Photoactivatable aggregation-induced emission luminogens based on photodehydrogenation reactions for biomedical applications

The development of photoactivatable aggregation-induced emission (AIE) probes is one of the hotspots for bioimaging and imaging-guided precise disease therapy due to the distinct advantages of high spatiotemporal resolution, precise spatiotemporal controllability, and noninvasiveness of light. To design and develop novel photoactivatable AIE probes, functional groups based on photodehydrogenation reaction mechanisms are combined with the AIE-active skeleton. Here, the recent progress in biomedical applications of photoactivatable AIE probes based on photocyclodehydrogenation and photo-oxidative dehydrogenation reactions are summarized briefly. Moreover, the outlook for photoactivatable AIE probes is discussed to aim at promoting innovative research in biomedical applications.     

番茄、玉米套种膜下滴灌条件下农田地温变化特征

土壤水热状况是影响作物生长的重要因素,以膜下滴灌及套种双重效应为背景,针对番茄、玉米套种农田设置了高(番茄:180 mm,玉米:270 mm)、中(番茄:132 mm,玉米:202.5 mm)、低(番茄:84 mm,135 mm)3种不同的灌溉定额,采用定位监测法测定番茄带膜间裸地(A)、覆膜番茄行间(B)、番茄带与玉米带膜间裸地(C)、覆膜玉米行间(D)共4个位置的不同深度主根区含水率和地温动态变化,研究了地膜覆盖、土壤水分以及作物遮阴对套种农田不同行间,不同深度土壤温度的影响特征。结果表明:全生育期内,4个水平位置的地温大小顺序与土壤深度有关,10 cm以上的地温大小顺序为CDAB,10 cm以下的地温大小顺序为DBAC;从土壤温度场的分布情况来看,地温的最大变幅出现在C处,为8.10℃;最小变幅出现在B处,为4.71℃;含水率与地温的关系表现为:5 cm以上地温与含水率呈反比关系,20 cm以下地温与含水率呈正比关系。可见,套种覆膜滴灌农田合适的土壤水分状况将有利于根区良好水热的形成,从而更有利于作物的生长。研究结果将对西北地区滴灌农田管理有一定的参考价值。     

Distinguishing Patients with Parkinson's Disease Subtypes from Normal Controls Based on Functional Network Regional Efficiencies

Many studies have demonstrated that the pathophysiology and clinical symptoms of Parkinson''s disease (PD) are inhomogeneous. However, the symptom-specific intrinsic neural activities underlying the PD subtypes are still not well understood. Here, 15 tremor-dominant PD patients, 10 non-tremor-dominant PD patients, and 20 matched normal controls (NCs) were recruited and underwent resting-state functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI). Functional brain networks were constructed based on randomly generated anatomical templates with and without the cerebellum. The regional network efficiencies (i.e., the local and global efficiencies) were further measured and used to distinguish subgroups of PD patients (i.e., with tremor-dominant PD and non-tremor-dominant PD) from the NCs using linear discriminant analysis. The results demonstrate that the subtype-specific functional networks were small-world-organized and that the network regional efficiency could discriminate among the individual PD subgroups and the NCs. Brain regions involved in distinguishing between the study groups included the basal ganglia (i.e., the caudate and putamen), limbic regions (i.e., the hippocampus and thalamus), the cerebellum, and other cerebral regions (e.g., the insula, cingulum, and calcarine sulcus). In particular, the performances of the regional local efficiency in the functional network were better than those of the global efficiency, and the performances of global efficiency were dependent on the inclusion of the cerebellum in the analysis. These findings provide new evidence for the neurological basis of differences between PD subtypes and suggest that the cerebellum may play different roles in the pathologies of different PD subtypes. The present study demonstrated the power of the combination of graph-based network analysis and discrimination analysis in elucidating the neural basis of different PD subtypes.     

Identification of Novel AR-Targeted MicroRNAs Mediating Androgen Signalling through Critical Pathways to Regulate Cell Viability in Prostate Cancer

MicroRNAs (miRNAs) have been recognized as significantly involved in prostate cancer (PCa). Since androgen receptor (AR) plays a central role in PCa carcinogenesis and progression, it is imperative to systematically elucidate the causal association between AR and miRNAs, focusing on the molecular mechanisms by which miRNAs mediate AR signalling. In this study, we performed a series of time-course microarrays to observe the dynamic genome-wide expressions of mRNAs and miRNAs in parallel in hormone-sensitive prostate cancer LNCaP cells stimulated by androgen. Accordingly, we introduced Response Score to identify AR target miRNAs, as well as Modulation Score to identify miRNA target mRNAs. Based on theoretical identification and experimental validation, novel mechanisms addressing cell viability in PCa were unravelled for 3 miRNAs newly recognized as AR targets. (1) miR-19a is directly up-regulated by AR, and represses SUZ12, RAB13, SC4MOL, PSAP and ABCA1, respectively. (2) miR-27a is directly up-regulated by AR, and represses ABCA1 and PDS5B. (3) miR-133b is directly up-regulated by AR, and represses CDC2L5, PTPRK, RB1CC1, and CPNE3, respectively. Moreover, we found miR-133b is essential to PCa cell survival. Our study gives certain clues on miRNAs mediated AR signalling to cell viability by influencing critical pathways, especially by breaking through androgen’s growth restriction effect on normal prostate tissue.     

Meeting Report: BioSharing at ISMB 2010

This report summarizes the proceedings of the one day BioSharing meeting held at the Intelligent Systems for Molecular Biology (ISMB) 2010 conference in Boston, MA, USA This inaugural BioSharing event was hosted by the Genomic Standards Consortium as part of its M3 & BioSharing special interest group (SIG) workshop. The BioSharing event included invited talks from a range of community leaders and a panel discussion at the end of the day. The panel session led to the formal agreement among community leaders to join together to promote cross-community knowledge exchange and collaborations. A key focus of the newly formed Biosharing community will be linking up resources to promote real-world data sharing (virtuous cycle of data) and supporting compliance with data policies through the creation of a one-stop-portal of information. Further information about the newly established BioSharing effort can be found at http://biosharing.org.     

Parasites may help stabilize cooperative relationships

Background  

The persistence of cooperative relationships is an evolutionary paradox; selection should favor those individuals that exploit their partners (cheating), resulting in the breakdown of cooperation over evolutionary time. Our current understanding of the evolutionary stability of mutualisms (cooperation between species) is strongly shaped by the view that they are often maintained by partners having mechanisms to avoid or retaliate against exploitation by cheaters. In contrast, we empirically and theoretically examine how additional symbionts, specifically specialized parasites, potentially influence the stability of bipartite mutualistic associations. In our empirical work we focus on the obligate mutualism between fungus-growing ants and the fungi they cultivate for food. This mutualism is exploited by specialized microfungal parasites (genus Escovopsis) that infect the ant's fungal gardens. Using sub-colonies of fungus-growing ants, we investigate the interactions between the fungus garden parasite and cooperative and experimentally-enforced uncooperative ("cheating") pairs of ants and fungi. To further examine if parasites have the potential to help stabilize some mutualisms we conduct Iterative Prisoner's Dilemma (IPD) simulations, a common framework for predicting the outcomes of cooperative/non-cooperative interactions, which incorporate parasitism as an additional factor.     

Significance of instream autotrophs in trophic dynamics of the Upper Mississippi River

Trophic dynamics of large river–floodplain ecosystems are still not well understood despite development of several conceptual models over the last 25 years. To help resolve questions about the relative contribution of algal and detrital organic matter to food webs in the Upper Mississippi River, we (1) separated living and detrital components of ultrafine and fine transported organic matter (UTOM and FTOM, respectively) by colloidal silica centrifugation; (2) identified stable isotope signatures (δ¹³C and δ¹⁵N) for these two portions of transported organic matter and other potential organic matter sources; and (3) employed a multiple source, dual-isotope mixing model to determine the relative contribution of major energy sources to primary consumers and the potential contribution of basal sources to the biomass of secondary consumers. The δ¹³C and δ¹⁵N of living and detrital fractions of UTOM and FTOM were distinct, indicating clear differences in isotopic composition of the algal and detrital fractions of transported organic matter. Living and detrital transported organic matter also differed from other potential organic matter sources by either δ¹³C or δ¹⁵N. A six-source mixing model using both δ¹³C and δ¹⁵N indicated that algal transported organic matter was the major resource assimilated by primary consumers. The contribution of detrital transported organic matter was small in most cases, but there were a small number of taxa for which it could potentially contribute to more than half the assimilated diet. Colloidal dissolved organic matter, which includes heterotrophic bacteria, accounted for only a small fraction of the organic matter assimilated by most primary consumers, indicating that coupling between microbial processes and metazoan production is minimal. Terrestrial C₃ litter from the floodplain forest floor and aquatic macrophytes were also relatively unimportant to the assimilated diet of primary consumers. Application of the mixing model to compare basal source isotopic ratios to secondary consumers revealed that most organic matter moving from primary to secondary consumers originated from algal TOM. Our findings indicate that autochthonous organic matter is the major energy source supporting metazoan production in the main channel of this large river, at least during the summer. This study joins a number of other investigations performed globally that indicate organic matter originating from instream production of sestonic and benthic microalgae is a major driver in the trophic dynamics of large river ecosystems.     

陆地棉萌发至三叶期不同生育阶段耐盐特性

摘要：土壤盐渍化是一个世界性的资源问题和生态问题,盐分胁迫几乎会影响棉花所有重要的生命活动, 造成棉花的减产或其他不利影响。本试验通过对14个品棉花种（系）的萌发期耐盐性、芽期耐盐性以及两个耐盐性不同的品种（系）三叶期的耐盐性,对棉花不同时期的耐盐特性进行了研究,结果表明：棉花在不同生育阶段耐盐能力是不同的,棉花盐敏感时间是在萌发出苗期。随着生育期的延长,棉花的耐盐性是逐步提高的,进行耐盐性鉴定的最佳时期在是萌发出苗期。在三叶期,随着盐分浓度的提高,棉花苗受伤害程度逐渐增加,盐敏感性品种受伤害大于耐盐品种,在同样盐浓度胁迫条件下,耐盐性不同的品种各部分受到的伤害不同,耐盐品种（系）中棉所35受伤害程度由高到低依次为：真叶>上胚轴>子叶;盐敏感品种（系）Tamcot CAB-CS受伤害程度由高到低依次为：真叶> 子叶>上胚轴。