酶降解烟叶中细胞壁物质

烟叶中以细胞壁物质存在的碳水化合物在燃吸时产生不良影响,在一定条件下向烟叶中施加一定量的纤维素酶和果胶酶,使部分细胞壁物质降解为水溶性糖,烟质得到改善,纤维素酶和果胶酶最佳用量均为每克烟叶30u酶量（活力）,最佳作用条件为;烟叶水分25%,作用温度50℃,作用时间4h,且在真空条件下可使细胞壁物质降解更有效,可降解烟叶中细胞壁物质10%左右,烟叶的评吸质量得到明显改善。     

人甲状旁腺激素结构与功能研究进展

甲状旁腺激素（PTH）分子由84个氨基酸残基组成。二级结构中富含α-螺旋,该螺旋结构在与受体相互作用中起重要作用。探索PTH分子结构与功能间的关系,有助于制药工业的发展,为临床治疗提供借鉴。本阐述PTH分子结构与功能的研究进展。     

Discovery and structural characterization of an allosteric inhibitor of bacterial cis‐prenyltransferase

Undecaprenyl pyrophosphate synthase (UPPs) is an essential enzyme in a key bacterial cell wall synthesis pathway. It catalyzes the consecutive condensations of isopentenyl pyrophosphate (IPP) groups on to a trans-farnesyl pyrophosphate (FPP) to produce a C55 isoprenoid, undecaprenyl pyrophosphate (UPP). Here we report the discovery and co-crystal structures of a drug-like UPPs inhibitor in complex with Streptococcus pneumoniae UPPs, with and without substrate FPP, at resolutions of 2.2 and 2.1 Å, respectively. The UPPs inhibitor has a low molecular weight (355 Da), but displays potent inhibition of UPP synthesis in vitro (IC₅₀ 50 nM) that translates into excellent whole cell antimicrobial activity against pathogenic strains of Streptococcal species (MIC₉₀ 0.4 µg mL⁻¹). Interestingly, the inhibitor does not compete with the substrates but rather binds at a site adjacent to the FPP binding site and interacts with the tail of the substrate. Based on the structures, an allosteric inhibition mechanism of UPPs is proposed for this inhibitor. This inhibition mechanism is supported by biochemical and biophysical experiments, and provides a basis for the development of novel antibiotics targeting Streptococcus pneumoniae.     

Knowing your enemies: Integrating molecular and ecological methods to assess the impact of arthropod predators on crop pests

The importance of natural enemies as the foundation of integrated pest management (IPM) is widely accepted, but few studies conduct the manipulative field experiments necessary to directly quantify their impact on pest populations in this context. This is particularly true for predators. Studying arthropod predator–prey interactions is inherently difficult: prey items are often completely consumed, individual predator–prey interactions are ephemeral (rendering their detection difficult) and the typically fluid or soft‐bodied meals cannot be easily identified visually within predator guts. Serological techniques have long been used in arthropod predator gut‐contents analysis, and current enzyme linked immunosorbent assays (ELISA) are highly specific and sensitive. Recently, polymerase chain reaction (PCR) methods for gut‐contents analysis have developed rapidly and they now dominate the diagnostic methods used for gut‐contents analysis in field‐based research. This work has identified trophic linkages within food webs, determined predator diet breadth and preference, demonstrated the importance of cannibalism and intraguild predation within and between certain taxa, and confirmed the benefits (predator persistence) and potential disadvantages (reduced feeding on pest species) of the availability of alternative nonpest prey. Despite considerable efforts to calibrate gut‐contents assays, these methods remain qualitative. Available techniques for predator gut‐contents analysis can provide rapid, accurate, cost‐effective identification of predation events. As such, they perfectly compliment the ecological methods developed to directly assess predator impacts on prey populations but which are imperfect at identifying the key predators. These diagnostic methods for gut‐contents analysis are underexploited in agricultural research and they are almost never applied in unison with the critical field experiments to measure predator impact. This paper stresses the need for a combined approach and suggests a framework that would make this possible, so that appropriate natural enemies can be targeted in conservation biological control.     

Accuracy of predicting genomic breeding values for carcass merit traits in Angus and Charolais beef cattle

Accuracy of predicting genomic breeding values for carcass merit traits including hot carcass weight, longissimus muscle area (REA), carcass average backfat thickness (AFAT), lean meat yield (LMY) and carcass marbling score (CMAR) was evaluated based on 543 Angus and 400 Charolais steers genotyped on the Illumina BovineSNP50 Beadchip. For the genomic prediction within Angus, the average accuracy was 0.35 with a range from 0.32 (LMY) to 0.37 (CMAR) across different training/validation data‐splitting strategies and statistical methods. The within‐breed genomic prediction for Charolais yielded an average accuracy of 0.36 with a range from 0.24 (REA) to 0.46 (AFAT). The across‐breed prediction had the lowest accuracy, which was on average near zero. When the data from the two breeds were combined to predict the breeding values of either breed, the prediction accuracy averaged 0.35 for Angus with a range from 0.33 (REA) to 0.39 (CMAR) and averaged 0.33 for Charolais with a range from 0.18 (REA) to 0.46 (AFAT). The prediction accuracy was slightly higher on average when the data were split by animal's birth year than when the data were split by sire family. These results demonstrate that the genetic relationship or relatedness of selection candidates with the training population has a great impact on the accuracy of predicting genomic breeding values under the density of the marker panel used in this study.     

Long ncRNA expression associates with tissue-specific enhancers

Long non-coding RNAs (ncRNA) have recently been demonstrated to be expressed from a subset of enhancers and to be required for the distant regulation of gene expression. Several approaches to predict enhancers have been developed based on various chromatin marks and occupancy of enhancer-binding proteins. Despite the rapid advances in the field, no consensus how to define tissue specific enhancers yet exists. Here, we identify 2,695 long ncRNAs annotated by ENCODE (corresponding to 28% of all ENCODE annotated long ncRNAs) that overlap tissue-specific enhancers. We use a recently developed algorithm to predict tissue-specific enhancers, PreSTIGE, that is based on the H3K4me1 mark and tissue specific expression of mRNAs. The expression of the long ncRNAs overlapping enhancers is significantly higher when the enhancer is predicted as active in a specific cell line, suggesting a general interdependency of active enhancers and expression of long ncRNAs. This dependency is not identified using previous enhancer prediction algorithms that do not account for expression of their downstream targets. The predicted enhancers that overlap annotated long ncRNAs generally have a lower ratio of H3K4me1 to H3K4me3, suggesting that enhancers expressing long ncRNAs might be associated with specific epigenetic marks. In conclusion, we demonstrate the tissue-specific predictive power of PreSTIGE and provide evidence for thousands of long ncRNAs that are expressed from active tissue-specific enhancers, suggesting a particularly important functional relationship between long ncRNAs and enhancer activity in determining tissue-specific gene expression.     

Effects of rye and triticale seed proteins on Leptinotarsa decemlineata (Say) digestive α-amylase and protease and some biological parameters

The current study aimed to investigate the effect of rye and triticale seed proteins on the Leptinotarsa decemlineata, gut enzymes. Results showed that ammonium sulphate precipitation fractions; 0–30, 30–50, 50–70 and 70–100% had no inhibition on the fourth instar larval (L₄) protease activity, while first two fractions of triticale and all fractions of rye had inhibitory effects on the all larval stages and adult’s α-amylase activity. Mode of inhibition in rye and triticale was partial mixed and uncompetitive, respectively. Zymograms approved the results. Feeding assays were conducted using four cultivars of potato leaves treated with extracts. Weight of L₄ on Marx in both trials and the L₄ evolution in all cultivars in rye and just on Picasso in triticale were reduced, the developmental durations were increased on Marx and Picasso in triticale trial significantly. Also, rye extract caused inhibition in amylase activity of survived individuals that feed from treated Burren leaves.     

玉米 线辣椒套作系统中土壤养分与根际土壤微生物、酶活性的关系

采用玉米单作、线辣椒单作、玉米-线辣椒套作3种栽培模式,并在玉米-线辣椒套作的种间根部设3种不同隔离处理（膜隔、网隔和无隔）,研究了玉米-线辣椒套作系统中土壤生物因子与土壤养分的关系．结果表明：玉米-线辣椒套作具有明显优势;与两作物单作和玉米-线辣椒套作种间根区膜隔处理相比,玉米-线辣椒根区无隔和网隔处理复合群体中两作物根际土壤酶活性、微生物数量、土壤养分均显著提高;除有效镁与真菌种群数量、过氧化氢酶活性呈负相关外,其余速效养分与各生物因子均呈显著或极显著正相关．通径分析表明,该系统中促进有机质累积的主要生物因素是脲酶、过氧化氢酶、细菌和蛋白酶,蔗糖酶是影响碱解氮的最主要因子,脲酶是影响有效磷的最主要因子,细菌是影响有效钾的最主要因子,碱性磷酸酶、真菌只是选择性地对有机质的累积和氮、磷、钾有效养分的形成起作用,放线菌对土壤养分的直接作用系数为负,对土壤养分形成的作用较小．