High-Quality Genome Resource of Gilbertella persicaria Causing Peach Soft Rot.

Peach soft rot caused by Gilbertella persicaria is an economically important disease. Here, we report a high-quality complete and annotated genome sequence of G. persicaria strain TFLB-J, isolated from peach fruit in Yuanyang county of Henan Province, China. The assembly consists of 91 scaffolds with an estimated genome size of 33.59 Mb and N50 length of 0.92 Mb, encoding 13,296 predicted protein-coding genes. The whole-genome sequence could provide gene resources for further study of pathogenic effectors and comparative genomics of peach soft rot pathogens.

Spatial Distribution and Convergence of Agricultural Green Total Factor Productivity in China.

The power source, spatial-temporal differentiation and convergence of the growth rate of green total factor productivity in China's agriculture were analyzed. The Malmquist index was used to measure the growth rate, and the spatial-temporal convergence was tested by σ convergence, absolute ß convergence, conditional ß convergence and dynamic spatial convergence. The study drew conclusions that the impetus for the intensive growth of green agriculture was insufficient, and the driving force for the growth of agricultural green total factor productivity (AGTFP) in the eastern, western and central region was green technology progress. In addition, AGTFP did not have an absolute σ convergence trend. Dynamic spatial absolute ß and conditional ß convergence indicated that regional differences were not completely related to regional endowment conditions, and regional green agricultural production was unbalanced. This study provides an important support for regional green development in China's agriculture.

Could peony seeds oil become a high-quality edible vegetable oil? The nutritional and phytochemistry profiles, extraction, health benefits, safety and value-added-products.

Edible oil provides essential nutrients for human body and plays a very important role in human health. Looking for edible oil resource plants with high content and high-quality oil plays an important role in ensuring the adequate supply of edible oil. Peony seeds oil (PSO) was approved as a new resource food and became an edible vegetable oil for its rich content of fatty acids, total unsaturated fatty acids, linoleic acid and linolenic acid. In addition, PSO also contains high contents of squalene, tocopherol, phytosterol and plant polyphenol. PSO has been reported to present various health benefits including antioxidation, blood lipid reduction, hepatoprotection, immunity regulation, blood sugar control, neuroprotection, anti-inflammatory, cytotoxic activity, therapeutic effects on scald, uvioresistant effects and so on. Toxicity studies showed PSO had great safety without any toxic and side effects, and could be processed to produce PSO microcapsule, microemulsion, nanoemulsion gel, biscuit, daily chemical products, soft capsule and other high value-added-products. Therefore, the present article aims to summarize the research findings regarding to the nutritional and phytochemistry profiles, the extraction methods, health benefits, safety and the high value-added-products of PSO. These informations laid a good foundation for the in-depth research and development of PSO, and also proved that PSO was a high-quality edible vegetable oil with health value. With the deepening of research, the studies on PSO will be more and more comprehensive. It believes that PSO will become an important functional edible oil, and will be more widely used as an important functional food and linolenic acid supplement.

Sociodemographic Factors Associated With HIV/HCV High-Risk Behaviors Among People Who Use Drugs on Methadone Maintenance Treatment: A 10-Year Observational Study.

Background: Sociodemographic factors have an impact worldwide on the behavior of people who use drugs (PWUD). This study attempts to clarify the sociodemographic factors related to HIV/HCV high-risk behaviors (injection drug use, syringe sharing, and multiple sex partners) among PWUD on methadone maintenance treatment (MMT) in the long term. Methods: The 13,300 PWUD recruited into the MMT program were followed during 2006-2015. Generalized estimating equations were used to examine the relationship between sociodemographic characteristics and HIV/HCV high-risk behaviors. Results: We found that male (vs. female), living alone (vs. living with family or relatives), temporary income, financial support from family/friends, and financial support from social welfare (vs. regular salary) were positively associated with injection drug use. Age of initial drug use was negatively associated with injection drug use and syringe sharing. For both genders, being unmarried (vs. married or in cohabitation), living with friends, living alone (vs. living with family or relatives), temporary income, financial supports from family/friends (vs. regular salary), being employed (vs. unemployed/between jobs) was positively associated. In contrast, age at baseline was negatively associated with having multiple sexual partners for both genders. Ethnic of non-Han (vs. Han) was positively associated with having multiple sexual partners simply for males. Being divorced or widowed (vs. married or cohabitated) was positively associated with having multiple sexual partners merely for females. Conclusion: HIV/HCV high-risk behaviors correlated with certain sociodemographic factors of PWUD receiving MMT. There is a need for improving the well-being, employment, and housing status of PWUD on MMT to reduce their HIV/HCV risk behaviors.

High-Quality Genome Resource of the Pathogen of Diaporthe (Phomopsis) phragmitis Causing Kiwifruit Soft Rot.

Diaporthe spp. are critical plant pathogens that cause wood cankers, wilt, dieback, and fruit rot in a wide variety of economic plant hosts and are regarded as one of the most acute threats faced by the kiwifruit industry worldwide. Diaporthe phragmitis NJD1 is a highly pathogenic isolate of soft rot of kiwifruit. Here, we present a high-quality genome-wide sequence of D. phragmitis NJD1 that was assembled into 28 contigs containing a total size of 58.33 Mb and N50 length of 3.55 Mb. These results lay a solid foundation for understanding host-pathogen interaction and improving disease management strategies.[Formula: see text] Copyright © 2021 The Author(s). This is an open access article distributed under the CC BY-NC-ND 4.0 International license.

A novel biosensor for p-nitrophenol based on an aerobic anode microbial fuel cell.

P-nitrophenol is one of the most common contaminants in chemical industrial wastewater, and in situ real-time monitoring of PNP cannot be achieved by conventional analytical techniques. Here, a two-chamber microbial fuel cell with an aerobic anode chamber was tested as a biosensor for in situ real-time monitoring of PNP. Pseudomonas monteilii LZU-3, which was used as the biological recognition element, can form a biofilm on the anode electrode using PNP as a sole substrate. The optimal operation parameters of the biosensor were as follows: external resistance 1000Ω, pH 7.8, temperature 30°C, and maximum PNP concentration 50mgL(-1). Under these conditions, the maximum voltages showed a linear relationship with PNP concentrations ranging from 15±5 to 44±4.5mgL(-1). Furthermore, we developed a novel portable device for in situ real-time monitoring of PNP. When the device was applied to measure PNP in wastewater containing various additional aromatic compounds and metal ions, the performance of the biosensor was not affected and the correlation between the maximum voltages and the PNP concentrations ranging from 9±4mgL(-1) to 36 ± 5mgL(-1) was conserved. The results demonstrated that the MFC biosensor provides a rapid and cost-efficient analytical method for real-time monitoring of toxic and recalcitrant pollutants in environmental samples.

[An assessment of association of thyroid volume with growth indicators and comparison of different thyroid volume indexes in school-aged children].

OBJECTIVE: To analyze the association between thyroid volume and physical growth of school-age children, and to compare volume indexes of individual thyroids for reference of selection of assessment indicators. METHODS: All the students of the 12 classes of grades 3-5 at a primary school in Minhang district, Shanghai were rounded up with a multi-stage cluster sampling, for physical examinations to measure their height, weight, Body mass index (BMI) and body surface area (BSA), followed by B-ultrasonography to measure their thyroid volume. Data of the measurements were calculated to learn their height corrected volume index (HVI), weight and height corrected volume index (WHVI), BMI corrected volume (BMIV), and BSA corrected volume (BSAV) individually. Their urine and salt samples were collected to measure iodine concentration in urine and salt. Individual indexes were studied for their association with the growth and development indexes of children. RESULTS: Thyroid volume data were collected for 485 students, including 258 boys (53.2%) and 227 girls (46.8%). Their height, weight, BMI and BSA were found to be positively correlated with their age (P < 0.05). For children of the same age group, their thyroid volume was also positively correlated with their physical development indexes. Of all the thyroid indexes, the difference between BSAV physical development factors had no statistical association (with partial-correlation coefficients for age, gender, height, and weight being 0.07, 0.05, 0.01 and 0.02 respectively), and their thyroid volume, HVI, BMI and weight were correlated to age, height and weight. CONCLUSION: Thyroid volume was associated with age and weight. It was inappropriate to diagnose goiter with criteria of age, gender and thyroid volume. BSAV was recommended for its non-association with age, gender and weight and its stability.

Reconstructing atomistic detail for coarse-grained models with resolution exchange.

Coarse-grained (CG) modeling has emerged as a promising tool to bridge the gap between the temporal and spatial scales of all-atom (AA) simulations and those of many important biological processes. Resolution exchange, a variant of the replica exchange method, combines the efficiency of CG simulation and the accuracy of AA simulation by swapping configurations between AA and CG simulations. The crucial step in a resolution exchange move is to rigorously reconstruct the high-resolution system from models at coarser resolutions. In this paper, configurational-bias Monte Carlo is adopted as a general method to rebuild the missing degrees of freedom rigorously for CG models and for the first time combined with resolution exchange. The new approach is demonstrated on an alkane and a peptide system. It is found that the efficiency of resolution exchange depends significantly on the quality of the CG model.

Replica exchange with solute tempering: a method for sampling biological systems in explicit water.

An innovative replica exchange (parallel tempering) method called replica exchange with solute tempering (REST) for the efficient sampling of aqueous protein solutions is presented here. The method bypasses the poor scaling with system size of standard replica exchange and thus reduces the number of replicas (parallel processes) that must be used. This reduction is accomplished by deforming the Hamiltonian function for each replica in such a way that the acceptance probability for the exchange of replica configurations does not depend on the number of explicit water molecules in the system. For proof of concept, REST is compared with standard replica exchange for an alanine dipeptide molecule in water. The comparisons confirm that REST greatly reduces the number of CPUs required by regular replica exchange and increases the sampling efficiency. This method reduces the CPU time required for calculating thermodynamic averages and for the ab initio folding of proteins in explicit water.

Parametric links among Monte Carlo, phase-field, and sharp-interface models of interfacial motion.

Parametric links are made among three mesoscale simulation paradigms: phase-field, sharp-interface, and Monte Carlo. A two-dimensional, square lattice, 1/2 Ising model is considered for the Monte Carlo method, where an exact solution for the interfacial free energy is known. The Monte Carlo mobility is calibrated as a function of temperature using Glauber kinetics. A standard asymptotic analysis relates the phase-field and sharp-interface parameters, and this allows the phase-field and Monte Carlo parameters to be linked. The result is derived without bulk effects but is then applied to a set of simulations with the bulk driving force included. An error analysis identifies the domain over which the parametric relationships are accurate.