A new chromosome-scale duck genome shows a major histocompatibility complex with several expanded multigene families.

BACKGROUND: The duck (Anas platyrhynchos) is one of the principal natural hosts of influenza A virus (IAV), harbors almost all subtypes of IAVs and resists to many IAVs which cause extreme virulence in chicken and human. However, the response of duck's adaptive immune system to IAV infection is poorly characterized due to lack of a detailed gene map of the major histocompatibility complex (MHC). RESULTS: We herein reported a chromosome-scale Beijing duck assembly by integrating Nanopore, Bionano, and Hi-C data. This new reference genome SKLA1.0 covers 40 chromosomes, improves the contig N50 of the previous duck assembly with highest contiguity (ZJU1.0) of more than a 5.79-fold, surpasses the chicken and zebra finch references in sequence contiguity and contains a complete genomic map of the MHC. Our 3D MHC genomic map demonstrated that gene family arrangement in this region was primordial; however, families such as AnplMHCI, AnplMHCIIß, AnplDMB, NKRL (NK cell receptor-like genes) and BTN underwent gene expansion events making this area complex. These gene families are distributed in two TADs and genes sharing the same TAD may work in a co-regulated model. CONCLUSIONS: These observations supported the hypothesis that duck's adaptive immunity had been optimized with expanded and diversified key immune genes which might help duck to combat influenza virus. This work provided a high-quality Beijing duck genome for biological research and shed light on new strategies for AIV control.

Spatially Resolved Organic Whispering-Gallery-Mode Hetero-Microrings for High-Security Photonic Barcodes.

Whispering-gallery-mode (WGM) microcavities featuring distinguishable sharp peaks in a broadband exhibit enormous advantages in the field of miniaturized photonic barcodes. However, such kind of barcodes developed hitherto are primarily based on microcavities wherein multiple gain medias were blended into a single matrix, thus resulting in the limited and indistinguishable coding elements. Here, a surface tension assisted heterogeneous assembly strategy is proposed to construct the spatially resolved WGM hetero-microrings with multiple spatial colors along its circular direction. Through precisely regulating the charge-transfer (CT) strength, full-color microrings covering the entire visible range were effectively acquired, which exhibit a series of sharp and recognizable peaks and allow for the effective construction of high-quality photonic barcodes. Notably, the spatially resolved WGM hetero-microrings with multiple coding elements were finally acquired through heterogeneous nucleation and growth controlled by the directional diffusion between the hetero-emulsion droplets, thus remarkably promoting the security strength and coding capacity of the barcodes. The results would be useful to fabricate new types of organic hierarchical hybrid WGM heterostructures for optical information recording and security labels.

Phospholipid and antioxidant responses of oleaginous fungus Cunninghamella echinulata against hydrogen peroxide stress.

Hydrogen peroxide (H2O2) is one of the major oxidative stress intracellularly and extracellularly, which may affect lipid membrane or cell membrane. However, the mechanism remains unclear. The present study investigated phospholipid and antioxidant responses of Cunninghamella echinulata under exogenous H2O2 stress by integrating lipidomics and transcriptomics. H2O2 significantly affected phospholipid profile of C. echinulata exposed to exogenous H2O2. The phospholipid content was reduced from 6.41% to 2.47% on the first day, and to 1.03% on the 7th day, which was 5-6 times lower than that in the control. Phosphatidyl choline was reduced significantly from 29.71% to 2.73% on the 7th day. The lipid-related metabolic maps of C. echinulata responding to H2O2 were constructed based on transcriptomics, lipidomics and biochemical analysis. Results showed that H2O2 almost mobilized all the signaling pathways in the cell, especially the AMPK and cAMP signaling pathway, which regulated the metabolism of proteins and fatty acids. H2O2-stress triggered the high expression of heat shock genes. The antioxidant enzymes were activated to supply more NADPH, which contributed to the modulation of intracellular redox balance, and continuously scavenged active substances, thus improving the mycelial resistance to oxidative stress.

Directional Self-Assembly of Facet-Aligned Organic Hierarchical Super-Heterostructures for Spatially Resolved Photonic Barcodes.

Organic multicolor heterostructures with spatially resolved luminescent colors and identifiable patterns have exhibited considerable potential for achieving micro-/nanoscale photonic barcodes. Nevertheless, such types of barcodes reported thus far are exclusively based on a single heterostructure with limited coding elements. Here, a directional self-assembly strategy is proposed to achieve high-coding-capacity spatially resolved photonic barcodes through rationally constructing organic hierarchical super-heterostructures, where numerous subheterostructure blocks with flat hexagonal facets are precisely oriented with their specific facets via a reconfigurable capillary force. The building blocks were prepared through a one-pot sequential heteroepitaxial growth, which enables the effective modulation of the structural and color characteristics in coding structures. Significantly, a directional facet-to-facet attraction between particles via facet registration leads to the formation of well-defined 1D super-heterostructures, which contain multiple coding elements, thus providing a good platform for constructing the high-coding-capacity photonic barcodes. The results may be useful in fabricating organic hierarchical hybrid super-heterostructures for security labels and optical data recording.

Energy-efficient removal of trace antibiotics from low-conductivity water using a Ti4O7 reactive electrochemical ceramic membrane: Matrix effects and implications for byproduct formation.

The inevitably high energy consumption of traditional electrochemical processes to treat low-conductivity water has limited their wider application. Herein, we present an energy-efficient alternative, i.e., a Ti4O7 reactive electrochemical ceramic membrane (Ti4O7-REM) system with a superior mass transfer ability. For the removal of 10-200 µM norfloxacin (NOR) from low-conductivity (178-832 µS cm-1) water, the Ti4O7-REM system increased the kinetics rate constant by 4.3-34.0 times, thus decreasing the energy cost by 80.5-97.3% compared with a flow-by system. The rapid NOR removal was related to the enhanced direct electron transfer process in the Ti4O7-REM system, which allowed for higher resistance to HCO3- scavenging and a favorable reaction between NOR and the active sites. Meanwhile, this mechanism likely contributed to the less formation of inorganic chlorinated product, ClO3-, in the presence of Cl-. Although organic chlorinated byproducts were not detected during NOR degradation in the Ti4O7-REM system, Cl- influenced the speciation of the intermediates. A single-pass Ti4O7-REM system demonstrated 94-97% removal of trace antibiotics from real water samples in 30 s. The additional energy consumption (<0.02 kWh m-3) using a Ti4O7-REM system only contributed to 5.0-6.4% of the total in a typical tertiary wastewater treatment plant. Based on the above results, we can conclude that the convection-enhanced REM technique is viable for the purification of low-conductivity natural waters.

Insight into the rapid elimination of low-concentration antibiotics from natural waters using tandem multilevel reactive electrochemical membranes: Role of direct electron transfer and hydroxyl radical oxidation.

Herein, we reported a tandem multilevel reactive electrochemical membrane (REM) system was promising for the rapid and complete removal of trace antibiotics from natural waters. Results indicate that a four-stage REM module-in-series system achieved steady over 98% removal of model antibiotic norfloxacin (NOR, 100 µg·L-1) from wastewater treatment plant final effluent and surface water with a residence time of 5.4 s, and the electric energy consumption was only around 0.007-0.011 kWh·m-3. As for the oxidation mechanism, direct electron transfer (DET) oxidation process played an important role in NOR rapid oxidation, enabling the REM system to tolerate various •OH scavenges in natural waters, including natural organic matters, Cl- and HCO3-, even at very high concentration levels. Meanwhile, •OH-mediated indirect oxidation process promotes the oxidation and mineralization of NOR. Although the DET-dominated oxidation mechanism makes the REM system cannot achieve the complete mineralization of NOR with residence times of few seconds, the antibacterial activity from NOR was completely eliminated. This REM system featured effective removal performance of trace contaminants with low energy cost and was tolerant to complex waster matrix, suggesting that it could be a powerful supplementary step for wastewater/water treatment.

Self-Assembly of Poly(Janus particle)s into Unimolecular and Oligomeric Spherical Micelles.

Using shape-persistent Janus particles to construct poly(Janus particle)s and studying their self-assembly behaviors are of great interest, but remain largely unexplored. In this work, we reported a type of amphiphiles constructed by the ring-opening metathesis polymerization of nonspherical molecular Janus particles (APOSS-BPOSS), called poly(Janus particle)s (poly(APOSS-BPOSS)n, n = 12, 17, 22, and 35, and Mn = 35-100 kg/mol). Unlike traditional bottlebrush polymers consisting of flexible side chains, these poly(Janus particles) consist of rigid hydrophilic and hydrophobic polyhedral oligomeric silsesquioxane (POSS) cages as side chains. Interestingly, instead of maintaining an expected extended chain conformation, they could also collapse and then self-assemble to form unconventional unimolecular or oligomeric spherical micelles in solutions with a feature size smaller than 7 nm. More importantly, unlike traditional amphiphilic polymer brushes that could form unimolecular micelles at a relatively high degree of polymerization by self-assembly, these poly(Janus particles)s could accomplish self-assembly at a quite low degree of polymerization because of their unique chemical structure and molecular topology. The formation of unimolecular and oligomeric micelles was also further confirmed by dissipative particle dynamics simulations. This study of introducing the POSS-based poly(Janus particle)s as a class of shape amphiphiles will provide a model system for generating unimolecular and oligomeric micellar nanostructures through solution self-assembly.

Energy-efficient for advanced oxidation of bio-treated landfill leachate effluent by reactive electrochemical membranes (REMs): Laboratory and pilot scale studies.

This study for the first time investigated the advanced treatment of bio-treated landfill leachate effluent using a novel reactive electrochemical membrane (REM) technology at the laboratory and pilot scales. At the laboratory scale, RuO2-Ir-REM, Ti4O7-REM, and ß-PbO2-REM featured similar properties in pore size and water flux. Although RuO2-Ir-REM holds more reactive sites than the other two REMs, ß-PbO2-REM and Ti4O7-REM featured higher oxidation ability than RuO2-Ir-REM, causing their high yield of hydroxyl radical. Consequently, ß-PbO2-REM and Ti4O7-REM performed better than RuO2-Ir-REM, which removed total organic carbon and ammonia nitrogen by 70%-76% and 100%, respectively, after 45 minutes of treatment. Fluorescence spectroscopy analysis showed that humic acid-like substances were oxidized by the REM treatment. Using the ß-PbO2-REM in the lab-scale setup with the solutions circulated, we observed a greater removal of chemical oxygen demand (COD) at a higher applied current or a faster water flux. The pilot system with four large size of ß-PbO2-REMs modules in series was developed based on the lab-scale setup, which steadily treated landfill leachate in compliance with the disposal regulations of China, at an energy consumption of 3.6 kWh/m3. Also, a single-pass REM can effectively prevent the transformation of chloride to chlorate and perchlorate. Our study showed REM technology is a powerful and promising process for the advanced treatment of landfill leachate.