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Drought stress is known to significantly limit crop growth and productivity. Lateral organ boundary domain (LBD) transcription factors-particularly class-I members-play essential roles in plant development and biotic stress. However, little information is available on class-II LBD genes related to abiotic stress in maize. Here, we cloned a maize class-II LBD transcription factor, ZmLBD5, and identified its function in drought stress. Transient expression, transactivation, and dimerization assays demonstrated that ZmLBD5 was localized in the nucleus, without transactivation, and could form a homodimer or heterodimer. Promoter analysis demonstrated that multiple drought-stress-related and ABA response cis-acting elements are present in the promoter region of ZmLBD5 . Overexpression of ZmLBD5 in Arabidopsis promotes plant growth under normal conditions, and suppresses drought tolerance under drought conditions. Furthermore, the overexpression of ZmLBD5 increased the water loss rate, stomatal number, and stomatal apertures. DAB and NBT staining demonstrated that the reactive oxygen species (ROS) decreased in ZmLBD5 -overexpressed Arabidopsis. A physiological index assay also revealed that SOD and POD activities in ZmLBD5 -overexpressed Arabidopsis were higher than those in wild-type Arabidopsis. These results revealed the role of ZmLBD5 in drought stress by regulating ROS levels.

Background: The value of plasma threonine, cysteine, and piperonamide as diagnostic biomarkers for non-small cell lung cancer (NSCLC) has been rarely explored. The lack of a validation set containing confounders is common to most previous metabolomics studies. The purpose of this study was to explore and validate the value of plasma amino acids and piperonamide as diagnostic biomarkers for NSCLC using liquid chromatography-tandem mass spectrometry (LC-MS/MS)., Methods: A total of 250 participants were included in this study, including 167 patients with pathologically confirmed NSCLC and 83 healthy controls (HCs). These participants were divided into training set, validation set 1, and validation set 2 in chronological order and in a certain proportion. The plasma levels of 22 amino acids and 1 piperonamide in these pre-treatment NSCLC patients and HCs were measured by LC-MS/MS. Metabolic biomarkers were identified after multivariate analysis, univariate analysis, receiver operating characteristic (ROC) analysis. Furthermore, these biomarkers and transcriptomic data were subjected to joint pathway analysis., Results: The area under the ROC curve (AUC) values for threonine, piperonamide, arginine, alanine, cysteine, methionine, and histidine in the integrated data set were 0.911, 0.848, 0.909, 0.869, 0.786, 0.597 and 0.637, respectively. This panel composed of these 7 metabolites showed good diagnostic capability for NSCLC (the AUC of this diagnostic panel in each data set was greater than 0.9). The specificity of this diagnostic panel in validation set 2, which included confounders, was 0.970, similar to that of the other datasets. The presence of confounding factors had little effect on the diagnostic accuracy of this panel. The ROC analysis of this diagnostic panel between all stage I NSCLC patients and HCs showed AUC, sensitivity, and specificity of 1.000, 1.000, and 0.988, respectively. Moreover, PSAT1, SHMT2, AOC3 , and MAOB were found to be involved in the metabolism of threonine and cysteine., Conclusions: Plasma amino acids and piperonamide have potential as diagnostic biomarkers in NSCLC. This metabolic biomarker panel appears useful for the diagnosis and screening of NSCLC. In addition, metabolomic and transcriptomic integration pathway analysis may help elucidate the mechanism of NSCLC occurrence and development and even reveal new treatment vulnerabilities., Competing Interests: Conflicts of Interest: All authors have completed the ICMJE uniform disclosure form (available at https://tcr.amegroups.com/article/view/10.21037/tcr-22-865/coif). The authors have no conflicts of interest to declare., (2022 Translational Cancer Research. All rights reserved.)

The recent discovery of ferromagnetism in two-dimensional van der Waals crystals has provoked a surge of interest in the exploration of fundamental spin interaction in reduced dimensions. However, existing material candidates have several limitations, notably lacking intrinsic room-temperature ferromagnetic order and air stability. Here, motivated by the anomalously high Curie temperature observed in bulk diluted magnetic oxides, we demonstrate room-temperature ferromagnetism in Co-doped graphene-like Zinc Oxide, a chemically stable layered material in air, down to single atom thickness. Through the magneto-optic Kerr effect, superconducting quantum interference device and X-ray magnetic circular dichroism measurements, we observe clear evidences of spontaneous magnetization in such exotic material systems at room temperature and above. Transmission electron microscopy and atomic force microscopy results explicitly exclude the existence of metallic Co or cobalt oxides clusters. X-ray characterizations reveal that the substitutional Co atoms form Co 2+ states in the graphitic lattice of ZnO. By varying the Co doping level, we observe transitions between paramagnetic, ferromagnetic and less ordered phases due to the interplay between impurity-band-exchange and super-exchange interactions. Our discovery opens another path to 2D ferromagnetism at room temperature with the advantage of exceptional tunability and robustness.

The new physics of magic-angle twisted bilayer graphene (TBG) motivated extensive studies of flat bands hosted by moiré superlattices in van der Waals structures, inspiring the investigations into their photonic counterparts with potential applications including Bose-Einstein condensation. However, correlation between photonic flat bands and bilayer photonic moiré systems remains unexplored, impeding further development of moiré photonics. In this work, we formulate a coupled-mode theory for low-angle twisted bilayer honeycomb photonic crystals as a close analogy of TBG, discovering magic-angle photonic flat bands with a non-Anderson-type localization. Moreover, the interlayer separation constitutes a convenient degree of freedom in tuning photonic moiré bands without high pressure. A phase diagram is constructed to correlate the twist angle and separation dependencies to the photonic magic angles. Our findings reveal a salient correspondence between fermionic and bosonic moiré systems and pave the avenue toward novel applications through advanced photonic band or state engineering.

Background: Fingerprint analysis and simultaneous multi-components determination are crucial for the holistic quality control of traditional Chinese medicines (TCMs). Yet, reference standards (RS) are often commercially unavailable and with other shortages, which severely impede the application of these technologies., Methods: A digital reference standard (DRS) strategy and the corresponding software called DRS analyzer, which supports chromatographic algorithms, spectrum algorithms, and the combination of these algorithms, was developed. The extensive function also enabled the DRS analyzer to recommend the chromatographic column based on big data., Results: Various quality control methods of fingerprints of 11 compounds in polyphenolic acid extract of Salvia miltiorrhiza (S. miltiorrhiza) were developed based on DRS analyzer, involving relative retention time (RRT) method, linear calibration using two reference substances (LCTRS) technique, RRT combined with Photon Diode Array (PDA) method, LCTRS combined with PDA method. Additionally, the column database of samples was established. Finally, our data demonstrated that the DRS analyzer could accurately identify 11 compounds of the samples, using only one or two physical RSs., Conclusions: The DRS strategy is an automated, intelligent, objective, accurate, eco-friendly, universal, sharing, and promising method for overall quality control of TCMs that requires the usage of fewer RSs.

Glucocorticoid-induced osteoporosis (GIOP) is a frequent complication of systemic glucocorticoid (GC) therapy, is the most common form of secondary osteoporosis, and is associated with skeletal fragility and increased fracture risk. A soluble form of BMP receptor type 1A fusion protein (mBMPR1A-mFc) acts as an antagonist to endogenous BMPR1A and could increase bone mass in both ovariectomized and ovary-intact mice, but its effects in GIOP mice remained unclear. The aim of this study was to evaluate the effects of mBMPR1A-mFc on the skeleton in experimental models of GIOP. mBMPR1A-mFc treatment could increase the bone mineral density (BMD), trabecular bone volume, thickness, and number, and cortical thickness, and reduce the structure model index and trabecular separation in GIOP mice. mBMPR1A-mFc treatment could also prevent bone loss and enhance biomechanical strength in GIOP mice by promoting osteoblastic bone formation and inhibiting osteoclastic bone resorption. Mechanistic studies revealed that mBMPR1A-mFc treatment increased murine osteoblastogenesis by activating the Wnt/β-catenin signaling pathway while decreasing osteoclastogenesis by inhibiting the RANK/RANKL/osteoprotegerin (OPG) signaling pathway. These findings demonstrate that mBMPR1A-mFc treatment in GIOP mice improves bone mass, microarchitecture, and strength by enhancing osteoblastic bone formation and inhibiting osteoclastic bone resorption in GIOP mice and offers a promising novel alternative for the treatment of GIOP., Competing Interests: None.

Objective: Breast cancer (BC) is still a lethal threat to women worldwide. An accurate screening and diagnosis strategy performed in an easy-to-operate manner is highly warranted in clinical perspective. Besides the routinely focused protein markers, blood is full of small molecular metabolites with diverse structures and properties. This study aimed to screen metabolite markers with BC diagnosis potentials., Methods: A dried blood spot-based direct infusion mass spectrometry (MS) metabolomic analysis was conducted for BC and non-BC differentiation. The targeted analytes included 23 amino acids and 26 acylcarnitines., Results: Multivariate analysis screened out 21 BC-related metabolites in the blood. Regression analysis generated a diagnosis model consisting of parameters Pip, Asn, Pro, C14:1/C16, Phe/Tyr, and Gly/Ala. Tested with another set of BC and non-BC samples, this model showed a sensitivity of 92.2% and a specificity of 84.4%. Compared to the routinely used protein markers, this model exhibited distinct advantage with its higher sensitivity., Conclusion: Blood metabolites screening is a more plausible approach for BC detection. Furthermore, this direct MS analysis could be finished within few minutes, which means that its throughput is higher than the currently used imaging techniques.

Objective: To assess the value of high-resolution three-dimensional black-blood magnetic resonance imaging (3D-BB-MRI) in quantitative measurement of carotid atherosclerotic plaque by comparison with two-dimensional black-blood magnetic resonance imaging (2D-BB-MRI)., Methods: Forty patients were scanned with routine 2D and oblique-sagittal 3D-BB-MRI. The original oblique-sagittal 3D images were reformatted to an axial 2D-like dataset. Two experienced radiologists identified the interested slice in consensus for every patient (unilateral carotid artery) in 2D-BB-MRI images and matched the axial reformatted 3D images with 2D black-blood images. Plaque thickness (PT), lumen area (LA) and total vessel area (TVA) were measured, and lumen stenosis (LS) and normalized wall index (NWI) were calculated., Results: There was no measurement difference between 2D-BB-MRI and reformatted 3D-BB-MRI (P>0.05), and these two methods had a good correlation (r<0.9). The Bland-Altman chart showed that 2D-BB-MRI and 3D-BB-MRI were in good agreement in the measurement of PT, LA and TVA., Conclusion: 3D-BB-MRI and 2D-BB-MRI have no obvious difference in quantitative measurement of the carotid plaques. 3D-BB-MRI can demonstrate the vessels and plaques by multiplanar reconstruction and thus have better performance in evaluating carotid atherosclerosis compared with 2D-BB-MRI.

Objective: To evaluate the feasibility by oblique sagittal T(1)-weighted (QIR-FSE) black-blood sequence for measurement of the carotid bifurcation angle., Methods: Twenty-three patients undergoing carotid magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) were divided in normal group and plaque group. Carotid bifurcation angle was measured by both 2D-TOF and oblique sagittal T(1)W (QIR-FSE) black-blood sequence, and the measurement was repeated after 3 months to evaluate the reproducibility. The measurement results using 2D-TOF and oblique sagittal T(1)W (QIR-FSE) black-blood sequence were compared to assess the consistency of the two sequences. Four different angles of each carotid artery were measured from different locations on oblique sagittal T(1)W. The ratio of the bilateral carotid bifurcation angle (Right/Left) was compared., Results: Ten patients in each group were enrolled after excluding 3 patients. Strong correlations were found between the results of the first and the second measurements for both 2D-TOF and oblique sagittal T(1)W sequences. No significant difference was found between the two sequences in the ratio of bilateral carotid bifurcation angle (right/left), nor in the 4 angles from different locations., Conclusion: Oblique sagittal T(1)-weighted (QIR-FSE) black-blood sequence can be used to measure the carotid bifurcation angle.

Objective: To reduce the acquisition time of carotid high-resolution contrast-enhanced magnetic resonance imaging (CEMRI), we designed a small field-of-view (FOV) quadruple-inversion-recovery (SF-QIR) T1WI and evaluated the image quality., Methods: Twenty-four subjects with carotid plaque were enrolled in our study. All the subjects were imaged using the same 3.0T MRI by SF-QIR and standard rectangular FOV QIR (SrF-QIR) with identical parameters except for the phase-encoding step numbers and the RF excitation methods. Three independent readers qualitatively evaluated the differences between the two sequences in regard of the carotid outer wall border delineation, fibrous cap and lipid-rich necrotic core (LR-NC) border delineation, and diagnostic confidence. The quantitative measurements included maximal stenosis, wall area, LR-NC area, signal-to-noise ratio (SNR), and contrast-to-noise ratio (CNR). The inter-reader variability was assessed., Results: The application of SF-QIR combined with orthogonal radio frequency excitation resulted in nearly half of the scan time with the SrF-QIR. Both qualitative and quantitative assessment by the readers revealed no significant differences between the two sequences except for SNR and CNR (Pgt;0.05). Since the mean loss of SNR with SF-QIR was 37.7%, SrF-QIR demonstrated a superior performance in SNR (P<0.001)., Conclusion: The small FOV QIR sequence is effective in high-resolution CEMRI for evaluating carotid plaques and can effectively reduce the scan time and eliminate motion artifacts.