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Abstract Background The Depression Anxiety Stress Scale-21 Items (DASS-21) is commonly used to assess the mental health of students, but there is a need for further clarification regarding its equivalence, structure, and core items. Methods We conducted a confirmatory factor analysis (CFA) on a sample of 7943 Chinese students to examine the performance of the DASS-21 and assess measurement invariance. Additionally, we utilized network analysis to investigate the structure and centrality of students’ mental health. Results Our findings revealed a stable three-factor structure for the DASS-21, characterized by high correlations among depression, anxiety, and stress. The DASS-21 demonstrated strict invariance across genders and weak invariance across levels of education. Network analysis indicated that symptoms of depression, anxiety, and stress form clusters, with some symptoms exhibiting strong correlations with each other. Conclusion Our study highlights a substantial interrelation among depression, anxiety, and stress, revealing a structurally clustered pattern. Network analysis underscores the interconnectedness and centrality of these symptoms, recommending a shorter version of the DASS, and emphasizing the imperative for targeted interventions aimed at improving the psychological well-being of students.

Abstract Protein arginine methyltransferase 3 (PRMT3) plays an important role in gene regulation and a variety of cellular functions, thus, being a long sought‐after therapeutic target for human cancers. Although a few PRMT3 inhibitors are developed to prevent the catalytic activity of PRMT3, there is little success in removing the cellular levels of PRMT3‐deposited ω‐NG,NG‐asymmetric dimethylarginine (ADMA) with small molecules. Moreover, the non‐enzymatic functions of PRMT3 remain required to be clarified. Here, the development of a first‐in‐class MDM2‐based PRMT3‐targeted Proteolysis Targeting Chimeras (PROTACs) 11 that selectively reduced both PRMT3 protein and ADMA is reported. Importantly, 11 inhibited acute leukemia cell growth and is more effective than PRMT3 inhibitor SGC707. Mechanism study shows that 11 induced global gene expression changes, including the activation of intrinsic apoptosis and endoplasmic reticulum stress signaling pathways, and the downregulation of E2F, MYC, oxidative phosphorylation pathways. Significantly, the combination of 11 and glycolysis inhibitor 2‐DG has a notable synergistic antiproliferative effect by further reducing ATP production and inducing intrinsic apoptosis, thus further highlighting the potential therapeutic value of targeted PRMT3 degradation. These data clearly demonstrated that degrader 11 is a powerful chemical tool for investigating PRMT3 protein functions.

Abstract Viruses are crucial for regulating deep-sea microbial communities and biogeochemical cycles. However, their roles are still less characterized in deep-sea holobionts. Bathymodioline mussels are endemic species inhabiting cold seeps and harboring endosymbionts in gill epithelial cells for nutrition. This study unveiled a diverse array of viruses in the gill tissues of Gigantidas platifrons mussels and analyzed the viral metagenome and transcriptome from the gill tissues of Gigantidas platifrons mussels collected from a cold seep in the South Sea. The mussel gills contained various viruses including Baculoviridae, Rountreeviridae, Myoviridae and Siphovirdae, but the active viromes were Myoviridae, Siphoviridae, and Podoviridae belonging to the order Caudovirales. The overall viral community structure showed significant variation among environments with different methane concentrations. Transcriptome analysis indicated high expression of viral structural genes, integrase, and restriction endonuclease genes in a high methane concentration environment, suggesting frequent virus infection and replication. Furthermore, two viruses (GP-phage-contig14 and GP-phage-contig72) interacted with Gigantidas platifrons methanotrophic gill symbionts (bathymodiolin mussels host intracellular methanotrophic Gammaproteobacteria in their gills), showing high expression levels, and have huge different expression in different methane concentrations. Additionally, single-stranded DNA viruses may play a potential auxiliary role in the virus–host interaction using indirect bioinformatics methods. Moreover, the Cro and DNA methylase genes had phylogenetic similarity between the virus and Gigantidas platifrons methanotrophic gill symbionts. This study also explored a variety of viruses in the gill tissues of Gigantidas platifrons and revealed that bacteria interacted with the viruses during the symbiosis with Gigantidas platifrons. This study provides fundamental insights into the interplay of microorganisms within Gigantidas platifrons mussels in deep sea.

This study uses China Family Panel Studies (CFPS) data from 2010 to 2018 to empirically investigate the interplay between digital technology access, labor market behavior, and income inequality in rural China. The following salient conclusions are derived. Digital technology access has a substantial negative influence on individual income inequality in rural China, with a more pronounced inhibitory effect on inequality among low-income groups, males, middle and higher professional classes, and younger cohorts. Mechanism analysis suggests that digital technology access significantly impacts a range of rural labor practices, including increasing the frequency of digital technology use among rural inhabitants, decreasing credit costs, enhancing entrepreneurial activities, and boosting rural labor mobility. Based on these findings, this study proposes accelerating digital infrastructure development in rural regions, improving digital and financial literacy among rural residents, and refining inclusive digital financial services to facilitate more stable and sustainable progress to promote common prosperity.

North China Plain suffers from the world’s most severe water scarcity and groundwater depletion due to intensive irrigation for agricultural production. It is imperative to reduce irrigation water consumption while safeguarding crop production and food security. This study conducted a quantitative analysis with deficit irrigation strategies for winter wheat using a water-driven AquaCrop model. After model calibration and validation with field experimental data, we analyzed the irrigation water demand, crop yield, and water productivity (WP) of winter wheat under various deficit irrigation scenarios. A set of optimal irrigation schedules were proposed for different climate years, which significantly mitigated irrigation water usage while sustaining high yields and WPs. The results indicated that despite the irrigation water demand of winter wheat under the future climate scenario was slightly higher than that in the historical period, their crop water sensitive periods (reviving, jointing, and flowering) remained the same. Therefore, we recommended adopting the same deficit irrigation schedules for the historical and future periods. In wet years, adopting a 50% deficit irrigation strategy only reduced crop yields by less than 5% compared with full irrigation, but it saved 1000–1100 m3 of water per hectare and contributed a WP higher than 1.88 kg/m3. While in normal and dry years, an optimal 25% deficit irrigation could sustain over 96% of the maximum yield, meanwhile it could save 650–800 m3/ha of water and achieve almost the same WP as full irrigation. These climate-smart irrigation strategies adapting to diverse climatic conditions largely mitigate agricultural water consumption while maximizing crop productivity and water use efficiency, which are essential for achieving precision irrigation and sustainable water management under a changing climate.

Abstract Ginseng (Panax ginseng C. A. Mey.) is an important and valuable medicinal plant species used in traditional Chinese medicine, and its metabolite ginsenoside is the primary active ingredient. The FAR1/FHY3 gene family members play critical roles in plant growth and development as well as participate in a variety of physiological processes, including plant development and signaling of hormones. Studies have indicated that methyl jasmonate treatment of ginseng adventitious roots resulted in a significant increase in the content of protopanaxadiol ginsenosides. Therefore, it is highly significant to screen the FAR1/FHY3 gene family members in ginseng and preliminarily investigate their expression patterns in response to methyl jasmonic acid signaling. In this study, we screened and identified the FAR1/FHY3 family genes in the ginseng transcriptome databases. And then, we analyzed their gene structure and phylogeny, chromosomal localization and expression patterns, and promoter cis-acting elements, and made GO functional annotations on the members of this family. After that, we treated the ginseng adventitious roots with 200 mM methyl jasmonate and investigated the trend of the expression of four genes containing the largest number of methyl jasmonate cis-acting elements at different treatment times. All four genes were able to respond to methyl jasmonate, the most significant change was in the PgFAR40 gene. This study provides data support for subsequent studies of this family member in ginseng and provides experimental reference for subsequent validation of the function of this family member under methyl jasmonic acid signaling.

Spatial patterns and environmental gradients in plant traits can elucidate the relationships between plant characteristics, environmental factors, and ecosystem functions and can be used to develop the next generation of vegetation models for predicting vegetation distribution and functions. Studies of Plant traits across spatial scales have advanced significantly worldwide, including on the Tibetan Plateau (TP), the highest and largest plateau globally. Previous research on plant traits on the TP has been limited to specific areas, leaving the overall trend across the plateau unclear. In this study, we examined seven leaf traits—leaf thickness (LT), leaf dry matter content (LDMC), leaf area (LA), specific leaf area (SLA), and leaf carbon (LCC), nitrogen (LNC), and phosphorus (LPC) contents—in 1314 individuals at 237 sites within the alpine vegetation region above 3000 m on the TP to determine their distribution patterns across three spatial dimensions and their relationships with environmental factors. Our results indicated that, compared with Chinese plants, TP plants exhibited significantly greater LT, LDMC, and LNC but lower LA, LCC, and LPC. Except for SLA and LCC, most leaf traits showed significant spatial variability. Climate and soil explained 29.23 % of the total variations in traits. Radiation had the most pronounced effect on LDMC, LA, LNC, and LPC, whereas soil pH primarily constrained LT and LCC. Precipitation influenced most traits both directly and indirectly, with substantial overall effects. Temperature and soil nutrient had minimal influence on the regulation of leaf traits across most of the TP. Our findings suggest that alpine plants typically employ a conservative strategy to cope with the harsh conditions on the TP, but this strategy varies at broader spatial scales and longer environmental gradients, particularly in extreme environments such as the highest alpine regions.

Abstract Background Both copy number variant-sequencing (CNV-seq) and karyotype analysis have been used as powerful tools in the genetic aetiology of fetuses with congenital heart diseases (CHD). However, CNV-seq brings clinicians more confusions to interpret the detection results related to CHD with or without extracardiac abnormalities. Hence, we conducted this study to investigate the clinical value of CNV-seq in fetuses with CHD. Results A total of 167 patients with fetal CHD including 36 single CHD (sCHD), 41 compound CHD (cCHD) and 90 non-isolated CHD (niCHD) were recruited into the study. 28 cases (16.77%, 28/167) were revealed with chromosomal abnormalities at the level of karyotype. The pathogenic detection rate (DR) of CNV-seq (23.17%, 19/82) was higher than that of karyotyping (15.85%, 13/82) in 82 cases by CNV-seq and karyotyping simultaneously. The DR of pathogenic copy number variations (PCNVs) (31.43%) was higher in niCHD subgroup than that in sCHD and cCHD (9.52% and 23.08%). Conotruncal defect (CTD) was one of the most common heart malformations with the highest DR of PCNVs (50%) in 7 categories of CHD. In terms of all the pregnancy outcomes, 67 (40.12%) cases were terminated and 100 (59.88%) cases were live neonates. Only two among 34 cases with a pathogenic genetic result chose to continue the pregnancy. Conclusions CNV-seq combined with karyotyping is a reliable and accurate prenatal technique for identifying pathogenic chromosomal abnormalities associated with fetal CHD with or without extracardiac abnormalities, which can assist clinicians to perform detailed genetic counselling with regard to the etiology and related outcomes of CHD.

Pollen analysis, a crucial tool in botany and ecology for examining historical biotic dynamics, has elicited debate owing to its complex link with vegetation. The challenge lies in discerning the ecological significance of pollen data. In this study, we conducted detailed quadrat surveys on Jinhua Mountain, subtropical China, analyzing topsoil pollen to determine whether pollen signals accurately reflect key ecological components in the forests and shrublands. We performed direct comparisons between pollen and plant compositions and calculated pollen percentages and plant Important Values (IVs) for each quadrat. The results indicate greater homogeneity in pollen composition across the study area compared to plant composition, particularly in the high percentage of Pinus pollen. However, distinct plant communities exhibited significantly different pollen compositions, as evidenced by the multi-response permutation test. This divergence aligns with variations in the dominant plant species across different communities. There were significant correlations between pollen percentages and plant IVs, with correlation coefficients of 0.55 (p < 0.001) at the quadrat level and 0.78 (p < 0.001) at the taxon level. These results support the utility of pollen analysis for representing ecologically significant values in subtropical Chinese forests and shrublands. Such correlations might also be extrapolated to pollen-based paleoecological studies.

Objectives This study aimed to explore the experiences of multidisciplinary medical teams in implementing humanistic palliative care within the oncology ward.Design Purposive and snowball sampling methods were used in this qualitative study, which involved conducting semistructured interviews to gather personal experiences from members of multidisciplinary medical teams providing humanistic palliative care in the oncology ward.Setting The research was conducted in the oncology ward of a tertiary hospital located in Foshan, China.Participants Participants included 4 doctors, 12 nurses and 2 medical social workers who form the multidisciplinary medical team responsible for delivering humanistic palliative care to patients with cancer in oncology wards.Results Phenomenological qualitative analysis yielded 3 main themes and 9 subthemes. The identified themes were as follows: (1) conceptual change, (2) concrete actions and (3) facilitators and barriers to the implementation of humanistic palliative care.Conclusion The findings suggest a need for strengthening humanistic consciousness among multidisciplinary palliative care teams working in oncology wards, although there has been a gradual improvement in humanistic care behaviours. Furthermore, facilitators and barriers coexist in the implementation of humanistic palliative care. Efforts should be directed towards refining mechanisms that promote humanistic palliative care, fostering the enthusiasm of healthcare professionals, conducting systematic training to enhance their humanistic care abilities and striving for improvements in the quality of medical services for the benefit of both patients and their families.