Association of ‘Candidatus Phytoplasma cynodontis’ with Bermuda grass white leaf disease and its new hosts in Qassim province,Saudi Arabia

Typical symptoms of phytoplasma such as whitening of the leaves, shortening of the stolons on Bermuda grass, variegated leaves, yellows, stunting, little leaves and yellows on Giant reed, Cooba and sand olive shrub were observed in Qassim province, Saudi Arabia, during the autumn season of 2015. When tested for phytoplasma by universal primers P1/P7 followed by R16mF2/R16mR2, products of approximately 1400?bp (as expected) were amplified from 16 plants with symptoms but not from symptomless plants. Based on sequencing, phylogenetic analysis and virtual restriction fragment length polymorphism patterns of the 16S rDNA F2nR2 fragments of seven Qassim phytoplasma isolates, bermuda grass isolates 170, 175 and 177, giant reed isolate 180, sand olive isolates 181 and 182 and cooba isolate 185, the associated phytoplasma was identified as a member of ‘Candidatus Phytoplasma cynodontis’ which belong to the 16SrXIV-A subgroup. The 16S rDNA gene sequences of seven Qassim phytoplasma isolates exhibited over 99.2% identity with members of ‘Ca. Phytoplasma cynodontis’ group of phytoplasmas. This is the first report of characterization of ‘Ca. phytoplasma cynodonties’ (16SrXIV) associated with Cynodon dactylon in Saudi Arabia and its new hosts, Dodonaea angustifolia, Arundo donax and Acacia salicia.     

Beauty before age: landscape factors influence bird functional diversity in naturally regenerating fragments,but regeneration age does not

Effective ecological restoration actions should be able to recover ecosystem processes that influence community development in the long term. However, there is scarce information on how landscape factors promote or accelerate fauna recovery. We used a landscape framework to evaluate how functional groups respond to natural regeneration in a highly fragmented region of Atlantic Forest. Using bird functional groups sampled in 15 regenerating forest fragments, we built and ranked models using a model selection approach to test the relative effect of landscape variables on each group. Our results showed that bird community recovery is not determined by the duration of the regeneration process (i.e. forest age), but by how the species responds to the landscape context. Functional diversity and the abundance of the functional groups were mainly related to composition metrics, whereas the functional metric affected only specific groups. Our findings highlight the importance of considering the landscape level to ensure both the colonization of fauna and the restoration of ecological functions.     

血清胆红素、YKL-40、HMGB-1对糖尿病合并冠心病患者的临床意义

目的:探讨血清胆红素、人类软骨糖蛋白-39(YKL-40)、高迁移率族蛋白1(HMGB-1)对糖尿病合并冠心病患者的临床意义方法:选择2017年1月至2018年12月我院接诊的190例2型糖尿病患者,根据是否合并冠心病分为单纯糖尿病组121例和糖尿病合并冠心病组69例,并选择同期在我院接受体检的100例健康者作为对照组。比较三组临床生化指标、血清胆红素、YKL-40、HMGB-1及不同病变支数、不同病变程度糖尿病合并冠心病组血清胆红素、YKL-40、HMGB-1的表达。结果:三组空腹血糖(FBG)、糖化血红蛋白(HbA1c)、三酰甘油(TG)、总胆固醇(TC)、高密度脂蛋白胆固醇(HDL-C)、低密度脂蛋白胆固醇(LDL-C)、血清胆红素、YKL-40、HMGB-1比较差异均有统计学意义(P0.05);不同病变支数、病变程度糖尿病合并冠心病患者血清胆红素、YKL-40、HMGB-1比较差异均有统计学意义(P0.05);经两两Pearson线性相关性分析结果显示,血清胆红素和Gensini评分呈负相关(r=-0.812,P0.01),YKL-40、HMGB-和Gensini评分正相关(r=0.873、0.801,P0.01)。结论:在糖尿病合并冠心病患者中,血清胆红素的表达明显降低,YKL-40、HMGB-1明显升高,且随着冠脉病变程度的加重变化更明显,本研究也为后期血清胆红素、YKL-40、HMGB-1在该病的早期诊断、预防、治疗效果评价等方面提供了依据     

New Anthracene‐Fused Nonfullerene Acceptors for High‐Efficiency Organic Solar Cells: Energy Level Modulations Enabling Match of Donor and Acceptor

Two new nonfullerene small molecule acceptors (NF‐SMAs) AT‐NC and AT‐4Cl based on heptacyclic anthracene(cyclopentadithiophene) (AT) core and different electron‐withdrawing end groups are designed and synthesized. Although the two new acceptor molecules use two different end groups, naphthyl‐fused indanone (NINCN) and chlorinated INCN (INCN‐2Cl) demonstrate similar light absorption. AT‐4Cl with chlorinated INCN as end groups are shifted significantly due to the strong electron‐withdrawing ability of chlorine atoms. Thus, desirable V_oc and photovoltaic performance are expected to be achieved when polymer PBDB‐T is used as the electron donor with AT‐NC as the acceptor, and fluorinated analog PBDB‐TF with down‐shifted energy levels is selected to blend with AT‐4Cl. Consequently, the device based on PBDB‐TF:AT‐4Cl yields a high power conversion efficiency of 13.27% with a slightly lower V_oc of 0.901 V, significantly enhanced J_sc of 19.52 mA cm^?2 and fill factor of 75.5% relative to the values based on PBDB‐T:AT‐NC. These results demonstrate that the use of a new electron‐rich AT core, together with energy levels modulations by end‐group optimizations enabling the match with polymer donors, is a successful strategy to construct high‐performance NF‐SMAs.     

Egg-Cracking Vibration as a Cue for Stink Bug Siblings to Synchronize Hatching

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Enhancement of tomogram interpretability using the locked self-rotation function

The interpretation of cryo-electron tomograms of macromolecular complexes can be difficult because of the large amount of noise and because of the missing wedge effect. Here it is shown how the presence of rotational symmetry in a sample can be utilized to enhance the quality of a tomographic analysis. The orientation of symmetry axes in a sub-tomogram can be determined using a locked self-rotation function. Given this knowledge, the sub-tomogram density can then be averaged to improve its interpretability. Sub-tomograms of the icosahedral bacteriophage phiX174 are used to demonstrate the procedure.