Transgenic crops expressing
(Bt) insecticidal proteins have been extensively planted for insect pest control, but the evolution of Bt resistance in target pests threatens the sustainability of this ...approach. Mutations of cadherin in the midgut brush border membrane was associated with Cry1Ac resistance in several lepidoptera species, including the Asian corn borer,
, a major pest of maize in Asian-Western Pacific countries. However, the causality of
cadherin (
) with Cry1Ac resistance remains to be clarified. In this study, in vitro and in vivo approaches were employed to examine the involvement of
in mediating Cry1Ac toxicity. Sf9 cells transfected with
showed significant immunofluorescent binding with Cry1Ac toxin and exhibited a concentration-dependent mortality effect when exposed to Cry1Ac. The
knockout strain
-KO, bearing homozygous 15.4 kb deletion of the
gene generated by CRISPR/Cas9 mutagenesis, exhibited moderate-level resistance to Cry1Ac (14-fold) and low-level resistance to Cry1Aa (4.6-fold), but no significant changes in susceptibility to Cry1Ab and Cry1Fa, compared with the original NJ-S strain. The Cry1Ac resistance phenotype was inherited as autosomal, recessive mode, and significantly linked with the
knockout in the
-KO strain. These results demonstrate that the
protein is a functional receptor for Cry1Ac, and disruption of
confers a moderate Cry1Ac resistance in
. This study provides new insights into the mode of action of the Cry1Ac toxin and useful information for designing resistance monitoring and management strategies for
.
Enormous efforts have been made to evaluate the worldwide prevention and control of iodine deficiency disorders (IDDs). This study evaluated China's achievements in IDD prevention and control against ...WHO criteria for sustainable elimination of IDD. The study sample consisted of 556,390 school-aged children and 271,935 pregnant women enrolled in the 2018 China National IDD Surveillance. As a result, at the national level, median urine iodine concentration (MUIC) was 206.1 and 163.5 μg/l in children and in pregnant women, respectively. The proportion of households consuming adequate iodized salt (PHCAIS) was 90.2%. The prevalence rates of goiter in children and thyroid disease in pregnant women were 2.0 and 0.8%, respectively. MUIC showed significant non-linear increasing trends with increasing PHCAIS in both children and pregnant women. The prevalence of thyroid disease in pregnant women had a sharp decreasing trend with increasing PHCAIS. Of note, the prevalence of goiter in children and thyroid disease in pregnant women against MUIC both presented as significant U-shaped curves, with the lowest prevalence at 100-300 μg/l of MUIC in children and 150-250 μg/l in pregnant women. PHCAIS, MUIC, and the programmatic indicators at the national level were all above their cut-offs proposed in the 2007 Criteria. Evaluation by adding the prevalence of goiter (<5%) yielded the different results at the county level. Sustainable elimination of IDD has been achieved nationally. 2018 Chinese surveillance data support the expansion of global cut-offs for optimal iodine status in school-age children from 100-199 to 100-299 μg/l as recommended by others and the lower limit of MUIC (150 μg/l) in pregnant women also seems justified. Inclusion of goiter prevalence <5% in our analysis reduced the number of municipalities and counties which had achieved sustainable elimination of IDD.
•Scientific question: Low expression of matrix protein 2 (M2) in cells infected with the influenza virus hampers studies.•Evidence before this study: The protective role of influenza virus M2 through ...antibody-dependent cell-mediated cytotoxicity (ADCC) is demonstrated. Inducing ADCC can effectively clear virus-infected cells, serving as a vital bridge between humoral and cellular immunity, as previous studies have suggested. Therefore, the selection of candidate vaccines capable of eliciting both broad neutralizing antibodies and potent ADCC is crucial for controlling influenza A virus outbreaks.•New findings: A stable cell line (YAC-1-M2) capable of sustaining M2 expression was established. The optimal effector-to-target cell ratio for this target cell is 20:1, and the IgG2a subtype is more effective in inducing ADCC compared to the IgG1 subtype.•Significance of the study: This study facilitates comprehension of the immunoprotective mechanisms associated with M2 and lays the groundwork for the development of vaccines and drugs based on non-neutralizing antibody protection mechanisms.
The matrix protein 2 (M2) is a preferred target for developing a universal vaccine against the influenza A virus (IAV). This study aimed to develop a method for assessing antibody-dependent cell-mediated cytotoxicity (ADCC) associated with M2-based immunization in mice. We first established a stable cell line derived from mouse lymphoma cells (YAC-1) expressing M2 of H3N2. This cell line, designated as YAC-1-M2, was generated using a second-generation lentiviral tricistronic plasmid system to transduce the M2 gene into YAC-1 cells. The ADCC effect induced by polyclonal antibodies targeting matrix protein 2 ectodomain (M2e) was demonstrated by YAC-1-M2 cell lysis by natural killer cells (NK) derived from mice, in the presence of anti-M2 antibodies obtained from mice immunized with an mRNA vaccine based on M2e. This ADCC effect was found to be stronger compared to the effect induced by monoclonal antibodies (14C2) against M2. Moreover, the ADCC effect was enhanced as the effector-to-target ratio of NK to YAC-1-M2 cells increased. In conclusion, we established a novel method to detect ADCC of M2 of IAV, which paves the way for the development of an M2-based universal vaccine against IAV and an in-depth analysis of its mechanism of broad-spectrum immune protection in mice.
Arbuscular mycorrhizal fungi (AMF) are widespread soil endophytic fungi, forming mutualistic relationships with the vast majority of land plants. Biochar (BC) has been reported to improve soil ...fertility and promote plant growth. However, limited studies are available concerning the combined effects of AMF and BC on soil community structure and plant growth. In this work, a pot experiment was designed to investigate the effects of AMF and BC on the rhizosphere microbial community of Allium fistulosum L. Using Illumina high-throughput sequencing, we showed that inoculation of AMF and BC had a significant impact on soil microbial community composition, diversity, and versatility. Increases were observed in both plant growth (the plant height by 8.6%, shoot fresh weight by 12.1%) and root morphological traits (average diameter by 20.5%). The phylogenetic tree also showed differences in the fungal community composition in A. fistulosum. In addition, Linear discriminant analysis (LDA) effect size (LEfSe) analysis revealed that 16 biomarkers were detected in the control (CK) and AMF treatment, while only 3 were detected in the AMF + BC treatment. Molecular ecological network analysis showed that the AMF + BC treatment group had a more complex network of fungal communities, as evidenced by higher average connectivity. The functional composition spectrum showed significant differences in the functional distribution of soil microbial communities among different fungal genera. The structural equation model (SEM) confirmed that AMF could improve the microbial multifunctionality by regulating the rhizosphere fungal diversity and soil properties. Our findings provide new information on the effects of AMF and biochar on plants and soil microbial communities.
Arbuscular mycorrhizal fungi (AMF) are widespread soil endophytic fungi, forming mutualistic relationships with the vast majority of land plants. Biochar (BC) has been reported to improve soil ...fertility and promote plant growth. However, limited studies are available concerning the combined effects of AMF and BC on soil community structure and plant growth. In this work, a pot experiment was designed to investigate the effects of AMF and BC on the rhizosphere microbial community of
Allium fistulosum
L. Using Illumina high-throughput sequencing, we showed that inoculation of AMF and BC had a significant impact on soil microbial community composition, diversity, and versatility. Increases were observed in both plant growth (the plant height by 8.6%, shoot fresh weight by 12.1%) and root morphological traits (average diameter by 20.5%). The phylogenetic tree also showed differences in the fungal community composition in
A. fistulosum
. In addition, Linear discriminant analysis (LDA) effect size (LEfSe) analysis revealed that 16 biomarkers were detected in the control (CK) and AMF treatment, while only 3 were detected in the AMF + BC treatment. Molecular ecological network analysis showed that the AMF + BC treatment group had a more complex network of fungal communities, as evidenced by higher average connectivity. The functional composition spectrum showed significant differences in the functional distribution of soil microbial communities among different fungal genera. The structural equation model (SEM) confirmed that AMF could improve the microbial multifunctionality by regulating the rhizosphere fungal diversity and soil properties. Our findings provide new information on the effects of AMF and biochar on plants and soil microbial communities.
The large-scale access of new energy vehicles to distribution grids in recent years has affected the safe operation of traditional distribution grids, while electric vehicles, as highly flexible ...mobile energy storage units, and the demand response of electric vehicle users under the influence of various incentives in the electricity market will change the load characteristics and affect load forecasting. A combined CNN-AM-BiLSTM forecasting method based on response feature decomposition is proposed for the characteristics of high participation of demand response and volatility of charging load of users in public areas. According to the predictability of demand response signals and the independence of seasonal signals, wavelet decomposition and other methods are used to decompose charging loads in public areas at different levels to form seasonal base loads and demand response dominant loads. The seasonal base load is analysed for smoothness and the time-series forecasts are made based on the analysis results. To address the problem that demand response dominant load has many influencing factors and is difficult to obtain, convolutional neural networks are used to extract depth features and an attention mechanism is introduced to make the Bi-LSTM model focus more on the features that are most relevant to the load information, thus improving the forecasting effect. Finally, the two parts of the prediction results are superimposed to obtain the public area EV charging load prediction results.
Starting from the establishment of generalized predictive model based on neural network, LM optimization algorithm is applied to the perdictive control model for study in order to solve these ...problems that the training speed of the BP network is slow and it is easy to trap into the local minimum.Generalized predictive control and neural network which has the capability of approaching any nonlinear function are combined to forecast the future outputs of the system.LM algorithm is used instead of gradient descent method to optimize controller parameters and it makes full use of Jacobian matrix information identified by neural network.The result of Matlab simulation indicates that the neural network using LM algorithm has the feature of fast convergence rate,model of high precision and good robustness,which is more suitable for real-time nonlinear control.
Carbon materials have attracted intense interests as electrode materials for electrochemical capacitors, because of their high surface area, electrical conductivity, chemical stability and low cost. ...Activated carbons produced by different activation processes from various precursors are the most widely used electrodes. Recently, with the rapid growth of nanotechnology, nanostructured electrode materials, such as carbon nanotubes and template‐synthesized porous carbons have been developed. Their unique electrical properties and well controlled pore sizes and structures facilitate fast ion and electron transportation. In order to further improve the power and energy densities of the capacitors, carbon‐based composites combining electrical double layer capacitors (EDLC)‐capacitance and pseudo‐capacitance have been explored. They show not only enhanced capacitance, but as well good cyclability. In this review, recent progresses on carbon‐based electrode materials are summarized, including activated carbons, carbon nanotubes, and template‐synthesized porous carbons, in particular mesoporous carbons. Their advantages and disadvantages as electrochemical capacitors are discussed. At the end of this review, the future trends of electrochemical capacitors with high energy and power are proposed.
Carbon materials have attracted intense interest as electrodes for supercapacitors. A brief summary of recent research progress on carbon‐based electrodes is provided. An analysis of both advantages and disadvantages of different types of carbons are presented. The future trends of electrochemical capacitors with high energy and power are proposed.
The development of ultrastable carbon materials for potassium storage poses key limitations caused by the huge volume variation and sluggish kinetics. Nitrogen‐enriched porous carbons have recently ...emerged as promising candidates for this application; however, rational control over nitrogen doping is needed to further suppress the long‐term capacity fading. Here we propose a strategy based on pyrolysis–etching of a pyridine‐coordinated polymer for deliberate manipulation of edge‐nitrogen doping and specific spatial distribution in amorphous high‐surface‐area carbons; the obtained material shows an edge‐nitrogen content of up to 9.34 at %, richer N distribution inside the material, and high surface area of 616 m2 g−1 under a cost‐effective low‐temperature carbonization. The optimized carbon delivers unprecedented K‐storage stability over 6000 cycles with negligible capacity decay (252 mA h g−1 after 4 months at 1 A g−1), rarely reported for potassium storage.
Pyrolysis–etching of a pyridine‐coordinated polymer was used to prepare a porous carbon material with defect edge‐enriched N‐6/N‐5 doping, high surface area, and rich distribution of N defects within the material. This carbonaceous material allows full utilization of surface‐dominated capacitive K storage with ultrastable cycling.
•Experiments are carried in a fan-shaped test section with integrated flameholder.•Fuel distribution characteristics are analyzed under different inlet conditions.•Inflow velocity and fuel ...temperature are more decisive for droplet evaporation.•Fuel distribution mainly relies on the flow field structure and fuel jet condition.
The vapor- and liquid-phase fuel distributions play critical roles in the combustion processes of augmented/ramjet combustors. In this study, the fuel distribution and evaporation characteristics downstream of an integrated flameholder in a fan-shaped test section are investigated under different inflow and fuel conditions using physical and optical methods. The experimental results denote that the Sauter mean diameter (SMD) and liquid equivalence ratio Φliquid at the cross-sections decrease with the increasing inflow temperature T1, inflow velocity V1, fuel temperature Tf or flow distance, while increase with an increasing global equivalence ratio ϕ. The total equivalence ratio Φtotal is conserved at all cross-sections; thus, the evaporation rate η at the measurement points increase with increasing inlet conditions and flow distance, similar to the vapor-phase equivalence ratio Φvapor. Under a given condition, along the radial direction from the outer wall to the central axis of the fan-shaped test section, the Φvapor and η initially increase, then decrease, and finally increase again, and reaching their maximum at a radius of 10/11, whereas Φliquid always increase; note that these trends are not affected by the inlet conditions. In any given cross-section, the SMD and Φvapor variations are significant for increasing V1 or Tf, whereas they are relatively small for increasing T1 or ϕ. This indicates that increasing the V1 or Tf is more conducive for promoting fuel atomization and evaporation than increasing the T1 or ϕ.