Mass remote sensing data management and processing is currently one of the most important topics. In this study, we introduce ScienceEarth, a cluster-based data processing framework. The aim of ...ScienceEarth is to store, manage, and process large-scale remote sensing data in a cloud-based cluster-computing environment. The platform consists of the following three main parts: ScienceGeoData, ScienceGeoIndex, and ScienceGeoSpark. ScienceGeoData stores and manages remote sensing data. ScienceGeoIndex is an index and query system, a spatial index based on quad-tree and Hilbert curve which is combined for heterogeneous tiled remote sensing data that makes efficient data retrieval in ScienceGeoData. ScienceGeoSpark is an easy-to-use computing framework in which we use Apache Spark as the analytics engine for big remote sensing data processing. The result of tests proves that ScienceEarth can efficiently store, retrieve, and process remote sensing data. The results reveal ScienceEarth has the potential and capabilities of efficient big remote sensing data processing.
Cardiovascular disease (CVD) remains the leading cause of morbidity and mortality, imposing an increasing global health burden. Cardiac ion channels (voltage-gated NaV, CaV, KVs, and others) ...synergistically shape the cardiac action potential (AP) and control the heartbeat. Dysfunction of these channels, due to genetic mutations, transcriptional or post-translational modifications, may disturb the AP and lead to arrhythmia, a major risk for CVD patients. Although there are five classes of anti-arrhythmic drugs available, they can have varying levels of efficacies and side effects on patients, possibly due to the complex pathogenesis of arrhythmias. As an alternative treatment option, Chinese herbal remedies have shown promise in regulating cardiac ion channels and providing anti-arrhythmic effects. In this review, we first discuss the role of cardiac ion channels in maintaining normal heart function and the pathogenesis of CVD, then summarize the classification of Chinese herbal compounds, and elaborate detailed mechanisms of their efficacy in regulating cardiac ion channels and in alleviating arrhythmia and CVD. We also address current limitations and opportunities for developing new anti-CVD drugs based on Chinese herbal medicines.
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Deciphering the physiological function of TGF-β (the transforming growth factor beta) family ligands is import for understanding the role of TGF-β in animals’ development and aging. Here, we ...investigate the function of TIG-2, one of the ligands in
Caenorhabditis elegans
TGF-β family, in animals’ behavioral modulation. Our results show that a loss-of-function mutation in
tig-2 gene
result in slower locomotion speed in the early adulthood and an increased density of cholinergic synapses, but a decreased neurotransmitter release at neuromuscular junctions (NMJs). Further tissue-specific rescue results reveal that neuronal and intestinal TIG-2 are essential for the formation of cholinergic synapses at NMJs. Interestingly,
tig-2
(
ok3416
) mutant is characterized with reduced muscle mitochondria content and adenosine triphosphate (ATP) production, although the function of muscle acetylcholine receptors and the morphology muscle fibers in the mutant are comparable to that in
wild-type
animals. Our result suggests that TIG-2 from different neuron and intestine regulates worm locomotion by modulating synaptogenesis and neurotransmission at NMJs, as well as energy metabolism in postsynaptic muscle cells.
Recently, the detailed etiology and pathogenesis of Parkinson's disease (PD) have not been fully clarified yet. Increasing evidences suggested that the disturbance of peripheral branched-chain amino ...acids (BCAAs) metabolism can promote the occurrence and progression of neurodegenerative diseases through neuroinflammatory signaling. Although there are several studies on the metabolomics of PD, longitudinal study of metabolic pathways is still lacking. Therefore, the purpose of the present study was to determine the longitudinal alterations in serum amino acid profiles in PD mouse model. Gas chromatography-mass spectrometry (GC–MS) was applied to detect serum amino acid concentrations in C57BL/6 mice after 0, 3 and 4 weeks of oral administration with rotenone. Then the data were analysed by principal component analysis (PCA) and orthogonal projection to latent structures (OPLS) analysis. Finally, the correlations between different kinds of serum amino acids and behaviors in rotenone-treated mice were also explored. Compared with 0-week mice, the levels of
l
-isoleucine and
l
-leucine were down-regulated in 3-week and 4-week mice, especially in 4-week mice. Moreover, the comprehensive analysis showed that
l
-isoleucine and
l
-leucine were negatively correlated with pole-climbing time and positively correlated with fecal weight and water content of PD mice. These results not only suggested that
l
-isoleucine and
l
-leucine may be potential biomarkers, but also pointed out the possibility of treating PD by intervening in the circulating amino acids metabolism.
TBK1 is an essential kinase for the innate immune response against viral infection. However, the key molecular mechanisms regulating the TBK1 activation remain elusive. Here, we identify PRMT1, a ...type I protein arginine methyltransferase, as an essential regulator of TBK1 activation. PRMT1 directly interacts with TBK1 and catalyzes asymmetric methylation of R54, R134, and R228 on TBK1. This modification enhances TBK1 oligomerization after viral infection, which subsequently promotes TBK1 phosphorylation and downstream type I interferon production. More important, myeloid-specific Prmt1 knockout mice are more susceptible to infection with DNA and RNA viruses than Prmt1fl/fl mice. Our findings reveal insights into the molecular regulation of TBK1 activation and demonstrate the essential function of protein arginine methylation in innate antiviral immunity.
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•PRMT1 positively regulates IFN-β signaling in various innate immune signaling pathways•Prmt1 knockout mice are more susceptible to viral infection than their counterparts•PRMT1 promotes antiviral responses through catalyzing the methylation of TBK1•TBK1 methylation is essential for its aggregation and trans-autophosphorylation
Yan et al. find that PRMT1 positively regulates antiviral innate immune responses in a methyltransferase-dependent manner. PRMT1 catalyzes asymmetric methylation of R54, R134, and R228 on TBK1 upon viral infection and promotes TBK1 aggregation and phosphorylation. These findings demonstrate the essential function of PRMT1 for antiviral immunity.
The salt-tolerant flavor yeast
Zygosaccharomyces rouxii
is an important food flavor microorganism, but its intracellular stress-resistant trehalose synthesis efficiency has been shown to be low, ...resulting in its weak high-temperature resistance. The intracellular and extracellular levels of carbohydrates, organic acids, and amino acids of
Z. rouxii
in a 20-L mechanically stirred ventilated fermenter were analyzed using metabolomics research methods. Our results showed that glucose supplementation could promote the growth of yeast cells, but high temperatures (> 35°C) significantly prevented cell growth. Under three different growth strategies, extracellular glucose was continuously utilized and intracellular glucose was continuously metabolized, but glucose overflow metabolism was inhibited by high temperature, which showed that the level of intracellular/extracellular ethanol was stable. High temperature stimulated significant intracellular trehalose accumulation (
c
20
.
5
h
= 80.78 mg/g Dry Cell Weight (DCW)) but not efflux, as well as xylitol accumulation (
c
20
.
5
h
= 185.97 mg/g DCW) but with efflux (c
20
.
5
h
= 29.78 g/L). Moreover, heat resistance evaluation showed that xylitol and trehalose had heat-protective effects on
Z. rouxii
. In addition, a large amount of propionic acid and butyric acid accumulated inside and outside these cells, showing that the conversion of glucose to acid in yeast cells becomes the main pathway of glucose overflow metabolism in high temperatures. In addition, the increased demand of yeast cells for phenylalanine, threonine, and glycine at high temperatures suggested that these metabolites participated in the temperature adaptation of
Z. rouxii
in different ways. Valine and leucine/isoleucine branched-chain amino acids (BCAAs) were mainly affected by the addition of glucose, while glucose, sucrose, aspartic acid/asparagine, and glutamate/glutamine were not affected by this temperature regulation as a whole. This study could help deepen our understanding of the high-temperature adaptation mechanism of salt-tolerant
Z. rouxii
, and has theoretical significance for the application of highly tolerant yeast to food brewing.
Extracting water bodies from synthetic aperture radar (SAR) images plays a crucial role in the management of water resources, flood monitoring, and other applications. Recently, transformer-based ...models have been extensively utilized in the remote sensing domain. However, due to regular patch-partition and weak inductive bias, transformer-based models face challenges such as edge serration and high data dependency when used for water body extraction from SAR images. To address these challenges, we introduce a new model, the Superpixel-based Transformer (SPT), based on the adaptive characteristic of superpixels and knowledge constraints of the adjacency matrix. (1) To mitigate edge serration, the SPT replaces regular patch partition with superpixel segmentation to fully utilize the internal homogeneity of superpixels. (2) To reduce data dependency, the SPT incorporates a normalized adjacency matrix between superpixels into the Multi-Layer Perceptron (MLP) to impose knowledge constraints. (3) Additionally, to integrate superpixel-level learning from the SPT with pixel-level learning from the CNN, we combine these two deep networks to form SPT-UNet for water body extraction. The results show that our SPT-UNet is competitive compared with other state-of-the-art extraction models, both in terms of quantitative metrics and visual effects.
Sulfane sulfur species including hydrogen polysulfide and organic persulfide are newly recognized normal cellular components, and they participate in signaling and protect cells from oxidative ...stress. Their production has been extensively studied, but their removal is less characterized. Herein, we showed that sulfane sulfur at high levels was toxic to Escherichia coli under both anaerobic and aerobic conditions. OxyR, a well-known regulator against H
O
, also sensed sulfane sulfur, as revealed via mutational analysis, constructed gene circuits, and in vitro gene expression. Hydrogen polysulfide modified OxyR at Cys199 to form a persulfide OxyR C199-SSH, and the modified OxyR activated the expression of thioredoxin 2 and glutaredoxin 1. The two enzymes are known to reduce sulfane sulfur to hydrogen sulfide. Bioinformatics analysis indicated that OxyR homologs are widely present in bacteria, including obligate anaerobic bacteria. Thus, the OxyR sensing of sulfane sulfur may represent a preserved mechanism for bacteria to deal with sulfane sulfur stress.
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