In this contribution, we conduct a multi-angular analysis of the interdisciplinarity of Nobel Prize winning research compared to non-Nobel Prize winning articles, based on a large data set. Here ...interdisciplinarity is measured by the diversity of references, using two true diversity indicators. Articles mentioned by the Nobel Prize committee in Physiology or Medicine (in short: NP articles) awarded during the period from 1900 to 2016 are the focus of our research. These articles are compared with those in a dataset of articles that do not include a Nobel Prize winner among their authors. Moreover, these non-NPs articles were not only published in the same year and in the same research field as the NP ones but were also dealing with the same research topic (such articles are referred to as non-NP articles). The results suggest that the topic-related knowledge included in Nobel Prize winning work is higher than that in non-NPs, hence with lower interdisciplinarity than the latter. Our findings provide useful clues to better understand the characteristics of transformative research, here represented by key publications by Nobel Prize laureates in Physiology or Medicine, and their pattern of knowledge integration.
Abstract
Purpose
This study explores the underlying research topics regarding CRISPR based on the LDA model and figures out trends in knowledge transfer from science to technology in this area over ...the latest 10 years.
Design/methodology/approach
We collected publications on CRISPR between 2011 and 2020 from the Web of Science, and traced all the patents citing them from lens.org. 15,904 articles and 18,985 patents in total are downloaded and analyzed. The LDA model was applied to identify underlying research topics in related research. In addition, some indicators were introduced to measure the knowledge transfer from research topics of scientific publications to IPC-4 classes of patents.
Findings
The emerging research topics on CRISPR were identified and their evolution over time displayed. Furthermore, a big picture of knowledge transition from research topics to technological classes of patents was presented. We found that for all topics on CRISPR, the average first transition year, the ratio of articles cited by patents, the NPR transition rate are respectively 1.08, 15.57%, and 1.19, extremely shorter and more intensive than those of general fields. Moreover, the transition patterns are different among research topics.
Research limitations
Our research is limited to publications retrieved from the Web of Science and their citing patents indexed in lens.org. A limitation inherent with LDA analysis is in the manual interpretation and labeling of “topics”.
Practical implications
Our study provides good references for policy-makers on allocating scientific resources and regulating financial budgets to face challenges related to the transformative technology of CRISPR.
Originality/value
The LDA model here is applied to topic identification in the area of transformative researches for the first time, as exemplified on CRISPR. Additionally, the dataset of all citing patents in this area helps to provide a full picture to detect the knowledge transition between S&T.
Abstract Purpose This article aims to determine the percentage of “Sparking” articles among the work of this year’s Nobel Prize winners in medicine, physics, and chemistry. ...Design/methodology/approach We focus on under-cited influential research among the key publications as mentioned by the Nobel Prize Committee for the 2020 Noble Prize laureates. Specifically, we extracted data from the Web of Science, and calculated the Sparking Indices using the formulas as proposed by Hu and Rousseau in 2016 and 2017. In addition, we identified another type of igniting articles based on the notion in 2017. Findings In the fields of medicine and physics, the proportions of articles with sparking characteristics share 78.571% and 68.75% respectively, yet, in chemistry 90% articles characterized by “igniting”. Moreover, the two types of articles share more than 93% in the work of the Nobel Prize included in this study. Research limitations Our research did not cover the impact of topic, socio-political, and author’s reputation on the Sparking Indices. Practical implications Our study shows that the Sparking Indices truly reflect influence of the best research work, so it can be used to detect under-cited influential articles, as well as identifying fundamental work. Originality/value Our findings suggest that the Sparking Indices have good applicability for research evaluation.
Insufficient angiogenesis happened in body defects such as ulceration, coronary heart disease, and chronic wounds constitutes a major challenge in tissue regeneration engineering. Owing to the poor ...bioactivity and maintenance of pro-angiogenic cells and factors during transplantation, new bioactive materials to tackle the barrier are highly desirable. Herein, we demonstrate a co-delivery platform for synergistic promotion of angiogenesis based on biodegradable, therapeutic, and self-reporting luminescent porous silicon (PSi) microparticles. The biodegradable and biocompatible PSi microparticles could quickly release therapeutic Si ions, which is bioactive to promote cell migration, tube formation, and angiogenic gene expression in vitro. To construct a highly efficient angiogenesis treatment platform, vascular endothelial growth factor (VEGF) was electrostatically adsorbed by PSi microparticles for effective drug loading and delivery. The dual therapeutic components (Si ions and VEGF) could release with the dissolution of Si skeleton, accompanying by the decay of photoluminescence (PL) intensity and blue shift of the maximum PL wavelength. Therefore, real-time drug release could be self-reported and assessed with the two-dimensional PL signal. The co-delivery of Si ions and VEGF displayed synergistic effect and highly efficient angiogenesis, which was evidenced by the enhancement of endothelial cell migration and tube formation in vitro with approximately 1.5–5 times higher than control. The blood vessel formation in vivo was also significantly improved as shown by the chick chorioallantoic membrane (CAM) model, in which the total length, size and junctions exhibited 2.1 ± 0.4, 4 ± 0.4, and 3.9 ± 0.3 times in comparison to control, respectively. The PSi and VEGF co-delivery system display great potential in tissue engineering as a biodegradable and self-reporting theranostic platform to promote angiogenesis.
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Noninvasive and visual monitoring of glucose is highly desirable for diabetes diagnostics and long-term home-based health management. Owing to the correlation of the glucose level between blood and ...sweat, on-body sweat glucose detection provides potential for noninvasive healthcare but is highly challenging. Herein, we for the first time demonstrate a wearable skin pad based on the ratiometric fluorescent nanohybrid, which can realize noninvasive and visual monitoring of sweat glucose. Luminescent porous silicon (PSi) particles, which have a porous structure and oxidation-responsive photoluminescence decay, are chosen to load (adsorb or entrap) carbon quantum dots (CQDs) for the construction of the dual fluorescence nanohybrid. Bimetallic (Au and Ag) nanoparticles (BiM) are also co-decorated on the PSi particle to improve detection sensitivity by enhancing PSi’s initial fluorescence and oxidation kinetics. Owing to the efficient fluorescence resonance energy transfer effect, BiM-CQDs@PSi initially exhibits PSi’s red fluorescence with complete quenching of CQDs’s blue fluorescence. The oxidation of PSi triggered by hydrogen peroxide (H2O2) weakens the FRET effect and decays PSi’s fluorescence, causing ratiometric fluorescence to change from red (PSi) to blue (CQDs). A wearable skin pad is easily fabricated by co-immobilization of BiM-CQDs@PSi and glucose oxidase (GOX) in a transparent and biocompatible chitosan film supported by an adhesive polyurethane membrane. When the skin pad is attached on the body, the same ratiometric fluorescence transition (red → blue) is observed upon the stimulation of H2O2 generated in GOX-catalyzed oxidation of sweat glucose. Based on the strong correlation between the ratio of the fluorescence change and sweat glucose level, clinical tests toward diabetics and healthy volunteers can clearly indicate hyperglycemia.
Abstract
Exposure to cigarette smoke (CS) results in injury to the epithelial cells of the human respiratory tract and has been implicated as a causative factor in the development of chronic ...obstructive pulmonary disease and lung cancers. The application of omics-scale methodologies has improved the capacity to understand cellular signaling processes underlying response to CS exposure. We report here the development of an algorithm based on quantitative assessment of transcriptomic profiles and signaling pathway perturbation analysis (SPPA) of human bronchial epithelial cells (HBEC) exposed to the toxic components present in CS. HBEC were exposed to CS of different compositions and for different durations using an ISO3308 smoking regime and the impact of exposure was monitored in 2263 signaling pathways in the cell to generate a total effect score that reflects the quantitative degree of impact of external stimuli on the cells. These findings support the conclusion that the SPPA algorithm provides an objective, systematic, sensitive means to evaluate the biological impact of exposures to CS of different compositions making a powerful comparative tool for commercial product evaluation and potentially for other known or potentially toxic environmental smoke substances.
Non-coding RNAs (ncRNAs), including microRNAs (miRNAs), long ncRNAs (lncRNAs) and circular RNAs (circRNAs), accomplish remarkable variety of biological functions. However, the composition of ncRNAs ...and their interactions with coding RNAs in modulating and controlling of cellular process in plants is largely unknown. Using a diverse group of high-throughput sequencing strategies, the mRNA, miRNA, lncRNA and circRNA compositions of tobacco (Nicotiana tabacum) roots determined and their alteration and potential biological functions in response to topping treatment analyzed.
A total of 688 miRNAs, 7423 non-redundant lncRNAs and 12,414 circRNAs were identified, among which, some selected differentially expressed RNAs were verified by quantitative real-time PCR. Using the differentially expressed RNAs, a co-expression network was established that included all four types of RNAs. The number of circRNAs identified were higher than that of miRNAs and lncRNAs, but only two circRNAs were present in the co-expression network. LncRNAs appear to be the most active ncRNAs based on their numbers presented in the co-expression network, but none of them seems to be an eTM (endogenous Target Mimicry) of miRNAs. Integrated with analyses of sequence interaction, several mRNA-circRNA-miRNA interaction networks with a potential role in the regulation of nicotine biosynthesis were uncovered, including a QS-circQS-miR6024 interaction network. In this network miR6024 was significantly down-regulated, while the expression levels of its two targets, circQS and its host gene QS, were sharply increased following the topping treatment.
These results illustrated the transcriptomic profiles of tobacco roots, the organ responsible for nicotine biosynthesis. mRNAs always play the most important roles, while ncRNAs are also expressed extensively for topping treatment response, especially circRNAs are the most activated in the ncRNA pool. These studies also provided insights on the coordinated regulation module of coding and non-coding RNAs in a single plant biological sample. The findings reported here indicate that ncRNAs appear to form interaction complex for the regulation of stress response forming regulation networks with transcripts involved in nicotine biosynthesis in tobacco.
Verticillium dahliae, a notorious phytopathogenic fungus, is responsible for vascular wilt diseases in numerous crops. Uncovering the molecular mechanisms underlying pathogenicity is crucial for ...controlling V. dahliae. Herein, we characterized a putative oxidoreductase-like protein (VdOrlp) from V. dahliae that contains a functional signal peptide. While the expression of VdOrlp was low in artificial media, it significantly increased during host infection. Deletion of VdOrlp had minimal effects on the growth and development of V. dahliae but severely impaired its pathogenicity. Metabolomic analysis revealed significant changes in organic heterocyclic compounds and phenylpropane compounds in cotton plants infected with ΔVdOrlp and V991. Furthermore, VdOrlp expression was induced by lignin, and its deletion affected the metabolism of host lignin and phenolic acids. In conclusion, our results demonstrated that VdOrlp plays an important role in the metabolism of plant phenylpropyl lignin and organic heterocyclic compounds and is required for fungal pathogenicity in V. dahliae.
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•The TPE, as AIE luminogen, was attached to the end of P(DMA-stat-DAA)•Self-healing hydrogels were prepared from TPE-P(DMA-stat-DAA)•The hydrogels exhibited thermo-responsive light ...emission property base on TPE•The LCST of the hydrogel could be regulated to body temperature.•The hydrogels have potential in local drug delivery and real-time monitoring.
With increasing attention paid to smart materials, self-healing hydrogels with thermo-responses have been greatly developed in the past several years. At the same time, fluorescent or light emitting polymers have been studied for use as bioimaging tools and drug delivery vehicles. In this research, thermo-responsive self-healing hydrogels with aggregation-induced emission (AIE) property were prepared from tetraphenylethylene (TPE) containing TPE-poly(N,N-dimethylacrylamide-stat-Diacetone acrylamide) TPE-P(DMA-stat-DAA) cross-linked by diacylhydrazide. In addition to self-healing based on reversible acylhydrazone bond, the copolymer and hydrogels showed thermo-responses. The lower critical solution temperature (LCST) of the hydrogels was regulated to body temperature. Based on the AIE property of the TPE unit, the hydrogels showed an enhanced light emitting property above the LCST, which was regulated by temperature change. The in vitro cytotoxicity experiment showed that the hydrogels are not toxic, and the DOX release rate can be enhanced by low pH values, which endowed this kind of thermo-responsive light emitting hydrogel with great potential for applications in bio-diagnosis, drug delivery, artificial organs with light sensitive detection, etc.
Stripe rust (also known as yellow rust), caused by the pathogen
f. sp.
(
), is a common and serious fungal disease of wheat (
L.) worldwide. To identify effective stripe rust resistance loci, a ...genome-wide association study was performed using 152 wheat landraces from the Yellow and Huai River Valleys in China based on Diversity Arrays Technology and simple sequence repeat markers. Phenotypic evaluation of the degree of resistance to stripe rust at the adult-plant stage under field conditions was carried out in five environments. In total, 19 accessions displayed stable, high degrees of resistance to stripe rust development when exposed to mixed races of
at the adult-plant stage in multi-environment field assessments. A marker-trait association analysis indicated that 51 loci were significantly associated with adult-plant resistance to stripe rust. These loci included 40 quantitative trait loci (QTL) regions for adult-plant resistance. Twenty identified resistance QTL were linked closely to previously reported yellow rust resistance genes or QTL regions, which were distributed across chromosomes 1B, 1D, 2A, 2B, 3A, 3B, 4A, 4B, 5B, 6B, 7A, 7B, and 7D. Six multi-trait QTL were detected on chromosomes 1B, 1D, 2B, 3A, 3B, and 7D. Twenty QTL were mapped to chromosomes 1D, 2A, 2D, 4B, 5B, 6A, 6B, 6D, 7A, 7B, and 7D, distant from previously identified yellow rust resistance genes. Consequently, these QTL are potentially novel loci for stripe rust resistance. Among the 20 potentially novel QTL, five (
,
,
,
, and
) were associated with field responses at the adult-plant stage in at least two environments, and may have large effects on stripe rust resistance. The novel effective QTL for adult-plant resistance to stripe rust will improve understanding of the genetic mechanisms that control the spread of stripe rust, and will aid in the molecular marker-assisted selection-based breeding of wheat for stripe rust resistance.
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