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Grazing is one of the most important management practices for grasslands. To date, most studies on how grazing affects plant diseases have focused on a single plant species, ignoring plant community characteristics and phylogeny. We used data from a 6-year yak grazing experiment (0, 1, 2, and 3 yak(s) ha

The rapid biodiversity losses of the Anthropocene have motivated ecologists to understand how biodiversity affects infectious diseases. Spatial scale is thought to moderate negative biodiversity-disease relationships (i.e., dilution effects) in zoonotic diseases, while evidence from plant communities for an effect of scale remains limited, especially at local scales where the mechanisms (e.g., encounter reduction) underlying dilution effects actually work. Here, we tested how spatial scale affects the direction and magnitude of biodiversity-disease relationships. We utilized a ten-year-old nitrogen addition experiment in a Tibetan alpine meadow, with 0, 5, 10, and 15 g/m

Noncompaction of the ventricular myocaridium (NVM), as the third most commonly diagnosed cardiomyopathy, is characterized with highly variable clinical manifestations. Due to high heterogeneity, the genetic etiology of 40–60% NVM cases remains unknown. Here, we reported two infants of NVM in a non-consanguineous family with typically clinical presentation of persistent bradycardia since prenatal period. A homozygous missense mutation (R223L) of RCAN family member 3 (RCAN3) was detected in both infants by whole-exome sequencing. In the zebrafish model with rcan3 deficiency (MO-rcan3ATG-injected embryos), a marked lower heart rate without significant cardiac looping defects was detected in MO-rcan3ATG-injected embryos, which was similar to the NVM patients. Developmental dysplasia of both endocardial and myocardial layers were detected in zebrafish embryos with rcan3 deficiency. RCAN3 R223L variant mRNAs were unable to rescue heart defects caused by rcan3 knockdown. In rcan3-knockdown zebrafish model, several genes involved in cardiomyopathies were shown to be significantly regulated through multiple signaling pathways. This is the first report of RCAN3-related NVM in human. We suggest that RCAN3 as a novel susceptibility gene of cardiomyopathies, especially in NVM, while R223L variant was a potential loss-of-function variant.

Plant pathogens and their hosts often coexist with mammal grazers. However, the direction and strength of grazing effects on foliar fungal diseases can be idiosyncratic, varying among host plant species and pathogen types. We combined a six-year yak grazing experiment, a clipping experiment simulating different mammal consumption patterns (leaf damage versus whole leaf removal), and a meta-analysis of 63 comparisons, to evaluate how grazing impacts foliar fungal diseases across plant growth types (grass versus forb) and pathogen life histories (biotroph versus necrotroph). In the yak grazing experiment, grazing had no significant effect on disease severity, and grasses experienced a higher disease severity than forbs; there was a significant interaction between pathogen type and grazing. In both the yak grazing experiment and meta-analysis, grazing decreased biotrophic pathogens (mainly rusts and powdery mildew), but did not affect necrotrophic pathogens (mainly leaf spots). The clipping experiment suggested that grazers might promote infection by necrotrophic pathogens by producing wounds on leaves, but inhibit biotrophic pathogens via leaf removal. In conclusion, our three-part approach revealed that intrinsic properties of both plants and pathogens shape patterns of disease in natural ecosystems, greatly improving our ability to predict disease severity under mammal grazing.

Low temperature and high salinity can strongly inhibit metabolic activities of the microbial population, resulting in low efficiency of biological wastewater treatment. Using 70 g.L-1 NaCl pickle mustard wastewater as influent, three pilot-scale sequencing batch biofilm reactors (SBBRs), subjected to temperature downshifts and fluctuation ranging from 30 ± 4°C to 10 ± 4°C, were conducted over 200 days. Polymerase Chain Reaction-Denaturing Gradient Gel Electrophoresis (PCR–DGGE) was used to reveal the microbial community structure succession in reactors. Results showed that when the temperature was 10 ± 4°C, the COD removal efficiencies of SBBRs (1, 2 and 3 kg COD m-3 d-1 organic loading rate), were 91.6% (σ = 0.87), 87.84% (σ = 0.92) and 83.34 % (σ = 0.85), respectively. Compared with the average removal efficiencies when the reactors operated at 30 ± 4°C, the efficiency reductions of 1, 2 and 3 kg COD m-3 d-1 reactors were 4.47%, 4.58% and 4.57%. As the temperature decreased, microbial population diversity did not change remarkably. However, the microbial structure changed significantly, bacteria which had strong adhesion and a wide growth temperature range were competitive. At low temperature, the predominant species were Thalassolituus oleivorans, Halotalea alkalilenta and Kangiella koreensis, which were all related to pollutant-degrading halophilic bacteria.

Down syndrome (DS) is the most common chromosomal condition associated with intellectual disability and is characterized by a variety of additional clinical findings. The pathogenesis of DS and the differences between the sexes are not clear. In order to identify differentially expressed proteins that might be employed as potential biological markers and elucidate the difference in pathogenesis between different genders of T21 fetuses, providing clues for individualized detection and treatment is essential. Amniocyte samples of T21 males, T21 females, CN males, and CN females were collected by amniocentesis. The quantitative value of the peptide corresponding to each sample was determined through quantitative analysis by mass spectrometry. We identified many differentially expressed proteins between T21 fetuses and CN fetuses/T21 males and CN males/T21 females and CN females/and T21 males and T21 females. These differential proteins are associated with many important biological processes and affect the development of multiple systems, including the heart, hematopoietic, immune, reproductive, and nervous systems. Our results show sex-specific modulation of protein expression and biological processes and provide new insights into sex-specific differences in the pathogenesis of DS.

The atomic structure of quasi one-dimensional (1D) van der Waals materials can be regarded as the stacking of atomic chains to form thin flakes or nanoribbons, which substantially differentiates them from typical two-dimensional (2D) layered materials and 1D nanotube/nanowire array. Here we present our studies on quasi 1D gold selenide (AuSe) that possesses highly anisotropic crystal structure, excellent electrical conductivity, giant magnetoresistance, and unusual reentrant metallic behavior. The low in-plane symmetry of AuSe gives rise to its high anisotropy of vibrational behavior. In contrast, quasi 1D AuSe exhibits high in-plane electrical conductivity along the directions of both atomic chains and perpendicular one, which can be understood as a result of strong interchain interaction. We found that AuSe exhibits a near quadratic nonsaturating giant magnetoresistance of 1841% with the magnetic field perpendicular to its in-plane. We also observe unusual reentrant metallic behavior, which is caused by the carrier mismatch in the multiband transport. Our works help to establish fundamental understandings on quasi 1D van der Waals semimetallic AuSe and identify it as a new candidate for exploring giant magnetoresistance and compensated semimetals.

For public health and safety, wearing of masks is one of the most significant means to prevent infections. Additionally, masks protect employees of heavy industry from certain diseases during manufacture. To meet the demand of automatic mask-wearing recognition in scenes of life, we propose a recognition algorithm based on face detection and face attribute recognition. The face detection model not only adopted a fused feature pyramid and a spatial and channel attention mechanism but also a segmentation branch for weak supervision learning. Then for the detected face, we used classification for fast recognition. Moreover, we employed nearly 200000 images, attention mechanisms, data augmentation, and other techniques to enhance the robustness. Besides, this technology has been widely used in Didi Chuxings inspection systems and achieves 99.50% accuracy. Importantly, both the service and key algorithms have been opened to the public to maximize their social and application value.

Attempts over the past 30 years to explain geographic variation in the strength of herbivore pressure gave rise to the latitudinal herbivory hypothesis. However, this long-standing hypothesis has rarely been tested using community-level data. In this study, we selected 43 grassland sites along a 1,500-km latitudinal gradient (c. 27°N to 39°N) on the Qinghai-Tibetan Plateau. We calculated community-wide herbivory at each site by summing herbivory across plant species weighted by the biomass of each species; we then investigated how abiotic and biotic latitudinal correlates drove community-wide herbivory via their effects on intraspecific herbivory variability and species’ turnover. We found that community-wide herbivory decreased with latitude, mirroring intraspecific herbivory variability. Furthermore, intraspecific herbivory variability was driven by climatic factors, but not edaphic or plant community factors. Overall, our study highlights the importance of considering both intraspecific herbivory variability and species’ turnover for predicting how climate change will alter community-wide herbivory.

Thermophilic biological nitrogen removal would be a promising alternative to conventional approaches for the treatment of high-temperature wastewater. In this study, the response of thermophilic denitrification system (50 °C) to a wide range of pH (3-11) was investigated. The results showed that thermophilic denitrification could adapt to pH 5-11, but suffered from obvious nitrite and ammonia accumulation at pH 3. Microbial insights indicated that the enrichment of specific functional thermophiles has contributed to the tolerance towards unfavorable pH. Besides, the potential selecting advantage of nitrate reducing bacteria over nitrite reducing bacteria and the enrichment of dissimilatory nitrate reduction to ammonium (DNRA) bacteria could be responsible for the nitrite and ammonia accumulation at pH 3. Moreover, the functional gene prediction denoted higher narG/(nirK + nirS) and nrfA at pH 3, which could facilitate partial denitrification and DNRA. These findings could provide new insight into the application of thermophilic biological nitrogen removal.

This study aimed to establish anaerobic biosystems which could tolerate high ammonia, and investigate the microbial community structure in these reactors. High-ammonia anaerobic biosystems that could tolerate 3600 mg L

Infertility gives rise to a lot of social and psychological problems. At present, assisted reproductive technology (ART) is an important way to solve infertility. However, the live birth rate of in vitro fertilization and embryo transfer (IVF-ET) is less than 50 %. Medium is essential for the culture of embryos in vitro. Therefore, we want to explore whether the composition of the culture medium affects the survival rate of embryos. Gentamicin (GM) is an aminoglycoside antibiotic that is used to treat various bacterial infections. It is widely used in IVF medium, but it is not known whether it has a toxicity effect on embryonic development. Here, we used zebrafish embryos to investigate the embryotoxicity of GM which is an ingredient in culture medium. Our results found that there was no significant effect on the zebrafish embryo development, including survival rate, malformation rate and developmental time course, while zebrafish embryos were treated with GM at the culture medium concentration (10 mg/L, 17.8 μM) compared with the control group. To research the potential embryotoxicity of GM, we treated zebrafish embryos with GM with high concentration (range from 17.8 μM to 3000 μM). The results showed that the lethal concentration of 50 % (LC50) at 48-h post-fertilization (hpf) value of zebrafish embryos for GM was 1150 μM; the survival rate and malformation rate of zebrafish embryos were significantly changed in a dose-dependent manner. Furthermore, transcriptomics, metabolomics and epigenomics (m6A-MeRIP-seq) were used to investigate the molecular mechanism of embryotoxicity, and results showed cell cycle, dorso-ventral axis formation and collecting duct acid secretion pathway were altered significantly in treated embryos. In conclusion, there are no adverse effects on embryonic development with the working concentration of GM in human culture medium, suggesting that GM is safe for embryo culture at working concentration.

The role of cystic fibrosis transmembrane conductance regulatorWe continued to collect the peripheral blood and bone marrows of human childhood patients diagnosed with primary B-ALL as well as non-leukemia controls and isolated lymphocytes for analysis using western blotting and quantitative real-time polymerase chain reaction (qPCR) assay. Then, we used immunofluorescence, co-immunoprecipitation, western blotting, luciferase, 3-(4,5)-dimethylthiahiazo (-z-y1)-3,5-di-phenytetrazoliumromide (MTT) assays to identify the interaction of CFTR with Wnt signaling in B-ALL. Finally, we established B-ALL xenograft model in non-obese diabetic/severe combined immunodeficiency (NOD/SCID) mice using SUP-B15 cells, and examined whether the CFTR inhibitor CFTR-inh172 could active against SUP-B15-Dependent B-ALLHighly expressed CFTR protein and mRNA are associated with primary childhood B-ALL patients. Aberrantly upregulated CFTR and Wnt signaling, our previously reported CFTR-Dvl2-β-catenin pathway, is found in human childhood B-ALL patients. Interference with CFTR in B-ALL cell lines induces the downregulation of DVL2/β-catenin and Wnt downstream target accompanied by a reduction of cell proliferation. Furthermore, B-ALL cell lines SUP-B15 cell-transplanted NOD/SCID mice treated with CFTR inhibitor CFTRinh-172 had significantly longer survival and slower leukemia progression compared with mice treated with vehicle dimethyl sulfoxide (DMSO).These findings demonstrate that highly expressed CFTR is associated with human childhood B-ALL and the potential of CFTR inhibitor CFTR-inh172 for the treatment of human B-ALL.

Cystic fibrosis (CF) is associated with the manifestation of a number of medical conditions throughout the body. This prompted us to investigate the etiology of CF from the viewpoint of the embryonic organizer, which is responsible for steering the movement of surrounding cells into specific organs and tissues. In our previous work, we found that a cftr mutant had decreased nuclear β-catenin levels in the early embryo at 5 hours post-fertilization (hpf), when the organizer forms. It is known that nuclear β-catenin signaling is essential for the induction of the dorsal organizer. Therefore, we explored the role of cftr in the formation of the embryonic organizer in this work. Indeed, the expression of organizer and germ layer markers was significantly affected in cftr mutant embryos dependent on Wnt/β-catenin signaling. Furthermore, quantitative proteome analysis revealed that the cftr mutant induced significant alteration in the expression of proteins related to many critical biological processes, cellular components, molecular functions, and signaling pathways, except for the Wnt/β-catenin pathway. These findings demonstrate the function of cftr in embryonic organizer formation and provide an explanation for why many abnormalities occur in the bodies of CF patients.

An immobilized microalgal-based photoautotrophic microbial fuel cell (PMFC) was developed for the first time as a cost-effective process for simultaneous nutrients removal and bioenergy recovery from domestic wastewater. The PMFC could achieve up to 93.2% of sCOD, 95.9% of NH4+-N, 95.1% of TN, and 82.7% of PO43−-P removal efficiency, as well as 466.9 mW m−3 of maximum power density. Organic matters were mainly removed in the anodic chamber, in which electricity generation, sulfate reduction, fermentation and methanogenesis might occur. Besides, assimilation of nutrients into microalgal biomass in the cathodic chamber was identified as the main sink of nitrogen (27.7–50.0%) and phosphorus (37.1–67.9%). It should be noted that the synergistic interactions among photosynthesis, nitrification, aerobic denitrification and autotrophic denitrification in the cathodic chamber played significant roles in efficient TN removal capability. In addition, a preliminary energy flow analysis indicated that electricity generation in the PMFC accounted for 12.7–42.3% of the energy consumption. A higher microalgal biomass growth rate (up to 375.7 mg L−1 d−1) favored the downstream biodiesel production process, and biodiesel in algal biomass could achieve energy neutrality theoretically and significantly enhanced the economic benefits of the PMFC. These results present the feasibility of the PMFC for simultaneous domestic wastewater treatment and bioenergy recovery in a cost-effective way.

Black phosphorus (BP) has been shown as a promising two‐dimensional (2D) material for electronic devices owing to its high carrier mobility. To realize complementary electronic circuits with 2D materials, it is important to fabricate both n‐type and p‐type transistors with the same channel material. By engineering the contact region with copper (Cu)‐doped BP, here we demonstrate an n‐type carrier transport in BP field‐effect transistors (FETs), which usually exhibit strongly p‐type characteristics. Cu metal atoms are found to severely penetrate into the BP flakes, which forms interstitial Cu (Cuint)‐doped edge contact and facilitates the electron transport in BP. Our BP FETs in back‐gated configuration exhibit n‐type dominant characteristics with a high electron mobility of ~ 138 cm2 V−1 s−1 at room temperature. The Schottky barrier height for electrons is relatively low because of the edge contact between Cuint‐doped BP and pristine BP channel. The contact doping of BP by highly mobile Cu atoms gives rise to n‐type transport property of BP FETs. Furthermore, we demonstrate a p‐n junction on the same BP flake with asymmetric contact. This strategy on contact engineering can be further extended to other 2D materials.

In this study, the toxic effect of high ammonia on microalgae Tetraselmis cordiformis and the detoxification of phytohormones were researched. The growth, physiological changes, and gene transcription of T. cordiformis were examined. Malondialdehyde content was increased by 2.12 times compared with the control, suggesting the oxidative damage of T. cordiformis. However, the damaging effect of ammonia stress was significantly alleviated by exogenous phytohormones revealed by photosynthetic activity, antioxidant capacity, and nitrogen metabolism. Compared with cells exposed to 500 mg L−1 ammonia (NH4+-N), phytohormones increased the transcript abundance of photosynthesis-related gene (rbcL) by up to 10.95 times. Besides, after adding phytohormones, maximum activities of the antioxidant enzyme catalase (CAT) and nitrogen metabolism-related enzyme glutamine synthetase (GS) were 2.17 and 6.72 times that of the cells exposed to 500 mg L−1 NH4+-N. This study displayed the toxic mechanism of high ammonia on T. cordiformis, and also proved the detoxification of phytohormones.

Advanced nutrient removal of municipal wastewater has insufficient carbon source, and resource recovery is neglected. In this study, a single-stage biofilter based on denitrifying phosphorus removal (DPR) was proposed for advanced nutrient removal and phosphorus recovery, which was operated under alternating anoxic/anaerobic mode with no extracellular carbon source in anoxic period. The results showed that the biofilter achieved efficient and stable performance with low carbon consumption (C/N ≈ 3.7). The average removal efficiency of NO3−-N, TN and PO43−-P were 74.81%, 71.08% and 91.15%, respectively. DPR primarily occurred in the middle of the filtration bed and nutrient removal was driven by intracellular polymers, which was the main carbon source. High-throughput sequencing indicated that Dechloromonas was enriched and contributed to DPR while Zoogloea was responsible for endogenous denitrification. Denitrifying polyphosphate accumulating organisms and endogenous denitrifiers synergistically enhanced the nutrient removal capacity. The study further provides research perspectives for improving nutrient removal.

Phosphate (PO43--P) and nitrate (NO3−-N) in the effluent of wastewater treatment plants are the predominant sources of eutrophication. In this study, a bench-scale electrochemically assisted vertical flow constructed wetland (E-VFCW) was developed, which exhibited favorable PO43--P (89.7–99.4%), NO3−-N (82.7–99.6%), and TN (51.9–93.7%) removal efficiency in tertiary wastewater treatment. In addition, little N2O accumulation (0.32–2.19% of △NO3−-N) was observed. The study further elucidated that PO43--P was removed mainly in the anode chamber by co-precipitation (Fe(n+)OH-PO4) and adsorption (FeOOH-PO4) pathways. Multi-pathway of NO3−-N reduction was proposed, with 13.9–30.2% of NO3−-N predominantly eliminated in the anode chamber by ferrous-dependent NO3−-N reduction bacteria. In the cathode chamber, electrons storage and resupply modes during S cycle exerted crucial roles in NO3−-N reduction, which enhanced the resilience capabilities of the E-VFCW to shock loadings. Stoichiometric analysis revealed that 3.3–6.6 mmol e−/cycle were stored in the form of S0, FeS, and FeS2 in the E-VFCW under longer HRT or higher current density. However, the deposited S resupplied 19.6% and 28.3% of electrons for NO3−-N reduction under shorter HRT (1 h) or lower current density (0.01 mA cm−2). Moreover, ferrous-driven NO3−-N-reducing or DNRA bacteria also promoted NO3−-N elimination in the cathode chamber. These findings provide new insight into the coupling interactions among S, Fe and H cycles, as well as N and P transformations in electrochemically assisted NO3−-N reduction systems.

To address the problem of difficult disposal caused by poor dewaterability of high-organic sludge in wastewater treatment plant, this study developed a sludge composite conditioner (SCC) consisting of sodium dodecyl sulfate (SDS), HCl and FeCl3. It has the potential to significantly improve the dewaterability of the high-organic sludge with the VSS/MLSS of 80%. The moisture content (MC) and bound water content of sludge were reduced from 98.00 to 59.65% and from 3.42 to 0.91 g/g dry sludge (DS) after being conditioned, respectively. The surfactant (SDS) promoted the dissolution of extracellular polymeric substances (EPS). The acid (HCl) enhanced the decomposition of the sludge flocs, making the insoluble EPS peel off and turn into the liquid phase. As a result, total EPS decreased by 52.70% compared to the original sludge. In addition, due to the neutralization effect of protons and FeCl3, the Zeta potential increased remarkably from −13.80 mV to −1.72 mV and the dispersed sludge particles formed during EPS dissolution process were re-flocculated, which increased the average size of the sludge particles. The ratio of proteins (PN)/polysaccharides (PS) also increased from 1.69 to 3.81. And a quantitative model of optimum dosage of SCC agents based on the influence of the sludge PS, PN and EPS content has been established, aiming to determine the dosage of each conditioner according to the properties of target sludge. In general, the SCC provided an effective pathway for sludge deep dewatering.

A Single-stage biofilm process coupling Anammox and Intracellular Carbon metabolism (SAIC) was constructed for treating simulated digested piggery wastewater with low carbon/nitrogen ratio (C/N) in this study. TN removal in SAIC system increased by more than 12.77% compared to the reference, and the maximum total phosphorus (TP) removal efficiency reached to 83.70% (C/N = 1.5). Denitrification driven by intracellular carbon, mainly poly-β-hydroxybutyrate (PHB, 78.57%), contributed 32.60% of TN elimination at most, and at least 67.40% should be attributed to anammox. Phosphorus was thought to be mainly removed through biological route, while chemical precipitation also explained around 10% of removed TP. Furthermore, commensalism of glycogen accumulating organisms (GAOs), phosphate accumulating organisms (PAOs), nitrifiers and anammox bacteria was revealed by combining 16S rRNA amplicon sequencing and metagenomics. As a result, multiple metabolic pathways including anammox, (partial) nitrification, endogenous (partial) denitrification and biological P-removal played synergistic effect in SAIC system.

Phosphorus (P) removal occurred in heterotrophic nitrification process, but its mechanism has not been fully explored. In this study, the P removal performances, pathways, and mechanisms in heterotrophic nitrification processes of different microbial aggregates (activated sludge and biofilm) were investigated. The results showed that the biofilm reactor had more efficient total nitrogen removal (98.65%) and phosphate removal (94.17%). Heterotrophic nitrification and denitrification processes generated alkalinity for biologically induced phosphate precipitation (BIPP), which contributed to 64.12%-78.81% of the overall P removal. The solid phase P content reached 48.03 mg/gSS with hydroxyapatite and calcium phosphate formation. The study clarified that biofilm was beneficial to BIPP because of the nitrogen removal metabolism and extracellular polymeric substance (EPS). Heterotrophic nitrogen removal metabolism was the driving force of BIPP, while EPS with abundant carboxyl and amide groups promoted the precipitation. The study would provide new insights into simultaneous nutrients removal and P recovery from wastewater.