Vav3 was involved in the LPS-mediated immune reaction of lamprey and provided a clue for the further study of the precise role lamprey Vav3 played in the signaling pathway of lamprey VLRB⁺ lymphocytes., Competing Interests: The authors declare no conflict of interest.