入侵植物筛选方法在我国口岸防控中的应用建议

入侵植物是生物入侵中数量最多的类群,给全世界造成了重大的经济和环境影响。植物入侵的预测研究是口岸防控工作中的重要技术环节之一。本文介绍了入侵植物筛选方法的概念,简述了与之相关的基础理论、研究情况以及3种植物入侵的预测方法。综合来看,入侵植物筛选方法主要采用植物自身的生物生态学特性作为评估指标来筛选外来植物,能快速可靠地将外来植物评判为严重入侵植物、非入侵植物以及介于二者之间的一般入侵植物,因此该方法能为我国口岸防范外来植物入侵的管理提供基础技术支撑。当前我国入侵植物筛选方法的研究和应用尚处起步阶段,通过本文的简述期望引起相关人员对此问题进行探讨,并为我国口岸入侵植物防控工作提供理论参考。     

贵州省凤仙花属6个新记录种

报道了贵州省凤仙花属（Impatiens）6个新记录种（含1变种）,分别是锐齿凤仙花（Impatiens arguta Hook.f.& Thomson.）、线萼凤仙花（Impatiens linearisepala S.Akiyama, H.Ohba & S.K.Wu）、川鄂凤仙花（Impatiens fargesii Hook.f.）、林生凤仙花（Impatiens lucorum Hook.f.）、雅致黄金凤（Impatiens siculifer var. mitis Lingelsheim & Borza）和田林凤仙花（Impatiens tianlinensis S.X.Yu & L.J.Zhang）。该文提供了新记录种形态特征照片和地理分布,凭证标本保存于贵州大学林学院树木标本室（GZAC）。     

All-atom contact potential approach to protein thermostability analysis

In this paper we use all-atom potential energy to define and analyze the inter-residue contacts in mesophilic and thermophilic proteins. Fifteen families of proteins are selected and each family has two representative proteins with greatly different preferred environmental temperatures. We find that both the number and energy of the contacts defined in this way show stronger correlations with the preferred temperatures of proteins than other factors used before. We also find that the charged-polar and charged-nonpolar residue contacts not only have larger contact numbers but also have lower single contact energies. Furthermore, the most important is that most of the thermophilic proteins have more charged-polar and charged-nonpolar residue contacts than their mesophilic counterparts. This suggests that they may play an important role in the thermostability of proteins, except usual charged-charged and nonpolar-nonpolar residue contacts. Charged residues may exert their profound influence by forming contacts not only with other charged residues but also with polar or nonpolar residues, thus further increasing the strength of contact network and then the thermostability of proteins.     

The O-chain structure from the LPS of the bacterium Naxibacter alkalitolerans YIM 31775T

The O-chain polysaccharide of the lipopolysaccharide from the bacterium Naxibacter alkalitolerans strain YIM 31775(T) was characterized. The structure was studied by means of chemical analysis and 2D NMR spectroscopy and shown to be built up by the following tetrasaccharide repeating unit: -->3)-alpha-D-FucpNAc-(1-->2)-beta-D-Quip3NHBu-(1-->2)-alpha-D-Rhap-(1-->)-beta-D-Galp-(1--> where HBu is hydroxy-butanoyl.     

Effects of in vivo exposure to DEET on blood feeding behavior and fecundity in Anopheles quadrimaculatus (Diptera: Culicidae)

This study determined the effects of contact with DEET on guinea pig skin on mortality, probing time, blood feeding rate, engorgement time, and fecundity responses in female Anopheles quadrimaculatus Say. Exposure, in this manner, to 10% DEET (in ethanol) for 5 min, resulted in 98% mortality in mosquitoes after 24h. The median probing time (PT(50)) required by females, when exposed to 0.1%, 1.0%, and 10% DEET, was significantly (P<0.0001) longer (12.5, 12.1, and 19.1s, respectively) than the 6.8s required by females to probe ethanol-treated skin (control). Similarly, mean blood feeding rates in populations of females exposed to 1.0% DEET for < or = 5 min (14.4%) was 6x lower (P<0.001) (85.5%) than in females exposed to ethanol-treated skin, whereas the mean engorgement time on skin treated with 1.0% DEET (66.3s) was significantly shorter (P<0.0001) than for females feeding on the control guinea pigs (105.9s). The mean number of mature o?cytes per female (fecundity) in treatment (1.0% DEET) and control mosquitoes was not significantly different. The responses to DEET observed in this study suggest that repeated exposure of female A. quadrimaculatus populations to this repellent, in laboratory bioassays, could result in confounding of toxicant and repellent effects and inaccurate estimates of DEET repellency.     

Surfactin from Bacillus subtilis displays anti-proliferative effect via apoptosis induction, cell cycle arrest and survival signaling suppression

The effect of surfactin on the proliferation of LoVo cells, a human colon carcinoma cell line, was examined. Surfactin strongly blocked the proliferation of LoVo cells by inducing pro-apoptotic activity and arresting the cell cycle, according to several lines of evidence on DNA fragmentation, Annexin V staining, and altered levels of poly (ADP-ribose) polymerase, caspase-3, p21(WAF1/Cip1), p53, CDK2 and cyclin E. The anti-proliferative activity of surfactin was mediated by inhibiting extracellular-related protein kinase and phosphoinositide 3-kinase/Akt activation, as assessed by phosphorylation levels. Therefore, our data suggest that surfactin may have anti-cancer properties as a result of its ability to downregulate the cell cycle and suppress its survival.     

Bayesian mapping of genomewide interacting quantitative trait loci for ordinal traits

Development of statistical methods and software for mapping interacting QTL has been the focus of much recent research. We previously developed a Bayesian model selection framework, based on the composite model space approach, for mapping multiple epistatic QTL affecting continuous traits. In this study we extend the composite model space approach to complex ordinal traits in experimental crosses. We jointly model main and epistatic effects of QTL and environmental factors on the basis of the ordinal probit model (also called threshold model) that assumes a latent continuous trait underlies the generation of the ordinal phenotypes through a set of unknown thresholds. A data augmentation approach is developed to jointly generate the latent data and the thresholds. The proposed ordinal probit model, combined with the composite model space framework for continuous traits, offers a convenient way for genomewide interacting QTL analysis of ordinal traits. We illustrate the proposed method by detecting new QTL and epistatic effects for an ordinal trait, dead fetuses, in a F(2) intercross of mice. Utility and flexibility of the method are also demonstrated using a simulated data set. Our method has been implemented in the freely available package R/qtlbim, which greatly facilitates the general usage of the Bayesian methodology for genomewide interacting QTL analysis for continuous, binary, and ordinal traits in experimental crosses.     

Interaction of rice dwarf virus outer capsid P8 protein with rice glycolate oxidase mediates relocalization of P8

Yeast two-hybrid and coimmunoprecipitation assays indicated that P8, an outer capsid protein of Rice dwarf phytoreovirus (RDV), interacts with rice glycolate oxidase (GOX), a typical enzyme of peroxisomes. Confocal immunofluorescence microscopy revealed that P8 was colocalized with GOX in peroxisomes. Time course analysis demonstrated that the localization of P8 in Spodoptera frugiperda cells changed from diffuse to discrete, punctuate inclusions during expression from 24 to 48 h post inoculation. Coexpression of GOX with P8 may target P8 into peroxisomes, which serve as replication sites for a number of viruses. Therefore, we conclude that the interaction of P8 with the GOX of host cells leads to translocation of P8 into peroxisomes and we further propose that the interaction between P8 and GOX may play important roles in RDV targeting into the replication site of host cells. Our findings have broad significance in studying the mechanisms whereby viruses target appropriate replication sites and begin their replication.     

Main antimicrobial components of Tinospora capillipes, and their mode of action against Staphylococcus aureus

In this investigation, the antibacterial modes of action of Radix Tinosporae, its major single components, and nine antibiotics with different targets or modes-of-action on Staphylococcus aureus were studied. Metabolic profiles of cultures treated with different medicines were acquired by HPLC/ESI-MS. After HPLC-MS data pretreatment, those profiles acquired were reduced into several MS vectors. Then statistical processing by principal components analysis was carried out upon those vectors, two conclusions could be drawn: (1) the antibacterial mode of action of Radix Tinosporae is similar to that of rifampicin and norfloxacin, which act on nucleic acid; (2) its active components playing main antimicrobial roles on Staphylococcus aureus might be alkaloids, such as palmatine and jatrorrhizine.