乌兰巴托-锡林浩特样带草地植被特征与水热因子的关系

2012年夏季,研究人员对蒙古高原长约1100km的乌兰巴托—锡林浩特草地样带开展考察,获取了46个样地的物种数量、地上生物量等数据;基于全球GHCN(全球历史气象网络)数据集,提取了样带夏季(6—8月)月均温度和降水总量;继而根据自然地理和行政区边界,将草地样带大致分成北部(蒙古国乌兰巴托—蒙古国艾日格)、中部(蒙古国艾日格—中国苏尼特左旗)和南部(中国苏尼特左旗—中国锡林浩特),开展了分析。研究表明:(1)样带夏季平均温度的空间分布形态呈现明显的倒"U"型分布,南北两端温度较低,中部温度较高;夏季降水量在空间上的分布形态则与之相反,呈现南北两端降水量较高,中部降水量较低的正"U"型分布;(2)样带上植物物种数量、地上生物量的空间分布形态均呈现正"U"型分布,即在生态景观类型为典型温性草原的样带南部和北部地区,其生物多样性、地上生物量明显好于呈现为温性荒漠草原、温性荒漠景观的样带中部地区。(3)相关分析体现了大尺度(高原样带尺度)上植被特征与水热环境因子间的关系:植物物种数量、地上生物量与夏季月均温度均呈现负相关,而与夏季降水总量则呈现正相关关系。(4)偏相关分析反映了局地小尺度上植被特征与水热环境因子间的关系:温度和降水要素对于植物物种数量、地上生物量均呈现正相关。     

Effects of UV-B radiation on ingestion, fecundity, population dynamics and antioxidant enzyme activities of Schmackeria inopinus (Copepoda Calanoida)

Effects of enhanced ultraviolet B (UV-B, 280-320 nm) on copepods have gained particular attention in recent years. In this study, we investigated the effects of UV-B radiation on ingestion, fecundity, population dynamics and antioxidant enzyme activities of copepod Schmackeria inopinus exposed to varying doses of UV-B irradiance. Artificial UV-B radiation resulted in an increased mortality of nauplii, copepodites and adults with increasing UV-B doses. Nauplii and copepodites were more sensitive to UV-B radiation than adults, and adult males had a higher UV-B radiation susceptivity in comparison with adult females. Both ingestion rates and proportion of gravid females decreased with the increase of UV-B doses; and at the same time, we also observed that adult females had higher ingestion rates as compared with adult males. In comparison with the control, the abundance of the treatment significantly decreased. Antioxidant enzyme (GPx and GR) activities attained a significant increase at lower UV-B radiation doses when compared to the control, but declined at higher UV-B doses. These results suggested that enhanced UV-B radiation might change the species composition of copepods. Our study also showed that antioxidant enzymes might protect S. inopinus against UV-induced oxidative damage.     

抗寒性小麦品种逆境下化学反应与扩散过程的热力学分析

本文以典型的冬性小麦品种及春性品种为对象，利用示踪技术，通过液闪计数据方法，测定了低温胁迫下不同品种膜脂的代谢情况。根据实验的结果，从热力学的角度对低温胁迫下生物脂膜上的化学反应及扩散过程进行了分析，阐明了植株逆境下各种反应降低的原因，丰富了逆境生理研究的内容。     

Sensitivity of 70-mer oligonucleotides and cDNAs for microarray analysis of gene expression in Arabidopsis and its related species

Synthetic oligonucleotides (oligos) represent an attractive alternative to cDNA amplicons for spotted microarray analysis in a number of model organisms, including Arabidopsis, C. elegans, Drosophila, human, mouse and yeast. However, little is known about the relative effectiveness of 60-70-mer oligos and cDNAs for detecting gene expression changes. Using 192 pairs of Arabidopsis thaliana cDNAs and corresponding 70-mer oligos, we performed three sets of dye-swap experiments and used analysis of variance (anova) to compare sources of variation and sensitivities for detecting gene expression changes in A. thaliana, A. arenosa and Brassica oleracea. Our major findings were: (1) variation among different RNA preparations from the same tissue was small, but large variation among dye-labellings and slides indicates the need to replicate these factors; (2) sources of variation were similar for experiments with all three species, suggesting these feature types are effective for analysing gene expression in related species; (3) oligo and cDNA features had similar sensitivities for detecting expression changes and they identified a common subset of significant genes, but results from quantitative RT-PCR did not support the use of one over the other. These findings indicate that spotted oligos are at least as effective as cDNAs for microarray analyses of gene expression. We are using oligos designed from approximately 26,000 annotated genes of A. thaliana to study gene expression changes in Arabidopsis and Brassica polyploids.     

植物脂肪酸脱饱和酶特性及转基因研究进展

脂肪酸代谢是有机体的基本代谢之一。植物体内首先合成的是饱和脂肪酸,然后在脂肪酸脱饱和酶作用下形成不饱和脂肪酸。目前已经从很多植物中克隆到了脂肪酸合成相关的酶,并对其功能进行了鉴定。详细介绍了近年来应用基因工程技术对植物油中不饱和脂肪酸含量和组分进行改造所取得的进展,并对其在植物抗性育种中的应用进行了展望。     

Patterns of SOC and soil 13C and their relations to climatic factors and soil characteristics on the Qinghai–Tibetan Plateau

Background and aims

SOC inventory and soil δ¹³C were widely used to access the size of soil C pool and to indicate the dynamics of C input and output. The effects of climatic factors and soil physical characteristics and plant litter input on SOC inventory and soil δ¹³C were analyzed to better understand the dynamics of carbon cycling across ecosystems on the Qinghai-Tibetan Plateau.

Methods

Field investigation was carried out along the two transects with a total of 1,875 km in length and 200 km in width. Sixty-two soil profiles, distributed in forest, meadow, steppe, and cropland, were stratified sampled every 10 cm from 0 to 40 cm.

Results

Our result showed that SOC density in forest and meadows were much higher than in steppe and highland barley. In contrast, δ¹³C in forest and meadow were lower than in steppe and highland barley. Soil δ¹³C tended to enrich with increasing soil depth but SOC decline. SOC and δ¹³C (0–40 cm) were correlated with different climatic factors in different ecosystems, such that SOC correlated negatively with MAT in meadow and positively with MAP in steppe; δ¹³C correlated positively with MAT in meadow and steppe; and δ¹³C also tended to increase with increasing MAT in forest. Of the variation of SOC, 55.15 % was explained by MAP, pH and silt content and 4.63 % was explained by the interaction between MAT and pH across all the ecosystems except for the cropland. Meanwhile, SOC density explained 27.40 % of variation of soil δ¹³C.

Conclusions

It is suggested that different climatic factors controlled the size of the soil C pool in different ecosystems on the Tibetan Plateau. SOC density is a key contributor to the variation of soil δ¹³C.     

Poly(lactic-co-glycolic acid) nanoparticles as candidate DNA vaccine carrier for oral immunization of Japanese flounder (Paralichthys olivaceus) against lymphocystis disease virus

In order to protect DNA vaccine against degradation in alimentary tract of fish, poly(lactic-co-glycolic acid) (PLGA) nanoparticles encapsulating vaccine were prepared using W/O/W emulsification combined with spray drying technique in our laboratory. The characteristics of PLGA nanoparticles were described as follows: (1) shape, spherical; (2) size, <500 nm; (3) yield, ～96.2%; loading percentage, ～0.5%; encapsulation efficiency, ～63.7%; supercoiled conformation percentage, ～65%; (4) release dynamics, gradual release. In vitro transfection in SISK cells showed that PLGA nanoparticles could be utilized to transfect eukaryotes. After oral administration, FITC-labeled PLGA nanoparticles were detected in blood of fish, and RNA containing major capsid protein (MCP) gene information existed in various tissues of fish 10-90 days. In addition, the analysis of immune parameters in sera of treatment fish showed that: (1) infection rate of LCDV post-challenge, ～16.7%; (2) prophenoloxidase, superoxide dismutase, respiratory burst, lysozyme and antibody levels, increased significantly (p<0.05); (3) activities of serum complement, changed a little (p>0.05). Pearson's correlation displayed that correlation of immune factors mentioned above (not including serum complement) were all positive for fish vaccinated. The data in this study suggested that PLGA nanoparticles were promising carriers for plasmid DNA vaccine and might be used to vaccinate fish by oral approach.     

沙枣细胞悬浮培养体系的建立

分别以沙枣幼嫩叶片,茎段为外植体诱导沙枣愈伤组织,选择生长旺盛的松散愈伤组织进行细胞悬浮培养,探讨了培养基种类和激素组合对其产生的影响.结果表明,最适的沙枣愈伤组织诱导培养基为NT(包括0.1 mg·L-1BA和0.1 mg·L-1TDZ);沙枣悬浮细胞在MS,NT,WPM,B5和IS培养基中均可生长,其中在NT培养基中生长状态最好,呈现生长均一的绿色疏松状态.激素组合对沙枣细胞生长影响很大,其中附加BA 0.1 mg·L-1和TDZ 0.1 mg·L-1组合的NT液体培养基可获得大量繁殖速度快、生长均匀一致的悬浮细胞,细胞增长系数达5.73.HPLC测定结果证明沙枣细胞中含有一定量的浓缩鞣质达5.2022 mg/gDW,这为利用沙枣悬浮细胞生产次生代谢产物提供了一条有效途径.     

Neural crest cell deficiency of c-myc causes skull and hearing defects

The proto-oncogene c-myc has a central role in multiple processes important for embryonic development, including cell proliferation, growth, apoptosis, and differentiation. We have investigated the role of c-myc in neural crest by using Wnt1-Cre-mediated deletion of a conditional mutation of the c-myc gene. c-myc deficiency in neural crest resulted in viable adult mice that have defects in coat color, skull frontal bone, and middle ear ossicle development. Physiological hearing studies demonstrated a significant hearing deficit in the mutant mice. In this report, we focus on the craniofacial and hearing defects. To further examine neural crest cells affected by c-myc deficiency, we fate mapped Wnt1-Cre expressing neural crest cells using the ROSA26 Cre reporter transgene. The phenotype obtained demonstrates the critical role that c-myc has in neural crest during craniofacial development as well as in providing a model for examining human congenital skull defects and deafness.