With the wide application of the "Tender, Auction, and Listing" system for land in China, it is of paramount importance to establish a sound land auction mechanism so as to avoid unreasonable land ...allocation. However, existing studies only focus on developers who are merely concerned about land combinations and offline auctions with low efficiency and high land unsold rate. To further improve land auction mechanism, we modeled the problem of land allocation as an online combinatorial auction. On this basis, we defined a land correction coefficient and designed an optimal online combinatorial auction mechanism that enabled developers to submit multiple combinations of land. Our designed mechanism proved to satisfy both incentive compatibility (IC) and individual rationality (IR), which can prevent developers from lying in the auction while winning higher revenue, reducing land unsold rate, increasing developer turnover rate and promoting the stability of land resource allocation rate. Therefore, online combinatorial auction mechanism, both applicable and efficient, is a practical solution for improving land auctions in China.
Rationale
As important components of plant cells, lipids are involved in various biological functions. However, the composition and content of lipids in cell membranes changes at low temperature ...resulting in chilling injury and affecting the commercial value of green peppers. Detecting the changes in lipids helps to understand the mechanism of low‐temperature stress in green peppers; however, a comprehensive study of lipid profiles in green pepper has not been well documented.
Methods
Herein, we report an ultra‐performance liquid chromatography/quadrupole time‐of‐flight mass spectrometry (UPLC/QTOF MS) method to determine phospholipids and glycolipids in green peppers and compare five extraction methods among which the isopropanol/chloroform/water (ICW) method demonstrated the best extraction efficiency. The established method was used to determine the membrane lipids of fresh samples, chilled samples(4°C‐20d), and control samples (10°C‐20d).
Results
A total of 98 lipids, including 77 phospholipids and 21 glycolipids, were extracted from green peppers using ICW extraction. The content and profile of phosphatidylcholine (PC) among phospholipids were found to be the highest, accounting for 58.58% of all the phospholipids. The monogalactosyldiacylglycerol (MGDG) content among the glycolipids was the highest, accounting for 1.43%. The samples stored at low temperature (4°C, 20d) had a significantly higher PC content and a higher content of lipids containing unsaturated fatty acid residues as compared with the control samples (10°C, 20d). The recovery ranged from 75.55% to 96.64% while the limit of quantification ranged from 10 to 1000 ng mL−1.
Conclusions
The results indicated that the established method provided a reliable platform to study the changes in membrane lipids of a green pepper under low‐temperature conditions.
African swine fever virus (ASFV) is a large double-stranded DNA virus with an icosahedral multilayered structure. ASFV causes a lethal swine hemorrhagic disease and is currently responsible for ...widespread damage to the pork industry in Asia. Neither vaccines nor antivirals are available and the molecular characterization of the ASFV particle is outstanding. Here, we describe the cryogenic electron microscopy (cryo-EM) structure of the icosahedral capsid of ASFV at 4.6-Å. The ASFV particle consists of 8,280 copies of the major capsid protein p72, 60 copies of the penton protein, and at least 8,340 minor capsid proteins, of which there might be 3 different types. Like other nucleocytoplasmic large DNA viruses, the minor capsid proteins form a hexagonal network below the outer capsid shell, functioning as stabilizers by “gluing” neighboring capsomers together. Our findings provide a comprehensive molecular model of the ASFV capsid architecture that will contribute to the future development of countermeasures, including vaccines.
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•Cryo-EM structure of the icosahedrally averaged ASFV capsid described at 4.6-Å•ASFV capsid comprises 8,280 major capsid protein p72 and 60 penton protein copies•At least three different minor proteins stabilize capsid by gluing neighboring capsomers•ASFV differs from other NCLDVs in multilayered structure and icosahedral morphology
African swine fever virus (ASFV) is a large DNA virus that causes a lethal swine hemorrhagic disease and is currently responsible for widespread outbreaks in domestic pigs. Liu et al. describe the cryo-EM structure of ASFV capsid at 4.6-Å, which reveals several critical proteins and structural elements.
•Streamflow significantly declined from 1980–1999 to 2000–2010 on the Yongding River.•Precipitation changes insignificantly impacted streamflow.•Upstream human activities are likely important drivers ...on streamflow decline.
In recent decades, the Yongding River in Beijing has ceased to flow due to the impact of climate and anthropogenic factors, which has led to severe environmental degradation. The Beijing government is constructing new freshwater ecosystems on the Yongding River to improve environmental conditions for ecosystem services. Clarification is needed on the influence of precipitation and anthropogenic factors on streamflow decline in Beijing. A hydrological time-series analysis was conducted on recorded streamflow at Guanting Reservoir, Yanchi, and Sanjiadian to estimate the influence of precipitation variability on the drying of the Yongding River in Beijing. From 1980 to 2010, the mean annual rates of streamflow decline were 0.44m3s−1yr−1 (Guanting), 0.42m3s−1yr−1 (Yanchi), and 0.03m3s−1yr−1 (Sanjiadian). The most probable abrupt change-point for annual streamflow was 1999 at Guanting Reservoir and Yanchi, and was 2000 at Sanjiadian. Between the pre-change (1980–1999) and post-change (2000–2010) periods, mean annual streamflow decreased by 68.56% (Guanting), 66.92% (Yanchi), and 96.78% (Sanjiadian). A multiple regression analysis using annual precipitation and streamflow at Guanting, Yanchi, and Sanjiadian showed an insignificant relationship between local precipitation and streamflow in both periods. Next we assessed the potential impact of upstream human activities on downstream flow using: (1) correlation statistics between upstream flow and downstream flow, (2) water abstracted above Sanjiadian, and (3) upstream socioeconomic data. The results suggest upstream human activities are important drivers on downstream flow decline, which could possibly explain the weak relationship between precipitation and streamflow. Further analysis is needed to clarify the influence of upstream water consumption on Guanting Reservoir to advise management on the new freshwater ecosystems along the Yongding River.
Background:
Escherichia coli
(
E. coli
) column for one of the most common pathogens causing neonatal infections. The emergence of antibiotic-resistant bacteria is a major cause of treatment failure ...in infected newborns. The purpose of this study was to describe antibiotic and multidrug resistance of
E. coli
strains isolated from neonates with infection throughout the years 2009–2011.
Methods:
The antimicrobial susceptibility testing of
E. coli
strains to selected antibiotics was assessed using the E-test technique on the Mueller-Hinton agar. The antimicrobial tests included ceftazidime, cefuroxime, cefatriaxone, amoxicillin, amoxicillin-clavulanic acid, cefoperazone- sulbactam, meropenem, gentamicin, ciprofloxacin, and sulfonamides.
Results:
A total of 100
E. coli
strains were isolated from sputum (
n
= 78), blood (
n
= 10), cerebrospinal fluid (
n
= 5), and umbilical discharge (
n
= 7) samples of hospitalized neonates at the Beijing Children's Hospital. The highest rate of
E. coli
resistance was found in amoxicillin (85%), followed by cefuroxime (65%), and cefatriaxone (60%), respectively. A total of 6 and 5% of all isolates were only resistant to amoxicillin/clavulanic acid and cefoperazone -sulbactam. The rates of resistance to ceftazidime, gentamicin, ciprofloxacin, and sulfonamides were 31, 20, 33, and 47%, respectively. All isolates were susceptible to meropenem. Approximately 26% of all
E. coli
isolates were multidrug-resistant. The detection rate of ESBL-Producing
E. coli
was 55%.
Conclusions:
Multi-drug-resistant
E. coli
has become an important and complex problem in clinical treatment, and it is thus essential to monitor
E. coli
resistance in neonates.
•The landscape of AS modulation in wheat-Pst and -Bgt interaction.•Differential splice variants were activated against Pst and Bgt stress.•Specific induced AS genes were differential enriched in ...Pst-resistant and -susceptible plants.
Alternative splicing (AS) enhances the diversities of both transcripts and proteins in eukaryotes, which contribute to stress adaptation. To catalog wheat (Triticum aestivum L.) AS genes, we characterized 45 RNA-seq libraries from wheat seedlings infected by powdery mildew, Blumeria graminis f. sp. tritici (Bgt) or stripe rust fungus, Puccinia striiformis f. sp. tritici (Pst). We discovered that 11.2% and 10.4% of the multiexon genes had AS transcripts during Bgt and Pst infections, respectively. In response to fungal infection, wheat modulated AS not only in disease resistance proteins, but also in splicing related factors. Apart from the stress induced or activated splicing variants by pathogen, the differential expression profiles were fold increased through changing the ratio of full spliced transcripts versus intron retention (IR) transcripts. Comparing AS transcripts produced by the same gene in Bgt with Pst stress, the spliced terminal exons and the stranded introns are independent and different. This demonstrated that differential induction of specific splice variants were activated against two fungal pathogens. The specific induced AS genes in the Pst-resistant plants were enriched in improving the membrane permeability and protein modification ability, whereas gene expression involved in protein translation and transport were strengthened in Pst-susceptible plants.
Human Adenovirus (AdV) infection is very common and usually has a significant impact on children. AdV-induced inflammation is believed to be one of the main causes of severe symptoms. However, an ...inflammatory response profile in the airway in AdV-infected children is still lacking, and the mechanism underlying AdV-induced inflammation in the airway is also poorly understood. In the current study, we determined the expression of a panel of inflammation cytokines in the airway samples from AdV 7 infected children and further investigated the molecular mechanism underlying AdV 7-induced cytokine expression. Our results showed that eight out of 13 tested inflammatory cytokines were significantly increased in nasal washes of AdV 7-infected children comparing to healthy control, with IL-6 showing the highest enhancement. AdV 7 infection of bronchial epithelial cell line and primary airway epithelial cells confirmed that AdV 7 increased IL-6 mRNA and protein expression in an infection dose-dependent manner. Promoter analysis revealed that AdV 7 infection transactivated IL-6 promoter and a NF-κB binding site in IL-6 promoter was involved in the transactivation. Further analysis showed that upon AdV 7 infection, NF-κB p65 was phosphorylated and translocated into nucleus and bound onto IL-6 promoter. Signaling pathway analysis revealed that p38/NF-κB pathway was involved in AdV 7 infection induced IL-6 elevation. Taken together, our study shows that AdV 7 infection triggers the expression of a range of inflammatory cytokines including IL-6 in the airway of infected children, and AdV 7 enhances IL-6 expression by transactivating IL-6 promoter
p38/NF-κB signaling pathway. Findings of our current study have provided more information toward a better understanding of AdV-induced airway inflammation, which might also benefit the development of intervention strategies.
We performed a systematic review and meta-analysis of the incidence, case-fatality rate (CFR), isolate antimicrobial resistance patterns, and serotype and sequence type distributions for invasive ...group B Streptococcus (GBS) disease in infants <1-89 days of age in China. We searched the PubMed/Medline, Embase, Wanfang, and China National Knowledge Infrastructure databases for research published during January 1, 2000-March 16, 2018, and identified 64 studies. Quality of included studies was assessed by using Cochrane tools. Incidence and CFR were estimated by using random-effects meta-analyses. Overall incidence was 0.55 (95% CI 0.35-0.74) cases/1,000 live births, and the CFR was 5% (95% CI 3%-6%). Incidence of GBS in young infants in China was higher than the estimated global incidence (0.49 cases/1,000 live births) and higher than previous estimates for Asia (0.3 cases/1,000 live births). Our findings suggest that implementation of additional GBS prevention efforts in China, including maternal vaccination, could be beneficial.
The development of selective histone deacetylase 6 inhibitors (sHDAC6is) is being recognized as a therapeutic approach for cancers. In this paper, we designed a series of novel ...tetrahydropyridopyrimidine derivatives as sHDAC6 inhibitors. The most potent compound, 8-(2, 4-bis(3-methoxyphenyl)-5, 8-dihydropyrido 3, 4-dpyrimidin-7(6H)-yl)-N-hydroxy-8-oxooctanamide (8f), inhibited HDAC6 with IC50 of 6.4 nM, and showed > 48-fold selectivity over other subtypes. In Western blot assay, 8f elevated the levels of acetylated α-tubulin in a dose-dependent manner. In vitro, 8f inhibited RPMI-8226, HL60, and HCT116 tumor cells with IC50 of 2.8, 3.20, and 3.25 μM, respectively. Moreover, 8f showed good antiproliferative activity against a panel of tumor cells.
Nonlinear dimensionality reduction (NLDR) methods such as t-Distributed Stochastic Neighbour Embedding (t-SNE) and Uniform Manifold Approximation and Projection (UMAP) have been widely used for ...biological data exploration, especially in single-cell analysis. However, the existing methods have drawbacks in preserving data's geometric and topological structures. A high-dimensional data analysis method, called Panoramic manifold projection (Panoramap), was developed as an enhanced deep learning framework for structure-preserving NLDR. Panoramap enhances deep neural networks by using cross-layer geometry-preserving constraints. The constraints constitute the loss for deep manifold learning and serve as geometric regularizers for NLDR network training. Therefore, Panoramap has better performance in preserving global structures of the original data. Here, we apply Panoramap to single-cell datasets and show that Panoramap excels at delineating the cell type lineage/hierarchy and can reveal rare cell types. Panoramap can facilitate trajectory inference and has the potential to aid in the early diagnosis of tumors. Panoramap gives improved and more biologically plausible visualization and interpretation of single-cell data. Panoramap can be readily used in single-cell research domains and other research fields that involve high dimensional data analysis.
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