This paper examines the effects of extreme temperatures on mortality rates, using random year-to-year variation in temperature based on county-level panel data from China. The analysis finds a ...robust, U-shaped relationship between temperature and mortality rates, indicating that extremely cold or hot temperatures lead to excess deaths. The heat-related (cold-related) effect is 3.5 times (3.2 times) as large as previous findings that used U.S. data, and it is especially large for the elderly population, mainly due to excess deaths caused by cardiovascular diseases. Applying these results to climate change predictions from Hadley Centre Global Environmental Model shows that by 2061–2080 the annual mortality rate is likely to increase by 14.2% if global greenhouse gas emissions continue to rise throughout the 21st century, the estimated health cost of which is around 0.98 trillion Chinese Yuan per year. The paper also explores households’ adaptation behaviors to extreme temperatures. It finds that although urban households adaptively increase energy consumption when they are exposed to cold temperatures and purchase more air conditioners on hot and cold days, rural households are unresponsive to temperature fluctuations. This finding implies that rural people may be more resource constrained and suffer more when extreme temperatures occur.
ETV6/RUNX1 gene fusion is the most common chromosomal translocation abnormality occurred in pediatric B-cell acute lymphoblastic leukemia (B-ALL). Compared with ETV6-RUNX1-negative patients, ...ETV6-RUNX1-positive patients possess more improved treatment strategies but higher risk to relapse. In this research, the potential gene interaction networks were constructed intending for elucidating the pathogenesis of B-ALL. We performed the weighted gene co-expression network analysis (WGCNA) to assess the involvement of lncRNA-mRNA pairs in B-ALL patients consisting of 24 ETV6-RUNX1-positive patients and 18 ETV6-RUNX1-negative patients and found a module that was significantly associated with positive/negative trait. Gene Ontology analysis showed that mRNAs in this module were enriched in the positive regulation of MAPK cascade, positive regulation of JNK cascade, and myeloid cell differentiation pathway. To further investigate the relationship between lncRNAs and mRNAs in this significant module, we constructed the lncRNA-mRNA co-expression network. 3 lncRNAs (RP11-170J3.2, RP11-135F9.1 and RP1-151B14.9) were found at the core of the lncRNA-mRNA co-expression network, which had the most co-expression connections with mRNAs. And several related mRNAs (ACTN1, TNFRSF21 and NLRP3) had a significant correlation with the patient survival prediction. Our findings may explicate the pathogenesis of B-ALL, and the disease-associated genes could provide clues to find novel biomarkers for prognosis.
Mine tailings contain toxic metals and can lead to serious pollution of soil environment. Phytoremediation using legumes has been regarded as an eco-friendly way for the rehabilitation of ...tailings-laden lands but little is known about the changes of microbial structure during the process. In the present study, we monitored the dynamic change of microbiota in the rhizosphere of Pongamia pinnata during a 2-year on-site remediation of vanadium-titanium magnetite tailings. After remediation, overall soil health conditions were significantly improved as increased available N and P contents and enzyme activities were discovered. There was also an increase of microbial carbon and nitrogen contents. The Illumina sequencing technique revealed that the abundance of taxa under Proteobacteria was increased and rhizobia-related OTUs were preferentially enriched. A significant difference was discovered for sample groups before and after remediation. Rhizobium and Nordella were identified as the keystone taxa at genus rank. The functional prediction indicated that nitrogen fixation was enhanced, corresponding well with qPCR results which showed a significant increase of nifH gene copy numbers by the 2nd year. Our findings for the first time elucidated that legume phytoremediation can effectively cause microbial communities to shift in favour of rhizobia in heavy metal contaminated soil.
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•Soil conditions were improved after phytoremediation using Pongamia pinnata.•The abundance of soil Proteobacteria was increased during phytoremediation.•Rhizobium and Nordella were identified to be the keystone genera during soil community shift.•Soil nitrogen-fixing functions were enhanced after the legume remediation.
The main findings throw light on the changes of rhizobia community in mine tailings during its phytoremediation using Pongamia pinnat.
Based on a county-level monthly panel data from four provinces and a province-level monthly panel data from 21 provinces from 2009 to 2015, we use the regression discontinuity method to examine the ...impacts of the tired pricing reform implemented in July 2012 on residential electricity use in China. The county-level (province-level) estimation shows that the tiered pricing reform has reduced the monthly electricity use per household by 6.5 kWh (8.9 kWh), accounting for 6.1% (7.1%) of the monthly electricity use per household. Moreover, counties and provinces with a more drastic policy shift have shown a larger decrease in residential electricity use.
Alleviating arsenic (As) contamination is a high-priority environmental issue. Hyperaccumulator plants may harbor endophytic bacteria able to detoxify As. Therefore, we investigated the distribution, ...diversity, As (III) resistance levels, and resistance-related functional genes of arsenite-resistant bacterial endophytes in Pteris vittata L. growing in a lead-zinc mining area with different As contamination levels.
A total of 116 arsenite-resistant bacteria were isolated from roots of P. vittata with different As concentrations. Based on the 16S rRNA gene sequence analysis of representative isolates, the isolates belonged to Proteobacteria, Actinobacteria, and Firmicutes. Major genera found were Agrobacterium, Stenotrophomonas, Pseudomonas, Rhodococcus, and Bacillus. The most highly arsenite-resistant bacteria (minimum inhibitory concentration > 45 mM) were isolated from P. vittata with high As concentrations and belonged to the genera Agrobacterium and Bacillus. The strains with high As tolerance also showed high levels of indole-3-acetic acid (IAA) production and carried arsB/ACR3(2) genes. The arsB and ACR3(2) were most likely horizontally transferred among the strains.
The results of this study suggest that P. vittata plants with high As concentrations may select diverse arsenite-resistant bacteria; this diversity might, at least partly, be a result of horizontal gene transfer. These diverse endophytic bacteria are potential candidates to enhance phytoremediation techniques.
Soil microbes provide important ecosystem services. Though the effects of changes in nutrient availability due to fertilization on the soil microbial communities in the topsoil (tilled layer, 0-20 ...cm) have been extensively explored, the effects on communities and their associations with soil nutrients in the subsoil (below 20 cm) which is rarely impacted by tillage are still unclear. 16S rRNA gene amplicon sequencing was used to investigate bacterial and archaeal communities in a Pup-Calric-Entisol soil treated for 32 years with chemical fertilizer (CF) and CF combined with farmyard manure (CFM), and to reveal links between soil properties and specific bacterial and archaeal taxa in both the top- and subsoil. The results showed that both CF and CFM treatments increased soil organic carbon (SOC), soil moisture (MO) and total nitrogen (TN) while decreased the nitrate
N content through the profile. Fertilizer applications also increased Olsen phosphorus (OP) content in most soil layers. Microbial communities in the topsoil were significantly different from those in subsoil. Compared to the CF treatment, taxa such as
,
, and several members of
in topsoil and Subdivision 3
,
, and
in subsoil were substantially more abundant in CFM. A co-occurrence based network analysis demonstrated that SOC and OP were the most important soil parameters that positively correlated with specific bacterial and archaeal taxa in topsoil and subsoil, respectively.
was identified as the keystone genus in the topsoil, while genera
and
were identified as the keystone taxa in subsoil. The taxa identified above are involved in the decomposition of complex organic compounds and soil carbon, nitrogen, and phosphorus transformations. This study revealed that the spatial variability of soil properties due to long-term fertilization strongly shapes the bacterial and archaeal community composition and their interactions at both high and low taxonomic levels across the whole soil profile.
To provide a basis for using indigenous bacteria for bioremediation of heavy metal contaminated soil, the heavy metal resistance and plant growth-promoting activity of 136 isolates from V-Ti ...magnetite mine tailing soil were systematically analyzed. Among the 13 identified bacterial genera, the most abundant genus was Bacillus (79 isolates) out of which 32 represented B. subtilis and 14 B. pumilus, followed by Rhizobium sp. (29 isolates) and Ochrobactrum intermedium (13 isolates). Altogether 93 isolates tolerated the highest concentration (1000 mg kg(-1)) of at least one of the six tested heavy metals. Five strains were tolerant against all the tested heavy metals, 71 strains tolerated 1,000 mg kg(-1) cadmium whereas only one strain tolerated 1,000 mg kg(-1) cobalt. Altogether 67% of the bacteria produced indoleacetic acid (IAA), a plant growth-promoting phytohormone. The concentration of IAA produced by 53 isolates was higher than 20 µg ml(-1). In total 21% of the bacteria produced siderophore (5.50-167.67 µg ml(-1)) with two Bacillus sp. producing more than 100 µg ml(-1). Eighteen isolates produced both IAA and siderophore. The results suggested that the indigenous bacteria in the soil have beneficial characteristics for remediating the contaminated mine tailing soil.
Seemingly barren heavy-metal-polluted vanadium (V) and titanium (Ti) magnetite mine tailings contain various functional microbes, yet it is unclear whether this includes microbial resources relevant ...to the biological control of plant diseases. Kiwifruit brown leaf spot disease, caused by
, can seriously reduce kiwifruit yield. To discover effective control measures for kiwifruit leaf spot, 18 bacteria strains among 136 tailing-isolated bacteria from V-Ti magnetite mine tailings were identified as inhibiting
by the confrontation plate method, indicating that antagonistic bacteria surviving in the V-Ti magnetite mine tailings were present at a low level. The 18 antagonistic strains could be divided into two BOX-A1R clusters. The 13 representative strains that were selected for phylogenetic tree construction based on their 16S rRNA sequences belonged to the
genus. Five predominant strains exhibited different toxin-production times and intensities, with four of them initiating toxin production at 32 h. Among them,
sp. KT-10 displayed the highest bacteriostatic rate (100%), with a 37.5% growth inhibition rate and an antagonistic band of 3.2 cm against
.
sp. KT10 also showed a significant inhibitory effect against the expansion speed of kiwifruit brown spots in the pot. The relative control effect was 78.48 and 83.89% at 7 days after the first and last spraying of KT-10 dilution, respectively, confirming a good effect of KT-10 on kiwifruit brown leaf spots in the field. This study demonstrated for the first time that there are some antagonistic bacteria to pathogenic
in V-Ti magnetite mine tailings, and
sp. KT10 was found to have a good control effect on kiwifruit brown leaf spots in pots and fields, which provided an effective biological control measurement for kiwifruit brown leaf spots.
The contribution of rhizobia in the mitigation of non-enzymatic antioxidants against nitrogen deficiency and heavy metal toxicity for legume plant is not clear. Therefore, it is hypothesized that the ...inoculation of rhizobia could mitigate nitrogen deficiency and nickel (Ni) stresses in P. pinnata tissues by enhancing the formation of certain non-enzymatic antioxidants. The effect of symbiotic nitrogen-fixing rhizobia on the mitigation of nitrogen-deficiency and Ni stresses in P. pinnata was evaluated by inoculating two different rhizobia, i.e., Rhizobium pisi PZHK2 and Ochrobacterium pseudogrignonense PZHK4, around the rhizosphere of P. pinnata grown in soil containing 40 mg kg−1 Ni2+ and without nitrogen addition. The inoculation with both rhizobial strains promoted the growth of P. pinnata under nickel stress or nitrogen-deficiency condition, increased nitrogen content in all plant tissues and nickel content in shoots and leaves, but reduced nickel accumulation in roots. The four non-enzymatic antioxidants including glutathione (GSH), proanthocyanidin (OPC), ascorbic acid (ASA) and flavonoids (FLA) distributed in roots, shoots and leaves were followed in descending order: GSH > OPC > ASA > FLA. The four non-enzymatic antioxidants showed different levels of change under the nitrogen-deficiency and nickel stresses and in the non-stress control. The inoculation of PZHK2 and PZHK4 significantly (p < 0.05) increased the four non-enzymatic antioxidants in P. pinnata tissues, especially in roots. Some non-enzymatic antioxidants showed correlations with nickel or nitrogen in P. pinnata tissues, and the four non-enzymatic antioxidants also had correlations among each other. Therefore, this research revealed an excellent role of rhizobia in promoting non-enzymatic antioxidants to mitigate nitrogen-deficiency or nickel stress for P. pinnata.
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•Rhizobia promote Pongamia pinnata growth in nitrogen-deficiency or nickel stress.•Rhizobia stimulate non-enzymatic antioxidants in P. pinnata tissue.•Distribution of non-enzymatic antioxidants in P. pinnata tissue is GSH > OPC > ASA > FLA.•Non-enzymatic antioxidants mitigate nitrogen-deficiency or nickel stress for plant.
Brown film formation, a unique developmental stage in the life cycle of
, is essential for the subsequent development of fruiting bodies in
cultivation. The pH of mushroom growth substrates are ...usually adjusted with hydrated lime, yet the effects of hydrated lime on cultivating
and the molecular mechanisms associated with the effects have not been studied systemically. We cultivated
on substrates supplemented with 0% (CK), 1% (T1), 3% (T2), and 5% (T3) hydrated lime (Ca (OH)
), and applied transcriptomics and qRT-PCR to study gene expression on the brown film formation stage. Hydrated lime increased polysaccharide contents in
, especially in T2, where the 5.3% polysaccharide content was approximately 1.5 times higher than in the CK. The addition of hydrated lime in the substrate promoted laccase, lignin peroxidase and manganese peroxidase activities, implying that hydrated lime improved the ability of
to decompose lignin and provide nutrition for its growth and development. Among the annotated 9,913 genes, compared to the control, 47 genes were up-regulated and 52 genes down-regulated in T1; 73 genes were up-regulated and 44 were down-regulated in T2; and 125 genes were up-regulated and 65 genes were down-regulated in T3. Differentially expressed genes (DEGs) were enriched in the amino acid metabolism, lipid metabolism and carbohydrate metabolism related pathways. The carbohydrate-active enzyme genes up-regulated in the hydrated lime treatments were mostly glycosyl hydrolase genes. The results will facilitate future optimization of
cultivation techniques and possibly shortening the production cycle.
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