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The maternal-to-zygotic transition (MZT), which controls maternal signaling to synthesize zygotic gene products, promotes the preimplantation development of mouse zygotes to the two-cell stage. Our previous study reported that mouse granzyme g (Gzmg), a serine-type protease, is required for the MZT. In this study, we further identified the maternal factors that regulate the Gzmg promoter activity in the zygote to the two-cell stage of mouse embryos. A full-length Gzmg promoter from mouse genomic DNA, FL-pGzmg (&minus, 1696~+28 nt), was cloned, and four deletion constructs of this Gzmg promoter, &Delta, 1-pGzmg (&minus, 1369~+28 nt), &Delta, 2-pGzmg (&minus, 939~+28 nt), &Delta, 3-pGzmg (&minus, 711~+28 nt) and &Delta, 4-pGzmg (&minus, 417~+28 nt), were subsequently generated. Different-sized Gzmg promoters were used to perform promoter assays of mouse zygotes and two-cell stage embryos. The results showed that &Delta, 4-pGzmg promoted the highest expression level of the enhanced green fluorescent protein (EGFP) reporter in the zygotes and two-cell embryos. The data suggested that time-specific transcription factors upregulated Gzmg by binding cis-elements in the &minus, 417~+28-nt Gzmg promoter region. According to the results of the promoter assay, the transcription factor binding sites were predicted and analyzed with the JASPAR database, and two transcription factors, signal transducer and activator of transcription 3 (STAT3) and GA-binding protein alpha (GABP&alpha, ), were identified. Furthermore, STAT3 and GABP&alpha, are expressed and located in zygote pronuclei and two-cell nuclei were confirmed by immunofluorescence staining, however, only STAT3 was recruited to the mouse zygote pronuclei and two-cell nuclei injected with the &Delta, 4-pGzmg reporter construct. These data indicated that STAT3 is a maternal transcription factor and may upregulate Gzmg to promote the MZT. Furthermore, treatment with a STAT3 inhibitor, S3I-201, caused mouse embryonic arrest at the zygote and two-cell stages. These results suggest that STAT3, a maternal protein, is a critical transcription factor and regulates Gzmg transcription activity in preimplantation mouse embryos. It plays an important role in the maternal-to-zygotic transition during early embryonic development.

A miniaturized intracerebral potential recorder for long-term local field potential (LFP) of deep brain signals is proposed. LFP can be recorded by deep brain electrodes. The abnormal beta-band oscillation of LFP in subthalamic nucleus and internal globus pallidus in patients with Parkinson's disease (PD) are associated with the severity of the symptoms. The LFP signal from patients who have been implanted with deep brain electrode can be monitored by our system for at least 24 hours in real time. Graphical user interface has also been developed for use by medical personnel. Imitation experiments and in vivo experiments were performed to successfully verify that our system can measure LFP signals. With 24-hour intracerebral signals, researchers can analyze what is happened in the brain in daily life. In the future, more effective PD treatment can be developed, such as intelligent closed-loop deep brain stimulation.

Inverted repeat (IR) DNA sequences compose cruciform structures. Some genetic disorders are the result of genome inversion or translocation by cruciform DNA structures. The present study examined whether exogenous DNA integration into the chromosomes of transgenic animals was related to cruciform DNA structures. Large imperfect cruciform structures were frequently predicted around predestinated transgene integration sites in host genomes of microinjection-based transgenic (Tg) animals (αLA-LPH Tg goat, Akr1A1eGFP/eGFP Tg mouse, and NFκB-Luc Tg mouse) or CRISPR/Cas9 gene-editing (GE) animals (αLA-AP1 GE mouse). Transgene cassettes were imperfectly matched with their predestinated sequences. According to the analyzed data, we proposed a putative model in which the flexible cruciform DNA structures acted as a legible template for DNA integration into linear DNAs or double-strand break (DSB) alleles. To demonstrate this model, artificial inverted repeat knock-in (KI) reporter plasmids were created to analyze the KI rate using the CRISPR/Cas9 system in NIH3T3 cells. Notably, the KI rate of the 5′ homologous arm inverted repeat donor plasmid (5′IR) with the ROSA gRNA group (31.5%) was significantly higher than the knock-in reporter donor plasmid (KIR) with the ROSA gRNA group (21.3%, p < 0.05). However, the KI rate of the 3′ inverted terminal repeat/inverted repeat donor plasmid (3′ITRIR) group was not different from the KIR group (23.0% vs. 22.0%). These results demonstrated that the legibility of the sequence with the cruciform DNA existing in the transgene promoted homologous recombination (HR) with a higher KI rate. Our findings suggest that flexible cruciform DNAs folded by IR sequences improve the legibility and accelerate DNA 3′-overhang integration into the host genome via homologous recombination machinery.

This paper presents the closed-loop neural disorder control concept and some design considerations. Two architectures of closed-loop neuromodulation for Parkinson's disease and epileptic seizure are proposed. One is a closed-loop deep brain stimulator, which meets the IEC 60601-1 standard. The other one is an implantable SoC for epileptic seizure control, which is verified by animal experiment.

In this paper, a low-cost H.264/AVC video decoder design is presented for high definition television (HDTV) applications. Through optimization from algorithmic and architectural perspectives, the proposed design can achieve real-time H.264 video decoding on HD1080 video (1920 times 1088@30 Hz) when operating at 120 MHz with 320 mW power dissipation. Fabricated by using the TSMC one-poly six-metal 0.18 mum CMOS technology, the proposed design occupies 2.9times2.9 mm2 silicon area with the hardware complexity of 160K gates and 4.5K bytes of local memory

This paper presents an extrinsic data compression method for double-binary turbo codes. Frame and extrinsic data memory occupy more area in turbo decoder implementations with the frame size increasing. Besides, non-binary turbo codes have much more extrinsic memory usage than single-binary turbo codes. This proposed compression method utilizes an operation in radix-4 single-binary turbo decoder and also can simplify the integration of single and double-binary turbo decoders in hardware implementations. It can reduce one-third of extrinsic memory size, about 15% of total memory usage. Simulation results show that this method only causes 0.2dB performance loss when bit error rate is equal to 10−5 with slight hardware increment.