Diversity in the Content of Some Nutritional Components in Husked Seeds of Three Wild Rice Species and Rice Varieties in Yunnan Province of China

In addition to rice (Oryza sativa L.) cultivars, there are three wild rice species, namely O.rufipogon Griff, O. officinalis Wall and O. granulata Baill, in Yunnan Province, China. Each species has different subtypes and ecological distributions. Yunnan wild rice species are excellent genetic resources for developing new rice cultivars. The nutritional components of the husked seeds of wild rice have not been investigated thus far. Herein, we report on the contents of total protein, starch, amylose, 17 amino acids, and five macro and five trace mineral elements in husked seeds from three wild rice species and six O. sativa cultivars. The mean (± SD) protein content in the husked rice of O. rufipogon, O. officinalis, and O. granulata was (14.5 ± 0.6)%, (16.3 ± 1. 1)%, and (15.3 ± 0.5)%, respectively. O. officinalis Ⅲ originating from Gengma had the highest protein content (19.3%). In contrast, the average protein content of six O. sativa cultivars was only 9.15%. The total content of 17 amino acids of three wild rice species was 30%-50% higher than that of the six cultivars. Tyrosine, lysine, and valine content in the three wild rice species was 34%-209% higher than that of the cultivars. However, the difference in total starch content among different O. sativa varieties or types of wild rice species was very small. The average amylose content of O. rufipogon, O. officinalis,and O. granulata was 12.0%, 9.7%, and 11.3%, respectively, much lower than that of the indica and japonica varieties (14.37%-17.17%) but much higher than that of the glutinous rice cultivars (3.89%). The sulfur, phosphorus, magnesium, zinc, and ferrite content in the three wild rice species was 30%-158% higher than that of the six cultivars. The considerable difference in some nutritional components among wild rice species and O. sativa cultivars represents a wide biodiversity of Yunnan Oryza species. Based on the results of the present study, it is predicted that some good genetic traits, especially high protein and ideal amylose content, of Yunnan wild rice species may be useful in improving the nutritional value of rice. This is the first report regarding the amino acid, mineral element, protein and amylose content of husked seeds of some Yunnan wild rice species that have important genetic characteristics for rice quality and nutritional value.     

Critical Role of Cys168 in Noggin Protein's Biological Function

Previous studies have indicated that noggin exerts its neural inducing effect by binding andantagonizing bone morphogenetic protein 4(BMP4).In order to further clarify the relationship between thestructure and the function of noggin,and elucidate the possible mechanism responsible for noggin-BMP4interaction,we generated three noggin mutants,C168S,C174S and C197S,by using a site-directed mu-tagenesis method.Ectopic expression of wild-type(WT)noggin,C174S or C197S,in Xenopus animal caps(ACs)by mRNA injection converted the explants(prospective ectoderm)into neural tissue,as indicated bythe neural-like morphology and expression of the neural cell adhesion molecule(NCAM)in the ACs.Incontrast,ACs expressing C 168S suffered an epidermal fate similar to the control caps.Similarly,among the threemutants,only C 168S lost the dorsalizing function.These studies highlight the critical role played by Cys168in noggin's biological activities.It probably participates in the formation of an intermolecular disulfide bridge.     

Improvement, Comparison, and Application of Field Measurement Methods for Grassland Vegetation Fractional Coverage

As one of the important vegetation parameters, vegetation fractional coverage （VFC） is more difficult to measure accurately among a good many parameters of plant communities. The temperate typical steppe in the north of China was chosen for investigation in the present study and a digital camera was used to measure herb community coverage in the field, adopting methods of ocular estimation, gridding measurement, visual interpretation, supervised classification, and information extraction of color spatial transformation to calculate the VFC of images captured by the digital camera. In addition VFC calculated by various methods was analyzed and compared VFC, enabling us to propose an effective method for measuring VFC using a digital camera. The results of the present study indicate that： （i） as two common useful and effective methods of measuring VFC with a digital camera, not only does the error of estimated values of visual estimation and supervised classification vary considerably, but the degree of automatization is very low and depends, to a great extent, on the manipulator; （ii） although the method of visual interpretation may assure the precision of the calculated VFC and enable the precision of results obtained using other methods to be determined, as far as large quantities of data are concerned, this method has the disadvantages of wasting time and energy, and the applications of this method are limited; （iii） the precision and stability of VFC calculated using the grid and node method are superior to those of visual estimation and supervised classification and inferior to those of visual interpretation, but, as for visual interpretation and supervised classification, gridding measurements are difficult to apply in practice because they are not time efficient; and （iv） in terms of the precision of calculation of the VFC, an information-extracting model based on an intensity, hue, saturation （IHS） color space-multi-component series segmentation strategy is superior to methods of ocular estimation, gridding measurement, and supervised classification. In terms of practical efficiency, the information-extracting model is superior to visual interpretation, supervised classification, and gridding measurement. It has been proven that estimating the VFC of the north temperate typical steppe using this model is feasible. This is very fundamental research work in grassland ecology.     

Overexpression of the OsPDCD5 Gene Induces Programmed Cell Death in Rice

The primary aim of the present study was to investigate the overexpression of the rice （Oryza sativa L.） programmed cell death 5 （OsPDCD5） gene in rice plant. Constitutive expression of OsPDCD5 from the cauliflower mosaic virus （CaMV） 35S promoter induced programmed cell death （PCD） in transgenic rice. Programmed cell death was accompanied by typical features, including inhibition of developmental growth, a reduction of fresh weight, degradation of total protein content, and fragmentation of genomic DNA. These results suggest that OsPDCD5 plays an essential role in the regulation of PCD in rice plants.     

Comparative genomics and phylogenetic analysis of S. dysenteriae subgroup

Shigella spp are the pathogen of bacillary dysentery, the leading intestinal contagious disease in China. According to the O antigen, Shigella spp can be sub-grouped into four species: S.dysenteriae, S. flexneri, S. boydii and S. sonnei, also known as Shigella sub-groups A, B, C and D. In developing countries, S. dysenteriae A1, one of the thirteen serotypes in A sub-group, resulted in extremely serious bacterial diarrhea with mortality of 7%[1]. Traditional classifications were unsucces…     

Analysis of ESTs and gene expression patterns of the poste-rior silkgland in the fifth instar larvae of silkworm, Bom-byx mori L.

The fibroin gene expression pattern and regulation of the posterior silkgland were studied by means of expressed sequence tags (ESTs) using the first and fifth day larvae of the fifth instar of silkworm, Bombyx mori L (strain: C 108). The results showed that there were 911 repetitive ESTs and 1950 single sequences (Singlets) among total 2861 consentient sequences, which were spliced. 1335 sequences were identified and the other 1526 were unknown. 5560 sequences (55.89%) in the posterior silkgland cell of the silkworm were new ESTs without ho-mology with EST data published by Mita et al. The number of repetitive ESTs and single sequences from the first day larvae of the fifth instar was double more than that of the fifth day of the same instar in the silkworms. The unigenes which were more than 50 in repetitive EST size (contig size) came to only about 0.5% in total consentient sequences. There were significant differences between gene expression frequencies, and expressed genes were related to fibroin synthesis and its secretion and fibroin composition. Comparing the fifth day with the first day of the fifth instar, the genes-expressed quantity of fibroin heavy-chain gene was 18 fold higher, fibroin light-chain gene 9 fold and fibroin P52 gene 8 fold. 508 genes functioned for cellular component and 315 for enzyme after function tracing. These results implied that the gene expression of the first day was mainly for preparation for fibroin synthesis except for the growth of silkgland cells, and the gene expression of the fifth day of the fifth instar was mainly for synthesizing and excreting fibroin. Because the ratio of heavy chain, light chain and p25 of fibroin was not 6:6:1 as theoretically expected, or its special H-chain structure, the H-chain gene was not easy to detect through EST technique. Most of genes among total 2861 consentient sequences functioned for fibroin synthesis and secretion. This suggested the fibroin synthesis and secretion procedure of the posterior silkgland was more complex than the knowledge we have.     

东北梅花鹿染色体限制性内切酶显带

采用限制性内切酶Hae Ⅲ、Hind Ⅲ分别处理梅花鹿中期染色体标本,发现HaeⅢ处理标本21h左右,显出类似G带、C带带型,第1、4、11、18、27、28、31对染色体的结构异染色质区对HaeⅢ敏感而浅染,而HindⅢ处理标本18h左右能诱导梅花鹿中期染色体显出类似G带、C带,第2、6、15、18、29、32对染色体的结构异染色质区对HindⅢ较敏感而浅染,性染色体Y对HaeⅢ敏感呈浅染,性染色体X对HindⅢ敏感呈浅染。表明东北梅花鹿12对常染色体和两条性染色体结构异染色质在这两种酶处理时表现出异质性。     

超高产夏玉米田土壤微生物与土壤酶的动态变化

为揭示超高产夏玉米田（产量>15 000 kg·hm^-2）土壤微生物与土壤酶活性动态变化特性,在国家玉米工程技术研究中心（山东）试验场进行夏玉米生长季农田土壤微生物与土壤酶活性研究. 在连续3年产量15 000 kg·hm^-2以上的超高产夏玉米田中选择一块超高产田（HF, 产量为20 322 kg·hm^-2）与常规生产田（CF, 产量为8920.1 kg·hm^-2）进行对比分析,主要测定0～20 cm土层土壤细菌、真菌与放线菌数量及脲酶和转化酶活性. 结果表明：播种后超高产田与常规生产田土壤微生物（细菌、真菌与放线菌）数量均表现出先升高后下降的趋势,超高产田在玉米生长后期土壤微生物数量低于常规生产田,细菌与放线菌表现尤其明显,收获期超高产田B/F值（细菌与真菌数量比）比播种期高2.03倍,比常规生产田高3.02倍,常规生产田收获期与播种期的B/F值变化不显著;超高产田土壤脲酶活性在播种31 d（拔节期）后低于常规生产田,转化酶活性播种58 d（开花期）后快速下降,低于常规生产田.     

Sequence Variation in the Gpl20 region of SHIV-CN97001 during in vivo Passage

SHIV-CN97001 played an important role in assessing the immune effect and strategy of the AIDS vaccine which included genes of the predominant prevalent HIV-1 strain in China. In this study, SHIV-CN97001 was in vivo passaged serially to construct pathogenic SHIV-CN97001/rhesus macaques model. To identify variation in the gp120 region of SHIV-CN97001 during passage, the fragments of gp120 gene were amplified by RT-PCR from the plasma of SHIV-CN97001 infected animals at the peak viral load time point and the gene distances （divergence, diversity） were calculated using DISTANCE. The analysis revealed that the genetic distances of SHIV-CN97001 in the third passage animals were the highest during in vivo passage. It had a relationship between viral divergence from the founder strain and viral replication ability. The nucleic acid sequence of the V3 region was highly conservative. All of the SHIV-CN97001 strains had V3 loop central motif （GPGQ） and were predicted to be using CCR5 co-receptor on the basis of the critical amino acids within V3 loop. These results show that there was no significant increase in the genetic distance during serial passage, and SHIV-CN97001 gp120 gene evolved toward ancestral states upon transmission to a new host. This could partly explain why there was no pathogenic viral strain obtained during in vivo passage.     

Collagen scaffolds modified with collagen-binding bFGF promotes the neural regeneration in a rat hemisected spinal cord injury model

Nerve conduit is one of strategies for spine cord injury(SCI)treatment.Recently,studies showed that biomaterials could guide the neurite growth and promote axon regeneration at the injury site.However,the scaffold by itself was difficult to meet the need of SCI functional recovery.The basic fibroblast growth factor(bFGF)administration significantly promotes functional recovery after organ injuries.Here,using a rat model of T9 hemisected SCI,we aimed at assessing the repair capacity of implantation of collagen scaffold(CS)modified by collagen binding bFGF(CBD-bFGF).The results showed that CS combined with CBD-bFGF treatment improved survival rates after the lateral hemisection SCI.The CS/CBD-bFGF group showed more significant improvements in motor than the simply CS-implanted and untreated control group,when evaluated by the 21-point Basso-Beattie-Bresnahan(BBB)score and footprint analysis.Both hematoxylin and eosin(H&E)and immunohistochemical staining of neurofilament(NF)and glial fibrillary acidic protein(GFAP)demonstrated that fibers were guided to grow through the implants.These findings indicated that administration of CS modified with CBD-bFGF could promote spinal cord regeneration and functional recovery.