Application of γ-aminobutyric acid (GABA) improves fruit quality and rootstock drought tolerance in apple.

GABA (γ-aminobutyric acid) plays a multifaceted role in plant growth, fruit quality, and tolerance to abiotic stresses. However, its physiological roles and mechanisms in the fruit quality and response to long-term drought stress in apple remain unelucidated. To investigate the effect of GABA on apple fruit quality and drought tolerance, we sprayed exogenous GABA on apple cultivar "Cripps Pink" and irrigated rootstock M.9-T337 with GABA, respectively. Results showed that exogenous GABA could effectively improve the fruit quality of "Cripps Pink", including increased sugar-to-acid ratio, flesh firmness, pericarp malleability, and GABA content, as well as reduced fruit acidity. In addition, pretreatment of M.9-T337 plants with GABA improved their tolerance to both long- and short-term drought stress. Specifically, 1 mM exogenous GABA increased the net photosynthetic rate, relative leaf water content, root-to-shoot ratio, and water use efficiency under long-term drought stress, and delayed the increased of the relative electrolyte leakage under short-term drought stress. RNA-seq analysis identified 1271 differentially expressed genes (DEGs) between nontreated and GABA-pretreated plants under short-term drought stress. Kyoto Encyclopedia of Genes and Genomes (KEGG) analysis of these DEGs revealed that GABA may enhance plant drought resistance by upregulating the expression of genes related to "Biosynthesis of secondary metabolites", "MAPK signaling pathway", "Glutathione metabolism", and "Carbon fixation in photosynthetic organisms". In conclusion, these results revealed that exogenous GABA can improve fruit quality and enhance drought tolerance in apple.

Increased proportion of follicular helper T cells is associated with B cell activation and disease severity in IgA nephropathy.

IgA nephropathy (IgAN) is the most common primary glomerulonephritis, characterized by glomerular deposition of IgA immune complexes, mainly produced by B cells under the regulation of CD4+T cells. However, the alterations of specific CD4+T cell subsets and the mechanism of B cells activation in IgAN remain unclear. Therefore, we aimed to investigate the landscape characteristics and role of CD4+T cells in the progression of IgAN. We identified that the proportion of Th2, Th17 and Tfh (follicular helper T) cells in patients with IgAN was significantly higher than that of healthy controls (P < 0.05). Single-cell RNA sequencing of peripheral blood mononuclear cells (PBMCs) showed that Th cells and B cells in patients with IgAN were more activated. Correspondingly, multiplex immunohistochemistry staining of renal biopsy showed increased infiltration of CD4+T and B cells in the kidneys of patients with IgAN. The degree of infiltration was positively correlated with the degree of renal damage. Interestingly, the proportion of Tfh cells in peripheral blood was positively correlated with the severity of proteinuria. Moreover, the proximity position of Tfh cells and B cells suggested that cell-cell interactions between Tfh and B cells were happening in situ. Intercellular communication analysis also showed enhanced interaction between Tfh cells and B cells in IgAN. Our findings suggested that Tfh cells of patients possibly contributed to the progression of IgAN by activating B cells via cell-cell interactions and TNFSF14-TNFRSF14 may be an underlying signaling pathway.

A ruthenium-based biomimetic hydrogen cluster for efficient photocatalytic hydrogen generation from formic acid.

A ruthenium-based biomimetic hydrogen cluster, [Ru2 (CO)6 (µ-SCH2 CH2 CH2 S)] (1), has been synthesized and, in the presence of the P ligand tri(o-tolyl)phosphine, demonstrated efficient photocatalytic hydrogen generation from formic acid decomposition. Turnover frequencies (TOFs) of 5500 h(-1) and turnover numbers (TONs) over 24 700 were obtained with less than 50 ppm of the catalyst, thus representing the highest TOFs for ruthenium complexes as well as the best efficiency for photocatalytic hydrogen production from formic acid. Moreover, 1 showed high stability with no significant degradation of the photocatalyst observed after prolonged photoirradiation at 90 °C.

Inductive properties of polypyridyl ruthenium complexes significantly regulate various protein distributions in Escherichia coli.

Ruthenium complexes with similar octahedral structures but different intrinsic inductive properties significantly influence the total cellular protein distributions, which may affect different metabolic pathways. A systematic study of the relationship between ruthenium complexes and Escherichia coli was undertaken, using two-dimensional gel electrophoresis analysis and the identification of various proteins by mass data mining. Based on the low similarities (<40%) between the total protein distributions, the inductive properties of the ruthenium complexes are relevant to the formation of the protein-Ru interaction in addition to the Ru-DNA interaction. Two major protein functions in E. coli BL21 that were reduced by compound 1 were oxidoreductases and transporters, corresponding to 29% and 25% of the 24 down-regulated proteins. The main biological processes of the proteins down-regulated by compound 1 were related to carbohydrate reactions, including in transport, tricarboxylic acid (TCA) cycle, glycolysis, and gluconeogenesis. All four ruthenium complexes shared similar up-regulated proteins, including clpB and kpyk1, and down-regulated similar proteins, including ompA and ybbN. This result supports that the presence of Ru-protein interactions is a major factor affecting bacteria growth, and particularly transport and carbohydrate-related reactions.