摘要：
Miscanthus lutarioriparius grown in Dongting Lake has an annual biomass yield potential of 1 million tons. However, with the shutdown of its previous utilization for paper-making, abandoning this huge amount of biomass has caused serious economic, ecological, and social problems. Constructing an industrial cluster to continuously convert biomass into various bioproducts is a win-win measure to address this dilemma. With the increasing confirmation of the importance of biomass quality affecting the conservation process, fully understanding the biomass characteristics of Dongting Lake-grown M. lutarioriparius is crucial for building a scientific industrial cluster. The present work is designed to explore the variation in biomass quality across the entire Dongting Lake area. Results show that the biomass contented with Cd, Mn, Zn, and Cr has significant geographical differences, with a general trend of Southern Dongting Lake-grown biomass having a higher concentration than that from Eastern and Western Dongting Lake areas. Moreover, significant differences are found in terms of biomass ash content, lignin content, and the degree of polymerization of cellulose (DP). The biomass with low ash content is generally from the entire Eastern Dongting Lake area and the northern part of the Western Dongting Lake area. Virtually all Western Dongting Lake-grown biomass has a low lignin content (approximately 18%). Regarding the spatial variation of DP, Eastern Dongting Lake-grown biomass has a higher DP (average at 585.33) than that in Southern (575.15) and then Western Dongting Lake (529.16). Based on these quality indicators, the biomass production potentials for bioethanol, biochar, and xylo-oligosaccharide were calculated and visualized. Results show that biomass from almost the entire Western and Eastern Dongting Lake area is suitable for bioethanol and xylo-oligosaccharide production, while biomass from the Southern Dongting Lake area for biochar production. These results provide scientific guidance for the future utilization of Dongting Lake-grown M. lutarioriparius biomass.
摘要：
ScopeOlive oil, rapeseed oil, and lard are dietary fats rich in monounsaturated fatty acids, but the effects of dietary oils enriched in monounsaturated fatty acids on hepatic lipid deposition have seldom been compared.Methods and resultsNinety 8-week-old C57BL/6J male mice are randomly divided into six groups and fed diets containing lard, rapeseed oil, or olive oil with a 10% or 45% fat energy supply for 16 weeks. Under high-fat conditions, serum total cholesterol levels in the lard and olive oil groups are significantly higher than those in the rapeseed oil group. Hepatic lipid content in the olive oil group is higher than that in the other two groups. Compared with rapeseed oil, lard increases the liver levels of arachidonic, palmitic, and myristic acids and decreases the levels of eicosapentaenoic linolenic acid and linoleic acid. Olive oil increases the liver levels of docosatrienoic, arachidonic, oleic, and myristic acids; maltose; and fructose and decreases the levels of eicosapentaenoic, linolenic, and linoleic acids.ConclusionOlive oil probably causes hepatic lipid deposition in mice, which may enhance hepatic lipid synthesis by activating the starch and sucrose metabolic pathways. By contrast, rapeseed oil shows a significant anti-lipid deposition effect on the liver. Olive oil, rapeseed oil, and lard are dietary fats that are rich in monounsaturated fatty acids. This study investigates the effects of three dietary oils on hepatic glucose and lipid metabolism in mice. Compared to rapeseed oil and lard, olive oil is most likely to cause hepatic lipid deposition by activating the metabolic pathways of starch and sucrose. image
关键词：
*Composite farming paddy ecosystem;*Equilibrium;*Hopf bifurcation;*Maximum yield of rice;*Stability
摘要：
As one of the Globally Important Agricultural Heritage Systems (GIAHS), rice field composite farming is an ecological measure in rice production, which can reduce the amount of chemical fertilizers, pesticides and herbicides. This research studies the interaction among rice, weed, inorganic fertilizer and herbivore in a composite farming paddy ecosystem. We develop a differential equation model to analyze the relations and interactions among those components. Results show the existence of an equilibrium for paddy and weed extinction, one or two equilibria for rice extinction, an equilibrium for weed extinction, and an equilibrium for rice and weed coexistence. Based on the obtained stability conditions of these equilibria, measures are proposed to avoid the existence or the stability of equilibria for rice extinction. Other measures are proposed to lead to a stable equilibrium for weed extinction, which is the most desirable result in rice production. Conditions for maximizing the yield of rice are also obtained by taking the relative mortality of rice as variable. In addition, we discover the existence of Hopf bifurcation phenomenon in the system, and develop the critical value of Hopf bifurcation by taking the artificial fertilizer rate as the bifurcation parameter. Our findings provide effective guidance and insights for rice production in a composite farming paddy ecosystem.
关键词：
"rice field spider";"study advances";China;"predation function"
摘要：
Many laboratory and field studies have been conducted on rice field spiders in China. There are 375 species, 108 genera, and 22 families of rice field spiders distributed within the major rice growing areas and 17 dominant species. The biological and ecological characteristics of 17 rice field spider species have been reported in detail. The biology and ecology of these species show significant differences among regions, farmland habitats, and agricultural practices. Future research should focus on rice field habitat diversity, enhancing the insecticide resistance of dominant spider populations, implementing large-scale breeding of spiders and augmentative release, breeding more leaf dominant species, conducting biosafety assessment of spiders in transgenic crops.
摘要：
Since the birth of transgenic crops expressing Bacillus thuringiensis (Bt) toxin for pest control, the public debate regarding ecological and environmental risks as well as benefits of Bt crops has continued unabated. The impact of Bt crops, especially on non-target invertebrates, has received particular attention. In this review, we summarize and analyze evidences for non-target effects of Bt rice on spiders, major predators in rice fields. Bt rice has been genetically modified to express the Bt protein, which has been shown to be transferred and accumulate in spiders as part of their food chain. Moreover, the Bt protein exhibits unintended effects on the physiology of spiders and spreads to higher trophic levels. Spiders possess unique physiological and ecological characteristics, revealing traits of surrogate species, and are thus considered to be excellent non-target arthropod model systems for study of Bt protein impacts. Due to the complexities of Bt protein transfer and accumulation mechanisms, as well as the apparent lack of information about resulting physiological, biochemical, and ecological effects on spiders, we raise questions and provide recommendations for promising further research.
摘要：
Informative gene selection can have important implications for the improvement of cancer diagnosis and the identification of new drug targets. Individual-gene-ranking methods ignore interactions between genes. Furthermore, popular pair-wise gene evaluation methods, e.g. TSP and TSG, are helpless for discovering pair-wise interactions. Several efforts to discover pair-wise synergy have been made based on the information approach, such as EMBP and FeatKNN. However, the methods which are employed to estimate mutual information, e.g. binarization, histogram-based and KNN estimators, depend on known data or domain characteristics. Recently, Reshef et al. proposed a novel maximal information coefficient (MIC) measure to capture a wide range of associations between two variables that has the property of generality. An extension from MIC(X; Y) to MIC(X1; X2; Y) is therefore desired. We developed an approximation algorithm for estimating MIC(X1; X2; Y) where Y is a discrete variable. MIC(X1; X2; Y) is employed to detect pair-wise synergy in simulation and cancer microarray data. The results indicate that MIC(X1; X2; Y) also has the property of generality. It can discover synergic genes that are undetectable by reference feature selection methods such as MIC(X; Y) and TSG. Synergic genes can distinguish different phenotypes. Finally, the biological relevance of these synergic genes is validated with GO annotation and OUgene database.
关键词：
Algorithms;Chi square tests;Fractals;Radii;Contingency tables;Microarrays;Optimization;Breast cancer
摘要：
The maximal information coefficient (MIC) captures dependences between paired variables, including both functional and non-functional relationships. In this paper, we develop a new method, ChiMIC, to calculate the MIC values. The ChiMIC algorithm uses the chi-square test to terminate grid optimization and then removes the restriction of maximal grid size limitation of original ApproxMaxMI algorithm. Computational experiments show that ChiMIC algorithm can maintain same MIC values for noiseless functional relationships, but gives much smaller MIC values for independent variables. For noise functional relationship, the ChiMIC algorithm can reach the optimal partition much faster. Furthermore, the MCN values based on MIC calculated by ChiMIC can capture the complexity of functional relationships in a better way, and the statistical powers of MIC calculated by ChiMIC are higher than those calculated by ApproxMaxMI. Moreover, the computational costs of ChiMIC are much less than those of ApproxMaxMI. We apply the MIC values tofeature selection and obtain better classification accuracy using features selected by the MIC values from ChiMIC.
摘要：
The mir-155 family is not only involved in a diversity of cancers, but also as a regulator of the immune system. However, the evolutionary history of this family is still unclear. The present study indicates that mir-155 evolved independently with lineage-specific gain of miRNAs. In addition, arm switching has occurred in the mir-155 family, and alternative splicing could produce two different lengths of ancestral sequences, implying the alternative splicing can also drive evolution for intragenic miRNAs. Here we screened validated target genes and immunity-related proteins, followed by analyzation of the mir-155 family function by high-throughput methods like the gene ontology (GO) and Kyoto Eneyclopedin of Genes and Genemes (KEGG) pathway enrichment analysis. The high-throughput analysis showed that the CCND1 and EGFR genes were outstanding in being significantly enriched, and the target genes cebpb and VCAM1 and the protein SMAD2 were also vital in mir-155-related immune reponse activities. Therefore, we conclude that the mir-155 family is highly conserved in evolution, and CCND1 and EGFR genes might be potential targets of mir-155 with regard to progress of cancers, while the cebpb and VCAM1 genes and the protein SMAD2 might be key factors in the mir-155 regulated immune activities.
摘要：
A Gram-reaction-variable, rod-shaped, motile, facultatively aerobic and endospore-forming bacterium, designated strain GSS02(T), was isolated from a forest soil. Strain GSS02(T) was capable of reducing humic substances and Fe(III) oxides. Strain GSS02(T) grew optimally at 35 degrees C, at pH 78 and in the presence of 1% NaCl. The predominant menaquinone was MK-7. The major cellular fatty acids were anteiso-C(15:0) and iso-C(16:0) and the polar lipid profile contained mainly phosphatidylethanolamine, diphosphatidylglycerol and phosphatidylglycerol, with moderate amounts of two unknown aminophospholipids and a minor amount of one unknown lipid. The DNA G+C content was 53.4 mol%. Comparative 16S rRNA gene sequence analysis showed that strain GSS02(T) was related most closely to Paenibacillus terrigena JCM 21741(T) (98.1% similarity). Mean DNA-DNA relatedness between strain GSS02(T) and P. terrigena JCM 21741(T) was 58.8 +/- 0.5%. The phylogenetic, chemotaxonomic and phenotypic results clearly demonstrated that strain GSS02(T) belongs to the genus Paenibacillus and represents a novel species, for which the name Paenibacillus guangzhouensis sp. nov. is proposed. The type strain is GSS02(T) ( =KCTC 33171(T) =CCTCC AB 2013236(T)).
摘要：
There is increasing evidence for considerable interlinking between the responses to heat stress (HS) and light signaling. In the present work, we provide molecular evidence that BBX18, a negative regulator in photomorphogenesis belonging to the B-box zinc finger protein family in Arabidopsis thaliana, is involved in the regulation of thermotolerance. Using quantitative RT-PCR, GUS staining and immunoblot analysis, our results indicate that the expression of BBX18 was induced by HS. BBX18-RNAi and 35S::BBX18 transgenic Arabidopsis plants were obtained for functional analysis of BBX18. Under-expression of BBX18 displayed increased both basal and acquired thermotolerance in the transgenic plants, while over-expression of BBX18 reduced tolerance to HS in transgenic lines. Moreover, when wild-type, BBX18-RNAi and 35S::BBX18 transgenic plants were treated with HS, HR-related digalactosyldiacylglycerol synthase 1 (DGD1) was down-regulated by BBX18 in both normal and heat shock conditions. Besides, the expression levels of Hsp70, Hsp101 and APX2 were increased in BBX18-RNAi transgenic plants, but lower in 35S::BBX18 transgenic plants. However, the expression of HsfA2 was lower in BBX18-RNAi transgenic plants and higher in the 35S::BBX18 after high-temperature treatment. These results suggesting that, by modulated expression of a set of HS-responsive genes, BBX18 weakened tolerance to HS in Arabidopsis. So our data indicate that BBX18 plays a negative role in thermotolerance.
作者机构：
[Zhou, Bin; Pang, Ran; Chen, Puyan; Cao, Ruibing; Lian, Xue; Huang, Li; He, Danni; Liu, Ke; Feng, Xiuli] Nanjing Agr Univ, Dept Vet Med Coll, Key Lab Anim Dis Diagnost & Immunol, Nanjing 210095, Jiangsu, Peoples R China.;[Ma, Zhiyong] Chinese Acad Agr Sci, Shanghai Vet Res Inst, Shanghai 200241, Peoples R China.;[Luo, Chao] Hunan Agr Univ, Dept Orient Sci & Technol Coll, Changsha, Hunan, Peoples R China.;[Miao, Denian] Shanghai Acad Agr Sci, Shanghai, Peoples R China.;[Chen, Puyan] Nanjing Agr Univ, Dept Vet Med Coll, Key Lab Anim Dis Diagnost & Immunol, YiFu 4037, Nanjing 210095, Jiangsu, Peoples R China.
通讯机构：
[Chen, Puyan] N;Nanjing Agr Univ, Dept Vet Med Coll, Key Lab Anim Dis Diagnost & Immunol, YiFu 4037, Nanjing 210095, Jiangsu, Peoples R China.
关键词：
Porcine reproductive and respiratory syndrome virus;Phage display;Antiviral peptide
摘要：
Porcine reproductive and respiratory syndrome is an important infectious disease of pigs and has a significant harmful effect on the livestock industry, especially in China. PRRSV ORF1b gene encodes primary proteins which play a vital role during PRRSV replication. In this paper, various 12-amino-acid peptides were displayed. These peptides could bind to the polymerase and helicase of PRRSV ORF1b protein, respectively, in which p9 exerted the highest antiviral activity with an IC50 of 56 mu M, and the minimum toxicity to cells. It was proved that p9 inhibited PRRSV replication in infected MARC-145 cells in a dose-dependent manner, and the amino acid sequence of HRILMRIR was important for antiviral activity of p9. Also, p9 could bind to the cell membrane and penetrated into cells. These result suggested that p9 might be a potential therapeutic drug for PRRSV infection. Crown Copyright (C) 2012 Published by Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.
