松墨天牛漆酶基因MaLac1的克隆、原核表达及表达谱分析

【目的】本研究旨在克隆并鉴定松墨天牛Monochamus alternatus内源漆酶基因MaLac1,分析其在松墨天牛不同发育阶段的表达水平,为进一步明确MaLac1功能提供依据。【方法】基于松墨天牛肠道转录组测序数据,通过RACE克隆松墨天牛MaLac1基因的全长cDNA序列,并对其进行生物信息学分析;将该基因与pET-32a载体链接构建表达载体pET-MaLac1,导入大肠杆菌Escherichia coli Rosetta (DE3)使其表达;使用qPCR检测MaLac1基因在松墨天牛不同发育阶段(低龄幼虫、老熟幼虫、蛹、雌成虫和雄成虫)肠道中的表达差异。【结果】克隆获得松墨天牛MaLac1的cDNA全长序列(GenBank登录号:KY073340)。MaLac1开放阅读框全长2 067 bp,编码一个含688个氨基酸的蛋白质,预测分子量为78.34 kD,等电点为5.30。SignalP 4.1 Server预测MaLac1在N端包含一个15个氨基酸的信号肽。序列比对分析表明,MaLac1具有典型的昆虫漆酶基因特征,与赤拟谷盗Tribolium castaneum漆酶基因的氨基酸序列一致性达93%。SDS-PAGE检测发现IPTG诱导表达了一条大约78 kD的特异蛋白条带,与推测大小一致。qPCR结果显示,MaLac1在不同发育阶段的松墨天牛肠道中均有表达,其中,在雌成虫肠道中表达量最高,在雄成虫肠道中的次之,在幼虫肠道中的最低。【结论】MaLac1在松墨天牛成虫中表达量显著高于其在幼虫中的,这一结果可能与幼虫和成虫的取食习性差异相关。MaLac1在松墨天牛体内的功能还有待进一步研究。     

Being a bright snake: Testing aposematism and mimicry in a neotropical forest

Based on color patterns and behavioral similarities, venomous coral snake Micrurus corallinus (Elapidae) may act as a model for two polymorphic species, Erythrolamprus aesculapii (Dipsadidae) and Micrurus decoratus (Elapidae). Plasticine replicas were used to investigate the aposematism of these coloration patterns and whether these species may be part of mimetic complexes in two Atlantic Forest localities in Southeast Brazil. Coral replicas were more avoided when set upon a white background, evincing that the pattern may act aposematically in contrast with light substrates. Birds attacked all four patterns equally during the mimicry experiments. Birds of prey, known to be effective in predating snakes, are quite abundant in the study areas, which may have led to this lack of avoidance. Accordingly, they predated more adult-sized replicas, which could be more dangerous. Interestingly, opossum avoided the Micrurus corallinus and Erythrolamprus aesculapii replicas that resembled the model. This suggests that opportunistic predators, as the opossum may be important selective agents in mimicry complexes.     

Spatiotemporal patterns provoked by environmental variability in a predator–prey model

The emergence of spatiotemporal patterns in the distribution of species is one of the most striking phenomena in ecology and nonlinear science. Since it is known that spatial inhomogeneities can significantly affect the dynamics of ecological populations, in the present paper we investigate the impact of environmental variability on the formation of patterns in a spatially extended predator–prey model. In particular, we utilize a predator–prey system with a Holling III functional response and introduce random spatial variations of the kinetic parameter signifying the intrinsic growth rate of the prey, reflecting the impact of a heterogeneous environment. Our results reveal that in the proximity of the Hopf bifurcation environmental variability is able to provoke pattern formation, whereby the coherence of the patterns exhibits a resonance-like dependence on the variability strength. Furthermore, we show that the phenomenon can only be observed if the spatial heterogeneities exhibit large enough regions with high growth rates of the prey. Our findings thus indicate that variability could be an essential pattern formation mechanism of the populations.     

Non-linear molecular pattern classification using molecular beacons with multiple targets

In vitro pattern classification has been highlighted as an important future application of DNA computing. Previous work has demonstrated the feasibility of linear classifiers using DNA-based molecular computing. However, complex tasks require non-linear classification capability. Here we design a molecular beacon that can interact with multiple targets and experimentally shows that its fluorescent signals form a complex radial-basis function, enabling it to be used as a building block for non-linear molecular classification in vitro. The proposed method was successfully applied to solving artificial and real-world classification problems: XOR and microRNA expression patterns.     

Zinc uptake and radial transport in roots of Arabidopsis thaliana: a modelling approach to understand accumulation

Background and Aims

Zinc uptake in roots is believed to be mediated by ZIP (ZRT-, IRT-like proteins) transporters. Once inside the symplast, zinc is transported to the pericycle, where it exits by means of HMA (heavy metal ATPase) transporters. The combination of symplastic transport and spatial separation of influx and efflux produces a pattern in which zinc accumulates in the pericycle. Here, mathematical modelling was employed to study the importance of ZIP regulation, HMA abundance and symplastic transport in creation of the radial pattern of zinc in primary roots of Arabidopsis thaliana.

Methods

A comprehensive one-dimensional dynamic model of radial zinc transport in roots was developed and used to conduct simulations. The model accounts for the structure of the root consisting of symplast and apoplast and includes effects of water flow, diffusion and cross-membrane transport via transporters. It also incorporates the radial geometry and varying porosity of root tissues, as well as regulation of ZIP transporters.

Key Results

Steady-state patterns were calculated for various zinc concentrations in the medium, water influx and HMA abundance. The experimentally observed zinc gradient was reproduced very well. An increase of HMA or decrease in water influx led to loss of the gradient. The dynamic behaviour for a change in medium concentration and water influx was also simulated showing short adaptation times in the range of seconds to minutes. Slowing down regulation led to oscillations in expression levels, suggesting the need for rapid regulation and existence of buffering agents.

Conclusions

The model captures the experimental findings very well and confirms the hypothesis that low abundance of HMA4 produces a radial gradient in zinc concentration. Surprisingly, transpiration was found also to be a key parameter. The model suggests that ZIP regulation takes place on a comparable timescale as symplastic transport.     

New national and regional bryophyte records, 46

Abstract

Bryophyte biomass and diversity vary strongly with altitude in the tropics. Low abundance and low species numbers in lowland rain forests are most likely due to reduced diurnal activity times combined with high nocturnal respiration rates at high temperatures. This may exclude many montane species from the warm lowlands. However, an alternative hypothesis explains the observed pattern, namely a limited desiccation tolerance of montane species, precipitation being more concentrated but less frequent in most lowland forests compared to montane cloud forests. To test this hypothesis, we studied the desiccation tolerance of four montane and four lowland bryophyte species. The effects of prolonged drought were quantified with chlorophyll fluorescence (F_v/F_m) and the extent of electrolyte leakage. Both montane and lowland species survived dry periods of ≧80 days, which far exceeds the duration of dry periods in the wet lowland tropics. We can thus exclude intolerance to long dry spells as an explaination for the absence of the tested montane species in the lowlands. We should continue to focus on other mechanisms to explain the altitudinal gradient of bryophyte abundance and diversity in the tropics, in order to understand this pattern, as well as to predict future trends under climatic warming.     

3D HUMAN MOTION RETRIEVAL BASED ON HUMAN HIERARCHICAL INDEX STRUCTURE

With the development and wide application of motion capture technology, the captured motion data sets are becoming larger and larger. For this reason, an efficient retrieval method for the motion database is very important. The retrieval method needs an appropriate indexing scheme and an effective similarity measure that can organize the existing motion data well. In this paper, we represent a human motion hierarchical index structure and adopt a nonlinear method to segment motion sequences. Based on this, we extract motion patterns and then we employ a fast similarity measure algorithm for motion pattern similarity computation to efficiently retrieve motion sequences. The experiment results show that the approach proposed in our paper is effective and efficient.