Search

Adsorption technology can effectively remove phosphorus from water and realize phosphorus recovery. Hence, it is used to curb the eutrophication of water and alleviate the crisis caused by the shortage of phosphorus resources. Resin has been attracting increasing interest as an ideal adsorption material; however, its practical application is greatly affected by environmental factors. To solve the competitive adsorption and pore blockage caused by humic acid and coexisting ions during the removal of phosphorus by ion-exchange resin, this study has developed an iron-manganese oxide-modified resin composite adsorbent (Fe/Mn-402) based on the nanoconfinement theory. The structural characterization results of XRD, FT-IR, SEM, and XPS showed that the iron-manganese binary oxide was successfully loaded on the skeleton of the strongly alkaline anion resin and showed good stability under both neutral and alkaline conditions. The batch adsorption experiments showed that the maximum adsorption capacity of Fe/Mn-402 for phosphorus can reach up to 50.97 mg g

Autophagy plays an important role in biological evolution and is regulated by many autophagy proteins. Accurate identification of autophagy proteins is crucially important to reveal their biological functions. Due to the expense and labor cost of experimental methods, it is urgent to develop automated, accurate and reliable sequence-based computational tools to enable the identification of novel autophagy proteins among numerous proteins and peptides. For this purpose, a new predictor named ATGPred-FL was proposed for the efficient identification of autophagy proteins. We investigated various sequence-based feature descriptors and adopted the feature learning method to generate corresponding, more informative probability features. Then, a two-step feature selection strategy based on accuracy was utilized to remove irrelevant and redundant features, leading to the most discriminative 14-dimensional feature set. The final predictor was built using a support vector machine classifier, which performed favorably on both the training and testing sets with accuracy values of 94.40% and 90.50%, respectively. ATGPred-FL is the first ATG machine learning predictor based on protein primary sequences. We envision that ATGPred-FL will be an effective and useful tool for autophagy protein identification, and it is available for free at http://lab.malab.cn/~acy/ATGPred-FL , the source code and datasets are accessible at https://github.com/jiaoshihu/ATGPred .

Wheat (Triticum aestivum L.) is a major staple food for more than one-third of the world’s population. Tiller number is an important agronomic trait in wheat, but only few related genes have been cloned. Here, we isolate a wheat mutant, tiller number1 (tn1), with much fewer tillers. We clone the TN1 gene via map-based cloning: TN1 encodes an ankyrin repeat protein with a transmembrane domain (ANK-TM). We show that a single amino acid substitution in the third conserved ankyrin repeat domain causes the decreased tiller number of tn1 mutant plants. Resequencing and haplotype analysis indicate that TN1 is conserved in wheat landraces and modern cultivars. Further, we reveal that the expression level of the abscisic acid (ABA) biosynthetic gene TaNCED3 and ABA content are significantly increased in the shoot base and tiller bud of the tn1 mutants; TN1 but not tn1 could inhibit the binding of TaPYL to TaPP2C via direct interaction with TaPYL. Taken together, we clone a key wheat tiller number regulatory gene TN1, which promotes tiller bud outgrowth probably through inhibiting ABA biosynthesis and signaling.

Background To explore the use of a digestive endoscopy professional online platform by domestic endoscopists and its application effect on endoscopists’ continuing medical education, analyse the related problems of continuing medical education using this method, and propose targeted improvement suggestions. Methods Based on the “Doctor’s Circle” app, a questionnaire was sent to all members who successfully registered on the Hebei Biliary and Pancreatic Endoscopy Diagnosis and Treatment Alliance online platform. The questionnaire was available for 30 days. The questionnaire survey results were collected and counted for a grouping comparison. Results By the deadline, 703 completed questionnaires had been received. After the registered doctors joined the platform, 469 (66.7%) experienced a significant influence on their own endoscopic operation ability level, and 354 (50.3%) felt a significant improvement in their ability to diagnose biliary- and pancreatic-related diseases. The application effect of the platform on members’ continuing medical education was affirmed by the vast majority of registered doctors. The clinical specialty of registered doctors, the length of time they joined the platform, the length of time they participated in the platform activities each time, and whether they played back course videos after the live broadcast of the course on the platform were the main factors affecting the application effect on continuing medical education (P Conclusion The new model of continuing medical education based on an online platform breaks through the constraints of traditional models and meets the individualized needs of every medical worker to improve their comprehension level. At present, the global outbreak of COVID-19 makes this learning mode increasingly popular among medical workers. We should constantly improve the organization of the content and methods of continuing medical education courses, make the online platform better serve the majority of medical workers, and effectively improve the comprehension levels of clinicians.

Intermittent hyperbaric oxygen exposure (IE-HBO) can protect the body against oxygen toxicity, but the underlying mechanisms are not very clear. Peroxiredoxin 6 (Prdx6) is a special endogenous antioxidative protein. We explored if the protective effects of IE-HBO are related to Prdx6. Mice were exposed to 280 kPa O2 for 60 min, followed by 30-min exposure to 20% O2/N2 mixture with equal pressure, repeated for six cycles. The Prdx6 protein level and non-selenium glutathione peroxidase (NSGPx) activity in the brain and lungs were then measured and the injury degree of lung and the oxidation level of brain and lung were evaluated. On this basis, the relationship between Prdx6 and IE-HBO’s protection was explored. Generally, both IE-HBO and continuous exposure to HBO (CE-HBO) could increase the protein and mRNA levels of Prdx6, and such increases were more significant 24 h after cessation of exposure; moreover, the Prdx6 level of IE-HBO was higher than that of CE-HBO in both brain and lung, also more significantly 24 h after cessation of exposure. In addition, IE-HBO exposure could more effectively potentiate the activity of NSGPx and increase GSH content in brain and lung tissues. At the same time, it could reduce oxidation products in these tissues. IE-HBO could also provide protection for the lungs against injuries resulting from prolonged HBO exposure. These data showed that IE-HBO can potentiate the production and the activity of Prdx6 and consequently mitigate oxidative damages in brain and lungs. The influences of IE-HBO on Prdx6 may form an important basis for its protection against oxygen toxicity.

Gastric carcinoma (GC) refers to a common digestive system disease that exhibits a very high incidence. MicroRNA hsa-mir-3923 belongs to a type of miRNA, of which the function has been merely investigated in breast, pancreatic cancers and pre-neoplasic stages of gastric cancer. It has not been studied or reported in gastric carcinoma, so the relationship between gastric hsa-mir-3923 expression and the clinics feature and pathology of GC cases was examined. This study employed data mining for analyzing gastric carcinoma data in The Cancer Genome Atlas database. A Chi squared test was performed for assessing the relations of hsa-mir-3923 expression with clinics-related and pathology-regulated variables. This study conducted the assessment of the role of hsa-mir-3923 in prognostic process using Kaplan–Meier curves, Receiver operating characteristic (ROC) analysis and proportional hazards model (Cox) study. With the use of Gene Expression Omnibus, this study carried out gene set enrichment analysis (GSEA). In the meantime, the common miRNA database was compared to predict potential target genes; as revealed by co-expression analysis, a regulatory network probably existed, containing hsa-mir-3923. For the analysis of the most tightly associated cytological behavior and pathway in GC, this study adopted the databases for Annotation, Visualization and Integrated Discovery (David) and KO-Based Annotation System (KOBAS). Cytoscape, R and STRING were employed for mapping probable regulatory networks displaying relations to hsa-mir-3923. Lastly, we obtained 69 genes most tightly associated with hsa-mir-3923 and described their relationship with Circos plot. As revealed from the results, hsa-mir-3923 displayed up-regulation in gastric carcinoma, and it displayed associations with vital status, N stage and histologic grade when being expressed. The predicted results of miRNA target genes suggested that there may be a close relationship between 66 genes and hsa-mir-3923 in gastric cancer. As indicated from co-expression data, a small regulating network of 4 genes probably existed. Our results elucidated that hsa-mir-3923 high-expression reveals poor prognosis of GC patients.

Glucose-regulated protein 78 (GRP78) often highly expresses in a wide range of tumors, which plays promotive functions due to its diversity of location in the development of tumor. Particularly, GRP78 can be secreted into microenvironment by tumor cells through the pathway of exosome, which promotes proliferation, angiogenesis, and drug resistance in cancer cells. Hence, we discovered a potential inhibitor to block GRP78 secretion. We screened five small molecules that may interact with the GRP78 from 51 traditional Chinese medicine molecules by molecular docking. By using western blot, we found that one of the molecules can inhibit the secretion of GRP78, which is salvianolic acid A (SAA). Further, SAA could interact with the lysine residue 633 (K633) of GRP78, which inhibited GRP78 secretion. Moreover, SAA-GRP78 interaction can facilitate GRP78 of cytosol sorted into lysosome for degradation rather than exosome. In conclusion, our research revealed that SAA has the novel function of anti-angiogenesis via the tumor environment.

Cancer somatic mutations can generate neoantigens that distinguish malignant from normal cells. However, the personalized identification and validation of neoantigens remains a major challenge. Here we discover neoantigens in human mantle-cell lymphomas by using an integrated genomic and proteomic strategy that interrogates tumour antigen peptides presented by major histocompatibility complex (MHC) class I and class II molecules. We applied this approach to systematically characterize MHC ligands from 17 patients. Remarkably, all discovered neoantigenic peptides were exclusively derived from the lymphoma immunoglobulin heavy- or light-chain variable regions. Although we identified MHC presentation of private polymorphic germline alleles, no mutated peptides were recovered from non-immunoglobulin somatically mutated genes. Somatic mutations within the immunoglobulin variable region were almost exclusively presented by MHC class II. We isolated circulating CD4+ T cells specific for immunoglobulin-derived neoantigens and found these cells could mediate killing of autologous lymphoma cells. These results demonstrate that an integrative approach combining MHC isolation, peptide identification, and exome sequencing is an effective platform to uncover tumour neoantigens. Application of this strategy to human lymphoma implicates immunoglobulin neoantigens as targets for lymphoma immunotherapy.

The ‘Nanguo’ pear (Pyrus ussuriensis) fruit is typically climacteric, and ethylene is the main factor controlling the ripening of climacteric fruit. Whether the actin cytoskeleton is involved in ethylene-mediated fruit ripening remains unclear. In this study, we characterized an actin-related protein, PuARP4. The expression of PuARP4 was evaluated in young leaves, stems, flowers, and roots as well as in fruits. Expression of PuARP4 decreased during fruit development and ripening, and it was inhibited by Ethephon treatment but induced by 1-MCP treatment. To explore the network of PuARP4 function in ‘Nanguo’ pear fruit ripening, we screened a cDNA library from ‘Nanguo’ pear fruits using PuARP4 as bait. PuPME1 (pectin methylesterase 1) was identified as a potential interactor of PuARP4; PuPME1 has been found to degrade the pectin of cell walls. This direct interaction was further confirmed by a yeast two-hybrid system and pull-down analyses. Analysis of the expression of PuPME1 showed that it could be regulated by ethylene. Our results indicated that PuARP4 was involved in ethylene-mediated fruit ripening and might cooperate with PuPME1 to regulate the ripening process. Our results provide a new link between fruit ripening and the cytoskeleton and will provide a new platform for research on ethylene-mediated fruit ripening. The possible mechanisms underlying this process are discussed.

Protein glycosylation is a post-translational modification (PTM) responsible for many aspects of proteomic diversity and biological regulation. Assignment of intact glycan structures to specific protein attachment sites is a critical step towards elucidating the function encoded in the glycome. Previously, we developed isotope-targeted glycoproteomics (IsoTaG) as a mass-independent mass spectrometry method to characterize azide-labeled intact glycopeptides from complex proteomes. Here, we extend the IsoTaG approach with the use of alkynyl sugars as metabolic labels and employ new probes in analysis of the sialylated glycoproteome from PC-3 cells. Using an Orbitrap Fusion Tribrid mass spectrometer, we identified 699 intact glycopeptides from 192 glycoproteins. These intact glycopeptides represent a total of eight sialylated glycan structures across 126 N- and 576 O-glycopeptides. IsoTaG is therefore an effective platform for identification of intact glycopeptides labeled by alkynyl or azido sugars and will facilitate further studies of the glycoproteome.

Device-free localization has long been playing a key role in the anti-intrusion applications. However, current multi-target localization solutions mainly use uneconomical equipment, which are not cost-efficient for large-scale scenarios . Moreover, they only consider the line-of-sight (LoS) path signals distorted by the targets, hence can't exactly pinpoint the locations when faced with multipath effects and non-line-of-sight (NLoS), which are typical in real-world deployments. In this paper, we propose FISCP, a fine-grained device-free positioning system for multiple targets working in sparse deployments. The RFID passive tags are employed, which are much cheaper than other devices for localization. Meanwhile, unlike past approaches, which ignore the multipath effects or even take multipath as detrimental, FISCP exploits the dynamic distortion in multipath caused by the targets and considers the distortion as fingerprints for localization. We make a prototype system for FISCP using the commercial off-the-shelf products, including RFID systems and omnidirectional antennas, and develop a software program for the RFID systems. All the experiments are conducted in the deployments where the distance interval between each pair of tags is 1.2 m, and the deployments are sparse with respect to the short communication range of passive RFID systems (from a few meters up to tens of meters). The results of our experiments demonstrate that FISCP is effective in multi-target localization with low localization errors of 0.33 m in average.

The sorption of three organic contaminants with different structure and polarity including non-polar phenanthrene (PHEN), 1,2,4,5-tetrachlorobenzene (TeCB), and polar 1,2-dichlorobenzene (DCB) onto original kaolinite, smectite, vermiculite, and fulvic acid (FA)/humic acid (HA)–clay complexes were investigated, and possible sorption mechanisms were inferred from sorption isotherms and characteristics of humic substances (HS) and HS–mineral complexes. Results showed smectite and vermiculite had stronger sorption ability than kaolinite, and the adsorbed amount of DCB was much higher than that of PHEN and TeCB on each clay. Due to FA/HA-facilitated hydrophobic interaction, FA/HA–clay complexes except FA–vermiculite complex showed a stronger affinity for PHEN and TeCB than the original clays, particularly for HA–clay complexes. The non-linearity parameter values of n for all the Freundlich sorption isotherms of DCB were greater than 1, indicating that clays possessed some unique sites with strong affinity and capacity to sorb DCB from aqueous solutions. FA/HA did not significantly affect the sorption of polar DCB on clays, implying sorption of DCB on clays was probably due to polar interactions between the polar group of DCB and clays. Cation-π bonding between PHEN and iron cation was directly evidenced by X-ray photoelectron spectroscopy, and FA impeded the sorption of PHEN on vermiculite by occupation of iron cation sites. This study will benefit understanding behaviors of contaminants in the soil environments.

High glucose-regulated protein 78 (GRP78) expression contributes to the acquisition of a wide range of phenotypic cancer hallmarks and the pleiotropic oncogenic functions of GRP78 may result from its diverse subcellular distribution. Interestingly, GRP78 has been reported to be secreted from solid tumour cells, participating in cell-cell communication in the tumour microenvironment. However, the mechanism underlying this secretion remains elusive. Here, we report that GRP78 is secreted from colon cancer cells via exosomes. Histone deacetylase (HDAC) inhibitors blocked GRP78 release by inducing its aggregation in the ER. Mechanistically, HDAC inhibitor treatment suppressed HDAC6 activity and led to increased GRP78 acetylation; acetylated GRP78 then bound to VPS34, a class III phosphoinositide-3 kinase, consequently preventing the sorting of GRP78 into multivesicular bodies (MVBs). Of note, we found that mimicking GRP78 acetylation by substituting the lysine at residue 633, one of the deacetylated sites of HDAC6, with a glutamine resulted in decreased GRP78 secretion and impaired tumour cell growth in vitro. Our study thus reveals a hitherto-unknown mechanism of GRP78 secretion and may also provide implications for the therapeutic use of HDAC inhibitors.

Tool-path generation is a key issue in sheet metal incremental forming process, and existing approaches either are prone to computationally expensive or cannot be applied to stereolithography (STL) model including defects. Thus, a new tool-path generation method is presented by adopting the thought of generating cutter-location (CL) data directly from corresponding cutter-contact (CC) data. By analyzing the interference characteristics between fillet-end tool and model surface and considering tangential case and intersection case comprehensively, a discrete computational model is proposed to calculate single-layer interference-free CL contour, instead of computing a precise CL point by checking potential interferences from candidate facet, vertices, and edges, respectively. So this method is more efficient and easier for program implementation. Additionally, a fast recursive search algorithm is developed to identify and extract flat area features, and an efficient 2D invalid loops removal algorithm based on decomposition thought is presented to obtain valid CC contours and CL contours with a near linear time-complexity. Implementation tests prove that the new method is effective and robust for STL model with defects, and tool-path achieved is highly precise. It is also applicable to various tool shapes and suitable for planning various types of tool-paths to meet different SMIF process requirements.

Aims To study the relationship between changes in soil properties and plant community characters produced by grazing in a meadow steppe grassland and the composition and diversity of spore-producing arbuscular mycorrhizal fungi (AMF).

This study assessed effects of aluminum (Al) exposure on the immune function of erythrocytes in rats. Forty male Wistar rats (5 weeks old) weighed 110-120 g were randomly allocated equally into four groups according to their weights and were orally exposed to 0, 64.18, 128.36, and 256.72 mg/kg body weight aluminum trichloride in drinking water for 120 days. Levels of erythrocytes C(3b) receptor rate (RBC-C(3b)RR), erythrocytes C(3b) immune complex rosette rate (RBC-ICR), erythrocytes rosette forming enhancing rate (ERER) and erythrocytes rosette forming inhibitory rate (ERIR) were determined by the end of experiment. The three Al-treated groups had lower values of RBC-C(3b)RR and ERER, and higher values of RBC-ICR and ERIR than those in control group. The levels of RBC-C(3b)RR and ERER decreased, while the levels of RBC-ICR and ERIR increased with the increases of Al content in drinking water. The results suggest that the immune function of erythrocytes in rats is suppressed by Al exposure.

The purpose of the study was to investigate the effect of subchronic aluminum (Al) exposure on iron (Fe) homeostasis in rats. One hundred Wistar rats were divided into two groups. Experimental rats were given drinking water containing aluminum chloride (AlCl(3), 430 mg Al(3+)·L(-1)), while control rats were given distilled water for up to 150 days. Ten rats were sacrificed in each group every 30 days. Mean corpuscular hemoglobin (MCH), and serum levels of Al, Fe, transferrin (TF), total iron binding capacity (TIBC), and soluble transferrin receptor (sTfR) were measured. Al-treated rats showed significantly decreased bodyweight and increased Al and Al/Fe levels during the experimental period. Fe levels and MCH were higher on day 150 in the experimental group than in the control group. TF content and TIBC were higher, whereas erythrocyte counts and sTfR content were lower in the experimental group than in the control group from days 90 and 60, respectively. Longer duration of Al administration increased the serum levels of Al, TF, Al/Fe, and TIBC and decreased sTfR. MCH and Fe levels decreased first, and then increased. The results indicate that chronic exposure to Al disturbed Fe homeostasis.

The hollowing process plays an important role in some rapid prototyping technologies such as stereo lithography apparatus (SLA), fused deposition modelling (FDM) and select laser sintering (SLS). This paper introduces an efficient two-dimensional hollowing algorithm. The principles of algorithm and implementation are presented. In addition, a detailed analysis is used to study the effect of the scanning path and online character in the actual fabricating process.

The STL file, which is de facto standard for the rapid prototyping industries, has too large a file size. This paper proposes an improved interface between CAD and rapid prototyping systems, i.e. a CS (compressed STL) file that has very low data storage redundancies and is completely compatible with the STL file. The CS file is about a quarter of the size of the original binary STL file, without any model information loss. This is very suitable for file transferring via the Internet. Removing coordinate data of duplicate vertices, bit-compression technology, and a comparison of the size and compressed performance of the STL and the CS are also discussed.

Although the STL (stereo lithography) file format is the de facto standard for the rapid prototyping industries, there are always some defects in STL files, many of which are difficult to correct. Instead of correcting the defects of bad STL files by a manual, interactive and complex approach with an STL file correction program, an error-tolerance slicing algorithm for STL files is proposed in this paper. With the detailed analysis of complex defects such as cracks and non-manifold facets, a complete topological structure for the facets model with defects is built and the layer is sliced effectively. The badly sliced contour is processed by crack-tracking and non-manifold facet travelling methods to obtain a correct contour in a relatively easy 2D way.