Breeding of a new variety of peanut with high-oleic-acid content and high-yield by marker-assisted backcrossing

Molecular Breeding - Grain hardness (HI) is a key trait for wheat milling and end-use quality. Puroindoline genes (PINs) are the major genes responsible for grain hardness, but other QTLs...     

The Mediating Role of Coping Style in the Relationship between Psychological Capital and Burnout among Chinese Nurses

Background

Burnout is recognized as an occupational hazard, and nursing has a high risk of burnout. This study aims to explore the relationship between psychological capital (PsyCap) and burnout among Chinese nurses and the mediating role of coping style in this relationship.

Methods

A total of 1,496 nurses (effective response rate: 80.11%) from two large general hospitals in Daqing City of China were selected as participants. Data were collected via the Chinese Maslach Burnout Inventory (CMBI), the psychological capital questionnaire (PCQ-24), the Chinese Trait Coping Style Questionnaire (TCSQ) and demographic and caregiver-patient relationship. Hierarchical linear regression analyses were performed to explore the mediating role of positive coping and negative coping, and we used the Bootstrap method to confirm the mediating effect.

Results

Self-efficacy, hope, resilience and optimism of nurses were all negatively related with emotional exhaustion, depersonalization and reduced personal accomplishment among Chinese nurses. Positive coping partially mediated the relationship between hope/optimism and emotional exhaustion and between self-efficacy/optimism and reduced personal accomplishment. Negative coping fully mediated the relationship between self-efficacy and emotional exhaustion, and in the regression model self-efficacy was positively correlated with emotional exhaustion. And negative coping also partially mediated the relationship between hope/optimism and emotional exhaustion and between optimism and depersonalization.

Conclusion

PsyCap had effects on burnout and coping style was a mediator in this relationship among Chinese nurses. Nurses who had a strong sense of self-efficacy adopted more negative coping style, which in turn would lead to higher levels of emotional exhaustion. These findings shed light on the influence of negative coping on burnout, and positive coping was a positive resource for fighting against nurses’ burnout. Hence, in order to avoid negative coping style, improve skill of coping and enhance PsyCap of nurses, active interventions should be developed in the future.     

Co-Positivity for Anti-dsDNA, -Nucleosome and -Histone Antibodies in Lupus Nephritis Is Indicative of High Serum Levels and Severe Nephropathy

ObjectiveTo characterize the significance of correlated autoantibodies in systemic lupus erythematosus (SLE) and its complication lupus nephritis (LN) in a large cohort of patients.MethodsClinical data were statistically analyzed in 1699 SLE patients with or without nephritis who were diagnosed and treated during 2002–2013 in the northeast region of China. Reactivity to a list of 16 autoantibodies was detected by the serum test Euroline ANA profile (IgG). Serum titers of the anti-nucleosome autoantibodies were measured by ELISA assays. Kidney biopsies were examined by pathologists. Immune complex deposition was identified by immunohistochemistry stain.ResultsSimultaneous positivity of anti-dsDNA, -nucleosome and -histone antibodies (3-pos) was prevalent in SLE patients with LN compared to Non-renal SLE patients (41% vs 11%, p< 0.001). Significant correlations were found between any two of the above three anti-nucleosome antibodies in LN patients. In comparison to non-3-pos cohorts, 3-pos patients with LN had significantly higher serum levels of the three antibodies and more active disease; was associated with type IV disease; suffered from more severe renal damages; received more intensive treatment and had worse disease outcome. The serum levels of these three autoantibodies in 3-pos LN patients were significantly decreased when they underwent clinical recovery.ConclusionsSimultaneous reactivity to anti-dsDNA, -nucleosome and -histone antibodies by Euroline ANA profile (IgG) may indicate severe nephropathy in patients with SLE.     

Network Propagation with Dual Flow for Gene Prioritization

Based on the hypothesis that the neighbors of disease genes trend to cause similar diseases, network-based methods for disease prediction have received increasing attention. Taking full advantage of network structure, the performance of global distance measurements is generally superior to local distance measurements. However, some problems exist in the global distance measurements. For example, global distance measurements may mistake non-disease hub proteins that have dense interactions with known disease proteins for potential disease proteins. To find a new method to avoid the aforementioned problem, we analyzed the differences between disease proteins and other proteins by using essential proteins (proteins encoded by essential genes) as references. We find that disease proteins are not well connected with essential proteins in the protein interaction networks. Based on this new finding, we proposed a novel strategy for gene prioritization based on protein interaction networks. We allocated positive flow to disease genes and negative flow to essential genes, and adopted network propagation for gene prioritization. Experimental results on 110 diseases verified the effectiveness and potential of the proposed method.     

Soil physicochemical properties drive the variation in soil microbial communities along a forest successional series in a degraded wetland in northeastern China

The Sanjiang Plain is the biggest freshwater wetland locating in northeastern China. Due to climate change and human activities, that wetland has degraded to a successional gradient from the original flooded wetland to dry shrub vegetation and a forest area with lower ground water level, which may result in changes in soil microbiologic structure and functions. The present study investigated the microbial diversity and community structure in relation to soil properties along that successional gradient. The soil physico‐chemical properties changed significantly with degradation stage. The Shannon diversity index of both soil bacteria (5.90–6.42) and fungi (1.7–4.19) varied significantly with successional stage (both p < .05). The community structures of soil bacteria and fungi in the early successional stages (i.e., the wetland) were significantly determined by water content, total nitrogen, and available nitrogen concentrations in soils, while those in the later successional stages (i.e., forests) were significantly structured by soil organic carbon, soil pH, and available phosphorus concentrations. These results suggest that the soil microbial structure is mainly determined by soil properties rather than by plant community such as plant species composition along successional stages.