The Detoxification of Heavy Metals in the Phosphate Tailing-contaminated Soil through Sequential Microbial Pretreatment and Electrokinetic Remediation

In this paper, the heavy metals (HMs) in the phosphate tailing-contaminated soil were detoxified using the microbial pretreatment in combination with electrokinetic remediation (EKR).. This study provides compelling evidence that the sequential usage of the bioleaching and electrokinetics is superior to the individual method for the detoxification of Pb, Cu, Zn, Cd, and As from the contaminated soil. In the sequential system, the detoxification efficiency of Zn was the highest and that of As was the lowest. Except the element As, the detoxification efficiencies of HMs in the sequential system were generally higher than that using the single biological treatment and EKR technique. Bioleaching, generation of the passivation, and migration direction of the ions are concluded as the factors attributable to the final results; and, the initial increase in the inoculation doping of Thiobacillus ferrooxidans considered has no obvious impact on improving the final detoxification efficiency rates.     

Ultra‐sensitive fluorescent sensor for intracellular miRNA based on enzyme‐free signal amplification with carbon nitride nanosheet as a carrier

A novel ultra‐sensitive fluorescent sensor for monitoring microRNA (miRNA) in living cells was constructed by utilizing a hybridization chain reaction (HCR) as the signal amplification with a carbon nitride nanosheet (CNNS) as a carrier. The Cy5‐labeled hairpin DNA could be adsorbed onto the surface of CNNS, resulting in fluorescence quenching of Cy5. When treated with complementary miRNA, the fluorescence was recovered because miRNA could efficiently trigger an HCR, which led to the release of the HCR products from the CNNS. This intracellular HCR strategy can be used for ultra‐sensitive monitoring of intracellular miRNA. The main advantages of the proposed method are its simplicity, high sensitivity, high specificity and low toxicity for monitoring low‐level biomarkers.     

Release of resource constraints allows greater carbon allocation to secondary metabolites and storage in winter wheat

The atmospheric CO₂ concentration ([CO₂]) is rapidly increasing, and this may have substantial impact on how plants allocate metabolic resources. A thorough understanding of allocation priorities can be achieved by modifying [CO₂] over a large gradient, including low [CO₂], thereby altering plant carbon (C) availability. Such information is of critical importance for understanding plant responses to global environmental change. We quantified the percentage of daytime whole‐plant net assimilation (A) allocated to night‐time respiration (R), structural growth (SG), nonstructural carbohydrates (NSC) and secondary metabolites (SMs) during 8 weeks of vegetative growth in winter wheat (Triticum aestivum) growing at low, ambient and elevated [CO₂] (170, 390 and 680 ppm). R/A remained relatively constant over a large gradient of [CO₂]. However, with increasing C availability, the fraction of assimilation allocated to biomass (SG + NSC + SMs), in particular NSC and SMs, increased. At low [CO₂], biomass and NSC increased in leaves but decreased in stems and roots, which may help plants achieve a functional equilibrium, that is, overcome the most severe resource limitation. These results reveal that increasing C availability from rising [CO₂] releases allocation constraints, thereby allowing greater investment into long‐term survival in the form of NSC and SMs.     

Structure-based tailoring of compound libraries for high-throughput screening: discovery of novel EphB4 kinase inhibitors

High-throughput docking is a computational tool frequently used to discover small-molecule inhibitors of enzymes or receptors of known three-dimensional structure. Because of the large number of molecules in chemical libraries, automatic procedures to prune multimillion compound collections are useful for high-throughput docking and necessary for in vitro screening. Here, we propose an anchor-based library tailoring approach (termed ALTA) to focus a chemical library by docking and prioritizing molecular fragments according to their binding energy which includes continuum electrostatics solvation. In principle, ALTA does not require prior knowledge of known inhibitors, but receptor-based pharmacophore information (hydrogen bonds with the hinge region) is additionally used here to identify molecules with optimal anchor fragments for the ATP-binding site of the EphB4 receptor tyrosine kinase. The 21,418 molecules of the focused library (from an initial collection of about 730,000) are docked into EphB4 and ranked by force-field-based energy including electrostatic solvation. Among the 43 compounds tested in vitro, eight molecules originating from two different anchors show low-micromolar activity in a fluorescence-based enzymatic assay. Four of them are active in a cell-based assay and are potential anti-angiogenic compounds.     

Synthesis of 1-substituted 3-pyridinylmethylidenylindolin-2-ones and 1-substituted 3-quinolinylmethylidenylindolin-2-ones as the enhancers of ATRA-induced differentiation in HL-60 cells

As part of our continuing search for potential differentiation agents, 1-benzyl-3-(4-pyridinylmethylidenyl)indolin-2-one (14) was selected as lead compound, and its new pyridinyl and quinolinyl analogs were synthesized and evaluated for differentiation-inducing activity toward HL-60 cells. Most of the tested compounds enhanced the ATRA-induced differentiation; among them, 1-(1-phenylethyl)-3-(3-quinolinylmethylidenyl)indolin-2-one (25) was the most promising one. The two isomers, 25Z and 25E; consisting 25 were found to have similar differentiation activity. The combination of 25 with all trans retinoic acid (ATRA) was found to induce complete differentiation of HL-60 cells and arrest the cells in the G(0)/G(1) phase of the cell cycle. Beside its excellent differentiation activity, 25 also exhibited relatively low cytotoxicity toward normal cells. Therefore, compound 25 is recommended as a candidate for further development of novel enhancer of ATRA-induced differentiation in HL-60 cells.     

circ_SEPT9, a newly identified circular RNA,promotes oral squamous cell carcinoma progression through miR‐1225/PKN2 axis

Circular RNAs (circRNAs) represent a newly discovered class of endogenous non‐coding RNAs which are widely expressed and play important roles in disease progression. However, the function of circRNAs in oral squamous cell carcinoma (OSCC) still remains largely unknown. In this research, we found that circ_SEPT9 was highly expressed in OSCC cell lines and tumour tissues. Results showed that circ_SEPT9 promoted OSCC proliferation and tumour growth. And, circ_SEPT9 also enhanced the migration and invasion of OSCC cells. Mechanically, we found that circ_SEPT9 acted as a sponge for miR‐1225 to rescue PKN2 expression in OSCC cells. Inhibition of circ_SEPT9/miR‐1225/PKN2 pathway could effectively block the proliferation and metastasis of OSCC cells. Our study provides strong evidence that circ_SEPT9/miR‐1225/PKN2 axis is a promising target for OSCC treatment.     

Isolation and characterization of culturable endophytic actinobacteria associated with Artemisia annua L.

Endophytic actinobacteria isolated from Artemisia annua were characterized and evaluated for their bioactivities. A total of 228 isolates representing at least 19 different genera of actinobacteria were obtained and several of them seemed to be novel taxa. An evaluation of antimicrobial activity showed that more isolates possessed activity towards plant pathogens than activity against other pathogenic bacteria or yeasts. High frequencies of PCR amplification were obtained for type I polyketide synthases (PKS-I, 21.1%), type II polyketide synthases (PKS-II, 45.2%) and nonribosomal peptide synthetases (NRPS, 32.5%). The results of herbicidal activity screening indicated that 19 out of 117 samples of fermentation broths completely inhibited the germination of Echinochloa crusgalli. This study indicated that endophytic actinobacteria associated with A. annua are abundant and have potentially beneficial and diverse bioactivities which should be pursued for their biotechnical promise.     

茶刺蛾颗粒体病毒病毒粒子的表面增强拉曼散射(SERS)光谱研究

得到并分析了茶刺蛾颗粒体病毒(Darna trima Granulosis Virus缩写为DtGV)病毒粒子的SERS谱.DtGV病毒粒子通过COO(COOH)和NH_2(NH_3)基因被吸附到银溶胶表面上.Trp、Tyr和Phe残基侧链靠近银表面、以Trp残基侧链的振动增强效应最显著.上还增强特性与溶液的pH值密切相关.     

Cloning and characterization of a 9-lipoxygenase gene induced by pathogen attack from <Emphasis Type=Italic>Nicotiana benthamiana</Emphasis>for biotechnological application

Background  

Plant lipoxygenases (LOXs) have been proposed to form biologically active compounds both during normal developmental stages such as germination or growth as well as during responses to environmental stress such as wounding or pathogen attack. In our previous study, we found that enzyme activity of endogenous 9-LOX in Nicotiana benthamiana was highly induced by agroinfiltration using a tobacco mosaic virus (TMV) based vector system.     

Human migration through bottlenecks from Southeast Asia into East Asia during Last Glacial Maximum revealed by Y chromosomes

Molecular anthropological studies of the populations in and around East Asia have resulted in the discovery that most of the Y-chromosome lineages of East Asians came from Southeast Asia. However, very few Southeast Asian populations had been investigated, and therefore, little was known about the purported migrations from Southeast Asia into East Asia and their roles in shaping the genetic structure of East Asian populations. Here, we present the Y-chromosome data from 1,652 individuals belonging to 47 Mon-Khmer (MK) and Hmong-Mien (HM) speaking populations that are distributed primarily across Southeast Asia and extend into East Asia. Haplogroup O3a3b-M7, which appears mainly in MK and HM, indicates a strong tie between the two groups. The short tandem repeat network of O3a3b-M7 displayed a hierarchical expansion structure (annual ring shape), with MK haplotypes being located at the original point, and the HM and the Tibeto-Burman haplotypes distributed further away from core of the network. Moreover, the East Asian dominant haplogroup O3a3c1-M117 shows a network structure similar to that of O3a3b-M7. These patterns indicate an early unidirectional diffusion from Southeast Asia into East Asia, which might have resulted from the genetic drift of East Asian ancestors carrying these two haplogroups through many small bottle-necks formed by the complicated landscape between Southeast Asia and East Asia. The ages of O3a3b-M7 and O3a3c1-M117 were estimated to be approximately 19 thousand years, followed by the emergence of the ancestors of HM lineages out of MK and the unidirectional northward migrations into East Asia.