兰科杓兰属（Cypripedium）植物种子非共生萌发研究进展

兰科杓兰属(Cypripedium)植物主要分布于东亚、北美等温带地区和亚热带山地。杓兰不仅具有极高的观赏价值,而且其经济价值和科研价值也越来越受到人们的重视。近年来对杓兰属植物人工繁殖的相关研究不断深入,主要集中于种子的非共生萌发等方面。本文对濒危兰科杓兰属植物进行了简要介绍,并就其种子非共生萌发研究从种子成熟度、预处理和有机添加物的作用、培养基的配置等方面进行综述,为目标杓兰种类的非共生萌发试验方案的制定奠定基础,将有助于温带/高山兰科植物保育研究的发展。     

Developing Ethical Awareness in Global Health: Four Cases for Medical Educators

In recent years, the growth of interest in global health among medical students and residents has led to an abundance of short‐term training opportunities in low‐resource environments. Given the disparities in resources, needs and expectations between visitors and their hosts, these experiences can raise complex ethical concerns. Recent calls for best practices and ethical guidelines indicate a need for the development of ethical awareness among medical trainees, their sponsoring and host institutions, and supervising faculty. As a teaching tool to promote this awareness, we developed a scenario that captures many common ethical issues from four different perspectives. Each perspective is presented in case format followed by questions. Taken together, the four cases may be used to identify many of the elements of a well‐designed global health training experience.     

The role and responsibilities of witnesses in the informed consent process

Various mechanisms to ensure the protection of subjects in human research have been suggested, including the presence of witnesses during the informed consent process. For our commentary on the use of witnesses and their potential role and responsibility during the consent process, we start by addressing current guidelines for human subjects research in four Latin American countries. By using examples from public health research, we highlight some of the practical difficulties of using witnessed consent, from becoming a meaningless ritual at one end of the spectrum to the research subject feeling intimidated or coerced to participate at the other. Apart from these practical difficulties, it is unclear what responsibility the witness could and should have. We argue that there are important ethical questions about the role of witnesses that have not been adequately addressed in national and international regulations. This work addresses these gaps and argues that more debate is required to define the role and responsibilities of witnesses in the consent process, their training requirements and whether a universal legal requirement for witnessed consent, regardless of the type of research, is desirable.     

Identification and characterization of complement factor H in Branchiostoma belcheri

Complement factor H (CFH) is an essential regulator of the complement system and plays very important roles in animal innate immunity. Although the complement system of amphioxus has been extensively studied, the expression in amphioxus and evolution of CFH gene remain unknown. In this study, we identified and characterized an amphioxus (Branchiostoma belcheri) CFH gene (designated as AmphiCFH). Our results showed that the full-length cDNA of AmphiCFH gene consists of 1295 bp nucleotides containing an 855 bp open reading frame (ORF) that was predicted to encode a 284 amino acid protein. The putative AmphiCFH protein possessed the characteristic of the CFH protein family, including typical CCP (complement control protein) domain. Real-time PCR analysis showed that the AmphiCFH was ubiquitously and differentially expressed in five investigated tissues (intestine, gills, notochord, muscles, and hepatic cecum). The expression level of the AmphiCFH gene was induced upon lipopolysaccharide stimulation, indicating that the AmphiCFH gene might be involved in innate immunity. In addition, phylogenetic analysis showed that the AmphiCFH gene was located between that of invertebrates and vertebrates, suggesting that the AmphiCFH gene is a member of the CFH gene family. In conclusion, our findings provided an insight into animal innate immunity and evolution of the CFH gene family.     

Using Flatbed Scanners to Collect High-resolution Time-lapsed Images of the Arabidopsis Root Gravitropic Response

Research efforts in biology increasingly require use of methodologies that enable high-volume collection of high-resolution data. A challenge laboratories can face is the development and attainment of these methods. Observation of phenotypes in a process of interest is a typical objective of research labs studying gene function and this is often achieved through image capture. A particular process that is amenable to observation using imaging approaches is the corrective growth of a seedling root that has been displaced from alignment with the gravity vector. Imaging platforms used to measure the root gravitropic response can be expensive, relatively low in throughput, and/or labor intensive. These issues have been addressed by developing a high-throughput image capture method using inexpensive, yet high-resolution, flatbed scanners. Using this method, images can be captured every few minutes at 4,800 dpi. The current setup enables collection of 216 individual responses per day. The image data collected is of ample quality for image analysis applications.     

中国微生物资源研究现状及未来发展态势分析

[目的]微生物资源由于其对于生命科学基础研究和生物经济的重要价值,一直是全球生物技术竞争的战略重点。中国目前已经成为在生命科学研究领域最有影响力的国家之一,每年发表的论文数量居全球第二位。通过微生物资源的保藏和利用的分析能够一定程度反映我国微生物研究的整体状况和进展,并进一步反映生命科学研究和生物产业的发展趋势。[方法]本文通过分析我国微生物资源保藏、文献、专利等数据,阐述了我国微生物资源的保藏和利用现状,并同相关国家进行了比较,基于此分析,为我国微生物资源挖掘与利用提供战略方向和建议。[结论]近年来,我国建立了微生物资源国家平台,每年发表论文数量居全球第二位,申请和授权专利数量居全球第一位,充分反映了我国微生物资源研究及其在生物产业的应用现状。我国正在形成一个微生物资源保藏、研究和应用的完整体系,为我国乃至全球的生物经济的发展提供支撑。     

Forest floor vegetation response to nitrogen deposition in Europe

Chronic nitrogen (N) deposition is a threat to biodiversity that results from the eutrophication of ecosystems. We studied long‐term monitoring data from 28 forest sites with a total of 1,335 permanent forest floor vegetation plots from northern Fennoscandia to southern Italy to analyse temporal trends in vascular plant species cover and diversity. We found that the cover of plant species which prefer nutrient‐poor soils (oligotrophic species) decreased the more the measured N deposition exceeded the empirical critical load (CL) for eutrophication effects (P = 0.002). Although species preferring nutrient‐rich sites (eutrophic species) did not experience a significantly increase in cover (P = 0.440), in comparison to oligotrophic species they had a marginally higher proportion among new occurring species (P = 0.091). The observed gradual replacement of oligotrophic species by eutrophic species as a response to N deposition seems to be a general pattern, as it was consistent on the European scale. Contrary to species cover changes, neither the decrease in species richness nor of homogeneity correlated with nitrogen CL exceedance (ExCL_empN). We assume that the lack of diversity changes resulted from the restricted time period of our observations. Although existing habitat‐specific empirical CL still hold some uncertainty, we exemplify that they are useful indicators for the sensitivity of forest floor vegetation to N deposition.     

虾脊兰的栽培与利用(综述)

虾脊兰具有很高的观赏价值,是一类待开发的兰花资源。我国的野生资源十分丰富,本文参考前人的研究文献,结合本身工作,着重介绍虾脊兰的分布与研究概况,对虾脊兰引种栽培和繁殖技术做简要论述,并提出我国虾脊兰属植物今后利用及研究方向的建议。     

温度和光周期对水稻抽穗期调控的交互作用

光周期和温度是植物开花的2个关键的调控因素,植物成花转变决定于植物对光周期和温度变化的精确测量.作为短日照植物,水稻在长日低温条件下抽穗期推迟,为了阐明温度和光周期对水稻开花时间的调控效应,本文利用1个光周期不敏感的突变体及其野生型,系统地分析了不同温度和光周期处理条件下,调控水稻开花时间几个关键基因（Hd3a,RFT1,Ehd1,Ghd7,RID1/Ehd2/OsId1,Se5）的表达调控模式,结果表明Ehd1-Hd3a/RFT1通路在光周期和温度调控水稻开花途径中保守.Ehd1,Hd3a和RFT1的表达在低温（23℃）条件下急剧下降,表明Ehd1,Hd3a和RFT1表达阻抑是低温条件下水稻开花推迟的主要原因.另外,在长日照条件下,低温（23℃）处理促进了水稻开花抑制子Ghd7的表达,表明低温条件和长日照条件对Ghd7的表达具有协同作用.此外,本文还分析了Hd1与光周期开花调控途径中几个关键基因的调控关系,发现Hd1在长日照条件下负向调控Ehd1的表达而正向调控Ghd7的表达,表明在长日照条件下,Hd1-Ghd7-Ehd1-RFT1通路也是水稻抽穗期调控的一条重要途径.     

Progress in the Total Synthesis of Antitumor Tetrahydroisoquinoline Alkaloids

Among the tetrahydroisoquinoline(THIQ) of natural products, a family of THIQ alkaloids has the characteristics of similar biosynthetic pathway. Such THIQ alkaloids family mainly include Renieramycins, Ecteinasicdins, Tetrazaomine, Lemonomycin, etc. Most of these natural compounds have strong antitumor activities, and its family member Ecteinasicdins743 (ET-743, Trabectedin) has been marketed in the European Union and the United States for the treatment of advanced soft tissue tumors and ovarian cancer. Because of the excellent biological activity and complex chemical structure of this kind of THIQ products, it has aroused great interest of biologists and chemists, and many synthetic chemists have paid considerable efforts to their total synthesis over the past decade. Based on this, the recent advances in the total synthesis of such THIQ alkaloids are reviewed.