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The theoretical modeling of a functionally graded (FG) graphene nanoplatelet (GPL)-reinforced assembled beam–plate structure resting on elastic supports is presented for the first time, and its free vibration analysis is performed. Herein, the assembled structure is modeled according to the Kirchhoff plate theory and the Rayleigh beam theory. The graphene nanoplatelets (GPLs) gradiently distribute in the beam’s radial direction and in the plate’s thickness direction, respectively. By adopting the rule of mixture and the Halpin–Tsai model, the effective material properties can be obtained. By employing the Lagrange’s equation and considering the effects of Coriolis force and centrifugal force, the coupled governing equations of the assembled structure are determined. Furthermore, the assumed modes method and substructure modal synthesis method are applied to obtain the frequencies of the assembled beam–plate structure. A comprehensive numerical investigation is carried out to discuss the influence of the structural and material parameters on the vibration behavior of the beam–plate structure.

This paper investigates the coupled modeling method and free vibration characteristics of a graphene nanoplatelet (GPL) reinforced blade-disk rotor system in which the blade has a pre-twist angle and setting angle. Based on the Kirchhoff plate theory and the Euler–Bernoulli beam theory, the theoretical model of the rotating blade-disk assembly is carried out accurately. The effective material properties of the blade and disk are assumed to vary continually along their thickness directions and are determined via the Halpin–Tsai micromechanics model together with the rule of mixture. The coupled equations of motion are derived in accordance with the Lagrange's equation. Then, the substructure modal synthesis method and the Galerkin method are employed to calculate the free vibration results of the rotor. Additionally, the effects of the rotating speed, GPL distribution pattern, GPL weight fraction, length-to-thickness ratio and length-to-width ratio of GPLs, inner and outer radius of the disk, and pre-twist angle per unit length, setting angle and length of the blade on free vibration characteristics of the rotating blade-shaft assembly are discussed in detail.

This paper presents an investigation on vibration characteristics of graphene nanoplatelet (GPL) reinforced disk-shaft rotor with eccentric mass resting on elastic supports. The shaft is made of co...

This paper presents a study on the modelling and free vibration analysis of a rotating functionally graded (FG) porous blade-disk-shaft assembly reinforced with graphene nanoplatelets (GPLs) resting on elastic supports. The rotor is made of graphene nanoplatelet (GPL) reinforced porous foam metal matrix. Both uniform and non-uniform distributions of GPLs and pores in the rotating assembly are considered. The effective material properties are thought of as layered change along the directions of blade thickness, disk radius and shaft radius. Moreover, the material values of this functionally graded structure are determined via the open-cell scheme, the Halpin–Tsai model together with the rule of mixtures. According to the finite element (FE) method, the modelling and free vibration analysis of the nanocomposite blade-disk-shaft rotor system is conducted. To verify the present analysis, the experimental method is adopted. The FE results and experimental results have great match with each other. Special attention is paid to the effects of the rotating speed, GPL distribution pattern, GPL weight fraction, length-to-width ratio and length-to-thickness ratio of GPLs, porosity distribution, porosity coefficient and support stiffness. The obtained conclusions can give particularly important suggestions for the design of GPL reinforced porous blade-disk-shaft rotor systems to achieve advanced mechanical performance.

基于热力耦合试验,揭示饱和黏土热塑性应变机理,提出一个更合理的热塑性方程,并用于描述复杂热力耦合条件下饱和黏土应变响应。 1. 通过试验结果分析、理论推导提出本构关系;2. 通过参数分析和试验模拟,验证本构关系的有效性及合理性。 通过对饱和黏土在不同热力耦合条件下的试验结果验证,本文提出的双屈服面热力耦合本构关系可以很好地模拟热循环下饱和黏土应变响应。

To investigate the regulatory effect of all-trans retinoic acid (ATRA) on the expression interleukin-1β (IL-1β) in macrophages and the mechanisms involved.Macrophages were treated with 1 μmol/L ATRA for 24 h before RNA-Sequence. Differentially expressed genes (DEGs) were screened out and analyzed by Kyoto Encyclopedia of Genes and Genomes (KEGG) pathway enrichment analysis, gene ontology (GO) functional analysis, and protein-protein interaction networks (PPI) analysis. After treatment with different doses of ATRA for 24 h, the expression of IL-1β was examined with qRT-PCR and Western blot. The activation of NF-κB signaling and caspase-1 was observed by Western blot and immunofluorescence staining.Compared with the blank control group, a total of 71 DEGs of macrophages were upregulated in the ATRA treatment group. KEGG analysis showed that the up-regulated DEGs were involved in IL-17 signaling pathway, tumor necrosis factor (TNF) signaling pathway, etc. GO analysis indicated that the up-regulated DEGs were involved in the biological processes of the production of IL-1β, response to lipopolysaccharide, etc. PPI analysis revealed that inflammatory cytokines, adhesion molecules, and chemokines were the key genes that ATRA acted on.ATRA may promote the expression of IL-1β by activating NF-κB signaling and caspase-1 in macrophages, this study may provide evidence for the immune regulatory function of ATRA on macrophages.

This paper investigates the theoretical modeling and coupled free vibration behaviors of a rotating double-bladed shaft assembly resting on elastic supports in a spacecraft system. According to the Kirchhoff plate theory and the Euler-Bernoulli beam theory, the theoretical model is established. The studied rotor is considered to be made of porous foam metal matrix and graphene nanoplatelet (GPL) reinforcement. Non-uniform distributions of porosity and graphene nanoplatelets (GPLs) are taken into account and lead to functionally graded (FG) structures. The effective material properties of the double-bladed shaft are varying along the radius and thickness direction of the shaft and blade, respectively. Moreover, the rule of mixture, the Halpin-Tsai model, and the open-cell scheme are used to determine its material properties. Considering the gyroscopic effect, the Lagrange equation is utilized to derive the coupled equations of motion. Then the traveling wave frequencies of the double-bladed shaft assembly is obtained by employing the assumed modes method and substructure modal synthesis method. A detailed parametric analysis is conducted to examine the effects of the rotating speed, GPL weight fraction, GPL distribution pattern, GPL length-to-thickness ratio, GPL length-to-width ratio, porosity coefficient, porosity distribution pattern, shaft length-to-radius ratio, blade length-to-thickness ratio, support stiffness and support location on the free vibration behaviors of the double-bladed shaft assembly.

This paper presents a new theoretical model for rotating elastic hub-blade assemblies, made of functionally graded (FG) graphene nanoplatelet (GPL) reinforced nanocomposites, and their free vibration characteristics are investigated. This model is the first attempt to include two elastic components simultaneously and consider the coupled effect. The Euler-Bernoulli beam theory and the Donnell’s shell theory are employed to establish the mathematic model of the blade and hub, respectively. The effective material properties, varying continuously along the thickness of the beam and cylindrical shell, are determined via the Halpin-Tsai micromechanics model and the rule of the mixture. The Lagrange’s equation is adopted to derive the equations of motion which are then solved by employing the substructure mode synthesis method and the Galerkin method. A parametric study is conducted to examine the effects of the rotating speed, graphene nanoplatelet distribution pattern, GPL weight fraction, length-to-thickness ratio and length-to-width ratio of graphene nanoplatelets (GPLs) and blade dimension on the natural frequencies of the nanocomposite rotor system, which will significantly benefit on the structural and material design of GPL reinforced hub-blade assembly.

This study aimed to evaluate the efficiency of the powdered formulation with the nematophagous fungi Duddingtonia flagrans against gastrointestinal nematodes of sheep under three feeding systems in...

Background Noise-induced hearing loss (NIHL) is a complex disease caused by environmental and genetic risk factors. This study was to explore the association of noise kurtosis, triphosphopyridine nucleotide oxidase 3 (NOX3) and lifestyles with NIHL. Methods This case-control study included 307 patients with NIHL and 307 matched control individuals from Zhejiang province of China. General characteristics, noise exposure data, the exfoliated cells of the oral mucosa, and lifestyle details of individuals were collected. The kompetitive allele specific polymerase chain reaction (KASP) method was used to analyze the genotypes of three single nucleotide polymorphisms (SNPs) of NOX3. Results People who exposed to complex noise had a higher risk of NIHL than those exposed to steady noise (adjusted: OR = 1.806, P = 0.002). The GT genotype of additive model and TT + GT genotype of dominant model in NOX3 rs12195525 decreased the risk of NIHL (adjusted: OR = 0.618, P = 0.043; OR = 0.622, P = 0.036). Smoking and exposure to high video volume increased the risk of NIHL (adjusted: OR = 1.486, P = 0.038; OR = 1.611, P = 0.014). Oppositely, regular physical exercise decreased the risk of NIHL (adjusted: OR = 0.598, P = 0.004). A positive interaction was found between complex noise and lifestyles including high video volume exposure and no physical exercise in the additive models (RERI = 1.088, P P = 0.024). A positive interaction was also found between NOX3 rs12195525 GG genotype and lifestyles including smoking and high video volume exposure in the additive models (RERI = 1.042, P = 0.005; RERI = 0.774, P = 0.044). Conclusions Noise temporal structure, NOX3 rs12195525 polymorphism, and the three lifestyles of smoking, video volume, and physical exercise were related to the NIHL. There were the interactions between noise temporal structure and the lifestyle of video volume or physical exercise, as well as between NOX3 and the lifestyle of smoking or video volume. These results provide a theoretical basis for the prevention and genetic testing of NIHL.

Because of the nonlinearity and nonstationarity in the vibration signals of some rotating machinery, the analysis of these signals using conventional time- or frequency-domain methods has some drawbacks, and the results can be misleading. In this paper, a couple of features derived from multivariate empirical mode decomposition (MEMD) are introduced, which overcomes the shortcomings of the traditional features. A wind turbine gearbox and its bearings are investigated as rotating machinery. In this method, two types of feature structures are extracted from the decomposed signals resulting from the MEMD algorithm, called intrinsic mode function (IMF). The first type of feature vector element is the energy moment of effective IMFs. The other type of vector elements is amplitudes of a signal spectrum at the characteristic frequencies. A correlation factor is used to detect effective IMFs and eliminate the redundant IMFs. Since the basic MEMD algorithm is sensitive to noise, a noise-assisted extension of MEMD, NA-MEMD, is exploited to reduce the effect of noise on the output results. The capability of the proposed feature vector in health condition monitoring of the system is evaluated and compared with traditional features by using a discrimination factor. The proposed feature vector is utilized in the input layer of the classical three-layer backpropagation neural network. The results confirm that these features are appropriate for intelligent fault detection of complex rotating machinery and can diagnose the occurrence of early faults.

P0 proteins encoded by poleroviruses Brassica yellows virus (BrYV) and Potato leafroll virus (PLRV) are viral suppressors of RNA silencing (VSR) involved in abolishing host RNA silencing to assist viral infection. However, other roles that P0 proteins play in virus infection remain unclear. Here, we found that C-terminal truncation of P0 resulted in compromised systemic infection of BrYV and PLRV. C-terminal truncation affected systemic but not local VSR activities of P0 proteins, but neither transient nor ectopic stably expressed VSR proteins could rescue the systemic infection of BrYV and PLRV mutants. Moreover, BrYV mutant failed to establish systemic infection in DCL2/4 RNAi or RDR6 RNAi plants, indicating that systemic infection might be independent of the VSR activity of P0. Partially rescued infection of BrYV mutant by the co-infected PLRV implied the functional conservation of P0 proteins within genus. However, although C-terminal truncation mutant of BrYV P0 showed weaker interaction with its movement protein (MP) when compared to wild-type P0, wild-type and mutant PLRV P0 showed similar interaction with its MP. In sum, our findings revealed the role of P0 in virus systemic infection and the requirement of P0 carboxyl terminal region for the infection.

In this paper, a rotating functionally graded (FG) polymer nanocomposite shaft-disk assembly reinforced with graphene nanoplatelets (GPLs) resting on elastic supports is modelled and its vibration behaviours are analysed. The effective material properties of the shaft and disk are assumed to vary along their radius directions and determined via the Halpin–Tsai model together with the rule of mixture. Different non-uniform and uniform distributions of GPLs in the rotating assembly are taken into account. In accordance with the finite element (FE) method, the modelling and free vibration analysis of the nanocomposite shaft-disk rotor system is conducted. To verify the present analysis, both the theoretical and experimental methods are employed. A comprehensive parametric study on the effects of the graphene nanoplatelets (GPL) weight fraction, GPL distribution pattern, length-to-thickness ratio and length-to-width ratio of GPLs, shaft length, elastic support stiffness and rotating speed on the free vibration results are investigated, which gives effective ways to achieve improved mechanical performance of a rotating nanocomposite disk-shaft assembly.

Brassica yellows virus (BrYV) is a tentative species of the genus Polerovirus, which occurs widely, and mostly damages Brassicaceae plants in East Asia. Because BrYV cannot be transmitted mechanically, an insect-based transmission method is required for further virus research. Here, a reliable and unrestricted method is described, in which non-viruliferous aphids (Myzus persicae) acquired BrYV from transgenic Arabidopsis thaliana, harboring the full-length viral genome germinated from seeds and its frozen leaves. The aphids then transmitted the virus to healthy plants. There was no significant difference in acquisition rates between fresh and frozen infected leaves, although the transmission rate from frozen infected leaves was lower compared to fresh infected leaves. This simple novel method may be used to preserve viral inocula, evaluate host varietal resistance to BrYV, and investigate interactions among BrYV, aphids, and hosts.

Background: Mean corpuscular volume (MCV) is major used as an indicator for the differential diagnosis of anemia. Macrocytic anemia in decompensated cirrhosis is common. However, the relationship between macrocytic anemia and decompensated hepatitis B virus (HBV) associated cirrhosis has not been fully addressed.Methods: In this cross-sectional study, a total of 457 patients diagnosed decompensated HBV associated cirrhosis who met all inclusion criteria from 2011 to 2018 were analyzed. Association between macrocytic anemia and the liver damaged (Model for End Stage Liver Disease (MELD) score) were examined using multiple logistic regression analyses and identified using smooth curve fitting.Results: Compared with normocytic anemia, MCV and MELD are significantly positively correlated in macrocytic anemia (p < 0.001). A non-linear relationship of MCV and MELD association was found though the piecewise linear spline models in patients with decompensated HBV associated cirrhosis. MCV positive correlated with MELD when the MCV was greater than 98.2 fl (regression coefficient = 0.008, 95% CI 0.1, 0.4).Conclusion: Macrocytic anemia may be a reliable predictor for mortality because it is closely related to the degree of liver damage in patients with decompensated HBV associated cirrhosis.

Background/aims The expression of transcription factor Zbtb1 is essential for the maintenance and development of various blood cells in the hematopoietic system. In the current study, we found that the total number of thymocytes in PLZF deficient mice was reduced compared with thymocytes in wild-type mice, and the number of early T-cell progenitors decreased. However, the decrease of thymocytes in PLZF deficient mice was not cell intrinsic. This study adds new information regarding the regulation of the PLZF gene in the development and self-renewal of T cells. Methods The thymus was isolated from newborn mice, and the two lobes of each thymus were physically separated. Each host received a thymus, two lobes, each placed at one end of the kidney, as described in the literature. Tail vein blood was periodically collected from some of the recipients and analyzed for the presence of peripheral blood T cells. Results In PLZF-EGFP reporter mice and neonatal thymus transplantation to the kidney, we found that PLZF was highly expressed in DN1 (Lineage-CD44+CD25-) cells of thymic grafts of Rag2/γc-/- recipient mice. We found that the proportion of PLZF wild-type and mutant-derived cells in the thymocytes of recipient mice after bone marrow transplantation is approximately equal to the competitive bone marrow chimeric mouse model, and all mice contain a normal thymus. Conclusion The development of T cells suggests that the effect of the PLZF gene on T cell differentiation and development is not cell intrinsic. However, in the neonatal mouse thymic transplant model in the Rag2/γc-/- recipient mouse, deletion of the PLZF gene results in a significant decrease in the proportion of DN1 cells from the donor in the thymic graft.

This study aimed to determine the effects of Duddingtonia flagrans contained in sodium alginate pellets on trichostrongylide larvae under different storage conditions and durations. The in vitro pr...

To investigate associations of genetic and environmental factors with coronary artery disease (CAD), we collected medical reports, lifestyle details, and blood samples of 2113 individuals, and then used the polymerase chain reaction (PCR)-ligase detection reaction (LDR) to genotype the targeted 102 SNPs.We adopted elastic net algorithm to build an association model that considered simultaneously genetic and lifestyle/clinical factors associated with CAD in Chinese Han population.In this study, we developed an all covariates-based model to explain the risk of CAD, which incorporated 8 lifestyle/clinical factors and a gene-score variable calculated from 3 significant SNPs (rs671, rs6751537 and rs11641677), attaining an area under the curve (AUC) value of 0.71. It was found that, in terms of genetic variants, the AA genotype of rs671 in the additive (adjusted odds ratio (OR) = 2.51, p = 0.008) and recessive (adjusted OR = 2.12, p = 0.021) models, the GG genotype of rs6751537 in the additive (adjusted OR = 3.36, p = 0.001) and recessive (adjusted OR = 3.47, p = 0.001) models were associated with increased risk of CAD, while GG genotype of rs11641677 in additive model (adjusted OR = 0.39, p = 0.044) was associated with decreased risk of CAD. In terms of lifestyle/clinical factors, the history of hypertension (unadjusted OR = 2.37, p 0.001) and dyslipidemia (unadjusted OR = 1.82, p = 0.007), age (unadjusted OR = 1.07, p 0.001) and waist circumference (unadjusted OR = 1.02, p = 0.05) would significantly increase the risk of CAD, while height (unadjusted OR = 0.97, p = 0.006) and regular intake of chicken (unadjusted OR = 0.78, p = 0.008) reduced the risk of CAD. A significantinteraction was foundbetween rs671 and dyslipidemia (the relative excess risk due to interaction (RERI) = 3.36, p = 0.05).In this study, we constructed an association model and identified a set of SNPs and lifestyle/clinical risk factors of CAD in Chinese Han population. By considering both genetic and non-genetic risk factors, the built model may provide implications for CAD pathogenesis and clues for screening tool development in Chinese Han population.

Background: Multiple genetic and environmental factors influence the severity of NIHL. However, few studies have reported interactions among such factors in modulating the risk of NIHL. This study aimed to assess for interactions among gene polymorphisms, noise metrics, and lifestyles on the risk of NIHL.Methods: A case-control study was conducted using 307 patients with NIHL and 307 matched healthy individuals from five manufacturing industries. General demographic data, lifestyle details, and noise exposure levels were recorded. The kompetitive allele-specific polymerase chain reaction (KASP) was used to analyze the genotypes of 18 single nucleotide polymorphisms (SNPs). The generalized multifactor dimensionality reduction (GMDR) method was used to examine the effects of all possible interactions. Results: The proportion of people with complex noise exposure, high CNE, high adj-CNE, smoking, propensity to watch loud videos, or sedentary lifestyle was significantly greater in the NIHL group than in the healthy group (P < 0.05). The GMDR model demonstrated a relevant interaction between NRN1 rs3805789 and CAT rs7943316. Subjects with the SNP pair of NRN1 rs3805789-CC and CAT rs7943316-AT, NRN1 rs3805789-CT and CAT rs7943316-AA, NRN1 rs3805789-CT and CAT rs7943316-TT, NRN1 rs3805789-CT/TT and CAT rs7943316-AA, or NRN1 rs3805789-CC and CAT rs7943316-AT/TT had higher risks of NIHL than those with NRN1 rs3805789-CC and CAT rs7943316-AA (P < 0.05). There was an interaction among NRN1 rs3805789, CAT rs7943316, and kurtosis. Subjects exposed to complex noise and carrying both NRN1 rs3805789-CT and CAT rs7943316-TT or NRN1 rs3805789-CT/TT and CAT rs7943316-AA had higher risks of NIHL than those exposed to steady noise and carrying both NRN1 rs3805789-CC and CAT rs7943316-AA (P < 0.05). The best six‐locus model involving NRN1 rs3805789, CAT rs7943316, smoking, video volume, physical exercise, and working pressure for the risk of NIHL was found to be the interaction (P = 0.0010). An interaction was also found among smoking, video volume, physical exercise, working pressure, and kurtosis (P = 0.0107).Conclusions: Complex noise, high CNE, high adj-CNE, smoking, high video volume, and sedentary lifestyle are environmental risk factors for NIHL. Concurrence of NRN1 rs3805789 and CAT rs7943316 constitutes a genetic risk factor for NIHL. Complex noise exposure significantly increases the risk of NIHL in subjects with a high genetic risk score. Interactions between genes and lifestyle as well as noise metrics and lifestyle affect the risk of NIHL. These results provide a theoretical basis for screening genetic and environmental risk factors to prevent NIHL.

Brassica yellows virus (BrYV) is a tentative species of the genus Polerovirus, which occurs widely and mostly damage Brassicaceae plants in East Asia. Since BrYV could not be transmitted mechanically, an insect transmission method is required for further virus research. Here, a reliable and unrestricted method was described, in which non-viruliferous aphids (Myzus persicae) acquired BrYV from transgenic Arabidopsis thaliana plants with virus full length genome germinated from seeds and frozen infected leaves were used to transmit the virus to healthy plants, and there was no significant difference in acquisition rate though transmission rate from frozen infected leaves was somehow lower compared to fresh infected leaves. This novel simple method could be applied to preservation of virus inocula, evaluation of variety resistance to BrYV, biological research on interaction among BrYV, aphid and host, which also provide a new idea on establishing a basic method using virus genomic transgenic plants or frozen infected leaves for other poleroviruses research.

This article presents an analytical investigation on vibration characteristics of rotating graphene nanoplatelet (GPL)-reinforced plates subjected to rub-impact and thermal shock. The effective material properties are assumed to vary continuously and smoothly along the thickness direction of the plate and are determined via the Halpin–Tsai micromechanics model together with the rule of mixture. Considering the gyroscopic effect, the equations of motion are derived by adopting the Hamilton’s principle based on the Kirchhoff’s plate theory. Then, the Galerkin method and the small parameter perturbation method are utilized to obtain the free and forced vibration results for the rotating plate. A detailed parametric study is conducted to examine the effects of the GPL weight fraction, GPL distribution pattern, length-to-thickness ratio and length-to-width ratio of GPLs, and the rotating speed on free vibration characteristics of the nanocomposite plate. Attention is also given to the influences of the GPL weight fraction, thermal flow, and friction coefficient on forced vibration responses of the plate. The obtained results can play a role in the design of a rotating GPL-reinforced plate structure to achieve significantly improved mechanical performance.

Lactoferrin (LF) exerts a promoting bone health function. The effects of LF on bone formation at the metabolic level have been less explored. Urinary metabolic profiling of growing Sprague-Dawley (SD) rats LF-supplemented (1000 mg/kg bw) for four weeks were explored by Liquid chromatography&ndash, tandem mass spectrometry (LC-MS/MS). The serum markers of bone formation and bone resorption, the bone mass, and the osteogenesis markers of femur were measured by an enzyme-linked immunosorbent assay, micro-computerized tomography, and immunohistochemistry, respectively. Compared with the control, LF supplementation improved bone formation (p &lt, 0.05), reduced bone resorption (p &lt, 0.05), enhanced femoral bone mineral density and microarchitecture (p &lt, 0.05), and upregulated osteocalcin, osterix, and Runx-2 expression (p &lt, 0.05) of femur. LF upregulated 69 urinary metabolites. KEGG and pathway enrichment analyses of those urinary metabolites, and the Person&rsquo, s correlation analyses among those urinary metabolites and bone status revealed that LF impacted on bone formation via regulatory comprehensive pathways including taurine and hypotaurine metabolism, arginine and proline metabolism, cyanoamino acid metabolism, nitrogen metabolism, nicotinate and nicotinamide metabolism, and fatty acid biosynthesis. The present study indicated the metabolomics is a useful and practical tool to elucidate the mechanisms by which LF augments bone mass formation in growing animals.

The Brassica yellows virus genotype A P0 protein interacts with Rubisco assembly factor 2 in tobacco, affecting its nuclear accumulation and promoting viral infection., In interactions between poleroviruses and their hosts, few cellular proteins have been identified that directly interact with the multifunctional virus P0 protein. To help explore the functions of P0, we identified a Brassica yellows virus genotype A (BrYV-A) P0BrA-interacting protein from Nicotiana benthamiana, Rubisco assembly factor 2 (NbRAF2), which localizes in the nucleus, cell periphery, chloroplasts, and stromules. We found that its C-terminal domain (amino acids 183–211) is required for self-interaction. A split ubiquitin membrane-bound yeast two-hybrid system and co-immunoprecipitation assays showed that NbRAF2 interacted with P0BrA, and co-localized in the nucleus and at the cell periphery. Interestingly, the nuclear pool of NbRAF2 decreased in the presence of P0BrA and during BrYV-A infection, and the P0BrA-mediated reduction of nuclear NbRAF2 required dual localization of NbRAF2 in the chloroplasts and nucleus. Tobacco rattle virus-based virus-induced gene silencing of NbRAF2 promoted BrYV-A infection in N. benthamiana, and the overexpression of nuclear NbRAF2 inhibited BrYV-A accumulation. Potato leafroll virus P0PL also interacted with NbRAF2 and decreased its nuclear accumulation, indicating that NbRAF2 may be a common target of poleroviruses. These results suggest that nuclear NbRAF2 possesses antiviral activity against BrYV-A infection, and that BrYV-A P0BrA interacts with NbRAF2 and alters its localization pattern to facilitate virus infection.

Background: Cucurbit aphid-borne yellows virus (CABYV), Melon aphid-borne yellows virus (MABYV) and Suakwa aphid-borne yellows virus (SABYV) are three critical viruses infecting cucurbit crops. The preparation of specific antiserum against the virus is crucial for both the detection of virus and understanding the functions of the related genes. However, there is no report about detecting the three viruses using antisera against movement proteins (MP). Methods: In this study, we constructed prokaryotic expression vectors of the three viral movement proteins and transferred them into Escherichia coli strain Rosetta to purify the fusion proteins. Then the polyclonal antisera were obtained by immunizing New Zealand white rabbits. Western blotting was used to demonstrate the applicability of the three antisera. Results: We discovered that the titer of antiserum against MP CABYV reached to 1: 512000, and the titers of antisera against MP MABYV and MP SABYV reached to 1:256000. The optimized working concentration range for the three antisera was from 1:10000 to 1:64000. Both antisera against MP CABYV and MP MABYV could only react with the corresponding MP. The antiserum against MP SABYV not only had the strongest reaction with its MP but also could react with MP CABYV and MP MABYV at relative weaker levels and all the three antisera had no serological reactions with other poleroviruses tested. Furthermore, our results showed that the three antisera could specifically detect movement proteins both in Nicotiana benthamiana and cucumber leaves. Conclusions: We have established a sensitive system for detecting three poleroviruses infecting cucurbits by antisera against movement proteins, providing a material foundation for the future research on both the serological detection of viruses and the interaction mechanisms between the virus and host plants.

Lactoferrin (LF) has demonstrated stimulation of osteogenic differentiation of mesenchymal stem cells (MSCs). Long non-coding RNAs (lncRNAs) participate in regulating the osteogenic differentiation processes. However, the impact of LF on lncRNA expression in MSC osteogenic differentiation is poorly understood. Our aim was to investigate the effects of LF on lncRNAs expression profiles, during osteogenic differentiation of rat bone marrow mesenchymal stem cells (rBMSCs), by RNA sequencing. A total number of 1331 putative lncRNAs were identified in rBMSCs during osteogenic differentiation in the study. LF influenced the expression of 120 lncRNAs (differentially expressed lncRNAs [DELs], Fold change &gt, 1.5 or &lt, &minus, 1.5, p &lt, 0.05) in rBMSCs on day 14 of osteogenic differentiation, consisted of 60 upregulated and 60 down-regulated. Furthermore, the potential functions of DELs were of prediction by searching their target cis- and trans-regulated protein-coding genes. The bioinformatic analysis of DELs target gene revealed that LF led to the disfunction of transforming growth factor beta stimulus (TGF-&beta, ) and positive regulation of I-&kappa, appa B kinase/NF-&kappa, appa B signaling pathway, which may relate to osteogenic differentiation of rBMSCs. Our work is the first profiling of lncRNA in osteogenic differentiation of rBMSCs induced by LF, and provides valuable insights into the potential mechanisms for LF promoting osteogenic activity.

Free vibration behaviors of a functionally graded (FG) disk-shaft rotor system reinforced with graphene nanoplatelet (GPL) resting on elastic supports are investigated in this paper. The material properties of the shaft and disk are assumed to vary along their radius and thickness directions, respectively, and are determined by Halpin-Tsai model and the rule of mixture. The equations of motion including the gyroscopic effect due to rotation are derived by employing the Lagrange equation method within the framework of Timoshenko beam theory for the shaft and Kirchhoff plate theory for the disk. Substructure modal synthesis method and Galerkin method are then utilized to obtain the natural frequencies. The present analysis is validated against experimental and finite element results, which shows excellent agreement. A comprehensive parametric study on the effects of the weight fraction, distribution pattern, length-to-thickness ratio and length-to-width ratio of graphene nanoplatelets, as well as the shaft length, elastic support stiffness and rotating speed on the free vibration results are conducted to identify the effective ways to achieve greatly improved vibrational performance of the rotating FG-GPL disk-shaft assembly.