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According to the positioning experiment of straw returning in the continuous field 7a, the effects of straw returning combined with chemical fertilizer on soil total organic carbon (TOC), dissolved organic carbon (DOC), particulate organic carbon (POC), labile organic carbon (LOC), carbon pool management index (CPMI), and crop yield in farmland soil profiles (0-20, 20-50, and 50-80 cm) in the Chaohu Lake area were studied. There were four treatments:no straw returning+no fertilization (CK), conventional fertilization (F), straw returning+conventional fertilization (SF1), and straw returning+80% conventional fertilization (SF2). The changes in soil total organic carbon and component content, CPMI, and rape rice yield in different soil layers were analyzed. Taking CK as a reference, conventional fertilization and straw returning combined with chemical fertilizer increased the content of total organic carbon and components in the soil vertical profile, and the content of total organic carbon and components in different soil layers decreased gradually with the increase in soil depth. In the 0-20 cm soil layer, compared with that in the F treatment, the SF1 and SF2 treatments significantly increased the contents of TOC, DOC, POC, and LOC by 14.23%-28.97%, 7.86%-27.01%, 16.46%-24.24%, and 5.89%-6.64%, respectively (

Unlike traditional clustering analysis, the biclustering algorithm works simultaneously on two dimensions of samples (row) and variables (column). In recent years, biclustering methods have been developed rapidly and widely applied in biological data analysis, text clustering, recommendation system and other fields. The traditional clustering algorithms cannot be well adapted to process high-dimensional data and/or large-scale data. At present, most of the biclustering algorithms are designed for the differentially expressed big biological data. However, there is little discussion on binary data clustering mining such as miRNA-targeted gene data. Here, we propose a novel biclustering method for miRNA-targeted gene data based on graph autoencoder named as GAEBic. GAEBic applies graph autoencoder to capture the similarity of sample sets or variable sets, and takes a new irregular clustering strategy to mine biclusters with excellent generalization. Based on the miRNA-targeted gene data of soybean, we benchmark several different types of the biclustering algorithm, and find that GAEBic performs better than Bimax, Bibit and the Spectral Biclustering algorithm in terms of target gene enrichment. This biclustering method achieves comparable performance on the high throughput miRNA data of soybean and it can also be used for other species.

Quantum dots (QDs) are used in the bio-medical area because of their excellent optical properties. Their biomedical utilization has remained a serious biosecurity concern. Cytotoxicity experiments have shown that QD toxicity is connected to the properties of the QDs. In this paper, the toxicity of QDs was studied from the aspect of surface functional groups at the mitochondrial level. Three types of ligands, thioglycollic acid (TGA), mercaptoethylamine (MEA) and l-cysteine (l-Cys), which have similar structures but different functional groups were used to coat CdTe QDs. The effects of the three types of CdTe QDs on mitochondria were then observed. The experimental results showed the three types of CdTe QDs could impair mitochondrial respiration, destroy membrane potential and induce mitochondrial swelling. Interestingly, MEA-CdTe QDs showed similar effects on membrane potential and mitochondrial swelling as did l-Cys-CdTe QDs, while TGA-CdTe QDs showed stronger effects than that of the two other QDs. Moreover, the three types of CdTe QDs showed significantly different effects on mitochondrial membrane fluidity. MEA-CdTe QDs decreased mitochondrial membrane fluidity, l-Cys-CdTe QDs showed no obvious influence on mitochondrial membrane fluidity and TGA-CdTe QDs increased mitochondrial membrane fluidity. The interaction mechanism of CdTe QDs on mitochondrial permeability transition (MPT) pores as well as Cd(2+) release by CdTe QDs were checked to determine the reason for their different effects on mitochondria. The results showed that the impact of the three types of CdTe QDs on mitochondria was not only related to the released metal ion, but also to their interaction with MPT pore proteins. This work emphasizes the importance of surface functional groups in the behavior of CdTe QDs at the sub-cellular level.

The potential toxicity of Quantum dots (QDs) should be assessed comprehensively for their fast spreading applications. Many studies have shown the toxicity of QDs is associated with their surface ligands. In this work, two analog ligands with one carbon difference, 2-mercaptoacetic acid (TGA) and 3-mercaptopropionic acid (MPA) were used as coating materials in the syntheses of two types of CdTe QDs with similar physicochemical properties. Then the biological effects of QDs on isolated mitochondria were studied. It was found that the two types of QDs could impair mitochondrial respiration and induce mitochondrial permeability transition (MPT). However, as compared with TGA-CdTe QDs, MPA-CdTe QDs had a stronger effect on MPT. The weaker effect of TGA-CdTe QDs on MPT might be owing to their better stability and thus less amount of released Cd2+, which could be further explained by the stronger affinity between the ligand (TGA) and the cadmium complexes in the crystal growth of QDs. These results highlighted the importance of ligands responsible for the toxicity of QDs at the sub-cellular level.