U–Pb age, trace element and Hf isotope compositions of zircon were analysed for a metasedimentary rock and two amphibolites from the Kongling terrane in the northern part of the Yangtze Craton. The ...zircon shows distinct morphological and chemical characteristics. Most zircon in an amphibolite shows oscillatory zoning, high Th/U and 176Lu/177Hf ratios, high formation temperature, high trace element contents, clear negative Eu anomaly, as well as HREE‐enriched patterns, suggesting that it is igneous. The zircon yields a weighted mean 207Pb/206Pb age of 2857 ± 8 Ma, representing the age of the magmatic protolith. The zircon in the other two samples is metamorphic. It has low Th/U ratios, low trace element concentrations, variable HREE contents (33.8 ≥ LuN≥2213; 14.7 ≤ LuN/SmN ≤ 354) and 176Lu/177Hf ratios (0.000030–0.001168). The data indicate that the zircon formed in the presence of garnet and under upper amphibolite facies conditions. The metamorphic zircon yields a weighted mean 207Pb/206Pb age of 2010 ± 13 Ma. These results combined with previously obtained Palaeoproterozoic metamorphic ages suggest a c. 2.0 Ga Palaeoproterozoic collisional event in the Yangtze Craton, which may result from the assembly of the supercontinent Columbia. The zircon in two samples yields weighted mean two‐stage Hf model (TDM2) ages of 3217 ± 110 and 2943 ± 50 Ma, respectively, indicating that their protoliths were mainly derived from Archean crust.
Effect of rhizobial inoculation and nitrate application on the content of bioactive compounds in legume plants is an interesting aspect for interactions among microbes, plants and chemical ...fertilizers, as well as for cultivated practice of legumes. In this study, nitrate (0, 5 and 20 mmol l−1) and Bradyrhizobium arachidis strain CCBAU 051107T were applied, individually or in combination, to the root rhizosphere of the medicinal legume Sophora flavescens Aiton (SFA). Then the plant growth, nodulation and active ingredients including (oxy)matrine of SFA were determined and compared. Rhizobial inoculation alone significantly increased the numbers and fresh weight of root nodules. Nodulation was significantly inhibited due to nitrate (5 and 20 mmol l−1). Only oxymatrine was detected in the control plants without rhizobial inoculation and nitrate supplement, while both oxymatrine and matrine were synthesized in plants treated with inoculation of B. arachidis or supplied with nitrate. The content of oxymatrine was the highest in plants inoculated solely with rhizobia and was not significantly altered by additional application of nitrate. Combinations of B. arachidis inoculation and different concentrations of nitrate did not significantly change the concentrations of (oxy)matrine in the plant. In conclusion, sole rhizobial inoculation was the best approach to increase the contents of key active ingredients oxymatrine and matrine in the medicinal legume SFA.
Significance and impact of the study: Rhizobial inoculation not only improves the growth of legumes but also promotes the synthesis of specific compounds. In this study, we found the content of oxymatrine, the active ingredient of the medicinal legume Sophora flavescens
was enriched significantly in roots only due to rhizobial inoculation and without usage of chemical nitrogen compound (nitrate). Our results will advance the application of rhizobial inoculation on medicinal legumes in terms of increasing the content of the active ingredients, improving the production of oxymatrine‐enriched root biomass, and reducing the use of chemical nitrogen fertilizers in a goal of achieving the sustainable agriculture and cultivation.
Among 67 endophytic fungi isolated from Quercus variabilis, 53.7% of endophytic fungal fermentation broths displayed growth inhibition on at least one test microorganism, such as pathogenic fungi ...(Trichophyton rubrum, Candida albicans, Aspergillus niger, Epidermophyton floccosum, Microsporum canis) and bacteria (Escherichia coli, Bacillus subtilis, Pseudomonas fluorescens). Moreover, 19.4% of strains showed a broader antimicrobial spectrum, such as Aspergillus sp., Penicillium sp., Alternaria sp., 20.9% of strains showed strong inhibition (+++) to pathogenic bacteria, while only 7.5% displayed that to test fungi. The most active antifungal strain I(R)9-2, Cladosporium sp. was selected and fermented. From the broth, a secondary metabolite, brefeldin A was obtained. This is the first report on the antimicrobial potentials of endophytic fungi residing in Q. variabilis and isolation of brefeldin A produced by Cladosporium sp.
Aims
To investigate the effects of three symbiotic Bradyrhizobium strains on peanut growth and on rhizobacterial communities in flowering and harvest stages in an organic farm, also to evaluate the ...role of plant development in influencing peanut rhizobacterial microbiota and correlations among the inoculants, rhizobacterial communities and plant growth.
Methods and Results
Peanut seeds were inoculated with three individual Bradyrhizobium strains, plant growth performance was measured in two developmental stages and rhizobacterial communities were analysed by Illumina sequencing of rpoB gene amplicons from peanut rhizosphere. The three bradyrhizobial inoculants significantly increased the nodule numbers and aboveground fresh weight of peanut plants regardless of the different growth stages, and the pod yields were increased to some extent and significantly positively correlated with Bradyrhizobium abundances in rhizosphere. Principal coordinate analysis indicated that the rhizobacterial communities were strongly influenced by the inoculation and peanut developmental stages. The bradyrhizobia inoculation increased relative abundances of potentially beneficial bacteria in peanut rhizosphere, and also altered rhizobacterial co‐occurrence association networks and important network hub taxa. Similarly, plant development also significantly influenced the structure, composition and co‐occurrence association networks of rhizobacterial communities.
Conclusions
Bradyrhizobial inoculants increased peanut growth and yields, they and plant development affected the assembly of peanut rhizobacterial communities.
Significance and Impact of the Study
Rhizobial inoculants improved the host plant performance that might also be associated with the dynamic changes in rhizobacterial community except enhancing the biological nitrogen fixation and helps to profoundly understand the mechanism how rhizobia inoculants improve plant growth and yields.
Basalt discriminant diagrams have been used to identify the tectonic setting of basaltic magmatism since the 1970s and have played an important role in reconstructing paleotectonic environments. ...However, the significant increase in the availability of geochemical data has led to a reassessment of these diagrams, suggesting that some of the tectonic settings indicated by these diagrams are not accurate. Here, we use a database of global ocean island basalt (OIB), mid-ocean ridge basalt (MORB), and island arc basalt (IAB) geochemistry to propose a series of new tectonic discriminant diagrams based on the ratios of large-ion lithophile elements (LILEs) to high field strength elements (HFSEs). These new diagrams indicate that the LILE can be used to differentiate OIB, MORB, and IAB samples, meaning that LILE/HFSE ratios can discriminate between these basalts that form in different tectonic settings. Our new diagrams can correctly assign samples to OIB, MORB, and IAB categories more than 85% of the time, with the discrimination between OIB and MORB having an accuracy of slightly less than 85%.
Cancer cell receives extracellular signal inputs to obtain a stem-like status, yet how tumor microenvironmental (TME) neural signals steer cancer stemness to establish the hierarchical tumor ...architectures remains elusive. Here, a pan-cancer transcriptomic screening for 10852 samples of 33 TCGA cancer types reveals that cAMP-responsive element (CRE) transcription factors are convergent activators for cancer stemness. Deconvolution of transcriptomic profiles, specification of neural markers and illustration of norepinephrine dynamics uncover a bond between TME neural signals and cancer-cell CRE activity. Specifically, neural signal norepinephrine potentiates the stemness of proximal cancer cells by activating cAMP-CRE axis, where ATF1 serves as a conserved hub. Upon activation by norepinephrine, ATF1 potentiates cancer stemness by coordinated trans-activation of both nuclear pluripotency factors MYC/NANOG and mitochondrial biogenesis regulators NRF1/TFAM, thereby orchestrating nuclear reprograming and mitochondrial rejuvenating. Accordingly, single-cell transcriptomes confirm the coordinated activation of nuclear pluripotency with mitochondrial biogenesis in cancer stem-like cells. These findings elucidate that cancer cell acquires stemness via a norepinephrine-ATF1 driven nucleus-mitochondria collaborated program, suggesting a spatialized stemness acquisition by hijacking microenvironmental neural signals.
Previous studies have revealed that wearers had low skin temperatures and cold and pain sensations in the feet, when using sleeping bags under defined comfort and limit temperatures. To improve ...wearers' local thermal comfort in the feet, a novel heating sleeping bag (i.e., MARHT) was developed by embedding two heating pads into the traditional sleeping bag (i.e., MARCON) in this region. Seven female and seven male volunteers underwent two tests on different days. Each test lasted for three hours and was performed in a climate chamber with a setting temperature deduced from EN 13537 (2012) (for females: comfort temperature of -0.4 °C, and for males: the limit temperature of -6.4 °C). MARHT was found to be effective in maintaining the toe and feet temperatures within the thermoneutral range for both sex groups compared to the linearly decreased temperatures in MARCON during the 3-hour exposure. In addition, wearing MARHT elevated the toe blood flow significantly for most females and all males. Thermal and comfort sensations showed a large improvement in feet and a small to moderate improvement in the whole body for both sex groups in MARHT. It was concluded that MARHT is effective in improving local thermal comfort in the feet.
This paper focuses on distribution system featuring renewable energy sources (RESs), and proposes a credibility theory-based fuzzy chance-constrained AC optimal power flow (FCC-ACOPF) model to hedge ...the uncertainty of RESs generation. Credibility constraints in the proposed model are utilized to enforce voltage and controllable generator power regulation with a predefined credibility, so that distribution system operator can select an acceptable credibility to reduce the risk of voltage violation. Besides, the optimal scheme obtained by the FCC-ACOPF model meets the predefined credibility without the symmetry assumption of RESs forecast error, which avoids making an ineffective and inefficient operating decision that may be caused by RESs forecast strongly skewed. Finally, the linear explicit expressions of controllable generator and node voltage in FCC-ACOPF are derived to make the proposed model be handled by off-the-shelf solvers. Comprehensive studies based on a modified 15-node system are conducted to demonstrate the rationality and effectiveness of the proposed method.
•A novelty credibility theory-based fuzzy chance-constrained AC OPF model is proposed.•This model leverages the probable range of RESs to capture the fuzzy characteristic.•The deterministic equivalences for active power, reactive power and voltage are derived.•DSO can select an acceptable credibility to hedge against the risk of voltage violation.
Pt–graphene contacts are fabricated by atomic layer deposition (ALD) on H2 and O2 plasma functionalized graphene. The plasma functionalization of graphene enables the growth of uniform Pt layers on ...graphene by ALD and improves the Pt–graphene interaction, which results in a reduced Pt–graphene contact resistance. Devices created using a H2 plasma treatment before Pt ALD perform considerably better than the ones created using O2 plasma treatments (Rc = 0.4 ± 0.2 kΩ µm and Rc = 1.2 ± 0.1 kΩ µm, respectively). The lower performance of the O2 plasma treatments is attributed to a less favorable Pt–graphene oxide interaction and the amorphization of graphene due to the O2 plasma interaction. Supporting the latter, density functional theory calculations indicate that the CH groups created by a H2 plasma treatment leave the π‐conjugation (by C‐pz orbitals) of graphene largely intact, resulting in good in‐plane and out‐of‐plane conductivity. The CO groups formed by an O2 plasma treatment however disturb the C‐pz character, deteriorating the in‐plane conduction of graphene, despite the good out‐of‐plane conduction. The results indicate that the treatment of graphene by H2 plasma is a straightforward approach to improve the ALD growth on graphene and reduce the Pt–graphene contact resistance.
In this work, it is shown that plasma functionalization in combination with atomic layer deposition is a viable method to create high quality graphene contacts. The plasma treatment provides nucleation sites for the atomic layer deposition growth and improves the metal–graphene interaction. The obtained experimental results are supported by density functional theory calculations.
Lipasin has recently been demonstrated to be involved in lipid metabolism. In this study, two specific primers were used to amplify the lipasin open reading frame from porcine liver tissue. The ...polymerase chain reaction product was cloned to a pGEM®-T Easy Vector, digested by SalI and NotI, and sequenced. The lipasin fragment was then cloned to a pET21(b) vector and digested by the same restriction enzyme. The recombinant plasmid was transferred to Escherichia coli (BL21), and the lipasin protein was induced with isopropyl-β-D-thiogalactopyranoside. The protein obtained was identified by sodium dodecyl sulfate polyacrylamide gel electrophoresis and western blotting. A pET-lipasin prokaryotic recombinant expression vector was successfully constructed, and a 25.2-kDa protein was obtained. This study provides a basis for further research on the biological function of porcine lipasin.
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