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Abstract Objective Individuals who experience myocardial infarction (MI) often experience anxiety. Green tea has potent antioxidative properties and, epigallocatechin‐3‐gallate (EGCG), which is a primary component of tea polyphenols, has advantageous effects on anxiety and depression. However, its mechanism of action regarding the inhibition of anxiety‐like symptoms after MI remains unclear. This study examined whether EGCG alleviated anxiety‐like behavior in MI rats and its possible mechanism. Material and Methods Rats were administered a daily gavage of EGCG (50 mg/kg) 7 days before and 14 consecutive days after the MI procedure. The open‐field test and light/dark shuttle box were performed to evaluate anxiety‐like behavior. Serum and hippocampus interleukin (IL)‐6 levels were tested using ELISA. Caspase 3, caspase 8, caspase 9 and bcl‐2 messenger RNA levels in the hippocampus were determined using quantitative polymerase chain reaction, and STAT3 protein was detected by Western blot. Results Results of the open field test and light/dark shuttle box task demonstrated that the MI procedure induced anxiety‐like behavior in the animals, and this impairment was improved by EGCG. Daily EGCG administration significantly decreased the level of IL‐6 both in serum and hippocampus after MI. The administration of EGCG also significantly moderated the expression of caspases 3, 8, and 9 mRNA, which was related to apoptosis in the hippocampus. Furthermore, EGCG also downregulated the expression of STAT3, which was related to the activity of IL‐6. These results suggest that EGCG alleviated anxiety‐like behavior by inhibiting increases in neuroinflammation and apoptosis in the rat hippocampus. In addition, EGCG reversed alterations of IL‐6 and STAT3 in the brain to alleviate apoptosis in the hippocampus. Conclusions Thus, EGCG reversed anxiety‐like behavior through an anti‐inflammation effect to alleviate apoptosis in neurons and may be a useful therapeutic material for anxiety‐like behavior after MI.

A phylogenetic tree can be used to illustrate the evolutionary relationship between a group of genes, especially duplicated genes, which are sources of genetic innovation and are often a hotspot of research. However, duplicated genes may have complex phylogenetic topologies due to changes in their evolutionary rates. Here, by constructing phylogenetic trees using different methods, we evaluated the phylogenetic relationships of duplicated genes produced by polyploidization in cotton. We found that at least 83.2% of phylogenetic trees did not conform the expected topology. Moreover, cotton homologous gene copy number has little effect on the topology of duplicated genes. Compared with their cacao orthologs, elevated evolutionary rates of cotton genes are responsible for distorted tree topology. Furthermore, as to both branch and site models, we inferred that positive natural selection during the divergence of fiber-development-related MYB genes was likely, and found that the reconstructed tree topology may often overestimate natural selection, as compared to the inference with the expected trees. Therefore, we emphasize the importance of borrowing precious information from gene collinearity in tree construction and evaluation, and have evidence to alert the citation of thousands of previous reports of adaptivity and functional innovation of duplicated genes.

The exosome serves as a trafficking vehicle for transport of programmed death-ligand 1 (PD-L1) into receptor cells. In tumor microenvironment, distant tumor cells can remotely attack activated T cells by exosomal PD-L1. Here, we summerize the biogenesis and transport process of exosomal PD-L1. Then, we focus on the cancer biology of exosomal PD-L1 in immunosuppression and the mechanism by which it inhibits T cells. Finally, we highlight the prospects of exosomal PD-L1 as a tumor biomarker and its significance in immunotherapy. In addition, we discuss the new challenges faced in researching and utilizing exosomal PD-L1. This review may shed light on the exosomal PD-L1 from the bench to the clinic. Exosomes serve as trafficking vehicles for transport of programmed death-ligand 1 (PD-L1) into receptor cells. In tumor microenvironment, distant tumor cells can remotely attack activated T cells through exosomal PD-L1. Here, we have summarized the biogenesis and transport of exosomal PD-L1. Next, we focused on the cancer biology of exosomal PD-L1 in immunosuppression and the mechanism by which it inhibits T cells. Finally, we highlighted the prospects of exosomal PD-L1 as a tumor biomarker and its significance in immunotherapy. In addition, we have discussed the new challenges faced in studying and utilizing exosomal PD-L1. This review may shed light on the translation of exosomal PD-L1 from bench to clinic.

Staphylococcus xylosus (S. xylosus) is one of the emerging pathogens causing bovine mastitis with high rate of isolation in most of the reported clinical and field cases. To verify the role of glutamine synthetase (GS) in the pathogenesis of S. xylosus, we evaluated the virulence level of the wild-type strain and its glnA mutant strain in biofilm assays in vitro and murine infection model in vivo. From the results, it was observed that the glnA mutant strain was attenuated and could reduce tissue damage. 1-Hydroxyanthraquinone (1-HAQ) is a kind of anthraquinones, it exhibited a significant inhibitory effect on the growth of S. xylosus and biofilm formation in vitro and provided anti-inflammatory effects in vivo. In addition, the rate at which it inhibits the biofilm, inflammatory factors, and CFU of wild-type strains were significantly higher than that of the mutant strains, indicating that 1-hAQ might have pharmacological effects against S. xylosus through the regulation of GS protein. The effect of 1-hAQ on GS was further confirmed by the down-regulation of glnA expression, reduced GS activity, Gln content and the results of molecular docking. Taken together, these findings suggest that 1-hAQ facilitated a significant attenuation of S. xylosus pathogenicity by regulating the GS protein: a vital virulence factor. Therefore, it can be inferred that 1-hAQ may serve as a potential source of organic compound for the development of novel alternative drugs in mitigating the menace of bovine mastitis.

Copy number variations (CNVs) have been demonstrated as crucial substrates for evolution, adaptation and breed formation. Chinese indigenous cattle breeds exhibit a broad geographical distribution and diverse environmental adaptability. Here, we analyzed the population structure and adaptation to high altitude of Chinese indigenous cattle based on genome-wide CNVs derived from the high-density BovineHD SNP array. We successfully detected the genome-wide CNVs of 318 individuals from 24 Chinese indigenous cattle breeds and 37 yaks as outgroups. A total of 5,818 autosomal CNV regions (683 bp–4,477,860 bp in size), covering ~14.34% of the bovine genome (UMD3.1), were identified, showing abundant CNV resources. Neighbor-joining clustering, principal component analysis (PCA), and population admixture analysis based on these CNVs support that most Chinese cattle breeds are hybrids of Bos taurus taurus (hereinafter to be referred as Bos taurus) and Bos taurus indicus (Bos indicus). The distribution patterns of the CNVs could to some extent be related to the geographical backgrounds of the habitat of the breeds, and admixture among cattle breeds from different districts. We analyzed the selective signatures of CNVs positively involved in high-altitude adaptation using pairwise Fst analysis within breeds with a strong Bos taurus background (taurine-type breeds) and within Bos taurus×Bos indicus hybrids, respectively. CNV-overlapping genes with strong selection signatures (at top 0.5% of Fst value), including LETM1 (Fst = 0.490), TXNRD2 (Fst = 0.440), and STUB1 (Fst = 0.420) within taurine-type breeds, and NOXA1 (Fst = 0.233), RUVBL1 (Fst = 0.222), and SLC4A3 (Fst=0.154) within hybrids, were potentially involved in the adaptation to hypoxia. Thus, we provide a new profile of population structure from the CNV aspects of Chinese indigenous cattle and new insights into high-altitude adaptation in cattle.

This study aimed to fabricate food-grade Pickering emulsions stabilized by chitosan-phytic acid-β-cyclodextrin (CS-PA-CD) nanoparticles. The CS-PA-CD nanoparticles were characterized with FITR, XRD, and TGA to prove its successfully crosslinking, then characterized by DLS system and scanning electron microscopy showing the smallest average particle size was 434.2 ± 2.5 nm and it increased with the ratio of PA-CD to CS increasing. Pickering emulsions stabilized by CS-PA-CD nanoparticles was prepared and it showed the best stability at around pH 6. The particle concentration higher than 1.0% (w/v) and the oil fraction above 0.5% (v/v) could reach the emulsion stability. In addition, the Pickering emulsions were stable at various temperature (30–70 °C) and influenced by the certain change of ionic strength (0–500 mM). These CS-PA-CD Pickering emulsions showed great application in the formation of functional foods and pharmaceutical industries.

Infrared (IR) target detection is an important technology in the field of remote sensing image application. The methods for IR image target detection are affected by many characteristics, such as poor texture information and low contrast. These characteristics bring great challenges to infrared target detection. To address the above problem, we propose a novel target detection method for IR images target detection in this paper. Our method is improved from two aspects: Firstly, we propose a novel residual thermal infrared network (ResTNet) as the backbone in our method, which is designed to improve the feature extraction ability for low contrast targets by Transformer structure. Secondly, we propose a contrast enhancement loss function (CTEL) that optimizes the weights about the loss value of the low contrast targets’ prediction results to improve the effect of learning low contrast targets and compensate for the gradient of the low-contrast targets in training back propagation. Experiments on FLIR-ADAS dataset and our remote sensing dataset show that our method is far superior to the state-of-the-art ones in detecting low-contrast targets of IR images. The mAP of the proposed method reaches 84% on the FLIR public dataset. This is the best precision in published papers. Compared with the baseline, the performance on low-contrast targets is improved by about 20%. In addition, the proposed method is state-of-the-art on the FLIR dataset and our dataset. The comparative experiments demonstrate that our method has strong robustness and competitiveness.

Abstract Background Trihelix transcription factors (TTF) play important roles in plant growth and response to adversity stress. Until now, genome-wide identification and analysis of this gene family in foxtail millet has not been available. Here, we identified TTF genes in the foxtail millet and its grass relatives, and characterized their functional domains. Results As to sequence divergence, TTF genes were previously divided into five subfamilies, I-V. We found that Trihelix family members in foxtail millet and other grasses mostly preserved their ancestral chromosomal locations during millions of years’ evolution. Six amino acid sites of the SIP1 subfamily possibly were likely subjected to significant positive selection. Highest expression level was observed in the spica, with the SIP1 subfamily having highest expression level. As to the origination and expansion of the gene family, notably we showed that a subgroup of subfamily IV was the oldest, and therefore was separated to define a new subfamily O. Overtime, starting from the subfamily O, certain genes evolved to form subfamilies III and I, and later from subfamily I to develop subfamilies II and V. The oldest gene, Si1g016284, has the most structural changes, and a high expression in different tissues. What’s more interesting is that it may have bridge the interaction with different proteins. Conclusions By performing phylogenetic analysis using non-plant species, notably we showed that a subgroup of subfamily IV was the oldest, and therefore was separated to define a new subfamily O. Starting from the subfamily O, certain genes evolved to form other subfamilies. Our work will contribute to understanding the structural and functional innovation of Trihelix transcription factor, and the evolutionary trajectory.

Abstract Background Both growth and nutritional traits are important economic traits of Crassostrea gigas (C. gigas) in industry. But few work has been done to study the genetic architecture of nutritional traits of the oyster. In this study, we constructed a high-density genetic map of C. gigas to help assemble the genome sequence onto chromosomes, meanwhile explore the genetic basis for nutritional traits via quantitative trait loci (QTL) mapping. Results The constructed genetic map contained 5024 evenly distributed markers, with an average marker interval of 0.68 cM, thus representing the densest genetic map produced for the oyster. According to the high collinearity between the consensus map and the oyster genome, 1574 scaffold (about 70%) of the genome sequence of C. gigas were successfully anchored to 10 linkage groups (LGs) of the consensus map. Using this high-qualified genetic map, we then conducted QTL analysis for growth and nutritional traits, the latter of which includes glycogen, amino acid (AA), and fatty acid (FA). Overall, 41 QTLs were detected for 17 traits. In addition, six candidate genes identified in the QTL interval showed significant correlation with the traits on transcriptional levels. These genes include growth-related genes AMY and BMP1, AA metabolism related genes PLSCR and GR, and FA metabolism regulation genes DYRK and ADAMTS. Conclusion Using the constructed high-qualified linkage map, this study not only assembled nearly 70% of the oyster genome sequence onto chromosomes, but also identified valuable markers and candidate genes for growth and nutritional traits, especially for AA and FA that undergone few studies before. These findings will facilitate genome assembly and molecular breeding of important economic traits in C. gigas.

Abstract Background The BES1 gene family, an important class of plant-specific transcription factors, play key roles in the BR signal pathway in plants, regulating various development processes. Until now, there has been no comprehensive analysis of the BES1 gene family in Brassica napus, and a cross-genome exploration of their origin, copy number changes, and functional innovation in plants was also not available. Results We identified 28 BES1 genes in B. napus from its two subgenomes (AA and CC). We found that 71.43% of them were duplicated in the tetraploidization, and their gene expression showed a prominent subgenome bias in the roots. Additionally, we identified 104 BES1 genes in another 18 representative angiosperms and performed a comparative analysis with B. napus, including evolutionary trajectory, gene duplication, positive selection, and expression pattern. Exploiting the available genome datasets, we performed a large-scale analysis across plants and algae suggested that the BES1 gene family could have originated from group F, expanding to form other groups (A to E) by duplicating or alternatively deleting some domains. We detected an additional domain containing M4 to M8 in exclusively groups F1 and F2. We found evidence that whole-genome duplication (WGD) contributed the most to the expansion of this gene family among examined dicots, while dispersed duplication contributed the most to expansion in certain monocots. Moreover, we inferred that positive selection might have occurred on major phylogenetic nodes during the evolution of plants. Conclusions Grossly, a cross-genome comparative analysis of the BES1 genes in B. napus and other species sheds light on understanding its copy number expansion, natural selection, and functional innovation.

Abstract Some of the key steps in cancer metastasis are the migration and invasion of tumor cells; these processes require rearrangement of the cytoskeleton. Actin filaments, microtubules, and intermediate filaments involved in the formation of cytoskeletal structures, such as stress fibers and pseudopodia, promote the invasion and metastasis of tumor cells. Therefore, it is important to explore the mechanisms underlying cytoskeletal regulation. The ras homolog family (Rho) and Rho-associated coiled-coil containing protein serine/threonine kinase (ROCK) signaling pathway is involved in the regulation of the cytoskeleton. Moreover, long noncoding RNAs (lncRNAs) have essential roles in tumor migration and guide gene regulation during cancer progression. LncRNAs can regulate the cytoskeleton directly or may influence the cytoskeleton via Rho/ROCK signaling during tumor migration. In this review, we focus on the regulatory association between lncRNAs and the cytoskeleton and discuss the pathways and mechanisms involved in the regulation of cancer metastasis.

Abstract Long-noncoding RNAs (lncRNAs) are a group of transcripts that are longer than 200 nucleotides and do not code for proteins. However, this class of RNAs plays pivotal regulatory roles. The mechanism of their action is highly complex. Mounting evidence shows that lncRNAs can regulate cancer onset and progression in a variety of ways. They can not only regulate cancer cell proliferation, differentiation, invasion and metastasis, but can also regulate glucose metabolism in cancer cells through different ways, such as by directly regulating the glycolytic enzymes and glucose transporters (GLUTs), or indirectly modulating the signaling pathways. In this review, we summarized the role of lncRNAs in regulating glucose metabolism in cancer, which will help understand better the pathogenesis of malignant tumors. The understanding of the role of lncRNAs in glucose metabolism may help provide new therapeutic targets and novel diagnostic and prognosis markers for human cancer.

Abstract Background Cyclodextrin glucanotransferases (CGTases) catalyze the synthesis of cyclodextrins, cyclic oligosaccharides composed of glucose monomers that find applications in the pharmaceutical, food, and cosmetic industries. An economic application of these industrially important enzymes requires their efficient production and recovery. In this study, the effect of Sec-type signal peptides on the recombinant expression of a CGTase derived from Bacillus sp. G825-6 was investigated in Escherichia coli BL21(DE3) using a codon-adapted gene. In addition, a novel purification method for the CGTase using starch adsorption was developed. Results Expression vectors encoding N-terminal PelB, DacD, and the native Bacillus sp. G825-6 CGTase signal peptides (SP) were constructed for the recombinant CGTase. With the DacD SP derived from E. coli, a 3.9- and 3.1-fold increase in total enzyme activity was obtained compared to using the PelB and the native CGTase SP, respectively. DacD enabled a 7.3-fold increase of activity in the extracellular fraction after induction for 24 h compared to the native CGTase SP. After induction for 48 h, 75% of the total activity was detected in the extracellular fraction. By a batch wise adsorption to starch, the extracellular produced CGTase could be purified to homogeneity with a yield of 46.5% and a specific activity of 1637 U/mg. Conclusions The signal peptide DacD promoted the high-level heterologous extracellular expression of a recombinant CGTase from Bacillus sp. G825-6 with a pET20b(+) vector in E. coli BL21(DE3). A protocol based on starch adsorption enabled a fast and efficient purification of the recombinant enzyme.

In this study, the food-grade fungal strain DCY-1 was isolated from Chinese traditional fermented soymilk residues (okara) and identified as Actinomucor elegans. The novel strain was used in the solid-state fermentation (SSF) of okara to improve their functional properties. Sodium dodecyl sulfate–polyacrylamide gel electrophoresis (SDS-PAGE) and reverse-phase high-performance liquid chromatography (RP-HPLC) analyses showed that okara proteins were degraded into peptides during fermentation. SSF okara showed high antioxidant activities, which included reducing power, ferrous ion-chelating activity, and scavenging effect of DPPH, ABTS, and hydroxyl radicals. Compared with the control, the antioxidant activities mentioned above increased by 4.29, 2.32, 3.45, 1.55, and 1.63-fold, respectively. SSF okara also showed a significantly higher ACE-inhibitory activity (61.17% ± 0.94%) at the end of fermentation. Therefore, SSF can be employed as a valuable process to obtain bioactive ingredients from okara, which would encourage their utilization in the formulation of value-added functional foods.

Polyploidy has contributed to the divergence and domestication of plants; however, estimation of the relative roles that different types of polyploidy have played during evolution has been difficult. Unbalanced and balanced gene removal was previously related to allopolyploidies and autopolyploidies, respectively. Here, to infer the types of polyploidies and evaluate their evolutionary effects, we devised a statistic, the Polyploidy-index or P-index, to characterize the degree of divergence between subgenomes of a polyploidy, to find whether there has been a balanced or unbalanced gene removal from the homoeologous regions. Based on a P-index threshold of 0.3 that distinguishes between known or previously inferred allo- or autopolyploidies, we found that 87.5% of 24 angiosperm paleo-polyploidies were likely produced by allopolyploidizations, responsible for establishment of major tribes such as Poaceae and Fabaceae, and large groups such as monocots and eudicots. These findings suggest that >99.7% of plant genomes likely derived directly from allopolyploidies, with autopolyploidies responsible for the establishment of only a few small genera, including Glycine, Malus, and Populus, each containing tens of species. Overall, these findings show that polyploids with high divergence between subgenomes (presumably allopolyploids) established the major plant groups, possibly through secondary contact between previously isolated populations and hybrid vigor associated with their re-joining.

Owing to their nutritional and commercial values, the genomes of several citrus plants have been sequenced, and the genome of one close relative in the Rutaceae family, atalantia (Atalantia buxifolia), has also been sequenced. Here, we show a family-level comparative analysis of Rutaceae genomes. By using grape as the outgroup and checking cross-genome gene collinearity, we systematically performed a hierarchical and event-related alignment of Rutaceae genomes, and produced a gene list defining homologous regions based on ancestral polyploidization or speciation. We characterized genome fractionation resulting from gene loss or relocation, and found that erosion of gene collinearity could largely be described by a geometric distribution. Moreover, we found that well-assembled Rutaceae genomes retained significantly more genes (65–82%) than other eudicots affected by recursive polyploidization. Additionally, we showed divergent evolutionary rates among Rutaceae plants, with sweet orange evolving faster than others, and by performing evolutionary rate correction, re-dated major evolutionary events during their evolution. We deduced that the divergence between the Rutaceae family and grape occurred about 81.15–91.74 million years ago (mya), while the split between citrus and atalantia plants occurred

Staphylococcus xylosus (S. xylosus) is a type of coagulase-negative Staphylococcus, which was previously considered as non-pathogenic. However, recent studies have linked it with cases of mastitis in cows. Isoliquiritigenin (ISL) is a bioactive compound with pharmacological functions including antibacterial activity. In this study, we evaluated the effect of ISL on S. xylosus in vitro and in vivo. The MIC of ISL against S. xylosus was 80 μg/mL. It was observed that sub-MICs of ISL (1/2MIC, 1/4MIC, 1/8MIC) significantly inhibited the formation of S. xylosus biofilm in vitro. Previous studies have observed that inhibiting imidazole glycerol phosphate dehydratase (IGPD) concomitantly inhibited biofilm formation in S. xylosus. So, we designed experiments to target the formation of IGPD or inhibits its activities in S. xylosus ATCC 700404. The results indicated that the activity of IGPD and its histidine content decreased significantly under 1/2 MIC (40 μg/mL) ISL, and the expression of IGPD gene (hisB) and IGPD protein was significantly down-regulated. Furthermore, Bio-layer interferometry experiments showed that ISL directly interacted with IGPD protein (with strong affinity; KD = 234 μM). In addition, molecular docking was used to predict the binding mode of ISL and IGPD. In vivo tests revealed that, ISL significantly reduced TNF-α and IL-6 levels, mitigated the destruction of the mammary glands and reversed the production of inflammatory cells in mice. The results of the study suggest that, ISL may inhibit S. xylosus growth by acting on IGPD, which can be used as a target protein to treat infections caused by S. xylosus.

A Correction to this paper has been published: https://doi.org/10.1038/s41467-021-21014-9

Oysters are among the most important species in global aquaculture. Crassostrea gigas, and its subspecies C. angulata, are the major cultured species. To determine the genetic basis of growth-related traits in oysters, we constructed a second-generation linkage map from 3367 single-nucleotide polymorphisms (SNPs) based on genotyping-by-sequencing, genotyped from a C. gigas × C. angulata hybrid family. These 3367 SNPs were distributed on 1695 markers, which were assigned to 10 linkage groups. The genetic linkage map had a total length of 1084.3 cM, with an average of 0.8 cM between markers; it thus represents the densest genetic map constructed for oysters to date. Twenty-seven quantitative trait loci (QTL) for five growth-related traits were detected. These QTL could explain 4.2–7.7% (mean = 5.4%) of the phenotypic variation. In total, 50.8% of phenotypic variance for shell width, 7.7% for mass weight, and 34.1% for soft tissue weight were explained. The detected QTL were distributed among eight linkage groups, and more than half (16) were concentrated within narrow regions in their respective linkage groups. Thirty-eight annotated genes were identified within the QTL regions, two of which are key genes for carbohydrate metabolism. Other genes were found to participate in assembly and regulation of the actin cytoskeleton, signal transduction, and regulation of cell differentiation and development. The newly developed high-density genetic map, and the QTL and candidate genes identified provide a valuable genetic resource and a basis for marker-assisted selection for C. gigas and C. angulata.

Background: Reduced-representation sequencing technology is widely used in genotyping for its economical and efficient features. A popular way to construct the reduced-representation sequencing libraries is to digest the genomic DNA with restriction enzymes. A key factor of this method is to determine the restriction enzyme(s). But there are few computer programs which can evaluate the usability of restriction enzymes in reduced-representation sequencing. SimRAD is an R package which can simulate the digestion of DNA sequence by restriction enzymes and return enzyme loci number as well as fragment number. But for linkage mapping analysis, enzyme loci distribution is also an important factor to evaluate the enzyme. For phylogenetic studies, comparison of the enzyme performance across multiple genomes is important. It is strongly needed to develop a simulation tool to implement these functions. Results: Here, we introduce a Perl module named RestrictionDigest with more functions and improved performance. It can analyze multiple genomes at one run and generate concise comparison of enzyme performance across the genomes. It can simulate single-enzyme digestion, double-enzyme digestion and size selection process and generate comprehensive information of the simulation including enzyme loci number, fragment number, sequences of the fragments, positions of restriction sites on the genome, the coverage of digested fragments on different genome regions and detailed fragment length distribution. Conclusions: RestrictionDigest is an easy-to-use Perl module with flexible parameter settings. With the help of the information produced by the module, researchers can easily determine the most appropriate enzymes to construct the reduced-representation libraries to meet their experimental requirements.

Nano-cellulose was prepared via acid hydrolysis and cell crushing using microcrystalline cellulose as the raw material. Mesoporous TiO2 was then prepared via hydrothermal synthesis using butyl titanate as the titanium source and the previously prepared nano-cellulose as the template. It is confirmed by FT-IR and XRD that the commercial product P25 consisted of anatase and rutile mixed crystal structure, in which the content of anatase and rutile was 80.5% and 19.5%, respectively. The prepared TiO2 had an anatase single crystal structure. XPS analysis showed an elemental content of C, O, and Ti with two kinds of TiO2. TEM, HRTEM, and electron diffraction were used to characterize the particle size of the prepared mesoporous TiO2, mainly concentrated in the 10 to 20 nm range. Crystalline spacing was 0.35 nm (101). By comparison, the particle size of P25 was mainly distributed in the 15 to 25 nm range with a crystalline spacing of 0.35 (101) and 0.32 nm (110) respectively. XRD analysis was consistent with the results. Based on N2 adsorption-desorption isotherm curves it was evident that the surface area of prepared TiO2 and P25 was 38.92 m2/g and 53.54 m2/g, the cumulative pore volume of the two is 0.24 m2/g and 0.17 m2/g respectively. The experiments of photocatalytic degradation of rhodamine B showed that the catalytic ability of the prepared mesoporous TiO2 to degrade pollutants was better than commercial TiO2 under UV irradiation.

The interval finite element method based on the element-by-element technique is proved to be a rigorous and efficient method for considering interval uncertainties. The structural internal force of the same accuracy as the interval response displacement can be obtained by combining the variational method and the Lagrange multiplier method. However, the increase of the Lagrange multiplier reduces the efficiency of solving the equation, especially for a large truss system. In addition, the method is mostly used to analyse truss system, and the applications in plane problems are still rare. In this article, an improved method involving modification of the Lagrange multiplier interval equations is proposed to calculate interval displacements and interval internal forces at the same time. In this proposed method, the increase of the unknown Lagrange interval does not affect the solution of the equations. For plane problems, a new method for solving the stress interval of the element is proposed. This proposed method can effectively reduce the expansion of the stress interval of the element. Finally, the correctness and rationality of the proposed method are verified by numerical examples.

Plants growing under high-density (HD) conditions experience increased competition for water, nutrients, and light, possibly leading to changes in size, biomass, morphology, and productivity. However, no research has focused on the relationship between whole-genome expression patterns and growth density. Here, we performed whole-genome RNA sequencing to examine the gene expression patterns in Arabidopsis grown under low and high densities. Of the 20,660 detected genes, the expression levels of 98 were enhanced and 107 were repressed under HD growth. Further analysis revealed that changes in density influenced metabolism- and stimulus-related genes the most. Furthermore, HD growth led to a shade avoidance phenotype, represented by upward growth and a reduction in rosette leaves. Moreover, a cluster of glutaredoxin genes, GRXS3, 4, 5, 7, and 8, were significantly down-regulated under high density, suggesting that high density affects plant growth mainly by nitrate limitation.

Grass genomes are complicated structures as they share a common tetraploidization, and particular genomes have been further affected by extra polyploidizations. These events and the following genomic re-patternings have resulted in a complex, interweaving gene homology both within a genome, and between genomes. Accurately deciphering the structure of these complicated plant genomes would help us better understand their compositional and functional evolution at multiple scales. Here, we build on our previous research by performing a hierarchical alignment of the common wheat genome vis-à-vis eight other sequenced grass genomes with most up-to-date assemblies, and annotations. With this data, we constructed a list of the homologous genes, and then, in a layer-by-layer process, separated their orthology, and paralogy that were established by speciations and recursive polyploidizations, respectively. Compared with the other grasses, the far fewer collinear outparalogous genes within each of three subgenomes of common wheat suggest that homoeologous recombination, and genomic fractionation should have occurred after its formation. In sum, this work contributes to the establishment of an important and timely comparative genomics platform for researchers in the grass community and possibly beyond. Homologous gene list can be found in Supplemental material.

As far as taking-away of the symmetry constraints is concerned, as a scientifically symmetry problem, the global synthesis for antenna arrays that produce the desired radiation pattern is also a highly nonlinear optimization issue in fact. Besides this, the built criteria offer the reasonable power patterns. The consequent synthesis could be implemented by looking for a nominal pattern. When the criteria are already sufficient, it can simply do the whole synthesis process. To utilize multiple antennae, a method to choose a transmit antenna for the linear dispersion codes (LDC-TAS) is implemented in this paper. The authors used the max−min-post- signal to noise ratio (SNR) criteria to select these optimal transmitting antennae while this dependent, linear receiver is applied to the varying and slow channel. The simulated results illustrate that this max−min-post-SNR criterion outperforms the Bell Labs layered space time transmitting antenna selection (BLAST-TAS) applying the same spectral efficiency than space−time block codes (STBC)-TAS in the environment with low SNR. Furthermore, once the M antennae are selected under the selection criteria, a max−min-post-SNR rule, a novel linear antenna synthesis to linear dispersion codes on the basis of an innovative HYBRID (of mixed characters or solutions) genetic algorithm has been presented and evaluated to formulate and address the optimal problem to non-uniformly spaced and linear arrays. The restricted side-lobes level, the main-lobe width, and the shaped beam pattern are contemporarily concerned via maximizing a pretty suitable cost function through the innovational advanced genetic-algorithm-based algorithm. The method proposed in this paper can provide flexibility and a simple insertion of the a priori knowledge under a small computing pressure. At last, a computing simulation is completed well and the results are shown. It should be noticed that some extensions of the presented method could also be easily utilized without an obvious increase in the algorithm complexity.

With the development of modern society, there are not only many voice calls being made over wireless communication systems, but there is also a great deal of demand for data services. There are increasing demands from the general public for more information data, especially for high-speed services with elevated Gbps levels. As is well known, higher sending power is needed once data rates increase. In order to solve this problem, virtual cellular networks (VCNs) can be employed in order to reduce these peak power shifts. If a VCN works well, mobile ports will receive their own wireless signals via individual cells, and then, the signals will access core networks with the help of a central terminal. Power control can improve the power capacity in multi-hop networks. However, the use of power control will also have a negative impact on network connectivity, delay, and capacity. In order to address the problem, this paper compares specific control methods and capacities in multi-hop networks. Distributed chicken game algorithm power control (DCGAPC) methods are presented in order to reach acceptable minimum levels of network delay and maximum network capacity and connectivity. Finally, a computer simulation is implemented, and the results are shown.

The issue motivating the paper is the quantification of students’ academic performance and learning achievement regarding teaching quality, under interval number condition, in order to establish a novel model for identifying, evaluating, and monitoring the major factors of the overall teaching quality. We propose a projection pursuit cluster evaluation model, with entropy value method on the model weights. The weights of the model can then be obtained under the traditional real number conditions after a simulation process by Monte Carlo for transforming interval number to real number. This approach can not only simplify the evaluation of the interval number indicators but also give the weight of each index objectively. This model is applied to 5 teacher data collected from a China college with 4 primary indicators and 15 secondary sub-indicators. Results from the proposed approach are compared with the ones obtained by two alternative evaluating methods. The analysis carried out has contributed to having a better understanding of the education processes in order to promote performance in teaching.

Recently, mobility support has become an important requirement in various Wireless Sensor Networks (WSNs). Low-power and Lossy Networks (LLNs) are a special type of WSNs that tolerate a certain degree of packet loss. However, due to the strict resource constraints in the computation, energy, and memory of LLNs, most routing protocols only support static network topologies. Data collection and data dissemination are two basic traffic modes in LLNs. Unlike data collection, data dissemination is less investigated in LLNs. There are two sorts of data-dissemination methods: point-to-multipoint and point-to-point. In this paper, we focus on the point-to-point method, which requires the source node to build routes to reach the destination node. We propose an adaptive routing protocol that integrates together point-to-point traffic and data-collection traffic, and supports highly mobile scenarios. This protocol quickly reacts to the movement of nodes to make faster decisions for the next-hop selection in data collection and dynamically build routes for point-to-point traffic. Results obtained through simulation show that our work outperforms two generic ad hoc routing protocols AODV and flooding on different performance metrics. Results also show the efficiency of our work in highly mobile scenarios with multiple traffic patterns.

Rice is one of the most researched model plant, and has a genome structure most resembling that of the grass common ancestor after a grass common tetraploidization ~100 million years ago. There has been a standing controversy whether there had been 5 or 7 basic chromosomes, before the tetraploidization, which were tackled but could not be well solved for the lacking of a sequenced and assembled outgroup plant to have a conservative genome structure. Recently, the availability of pineapple genome, which has not been subjected to the grass-common tetraploidization, provides a precious opportunity to solve the above controversy and to research into genome changes of rice and other grasses. Here, we performed a comparative genomics analysis of pineapple and rice, and found solid evidence that grass-common ancestor had 2n =2x =14 basic chromosomes before the tetraploidization and duplicated to 2n = 4x = 28 after the event. Moreover, we proposed that enormous gene missing from duplicated regions in rice should be explained by an allotetraploid produced by prominently divergent parental lines, rather than gene losses after their divergence. This means that genome fractionation might have occurred before the formation of the allotetraploid grass ancestor.

The AP2/ERF superfamily, one of the most important transcription factor families, plays crucial roles in response to biotic and abiotic stresses. So far, a comprehensive evolutionary inference of its origination and expansion has not been available. Here, we identified 515 AP2/ERF genes in B. napus, a neo-tetraploid forming ~7500 years ago, and found that 82.14% of them were duplicated in the tetraploidization. A prominent subgenome bias was revealed in gene expression, tissue-specific, and gene conversion. Moreover, a large-scale analysis across plants and alga suggested that this superfamily could have been originated from AP2 family, expanding to form other families (ERF, and RAV). This process was accompanied by duplicating and/or alternative deleting AP2 domain, intragenic domain sequence conversion, and/or by acquiring other domains, resulting in copy number variations, alternatively contributing to functional innovation. We found that significant positive selection occurred at certain critical nodes during the evolution of land plants, possibly responding to changing environment. In conclusion, the present research revealed origination, functional innovation, and evolutionary trajectory of the AP2/ERF superfamily, contributing to understanding their roles in plant stress tolerance.

Low-molecular-weight chondroitin sulfate was obtained by degradation of chondroitin sulfate using hyaluronidase. Then, separated with sephadex G25, DEAE-52, and finally purified with AKATA superpeptide separation system and fluorescence-assisted carbohydrate electrophoresis. The main compo-nents detected by high performance gel-filtration chromatography were disaccharide, tetrasaccharide, hexasaccharide with molecular weight of 521, 1024 and 1527 Da, respectively. The anti-oxidant activity of these three oligosaccharides in vitro showed that the reducing power (maximum value at 10 mg/mL) and superoxide anion radical scavenging abilities were increased (maximum value at 4 mg/mL) with an increased in their concentration. There were no significant differences of the anti-oxidant properties between those three oligosaccharides.

The effects of cyclodextrins and derivatives on the activity and structure of pullulanase were investigated in this study. Our results showed that cyclodextrins and derivatives decreased the activity of pullulanase. This decrease was attributed to the interaction between the hydrophobic cavities of cyclodextrins and pullulanase. The hydrophobic cavity was confirmed to encapsulate the groups of pullulanase molecules by the addition of competitive guests. The results obtained from fluorescence spectroscopy analysis showed that β-CD showed more efficient interactions with pullulanase molecules and the side chain groups of cyclodextrin significantly prevented the interaction between the hydrophobic cavities of β-CD and pullulanase molecules. These findings suggest that the geometric dimension of hydrophobic cavities was crucial for matching between cyclodextrins and pullulanase and steric hindrance caused by side chains led to the decrease of the interaction.

Palm curtain was selected as carrier to immobilize Bacillus circulans ATCC 21783 to produce β-cyclodextrin (β-CD). The influence for immobilization to CGTase activity was analyzed to determine the operation stability. 83.5% cyclodextrin glycosyltransferases (CGTase) of the 1st cycle could be produced in the 7th cycle for immobilized cells, while only 28.90% CGTase was produced with free cells. When palm curtain immobilized cells were reused at the 2th cycle, enzyme activities were increased from 5003 to 5132 U/mL, which was mainly due to physical adsorption of cells on palm curtain with special concave surface structure. Furthermore, conditions for expanded culture of immobilized cells in a 5 L fermentation tank were optimized through specific rotation speed procedure (from 350 r/min to 450 r/min with step size of 50 r/min) and fixed ventilation capacity (4.5 L/min), relations between biomass, enzyme activity, pH, and oxygen dissolution was investigated, and the fermentation periods under the two conditions were both 4 h shorter. Compared with free cell, immobilized cell was more stable, effective, and had better application potential in industries.

A novel cyclodextrin-functionalized hybrid silicon nano-adsorbent material (6-EA-β-CD-Si) was synthesized via the nucleophilic substitution method. The structure was detected by Fourier transform infrared (FT-IR), X-ray, thermogravimetric analysis, and Brunauer-Emmett-Teller (BET) analysis. Results reveal that the BET surface area of 6-EA-β-CD-Si is 240 m2/g and the average pore size is 4.16 nm. The adsorption properties of 6-EA-β-CD-Si onto methylene blue (MB) were studied and fitted with adsorption kinetic models. Both the Freundlich adsorption isotherm model and pseudo-second-order model were fitted with well shows that the multi-layer adsorption with chemisorption and physisorption co-existing in the system. The maximum adsorption capacities are 39.37, 39.21, 36.90, and 36.36 mg/g at temperatures 303, 313, 323, and 333 K, respectively. The maximum removal rate of MB could reach 99.5%, indicating the potential application value of 6-EA-β-CD-Si in wastewater treatment. The adsorption mechanisms of 6-EA-β-CD-Si showed that the hydrophobic cave of β-CD plays an important role on the adsorption of MB.

In recent years, mobility support has become an important requirement in various wireless sensor network (WSN) applications. However, due to the strict resource constraints of power, memory, and processing resources in WSNs, routing protocols are mainly designed without considering mobility. Low-Power and Lossy Networks (LLNs) are a special type of WSNs that tolerate data loss. The Routing Protocol for Low-Power and Lossy Networks (RPL) is a routing protocol for LLNs that adapts IPv6 (Internet Protocol version 6) and runs on top of the IEEE (Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers) 802.15.4 standard. RPL supports multipoint-to-point traffic and point-to-multipoint traffic. In this paper we propose a mobility enhancement mechanism in order to improve data collection applications in highly mobile scenarios. The enhancement is based on signal strength monitoring and depth updating in order to improve the routing protocol performance in mobile scenarios. This enhancement helps routing protocols to cope better with topology changes and makes proactive decisions on updating next-hop neighbours. We integrated this mechanism into the RPL and compared it with other existing RPL mobility support enhancements. Results obtained through simulation using Cooja show that our work outperforms other existing RPL mobility supports on different performance metrics. Results also prove the efficiency of our proposal in highly mobile scenarios.

By using cyclodextrin (α-CD) self-assembly into a hydrogel with the triblock copolymer Pluronic F127, nanomicrocrystalline cellulose was introduced into a gel system to form a composite CNC-β-CD/α-CD/Pluronic F127 hydrogel (CCH). CCH was modified further by grafting acrylic acid to form a novel acrylated composite hydrogel (ACH). The swelling degree of ACH was 156 g/g. Adsorption isotherms show that the adsorption process for methylene blue proximity fitted the Freundlich model. The adsorption kinetics showed that ACH followed a quasi-second-order kinetic model. Methylene blue desorption showed that ACH was a temperature- and pH-dependent gel. Repeated adsorption and desorption experiments were carried out three times, and the removal rate of methylene blue at 75 mg/L was still 70.1%.