SUMMARY
Carotenoids are important natural pigments that give bright colors to plants. The difference in the accumulation of carotenoids is one of the key factors in the formation of various colors in ...carrot taproots. Carotenoid cleavage dioxygenases (CCDs), including CCD and 9‐cis epoxycarotenoid dioxygenase, are the main enzymes involved in the cleavage of carotenoids in plants. Seven CCD genes have been annotated from the carrot genome. In this study, through expression analysis, we found that the expression level of DcCCD4 was significantly higher in the taproot of white carrot (low carotenoid content) than orange carrot (high carotenoid content). The overexpression of DcCCD4 in orange carrots caused the taproot color to be pale yellow, and the contents of α‐ and β‐carotene decreased sharply. Mutant carrot with loss of DcCCD4 function exhibited yellow color (the taproot of the control carrot was white). The accumulation of β‐carotene was also detected in taproot. Functional analysis of the DcCCD4 enzyme in vitro showed that it was able to cleave α‐ and β‐carotene at the 9, 10 (9′, 10′) double bonds. In addition, the number of colored chromoplasts in the taproot cells of transgenic carrots overexpressing DcCCD4 was significantly reduced compared with that in normal orange carrots. Results showed that DcCCD4 affects the accumulation of carotenoids through cleavage of α‐ and β‐carotene in carrot taproot.
Significance Statement
We analyzed seven carotenoid cleavage dioxygenase genes annotated from the carrot genome. Functional analysis revealed that DcCCD4 catalyzes the degradation of α‐ and β‐carotene to affect carotenoid accumulation. This work may provide a reference for generating new plant varieties with ideal color.
Abstract
Many high quality studies have emerged from public databases, such as Surveillance, Epidemiology, and End Results (SEER), National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey (NHANES), The ...Cancer Genome Atlas (TCGA), and Medical Information Mart for Intensive Care (MIMIC); however, these data are often characterized by a high degree of dimensional heterogeneity, timeliness, scarcity, irregularity, and other characteristics, resulting in the value of these data not being fully utilized. Data-mining technology has been a frontier field in medical research, as it demonstrates excellent performance in evaluating patient risks and assisting clinical decision-making in building disease-prediction models. Therefore, data mining has unique advantages in clinical big-data research, especially in large-scale medical public databases. This article introduced the main medical public database and described the steps, tasks, and models of data mining in simple language. Additionally, we described data-mining methods along with their practical applications. The goal of this work was to aid clinical researchers in gaining a clear and intuitive understanding of the application of data-mining technology on clinical big-data in order to promote the production of research results that are beneficial to doctors and patients.
•Hyperandrogenism, insulin resistance and obesity forming a vicious cycle to promote PCOS development.
Polycystic ovary syndrome (PCOS) is a complex and heterogeneous endocrine disease characterized ...by clinical or laboratorial hyperandrogenism, oligo-anovulation and metabolic abnormalities, including insulin resistance, excessive weight or obesity, type II diabetes, dyslipidemia and an increased risk of cardiovascular disease. The most significant clinical manifestation of PCOS is hyperandrogenism. Excess androgen profoundly affects granulosa cell function and follicular development via complex mechanisms that lead to obesity and insulin resistance. Most PCOS patients with hyperandrogenism have steroid secretion defects that result in abnormal folliculogenesis and failed dominant follicle selection. Hyperandrogenism induces obesity, hairy, acne, and androgenetic alopecia. These symptoms can bring great psychological stress to women. Drugs such as combined oral contraceptive pills, metformin, pioglitazone and low-dose spironolactone help improve pregnancy rates by decreasing androgen levels in vivo. Notably, PCOS is heterogeneous, and hyperandrogenism is not the only pathogenic factor. Obesity and insulin resistance aggravate the symptoms of hyperandrogenism, forming a vicious cycle that promotes PCOS development. Although numerous studies have been conducted, the definitive pathogenic mechanisms of PCOS remain uncertain. This review summarizes and discusses previous and recent findings regarding the relationship between hyperandrogenism, insulin resistance, obesity and PCOS.
Single‐cell and in situ cell‐based operation with nanopipette approach offers a possibility to elucidate the intracellular processes and may aid the improvement of therapy efficiency and precision. ...We present here a photo‐responsive hydrogel‐nanopipette hybrid system that can achieve single‐cell operation with high spatial/temporal resolution and negligible cell damage. This strategy overcomes long‐time obstacles in nanopipette single‐cell studies as high electric potential (ca. 1000 mV) or organic solvent is always used during operations, which would inevitably impose disturbance and damage to targeted cells. The light‐triggered system promotes a potential‐free, non‐invasive single‐cell injection, resulting in a well‐retained cell viability (90 % survival rate). Moreover, the photo‐driven injection enables a precisely dose‐controllable single‐cell drug delivery. Significantly reduced lethal doses of doxorubicin (163–217 fg cell−1) are demonstrated in corresponding cell lines.
The fabrication of photo‐responsive hydrogel‐nanopipette system ensures both precision single‐cell operation and high cell preservation. Upon light‐controlled, non‐invasive operation, a high cell viability over 90 % as well as precise quantification of injection are obtained. Hence, a single‐cell precise‐dosing is achieved with a minimum lethal dose of 163–217 fg cell−1.
This paper presents a new topology optimization approach based on the so-called Moving Morphable Components (MMC) solution framework. The proposed method improves several weaknesses of the previous ...approach (e.g., Guo et al. in J Appl Mech 81:081009,
2014a
) in the sense that it can not only allow for components with variable thicknesses but also enhance the numerical solution efficiency substantially. This is achieved by constructing the topological description functions of the components appropriately, and utilizing the ersatz material model through projecting the topological description functions of the components. Numerical examples demonstrate the effectiveness of the proposed approach. In order to help readers understand the essential features of this approach, a 188 line Matlab implementation of this approach is also provided.
Electromagnetic energy radiation is becoming a “health‐killer” of living bodies, especially around industrial transformer substation and electricity pylon. Harvesting, converting, and storing waste ...energy for recycling are considered the ideal ways to control electromagnetic radiation. However, heat‐generation and temperature‐rising with performance degradation remain big problems. Herein, graphene‐silica xerogel is dissected hierarchically from functions to “genes,” thermally driven relaxation and charge transport, experimentally and theoretically, demonstrating a competitive synergy on energy conversion. A generic approach of “material genes sequencing” is proposed, tactfully transforming the negative effects of heat energy to superiority for switching self‐powered and self‐circulated electromagnetic devices, beneficial for waste energy harvesting, conversion, and storage. Graphene networks with “well‐sequencing genes” (w = Pc/Pp > 0.2) can serve as nanogenerators, thermally promoting electromagnetic wave absorption by 250%, with broadened bandwidth covering the whole investigated frequency. This finding of nonionic energy conversion opens up an unexpected horizon for converting, storing, and reusing waste electromagnetic energy, providing the most promising way for governing electromagnetic pollution with self‐powered and self‐circulated electromagnetic devices.
Thermally driven relaxation and charge transport are demonstrated with a competitive synergy on electromagnetic energy conversion, based on “sequencing genes” of graphene‐silica. It tactfully transforms negative effect of heat energy to superiority of switching self‐powered electromagnetic energy conversion, opening a new horizon of governing electromagnetic pollution.
With the flourishing development of artificial intelligence technology, the author has observed its successful applications in various fields and believes in its vast potential in the field of ...education. The author suggests that integrating the end-to-end learning system born out of this technology can address several industry pain points, such as significant individual differences among students, uneven distribution of educational resources, and limitations in assessment methods. This article provides a detailed introduction to the architecture and main functions of the system, including user interface and interactivity, as well as intelligent recommendation and customized learning paths. The core functionalities of intelligent recommendation and customization paths are highlighted, aiming to significantly enhance students' learning experiences and efficiency. The article also delves into the process of data integration and analysis, covering data collection and processing, as well as learning behavior analysis and model optimization.Furthermore, the article presents a preliminary simulation of the usage process, focusing on language learning, and discusses potential risks that may arise during the application, such as privacy protection, ownership of intellectual property rights, and the relationship between artificial intelligence and humans.
With the rapid development of web technology and the improvement of online purchasing products, the traditional classroom instructing model has been unable to bear the requirements of teachers and ...students. Aiming at the problems of instructing and correspondence, a deep learning-based educational control system supporting B/S structure is designed and implemented. The system adopts the software engineering model for adjustment, uses Java language as the main programming language of the system, uses SQL Server database to store various intelligences, and realizes online teaching and facing problems, data division, teaching direction and testing, and many other cosecants. Due to its structural features and limitations of algorithmic production, traditional fancy emotional literature models perform poorly in the classification of white-eye dimensional data. In order to improve the simulated annealing prediction of full-dimensional data, a modified brain emotion based on simulated annealing algorithm is proposed. By improving the network structure and using the feign annealing algorithm rules, the training process of conceiving scientific standards is proposed, its data fitting capacity and prediction ability are well refined. And the prediction accuracy of the model for high-dimensional data classification problems is improved. Some data adjustments commonly used for instructing performance of our proposed algorithm are excluded from the experiments.
Alzheimer's disease (AD) is one of the most common causes of dementia and is characterized by gradual loss in memory, language, and cognitive function. The hallmarks of AD include extracellular ...amyloid deposition, intracellular neuronal fiber entanglement, and neuronal loss. Despite strenuous efforts toward improvement of AD, there remains a lack of effective treatment and current pharmaceutical therapies only alleviate the symptoms for a short period of time. Interestingly, some progress has been achieved in treatment of AD based on mesenchymal stem cell (MSC) transplantation in recent years. MSC transplantation, as a rising therapy, is used as an intervention in AD, because of the enormous potential of MSCs, including differentiation potency, immunoregulatory function, and no immunological rejection. Although numerous strategies have focused on the use of MSCs to replace apoptotic or degenerating neurons, recent studies have implied that MSC-immunoregulation, which modulates the activity state of microglia or astrocytes and mediates neuroinflammation via several transcription factors (NFs) signaling pathways, may act as a major mechanism for the therapeutic efficacy of MSC and be responsible for some of the satisfactory results. In this review, we will focus on the role of MSC-immunoregulation in MSC-based therapy for AD.
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The coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) pandemic is the defining global health crisis of our time and the greatest challenge facing the world. Meteorological parameters are reportedly crucial factors ...affecting respiratory infectious disease epidemics; however, the effect of meteorological parameters on COVID-19 remains controversial. This study investigated the effects of temperature and relative humidity on daily new cases and daily new deaths of COVID-19, which has useful implications for policymakers and the public. Daily data on meteorological conditions, new cases and new deaths of COVID-19 were collected for 166 countries (excluding China) as of March 27, 2020. Log-linear generalized additive model was used to analyze the effects of temperature and relative humidity on daily new cases and daily new deaths of COVID-19, with potential confounders controlled for, including wind speed, median age of the national population, Global Health Security Index, Human Development Index and population density. Our findings revealed that temperature and relative humidity were both negatively related to daily new cases and deaths. A 1 °C increase in temperature was associated with a 3.08% (95% CI: 1.53%, 4.63%) reduction in daily new cases and a 1.19% (95% CI: 0.44%, 1.95%) reduction in daily new deaths, whereas a 1% increase in relative humidity was associated with a 0.85% (95% CI: 0.51%, 1.19%) reduction in daily new cases and a 0.51% (95% CI: 0.34%, 0.67%) reduction in daily new deaths. The results remained robust when different lag structures and the sensitivity analysis were used. These findings provide preliminary evidence that the COVID-19 pandemic may be partially suppressed with temperature and humidity increases. However, active measures must be taken to control the source of infection, block transmission and prevent further spread of COVID-19.
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•First study to explore the effects of temperature and humidity on the daily new cases and deaths of COVID-19 worldwide.•We used log-linear GAM to analyze the effects.•We considered the lag effects and the cumulative effects of weather conditions.•Temperature and relative humidity were both negatively related to the daily new cases and daily new deaths of COVID-19
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