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Background: Depression is a common mental disorder and is one of the main causes of disability. Berberine (BBR), the major constituent alkaloid originally from the famous Chinese herb Huanglian (Coptis chinensis), has been shown to exert antidepressant-like effects. This study was to investigate the hypothesis that BBR treats depressive-like behavior by shifting the balance of the kynurenine (KYN)/serotonin (5-HT) pathway toward the 5-HT pathway through downregulated indoleamine 2,3-dioxygenase 1 (IDO1), monoamine oxidase A (MAOA) and upregulated dopamine decarboxylase (DDC) in hippocampus., Method: A chronic unpredictable mild stress (CUMS) mice model of depression was established via 21 days unpredictable stimulation. Then the mice were randomly assigned into six groups, namely control, model, fluoxetine [FLU, (10 mg/kg)], BBRL (25 mg/kg), BBRM (50 mg/kg), and BBRH (100 mg/kg) groups. Behavioral assessments were conducted to evaluate the antidepressant effects of BBR. The levels of 5-HT, KYN, tryptophan (TRP), and 5-hydroxyindoleacetic acid (5-HIAA) in hippocampus were estimated using high performance liquid chromatography (HPLC). The mRNA and protein levels of DDC, MAOA and IDO1 in hippocampus were detected by real-time quantitative polymerase chain reaction (qRT-PCR) and western blot (WB), respectively., Result: The results showed that a successful CUMS mice model was established through 21 days of continuous unpredictable stimulation, as indicated by the significant decrease in locomotor activity and increase in immobility time, reduction in body weight and sucrose preference rate etc. Compared with the normal group, the concentrations of KYN/TRP had significantly increased (p ## <0.01) and 5-HT/5-HIAA had decreased (p # <0.05) at day 21 in the control group, but then improved after drug treatment with FLU and BBR. Compared with the normal group, the mRNA of IDO1 and MAOA were significantly upregulated (p # <0.05) in the control group, MAOA and IDO1 gene were downregulated by FLU and BBR treatment. Protein expressions of IDO1 and MAOA was significantly increased (p # <0.05) and DDC downregulated (p ## <0.01). BBR treatment downregulated IDO1 and MAOA, upregulated DDC., Conclusions: BBR reversed the abnormalities of the KYN/5-HT pathway in depressed mice and achieved an excellent antidepressant effect. Its direct impact may be observed as changes in biological indicators in mice hippocampus tissue., (Copyright © 2022. Published by Elsevier B.V.)

In this study, we describe the genome sequence of a novel double-stranded RNA (dsRNA) mycovirus, designated as "Rhizoctonia solani partitivirus 15" (RsPV15), from the phytopathogenic fungus Rhizoctonia solani. RsPV15 consists of two genomic double-stranded RNA segments, dsRNA-1 and dsRNA-2, which are 2433 bp and 2350 bp long, respectively. Each of the dsRNA segments contains a single open reading frame, encoding the putative RNA-dependent RNA polymerase and coat protein, respectively. Homology searches and phylogenetic analysis suggested that RsPV15 is a new member of the genus Betapartitivirus within the family Partitiviridae.

The article "Kinetic Characterization of Tyrosinase-catalyzed Oxidation of Four Polyphenols", written by Wan-yu LIU, Congming ZOU, Jian-hua HU, Zi-jun XU, Lu-qin SI, Jun-jun LIU, Jian-geng HUANG, was originally published electronically on the publisher's internet portal on May 2020 without open access. With the author(s)' decision to opt for Open Choice, the copyright of the article is changed to © The Author(s) 2020 and the article is forthwith distributed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License ( https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ ), which permits use, sharing, adaptation, distribution and reproduction in any medium or format, as long as you give appropriate credit to the original author(s) and the source, provide a link to the Creative Commons license, and indicate if changes were made.The original article has been corrected.

Phenolic compounds such as chlorogenic acid, cryptochlorogenic acid, neochlorogenic acid and caffeic acid are widely distributed in fruits, vegetables and traditional Chinese medicines with a wide range of biological activities. Tyrosinase plays a critical role in the food industry, but recent studies have proposed unexplored aspects of clinical application. Tyrosinase-catalyzed oxidation of four polyphenols as well as its underlying mechanism remains unclear. In the current work, we investigated the kinetic properties of tyrosinase-catalyzed oxidation of the four polyphenols of interest. To measure the unstable o-quinone products, an analytical method using 3-methyl-2-benzothiazolinone hydrazone (MBTH) was established. The optimal incubation time, buffer pH, temperature and enzyme concentration for the enzyme activity in the presence of each polyphenol of interest were investigated. Under the final optimized conditions, the kinetics and substrate specificity of four polyphenols were examined. Kinetic data showed that tyrosinase had the greatest substrate affnity to chlorogenic acid compared with its isomers and caffeic acid. The catalytic effciency with chlorogenic acid was 8- to 15-fold higher than that with the other 3 polyphenols. Molecular docking study demonstrated that the tight binding of chlorogenic acid at the peripheral site should be the major reason for the specifcity to chlorogenic acid. In light of this, the rational design of high-affnity inhibitors against tyrosinase may focus on the binding of both the Cu site and peripheral site. This study will supply a basis for the selection of phenolic acids in food industry and health care.

In this study, we isolated and characterized seven dsRNA elements, designed as dsRNA-1 to 7, from a Rhizoctonia solani strain. Sequence analysis indicated that there were at least three novel mycoviruses co-infected in this fungal strain, termed Rhizoctonia solani partitivirus 6 (RsPV6), Rhizoctonia solani partitivirus 7 (RsPV7), and Rhizoctonia solani partitivirus 8 (RsPV8), respectively. RsPV6 contained three dsRNA segments, dsRNA-1, 6 and 7. DsRNA-1 encoded a RNA-dependent RNA polymerase (RdRp), whereas the proteins encoded by dsRNA-6 and 7 showed no detectable sequence similarity with any known viral proteins in the database. RsPV7 had the genome segments of dsRNA-2 and 5, encoding proteins of RdRp and capsid protein, respectively. RsPV8 containing the genomes of dsRNA-3 and 4 also encoded a RdRp and a protein with unknown function. RdRp-based phylogenetic analysis revealed that all the three viruses were phylogenetically related to members of the genus Betapartitivirus in the family Partitiviridae. In addition, the three viruses could be horizontal co-transmitted via hyphal contact between R. solani strains and cause no apparent phenotypic alteration to their fungal host. These findings provided new insights into the virus taxonomy of the family Partitiviridae and expanded our understanding of viral diversity in R. solani fungus., (Copyright © 2019. Published by Elsevier B.V.)

Background: Temperature remarkably affects the growth and metabolism of plants. Tobacco is an important cash crop, and the long-term effects of different growth temperatures (18.5, 23.5 and 28.5 °C, daily average) on growth, development and plastid pigments metabolism of tobacco plants were investigated in this study., Results: Compared with tobacco plants grown under 23.5 °C, treatments with 18.5 and 28.5 °C inhibited the expansion of leaves. The contents of superoxide anion (O 2 ·- ), hydrogen peroxide (H 2 O 2 ) and malonaldehyde (MDA) in the leaves were significantly increased under 28.5 °C from 0 to 60 days, which in turn accelerated the flowering and senescence of tobacco plants. By contrast, the treatment with 18.5 °C remarkably decreased O 2 .- , H 2 O 2 and MDA, and delayed the flowering and senescence. Furthermore, treatment with 18.5 °C significantly up-regulated the expression of glutamyl-tRNA reductase (Glu-TR) and magnesium chelatase (MgCH), and down-regulated the ferri chelatase (FeCH), protochlorophyllide oxidoreductase, chlorophyllase (CHLase), phaeophorbide a monooxygenase (PaO) and phytoene synthase (PSY), which further promoted the accumulation of chlorophyll (Chls) and reduced the carotenoids (Cars) in leaves. On the contrary, exposing to 28.5 °C remarkably down-regulated the Glu-TR and MgCH, and up-regulated the FeCH, CHLase, PaO and PSY, which in turn decreased the Chls and increased the Cars in tobacco leaves., Conclusion: As compared with the plants grown under 23.5 °C, lower (18.5 °C) and higher (28.5 °C) growth temperature inhibited the growth of tobacco plants. In general, treatment with 28.5 °C accelerated the flowering and senescence of tobacco plants by enhancing the accumulation of O 2 .- and H 2 O 2 in leaves, while exposing to 18.5 °C had the opposite effects. Treatment with 18.5 °C increased the content of Chls and reduced the Cars in leaves. In contrast, Treatment with 28.5 °C decreased the Chls and increased the Cars. Moreover, both O 2 .- and H 2 O 2 took part in the breakdown of Chls in tobacco leaves to some extent. The results suggest that growth temperature could regulate growth, development, and plastid pigments metabolism, and 23.5 °C could be an optimal temperature for growth, development and metabolism of plastid pigments of tobacco plants under the experimental conditions.

In order to determine the adaptability of Adzuki beans as the interplanting crops in fruit yards, field and pot experimental treatments with full natural light and weak light (48% of full natural light) regimes were conducted to test the shade tolerance and physiological responses of three Adzuki bean varieties including Funan green Vigna angularis (FGVA), early-mature black V. angularis (EBVA) and late-mature black V. angularis (LBVA). The leaf photosynthetic characteristic parameters, photosynthetic pigment contents and the activity of RuBPCase were measured during the first bloom stage. The response of growth to weak light was likewise studied. The results showed that the photosynthetic characteristic parameters, i.e., the maximum net photosynthetic rate, light saturation point and light compensation point of the three Adzuki bean varieties under the weak light stress changed differently. The weak light stress induced the reduction of net photosynthetic rate, water use efficiency and RuBPCase activity of the three Adzuki bean varieties significantly. The contents of chlorophyll a and chlorophyll b in leaves of FGVA increased significantly, while Chl a/b and carotenoid content in the leaves decreased significantly after shading. But the other two varieties did not change obviously in photosynthetic pigments content after shading. The weak light changed the growth of the three Adzuki bean varieties, such as decreasing dry matter yield and dry matter accumulation efficiency, reducing root nodule and root-shoot ratio, debasing leaves quantity and leaf area index. The first bloom stage and maturing stage of FGVA advanced, while that of EBVA delayed under weak light. However, flowers were not strong enough to seed for LBVA under the weak light. In conclusion, according to the photosynthetic characteristics changes after shading, as well as the growth status, we concluded that the shade tolerance of the three Adzuki beans was ranked as FGVA>EBVA>LBVA.

We present results for antilambda and antiproton production in Au+Au collisions at 11.7 A GeV/c including spectra and extracted invariant yields for both species in central and peripheral collisions in the rapidity range 1.0

An excitation function of proton rapidity distributions for different centralities is reported from AGS Experiment E917 for Au+Au collisions at 6, 8, and 10.8 GeV/nucleon. The rapidity distributions from peripheral collisions have a valley at midrapidity which smoothly change to distributions that display a broad peak at midrapidity for central collisions. The mean rapidity loss increases with increasing beam energy, whereas the fraction of protons consistent with isotropic emission from a stationary source at midrapidity decreases with increasing beam energy. The data suggest that the stopping is substantially less than complete at these energies.

Isolated perfused rat heart model was used to observe the protective effects of berbamine on myocardial ischemia/reperfusion injury. The hearts were significantly injured by 40 min global ischemia followed by 20 min reperfusion. Berbamine could significantly improve heart function, prevent ventricular fibrillation, reduce CK release, preserve Na,K-ATPase activity, and reduce Na+ gain and K+ loss during ischemia and Ca2+ overload during reperfusion. With the use of low temperature ESR technique, in hearts subjected to 40 min ischemia and 15 sec reperfusion, oxygen-centered free radical signals became much more intense. In the presence of berbamine, these signals decreased. Results showed that berbamine could alleviate myocardial ischemia/reperfusion injury. This effect might be due to: 1) preserved myocardial Na,K-ATPase activity and inhibition of sodium overload at the end of ischemia, which might further lead to attenuation of reperfusion-induced calcium overload, and 2) reduction of oxygen free radical generation during reperfusion.

We tested the effect of the adenosine deaminase inhibitor erythro-9-(2-hydroxy-3-nonyl)adenosine (EHNA) on ischemia-reperfusion injury in isolated perfused rat heart. In the ischemia-reperfusion group (n = 10), ventricular fibrillation occurred within 3 min of reperfusion after the 40-min ischemic period. The incidence of ventricular fibrillation was 90% with a mean duration of 3.15 +/- 0.97 (SE) min. Resting tension increased significantly. By contrast, the incidence of ventricular fibrillation after reperfusion in the EHNA-treated (5 microM) group (n = 10) was 20% (P less than 0.01), and the duration was 0.30 +/- 0.21 min (P less than 0.01). Resting tension was significantly lower and around the normal level in the EHNA-treated group (P less than 0.01). Contraction amplitude and heart rate recovered to nearly normal compared with the ischemia-reperfusion group (P less than 0.01). Coronary flow was greater in the EHNA-treated group (P less than 0.01). It is concluded that EHNA protects the heart, possibly by accumulation of adenosine that benefits the hearts and by blocking the xanthine oxidase pathway for free radical generation.