MS2/GmAMS1 encodes a bHLH transcription factor important for tapetum degeneration in soybean.

KEY MESSAGE: GmAMS1 is the only functional AMS and works with GmTDF1-1 and GmMS3 to orchestrate the tapetum degeneration in soybean. Heterosis could significantly increase the production of major crops as well as soybean [Glycine max (L.) Merr.]. Stable male-sterile/female-fertile mutants including ms2 are useful resources to apply in soybean hybrid production. Here, we identified the detailed mutated sites of two classic mutants ms2 (Eldorado) and ms2 (Ames) in MS2/GmAMS1 via the high-throughput sequencing method. Subsequently, we verified that GmAMS1, a bHLH transcription factor, is the only functional AMS member in soybean through the complementary experiment in Arabidopsis; and elucidated the dysfunction of its homolog GmAMS2 is caused by the premature stop codon in the gene's coding sequence. Further qRT-PCR analysis and protein-protein interaction assays indicated GmAMS1 is required for expressing downstream members in the putative DYT1-TDF1-AMS-MYB80/MYB103/MS188-MS1 cascade module, and might regulate the upstream members in a feedback mechanism. GmAMS1 could interact with GmTDF1-1 and GmMS3 via different region, which contributes to dissect the mechanism in the tapetum degeneration process. Additionally, as a core member in the conserved cascade module controlling the tapetum development and degeneration, AMS is conservatively present in all land plant lineages, implying that AMS-mediated signaling pathway has been established before land plants diverged, which provides further insight into the tapetal evolution.

Improving microbial phylogeny with citizen science within a mass-market video game.

Citizen science video games are designed primarily for users already inclined to contribute to science, which severely limits their accessibility for an estimated community of 3 billion gamers worldwide. We created Borderlands Science (BLS), a citizen science activity that is seamlessly integrated within a popular commercial video game played by tens of millions of gamers. This integration is facilitated by a novel game-first design of citizen science games, in which the game design aspect has the highest priority, and a suitable task is then mapped to the game design. BLS crowdsources a multiple alignment task of 1 million 16S ribosomal RNA sequences obtained from human microbiome studies. Since its initial release on 7 April 2020, over 4 million players have solved more than 135 million science puzzles, a task unsolvable by a single individual. Leveraging these results, we show that our multiple sequence alignment simultaneously improves microbial phylogeny estimations and UniFrac effect sizes compared to state-of-the-art computational methods. This achievement demonstrates that hyper-gamified scientific tasks attract massive crowds of contributors and offers invaluable resources to the scientific community.

Effect of Pd/Ce loading on the performance of Pd-Ce/γ-Al2O3 catalysts for toluene abatement.

A single metal Pd/γ-Al2O3 catalyst and a bimetallic Pd-Ce/γ-Al2O3 catalyst were prepared by the equal-volume impregnation method to investigate the effect of CeO2 loading on the catalytic oxidation of toluene. The specific surface area, surface morphology, and redox performance of the catalyst were characterized by N2 desorption, scanning electron microscope (SEM), transmission electron microscope (TEM), X-ray photoelectron spectroscopy (XPS), H2-TPR, O2-TPD, and electron paramagnetic resonance (EPR). The results showed that bimetal catalysts loaded CeO2 had smaller nano-PdO particles than those of the Pd/γ-Al2O3 catalyst. Compared with the catalyst of 0.2Pd/γ-Al2O3 (percentage of mass, the same as below), the catalyst doped with 0.3CeO2 had a stronger reduction peak, which was shifted to the low-temperature zone by more than 80 °C. The results of XPS and O2-TPD showed that the introduction of CeO2 provided more surface oxygen vacancy for the catalyst and enhanced its catalytic oxidation ability, and the amount of desorbed O2 increased from 3.55 µmol/g to 8.54 µmol/g. The results of EPR were that the addition of CeO2 increased the content of active oxygen species and oxygen vacancies on the surface of the catalysts, which might be due to the supply of electrons to the O2 and PdO during the Ce3+toCe4+ conversion process. That could have accelerated the catalytic reaction process. Compared with the single precious metal catalyst, the T10 and T90 of the Pd-Ce/γ-Al2O3 catalyst were decreased by 22 °C and 40 °C, respectively.