Celery is an increasing popular vegetable species, but limited transcriptome and genomic data hinder the research to it. In addition, a lack of celery molecular markers limits the process of ...molecular genetic breeding. High-throughput transcriptome sequencing is an efficient method to generate a large transcriptome sequence dataset for gene discovery, molecular marker development and marker-assisted selection breeding.
Celery transcriptomes from four tissues were sequenced using Illumina paired-end sequencing technology. De novo assembling was performed to generate a collection of 42,280 unigenes (average length of 502.6 bp) that represent the first transcriptome of the species. 78.43% and 48.93% of the unigenes had significant similarity with proteins in the National Center for Biotechnology Information (NCBI) non-redundant protein database (Nr) and Swiss-Prot database respectively, and 10,473 (24.77%) unigenes were assigned to Clusters of Orthologous Groups (COG). 21,126 (49.97%) unigenes harboring Interpro domains were annotated, in which 15,409 (36.45%) were assigned to Gene Ontology(GO) categories. Additionally, 7,478 unigenes were mapped onto 228 pathways using the Kyoto Encyclopedia of Genes and Genomes Pathway database (KEGG). Large numbers of simple sequence repeats (SSRs) were indentified, and then the rate of successful amplication and polymorphism were investigated among 31 celery accessions.
This study demonstrates the feasibility of generating a large scale of sequence information by Illumina paired-end sequencing and efficient assembling. Our results provide a valuable resource for celery research. The developed molecular markers are the foundation of further genetic linkage analysis and gene localization, and they will be essential to accelerate the process of breeding.
Background and Aims
The study objective was to compare the effectiveness of microwave ablation (MWA) and laparoscopic liver resection (LLR) on solitary 3–5‐cm HCC over time.
Approach and Results
From ...2008 to 2019, 1289 patients from 12 hospitals were enrolled in this retrospective study. Diagnosis of all lesions were based on histopathology. Propensity score matching was used to balance all baseline variables between the two groups in 2008–2019 (n = 335 in each group) and 2014–2019 (n = 257 in each group) cohorts, respectively. For cohort 2008–2019, during a median follow‐up of 35.8 months, there were no differences in overall survival (OS) between MWA and LLR (HR: 0.88, 95% CI 0.65–1.19, p = 0.420), and MWA was inferior to LLR regarding disease‐free survival (DFS) (HR 1.36, 95% CI 1.05–1.75, p = 0.017). For cohort 2014–2019, there was comparable OS (HR 0.85, 95% CI 0.56–1.30, p = 0.460) and approached statistical significance for DFS (HR 1.33, 95% CI 0.98–1.82, p = 0.071) between MWA and LLR. Subgroup analyses showed comparable OS in 3.1–4.0‐cm HCCs (HR 0.88, 95% CI 0.53–1.47, p = 0.630) and 4.1–5.0‐cm HCCs (HR 0.77, 95% CI 0.37–1.60, p = 0.483) between two modalities. For both cohorts, MWA shared comparable major complications (both p > 0.05), shorter hospitalization, and lower cost to LLR (all p < 0.001).
Conclusions
MWA might be a first‐line alternative to LLR for solitary 3–5‐cm HCC in selected patients with technical advances, especially for patients unsuitable for LLR.
The paper first provides an overview of the current status of PV industry development in China, including the penetration speed, the market segments and the value chain. Further, it reviews the ...experience of governmental interventions composed of the legal framework, market incentives and manufacturing policies for lessons learning. After the Renewable Energy Law took effect in 2006, PV penetration was accelerated. Capital subsidies and feed-in tariffs, which were still in a trial stage, public bidding and the cooperation among relevant Ministries played important roles. A series of public R&D projects provided elemental technologies and meanwhile the preferential tax policies encouraged PV R&D nationwide. Then the paper looks into the future prospects, based on the technical potential, the national indicative targets in 2020, and the energy planning considering the governmental targets of energy transition and CO2 mitigation. Consequently we analyze problems impeding the future development based on evidences. For instance, there was no predetermined degression of the capital subsidy to push cost reduction; the budget and the organization of public PV R&D were insufficient. Finally, we propose some recommendations on improving policy interventions.
► Surveys the current status of PV industry in China, including the market trend, the installation distribution and the value chain. ► Reviews the experience of governmental interventions composed of the legal framework, market policies and manufacturing policies. ► Looks into future prospects, based on the technical potential, the national targets of 2020, policies of energy transition and CO2 mitigation. ► Analyzes barriers of future development, and proposes some recommendations on improving policy interventions.
The use of cytoplasmic male sterility (CMS) in F1 hybrid seed production of chili pepper is increasingly popular. However, the molecular mechanisms of cytoplasmic male sterility and fertility ...restoration remain poorly understood due to limited transcriptomic and genomic data. Therefore, we analyzed the difference between a CMS line 121A and its near-isogenic restorer line 121C in transcriptome level using next generation sequencing technology (NGS), aiming to find out critical genes and pathways associated with the male sterility.
We generated approximately 53 million sequencing reads and assembled de novo, yielding 85,144 high quality unigenes with an average length of 643 bp. Among these unigenes, 27,191 were identified as putative homologs of annotated sequences in the public protein databases, 4,326 and 7,061 unigenes were found to be highly abundant in lines 121A and 121C, respectively. Many of the differentially expressed unigenes represent a set of potential candidate genes associated with the formation or abortion of pollen.
Our study profiled anther transcriptomes of a chili pepper CMS line and its restorer line. The results shed the lights on the occurrence and recovery of the disturbances in nuclear-mitochondrial interaction and provide clues for further investigations.
The aim of this review is to explore the effects of the seminar teaching method versus lecture-based learning (LBL) in the education of medical students by meta-analysis.
Data and information ...available on PubMed, Cochrane Library, EMBASE, MEDLINE, China National Knowledge Infrastructure, WanFang Data, China Science Periodical Database, and Chinese BioMedical were searched and examined from the inception up to January 2020. Randomized controlled trials (RCTs) that investigated the effects of the seminar teaching method versus LBL in medical education were included.
A total of 16 RCTs were included, with a total sample size of 1122 medical students. The seminar teaching method significantly improved knowledge scores (SMD = 1.38, 95%CI 0.92-1.84; p < 0.001) and skill scores (SMD = 1.46, 95%CI 1.00-1.91; p < 0.001) and the seminar teaching method significantly improved teaching effects, including active learning ability, learning interest, scientific innovation, and independent thinking ability, expression and communication ability, clinical thinking ability, teamwork, teacher-student interaction, and classroom atmosphere.
This meta-analysis showed that the seminar teaching method is an effective method for improving knowledge scores, skill scores, active learning ability, student collaboration, classroom atmosphere, and interaction between teachers and students.
Chemotherapy as an effective method is now widely used to treat various types of malignant tumors. With advances in medicine and drug dosimetry, the precise dose adjustment of chemotherapy drugs has ...become a significant challenge. Several academics have investigated this problem in depth. However, these studies have concentrated on the efficiency of cancer treatment while ignoring other significant bodily indicators in the patient, which could cause other complications. Therefore, to handle the above problem, this research creatively proposes a multi-objective deep reinforcement learning. First, in order to balance the competing indications inside the optimization process and to give each indicator a better outcome, we propose a multi-criteria decision-making strategy based on the integration concept. In addition, we provide a novel multi-indicator experience replay for multi-objective deep reinforcement learning, which significantly speeds up learning compared to conventional approaches. By modeling various indications in the body of the patient, our approach is used to simulate the treatment of tumors. The experimental results demonstrate that the treatment plan generated by our method can better balance the contradiction between the tumor’s treatment effect and other biochemical indicators than other treatment plans, and its treatment time is only one-third that of multi-objective deep reinforcement learning, which is now in use.
Plant basic helix–loop–helix (bHLH) transcription factors play essential roles in abiotic stress tolerance. However, most bHLHs have not been functionally characterized. Here, we characterized the ...functional role of a bHLH transcription factor from Arabidopsis, AtbHLH112, in response to abiotic stress.
AtbHLH112 is a nuclear-localized protein, and its nuclear localization is induced by salt, drought and abscisic acid (ABA). In addition, AtbHLH112 serves as a transcriptional activator, with the activation domain located at its N-terminus.
In addition to binding to the E-box motifs of stress-responsive genes, AtbHLH112 binds to a novel motif with the sequence ‘GGGTCCGTGATAC’ (GCG-box). Gain- and loss-of-function analyses showed that the transcript level of AtbHLH112 is positively correlated with salt and drought tolerance. AtbHLH112 mediates stress tolerance by increasing the expression of P5CS genes and reducing the expression of P5CDH and ProDH genes to increase proline levels. AtbHLH112 also increases the expression of POD and SOD genes to improve reactive oxygen species (ROS) scavenging ability.
We present a model suggesting that AtbHLH112 is a transcriptional activator that regulates the expression of genes via binding to their GCG- or E-boxes to mediate physiological responses, including proline biosynthesis and ROS scavenging pathways, to enhance stress tolerance.
•A multihazard framework is proposed to assess the damage of a high-rise building.•The occurrence models of multiple hazards are constructed by the recorded data.•The bi-hazards dominates the total ...damage probability under most damage states.
The high-rise buildings designed with a long lifetime may be exposed to one or more extreme hazards. Traditionally, specifications separately treated the multiple extreme hazards according to the controlling load case. Thus, the ability of high-rise buildings designed by the current codes to face the combined threats of earthquake and wind is rather vague. This paper presents a multihazard-based framework to assess the damage risk of a high-rise building subjected to earthquake and wind hazards separately and concurrently, which can be broken into three parts: the modeling of hazards, the structural fragility analysis and the damage probability computation. Firstly, based on the earthquake and wind data from 1971 to 2017 recorded in the Dali region of China, the hazard curves of single earthquake and wind, and the copula-based surface of bi-hazards are well established. Secondly, the multihazard-based fragility analysis of a high-rise building in Dali Prefecture is performed with the consideration of various load conditions. Lastly, upon completing the hazard models and fragility analyses, quantifications of the damage probabilities for the separate and concurrent hazards are determined directly. Numerical results indicate that the damage probability and contributions of each hazard circumstance are sensitive to damage severity. Furthermore, the damage probability induced by the bi-hazards dominates the total probability under most damage states conflicted with the common assumptions presented in the available researches. The comprehensive application highlights the necessity of examining the responses of high-rise buildings subjected to multihazard. The potential of the presented framework is of great help for decision-making.
Chemotherapy is one of the most effective treatments for cancer, but the efficacy of standard chemotherapy regimens is often limited by toxicities and the individual heterogeneity of cancers. Precise ...dosing is an important tool to improve efficacy and reduce significant differences in toxicity. However, most of the existing studies on chemotherapy optimization fail to fully consider the toxic side effects, drug resistance, and drug combinations, and thus the chemotherapy regimens obtained may face difficulty in achieving the expected efficacy and also affect the subsequent treatment. Therefore, this paper establishes a tumor growth model for the combination chemotherapy of cell cycle-specific and non-cycle-specific drugs and includes the factors of acquired drug resistance and toxic side effects, proposing an improved multi-objective Squirrel Search Algorithm, the TA-MOSSA, to solve the problem of accurate chemotherapy drug optimization. In this paper, experiments were conducted to analyze the efficacy of chemotherapy dosing regimens obtained by the TA-MOSSA based on the tumor growth model, and the results show that the TA-MOSSA can provide effective chemotherapy regimens for patients who take different treatment approaches.
In kinesin-3, the coiled-coil 1 (CC1) can sequester the preceding neck coil (NC) for autoinhibition, but the underlying mechanism is poorly understood. Here, we determined the structures of the ...uninhibited motor domain (MD)-NC dimer and inhibited MD-NC-CC1 monomer of kinesin-3 KIF13B. In the MD-NC-CC1 monomer, CC1 is broken into two short helices that unexpectedly interact with both the NC and the MD. Compared with the MD-NC dimer, the CC1-mediated integration of NC and MD not only blocks the NC dimer formation, but also prevents the neck linker (NL) undocking and the ADP release from the MD. Mutations of the essential residues in the interdomain interaction interface in the MD-NC-CC1 monomer restored the MD activity. Thus, CC1 fastens the neck domain and MD and inhibits both NC and NL. This CC1-mediated lockdown of the entire neck domain may represent a paradigm for kinesin autoinhibition that could be applicable to other kinesin-3 motors.