Canopy height variation and environmental heterogeneity in the tropical dry forests of coastal Oaxaca,Mexico

Despite its importance for carbon storage and other ecosystem functions, the variation in vegetation canopy height is not yet well understood. We examined the relationship between this community attribute and environmental heterogeneity in a tropical dry forest of southern Mexico. We sampled vegetation in 15 sites along a 100‐km coastal stretch of Oaxaca State, and measured the heights of all woody plants (excluding lianas). The majority of the ca. 4000 individuals recorded concentrated in the 4–8 m height range. We defined three plant sets to describe overall community canopy height at each site: a set including all plants, a set made up by the tallest plants representing 10 percent of all individuals, and a set comprising the 10 tallest plants. For each site we computed maximum height and the mean and median heights of the three sets. Significant collinearity was observed between the seven resulting height variables, but null distributions constructed through bootstrap revealed their different behaviors as functions of species richness and density of individuals. Through linear modeling and a model selection procedure, we identified 21 models that best described the variation in canopy height variables. These models pointed out to soil (measured as PC1 of a principal component analysis performed on 10 soil variables), water stress, and elevation as the main drivers of canopy height variation in the region. In the event of increasing water stress resulting from global climate change, the studied tropical dry forests could become shorter and thus decrease their carbon storage potential.     

家蚕多聚泛素基因的电子克隆、序列分析及表达谱预测

具选择性蛋白质降解功能的泛素在昆虫生长发育过程中起着重要的调控作用。本研究采用电子克隆的方法钓取家蚕基因组中多聚泛素基因序列,命名为Bm-polyUB(GenBank登录号:AADK01019318),并进行序列分析和电子表达谱预测。序列分析表明,该编码区长3426bp,编码1141个氨基酸残基的15聚体,预测分子量和等电点分别为127.97kD和7.33,二级结构中α-螺旋、延伸带、β-转角和无规则卷曲各占17.09%、32.78%、14.37%和35.76%,亚细胞定位于细胞质、细胞核和线粒体各占43.5%、34.8%和21.7%,无前导肽、信号肽和跨膜区;多重序列比对显示,15个泛素单体基因序列间同源性和遗传距离分别介于89.0%～100.0%和0.000～0.120,其中Bm-UB3与Bm-UB10、Bm-UB5与Bm-UB7及Bm-UB10与Bm-UB14的序列相同;遗传多样性分析可见,共检出33个多态性位点,共生成12个单倍型,单倍型多样性(Hd=0.962)、平均核苷酸差异数(K=7.495)、核苷酸多样性(Pi=0.03287)、密码子有效值(ENC=41.62361)、偏爱指标(CBI=0.4960)和χ2检验计算(χ2=0.713)显示泛素单体间遗传多样性较丰富且呈现较强的密码子偏爱性;电子表达谱预测结果表明Bm-polyUB基因在家蚕中高表达的组织和发育阶段所占比例显著高于低表达。本文的研究结果可为进一步开展该基因进化机制、表达特性和生理功能等方面的实验研究提供基础资料。     

Who Is the King? The α‐Hydroxy‐β‐oxo‐α,β‐enone Moiety or the Catechol B Ring: Relationship between the Structure of Quercetin Derivatives and Their Pro‐Oxidative Abilities

Quercetin and other flavonoids have been reported to exhibit both antioxidant and pro‐oxidant properties. Most studies about the pro‐oxidative ability were conducted in the presence of metal ions, and the essential functional moiety of quercetin responsible for the pro‐oxidative effect is still unclear. In this study, we evaluated the pro‐oxidative abilities in the absence of metal ions of two quercetin derivatives, i.e., quercetin‐3′‐O‐β‐D ‐glucoside ( 1 ) and quercetin‐3‐O‐β‐D ‐glucoside ( 2 ), by assessing DNA cleavage and HO^.‐radical production. The binding mode between these compounds and DNA was studied by fluorescence and viscometric titrations. The results showed that 1 can efficiently induce oxidative damage to plasmid DNA, while 2 shows poor activity. Both 1 and 2 bind to DNA via groove‐binding. These results proved that the α‐hydroxy‐β‐oxo‐α,β‐enone moiety contributes to the pro‐oxidative activity of quercetin.     

Thermal stability and detonation character of nitro-substituted derivatives of imidazole

Journal of Molecular Modeling - The role of resultant gradient-information concept, reflecting the kinetic energy of electrons, in shaping the molecular electronic structure and reactivity...     

Methane emissions reduce the radiative cooling effect of a subtropical estuarine mangrove wetland by half

The role of coastal mangrove wetlands in sequestering atmospheric carbon dioxide (CO₂) and mitigating climate change has received increasing attention in recent years. While recent studies have shown that methane (CH₄) emissions can potentially offset the carbon burial rates in low‐salinity coastal wetlands, there is hitherto a paucity of direct and year‐round measurements of ecosystem‐scale CH₄ flux (F_CH4) from mangrove ecosystems. In this study, we examined the temporal variations and biophysical drivers of ecosystem‐scale F_CH4 in a subtropical estuarine mangrove wetland based on 3 years of eddy covariance measurements. Our results showed that daily mangrove F_CH4 reached a peak of over 0.1 g CH₄‐C m^?2 day^?1 during the summertime owing to a combination of high temperature and low salinity, while the wintertime F_CH4 was negligible. In this mangrove, the mean annual CH₄ emission was 11.7 ± 0.4 g CH₄‐C m^–2 year^?1 while the annual net ecosystem CO₂ exchange ranged between ?891 and ?690 g CO₂‐C m^?2 year^?1, indicating a net cooling effect on climate over decadal to centurial timescales. Meanwhile, we showed that mangrove F_CH4 could offset the negative radiative forcing caused by CO₂ uptake by 52% and 24% over a time horizon of 20 and 100 years, respectively, based on the corresponding sustained‐flux global warming potentials. Moreover, we found that 87% and 69% of the total variance of daily F_CH4 could be explained by the random forest machine learning algorithm and traditional linear regression model, respectively, with soil temperature and salinity being the most dominant controls. This study was the first of its kind to characterize ecosystem‐scale F_CH4 in a mangrove wetland with long‐term eddy covariance measurements. Our findings implied that future environmental changes such as climate warming and increasing river discharge might increase CH₄ emissions and hence reduce the net radiative cooling effect of estuarine mangrove forests.     

阿尔采末病与免疫炎症反应的相关性

阿尔采末病（Ａｌｚｈｅｉｍｅｒ’ｓｄｉｓｅａｓｅ,ＡＤ）可能是中枢神经系统内免疫活性细胞过程激活而导致的免疫炎症反应,其病灶周围存在大量激活的小胶质细胞和星形细胞,可产生大量补体,炎性细胞因子,急性期反应物等导致神经细胞损伤,破坏和死亡。同时体内寂体调节剂和抑制性细胞因子的水平明显长高,虽然不足以保护神经元免遭破坏,但却提示抑制或阻断中枢神经系统的免疫炎症反应的药物可能在ＡＤ的防治中具有重要作用。     

BcMF9, a novel polygalacturonase gene, is required for both Brassica campestris intine and exine formation

Background and Aims

The polygalacturonase (PG) gene family has been found to be enriched in pollen of several species; however, little is currently known about the function of the PG gene in pollen development. To investigate the exact role that the PG gene has played in pollen development and about this family in general, one putative PG gene, Brassica campestris Male Fertility 9 (BcMF9), was isolated from Chinese cabbage (Brassica campestris ssp. chinensis, syn. B. rapa ssp. chinensis) and characterized.

Methods

RT-PCR, northern blotting and in situ hybridization were used to analyse the expression pattern of BcMF9, and antisense RNA technology was applied to study the function of this gene.

Key Results

BcMF9 is expressed in particular in the tapetum and microspore during the late stages of pollen development. Antisense RNA transgenic plants that displayed decreased expression of BcMF9 showed pollen morphological defects that resulted in reduced pollen germination efficiency. Transmission electron microscopy revealed that the homogeneous pectic exintine layer of pollen facing the exterior was over-developed and predominantly occupied the intine, reversing the normal proportional distribution of the internal endintine layer and the external exintine in transgenic pollen. Inhibition of BcMF9 also resulted in break-up of the previously formed tectum and baculae from the beginning of the binucleate stage, as a result of premature degradation of tapetum.

Conclusions

Several lines of evidence, including patterns of BcMF9 expression and phenotypic defects, suggest a sporophytic role in exine patterning, and a gametophytic mode of action of BcMF9 in intine formation. BcMF9 might act as a co-ordinator in the late stages of tapetum degeneration, and subsequently in the regulation of wall material secretion and, in turn, exine formation. BcMF9 might also play a role in intine formation, possibly via regulation of the dynamic metabolism of pectin.Key words: Brassica campestris, Chinese cabbage, exine, intine, PG, pollen wall, polygalacturonase, BcMF9     

Identification of Up-Regulated Genes After Complete Spinal Cord Transection in Adult Rats

Spinal cord injury (SCI) initiates a cascade of events and these responses to injury are likely to be mediated and reflected by changes in mRNA concentrations. As a step towards understanding the complex mechanisms underlying repair and regeneration after SCI, the gene expression pattern was examined 4.5 days after complete transection at T8-9 level of rat spinal cord. Improved subtractive hybridization was used to establish a subtracted cDNA library using cDNAs from normal rat spinal cord as driver and cDNAs from injured spinal cord as tester. By expressed sequence tag (EST) sequencing, we obtained 73 EST fragments from this library, representing 40 differentially expressed genes. Among them, 32 were known genes and 8 were novel genes. Functions of all annotated genes were scattered in almost every important field of cell life such as DNA repair, detoxification, mRNA quality control, cell cycle control, and signaling, which reflected the complexity of SCI and regeneration. Then we verified subtraction results with semiquantitative RT-PCR for eight genes. These analyses confirmed, to a large extent, that the subtraction results accurately reflected the molecular changes occurring at 4.5 days post-SCI. The current study identified a number of genes that may shed new light on SCI-related inflammation, neuroprotection, neurite-outgrowth, synaptogenesis, and astrogliosis. In conclusion, the identification of molecular changes using improved subtractive hybridization may lead to a better understanding of molecular mechanisms responsible for repair and regeneration after SCI.