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A total of 8 bHLH transcription factors were cloned from Panax quinquefolius and the response of them to methyl jasmonate(MeJA) was studied.To be specific, based on the preliminary transcriptome screening, 8 bHLH transcription factors were cloned with seedlings which had been cultured for 3 weeks.The content of ginsenosides Rg_1, Re, and Rb_1, and total saponins in the adventitious roots of P.quinquefolius was determined at different time of MeJA treatment by high performance liquid chromatography(HPLC) and spectrophotometry.Real-time quantitative polymerase chain reaction(PCR) was used to detect the relative expression of 8 transcription factors after MeJA treatment.The correlation between the relative expression of the 8 transcription factors and the saponin content after MeJA treatment was checked by Pearson's correlation analysis.The results showed that the PCR products(Pq-bHLH21-Pq-bHLH28) of the 8 bHLH transcription factors were 762-2 013 bp in length.They were submitted to NCBI to obtain the Genbank access numbers.The proteins yielded from Pq-bHLH21-Pq-bHLH28 showed amino acid sequence identity of 24.90%, and each amino acid sequence had the bHLH(Basic Helix-loop-helix) conserved domain and belonged to the bHLH family.The 5 amino acid sequences of Pq-bHLH22 and Pq-bHLH24-Pq-bHLH27 contained the bHLH-MYC N domain, which belonged to the MYC transcription factors.Pq-bHLH21-Pq-bHLH28 responded to MeJA within 48 h of treatment.At 72 h, the expression of Pq-bHLH24 reached 106.53 folds the highest in the treatment group.Pq-bHLH25, Pq-bHLH27, and Pq-bHLH28 showed synergic expression.Pq-bHLH21 may re-gulate the biosynthetic pathway of ginsenoside Rb_1, while Pq-bHLH22, Pq-bHLH25, and Pq-bHLH28 were in significantly positive correlation with the biosynthetic pathway of ginsenoside Re.The result lays a foundation for further verifying the regulation of ginsenoside biosynthesis by bHLH transcription factors.

An elegant and precise method to fabricate asymmetrical structures and/or gradient structures was developed based on a vapor-phase sublimation and deposition process. The fabricated materials exhib...

A large number of images are generated and uploaded to the cloud, due to the rapid development of IT and networking technologies. To prevent unauthorized access, image encryption is a way that can ensure the safety of images. However, the encrypted image is noisy, which is not suitable for further management and application. Some scholars have recently proposed the concept of Thumbnail Preserving Encryption (TPE). The encrypted image not only achieves privacy protection, but also preserves the properties of thumbnails. Therefore, when an image is encrypted by TPE, it is possible for the thumbnail image to retain similar appearance after encryption, allowing a quick overview of the encrypted image. In this paper, we propose a new TPE method to resolve the problems that may arise in methods used by cryptography scholars such as Tajik. Experimental results show that our TPE method retained the same thumbnail appearance before and after encryption.

Osteoarthritis (OA) is a chronic inflammatory and progressive joint disease that results in cartilage degradation and subchondral bone remodeling. The proinflammatory cytokine interleukin 1 beta (IL-1&beta, ) is abundantly expressed in OA and plays a crucial role in cartilage remodeling, although its role in the activity of chondrocytes in cartilage and subchondral remodeling remains unclear. In this study, stimulating chondrogenic ATDC5 cells with IL-1&beta, increased the levels of bone morphogenetic protein 2 (BMP-2), promoted articular cartilage degradation, and enhanced structural remodeling. Immunohistochemistry staining and microcomputed tomography imaging of the subchondral trabecular bone region in the experimental OA rat model revealed that the OA disease promotes levels of IL-1&beta, BMP-2, and matrix metalloproteinase 13 (MMP-13) expression in the articular cartilage and enhances subchondral bone remodeling. The intra-articular injection of Noggin protein (a BMP-2 inhibitor) attenuated subchondral bone remodeling and disease progression in OA rats. We also found that IL-1&beta, increased BMP-2 expression by activating the mitogen-activated protein kinase (MEK), extracellular signal-regulated kinase (ERK), and specificity protein 1 (Sp1) signaling pathways. We conclude that IL-1&beta, promotes BMP-2 expression in chondrocytes via the MEK/ERK/Sp1 signaling pathways. The administration of Noggin protein reduces the expression of IL-1&beta, and BMP-2, which prevents cartilage degeneration and OA development.

Jiangmen Underground Neutrino Observation (JUNO) is one of the largest experimental facilities for neutrino detecting. As its main structure, the central detector contains 20 kiloton liquid scintillator filled in an acrylic shell, and there are 18,000 20-inch photomultiplier tubes (PMTs) and 25,000 3-inch PMTs covering the shell. As an independent photon detection system, 3-inch PMTs have been required to have excellent resolution for the single photoelectron detection, high quantum efficiency, small transit time spread and low dark noise rate. Two kinds of 3-inch PMTs from HZC Photonics and Hamamatsu have been investigated as candidates. A dedicated test system for 3-inch PMTs has been designed, and various characterization parameters have been studied. The preliminary results show these PMTs can meet the requirements of JUNO.

The introduction of regeneration recycling unit can significantly reduce freshwater consumption and consequently reduce wastewater discharge of water-using systems. In this paper, the influences of the regenerated concentrations of contaminants on regenerated stream consumption are investigated for the fixed mass-load water networks with multiple contaminants. The multi-contaminant water networks involving regeneration recycling are classified into simple ones and complex ones in this paper. Simple networks are similar to single-contaminant ones, in which only the key contaminant limits the usage of regenerated water. The regenerated stream consumption of simple networks can be predicted easily when the regenerated concentration of the key contaminant changes. The concentrations of other contaminants, if having influence on the regenerated stream consumption as well, should be reduced to their maximum allowable values. There is great difference between the features of complex networks of multiple contaminants and that of networks of single contaminant. The influence of the regenerated concentrations on regenerated stream consumption of complex networks is analyzed based on mass balances of the contaminants. The contaminant which has the most influence on regenerated stream consumption is identified. The methods proposed can contribute to evaluation of the appropriate regenerated concentrations for design or retrofit of the water networks with multiple contaminants.

In the design of distributed wastewater treatment systems with multiple contaminants, it is very important to minimize unnecessary stream mixing to reduce total treatment flow rate as much as possible. A new numerical indicator, total mixing influence potential (TMIP), to reflect the influence of the stream mixing caused by performing a process on the total treatment flow rate of a distributed wastewater system is introduced. In design procedure, the TMIP value is calculated based on pinch principle. The process with the smallest TMIP value will be performed first. The results of a few literature examples show that designs with very low (even minimum) total treatment flow rates can be obtained with the method proposed. In addition, the method proposed is simple and of clear engineering insight. The calculation effort does not increase significantly when the number of streams, contaminants, and/or treatment units increases. © 2015 American Institute of Chemical Engineers AIChE J, 61: 3223–3231, 2015

In order to complete the complex operation in the dangerous environment and improve the efficiency and accuracy of industrial production. WiFi based remote control system platform is composed by the controlled mobile robot and control terminal such as PC. They communicate with each other through wireless network. The mobile robot constructs of four wheel drive. Microcontroller, sensor, wireless routing module, serial server and network camera are in the robot. Control terminal includes PC, control handle and other equipments. Using a proven and reliable wireless bridge, each network device can realize network communication with others. Based on the TCP/IP protocol, using socket programming technology, data communication can be achieved. Video capture uses the network camera. Through the test of the platform, bilateral operation with real-time haptic and video feedback are achieved. At the same time according to the real-time environmental information feedback, control terminal realizes the effective remote monitoring in the controlled end.

The annual seedlings of ten Toona Sinensis provenances were selected for the study of the relationship between cold resistance and fatty acid composition and content of leaves. The results indicated that the fatty acid composition was the same among different provenances. The main ones were Dodecanoic acid, Hexadecanoic acid, (Z,Z)-9,12-Octadecadienoic acid, (Z,Z,Z)-9,12,15-Octadecatrienoic acid, Octadecanoic acid and Eicosanoic acid. But there were evident differences in fatty acid content and index of unsaturated fatty acid (IUFA) among different provenances. The content of unsaturated fatty acid and the IUFA was smaller in southern provenances of Xiapu of Fujian, Qianxinan of Guizhou and Dongkou of Hunan than those of the other provenances from north .The fatty acid content and IUFA were higher in provenances whose cold resistance were stronger. And the results showed that the fatty acid content and IUFA had a positive correlation with cold resistance of Toona sinensis.

Numerous studies have found that oxidative stress-derived 1, N6-ethenodeoxyadenosine (e-dA) can act as a driving force towards hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC) in cancer-prone liver diseases. The aim of the present study was to determine the oxidative stress status and the occurrence of e-dA in HCC and adjacent non-tumor liver tissue, and to clarify whether the occurrence of e-dA is related to liver inflammatory activity, fibrosis and mutant p53 expression. Oxidative stress-related parameters were examined in tumor and (or) non-tumor liver tissues of 32 patients with HCC. e-dA, mutant p53 and proliferating cell nuclear antigen (PCNA) were immunohistochemically investigated in control, HCC and non-tumor liver tissues. The total antioxidant capacity and total superoxide dismutase activity of HCC tissues were lower compared to those of non-tumor tissues (P

In this paper, the pinch point(s) and the freshwater target(s) are investigated for water-using networks with single contaminant. A new method is proposed to determine the pinch point(s) based on the features of the pinch point before target calculation. With the known pinch point, it is only necessary to carry out detailed calculation for the allocation of the pinch-source stream(s) to the demand stream(s) just below the pinch, in the freshwater target calculation. This reduces the calculation effort, especially for the networks with many streams. The results of this work agree with that obtained in the literature.

Topic Link Detection aims to detect whether a pair of random stories discuss the same topic, which is an important subtask of Topic Detection and Tracking. In previous works, statistical method and machine-learning approach are used more often than not, however, the semantic distribution of a story and the structure relationship of contents are ignored. A new method based on the semantic domain is proposed for the purpose of improved the precision. In this method, every story is divided some semantic domain through analyzing internal semantic distribution and structure relationships of contexts. The results of experiment proved that the proposed method can improve performance of system.

To explore a role of G6PD in replenishment of intracellular GSH during oxidative stress.In vitro Raji cell was cultured, intracellular GSH levels and G6PD, GR, GPX activities were determined at different time points after PMS treatment when G6PD activity was inhibited or not by DHEA.Intracellular GR, GPX, G6PD activities elevated significantly combined with GSH level decreased dramatically before 30 minutes, replenished gradually after 30 minutes and restore normal levels about 6 h after PMS treatment when G6PD was not inhibited. No change in GR and significant increase in GPX activity were shown following depleted GSH after PMS treatment when G6PD was inhibited by DHEA.G6PD contributes to replenish intracellular GSH and is a critical factor regulating GSH levels during oxidative stress.

To study the pathological and immunohistochemical features of upper gastrointestinal mesenchymal tumors (GIMTs) and compare them with endoscopic ultrasonographic (EUS) characteristics so as to evaluate the diagnostic value of EUS in upper digestive tract GIMTs.Seventy-two pathological specimens of upper digestive tract GIMTs (34 surgical specimens and 38 endoscopic mucosal resection (EMR) specimens) were collected. The pathological features and the expression of CD(117), CD(34), SMA and S-100 were observed by immunohistochemical method with light microscope. The pathological types and characteristics were determined by pathologists and compared with the layer of origin and sonographic characteristics determined with preoperative EUS.In the 72 cases of upper digestive tract GIMTs, 37 cases were diagnosed as stromal tumor with pathological and immunohistochemical methods (51.4%); 21 of them were malignant, accounting for 56.7% of the stromal tumors. Thirty-four cases were diagnosed as leiomyoma (47.2%) and 1 case as schwannoma (1.4%). In the 72 GIMTs cases, 40 were esophageal GIMTs. EUS showed that 38 cases were originated from the muscularis mucosae layer; 33 of them were leiomyoma and 5 stromal tumor. The 2 cases originating from the muscularis propria layer which were both stromal tumors. Thirty-two cases were gastric GIMTs, EUS showed that 2 cases originating from the muscularis mucosae layer were gastric stromal tumor. Of the 30 cases originating from the muscularis propria layer, 28 cases were stromal tumor, 1 case was leiomyoma and 1 case was schwannoma. The sensitivity and the specificity of EUS in distinguishing benign and malignant stromal tumors according to sonographic characteristics were 81.0% and 93.8% respectively.Stromal tumor is more common in stomach mesenchymal neoplasms and is more often originated from the muscularis propria layer in EUS; leiomyoma is more common in esophagus and is more often originated from the muscularis mucosae layer. The diagnostic sensitivity and specificity of EUS are high in distinguishing benign and malignant character of upper digestive tract GIMTs. EUS plays an important role in guiding the clinical management of upper digestive tract GIMTs.

To investigate the effects of sympathetic neurotransmitters and adrenergic receptors on liver fibrosis in murine schistosomiasis.Mice were infestated with schistosoma by means of pasting cercariae on their abdomens. Thirty mice were randomly divided into a control group and a model group. Hematoxylin eosin and Van Gieson staining were used to view the histopathology of their livers. Immunofluorescence histochemistry and laser scanning confocal fluorescence microscopy were used to measure the a1A and beta2 adrenergic receptors in livers of the two groups of mice. High performance liquid chromatography-electrochemical detector (HPLC-ECD) was used to determine the concentration of norepinephrine (NE) and dopamine (DA) in the plasma of the mice.Immunofluorescence histochemistry showed that a1A and beta2 receptors were present in hepatocytes and hepatic sinusoids of the livers of the mice of the two groups, but there were many more in the livers of the schistosoma infected mice (t=-2.888; t=-6.648) (P0.05). The results of HPLC-ECD showed that the levels of NE and DA in the model group were higher than those of the control group (t=-3.372; t=-4.428) (P0.05).Sympathetic neurotransmitters and adrenergic receptors may participate in liver fibrogenesis in mice infected with schistosoma.

Tumor necrosis factor-alpha (TNF-alpha) converting enzyme (TACE) is a key enzyme involved in the proteolytic shedding of the ectodomain of several membrane-bound growth factors, cytokines and receptors. Here, we constructed a multiple short hairpin RNA (shRNA) expression vector containing four shRNAs against TACE. We found that in HeLa cells our multiple shRNAs vector produced a higher level of TACE knockdown than any single shRNA vector containing only one TACE shRNA. Silencing TACE expression in HeLa cells decreased their malignancy by decreasing the proliferation, adhesion and migration, as well as inducing apoptosis in these cells. Furthermore, our data suggest that the effects of TACE on the malignancy of HeLa cells may be mediated via activation of the EGFR (epidermal growth factor receptor) signaling pathway. Our findings suggest that using a combination of shRNAs within one vector to silence the expression of TACE might be a potential therapeutic strategy for tumors.

We constructed prokaryotic expression vectors for different domains of TACE gene and expressed the fusion proteins, so as to explore their effects on the proliferation, adhesion and invasion potential of tumor cells in vitro. The total RNA was isolated from THP1 cell. TACE cDNA was amplified by RT-PCR and subcloned into pMD18-T vector to construct pMD-18T-TACE vector. The different cDNA fragment of TACE were amplified from plasmid pMD-18T-TACE and then cloned into pET-28a( + ) to construct expression vector pET28a( + )- 300, pET28a( + )-T800, and pET28a( + )-T1300, which respectively transformed into E. coli BL21 (DE3). The expression of His-tagged fusion proteins were induced with IPTG and purified through BBST NTA resin. The proliferation ability was examined by MTT assay. The adhesive and invasive ability were examined by plated adhesion model and Transwell assay. The protein pET28a( + )-T300 and pET28a( + )-T1300 can reduce the proliferation, adhesion and invasion ability of human lung carcinoma cell A549 in vitro, but otherwise the protein pET28a( + )-T800 had not shown the inhibitive function. The fusion protein of disintegrin domain of TACE have the similar biological function to other disintegrins, which can be used for further research on function of TACE in inflammation and tumor.

To study the function of the prodomain of ADAM17 (TACE) and to develop an approach for interfering with inflammation processes.The expression plasmids of the TACE ectodomain (T1300), prodomain (T591), signal peptide and prodomain (T648), full length (T2472), and the turncated TACE without prodomain (T57-T1824) were constructed and designated as pET-28a-T300, pET-28a-T591, pIRES2-EGFP-648, pEGFP-N1-T648, pIRES2-EGFP-T2472, and pIRES2-EGFP-T57-T1824, respectively. After Ni(2+)-NTA resin-affinity chromatography, the recombinant T591 and T1300 proteins were obtained and assayed by western blotting and circular dichroism. The experiment was carried out on THP1 cell lines stimulated by LPS in vitro. The inhibition of recombinant protein T591 to TACE activity was detected by ELISA and immunohistochemical detection. The expression plasmids (pIRES2-EGFP-T648, pIRES2-EGFP-T2472, and pIRES2-EGFP-T57-T1824) were used to transfect the U937 cells. HeLa cells were also transfected with pEGFP-N1-T648. The transfected U937 cells were then stimulated by LPS and the effect of expression plasmids on TNF-alpha secretion was detected by ELISA and flow cytometry (FCM).The recombinant prodomain protein inhibited 57% of the TNF-alpha secretion and mediated an accumulation of TNF-alpha on the surface of THP1 cells. An intense green fluorescence was seen in the membranes of HeLa cells transfected with pEGFP-N1-T648. The plasmid pIRES2-EGFP-T648 inhibited TNF-alpha secretion by 61.09% and mediated an accumulation of mTNF-alpha on the surface of the U937 cells. The secretion of sTNF-alpha and the level of the mTNF-alpha in the pIRES2-EGFP-T57-T1824 transfected cells gave no difference when compared with the pIRES2-EGFP transfected cells. Also the secretion of sTNF-alpha from the cells transfected by the plasmid pIRES2-EGFP-T2472 increased, while the level of mTNF-alpha decreased, compared with the pIRES2-EGFP-transfected cells.The prodomain has dual effects and might be useful in the molecular design of an anti-inflammatory drug.

This paper presents a new method to calculate the freshwater target for water using networks with single contaminant. The pinch point is determined by exploiting one of the features of water-pinch-analysis: freshwater is only necessary below the pinch. With the known pinch point, the calculation of the freshwater target becomes very simple, especially for the networks with many streams. The results obtained by this work agree with that obtained in the literature.

Tumour necrosis factor-alpha converting enzyme (TACE) is the major protease responsible for processing proTNF from membrane-anchored precursor into secreted TNF-alpha. It was validated that TACE is involved in many diseases such as arthritis, multiple sclerosis and Alzheimers, therefore it represents a novel and significant target for therapeutic intervention in a variety of inflammatory and neuroimmunological diseases. To obtain the recombinant TACE ectodomain and use it as a selective molecule for the screening of TACE peptide inhibitors, the cDNA coded for catalytic domain (T800) and full-length ectodomain (T1300) of TACE were amplified by RT-PCR, the expression plasmid was constructed by inserting T800/T1300 into plasmid pET-28a/pET-28c and transformed into E. coli BL21 (DE3). SDS-PAGE and Western blotting analysis revealed that T800/T1300 was highly expressed in the form of inclusion body being induced by IPTG. After Ni2+ -NTA resin affinity chromatography, the purity of the recombinant T800/T1300 protein was more than 90%. T800 and T1300 protein were used in the screening of TACE-binding peptides from the phage display random 15-peptide library. After four rounds of biopanning, the positive phage clones were analyzed by ELISA, competitive inhibition assay and DNA sequencing. A common amino acid sequence-TRWLVYFSRPYLVAT was found and synthesized. The synthetic peptide was shown to bind to TACE and inhibit the TNF-alpha release from LPS-stimulated human peripheral blood mononuclear cells (PBMC) up to 60.3%. FACS analysis revealed that the peptide mediated the accumulation of TNF-alpha on LPS-stimulated PBMC surface. These results demonstrate that the TACE-binding peptide is an effective antagonist of TACE and the deduced motif might be applied to molecular design of anti-inflammation drugs.