Effects of Temperature on Transcriptome Profiles in Cardiocrinum cathayanum Leaves

Russian Journal of Plant Physiology - Cardiocrinum cathayanum (Endl.) Lindl. (Liliaceae) is a promising species for ornamental and pharmaceutical usage. However, genomic responses of C. cathayanum...     

Fire affects the taxonomic and functional composition of soil microbial communities,with cascading effects on grassland ecosystem functioning

Fire is a crucial event regulating the structure and functioning of many ecosystems. Yet few studies have focused on how fire affects taxonomic and functional diversities of soil microbial communities, along with changes in plant communities and soil carbon (C) and nitrogen (N) dynamics. Here, we analyze these effects in a grassland ecosystem 9 months after an experimental fire at the Jasper Ridge Global Change Experiment site in California, USA. Fire altered soil microbial communities considerably, with community assembly process analysis showing that environmental selection pressure was higher in burned sites. However, a small subset of highly connected taxa was able to withstand the disturbance. In addition, fire decreased the relative abundances of most functional genes associated with C degradation and N cycling, implicating a slowdown of microbial processes linked to soil C and N dynamics. In contrast, fire stimulated above‐ and belowground plant growth, likely enhancing plant–microbe competition for soil inorganic N, which was reduced by a factor of about 2. To synthesize those findings, we performed structural equation modeling, which showed that plants but not microbial communities were responsible for significantly higher soil respiration rates in burned sites. Together, our results demonstrate that fire ‘reboots’ the grassland ecosystem by differentially regulating plant and soil microbial communities, leading to significant changes in soil C and N dynamics.     

Compositional turnover and variation in Eemian pollen sequences in Europe

Vegetation History and Archaeobotany - The Eemian interglacial represents a natural experiment on how past vegetation with negligible human impact responded to amplified temperature changes...     

Atg3 promotes Atg8 lipidation via altering lipid diffusion and rearrangement

Atg3‐catalyzed transferring of Atg8 to phosphatidylethanolamine (PE) in the phagophore membrane is essential for autophagy. Previous studies have demonstrated that this process requires Atg3 to interact with the phagophore membrane via its N‐terminal amphipathic helix. In this study, by using combined biochemical and biophysical approaches, our data showed that in addition to binding to the membranes, Atg3 attenuates lipid diffusion and enriches lipid molecules with smaller headgroup. Our data suggest that Atg3 promotes Atg8 lipidation via altering lipid diffusion and rearrangement.     

Decomposition time,chemical traits and climatic factors determine litter-mixing effects on decomposition in an alpine steppe ecosystem in Northern Tibet

Plant and Soil - In the context of rapid species diversity loss, whether and how species diversity affects litter decomposition in alpine ecosystems remain unclear. Here, we aimed to assess the...     

Unlocking the Recovery Potential: JMJD3 Inhibition-Mediated SAPK/JNK Signaling Inactivation Supports Endogenous Oligodendrocyte-Lineage Commitment Post Mammalian Spinal Cord Injury

Spinal cord injury (SCI) induced catastrophic neurological disability is often incurable at present. The injury triggered immediately oligodendrocytes loss and overwhelming demyelination are regarded as an insurmountable barrier to SCI recovery. To date, effective strategy to promote the endogenous oligodendrocytes replacement post SCI remains elusive. Epigenetic modifications are emerging as critical molecular switches of gene expression in CNS. However, the epigenetic mechanisms underlying oligodendrogenesis post SCI yet to be discovered. In this study, we report that H3K27me3 demethylase JMJD3 exists as a pivotal epigenetic regulator which manipulates the endogenous oligodendrogenesis post SCI. We found that JMJD3 inhibition promotes the oligodendrocyte linage commitment of neural stem/progenitor cells (NPCs) in vitro and in vivo. Moreover, we demonstrated that JMJD3 inhibition mediated SAPK/JNK signaling inactivation is functionally necessary for endogenous oligodendrocyte-lineage commitment post SCI. Our results also suggested that JMJD3 is downstream of SAPK/JNK pathway, and capable of translates SCI induced SAPK/JNK signaling into epigenetic codes readable by spinal cord endogenous NPCs. Taken together, our findings provide novel evidence of JMJD3 mediated oligodendrocyte-lineage commitment orchestration post SCI, which would be a potential epigenetic approach to induce the mature mammalian endogenous recovery.

     

Endocytosis against high turgor pressure is made easier by partial coating and freely rotating base

During clathrin-mediated endocytosis, a patch of flat plasma membrane is deformed into a vesicle. In walled cells, such as plants and fungi, the turgor pressure is high and pushes the membrane against the cell wall, thus hindering membrane internalization. In this work, we study how a patch of membrane is deformed against turgor pressure by force and by curvature-generating proteins. We show that a large amount of force is needed to merely start deforming the membrane and an even larger force is needed to pull a membrane tube. The magnitude of these forces strongly depends on how the base of the membrane is constrained and how the membrane is coated with curvature-generating proteins. In particular, these forces can be reduced by partially, but not fully, coating the membrane patch with curvature-generating proteins. Our theoretical results show excellent agreement with experimental data.