Ecosystem Health Assessment in the Pearl River Estuary of China by Considering Ecosystem Coordination

Marine ecosystem is a complex nonlinear system. However, ecosystem health assessment conventionally builds on a linear superposition of changes in ecosystem components and probably fails to evaluate nonlinear interactions among various components. To better reflect the intrinsic interactions and their impacts on ecosystem health, an ecosystem coordination index, defined as the matching level of ecosystem structure/services, is proposed and incorporated into the ecosystem health index for a systematic diagnosis in the Pearl River Estuary, China. The analysis results show that the ecosystem health index over the last three decades decreased from 0.91 to 0.50, indicating deteriorating from healthy to unhealthy status. The health index is 3–16% lower than that calculated using the common method without considering ecosystem coordination. Ecosystem health degradation in the Pearl River Estuary manifested as significant decreases in structure/services and somewhat mismatching among them. Overall, the introduction of coordination in ecosystem health assessment could improve the understanding of the mechanism of marine ecosystem change and facilitate effective restoration of ecosystem health.     

Bone Mineral Density of the Spine in 11,898 Chinese Infants and Young Children: A Cross-Sectional Study

Background

Bone mineral density (BMD) increases progressively during childhood and adolescence and is affected by various genetic and environmental factors. The aim of this study was to establish reference values for lumbar BMD in healthy Chinese infants and young children and investigate its influencing factors.

Methods and Findings

Healthy children aged 0 to 3 years who underwent regular physical examinations at the Child Health Care Clinic of Hubei Maternal and Child Health Hospital (N = 11,898) were recruited for this study. We also chose 379 preterm infants aged 0 to 1 years to preliminarily explore the development of BMD in this special population. BMD (g/cm²) measurements of the lumbar spine (L2–L4) were carried out with dual-energy X-ray absorptiometry and a questionnaire was administered to full-term children''s parents to gather information on various nutritional and lifestyle factors as well as mothers'' nutritional supplement use during pregnancy. Lumbar BMD significantly increased with age among both boys and girls (p<0.05), with fastest growth observed during the first postnatal year. There was no significant difference in lumbar BMD between boys and girls of similar age (p>0.05), either among healthy reference children or preterm infants. However, BMD values in preterm infants were significantly lower than those in term infants 3 to 8 months old (p<0.05) after adjustment for gestational age. Multivariable linear regression analysis indicated significant positive associations between lumbar BMD of healthy children and the child''s age and current weight, mother''s weight gain during pregnancy, birth weight, children''s outdoor activity duration and children''s physical activity duration.

Conclusion

Our study provides reference values of lumbar BMD for healthy Chinese children aged 0 to 3 years and identifies several influencing factors.     

Isolation and Identification of a Novel Antifungal Protein from a Rhizobacterium Bacillus subtilis Strain F3

Bacillus subtilis strain F3, isolated from peach rhizosphere soil, is an antifungal bacterium against many plant pathogens. In this study, the antifungal protein was isolated and purified by ammonium sulphate and chromatography, then identified by mass spectrum analysis. By sequential chromatography of Sephadex G‐50, DEAE‐Sephadex A‐25 anion exchange and Sephadex G‐100, a fraction designated as F3A was isolated to show a single protein band in SDS‐PAGE and be antagonistic towards Monilinia fructicola. The peptide mass fingerprinting of the protein band of F3A had high similarity with the amino acid sequences of several flagellin protein of B. subtilis. There were seven amino acid fragments matched with the protein having the highest score, and sequence coverage was 33%. F3A showed a strongly inhibitory effect to the growth and sporulation of M. fructicola. There were little aerial hyphae and conidia at the antifungal zone, and the hyphae were abnormal with some cell wall collapse and several vacuoles in cells.     

Metabolic signatures of esophageal cancer: NMR-based metabolomics and UHPLC-based focused metabolomics of blood serum

Focused metabolic profiling is a powerful tool for the determination of biomarkers. Here, a more global proton nuclear magnetic resonance (¹H NMR)-based metabolomic approach coupled with a relative simple ultra high performance liquid chromatography (UHPLC)-based focused metabolomic approach was developed and compared to characterize the systemic metabolic disturbances underlying esophageal cancer (EC) and identify possible early biomarkers for clinical prognosis. Serum metabolic profiling of patients with EC (n = 25) and healthy controls (n = 25) was performed by using both ¹H NMR and UHPLC, and metabolite identification was achieved by multivariate statistical analysis. Using orthogonal projection to least squares discriminant analysis (OPLS-DA), we could distinguish EC patients from healthy controls. The predictive power of the model derived from the UHPLC-based focused metabolomics performed better in both sensitivity and specificity than the results from the NMR-based metabolomics, suggesting that the focused metabolomic technique may be of advantage in the future for the determination of biomarkers. Moreover, focused metabolic profiling is highly simple, accurate and specific, and should prove equally valuable in metabolomic research applications. A total of nineteen significantly altered metabolites were identified as the potential disease associated biomarkers. Significant changes in lipid metabolism, amino acid metabolism, glycolysis, ketogenesis, tricarboxylic acid (TCA) cycle and energy metabolism were observed in EC patients compared with the healthy controls. These results demonstrated that metabolic profiling of serum could be useful as a screening tool for early EC diagnosis and prognosis, and might enhance our understanding of the mechanisms involved in the tumor progression.     

腐植酸对高温胁迫下掌叶半夏生长生理特性及块茎次生代谢的影响

采用不同浓度(0、20、40、60、80、100mg/L)腐植酸(HA)叶面喷施处理,通过盆栽实验分析了HA对高温胁迫下掌叶半夏幼苗生长生理指标及次生代谢的调控效应。结果显示:(1)各浓度HA处理均可不同程度地促进高温胁迫下掌叶半夏的生长发育,且以80mg/L HA处理下其块茎鲜重(6.990 5g/株)、叶柄鲜重(1.755 4g/株)及总叶绿素含量(19.961 3mg/g)最高,较对照分别显著提高21.25%、118.5%和37.19%。(2)当HA处理浓度为60mg/L时,掌叶半夏幼苗叶片中可溶性糖、可溶性蛋白含量均最高,分别比对照显著提高66.67%、40.91%;叶片抗氧化酶(SOD、POD)活性达到最大值,MDA含量降至最低,SOD、POD活性分别比对照显著提高818.98%和48.2%,MDA含量较对照显著降低62.08%;且块茎中鸟苷含量较高,比对照显著提高52.94%。(3)当叶面喷施80mg/L HA时,掌叶半夏幼苗叶片中游离脯氨酸含量和块茎中总生物碱、总有机酸、腺苷的含量均最高,分别比对照显著提高169.63%、27.19%、42.32%、96.23%。研究表明,适宜浓度HA处理可显著提高高温胁迫下掌叶半夏幼苗叶片内抗氧化酶(SOD、POD)的活性及渗透调节物质(可溶性糖、可溶性蛋白、游离脯氨酸)含量,以及块茎中次生代谢产物(总生物碱、总有机酸、鸟苷和腺苷)的含量,有效减轻夏季高温对掌叶半夏幼苗叶片的伤害、延缓衰老、提高其幼苗抗热性,促进生长、延长生长期。     

S100A4: a novel partner for heat shock protein 47 in antler stem cells and insight into the calcium ion-induced conformational changes

Abstract

S100A4 is a multiple-function protein highly expressed in tumor or stem cells. We found S100A4 was a novel protein partner for heat shock protein 47 (HSP47) in deer antlerogenic periosteum cells (AP cells), indicating that S100A4 could bind with HSP47. S100A4 had both calcium-dependent and calcium-independent patterns (labeled as SCd and SCi, respectively) to execute different biological activities. Homology models of HSP47, SCd and SCi were constructed. HSP47:collagen model, HSP47:collagen I-V, HSP47:SCd and HSP47:SCi complexes were built using ZDOCK software. Together with free SCd and SCi, 200?ns molecular dynamic (MD) simulations were performed to analyze binding free energies and SCi/SCd conformational changes. The energetic results showed that SCi had the strongest affinity to HSP47, and followed by collagens. SCd had little interaction with HSP47. Decomposition energy results showed that collagen model interacted with HSP47 mainly though neutral amino acids. When SCi bound with HSP47, the majority of mediated amino acids were charged. These results indicated that SCi could compete with collagen on the binding site of HSP47. Root mean square fluctuation (RMSF) values and cross-correlation matrices of principal component analysis (PCA) were calculated to evaluate the SCi/SCd structural variation during MD simulation. Both HSP47 and Ca²⁺ could stabilize the conformation of SCi/SCd. The loops interacting with Ca²⁺s and linking the two EF-hand motifs were impacted particularly. The relative moving directions of α-helices in EF-hands were distinct by the binding effect of HSP47 and Ca²⁺. We found that SCi may regulate the differentiation of AP cells by disturbing the interaction between HSP47 and collagen.

Communicated by Ramaswamy H. Sarma     

A plant RNA virus hijacks endocytic proteins to establish its infection in plants

Endocytosis and endosomal trafficking play essential roles in diverse biological processes including responses to pathogen attack. It is well established that animal viruses enter host cells through receptor‐mediated endocytosis for infection. However, the role of endocytosis in plant virus infection still largely remains unknown. Plant dynamin‐related proteins 1 (DRP1) and 2 (DRP2) are the large, multidomain GTPases that participate together in endocytosis. Recently, we have discovered that DRP2 is co‐opted by Turnip mosaic virus (TuMV) for infection in plants. We report here that DRP1 is also required for TuMV infection. We show that overexpression of DRP1 from Arabidopsis thaliana (AtDRP1A) promotes TuMV infection, and AtDRP1A interacts with several viral proteins including VPg and cylindrical inclusion (CI), which are the essential components of the virus replication complex (VRC). AtDRP1A colocalizes with the VRC in TuMV‐infected cells. Transient expression of a dominant negative (DN) mutant of DRP1A disrupts DRP1‐dependent endocytosis and supresses TuMV replication. As adaptor protein (AP) complexes mediate cargo selection for endocytosis, we further investigated the requirement of AP in TuMV infection. Our data suggest that the medium unit of the AP2 complex (AP2β) is responsible for recognizing the viral proteins as cargoes for endocytosis, and knockout of AP2β impairs intracellular endosomal trafficking of VPg and CI and inhibits TuMV replication. Collectively, our results demonstrate that DRP1 and AP2β are two proviral host factors of TuMV and shed light into the involvement of endocytosis and endosomal trafficking in plant virus infection.     

转座子引起的猪ktn1基因结构变异及其与生产性能的关联分析

为探明转座子对猪的ktn1基因及其侧翼区结构变异的贡献,从全基因组测序(WGS)数据库中获取14个猪基因组中的ktn1基因序列和侧翼序列,通过ClustalX多序列比对和RepeatMasker转座子注释,全面解析转座子对ktn1的影响。通过PCR检测到一个SINEA1转座子插入多态,在苏姜猪群体中与相关性状进行关联分析。结果显示,ktn1基因及其侧翼区中含有至少77个转座子片段,其中绝大部分(98.70%)为SINE类转座子,并鉴定到9个小结构变异和4个由转座子引起的大结构变异,表明转座子是基因变异的重要来源。其中一个SINEA1插入多态引起的结构变异,在不同品种中呈现丰富的多态性,且无插入个体(SINE-/-)苏姜猪的断奶窝重((64.20±10.6) kg)比纯合有插入个体(SINE+/+)((74.14±9.0) kg)和杂合有插入个体(SINE+/-)((69.71±7.7) kg)轻(P<0.05),表明基于转座子插入多态研发分子标记具有可行性,提示转座子插入多态分子标记在分子辅助育种中具有较强的应用潜力。