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A recent study suggests that ribosome MARylation in cancers maintains proteostasis by reducing protein synthesis and preventing toxic protein aggregation. Mechanistically, NMNAT‐2 is a cytosolic NAD+ synthase that supports the catalytic activity of PARP‐16, which mediates ribosomal proteins MARylation. Ribosomal protein MARylation regulates polysomes assembly or function through the 3′‐untranslated region (3′‐UTR) stem‐loop secondary structures in mRNAs, resulting in reduced protein synthesis and preventing toxic protein aggregation, thus supporting the growth of cancer cells during accelerated cell growth. When PARP‐16 or NMNAT‐2 is deleted, the stem‐loop element in the 3′‐UTRs of mRNAs increases polysome loading, enhances protein synthesis, promotes toxic protein aggregation, leading to inhibited cancer cell growth. Collectively, ribosome MARylation provides us with an exciting and scientific direction for us to understand cancers. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

With astounding advances, China expressway construction has caused inevitable environmental destruction around the construction projects. A series of expressway construction-induced environmental problems is caused by the noise pollution of machinery and equipment in expressway construction, atmospheric pollution caused by fuel consumption, soil contamination caused by abandoned waste materials and gases generated by asphalt mixture during road paving, and increasing traffic volume. In this study, the literature regarding expressway construction-induced environmental pollution was combined by taking Changyu (Changchun-Yulin Lalin River) Expressway as an example. The impacts of expressway construction on the ecological environment were analyzed, and feasible treatment measures were proposed. Results show that the expressway construction in various countries across the globe aggravates the regional ecosystem damage unavoidably to a certain extent; The environmental impacts caused by Changyu Expressway are manifested at five aspects, namely, water environmental pollution, vegetation deterioration, heavy metal pollution, water and soil losses, and induction of geological disasters; The environmental impacts of expressway construction can be mitigated by reasonable route selection, strengthening planning and environmental protection, preventing water and soil losses, reinforcing atmospheric pollution detection, reducing sewage discharge, enhancing vegetation recovery, and relieving the impact on animal habitats. The study results serve as an important reference for identifying the sources of expressway environmental risks and lowering the environmental pollution caused by expressway construction to an acceptable level. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Two nitrogen-rich azo-bridged porphyrin porous organic polymers (Azo-Por-Bpy-POP and Azo-Por-Dadp-POP) with high surface areas were prepared by coupling 5,10,15,20-tetra(p-nitrophenyl)-porphyrin with the aromatic amines of 2,2′-bipyridine-5,5′-diamine (Bpy) and diaminodiphenyl (Dadp). Azo-Por-Bpy-POP and Azo-Por-Dadp-POP display high photocatalytic reduction activity for CO2 to CO under visible-light irradiation without a sacrificial reagent or metal co-catalyst. Azo-Por-Bpy-POP exhibits the highest photoreduction for CO2 with CO as the only carbonaceous reduction product with a production rate of 38.75 μmol g−1 h−1. Theoretical investigations indicate a stronger electrostatic interaction between CO2 and Azo-Por-Bpy-POP than Azo-Por-Dadp-POP, which favors CO2 photoreduction. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

N6‐methyladenosine (m6A) is one of the most common internal modifications in messenger RNA, which is necessary for cell physiological activities. A recent study shows that during mammalian hematopoietic development, loss of m6A modification leads to the aberrant production of double‐stranded RNA, which results in the abnormal activation of innate immune response, and ultimately leads to hematopoietic failure. Accordingly, m6A modification provide us an attractive direction for us to understand mammalian hematopoietic development and innate immune response. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Long non‑coding RNA colon cancer‑associated transcript 2 (CCAT2) is dysregulated in a variety of types of human cancer. However, the role of CCAT2 in epithelial ovarian carcinoma (EOC) remains largely unknown. The aim of this study is to investigate the effect of CCAT2 on epithelial‑mesenchymal transition (EMT) and related molecular mechanisms in epithelial ovarian cancer cells. In the current paper, we found that CCAT2 was significantly upregulated in EOC SKOV3, A2780 and HO8910 cell lines compared with the normal ovarian epithelial HUM‑CELL‑0088 cell line. Functional assays demonstrated that the knockdown of CCAT2 inhibited migration and invasion of EOC cells in vitro. Moreover, our results showed that silencing CCAT2 inhibited EMT by the upregulation of epithelial cadherin and downregulation of neural cadherin, zinc finger protein SNAI and Twist‑related protein 1 in SKOV3 and A2780 cell lines. But, that was reversed by the treatment with lithium chloride (LiCl), by which the canonical Wnt/β‑catenin pathway could be activated. In addition, we further investigated the role of CCAT2 in the modulation of Wnt/β‑catenin signaling pathway. Our results revealed that knockdown of CCAT2 inhibited the expression of β‑catenin and the activity of T‑cell factor/lymphoid enhancer factor, acting as a key transcription factor of Wnt signaling pathway. Collectively, these results indicate that CCAT2 may promote EMT, at least partly through Wnt/β‑catenin signaling pathway in EOC cells. Thus, CCAT2 might play a critical role in EOC progression and serve as a valuable target for the treatment of ovarian cancer. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

N 6 -methyladenosine (m 6 A) is one of the most common internal modifications in messenger RNA, which is necessary for cell physiological activities. A recent study shows that during mammalian hematopoietic development, loss of m 6 A modification leads to the aberrant production of double-stranded RNA, which results in the abnormal activation of innate immune response, and ultimately leads to hematopoietic failure. Accordingly, m 6 A modification provide us an attractive direction for us to understand mammalian hematopoietic development and innate immune response., (© 2020 International Federation for Cell Biology.)

In Shanghai Chinese as well as many other Wu dialects, breathy voice is a well-documented accompaniment of the low-register tone syllables with obstruent as well as sonorant onsets. But Shanghai Chinese is rapidly changing and the breathy voice associated with low-register tones tends to disappear in young speakers' productions. In this study, we asked whether breathy voice is nevertheless still perceived and whether it pushes tone identification toward low-register tones. We conducted forced-choice tone identification tests on young native listeners of Shanghai Chinese, using low-high register tone continua-from tone T3 (23) to tone T2 (34)-imposed on base syllables with either modal or breathy voice quality, and beginning with various onset consonants. We used continua constructed from either naturally produced or synthesized syllables. Our results show that breathy voice does bias tone identification responses toward the low-register tone T3. This result held for both synthesized and natural stimuli, except for the /m/-onset stimuli derived from naturally produced syllables. We propose that the phonetic change at issue-loss of breathiness in production-is not due to misperception but reflects the ever-stronger influence of Standard Mandarin Chinese. In other words, this particular case of sound change seems to be led by production rather than perception. It remains an open question whether this kind of sound change is only determined by sociolinguistic factors (here, the dominance of Mandarin Chinese) or is independently motivated by phonetic and/or phonological factors.

Two nitrogen-rich azo-bridged porphyrin porous organic polymers (Azo-Por-Bpy-POP and Azo-Por-Dadp-POP) with high surface areas were prepared by coupling 5,10,15,20-tetra(p-nitrophenyl)-porphyrin with the aromatic amines of 2,2'-bipyridine-5,5'-diamine (Bpy) and diaminodiphenyl (Dadp). Azo-Por-Bpy-POP and Azo-Por-Dadp-POP display high photocatalytic reduction activity for CO2 to CO under visible-light irradiation without a sacrificial reagent or metal co-catalyst. Azo-Por-Bpy-POP exhibits the highest photoreduction for CO2 with CO as the only carbonaceous reduction product with a production rate of 38.75 μmol g-1 h-1. Theoretical investigations indicate a stronger electrostatic interaction between CO2 and Azo-Por-Bpy-POP than Azo-Por-Dadp-POP, which favors CO2 photoreduction.