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Red solar-induced chlorophyll fluorescence (SIFB) is closely related to the photosynthetically active radiation absorbed by chlorophyll. The scattering and reabsorption of SIFB by the vegetation canopy significantly change the spectral intensity and shape of SIF, which affects the relationship between SIF and crop stress. To address this, we propose a method of modifying SIFB using SIF spectral shape characteristic parameters to reduce this influence. A red pseudokurtosis (PKB) parameter that can characterize spectral shape features was calculated using full-spectrum SIF data. On this basis, we analyzed the photosynthetic physiological mechanism of PKB and found that it significantly correlates with both the fraction of photosynthetically active radiation absorbed by chlorophyll(fPARchl) and the red SIF escape rate (fesc680); thus, it is closely related to the scattering and reabsorption of SIFB by the vegetation canopy. Consequently, we constructed an expression of PKB to modify SIFB. To evaluate the modified SIFB (MSIFB) in monitoring the severity of wheat stripe rust, we analyzed the correlations between SIFB, MSIFB, SIFB-VIs (a fusion of the vegetation index and SIFB), and MSIFB-VIs (a fusion of the vegetation index and MSIFB) with the severity level (SL), respectively. The results show that the correlation between MSIFB and the severity of wheat stripe rust increased by an average of 25.6% and at least 16.95% compared with that for SIFB. In addition, we constructed remote sensing monitoring models for wheat stripe rust using linear regression methods, with SIFB, MSIFB, SIFB-VIs, and MSIFB-VIs as independent variables. PKB significantly improves the accuracy and robustness of models based on SIFB and its fusion index SIFB-VIs in the constructed testing set. The R-value between the predicted SL and the measured SL of the remote sensing monitoring model for wheat stripe rust was established using MSIFB-VIs as the independent variable, and it was improved by an average of 39.49% compared with the model using SIFB-VIs. The RMSE was reduced by an average of 18.22%. Therefore, the SIFB modified by PKB can weaken the effects of chlorophyll reabsorption and canopy architecture on SIFB and improve the ability of SIFB to detect stress information.

Abstract Malignant pleural mesothelioma (MPM) is a malignant tumor originating from the pleura, and its incidence has been increasing in recent years. Due to the insidious onset and strong local invasiveness of MPM, most patients are diagnosed in the late stage and early screening and treatment for high‐risk populations are crucial. The treatment of MPM mainly includes surgery, chemotherapy, and radiotherapy. Immunotherapy and electric field therapy have also been applied, leading to further improvements in patient survival. The Mesothelioma Group of the Yangtze River Delta Lung Cancer Cooperation Group (East China LUng caNcer Group, ECLUNG; Youth Committee) developed a national consensus on the clinical diagnosis and treatment of MPM based on existing clinical research evidence and the opinions of national experts. This consensus aims to promote the homogenization and standardization of MPM diagnosis and treatment in China, covering epidemiology, diagnosis, treatment, and follow‐up.

Abstract Thymic epithelial tumors (TETs) are a relatively rare type of thoracic tumor, accounting for less than 1% of all tumors. The incidence of TETs is about 3.93/10000 in China, slightly higher than that of European and American countries. For resectable TETs, complete surgical resection is recommended. Radiotherapy or chemotherapy may be used as postoperative adjuvant treatment. Treatment for advanced, unresectable TETs consist mainly of radiotherapy and chemotherapy, but there is a lack of standard first‐ and second‐line treatment regimens. Recently, targeted therapies and immune checkpoint inhibitors have shown promising outcomes in TETs. Based on the currently available clinical evidences and the opinions of the national experts, the Thymic Oncology Group of Yangtze River Delta Lung Cancer Cooperation Group (East China LUng caNcer Group, ECLUNG; Youth Committee) established this Chinese expert consensus on the clinical diagnosis and treatment of TETs, covering the epidemiology, diagnosis, treatment, prognosis and follow‐up of TETs.

The wheat canopy reflectance spectrum is affected by many internal and external factors such as diseases and growth stage. Separating the effects of disease stress on the crop from the observed mixed signals is crucial for increasing the precision of remote sensing monitoring of wheat stripe rust. The canopy spectrum of winter wheat infected by stripe rust was processed with the difference-in-differences (DID) algorithm used in econometrics. The monitoring accuracies of wheat stripe rust before and after processing with the DID algorithm were compared in the presence of various external factors, disease severity, and several simulated satellite sensors. The correlation between the normalized difference vegetation index processed by the DID algorithm (NDVI-DID) and the disease severity level (SL) increased in comparison with the NDVI before processing. The increase in precision in the natural disease area in the field in the presence of large differences in growth stage, growth, planting, and management of the crop was greater than that in the controlled experiment. For low disease levels (SL 40%). According to the measured hyperspectral data, the spectral reflectance of three satellite sensor levels was simulated. The wide-band NDVI was calculated. Compared with the wide-band NDVI and vegetation indexes (VIS) before DID processing, there were increases in the correlation between SL and the various types of VIS-DID, as well as in the correlation between SL and NDVI-DID. It is feasible to apply the DID algorithm to multispectral satellite data and diverse types of VIS for monitoring wheat stripe rust. Our results improve the quantification of independent effects of stripe rust infection on canopy reflectance spectrum, increase the precision of remote sensing monitoring of wheat stripe rust, and provide a reference for remote sensing monitoring of other crop diseases.

Sun-induced chlorophyll fluorescence (SIF) has shown potential in quantifying plant responses to environmental changes by which abiotic drivers are dominated. However, SIF is a mixed signal influenced by factors such as leaf physiology, canopy structure, and sun-sensor geometry. Whether the physiological information contained in SIF can better quantify crop disease stresses dominated by biological drivers, and clearly explain the physiological variability of stressed crops, has not yet been sufficiently explored. On this basis, we took winter wheat naturally infected with stripe rust as the research object and conducted a study on the responses of physiological signals and reflectivity spectrum signals to crop disease stress dominated by biological drivers, based on in situ canopy-scale and leaf-scale data. Physiological signals include SIF, SIFyield (normalized by absorbed photosynthetically active radiation), fluorescence yield (ΦF) retrieved by NIRvP (non-physiological components of canopy SIF) and relative fluorescence yield (ΦF-r) retrieved by near-infrared radiance of vegetation (NIRvR). Reflectance spectrum signals include normalized difference vegetation index (NDVI) and near-infrared reflectance of vegetation (NIRv). At the canopy scale, six signals reached extremely significant correlations (P < 0.001) with disease severity levels (SL) under comprehensive experimental conditions (SL without dividing the experimental samples) and light disease conditions (SL < 20%). The strongest correlation between NDVI and SL (R = 0.69) was observed under the comprehensive experimental conditions, followed by NIRv (R = 0.56), ΦF-r (R = 0.53) and SIF (R = 0.51), and the response of ΦF (R = 0.45) and SIFyield (R = 0.34) to SL was weak. Under lightly diseased conditions, ΦF-r (R = 0.62) showed the strongest response to disease, followed by SIFyield (R = 0.60), SIF (R = 0.56) and NIRv (R = 0.54). The weakest correlation was observed between ΦF and SL (R = 0.51), which also showed a result approximating NDVI (R = 0.52). In the case of a high level of crop disease severity, NDVI showed advantages in disease monitoring. In the early stage of crop diseases, which we pay more attention to, compared with SIF and reflectivity spectrum signals, ΦF-r estimated by the newly proposed ‘NIRvR approach’ (which uses SIF together with NIRvR (i.e., SIF/ NIRvR) as a substitute for ΦF) showed superior ability to monitor crop physiological stress, and was more sensitive to plant physiological variation. At the leaf scale, the response of SIF to SL was stronger than that of NDVI. These results validate the potential of ΦF-r estimated by the NIRvR approach to monitoring disease stress dominated by biological drivers, thus providing a new research avenue for quantifying crop responses to disease stress.

Solar-induced chlorophyll fluorescence (SIF) has great advantages in the remote sensing detection of crop stress. However, under stripe rust stress, the effects of canopy structure and leaf physiology on the variations in canopy SIF are unclear, and these influencing factors are entangled during the development of disease, resulting in an unclear coupling relationship between SIFcanopy and the severity level (SL) of disease, which affects the remote sensing detection accuracy of wheat stripe rust. In this study, the observed canopy SIF was decomposed into NIRVP, which can characterize the canopy structure, and SIFtot, which can sensitively reflect the physiological status of crops. Additionally, the main factors driving the variations in canopy SIF under different disease severities were analyzed, and the response characteristics of SIFcanopy, NIRVP, and SIFtot to SL under stripe rust stress were studied. The results showed that when the severity level (SL) of disease was lower than 20%, NIRVP was more sensitive to variation in SIFcanopy than SIFtot, and the correlation between SIFtot and SL was 6.6% higher than that of SIFcanopy. Using the decomposed SIFtot component allows one to detect the stress state of plants before variations in vegetation canopy structure and leaf area index and can realize the early diagnosis of crop diseases. When the severity level (SL) of disease was in the state of moderate incidence (20% < SL ≤ 45%), the variation in SIFcanopy was affected by both NIRVP and SIFtot, and the detection accuracy of SIFcanopy for wheat stripe rust was better than that of the NIRVP and SIFtot components. When the severity level (SL) of disease reached a severe level (SL > 45%), SIFtot was more sensitive to the variation in SIFcanopy, and NIRVP reached a highly significant level with SL, which could better realize the remote sensing detection of wheat stripe rust disease severity. The research results showed that analyzing variations in SIFcanopy by using the decomposed canopy structure and physiological response signals can effectively capture additional information about plant physiology, detect crop pathological variations caused by disease stress earlier and more accurately, and promote crop disease monitoring and research progress.

The aim of this study was to investigate the prognostic value of tumor markers in operable non-small cell lung cancer (NSCLC) patients. A total of 481 NSCLC patients were enrolled in the present study. High levels of neuron-specific enolase (NSE), carbohydrate antigen 125 (CA125) and squamous cell carcinoma antigen (SCC) were detected in 306 (63.6%), 89 (18.5%) and 125 (26.0%) patients, respectively. Seventy-eight of 481 patients died of disease progression, and the median disease-free survival (DFS) and overall survival (OS) were 16.0 and 21.0 months, respectively. The three-year DFS rate was 56.7%, and the OS rate was 75.3%. For serum NSE, the three-year cumulative DFS rate for the normal and elevated group was 67.7% and 51.8% (p = 0.007). The OS in patients with high and normal levels of NSE was 34.0 months and 48.0 months, respectively. The median DFS was 46.0 months versus 32.0 months (p = 0.001), and the OS was 48.0 months versus 44.0 months (p = 0.001) in patients with normal and high levels of CA125. For patients with squamous cell carcinoma, the overall survival was significantly shorter in patients with elevated levels of SCC (p = 0.041). In the multivariate analysis high levels of NSE, CA125 and clinical stage were significantly correlated with worse prognosis (p < 0.05). Patients with all three tumor markers elevated presented the worst prognosis (p < 0.05). In our analysis, high levels of preoperative serum NSE and CA125 are correlated with worse survival in operable NSCLC patients.

Porcine reproductive and respiratory syndrome (PRRS) has been a persistent challenge for the swine industry for over three decades due to the lack of effective treatments and vaccines. Reverse genetics systems have been extensively employed to build rapid drug screening platforms and develop genetically engineered vaccines. Herein, we rescued recombinant PRRS virus (rPRRSV) WUH3 using an infectious cDNA clone of PRRSV WUH3 acquired through a BstXI-based one-step-assembly approach. The rPRRSV WUH3 and its parental PRRSV WUH3 share similar plaque sizes and multiple-step growth curves. Previously, gene-editing of viral genomes depends on appropriate restrictive endonucleases, which are arduous to select in some specific viral genes. Thus, we developed a restrictive endonucleases-free method based on CRISPR/Cas9 to edit the PRRSV genome. Using this method, we successfully inserted the exogenous gene (EGFP gene as an example) into the interval between ORF1b and ORF2a of the PRRSV genome to generate rPRRSV WUH3-EGFP, or precisely mutated the lysine (K) at position 150 of PRRSV nsp1α to glutamine (Q) to acquire rPRRSV WUH3 nsp1α-K150Q. Taken together, our study provides a rapid and convenient method for the development of genetically engineered vaccines against PRRSV and the study on the functions of PRRSV genes.

Porcine reproductive and respiratory syndrome virus (PRRSV), the etiological agent of PRRS, is prevalent worldwide, causing substantial and immense economic losses to the global swine industry. While current commercial vaccines fail to efficiently control PRRS, the development of safe and effective antiviral drugs against PRRSV is urgently required. Alkaloids are natural products with wide pharmacological and biological activities. Herein, sanguinarine, a benzophenanthridine alkaloid that occurs in many plants such as Macleaya cordata, was demonstrated as a potent antagonist of PRRSV. Sanguinarine attenuated PRRSV proliferation by targeting the internalization, replication, and release stages of the viral life cycle. Furthermore, ALB, AR, MAPK8, MAPK14, IGF1, GSK3B, PTGS2, and NOS2 were found as potential key targets related to the anti-PRRSV effect of sanguinarine as revealed by network pharmacology and molecular docking. Significantly, we demonstrated that the combination of sanguinarine with chelerythrine, another key bioactive alkaloid derived from Macleaya cordata, improved the antiviral activity. In summary, our findings reveal the promising potential of sanguinarine as a novel candidate for the development of anti-PRRSV agents.

Human RNA polymerase II (RNAPII)-associated factor 1 complex (hPAF1C) plays a crucial role in proteincoding gene transcription. Overexpression of hPAF1C has been implicated in the initiation and progression of various human cancers. However, the molecular pathways involved in tumorigenesis through hPAF1C remain to be elucidated. The current study suggested hPAF1C expression as a prognostic biomarker for early stage non-small cell lung cancer (NSCLC) and patients with low hPAF1C expression levels had significantly better overall survival. Furthermore, the expression of hPAF1C was found to be positively correlated with c-MYC expression in patient tumor samples and in cancer cell lines. Mechanistic studies indicated that hPAF1C could promote lung cancer cell proliferation through regulating c- MYC transcription. These results demonstrated the prognostic value of hPAF1C in early-stage NSCLC and the role of hPAF1C in the transcriptional regulation of c-MYC oncogene during NSCLC tumorigenesis. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]