Anyons are exotic quasiparticles obeying fractional statistics, whose behavior can be emulated in artificially designed spin systems. Here we present an experimental emulation of creating anyonic ...excitations in a superconducting circuit that consists of four qubits, achieved by dynamically generating the ground and excited states of the toric code model, i.e., four-qubit Greenberger-Horne-Zeilinger states. The anyonic braiding is implemented via single-qubit rotations: a phase shift of π related to braiding, the hallmark of Abelian 1/2 anyons, has been observed through a Ramsey-type interference measurement.
Abstract In our previous study, we found that the sonic hedgehog (Shh) signaling pathway is activated in neurons under oxidative stress and plays a neuro-protective role Dai RL, et al. (2011) ...Neurochem Res 36:67–75; we are led to postulate that the Shh might be released by astrocytes, thereby protecting neurons against oxidant injury. In primary cultured astrocytes of rats, we found that treatment with 100 μM H 2 O 2 for 24 h induced a significant increase in the mRNA and protein levels of Shh, Patched1, and Gli-1, and the increase was substantially greater in astrocytes than in neurons. In the coculture systems of astrocytes and neurons under the H 2 O 2 treatment, blocking the Shh signaling pathway with 5E1 (an antibody against the N-terminal domain of Shh) could block the neuroprotective activity of astrocytes on cocultured neurons. In this study, we found that treatment with H 2 O 2 (100–800 μM) for 24 h caused cell death of astrocytes in a concentration-dependent manner. MTT reduction and Trypan Blue exclusion assay showed that exogenous Shh increased survival rate of the H 2 O 2 -treated astrocytes, whereas pretreatment with cyclopamine (a specific inhibitor of the Shh signaling pathway) or 5E1 decreased the survival rate of the H 2 O 2 -treated astrocytes. Shh also inhibited H 2 O 2 -induced apoptosis of astrocytes, and this effect could be partially reversed by cyclopamine. We also found that Shh promoted the phosphorylation of AKT, but had no significant effect on p38 or extracellular signal regulated kinases 1 and 2 (ERK 1/2) in H 2 O 2 -treated astrocytes. Blocking Shh or phosphoinositide 3-kinases (PI3-K)/AKT signaling pathway with cyclopamine or LY294002 decreased the survival rate of astrocytes, induced cell apoptosis, upregulated the expression of Bax, and downregulated the expression of Bcl-2. We are led to conclude that the oxidative stress induces astrocytes to secrete endogenous Shh and exogenous administration of Shh might protect the astrocytes from oxidative stress by activating PI3-K/AKT/Bcl-2 pathway.
Highlights ► Oxygen/glucose deprivation can induce ER stress and the UPR. ► Exendin-4 improved rat cortical neuron survival under oxygen/glucose deprivation by modulating the UPR. ► The ...neuroprotective action was primarily mediated through PKA pathways.
Aim: Thalassaemia is a good candidate disease for control by preventive genetic programmes in developing countries. Accurate population frequency data are needed for planning the control of ...thalassaemia in the high risk Guangdong Province of southern China. Methods: In total, 13 397 consecutive samples from five geographical areas of Guangdong Province were analysed for both haematological and molecular parameters. Results: There was a high prevalence of carriers of α thalassaemia (8.53%), β thalassaemia (2.54%), and both α and β thalassaemia (0.26%). Overall, 11.07% of the population in this area were heterozygous carriers of α and β thalassaemia. The mutation spectrum of α and β thalassaemia and its constitution were fully described in this area. This study reports the true prevalence of silent α thalassaemia in the southern China population for the first time. In addition, two novel mutations that give rise to α thalassaemia, one deletion resulting in β thalassaemia, and a rare deletion (−−THAI allele) previously unreported in mainland China were detected. The frequency of the most common mutation, the Southeast Asian type of deletion (−−SEA, accounting for 48.54% of all α thalassaemias) was similar to the total of two α+ thalassaemia deletions (−α3.7 and −α4.2, accounting for 47.49% of α thalassaemia). Conclusion: Both α and β thalassaemia are widely distributed in Guangdong Province of China. The knowledge gained in this study will enable the projected number of pregnancies at risk to be estimated and a screening strategy for control of thalassaemia to be designed in this area.
Hematopoietic cell transplantation (HCT) activity in China was surveyed to assess its current status. A record number of HCTs (21 884: 16 631 allogeneic (76%) and 5253 autologous (24%)) were reported ...by 76 centers in China between 1 January 2008 and 30 June 2016. HCT trends included continued growth in transplant activity, a continued rapid increase in haploidentical donors (HID), and slower growth for unrelated donors, matched-related donors (MRD) and cord blood transplantation (CBT). The proportion of HID HCT among allogeneic HCTs increased from 29.6% (313/1062) in 2008 to 48.8% (1939/3975) in 2015, even 51.7% (1157/2237) in the first half of 2016. During this time frame, the proportion of MRD HCTs among allogeneic HCTs decreased from 48.1% (511/1062) to 33.0% (332/3975). The proportion of unrelated donor HCTs among allogeneic HCTs decreased from 20.4 (216/1062) to 13.6% (540/3975). The proportion of CBTs among allogeneic HCTs was increased from 2.1% (22/1062) to 4.2% (184/3975). HCTs have been increasing continuously for all indications except chronic myelogenous leukemia. Severe aplastic anemia is a common HCT indication among non-malignant diseases in China. The number of cases of allogeneic HCT for this disorder has increased annually, from 59 (5.6%) in 2008 to 569 (14.3%) in 2015, even 334 (14.9%) in the first half year in 2016. This survey clearly shows recent trends for HCTs in China.
Land models, which have been developed by the modeling community in the past few decades to predict future states of ecosystems and climate, have to be critically evaluated for their performance ...skills of simulating ecosystem responses and feedback to climate change. Benchmarking is an emerging procedure to measure performance of models against a set of defined standards. This paper proposes a benchmarking framework for evaluation of land model performances and, meanwhile, highlights major challenges at this infant stage of benchmark analysis. The framework includes (1) targeted aspects of model performance to be evaluated, (2) a set of benchmarks as defined references to test model performance, (3) metrics to measure and compare performance skills among models so as to identify model strengths and deficiencies, and (4) model improvement. Land models are required to simulate exchange of water, energy, carbon and sometimes other trace gases between the atmosphere and land surface, and should be evaluated for their simulations of biophysical processes, biogeochemical cycles, and vegetation dynamics in response to climate change across broad temporal and spatial scales. Thus, one major challenge is to select and define a limited number of benchmarks to effectively evaluate land model performance. The second challenge is to develop metrics of measuring mismatches between models and benchmarks. The metrics may include (1) a priori thresholds of acceptable model performance and (2) a scoring system to combine data-model mismatches for various processes at different temporal and spatial scales. The benchmark analyses should identify clues of weak model performance to guide future development, thus enabling improved predictions of future states of ecosystems and climate. The near-future research effort should be on development of a set of widely acceptable benchmarks that can be used to objectively, effectively, and reliably evaluate fundamental properties of land models to improve their prediction performance skills.
Summary
What is Known and Objective: The pathogenic mechanism of antituberculosis drug‐induced hepatotoxicity (ATDH) is thought to involve drug‐metabolizing enzymes including N‐acetyl transferase2 ...(NAT2), cytochrome P4502E1 (CYP2E1) and glutathione S‐transferase (GST) M1, T1. The associations between genetic polymorphisms of those genes and ATDH have been reported but with inconsistent results. Moreover, most studies were hospital‐based retrospective studies and not prospective. We aimed to investigate possible associations of CYP2E1, GSTM1 and GSTT1 genetic polymorphisms with ATDH using a more robust case–control study nested in a population‐based prospective antituberculosis treatment cohort.
Methods: A total of 4304 patients with smear‐positive tuberculosis (TB) who received standard short‐course chemotherapy were monitored for 6–9 months. Incidence density sampling method was adopted to select controls and 4 : 1 matched with each ATDH cases by age (±5 years), sex, treatment history, disease severity and drug dosage. The CYP2E1, GSTM1 and GSTT1 polymorphisms were genotyped using PCR–RFLP and multiplex PCR methods. Conditional logistic regression model was used to calculate odds ratio (OR) and 95% confidence interval (CI), as well as corresponding P‐values.
Results and Discussion: A total of 89 ATDH cases and 356 controls were included in this study. There was no statistically significant association between CYP2E1 RsaI c1/c1 genotype or DraI C/C genotype and ATDH (OR = 0·99, 95% CI:0·62–1·59; OR = 1·13, 95% CI: 0·40–3·20, respectively) compared with CYP2E1 RsaI c1/c2 or c2/c2 genotypes or DraI D/D genotype, or between GSTM1/GSTT1 null genotypes and ATDH (OR = 1·22, 95% CI: 0·76–1·96; OR = 0·96, 95% CI: 0·60–1·52, respectively) compared with non‐null genotypes.
What is new and Conclusion: This is the first study of the involvement of CYP2E1, GSTM1 and GSTT1 genetic polymorphisms in ATDH using a nested case–control population‐based prospective cohort design. We could not confirm positive associations of genetic polymorphisms of CYP2E1 RsaI, CYP2E1 DraI, GSTM1 null and GSTT1 null with ATDH reported by various groups, in our Chinese TB population.
Lily is universally known for its large, showy, fragrant flower, and Sorbonne is one of the best-selling Oriental hybrid lily cultivars. To accelerate lily breeding for more robust, attractive, and ...disease-resistant cultivars, it is essential to introduce molecular marker-assisted breeding. However, the enormous genome size, of around 36 Gb, is an obstacle for genomic information mining. We sequenced and assembled a mixture of six tissues of
Lilium
‘Sorbonne’ using Illumina HiSeq2000. A set of 49,991 Unigenes with an average length of 673 bp was produced, and 36,093 sequences were annotated against public protein databases. The number of transcripts with GO annotation was 26,212, with 55 subcategories. Virus transcripts were detected, even though in very small amounts. From the 49,991 Unigenes, 1,853 SSRs were identified. The most common repeat motifs were trinucleotide and dinucleotide with GA/CT and GGC/CCG the most common repeats. Fifty-seven EST-SSR markers were validated in 32 lily genotypes with a mean PIC value of 0.55. A 57-primer-based dendrogram was in accordance with the genetic background derived from complex breeding practices and previous studies. Thirty out of the 57 SSR-derived Unigenes were of function-known genes. Subsequently, a comprehensive hybrid assembly was generated, merging the current transcriptome with two more lily transcriptomes available on the public database. The distribution of gene ontology for the three sets of assembly and mismatch/gap uncovering for Unigenes before and after hybrid assembly was analyzed. Our data are an extensive complement to the lily genome database, which will benefit genetic research and candidate gene mining.
An extraordinary high-strength dilute Mg-0.8Al-0.1Ca-0.6Mn (wt. %) alloy wire was successfully developed by hot drawing, which exhibits high tensile yield strength of 394 MPa, ultimate tensile ...strength of 431 MPa and moderate elongation to failure of 6.0%. The high strength was mainly attributed to the ultra-fine dynamically recrystallized (DRXed) grains, coarse elongated unrecrystallized grains with dense dislocations as well as nano-sized Al2Ca and Al–Mn precipitates dispersed in the as-drawn alloy wire. The microstructure observation by transmission electron microscopy reveals that Al and Ca remarkably co-segregated to the DRXed grain boundaries while Al rather than Ca segregated at the low-angle grain boundaries in the unrecrystallized grains. The solute segregations not only exerted strong solute drag effect on the grain boundaries to restrict the dynamic recrystallization and DRXed grain growth, but also contributed to the high strength of the alloy wire by pinning the dislocations. The findings from this work provide a new insight into the development of strong low-cost and light-weight Mg alloy wires.
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