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Coilia nasus is an endangered fish species in the Yangtze River, and there is urgent need to know the genes related to its reproduction and fertility. The DAZ family including boule, daz and dazl, plays an important role in germ cells development. In this study, the cDNA sequence of boule (Cnbol) and dazl (Cndazl) genes were cloned and their expression patterns were characterized in Coilia nasus. RT-PCR showed that the expression of Cnbol and Cndazl mRNAs was restricted in adult gonads. The section in situ hybridization indicated that the temporospatial expression patterns of Cnbol and Cndazl were significantly different. In the testis, Cnbol was mainly detected in spermatocytes and spermatids, while Cndazl was prominently expressed in s permatogonia. In the ovary, Cnbol and Cndazl were highly expressed in the early stages of oocytes. Interestingly, Cndazl was also concentrated in perinuclear speckle and then localized to the Balbiani body in late stages of oocytes. In addition, Cnbol and Cndazl 3′ UTR can specifically label medaka Primordial Germ Cells (PGCs). According to our results, Cnbol and Cndazl are marker genes of germ cells and may play a vital role in the development and differentiation of germ cells in Coilia nasus.

Significant breakthroughs have been made in the development of surface-enhanced Raman scattering (SERS) substrates constructed by depositing plasmonic Ag onto nanostructured platforms. AlOOH is widely fabricated using hydrothermal, microwave, and microemulsion methods. Among these, the high catalytic activity of AlOOH prepared by the microemulsion method is derived from its high specific surface area, more active surface OH groups, and multi-active adsorption sites. And nanomaterials with such excellent properties have not yet been fabricated on a SERS-based platform to improve the Raman-enhanced properties of Ag achieving high-sensitivity detection of probe molecules especially with affinity for OH groups. The precious metal Ag has long been known to serve as traps to capture electrons and holes generated by plasmon resonance, reducing electron-hole recombination and exhibiting high activity in photocatalytic processes. In this work, to demonstrate the SERS substrate activity of the AlOOH@Ag complex, it has been successfully applied to identify congo red (CR) molecules with high sensitivity, methyl blue (MB) and methyl orange (MO), enabling trace-level detection with enhanced performance much stronger than Ag substrate.

Acute myeloid leukemia (AML) is the most common acute leukemia affecting adults. The tight junction protein CLDN4 is closely related to the development of various epithelial cell carcinomas. However, whether CLDN4 contributes to AML development remains unclear. For the first time, we found that expression of CLDN4 is aberrantly up-regulated in AML cells. Knockdown of CLDN4 expression resulted in a dramatic decreased cell growth, elevated apoptosis of AML cells. Further, we revealed that knockdown of CLDN4 inhibits mRNA expression of PIK3R3 and MAP2K2, thus suppresses activation of AKT and ERK1/2. More importantly, activating AKT branch by SC79 partially compromised CLDN4 knockdown induced cell viability inhibition. In addition, we found that higher expression of CLDN4 is connected to worse survival and is an independent indicator of shorter disease free survival (DFS) in AML patients. Together, our results indicate that CLDN4 contributes to AML pathogenesis, and suggests that targeting CLDN4 is a promising option for AML treatment.

How horizontal gene transfer (HGT) has contributed to the evolution of animals and plants remains a major puzzle. Despite recent progress, defining the overall scale and pattern of HGT events in land plants has been largely elusive. In this study, we performed systematic analyses for acquired genes in different plant groups and throughout land plant evolution. We found that relatively recent HGT events occurred in charophytes and all major land plant groups, but their frequency declined rapidly in seed plants. Two major episodes of HGT events occurred in land plant evolution, corresponding to the early evolution of streptophytes and the origin of land plants, respectively. Importantly, a vast majority of the genes acquired in the two episodes have been retained in descendant groups, affecting numerous activities and processes of land plants. We analyzed some of the acquired genes involved in stress responses, ion and metabolite transport, growth and development, and specialized metabolism, and further assessed the cumulative effects of HGT in land plants.

In this study, a substrate was surface textured using a femtosecond laser to prolong the service life of thermal barrier coatings (TBCs). The selected texture showed linear and diamond shapes. The effect of the texture shape on the thermal shock resistance of the TBCs was investigated by subjecting them to thermal shock cycles. The microstructure and composition of the TBCs were investigated using various characterisation methods. The mechanical properties of the TBCs were measured using the microindentation method. Based on the theory of elastoplastic mechanics, a three-dimensional finite element numerical model was established to analyse the effect of the two textures on the stress distribution of the TBCs. The results revealed that the linear-textured TBCs showed improved stress concentration at the coating interface when the coatings expanded or shrank, which resulted in an improvement in their thermal shock resistance. Therefore, the linear-textured TBCs showed excellent oxidation resistance, fracture toughness, and heat resistance as compared to the diamond-textured TBCs.

MAX-phase has excellent high-temperature lubrication performance, which has the potential to be used as the abradable seal coating in aircraft engine combustion chamber. Various concentrations of MAX-phase Ti3AlC2 (2, 5 and 10 wt %) are doped in YSZ-based abradable seal coating as the lubricating phase, and the coating produced by air plasma spraying (APS) on Ni-based alloy. The microstructure and element distribution of the seal coating are studied by field emission scanning electron microscopy (FE-SEM), electron X-ray probe microanalysis (EPMA). The mechanical properties are measured by Vickers hardness test, nanoindentation test and tribological test. The results reveal that with the content of the MAX-phase Ti3AlC2 increasing, the hardness of the abradable seal coating is increased and the resultant wear rate is reduced. The reduction of wear rate is due to the production of some tiny TiC and Al2O3 phases during deposition of Ti3AlC2 in plasma spraying. Comparing with the different MAX-phase content, the wear rate of the composite coating is different. The changes of the nanohardness and wear mechanism of the composite coating after plasma spraying will be discussed.

AFP1 interacts with ABI5 and negatively regulates the abscisic acid (ABA) signaling by accelerating ABI5's degradation during the seed germination phase in Arabidopsis, but the underlying mechanism remains unclear. Moreover, the molecular basis of the interaction between AFP1 homologs and ABI5 has yet to be elucidated. In this study, the patterns of their interactions with ABI5 were investigated in detail. We found that AFP2/3/4 can bind two regions of ABI5, one is ABI5