Search

[Objective] The Three-River-Source National Park (TRSNP) is considered to be the “water tower of China”, and is an important ecological security barrier in China. The soil erosion distribution law of TRSNP was studied to provide a basis for implementing ecological protection policy, soil and water conservation, and ecological civilization construction in TRSNP. [Methods] Based on the Chinese soil loss equation (CSLE), wind erosion model and freeze-thaw erosion intensity model, the soil erosion status and its distribution characteristics at different space and surface of TRSNP were analyzed by superposition analysis. [Results] In 2020, an area of 2.64×104 km2 suffered from soil erosion in TRSNP. Among the three sub-parks, the Yellow-River-Source Park exhibited the most extensive soil erosion, whereas the Yangtze-River-Source Park was subject to severe erosion comparatively. Soil erosion and its spatial distribution varied significantly at different elevations. Water erosion occurred mainly in the area with elevations above 4 900 m, which occupied 70% of the land area. However, 85% of the wind erosion occurred in zones with elevations less than 4 900 m. The wind erosion area with slopes between 0° and 5° accounted for 60%, which is the relatively concentrated distribution area of wind erosion. And three-quarters of water erosion areas were concentrated in regions where the slope ranged from 8° to 25°, all of which require urgent conservation measures. Grassland was the most important land cover in TRSNP, occupying about 80% of the area, with low and medium-low vegetation cover being responsible for significant soil losses. Additionally, sandy land and bare land were prone to high intensity soil erosion, which deserved special attention. [Conclusion] Two-thirds of water erosion areas were primarily located in zones where the elevation was above 4 900 m, slope gradients were between 8° and 35°, and grassland cover was below medium-low cover. Wind erosion was primarily located at elevations ranging from 4 200 m to 4 900 m, slopes were less than 5°, and grassland coverage was below medium-low cover.

Objective: This study aimed to investigate the influence of degree of polymerization of amylose on the digestibility characteristics of its ternary complexes. Methods: Ternary complexes of seedless breadfruit starch, prepared by separately mixing amyloses extracted from five cultivars (GJS, FSS, SMS, SS and CS) with amylopectin extracted from GJS, having the highest degree of polymerization among amylopectins from these cultviars, at a 1:1 ratio were prepared with lauric acid (LA) and β-lactoglobulin (β-LG) and characterized for supramolecular structure and digestion kinetics by high-performance size-exclusion chromatography (HPSEC), X-ray diffraction (XRD), small-angle X-ray scattering (SAXS), differential scanning calorimetry (DSC), atomic force microscopy (AFM), and Fourier transform infrared (FTIR) spectroscopy. All five complex samples displayed obvious characteristic peaks of ternary complexes, V-type crystalline structure and rodlike molecular configuration. As the degree of polymerization of amylose increased, the complexing index (CI) (from 68.81% to 83.55%), relative crystallinity (from 21.10% to 28.35%), short-range order (from 0.44 to 0.63), molecular mass (from 2.90 × 106 to 8.02 × 106 Da), molecular density index (from 3.50 to 23.07 g/(mol·nm3), gelation temperature (from 98.52 to 103.71 ℃), and gelation enthalpy (from 13.95 to 18.73 J/g), second-order kinetic rate constant (from 1.00 × 10-2 to 2.92 × 10-2 min-1) increased, while the semicrystalline lamellae thickness (from 3.20 to 4.82 nm), mass fractal dimension (from 1.28 to 1.81), characteristic length of crystallite unit (from 6.33 to 7.01 Å), radius of gyration (from 70.31 to 93.94 nm), and nanosurface “blocklet” size (from 7.05 to 15.03 nm) dropped, which led to a decrease of in vitro glycemic index (from 78.83 to 85.71). Statistical analysis showed that the degree of polymerization of amylose could remarkably affect the multiscale superstructure of the ternary complexes, which in turn could change its digestion kinetics. The results provide new theoretical guidance for the production of starch-based multicomponent foods.

The Pan-Third Pole region comprises multiple nations affected by climate vulnerability and energy inequality, wherein promoting energy transitions in rural households would provide a path to combat climate change. Identifying the factors that drive rural household energy consumption and the transition is important. This study performed a micro-survey of 1060 rural households in five countries in the Pan-Third Pole region and empirically analyzed the relationships between off-farm income, energy consumption, and energy transitions. The off-farm income of rural households was found to have a significantly positive effect (p

In recent years, breeding work and planting techniques pursuing high yield and disease resistance, and post-harvest treatments such as low-temperature storage have caused a great decline in tomato flavor quality. How to improve the flavor quality of tomato is an urgent problem to be solved. The flavor quality of tomato mainly involves sweet and sour taste and aroma, which is closely related to sugars, organic acids and volatile flavor substances in the fruit, and losses of volatile flavor substances are the key factor causing the deterioration of tomato flavor quality. In this paper, the flavor composition of tomato, the synthesis pathways of tomato flavor compounds and the factors affecting tomato flavor are systematically reviewed in order to provide theoretical guidance for improving the flavor quality of tomato.

Abstract Background The aim of this study was to determine the underlying potential mechanisms and function of DIO3OS, a lincRNA in osteosarcoma and clarify that DIO3OS can be used as a potential diagnostic biomarker and immunotherapeutic target. Methods The expression matrix data and clinical information were obtained from XENA platform of UCSC and GEO database as the test cohorts. The external validation cohort was collected from our hospital. Bioinformatics analysis was used to annotate the biological function of DIO3OS. Immune infiltration and immune checkpoint analysis were applied to evaluate whether DIO3OS can be used as an immunotherapeutic target. ROC curves and AUC were established to assess the diagnostic value of DIO3OS for differentiating patients from other subtypes sarcoma. The expression analysis was detected by qRT-PCR, western blot, and immunohistochemical. Wound healing assay and Transwell assay were applied to determine the migration and invasion function of DIO3OS in osteosarcoma cell lines. The tail vein injection osteosarcoma cells metastases model was used in this research. Results High expression of DIO3OS was identified as a risk lincRNA for predicting overall survival of osteosarcoma in test cohort. The outcomes of experiments in vitro and in vivo showed that low expression of DIO3OS limited osteosarcoma tumor metastasis with inhibiting TGF-β signaling pathway. Immune checkpoint genes (CD200 and TNFRSF25) expressions were inhibited in the low DIO3OS expression group. The DIO3OS expression can be applied to reliably distinguish osteosarcoma from lipomatous neoplasms, myomatous neoplasms, nerve sheath tumors, and synovial-like neoplasms. This result was further validated in the validation cohort. Conclusions In conclusion, our outcomes indicated that DIO3OS is a potential diagnostic and prognostic biomarker of osteosarcoma, emphasizing its potential as a target of immunotherapy to improve the treatment of osteosarcoma through TGF-β signaling pathway. Trial registration number: The present retrospectively study was approved by the Ethics Committee of The Second Affiliated Hospital of Nanchang University [Review (2020) No. (115)].