Revision of the genus Thermistis Pascoe 1867, with descriptions of three new species (Coleoptera: Cerambycidae: Lamiinae: Saperdini)

The genus Thermistis Pascoe 1867 is revised. T. croceocincta conjunctesignata Rondon & Breuning 1971 is upgraded to a species and newly recorded from China and Myanmar. T. xanthomelas Holzschuh 2007 is newly recorded from Vietnam, Laos and Myanmar. T. sulphureonotata Pu 1984 is newly recorded from Vietnam and Laos. Three new species are described from China: T. hainanensis Lin & Yang n. sp. from Hainan Island, T. kaiyuni Chou & Kurihara n. sp. from Taiwan Island and T. cheni Lin & Chou n. sp. from Yunnan and Sichuan provinces. Photographs of habitus and terminalia and a key to the eleven valid species of Thermistis are presented.     

Climate‐induced changes in the distribution of freshwater fish: observed and predicted trends

1. Climate change could be one of the main threats faced by aquatic ecosystems and freshwater biodiversity. Improved understanding, monitoring and forecasting of its effects are thus crucial for researchers, policy makers and biodiversity managers. 2. Here, we provide a review and some meta‐analyses of the literature reporting both observed and predicted climate‐induced effects on the distribution of freshwater fish. After reviewing three decades of research, we summarise how methods in assessing the effects of climate change have evolved, and whether current knowledge is geographically or taxonomically biased. We conducted multispecies qualitative and quantitative analyses to find out whether the observed responses of freshwater fish to recent changes in climate are consistent with those predicted under future climate scenarios. 3. We highlight the fact that, in recent years, freshwater fish distributions have already been affected by contemporary climate change in ways consistent with anticipated responses under future climate change scenarios: the range of most cold‐water species could be reduced or shift to higher altitude or latitude, whereas that of cool‐ and warm‐water species could expand or contract. 4. Most evidence about the effects of climate change is underpinned by the large number of studies devoted to cold‐water fish species (mainly salmonids). Our knowledge is still incomplete, however, particularly due to taxonomic and geographic biases. 5. Observed and expected responses are well correlated among families, suggesting that model predictions are supported by empirical evidence. The observed effects are of greater magnitude and show higher variability than the predicted effects, however, indicating that other drivers of changes may be interacting with climate and seriously affecting freshwater fish. 6. Finally, we suggest avenues of research required to address current gaps in what we know about the climate‐induced effects on freshwater fish distribution, including (i) the need for more long‐term data analyses, (ii) the assessment of climate‐induced effects at higher levels of organisation (e.g. assemblages), (iii) methodological improvements (e.g. accounting for uncertainty among projections and species’ dispersal abilities, combining both distributional and empirical approaches and including multiple non‐climatic stressors) and (iv) systematic confrontation of observed versus predicted effects across multi‐species assemblages and at several levels of biological organisation (i.e. populations and assemblages).     

Niche conservatism and the potential for the crayfish Procambarus clarkii to invade South America

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中国的紫水鸡

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Acetate supplementation increases brain phosphocreatine and reduces AMP levels with no effect on mitochondrial biogenesis

Acetate supplementation in rats increases plasma acetate and brain acetyl-CoA levels. Although acetate is used as a marker to study glial energy metabolism, the effect that acetate supplementation has on normal brain energy stores has not been quantified. To determine the effect(s) that an increase in acetyl-CoA levels has on brain energy metabolism, we measured brain nucleotide, phosphagen and glycogen levels, and quantified cardiolipin content and mitochondrial number in rats subjected to acetate supplementation. Acetate supplementation was induced with glyceryl triacetate (GTA) by oral gavage (6 g/kg body weight). Rats used for biochemical analysis were euthanized using head-focused microwave irradiation at 2, and 4 h following treatment to immediately stop metabolism. We found that acetate did not alter brain ATP, ADP, NAD, GTP levels, or the energy charge ratio [ECR, (ATP + ½ ADP)/(ATP + ADP + AMP)] when compared to controls. However, after 4 h of treatment brain phosphocreatine levels were significantly elevated with a concomitant reduction in AMP levels with no change in glycogen levels. In parallel studies where rats were treated with GTA for 28 days, we found that acetate did not alter brain glycogen and mitochondrial biogenesis as determined by measuring brain cardiolipin content, the fatty acid composition of cardiolipin and using quantitative ultra-structural analysis to determine mitochondrial density/unit area of cytoplasm in hippocampal CA3 neurons. Collectively, these data suggest that an increase in brain acetyl-CoA levels by acetate supplementation does increase brain energy stores however it has no effect on brain glycogen and neuronal mitochondrial biogenesis.     

Development of thermodynamic optimum searching (TOS) to improve the prediction accuracy of flux balance analysis

Flux balance analysis (FBA) has been widely used in calculating steady‐state flux distributions that provide important information for metabolic engineering. Several thermodynamics‐based methods, for example, quantitative assignment of reaction directionality and energy balance analysis have been developed to improve the prediction accuracy of FBA. However, these methods can only generate a thermodynamically feasible range, rather than the most thermodynamically favorable solution. We therefore developed a novel optimization method termed as thermodynamic optimum searching (TOS) to calculate the thermodynamically optimal solution, based on the second law of thermodynamics, the minimum magnitude of the Gibbs free energy change and the maximum entropy production principle (MEPP). Then, TOS was applied to five physiological conditions of Escherichia coli to evaluate its effectiveness. The resulting prediction accuracy was found significantly improved (10.7–48.5%) by comparing with the ¹³C‐fluxome data, indicating that TOS can be considered an advanced calculation and prediction tool in metabolic engineering. Biotechnol. Bioeng. 2013; 110: 914–923. © 2012 Wiley Periodicals, Inc.     

Renewable bio ionic liquids‐water mixtures‐mediated selective removal of lignin from rice straw: Visualization of changes in composition and cell wall structure

Pretreatment of rice straw by using renewable cholinium amino acids ionic liquids ([Ch][AA] ILs)‐water mixtures and the subsequent enzymatic hydrolysis of the residues were conducted in the present work. Of the eight mixtures composed of ILs and water, most were found to be effective for rice straw pretreatment. After pretreatment with 50% ILs‐water mixtures, the enzymatic digestion of the lignocellulosic biomass was enhanced significantly, thus leading to satisfactory sugar yields of >80% for glucose and approximately 50% for xylose. To better understand the ILs pretreatment mechanism, confocal laser scanning microscopy combined with immunolabeling and transmission electron microscopy were used to visualize changes in the contents and distribution of two major components—lignin and xylan. The results coupled with changes in chemical structures (infrared spectra) of the substrates indicated occurrence of extensive delignification, especially in cell corner and compound middle lumen of cell walls, which made polysaccharides more accessible to enzymes. This pretreatment process is promising for large‐scale application because of the high sugar yields, easy handling, being environmentally benign and highly tolerant to moisture, and significantly reduced cost and energy consumption. Biotechnol. Bioeng. 2013; 110: 1895–1902. © 2013 Wiley Periodicals, Inc.     

A modified metabolic model for mixed culture fermentation with energy conserving electron bifurcation reaction and metabolite transport energy

A modified metabolic model for mixed culture fermentation (MCF) is proposed with the consideration of an energy conserving electron bifurcation reaction and the transport energy of metabolites. The production of H₂ related to NADH/NAD⁺ and Fdred/Fdox is proposed to be divided in three processes in view of energy conserving electron bifurcation reaction. This assumption could fine‐tune the intracellular redox balance and regulate the distribution of metabolites. With respect to metabolite transport energy, the proton motive force is considered to be constant, while the transport rate coefficient is proposed to be proportional to the octanol–water partition coefficient. The modeling results for a glucose fermentation in a continuous stirred tank reactor show that the metabolite distribution is consistent with the literature: (1) acetate, butyrate, and ethanol are main products at acidic pH, while the production shifts to acetate and propionate at neutral and alkali pH; (2) the main products acetate, ethanol, and butyrate shift to ethanol at higher glucose concentration; (3) the changes for acetate and butyrate are following an increasing hydrogen partial pressure. The findings demonstrate that our modified model is more realistic than previous proposed model concepts. It also indicates that inclusion of an energy conserving electron bifurcation reaction and metabolite transport energy for MCF is sound in the viewpoint of biochemistry and physiology. Biotechnol. Bioeng. 2013; 110: 1884–1894. © 2013 Wiley Periodicals, Inc.     

Liver-type fatty acid binding protein interacts with hepatocyte nuclear factor 4α

Hepatocyte nuclear factor 4α (HNF4α) regulates liver type fatty acid binding protein (L-FABP) gene expression. Conversely as shown herein, L-FABP structurally and functionally also interacts with HNF4α. Fluorescence resonance energy transfer (FRET) between Cy3-HNF4α (donor) and Cy5-L-FABP (acceptor) as well as FRET microscopy detected L-FABP in close proximity (∼80 Å) to HNF4α, binding with high affinity K_d ∼250–300 nM. Circular dichroism (CD) determined that the HNF4α/L-FABP interaction altered protein secondary structure. Finally, L-FABP potentiated transactivation of HNF4α in COS7 cells. Taken together, these data suggest that L-FABP provides a signaling path to HNF4α activation in the nucleus.     

Combined small RNA and degradome sequencing reveals microRNA regulation during immature maize embryo dedifferentiation

Genetic transformation of maize is highly dependent on the development of embryonic calli from the dedifferentiated immature embryo. To better understand the regulatory mechanism of immature embryo dedifferentiation, we generated four small RNA and degradome libraries from samples representing the major stages of dedifferentiation. More than 186 million raw reads of small RNA and degradome sequence data were generated. We detected 102 known miRNAs belonging to 23 miRNA families. In total, we identified 51, 70 and 63 differentially expressed miRNAs (DEMs) in the stage I, II, III samples, respectively, compared to the control. However, only 6 miRNAs were continually up-regulated by more than fivefold throughout the process of dedifferentiation. A total of 87 genes were identified as the targets of 21 DEM families. This group of targets was enriched in members of four significant pathways including plant hormone signal transduction, antigen processing and presentation, ECM-receptor interaction, and alpha-linolenic acid metabolism. The hormone signal transduction pathway appeared to be particularly significant, involving 21 of the targets. While the targets of the most significant DEMs have been proved to play essential roles in cell dedifferentiation. Our results provide important information regarding the regulatory networks that control immature embryo dedifferentiation in maize.