Starting around December 2019, an epidemic of pneumonia, which was named COVID‐19 by the World Health Organization, broke out in Wuhan, China, and is spreading throughout the world. A new ...coronavirus, named severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS‐CoV‐2) by the Coronavirus Study Group of the International Committee on Taxonomy of Viruses was soon found to be the cause. At present, the sensitivity of clinical nucleic acid detection is limited, and it is still unclear whether it is related to genetic variation. In this study, we retrieved 95 full‐length genomic sequences of SARAS‐CoV‐2 strains from the National Center for Biotechnology Information and GISAID databases, established the reference sequence by conducting multiple sequence alignment and phylogenetic analyses, and analyzed sequence variations along the SARS‐CoV‐2 genome. The homology among all viral strains was generally high, among them, 99.99% (99.91%‐100%) at the nucleotide level and 99.99% (99.79%‐100%) at the amino acid level. Although overall variation in open‐reading frame (ORF) regions is low, 13 variation sites in 1a, 1b, S, 3a, M, 8, and N regions were identified, among which positions nt28144 in ORF 8 and nt8782 in ORF 1a showed mutation rate of 30.53% (29/95) and 29.47% (28/95), respectively. These findings suggested that there may be selective mutations in SARS‐COV‐2, and it is necessary to avoid certain regions when designing primers and probes. Establishment of the reference sequence for SARS‐CoV‐2 could benefit not only biological study of this virus but also diagnosis, clinical monitoring and intervention of SARS‐CoV‐2 infection in the future.
Highlights
In this study, we retrieved 95 full‐length genomic sequences of SARAS‐CoV‐2 strains, established the reference sequence, and analyzed sequencevariations along the SARS‐CoV‐2 genome. The homology among all viral strains was generally high. Although overall variation in ORF regions is low, 13 variation sites in 1a, 1b, S, 3a, M, 8, and N regions were identified, among which positions nt28144 in region 8 and nt8782 in ORF 1a showed mutation rate of 30.53% and 29.47% respectively.
Full text
Available for:
BFBNIB, FZAB, GIS, IJS, KILJ, NLZOH, NUK, OILJ, SAZU, SBCE, SBMB, UL, UM, UPUK
DNA nanostructures with increasing complexity have showcased the power of programmable self-assembly from DNA strands. At the nascent stage of the field, a variety of small branched objects ...consisting of a few DNA strands were created. Since then, a quantum leap of complexity has been achieved by a scaffolded 'origami' approach and a scaffold-free approach using single-stranded tiles/bricks-creating fully addressable two-dimensional and three-dimensional DNA nanostructures designed on densely packed lattices. Recently, wireframe architectures have been applied to the DNA origami method to construct complex structures. Here, revisiting the original wireframe framework entirely made of short synthetic strands, we demonstrate a design paradigm that circumvents the sophisticated routing and size limitations intrinsic to the scaffold strand in DNA origami. Under this highly versatile self-assembly framework, we produce a myriad of wireframe structures, including 2D arrays, tubes, polyhedra, and multi-layer 3D arrays.
Display omitted
•Among different water quality components, TC degradation by UV/NH2Cl process was most greatly affected by addition of HCO3−.•Reactive chlorine species played a major role on TC ...degradation by UV/NH2Cl process in pH range of 6.0–8.0.•TC degradation in UV/NH2Cl process involved the hydroxylation, demethylation, dehydration and chlorine substitution.•Compared with chloramination, UV/NH2Cl treatment increased the NDMA formation.•The observed acute toxicity in chloramination and UV/NH2Cl oxidation was higher than UV photolysis.
The combination of UV and monochloramine (UV/NH2Cl) was investigated to eliminate tetracycline (TC) in water. The results indicated that TC degradation by UV/NH2Cl oxidation far exceeded that by UV photolysis and dark chloramination and these processes well fitted pseudo-first-order kinetics. With the increase of NH2Cl dosage, the pseudo-first-order rate constant (kobs) value increased linearly during TC chloramination, while the growth rate of kobs presented a gradual downward trend in UV/NH2Cl process. TC degradation by UV photolysis, dark chloramination and UV/NH2Cl oxidation displayed highly pH-dependent. As solution pH increased from 5.0 to 9.0, the TC removal increased during UV photolysis, while decreased during dark chloramination. For UV/NH2Cl process, the TC degradation showed a decreasing trend with increasing pH from 5.0 to 7.0, but further increasing pH to 9.0 presented an increasing trend. Reactive chlorine species acted as the major contributors to TC degradation in pH range of 6.0–8.0. TC degradation was not apparently affected after the introduction of HA and chloride, but was substantially accelerated in the presence of HCO3−. The proposed degradation pathways involved the hydroxylation, demethylation, dehydration and chlorine substitution processes. Compared with dark chloramination, the N-Nitrosodimethylamine (NDMA) generation was enhanced during TC oxidation by UV/NH2Cl process. The NDMA concentration increased with increasing solution pH from 6.0 to 8.0 and also elevated in the presences of humic acid (HA), nitrite, nitrate and ammonium during TC oxidation by chloramination and UV/NH2Cl. The results of acute toxicity test demonstrated that the toxicity of the reacted solution exhibited similar trends during dark chloramination and UV/NH2Cl treatment and was found to be obviously higher than UV photolysis.
Full text
Available for:
GEOZS, IJS, IMTLJ, KILJ, KISLJ, NLZOH, NUK, OILJ, PNG, SAZU, SBCE, SBJE, UILJ, UL, UM, UPCLJ, UPUK, ZAGLJ, ZRSKP
Abstract
Most human diseases are systems diseases, and systems biomarkers are better fitted for diagnostic, prognostic, and treatment monitoring purposes. To search for systems biomarker candidates, ...lactate dehydrogenase (LDH), a housekeeping protein expressed in all living cells, was investigated. To this end, we analyzed the serum LDH activities from 172,933 patients with 48 clinically defined diseases and 9528 healthy individuals. Based on the median values, we found that 46 out of 48 diseases, leading by acute myocardial infarction, had significantly increased (
p
< 0.001), whereas gout and cerebral ischemia had significantly decreased (
p
< 0.001) serum LDH activities compared to the healthy control. Remarkably, hepatic encephalopathy and lung fibrosis had the highest AUCs (0.89, 0.80), sensitivities (0.73, 0.56), and specificities (0.90, 0.91) among 48 human diseases. Statistical analysis revealed that over-downregulation of serum LDH activities was associated with blood-related cancers and diseases. LDH activities were potential systems biomarker candidates (AUCs > 0.8) for hepatic encephalopathy and lung fibrosis.
Full text
Available for:
IZUM, KILJ, NUK, PILJ, PNG, SAZU, UL, UM, UPUK
Summary
Plant hormones can adjust the physiology and development of plants to enhance their adaptation to biotic and abiotic challenges. Jasmonic acid (JA), one of the immunity hormones in plants, ...triggers genome‐wide transcriptional changes in response to insect attack and wounding. Although JA is known to affect the development of trichomes, epidermal appendages that form a protective barrier against various stresses, it remains unclear how JA interacts with developmental programs that regulate trichome development.
In this study, we show that JA affects trichome length in tomato by releasing the transcriptional repression mediated by Jasmonate ZIM (JAZ) proteins. We identified SlJAZ4, a negative regulator preferentially expressed in trichomes, as the critical component in JA signaling in tomato trichomes.
We also identified a homeodomain‐leucine zipper gene, SlHD8, as the downstream regulator of JA signaling that promotes trichome elongation. SlHD8 is also highly expressed in trichomes and physically interacts with SlJAZ4. Loss‐of‐function mutations in SlHD8 caused shorter trichomes, a phenotype that was only partially rescued by methyl jasmonate treatment.
Our dual‐luciferase and chromatin immunoprecipitation–quantitative PCR assays revealed that SlHD8 regulates trichome elongation by directly binding to the promoters of a set of cell‐wall‐loosening protein genes and activating their transcription. Together, our findings define SlHD8‐SlJAZ4 as a key module mediating JA‐induced trichome elongation in tomato.
Full text
Available for:
BFBNIB, FZAB, GIS, IJS, KILJ, NLZOH, NUK, OILJ, SAZU, SBCE, SBMB, UL, UM, UPUK
Although mature podocytes lack tight junctions, tight junction integral membrane protein claudin-5 (CLDN5) is predominantly expressed on plasma membranes of podocytes under normal conditions. Using ...podocyte-specific Cldn5 knockout mice, we identify CLDN5 as a crucial regulator of podocyte function and reveal that Cldn5 deletion exacerbates podocyte injury and proteinuria in a diabetic nephropathy mouse model. Mechanistically, CLDN5 deletion reduces ZO1 expression and induces nuclear translocation of ZONAB, followed by transcriptional downregulation of WNT inhibitory factor-1 (WIF1) expression, which leads to activation of WNT signaling pathway. Podocyte-derived WIF1 also plays paracrine roles in tubular epithelial cells, as evidenced by the finding that animals with podocyte-specific deletion of Cldn5 or Wif1 have worse kidney fibrosis after unilateral ureteral obstruction than littermate controls. Systemic delivery of WIF1 suppresses the progression of diabetic nephropathy and ureteral obstruction-induced renal fibrosis. These findings establish a function for podocyte CLDN5 in restricting WNT signaling in kidney.
Nanomaterial technology has attracted much attention because of its antibacterial and drug delivery properties, among other applications. Metal-organic frameworks (MOFs) have advantages, such as ...their pore structure, large specific surface area, open metal sites, and chemical stability, over other nanomaterials, enabling better drug encapsulation and adsorption. In two examples, we used the common pathogenic bacterium
and highly infectious influenza A virus. A novel complex MIL-101(Fe)-T705 was formed by synthesizing MOF material MIL-101(Fe) with the drug favipiravir (T-705), and a hot solvent synthesis method was applied to investigate the in vitro antibacterial and antiviral activities. The results showed that MIL-101(Fe)-T705 combined the advantages of nanomaterials and drugs and could inhibit the growth of
at a concentration of 0.0032 g/mL. Regarding the inhibition of influenza A virus, MIL-101(Fe)-T705 showed good biosafety at 12, 24, 48, and 72 h in addition to a good antiviral effect at concentrations of 0.1, 0.2, 0.4, 0.8, 1.6, and 3 μg/mL, which were higher than MIL-101(Fe) and T-705.
Full text
Available for:
IZUM, KILJ, NUK, PILJ, PNG, SAZU, UL, UM, UPUK
Metal-organic frameworks (MOFs), which have become popular in recent years as excellent carriers of drugs and biomimetic materials, have provided new research ideas for fighting pathogenic bacterial ...infections. Although various antimicrobial metal ions can be added to MOFs with physical methods, such as impregnation, to inhibit bacterial multiplication, this is inefficient and has many problems, such as an uneven distribution of antimicrobial ions in the MOF and the need for the simultaneous addition of large doses of metal ions. Here, we report on the use of MIL-101(Fe)@Ag with efficient metal-ion release and strong antimicrobial efficiency for co-sterilization. Fe-based MIL-101(Fe) was synthesized, and then Ag
was uniformly introduced into the MOF by the substitution of Ag
for Fe
. Scanning electron microscopy, powder X-ray diffraction (PXRD) Fourier transform infrared spectroscopy, and thermogravimetric analysis were used to investigate the synthesized MIL-101(Fe)@Ag. The characteristic peaks of MIL-101(Fe) and silver ions could be clearly seen in the PXRD pattern. Comparing the diffraction peaks of the simulated PXRD patterns clearly showed that MIL-101(Fe) was successfully constructed and silver ions were successfully loaded into MIL-101(Fe) to synthesize an MOF with a bimetallic structure, that is, the target product MIL-101(Fe)@Ag. The antibacterial mechanism of the MOF material was also investigated. MIL-101(Fe)@Ag exhibited low cytotoxicity, so it has potential applications in the biological field. Overall, MIL-101(Fe)@Ag is an easily fabricated structurally engineered nanocomposite with broad-spectrum bactericidal activity.
Full text
Available for:
IZUM, KILJ, NUK, PILJ, PNG, SAZU, UL, UM, UPUK
The accuracy and rapidity of total iron content (TFE) analysis can accelerate iron ore production. Although the conventional TFE detection methods are accurate, its detection speed presents ...difficulties in meeting production requirements. Therefore, this paper proposes a method of TFE detection based on reflectance spectroscopy (wavelength range: 340–2500 nm) and remote sensing. Firstly, spectral experiments were conducted on iron ore using the HR SVC-1024 spectrometer to obtain spectral data for each sample. Then, the spectra were smoothed and dimensionally reduced by using wavelet transform and principal component analysis. To improve the detection accuracy of TFE, a two hidden layer extreme learning machine with variable neuron nodes based on an improved sparrow search algorithm and batch normalization optimization (MSSA-BNVTELM) is proposed. According to the experimental results, MSSA-BNVTELM exhibited superior detection accuracy in comparison to other algorithms. In addition, this research established a remote sensing detection model using Sentinel-2 data and MSSA-BNVTEM to detect the distribution of TFE in the mining area. The distribution of TFE in the mine area was plotted based on the detection results. The results show that the remote sensing of the mine area can be useful for detection of the TFE distribution, providing assistance for the mining plan.
Full text
Available for:
IZUM, KILJ, NUK, PILJ, PNG, SAZU, UL, UM, UPUK
PDF
