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Key message An LRR-RLK gene causing interspecific hybrid breakdown between Gossypium. anomalum and G. hirsutum was identified by deploying a map-based cloning strategy. The self-destructing symptoms of hybrid incompatibility in most cases are attributed to autoimmunity. The cloning of genes responsible for hybrid incompatibility in cotton is helpful to clarify the mechanisms underlying hybrid incompatibility and can break the barriers in distant hybridization. In this study, a temperature-dependent lethality was identified in CSSL11-9 (chromosome segment substitution line) with Gossypium anomalum chromosome segment on chromosome A11. Transcriptome analysis showed the differentially expressed genes related to autoimmune responses were highly enriched, suggesting that expression of CSSL11-9 plant lethal gene activated autoimmunity in the absence of any pathogen or external stimulus, inducing programmed cell death (PCD) and causing a lethal phenotype. The lethal phenotype was controlled by a pair of recessive genes, and then fine mapped between JAAS3191-JAAS3050 interval, which covered 63.87 kb in G. hirsutum genome and 98.66 kb in G. anomalum. We demonstrated that an LRR-RLK gene designated as hybrid breakdown 1 (GoanoHBD1) was the causal gene underlying this locus for interspecific hybrid incompatibility between G. anomalum and G. hirsutum. Silencing this LRR-RLK gene could restore CSSL11-9 plants from a lethal to a normal phenotype. Our findings provide new insights into reproductive isolation and may benefit cotton breeding.

Verticillium dahliae (V. dahliae) is a fungal pathogen that causes Verticillium wilt (VW), which seriously reduces the yield of cotton owing to biological stress. The mechanism underlying the resistance of cotton to VW is highly complex, and the resistance breeding of cotton is consequently limited by the lack of in-depth research. Using QTL mapping, we previously identified a novel cytochrome P450 (CYP) gene on chromosome D4 of Gossypium barbadense that is associated with resistance to the non-defoliated strain of V. dahliae. In this study, the CYP gene on chromosome D4 was cloned together with its homologous gene on chromosome A4, and were denoted as GbCYP72A1d and GbCYP72A1a, respectively, according to their genomic location and protein subfamily classification. The two GbCYP72A1 genes were induced by V. dahliae and phytohormone treatment, and the findings revealed that the VW resistance of the lines with silenced GbCYP72A1 genes decreased significantly. Transcriptome sequencing and pathway enrichment analyses revealed that the GbCYP72A1 genes primarily affected disease resistance via the plant hormone signal transduction, plant-pathogen interaction, and mitogen-activated protein kinase (MAPK) signaling pathways. Interestingly, the findings revealed that although GbCYP72A1d and GbCYP72A1a had high sequence similarity and both genes enhanced the disease resistance of transgenic Arabidopsis sp., there was a difference between their disease resistance abilities. Protein structure analysis revealed that this difference was potentially attributed to the presence of a synaptic structure in the GbCYP72A1d protein. Altogether, the findings suggested that the GbCYP72A1 genes play an important role in plant response and resistance to VW.

A novel yield criterion based on CPB06 considering anisotropic and tension-compression asymmetric behaviors of magnesium alloys was derived and proposed (called M_CPB06). This yield criterion can simultaneously predict the yield stresses and the Lankford ratios at different angles (if any) under uniaxial tension, compression, equal-biaxial and equal-compression conditions. Then, in order to further describe the anisotropic strain-hardening characteristics of magnesium alloy, the proposed M_CPB06 criterion was further evolved to the M_CPB06ev model by expressing the parameters of the M_CPB06 model as functions of the plastic strain. As the model was developed, the stresses and Lankford ratios of AZ31B and ZK61M magnesium alloys at different angles under tensile, compressive and through-thickness compressive conditions were used to calibrate the M_CPB06/M_CPB06ev and the existing CPB06ex2 model. Calibration results reveal that compared with the CPB06ex2 yield criterion with equal quantity of coefficients, the M_CPB06 criterion exhibits certain advancement, and meanwhile the M_CPB06ev model can relatively accurately predict the change of the yield locus with increase of the plastic strain. Finally, the M_CPB06ev model was developed through UMAT in LS-DYNA. Finite element simulations using the subroutine were conducted on the specimens of different angles to the rolling direction under tension and compression. Simulation results were highly consistent with the experimental results, demonstrating a good reliability and accuracy of the developed subroutine.

One of the oldest crops, foxtail millet (Setaria italica), is regarded as a model plant for studying drought tolerance owing to its short life-cycle and small genome size. The miRNA member miR394 plays multifaceted roles in plants. In this study, we identified the Sit-miR394 target gene SiFBP6 using 5′ RLM-RACE (RNA ligase mediated rapid amplification of 5′ cDNA ends). An expression analysis in different tissues showed that Sit-miR394 was highly expressed in leaves and had a lower relative expression in roots, while the target gene SiFBP6 exhibited the opposite expression pattern, being strongly expressed in roots and relatively lowly expressed in leaves. Furthermore, Sit-miR394 was upregulated in foxtail millet under drought-stress conditions and by exogenous methyl jasmonate, ethephon, salicylic acid and abscisic acid treatments. The overexpression of Sit-miR394 in transgenic Arabidopsis thaliana increased its tolerance to drought stress. The germination rates and root lengths were significantly greater compared with the wild-type line, which suggested that Sit-miR394 plays a positive role in responding to drought conditions. Moreover, a transcription analysis indicated that the overexpression of Sit-miR394 affected the expression of a set of stress-related genes, thereby conferring an increased abiotic or biotic stress tolerance to transgenic Arabidopsis. Thus, Sit-miR394 functions in the positive modulation of abiotic or biotic stress tolerance and has potential applications in molecular breeding to enhance stress tolerance in crops.

The mechanical behavior of AZ31B magnesium alloy was studied through uniaxial tensile tests at strain rates of 0.001, 1, 100, and 1000/s. The results show that an increase in the strain rate results in a gradual increase in the flow stress. Considering that the original Johnson–Cook (J–C) model cannot adequately describe the flow stress of AZ31 magnesium alloy at different strain rates, a rate-dependent modified Johnson–Cook (M-J–C) model was proposed, and the coefficients were calibrated according to the experimental results. The calibration and validation show that the M-J–C model has a high accuracy in characterizing the flow stress of AZ31B magnesium alloy and can well predict the hardening curve of ZK60 and AM60 magnesium alloys at different strain rates in the literature. In addition, the variation in the fracture strain with different strain rates was characterized. The fractography was studied to reveal the mechanism of underlying fracture. The proposed M-J–C constitutive model combined with a failure criterion was developed and coded into LS-DYNA through the user subroutine UMAT. The comparison between the simulation and the experiment shows that the developed subroutine is accurate enough to simulate the plastic and fracture behaviors of AZ31B magnesium alloy at different strain rates.

What is known and objective Since the December 2019 discovery of several cases of coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID‐19) in Wuhan, China, the infection has spread worldwide. Our aim is to report on the clinical characteristics, treatments and prognoses of COVID‐19. Methods This was a retrospective, single‐centre, case series of 136 patients who were diagnosed with COVID‐19 at Wuhan Third Hospital in Wuhan, China, between 28 January 2020 and 12 February 2020. The clinical characteristics, laboratory tests, treatment features and prognoses were summarized. Results and discussion The 136 patients were divided into a moderate (M) group (n = 103, 75.7%) and a severe and critical (SC) group (n = 33, 24.3%). There were significant differences in the incidences of concomitant chronic medical illnesses (eg, hypertension, diabetes and cardiovascular disease), fever, dry cough and dyspnoea among the two groups (P, Elderly patients with chronic diseases are more likely to develop severe or critical COVID‐19 with multiple organ damage or systemic injuries. The improvement of LYM and CRP may be associated with the prognoses of COVID‐19.

Humic acid (HA) in water is the main precursor of disinfection by-products in the chlorination process of drinking water. In this study, an ultraviolet/persulfate (UV/PS) process, in a laboratory-scale system, is successful in the degradation of HA. The results showed that HA was significantly degraded (UV254 removal rate of ~ 89%) and partially mineralized (~ 62.5%) by UV/PS treatment at a PS dose of 0.4 mM, pH of 7.12, and UV irradiation time of 160 min. The trihalomethane formation potential (THMFP) was also significantly reduced (THMFP reduction of ~ 85.4%). A strong linear relationship was observed between UV254 and dissolved organic carbon. The removal rate of HA at low pH was better than that at high pH conditions, and the inhibition by Cl− slowed down after an initial increase, and the inhibition was weaker than HCO3−. By analyzing the fluorescence spectrum of two humic-like substances, the fluorescent compounds C1 and C2 in HA were significantly degraded, and the change in C1 and C2 concentration was correlated with the decrease of THMFP. The degradation of different fractions of natural organic matter in real-world water samples indicated that UV/PS has significant potential to decrease HA in water.

Odor problems are challenging issues in water treatment. Advanced oxidation has a significant degradation effect on these odors; however, some issues, such as oxidant residues and disinfection byproducts, exist in the use of advanced oxidation in actual water treatment. Because of the above issues, a combined advanced oxidation process has emerged-the UV/H

OBJECTIVE To investigate the effect and potential mechanism of quercetin on inflammation, oxidative stress, apoptosis, and mitochondrial structure and function in H9C2 cells. MATERIALS AND METHODS H9C2 cells were obtained from the Shanghai Institutes for Biological Sciences, Chinese Academy of Science, and randomly divided into six groups: control, model, PVT1 overexpression (OV), quercetin, OV + quercetin, and NAC groups. The CCK-8 assay was performed to examine cell proliferation. Flow cytometry was used to examine cell apoptosis, cell membrane potential, and ROS levels. The expression of endothelial nitric oxide synthase (eNOS), malondialdehyde (MDA), and superoxide dismutase (SOD) was measured by ELISA and a Biochemical kit. Western blotting was used to determine the levels of p-DRP1 (s637), MFN2, NF-kB, p-NF-kB, IkB, and p-IkB. IL-6, IL-10, TNF-α, and IL-1β mRNA expression was examined by RT-PCR. Electron microscopy was used to observe the structure of mitochondria in H9C2 cells. RESULTS MDA, p-NF-κB, p-IKB, IL-6, IL-1β, and TNF-α expression levels, and the cell apoptosis rate were significantly higher in the model group than in the control group (P

The Zn-added ultrasonic assisted friction stir lap welding (UaFSLW) was carried out to improve the quality of dissimilar Al/Mg alloys joint. The effects of ultrasonic power on the joint quality were also investigated. The results indicated that the larger effective lap width and mixing region between Mg and Al (Mg/Al MR) were attained by Zn foil addition and external ultrasonic assistance. Compared with the conventional joint, the finer and better-distributed Mg-Zn IMCs placing the continuous Al-Mg IMCs were formed in the Mg/Al MR of the Zn-added UaFSLW joint. The Zn foil addition and external ultrasonic assistance significantly improved the tensile shear load of the joint, and the load was increased with the increase of the ultrasonic power. The maximum tensile shear load of 7.95 kN was attained, which was 52.6% larger than that of the conventional joint.

The mechanical properties, especially the yield behavior, of AZ31B and ZK61 M magnesium alloys were comparatively investigated in this study. Series of uniaxial tension, uniaxial compression, shear and through-thickness compression (equi-biaxial tension) tests were conducted to obtain yield strengths and Lankford ratios (r values) under different strains and angles to their rolling directions and further the anisotropic characteristics as well as the tension-compression asymmetric features of the materials were analyzed. Furthermore, different yield criteria were adopted to represent yield behaviors of two magnesium alloys and their applicability on such magnesium alloys were compared. Results show that both magnesium alloys show apparent anisotropic and tension-compression asymmetric yield behavior. Compared with AZ31B, ZK61 M performs more remarkably in the anisotropic behavior and more intricately in tension-compression asymmetry and hardening features with changes of angles to the rolling direction and strain. The associated yield criteria of Hill1948, Yld2000-2D and CPB06 cannot concurrently represent anisotropic plastic yield and flow behaviors of AZ31B and ZK61 M magnesium alloys well; while the corresponding yield criteria based on non-associated flow rule can ideally describe these two aspects meantime. Among them, under tension and shear conditions, the non-associated Yld2000-2D criterion provided the most accurate predicting results than the other criteria. Regarding the tension-compression asymmetric characteristics of magnesium alloys, the non-associated model based on the CPB06 was introduced which makes concurrent prediction of tension-compression yield stress and Lankford ratio of these two materials possible. As a result, the comprehensive prediction capability of this model is fairly outstanding among all of three models. This study can provide basis for selection of plastic models, calibration technique and further application in numerical modeling.

As a green advanced process for drinking water treatment, the UV/hydrogen peroxide (UV/H2O2) process has been gradually applied in China. To study the effect and mechanism of organic matter removal and the development of microbial communities in the UV/H2O2-biological activated carbon (UV/H2O2-BAC) process, a pilot-scale UV/H2O2-BAC system was built and operated over one year. Low water temperature affects the UV/H2O2 process efficiency, the biofilms in the BAC system were mature and stable after 240 days, and the contribution rate of BAC adsorption to dissolved organic carbon (DOC) removal was approximately 14.2% after one year of operation. The liquid chromatography-organic carbon detection (LC-OCD) analysis shows that UV/H2O2 process can increase the amounts of Low Molecular Weight (LMW) neutrals, and the specific UV absorbance (SUVA254) value is not suitable for predicting Trihalomethanes (THMs) precursor contents in water after UV/H2O2 treatment. High-throughput sequencing results prove that microbial species in the middle section are the most abundant compared to those in the influent and effluent sections, hydrogen peroxide has lower inhibition on the development of microbial community than ozone and the low concentration of hydrogen peroxide (&lt, 0.25 mg/L) promotes the development of the microbial communities, hydrogen peroxide can reduce Proteobacteria abundance by inhibiting the growth of anaerobes. Acidobacteria may have a certain contribution to the degradation of soil organic matter (SOM), and the effluent section of BAC with low DOC concentration cannot form the dominant species of Rhodobacter.

Reperfusion of blood flow during ischemic myocardium resuscitation induces ischemia/reperfusion (I/R) injury. Oxidative stress has been identified as a major cause in this process. Quercetin (QCT) is a member of the flavonoid family that exerts antioxidant effects. The aim of this study was to investigate the preventive effects of QCT on I/R injury and its underlying mechanism. To this end, H9c2 cardiomyocytes were treated with different concentrations of QCT (10, 20, and 40 μM) and subsequently subjected to oxygen-glucose deprivation/reperfusion (OGD/R) administration. The results indicated that OGD/R-induced oxidative stress, apoptosis, and mitochondrial dysfunction in H9c2 cardiomyocytes were aggravated following 40 μM QCT treatment and alleviated following the administration of 10 and 20 μM QCT prior to OGD/R treatment. In addition, OGD/R treatment inactivated ERK1/2 signaling activation. The effect was mitigated using 10 and 20 μM QCT prior to OGD/R treatment. In conclusion, these results suggested that low concentrations of QCT might alleviate I/R injury by suppressing oxidative stress and improving mitochondrial function through the regulation of ERK1/2-DRP1 signaling, providing a potential candidate for I/R injury prevention.

Continuous observation data from a period of 26 years show that water radon concentrations in the Panjin observation well document pre-seismic anomalies prior to earthquakes of 4.8 ≤ M ≤ 7 within a radius of 300 km. Among these earthquakes, two distinct groups with different water radon concentration anomalies and anomaly mechanisms are apparent. The abnormal characteristics of water radon concentrations clearly reflect the processes of stress change, while Cl− concentration, Ca2+ concentration, Mg2+ concentration, and escaping gas flow only document part of these processes. According to Global Positioning System main strain rate fields and area strain rate fields, the change in anomalous behavior coincides with the 2011 Great Tohoku M 9.1 earthquake. This event caused the stress state of the study area, located in eastern China, to change from a relative compressive stress state to a tensile state, and may be the main reason for the change in the precursory characteristics of water radon concentrations (from increasing to decreasing prior to earthquakes). Regardless, water radon concentration in the well remains a good pre-seismic indicator for earthquakes of M ≥ 4.8. In the near future (∼50–100 years), water radon anomalies in the Panjin observation well prior to earthquakes of M ≥ 4.8 will most likely manifest as a V-shaped concentration change. Helium and neon isotopic compositions of gas samples from the Panjin observation well show that the present relatively high levels of water radon concentrations are normal and not an earthquake precursor.

Upland cotton (Gossypium hirsutum) is a salt-tolerant crop that can endure high salt concentrations without apparent damage. However, the plant’s response to salinity stress is a complex biological process. An analysis of the dynamic changes in transcript profiles will provide a global picture of the cotton response to salinity stress. Here, we monitored the transcriptome changes in two cotton genotypes, the salt-tolerant H15, and sensitive ZM12, at 0, 0.25, 1, 3, 6, 12, 24, and 48 h in roots exposed to 200-mM NaCl. In total, 13,894 and 5057 differentially expressed genes were identified as being involved in salt-stress tolerance in H15 and ZM12, respectively. Of these, 3825 genes were common to both genotypes. A differential expression analysis revealed that the number of differentially expressed genes increased significantly during the first 24 h after the salt-stress treatment and then significantly decreased at 48 h in both genotypes. A transcription factor (TF) analysis revealed three different patterns based on the expression of 45 TFs’ families, with the majority of differentially expressed TFs increasing rapidly after the salt-stress treatment in both genotypes. A weighted gene co-expression network analysis showed that two gene modules were related to salinity, and genes in these modules were mainly involved in plant–pathogen interactions, the plant MAPK signaling pathway, and diterpenoid biosynthesis. Our results increase the understanding of cotton metabolic pathways involved in responses to salt stress.

This retrospective study was designed to explore whether neutrophil to lymphocyte ratio (NLR) is a prognostic factor in patients with coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID‐19). A cohort of patients with COVID‐19 admitted to the Tongren Hospital of Wuhan University from 11 January 2020 to 3 March 2020 was retrospectively analyzed. Patients with hematologic malignancy were excluded. The NLR was calculated by dividing the neutrophil count by the lymphocyte count. NLR values were measured at the time of admission. The primary outcome was all‐cause in‐hospital mortality. A multivariate logistic analysis was performed. A total of 1004 patients with COVID‐19 were included in this study. The mortality rate was 4.0% (40 cases). The median age of nonsurvivors (68 years) was significantly older than survivors (62 years). Male sex was more predominant in nonsurvival group (27; 67.5%) than in the survival group (466; 48.3%). NLR value of nonsurvival group (median: 49.06; interquartile range [IQR]: 25.71‐69.70) was higher than that of survival group (median: 4.11; IQR: 2.44‐8.12; P, Highlights NLR is a significant prognostic biomarker of outcomes in critically ill patients with COVID‐19.COVID‐19 is more likely to infected those elder men with chronic comorbidities.NLR may also help in the early identification of older patients at higher risk of COVID‐19.Close monitoring and timely intervention are needed for elderly patients with COVID‐19.

Compared with conventional monolithic material, an aluminum-polymer sandwich sheet possesses advantageous strength/stiffness versus weight ratio and has received increasing attention in aeronautical, automotive, marine, and civil engineering industries. In the present study, limiting draw ratio (LDR) and other cylindrical cup-drawing characteristics of aluminum-polymer sandwich sheets were investigated by experiments and numerical simulations. Deformation behaviors of skin layer and core polymer layer were analyzed respectively. It was demonstrated that the deformation mode of exterior sheet tends to biaxial tension state and that of interior sheet tend to compression state. The LDR of aluminum-polyethylene sandwich sheet was well predicted, and influences of core layer thickness and mechanical properties of skin sheet on the LDR of sandwich sheet were analyzed. Research results show that the drawability of the aluminum-polymer sandwich sheet becomes poor with increasing the thickness of the polymeric core and the strength of core polymer. The LDR of the sandwich sheet mainly depends on the drawability of the skin sheet.

Upland cotton (Gossypium hirsutum) is the most important natural fiber crop in the world. The overall genetic diversity among cultivated species of cotton and the genetic changes that occurred during their improvement are poorly understood. Here we report a comprehensive genomic assessment of modern improved upland cotton based on the genome-wide resequencing of 318 landraces and modern improved cultivars or lines. We detected more associated loci for lint yield than for fiber quality, which suggests that lint yield has stronger selection signatures than other traits. We found that two ethylene-pathway-related genes were associated with increased lint yield in improved cultivars. We evaluated the population frequency of each elite allele in historically released cultivar groups and found that 54.8% of the elite genome-wide association study (GWAS) alleles detected were transferred from three founder landraces: Deltapine 15, Stoneville 2B and Uganda Mian. Our results provide a genomic basis for improving cotton cultivars and for further evolutionary analysis of polyploid crops.

The bending and springback behaviors of sandwich sheets are more complicated than those of monolithic layer metallic sheet due to the extremely large difference in mechanical properties and in the gauges of polymer core and the skin sheet. In the present study, the bending and springback behaviors of aluminum-polymer sandwich sheets were investigated by using analytical method and conducting experiments and numerical simulations. A simplified analytical model was proposed to calculate the bending moments for sandwich sheet in unconstrained bending process through analyzing the strain and stress distributions of skin sheet and core materials. Then, the analytical model was applied to predict the springback of sandwich sheets after bending. Numerical simulations and experiments of unconstrained bending process for aluminum-polymer sandwich sheets were conducted to investigate the influences of mechanical properties of each layer and thickness ratio of two layers on the folding defects, neutral layer location, and springback. The results show that the neutral layer shifts dramatically toward the compression region of the specimen during bending. The folding angle mainly relates to the strength difference between the skin sheet and the core polymer. The springback angle of sandwich sheet is mainly determined by the mechanical properties of skin sheet.

Ethylene-responsive factors (ERFs) are commonly considered to play an important role in pathogen defense responses. However, only few of ERF members have been characterized in Sea island cotton (Gossypium barbadense). Here, we reported a novel AP2/ERF transcription factors gene, named GbERFb which was cloned and identified from Sea island cotton by RACE. The expression of GbERFb was significantly induced by treatments with ethylene, Methyl jasmonate, salicylic acid, wounding, H2O2 and Verticillium dahliae (V. dahliae) infection. Bioinformatics analysis showed that GbERFb protein containing a conserved ERF DNA binding domain and a nuclear localization signal sequence, belonged to IXb subgroup of the ERF family. Further experiments demonstrated that GbERFb could bind the GCC box cis-acting element and interact with GbMAPKb (MAP kinase) directly in yeast. Over-expression of GbERFb in tobacco could increase the disease resistance to V. dahliae. The results suggest that the GbERFb, a new AP2/ERF transcription factor, could enhance the resistance to V. dahliae and be useful in improvement of crop resistance to pathogenes.

Identification of novel chemotypes with antimalarial efficacy is imperative to combat the rise of Plasmodium species resistant to current antimalarial drugs. We have used a hybrid target-phenotype approach to identify and evaluate novel chemotypes for malaria. In our search for drug-like aspartic protease inhibitors in publicly available phenotypic antimalarial databases, we identified GNF-Pf-4691, a 4-aryl-N-benzylpyrrolidine-3-carboxamide, as having a structure reminiscent of known inhibitors of aspartic proteases. Extensive profiling of the two terminal aryl rings revealed a structure-activity relationship in which relatively few substituents are tolerated at the benzylic position, but the 3-aryl position tolerates a range of hydrophobic groups and some heterocycles. Out of this effort, we identified (+)−54b (CWHM-1008) as a lead compound. 54b has EC(50) values of 46 nM and 21 nM against drug sensitive Plasmodium falciparum 3D7 and drug resistant Dd2 strains, respectively. Furthermore, 54b has a long half-life in mice (4.4 h) and is orally efficacious in a mouse model of malaria (q.d.; ED(99) ~ 30 mg/kg/day). Thus, the 4-aryl-N-benzylpyrrolidine-3-carboxamide chemotype is a promising novel chemotype for malaria drug discovery.

Fracture behavior of aluminum alloy under complex loading conditions is of particular interest to researchers and practitioners. In this study, tensile tests were carried out on 6061-T5 aluminum alloy specimens at different stress triaxialities and Lode angles under different loading directions at various strain rates. The Hill48 yield criterion and a self-developed hardening model were combined to describe the anisotropic yielding and strain rate-dependent hardening behavior of 6061-T5 aluminum alloy. An improved MMC-based fracture model was developed to describe the anisotropic and strain rate-dependent fracture characteristics of 6061-T5 aluminum alloy and the parameters were calibrated by using a combined experimental-numerical approach. The improved MMC-based model was implemented into LS-DYNA as UMAT for the numerical simulation. By using the proposed fracture criterion, simulation results were highly consistent with experimental ones, which prove the reliability of the improved fracture criterion.

An UV/H2O2-BAC combination process was developed and the effects of activated carbon columns with carbon of different ages and particle sizes were compared and inspected under long-term operation conditions. In addition, differences in the microbial community structure of the biological membrane on the surface of the activated carbons was explored by scanning electron microscopy (SEM) and high-throughput sequencing. Furthermore, the removal efficiency of organic matter and the microbial community structure were compared between UV/H2O2-BAC and O3-BAC processes under the same treatment conditions. The results showed that younger carbon age and smaller particle size were associated with higher organic matter removal rates. Additionally, Actinobacteria and Legionella were the main microorganisms for BAC to degrade hydrogen peroxide, and the microbial species of the four activated carbons were basically the same, differing only in abundance. When compared with the O3-BAC process, the UV/H2O2-BAC process had higher removal efficiency for organic matter and higher effluent safety. Overall, the results indicate the UV/H2O2-BAC process can be used as an alternative to the O3-BAC process for control of bromate.

Background Cottonseed is one of the most important raw materials for plant protein, oil and alternative biofuel for diesel engines. Understanding the complex genetic basis of cottonseed traits is requisite for achieving efficient genetic improvement of the traits. However, it is not yet clear about their genetic architecture in genomic level. GWAS has been an effective way to explore genetic basis of quantitative traits in human and many crops. This study aims to dissect genetic mechanism seven cottonseed traits by a GWAS for genetic improvement. Results A genome-wide association study (GWAS) based on a full gene model with gene effects as fixed and gene-environment interaction as random, was conducted for protein, oil and 5 fatty acids using 316 accessions and ~ 390 K SNPs. Totally, 124 significant quantitative trait SNPs (QTSs), consisting of 16, 21, 87 for protein, oil and fatty acids (palmitic, linoleic, oleic, myristic, stearic), respectively, were identified and the broad-sense heritability was estimated from 71.62 to 93.43%; no QTS-environment interaction was detected for the protein, the palmitic and the oleic contents; the protein content was predominantly controlled by epistatic effects accounting for 65.18% of the total variation, but the oil content and the fatty acids except the palmitic were mainly determined by gene main effects and no epistasis was detected for the myristic and the stearic. Prediction of superior pure line and hybrid revealed the potential of the QTSs in the improvement of cottonseed traits, and the hybrid could achieve higher or lower genetic values compared with pure lines. Conclusions This study revealed complex genetic architecture of seven cottonseed traits at whole genome-wide by mixed linear model approach; the identified genetic variants and estimated genetic component effects of gene, gene-gene and gene-environment interaction provide cotton geneticist or breeders new knowledge on the genetic mechanism of the traits and the potential molecular breeding design strategy. Electronic supplementary material The online version of this article (10.1186/s12864-018-4837-0) contains supplementary material, which is available to authorized users.

Table S5. The SNP genotypes achieving the maximum genetic value of seed traits in designed superior homozygous lines and hybrids at the QTSs absent in the Table 5. (DOC 168 kb)

Figure S3. Genome-wide average LD decay estimated based on the population of 316 cotton accessions. (DOC 58 kb)

Table S1. The information of 316 accessions and the summary statistics of seven seed traits (DOC 321 kb)