Reaction intensification for biocatalytic production of polyphenolic natural product di-C-β-glucosides

Polyphenolic aglycones featuring two sugars individually attached via C-glycosidic linkage (di-C-glycosides) represent a rare class of plant natural products with unique physicochemical properties and biological activities. Natural scarcity of such di-C-glycosides limits their use-inspired exploration as pharmaceutical ingredients. Here, we show a biocatalytic process technology for reaction-intensified production of the di-C-β-glucosides of two representative phenol substrates, phloretin (a natural flavonoid) and phenyl-trihydroxyacetophenone (a phenolic synthon for synthesis), from sucrose. The synthesis proceeds via an iterative two-fold C-glycosylation of the respective aglycone, supplied as inclusion complex with 2-hydroxypropyl β-cyclodextrin for enhanced water solubility of up to 50 mmol/L, catalyzed by a kumquat di-C-glycosyltransferase (di-CGT), and it uses UDP-Glc provided in situ from sucrose by a soybean sucrose synthase, with catalytic amounts (≤3 mol%) of UDP added. Time course analysis reveals the second C-glycosylation as rate-limiting (0.4–0.5 mmol/L/min) for the di-C-glucoside production. With internal supply from sucrose keeping the UDP-Glc at a constant steady-state concentration (≥50% of the UDP added) during the reaction, the di-C-glycosylation is driven to completion (≥95% yield). Contrary to the mono-C-glucoside intermediate which is stable, the di-C-glucoside requires the addition of reducing agent (10 mmol/L 2-mercaptoethanol) to prevent its decomposition during the synthesis. Both di-C-glucosides are isolated from the reaction mixtures in excellent purity (≥95%), and their expected structures are confirmed by NMR. Collectively, this study demonstrates efficient glycosyltransferase cascade reaction for flexible use in natural product di-C-β-glucoside synthesis from expedient substrates.     

冬季饥饿再投喂对菲律宾蛤仔生长、存活和生化组成的影响

2007年12月—2008年4月,在冬季低温（水温3.0 ℃～4.2 ℃、盐度25～27、pH 7.90～8.16）条件下,采用饥饿时间不等、恢复投喂时间相同的方式,研究了饥饿再投喂对不同规格菲律宾蛤仔生长、存活及体组分的影响.结果表明：在冬季低温条件下,各试验组菲律宾蛤仔生长性状的差异不明显;其对饥饿的耐受能力随着蛤仔规格的增大而升高;存活率随着饥饿时间的延长而降低,但整个试验过程中未出现不可逆点.从较大规格菲律宾蛤仔（壳长7 mm）的体组分上看：菲律宾蛤仔水分、脂肪含量随着饥饿时间的延长而下降;蛋白质含量在饥饿前期随着脂肪的消耗而上升,后期因脂肪的过度消耗开始被利用而下降;灰分含量在整个试验过程中的变化不显著.     

香港巨牡蛎与长牡蛎种间配子兼容性

为了评估香港巨牡蛎与长牡蛎的配子兼容性,于2010年7月,以性腺成熟的香港巨牡蛎和长牡蛎为材料,研究了环境因子温度(16、20、24、28、32℃)、盐度(10、15、20、25、30)及内在因子精子浓度(100、101、102、103、104个/μL)、个体差异(240次杂交实验)对其受精率的影响,并计算了以上条件下的F50临界值。结果表明:香港巨牡蛎卵子可以与长牡蛎精子受精,但相反方向不能受精,存在着单向受精现象。温度是影响长牡蛎配子兼容性主要因子,盐度是影响香港巨牡蛎的主要因子,而温度、盐度交互作用是影响种间配子兼容性的最主要因子。种间配子温度、盐度的F50临界值分别为20.90℃、14.7。精子浓度及单对杂交中的个体差异均显著影响配子兼容性,精子浓度的F50临界值为2.40个/μL;在240次杂交实验中,有91次受精率不足50%,说明个体差异比例的F50临界值37.92%。从其内在因子来看,长牡蛎平均受精率最高(96.83%),配子兼容性较好;对于香港巨牡蛎(70.98%)与种间配子(58.70%)而言,受精水平相对较低,且存在着较大的个体差异。     

Noise does not equal bias in assessing the evolutionary history of the angiosperm flora of China: A response to Qian (2019)

In response to our paper on the evolutionary history of the Chinese flora, Qian suggests that certain features of the divergence time estimation employed might have led to biased conclusions in Lu et al (2018). Here, we consider Qian's specific criticisms, explore the extent of uncertainty in the data and demonstrate that (i) no systematic bias toward dates that are too young or too old is detected in Lu et al.; (ii) constraint of the crown age of angiosperms does not bias the generic ages estimated by Lu et al.; and (iii) ages derived from the Chinese regional phylogeny do not bias the conclusions reported by Lu et al. All these analyses confirm that the conclusions reported previously are robust. We argue that, like many large-scale biodiversity analyses, sources of noise in divergence time estimation are to be expected, but these should not be confused with bias.     

FHSA-SED: Two-Locus Model Detection for Genome-Wide Association Study with Harmony Search Algorithm

Motivation

Two-locus model is a typical significant disease model to be identified in genome-wide association study (GWAS). Due to intensive computational burden and diversity of disease models, existing methods have drawbacks on low detection power, high computation cost, and preference for some types of disease models.

Method

In this study, two scoring functions (Bayesian network based K2-score and Gini-score) are used for characterizing two SNP locus as a candidate model, the two criteria are adopted simultaneously for improving identification power and tackling the preference problem to disease models. Harmony search algorithm (HSA) is improved for quickly finding the most likely candidate models among all two-locus models, in which a local search algorithm with two-dimensional tabu table is presented to avoid repeatedly evaluating some disease models that have strong marginal effect. Finally G-test statistic is used to further test the candidate models.

Results

We investigate our method named FHSA-SED on 82 simulated datasets and a real AMD dataset, and compare it with two typical methods (MACOED and CSE) which have been developed recently based on swarm intelligent search algorithm. The results of simulation experiments indicate that our method outperforms the two compared algorithms in terms of detection power, computation time, evaluation times, sensitivity (TPR), specificity (SPC), positive predictive value (PPV) and accuracy (ACC). Our method has identified two SNPs (rs3775652 and rs10511467) that may be also associated with disease in AMD dataset.     

The hills and valleys of calcium signaling

正Calcium is important for life.Studies over the last several decades have gradually revealed the critical involvement of calcium,especially its ionic form(Ca~(2+)),in every aspect of life forms on earth.Among them,a great deal of work has been done to illustrate how Ca2+levels are regulated in the cytoplasm and how many of the cytosolic enzymes and sig-