The symbiotic rumen microbiota is essential for the digestion of plant fibers and contributes to the variation of production and health traits in ruminants. However, to date, the heritability of ...rumen microbial features and host genetic components associated with the rumen microbiota, as well as whether such genetic components are animal performance relevant, are largely unknown.
In the present study, we assessed rumen microbiota from a cohort of 709 beef cattle and showed that multiple factors including breed, sex, and diet drove the variation of rumen microbiota among animals. The diversity indices, the relative abundance of ~ 34% of microbial taxa (59 out of 174), and the copy number of total bacteria had a heritability estimate (h
) ≥ 0.15, suggesting that they are heritable elements affected by host additive genetics. These moderately heritable rumen microbial features were also found to be associated with host feed efficiency traits and rumen metabolic measures (volatile fatty acids). Moreover, 19 single nucleotide polymorphisms (SNPs) located on 12 bovine chromosomes were found to be associated with 14 (12 of them had h
≥ 0.15) rumen microbial taxa, and five of these SNPs were known quantitative trait loci for feed efficiency in cattle.
These findings suggest that some rumen microbial features are heritable and could be influenced by host genetics, highlighting a potential to manipulate and obtain a desirable and efficient rumen microbiota using genetic selection and breeding. It could be a useful strategy to further improve feed efficiency and optimize rumen fermentation through targeting both cattle and their rumen microbiota.
Due to the difficulty in generating a 6-Degree-of-Freedom (6-DoF) object pose estimation dataset, and the existence of domain gaps between synthetic and real data, existing pose estimation methods ...face challenges in improving accuracy and generalization. This paper proposes a methodology that employs higher quality datasets and deep learning-based methods to reduce the problem of domain gaps between synthetic and real data and enhance the accuracy of pose estimation. The high-quality dataset is obtained from Blenderproc and it is innovatively processed using bilateral filtering to reduce the gap. A novel attention-based mask region-based convolutional neural network (R-CNN) is proposed to reduce the computation cost and improve the model detection accuracy. Meanwhile, an improved feature pyramidal network (iFPN) is achieved by adding a layer of bottom-up paths to extract the internalization of features of the underlying layer. Consequently, a novel convolutional block attention module-convolutional denoising autoencoder (CBAM-CDAE) network is proposed by presenting channel attention and spatial attention mechanisms to improve the ability of AE to extract images' features. Finally, an accurate 6-DoF object pose is obtained through pose refinement. The proposed approach is compared to other models using the T-LESS and LineMOD datasets. Comparison results demonstrate the proposed approach outperforms the other estimation models.
The local government bond system of China has experienced a series of changes from its initial creation to its abolition and then to a recovery again. During the period, the central government always ...dominated the changing direction of the local government bond system. However, as fiscal decentralization reform has progressed, the institutional needs of local governments and investors have gradually gained attention. As a result, the size and variety of local government bonds are expanding. Through the introduction of analysis of system change based on situation structure performance (SSP), this paper uses Machine Learning (ML) approaches to predict the risk of government debt of China in the context of changing the local government bond system. Besides, this research work includes the comprehensive weight assignment for government debt hazard, fiscal revenue forecasting, default risk calculation, and finally an analysis of the validity of government debt hazard. The system may provide financial signal advice and strategy reference for dealing with hazards in early payment, organizing debt repayment significance order, optimizing fiscal revenue and cost structure, and so on.
An ultrasensitive sandwich-type electrochemical immunosensor was designed by using gold nanoparticles (Au NPs) as the substrate material and microporous carbon spheres (CS) loading silver ...nanoparticles (Ag NPs) spaced Hemin/reduced graphene oxide (Hemin/rGO) porous composite materials (Ag NPs@CS-Hemin/rGO) as the detection antibodies (Ab2) label for detecting carcinoembryonic antigen (CEA). The Au NPs with good electrical conductivity and biocompatibility could accelerate the electron transfer on the electrode interface and enhance the load capacity of capture antibodies (Ab1). Hemin is peroxidase-like substance which has excellent catalytic ability for H2O2 reduction but easy to molecular aggregation and oxidative self-destruction. Reduced graphene oxide (rGO) is a good supporting material for Hemin to mitigate this disadvantage. CS loading Ag NPs (Ag NPs@CS) as the spacer inserts into Hemin/rGO sheet can overcome the irreversible stacking of rGO, and form complex porous structure which exposes more active sites of Hemin. Moreover, Ag NPs loaded on CS also has catalytic ability for H2O2 reduction. Thus the Ag NPs@CS-Hemin/rGO used as the Ab2 label has a large working surface area and high utilization rate, which heightens the catalytic ability for H2O2 reduction to amplify the current signal effectually. The current signal and the logarithm of CEA concentration presented a wide linear response range of 20 fg/mL to 200 ng/mL, and the detection limit of CEA was 6.7 fg/mL. Furthermore, the designed immunosensor exhibited a good reproducibility, selectivity and stability, which confirms a broad development prospect when applying it in early clinical detection.
•The immunosensor exhibits a broad detection range and low detection limit for CEA.•The Ag NPs@CS-Hemin/rGO was first applied as an Ab2 label to amplify current signal.•Use Ag NPs@CS as the spacer inserted into Hemin/rGO to form porous structure.•The immunosensor shows a good prospect in early clinical detection.
•Alpine herbs exhibited tens of fold variations in plant surface water storage (PWS).•The correlations between PWS and plant traits were complex for predicting PWS.•Plant strategy theory clarified ...the multifaceted traits effects on PWS per projected area.•Expansion of competitive species in alpine meadows may intensify interception loss and exacerbate water scarcity.
Rainfall interception by vegetation is essential in precipitation redistribution within ecosystems and greatly affects water services. However, the patterns of interspecies variation in plant surface water storage (PWS) remain unclear, which greatly limits our understanding of the relationship between species composition and vegetation rainfall interception. Thus, we aimed to examine whether the plant ecological strategy, which is an internal driving force and comprehensive characteristic of plant traits, can serve as a PWS predictor. The PWS of thirty-nine common plant species in natural, degraded, and restored alpine meadows within the Ruoergai wetland was compared, and the variability in PWS between these species was examined from both plant trait and ecological strategy perspectives. The results showed that PWS per plant (IWSC) ranged from 0.12 to 9.32 mL plant−1, and PWS based on projected area (PSCI) and fresh weight (PMS) ranged from 0.01 to 0.94 mm and 0.11 to 1.29 g g−1, respectively. The PSCI was comparatively lower in Cyperaceae, whereas the PMS was relatively lower in Polygonaceae, and Poaceae. The correlations between PWS and multidimensional plant traits are complex for predicting PWS but can be clarified by considering plant ecological strategies. Further regression analysis revealed that as an evolutionary representation of the crucially related plant traits, plant competition significantly positively affected both IWSC and PSCI, and stress tolerance obviously negatively affected these two parameters (P < 0.05). The correlation between plant strategy and PSCI implied that the increased dominance of competitive species in alpine meadows may intensify interception loss, thereby hindering rainfall allocation to soil and exacerbating water scarcity.
A versatile immunosensor using a CdTe quantum dots (QDs) coated silica nanosphere (Si/QD) as a label was proposed for ultrasensitive detection of a biomarker. In this approach, silica nanospheres ...with good monodispersity and uniform structure were employed as the carrier for immobilization of QDs and antibodies. Rabit IgG served as a model protein to demonstrate the performance of the immunosensor. Goat antirabbit IgG antibody was covalently bound to CdTe QDs on the surface of silica nanospheres. CdTe QDs coated with a silica nanosphere label (Si/QD/Ab2) were attached onto the gold electrode surface through a subsequent “sandwich” immunoreaction. This reaction was confirmed by scanning electron microscopic (SEM) and fluorescence microscopic images. Due to signal amplification from the high loading of CdTe QDs, 6.6- and 5.9-fold enhancements in electrochemiluminescent (ECL) and square-wave voltammetric (SWV) signals for IgG detection were achieved compared to the unamplified method. The detection limits for IgG were 1.3 and 0.6 pg mL−1 for ECL and SWV measurements, respectively. The resulting versatile immunosensor possesses high sensitivity, satisfactory reproducibility and regeneration, and good precision. This simple and specific strategy has vast potential to be used in other biological assays.
Genome mining of the deep sea-derived Streptomyces atratus SCSIO ZH16 enabled the activation of a cyclodepsipeptide gene cluster and isolation of its cinnamic acid-bearing product, atratumycin (1). ...Atratumycin’s structure was elucidated on the basis of extensive spectroscopic experiments, X-ray data, and Marfey’s method; a plausible biosynthesis and tailoring modification of 1 are also proposed and investigated. Additionally, atratumycin is active against Mycobacteria tuberculosis H37Ra and H37Rv with MICs of 3.8 and 14.6 μM, respectively.
•Total acidity/pH value (TA/pH) is presented for the formulation designing of PCC;•The corrosion protection of PCC is improved with the decrease of TA/pH•Nucleation density and growth rate of PCC are ...strongly influenced by TA/pH
In this work, with the aid of thermodynamic equilibrium calculations, a crucial contributor, i.e. total acidity/pH value (TA/pH), was proposed for the first time to guide the design of the chemical formulation of metal-phosphate-based conversion coatings having excellent corrosion resistance for Mg alloys. The present study and published works were compared to validate the proposed theory and correlation between the TA/pH and corrosion resistance of the resulting coatings. A significant contribution of this work was the elucidation of the kinetic role of the buffering nature of chemical bath in regulating the formation of corrosion resistant phosphate conversion coatings.
This study aimed at constructing a diagnostic immune risk score (dIRS) system and a prognostic immune risk score (pIRS) system for diagnose and prognosis of breast cancer (BC). The gene expression ...data of BC were downloaded from TCGA dataset (training set), and from GSE65194, GSE29044, GSE42568, and GSE20685 (validation sets). Then, the immune cell type proportions in each dataset were assessed using EPIC tool, and the dIRS system was built based on the SVM-RFE and RF-VIMP algorithms. Subsequently, the pIRS system and the nomogram survival model were established separately using penalized and rms packages. Finally, the differential expressed genes (DEGs) between low and high pIRS groups were screened, and submitted for functional analysis. The dIRS system consisted of B cells, CD8 + T cells, endothelial cells, NK cells, and other cells had high accuracy in distinguishing BC patients from the healthy controls (AUROC >0.7). Subsequently, the pIRS system with the five prognosis-associated immune-infiltrating cell was constructed, and Kaplan-Meier analysis demonstrated that the survival rate of low pIRS group was significantly higher than that of high pIRS group (
p
< 0.05). Based on age, pathologic stage and the pIRS values, the nomogram survival model was built. The AUROC value, Specificity value, Sensitivity value and C-index of the nomogram survival model were higher than 0.7000, and had a good predictive ability for BC. Finally, a total of 539 DEGs were identified, and significantly enriched in six pathways. The dIRS system and the pIRS system composed of immune cells might be critical for the diagnosis and prognosis of BC patients.
The novel multitargeted tyrosine kinase inhibitor sunitinib is used as an antiangiogenic agent for the treatment of several types of cancer, including metastatic renal cell carcinoma (RCC). Sunitinib ...was shown to positively change the immunosuppressive phenotype in RCC patients. To improve its antitumor efficacy, and offer strategies for its combination with other approaches, it is critical to fully elucidate its mechanisms of action. We show that sunitinib induces tumor cell apoptosis and growth arrest in RCC tumor cells, which correlates with signal transducer and activator of transcription 3 (Stat3) activity inhibition. Sunitinib-mediated direct effects on tumor cells occur regardless of von Hippel-Lindau tumor suppressor gene status and hypoxia-inducible transcription factor-2alpha levels. Reduction of Stat3 activity enhances the antitumor effects of sunitinib, whereas expression of a constitutively activated Stat3 mutant rescues tumor cell death. Intravital multiphoton microscopy data show that sunitinib induces mouse Renca tumor cell apoptosis in vivo before tumor vasculature collapse. Sunitinib also inhibits Stat3 in Renca tumor-associated myeloid-derived suppressor cells (MDSC), down-regulates angiogenic gene expression, and reduces MDSCs and tumor T regulatory cells. These results suggest that Stat3 activity is important for RCC response to sunitinib, and Stat3 inhibition permits the direct proapoptotic activity of sunitinib on tumor cells and positive effects on tumor immunologic microenvironment.