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The concept of cultural community has been firstly or more obviously embodied in the works of the minority/minoritized literature or writers from marginalized countries and approached from different perspectives, such as small and enduring spiritual bonds, aspiration and an ideal, or self-deconstruction due to heterogeneity, conflict, and difference. However, most researchers explore the cultural community in the works of merely one racial group, such as American Indian, Chinese, Korean, or African. There has been comparatively little research on the construction of a cultural community across races. Focusing on Molefi Kete Asante's Afrocentricity and Tu Wei-ming's embodied Confucianism, two cultural movements that fully embody a "new cosmopolitanism" and have the potential to dialog and complement each other, this study compares the views of transcendence of these two philosophies in terms of sense, the ultimate goal, orientation of time, vehicle for realization, and thinking pattern in the hope of the construction of a Sino-African cultural community, which reflects mutual understanding, coexistence, harmony without uniformity, and the contact, conflict, and intermingling of heterogeneous cultures. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

SUMMARY: Salt glands are the unique epidermal structures present in recretohalophytes, plants that actively excrete excess Na+ by salt secretory structures to avoid salt damage. Here, we describe a transmembrane protein that localizes to the plasma membrane of the recretohalophyte Limonium bicolor. As virus‐induced gene silencing of the corresponding gene LbRSG in L. bicolor decreased the number of salt glands, we named the gene Reduced Salt Gland. We detected LbRSG transcripts in salt glands by in situ hybridization and transient transformation. Overexpression and silencing of LbRSG in L. bicolor pointed to a positive role in salt gland development and salt secretion by interacting with Lb3G16832. Heterologous LbRSG expression in Arabidopsis enhanced salt tolerance during germination and the seedling stage by alleviating NaCl‐induced ion stress and osmotic stress after replacing or deleting the (highly) negatively charged region of extramembranous loop. After screened by immunoprecipitation‐mass spectrometry and verified using yeast two‐hybrid, PGK1 and BGLU18 were proposed to interact with LbRSG to strengthen salt tolerance. Therefore, we identified (highly) negatively charged regions in the extramembrane loop that may play an essential role in salt tolerance, offering hints about LbRSG function and its potential to confer salt resistance. Significance Statement: LbRSG (Reduced Salt Gland) was characterized as a transmembrane protein participating in salt gland development and salt resistance of recretohalophyte Limonium bicolor by interacting with Lb3G16832, and the negatively charged regions in the extramembranous loop were verified to play an essential role in salt tolerance of transgenic Arabidopsis. This study facilitated research on the molecular mechanisms of salt gland development and the design of salt‐tolerant crops for agricultural production in saline soils. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Summary: Large amounts of detrital organic matter and osmolytes accumulate in the sediments of hadal trenches (>6000 m depth) due to the funnelling effect. It is still unknown whether there are novel active microbes that depend on specific carbon sources in extreme and isolated environments. In this study, we present a novel active bacterial phylum, Candidatus Tianyabacteria in the FCB superphylum, which was enriched in sediments collected from the Challenger Deep. Genome binning resulted in high‐quality Ca. Tianyabacteria genomes representing two Ca. Tianyabacteria lineages (L1 and L2) in sediments 0–21 cm below the surface (cmbsf); L1 tends to be abundant in the upper layers (0–9 cmbsf), and L2 seems to be more prevalent in the deeper layers (12–21 cmbsf). Gene annotation and transcriptomics results indicate that the two lineages might import and catalyse amino acids and myo‐inositol into central carbon metabolism for a heterotrophic lifestyle. Probably due to differences in environmental oxygen levels, the L2 genomes harbour gene clusters responsible for denitrification and fermentation, while the L1 genomes encode octahaem cytochrome c and multicopper oxidase using unknown substrates. The Ca. Tianyabacteria are thus novel heterotrophic organisms that participate in processes of carbon, nitrogen and organic osmolyte cycling in hadal sediments. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The MYC oncoprotein activates and represses gene expression in a transcription‐dependent or transcription‐independent manner. Modification of mRNA emerges as a key gene expression regulatory nexus. We sought to determine whether MYC alters mRNA modifications and report here that MYC promotes cancer progression by down‐regulating N6‐methyladenosine (m6A) preferentially in transcripts of a subset of MYC‐repressed genes (MRGs). We find that MYC activates the expression of ALKBH5 and reduces m6A levels in the mRNA of the selected MRGs SPI1 and PHF12. We also show that MYC‐regulated m6A controls the translation of MRG mRNA via the specific m6A reader YTHDF3. Finally, we find that inhibition of ALKBH5, or overexpression of SPI1 or PHF12, effectively suppresses the growth of MYC‐deregulated B‐cell lymphomas, both in vitro and in vivo. Our findings uncover a novel mechanism by which MYC suppresses gene expression by altering m6A modifications in selected MRG transcripts promotes cancer progression. SYNOPSIS: MYC suppresses gene expression by indirectly altering m6A modifications in transcripts of MYC‐repressed genes via ALKBH5 to promote cancer progression. MYC indirectly down‐regulates m6A levels in mRNA and inhibits protein expression of selected MRG transcripts.MYC transcriptionally activates the m6A demethylases ALKBH5 and FTO.ALKBH5 removes m6A and YTHDF3 binds m6A‐modified mRNAs to regulate the translation of SPI1/PHF12.The MYC‐ALKBH5‐m6A‐SPI1/PHF12 axis is critical for cancer progression. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]