Recent advances in understanding the role of two mitogen-activated protein kinase cascades in plant immunity.

The mitogen-activated protein kinase (MAPK/MPK) cascade is an important intercellular signaling module that regulates plant growth, development, reproduction, and responses to biotic and abiotic stresses. A MAPK cascade usually consists of a MAPK kinase kinase (MAPKKK/MEKK), a MAPK kinase (MAPKK/MKK/MEK), and a MAPK. The well-characterized MAPK cascades in plant immunity to date are the MEKK1-MKK1/2-MPK4 cascade and the MAPKKK3/4/5-MKK4/5-MPK3/6 cascade. Recently, major breakthroughs have been made in understanding the molecular mechanisms associated with the regulation of immune signaling by both of these MAPK cascades. In this review, we highlight the most recent advances in understanding the role of both MAPK cascades in activating plant defense and in suppressing or fine-tuning immune signaling. We also discuss the molecular mechanisms by which plants stabilize and maintain the activation of MAPK cascades during immune signaling. Based on this review, we reveal the complexity and importance of the MEKK1-MKK1/2-MPK4 cascade and the MAPKKK3/4/5-MKK4/5-MPK3/6 cascade, which are tightly controlled by their interacting partners or substrates, in plant immunity.

Molecular regulation of immunity in tea plants.

Tea, which is mainly produced using the young leaves and buds of tea plants (Camellia sinensis (L.) O. Kuntze), is one of the most common non-alcoholic beverages consumed in the world. The standard of tea mostly depends on the variety and quality of tea plants, which generally grow in subtropical areas, where the warm and humid conditions are also conducive to the occurrence of diseases. In fighting against pathogens, plants rely on their sophisticated innate immune systems which has been extensively studied in model plants. Many components involved in pathogen associated molecular patterns (PAMPs) triggered immunity (PTI) and effector triggered immunity (ETI) have been found. Nevertheless, the molecular regulating network against pathogens (e.g., Pseudopestalotiopsis sp., Colletotrichum sp. and Exobasidium vexans) causing widespread disease (such as grey blight disease, anthracnose, and blister blight) in tea plants is still unclear. With the recent release of the genome data of tea plants, numerous genes involved in tea plant immunity have been identified, and the molecular mechanisms behind tea plant immunity is being studied. Therefore, the recent achievements in identifying and cloning functional genes/gene families, in finding crucial components of tea immunity signaling pathways, and in understanding the role of secondary metabolites have been summarized and the opportunities and challenges in the future studies of tea immunity are highlighted in this review.

First report of Botryosphaeria dothidea as the causal agent of a new fruit rot disease of pepper in China.

Pepper is an important and widely cultivated economic vegetable in the world (Yin et al., 2021). In June 2021, approximately 25% to 33.3% of the pepper plants had rot disease symptoms in Zhuanghang Comprehensive Experimental Base (30.894829 °N, 121.391374 °E), Fengxian district, Shanghai city, China. Water-soaked spots appeared on fruits that increased in size and leading to smelly fruit decay. To isolate the pathogen, three pepper samples with severe symptoms were collected. The samples were surface disinfected with 70% ethanol for 30 sec, 10% chlorine bleach for 10 min, rinsing with sterile water for three times and the rot tissues were cut and dried on sterile filter paper. The dried paper was later placed on potato dextrose agar (PDA) medium and incubated at 28°C (Tang et al., 2021). After 2-3 days, four types of colonies with different colony appearances were observed, in which only one can induce fruit rot phenotype (data not shown). Four isolates were cultured for molecular identification in each type. ITS1/ITS4, T1/ßt-2b and EF1-526F/EF1-1567R primers were used to amplify the internal transcribed spacer region (ITS), the beta-tubulin (TUB2) and the translation elongation factor I alpha (EF1-α) genes, respectively (Chen et al., 2018) and corresponding sequences from the isolates were analyzed with BLAST. Sequences of the isolate which can induce pepper decay were submitted to GenBank under the accession numbers of OM663701 (ITS), OM720127 (TUB2) and OM720128 (EF1-α). The results showed that the pathogen had 99% sequence homology to most strains of Botryosphaeria dothidea (B. dothidea) and displayed the highest sequence similarity to strain LBSX-1 (ITS: KF55123), strain JGT01 (TUB2: MW202404) and isolate CZA (EF1-α: MN025271). Based on molecular characterization, the isolate was identified as B. dothidea isolate SH01. A phylogenetic tree was constructed using Maximum Parsimony (MP) methods by MEGA7, and showed that SH01 was closely related to isolate CMW9075. To confirm the pathogenicity, five healthy pepper fruits were surface sterilized, 500µl of conidial suspension (1×103 conidia/ml) were injected into pepper (sterilized distilled water as control). Six days post inoculation (dpi), fruit rot symptoms appeared and the pepper decayed at 12 dpi. Four days post inoculation with mycelium plugs (from a 4-day-old culture on PDA, PDA plugs as control), hyphae were observed in the inoculation site and B. dothidea was re-isolated from the symptomatic areas, thus fulfilling Koch's postulates (Back et al., 2021, Chen et al., 2020). The pepper rotted severely at 7 dpi. The colonies of SH01 were pale to white and gradually turned into gray in 4-6 days. Conidia of the pathogen were unicellular, aseptate, hyaline and fusiform to fusoid, with dimensions of 19.7-23.5 µm × 3.8-5.2 µm (average = 21.9 µm × 4.8 µm, n = 50). Hyphae were transparent, branched and composed of multiple cells. The characteristic was consistent with the descriptions of B. dothidea (Vasic et al., 2013). B. dothidea belongs to Botryosphaeriaceae, causing widespread diseases in many plant species, commonly associated with cankers and dieback of woody plants and economic crops, such as plumcot trees (Back et al., 2021), eucalyptus (Yu et al., 2009) and soybeans (Chen et al., 2020) in China and Korea. Our findings reported for the first time that B. dothidea (SH01) can induce the pepper rot disease and future work on its pathogenesis may provide strategies for disease control against this fungus.

BLCov: A novel collaborative-competitive broad learning system for COVID-19 detection from radiology images.

With the global outbreak of COVID-19, there is an urgent need to develop an effective and automated detection approach as a faster diagnostic alternative to avoid the spread of COVID-19. Recently, broad learning system (BLS) has been viewed as an alternative method of deep learning which has been applied to many areas. Nevertheless, the sparse autoencoder in classical BLS just considers the representations to reconstruct the input data but ignores the relationship among the extracted features. In this paper, inspired by the effectiveness of the collaborative-competitive representation (CCR) mechanism, a novel collaborative-competitive representation-based autoencoder (CCRAE) is first proposed, and then collaborative-competitive broad learning system (CCBLS) is proposed based on CCRAE to effectively address the issues mentioned above. Moreover, an automated CCBLS-based approach is proposed for COVID-19 detection from radiology images such as CT scans and chest X-ray images. In the proposed approach, a feature extraction module is utilized to extract features from CT scans or chest X-ray images, then we use these features for COVID-19 detection with CCBLS. The experimental results demonstrated that our proposed approach can achieve superior or comparable performance in comparison with ten other state-of-the-art methods.

Local Disorder-Induced Elevation of Intrinsic Anomalous Hall Conductance in an Electron-Doped Magnetic Weyl Semimetal.

Topological materials are expected to show distinct transport signatures owing to their unique band-inversion characteristic and band-crossing points. However, the intentional modulation of such topological responses through experimentally feasible means has yet to be explored in depth. Here, an unusual elevation of the anomalous Hall effect (AHE) is obtained in electron (Ni)-doped magnetic Weyl semimetals Co_{3-x}Ni_{x}Sn_{2}S_{2}, showing peak values in the anomalous Hall-conductivity, Hall-angle, and Hall-factor at a relatively low doping level of x=0.11. The separation of intrinsic and extrinsic contributions using the TYJ scaling model indicates that such a significant enhancement is dominated by the intrinsic mechanism of the electronic Berry curvature. Theoretical calculations reveal that compared with the Fermi-level shifting from electron filling, a usually overlooked effect of doping, that is, local disorder, imposes a striking effect on broadening of the bands and narrowing of the inverted gap, thus resulting in an elevation of the integrated Berry curvature. Our results not only realize an enhancement of the AHE in a magnetic Weyl semimetal, but also provide a practical design principle for modulating the bands and transport properties in topological materials by exploiting the local disorder effect from doping.

Creation of Single Chain of Nanoscale Skyrmion Bubbles with Record-High Temperature Stability in a Geometrically Confined Nanostripe.

Nanoscale topologically nontrivial spin textures, such as magnetic skyrmions, have been identified as promising candidates for the transport and storage of information for spintronic applications, notably magnetic racetrack memory devices. The design and realization of a single skyrmion chain at room temperature (RT) and above in the low-dimensional nanostructures are of great importance for future practical applications. Here, we report the creation of a single skyrmion bubble chain in a geometrically confined Fe3Sn2 nanostripe with a width comparable to the featured size of a skyrmion bubble. Systematic investigations on the thermal stability have revealed that the single chain of skyrmion bubbles can keep stable at temperatures varying from RT up to a record-high temperature of 630 K. This extreme stability can be ascribed to the weak temperature-dependent magnetic anisotropy and the formation of edge states at the boundaries of the nanostripes. The realization of the highly stable skyrmion bubble chain in a geometrically confined nanostructure is a very important step toward the application of skyrmion-based spintronic devices.

Simultaneous modification of three homoeologs of TaEDR1 by genome editing enhances powdery mildew resistance in wheat.

Wheat (Triticum aestivum L.) incurs significant yield losses from powdery mildew, a major fungal disease caused by Blumeria graminis f. sp. tritici (Bgt). enhanced disease resistance1 (EDR1) plays a negative role in the defense response against powdery mildew in Arabidopsis thaliana; however, the edr1 mutant does not show constitutively activated defense responses. This makes EDR1 an ideal target for approaches using new genome-editing tools to improve resistance to powdery mildew. We cloned TaEDR1 from hexaploid wheat and found high similarity among the three homoeologs of EDR1. Knock-down of TaEDR1 by virus-induced gene silencing or RNA interference enhanced resistance to powdery mildew, indicating that TaEDR1 negatively regulates powdery mildew resistance in wheat. We used CRISPR/Cas9 technology to generate Taedr1 wheat plants by simultaneous modification of the three homoeologs of wheat EDR1. No off-target mutations were detected in the Taedr1 mutant plants. The Taedr1 plants were resistant to powdery mildew and did not show mildew-induced cell death. Our study represents the successful generation of a potentially valuable trait using genome-editing technology in wheat and provides germplasm for disease resistance breeding.

ENHANCED DISEASE RESISTANCE4 associates with CLATHRIN HEAVY CHAIN2 and modulates plant immunity by regulating relocation of EDR1 in Arabidopsis.

Obligate biotrophs, such as the powdery mildew pathogens, deliver effectors to the host cell and obtain nutrients from the infection site. The interface between the plant host and the biotrophic pathogen thus represents a major battleground for plant-pathogen interactions. Increasing evidence shows that cellular trafficking plays an important role in plant immunity. Here, we report that Arabidopsis thaliana ENHANCED DISEASE RESISTANCE4 (EDR4) plays a negative role in resistance to powdery mildew and that the enhanced disease resistance in edr4 mutants requires salicylic acid signaling. EDR4 mainly localizes to the plasma membrane and endosomal compartments. Genetic analyses show that EDR4 and EDR1 function in the same genetic pathway. EDR1 and EDR4 accumulate at the penetration site of powdery mildew infection, and EDR4 physically interacts with EDR1, recruiting EDR1 to the fungal penetration site. In addition, EDR4 interacts with CLATHRIN HEAVY CHAIN2 (CHC2), and edr4 mutants show reduced endocytosis rates. Taken together, our data indicate that EDR4 associates with CHC2 and modulates plant immunity by regulating the relocation of EDR1 in Arabidopsis.

Helium Nanobubbles Enhance Superelasticity and Retard Shear Localization in Small-Volume Shape Memory Alloy.

The intriguing phenomenon of metal superelasticity relies on stress-induced martensitic transformation (SIMT), which is well-known to be governed by developing cooperative strain accommodation at multiple length scales. It is therefore scientifically interesting to see what happens when this natural length scale hierarchy is disrupted. One method is producing pillars that confine the sample volume to micrometer length scale. Here we apply yet another intervention, helium nanobubbles injection, which produces porosity on the order of several nanometers. While the pillar confinement suppresses superelasticity, we found the dispersion of 5-10 nm helium nanobubbles do the opposite of promoting superelasticity in a Ni53.5Fe19.5Ga27 shape memory alloy. The role of helium nanobubbles in modulating the competition between ordinary dislocation slip plasticity and SIMT is discussed.

Real-Space Observation of Nonvolatile Zero-Field Biskyrmion Lattice Generation in MnNiGa Magnet.

Magnetic skyrmions, particular those without the support of external magnetic fields over a wide temperature region, are promising as alternative spintronic units to overcome the fundamental size limitation of conventional magnetic bits. In this study, we use in situ Lorentz microscope to directly demonstrate the generation and sustainability of robust biskyrmion lattice at zero magnetic field over a wide temperature range of 16-338 K in MnNiGa alloy. This procedure includes a simple field-cooling manipulation from 360 K (higher than Curie temperature TC ∼ 350 K), where topological transition easily occurs by adapting the short-range magnetic clusters under a certain magnetic field. The biskyrmion phase is favored upon cooling below TC. Once they are generated, the robust high-density biskyrmions persist even after removing the external magnetic field due to the topological protection and the increased energy barrier.

Excitation mechanism of A1g mode and origin of nonlinear temperature dependence of Raman shift of CVD-grown mono- and few-layer MoS2 films.

MoS2 films are grown on SiO2/Si substrates by chemical vapor deposition. The vibrational properties of optical phonons of mono-, bi- and multilayer MoS2 are studied by Raman scattering spectroscopy over temperature range from 90 to 540 K with 514.5 nm and 785 nm lasers. The Raman peaks of E2g1 and A1g modes are observed simultaneously for mono-, bi- and multilayer MoS2 with 514.5 nm laser, but only the Raman peak of E2g1 mode is seen for monolayer MoS2 as 785 nm laser is used, revealing electron-phonon exchange excitation mechanism of A1g mode for the first time. The Raman shifts of E2g1 and A1g modes present obvious nonlinear temperature dependence. A semi-quantitative model is used to fit the nonlinear temperature dependence of Raman shifts which matches well to experimental data. Meanwhile, the fitting results reveal that the nonlinear temperature dependence of Raman shifts of E2g1 mode mainly originates from three-phonon anharmonic effect, while one of A1g mode is contributed by stronger three- and weaker four-phonon anharmonic effects cooperatively but two contributions are comparable in intensity.

Exploring the impact of electrocardiographic parameters on the risk of common arrhythmias: a two-sample Mendelian randomization study.

Background: Observational studies have shown that heart rate (HR), heart rate variability (HRV), P-wave terminal force, P-wave duration, T-wave amplitude and PR interval are associated with risk factors for atrial fibrillation (AF) or bradycardia. Arrhythmias are associated with many causes of hospitalization. However, observational studies are susceptible to confounding factors that have not yet been identified. The objective of this study was to clarify the causal relationships by Mendelian randomization analysis. Methods: We conducted a two-sample and multivariate Mendelian randomization (MVMR) analysis using genome-wide association study (GWAS) data from a European population to assess the total and direct causal effects of HR, three HRV traits, P-wave terminal force, P-wave duration, T-wave top amplitude in five-lead modes, and the PR interval on the risk of AF (N=191,205), bradycardia (N=463,010), and supraventricular tachycardia (SVT) (N=463,010). Results: The results of the univariate MR analysis revealed the following significant causal effects: the higher the genetically predicted PR interval, the lower the risk of AF; the higher the HR and T-wave top amplitude (aVR leads and V3 + V4 + aVL leads), the lower the risk of bradycardia; and the higher HR and the lower PR interval, the higher the risk of SVT. The multivariate MR results indicated that the HRV_standard deviation of the normal-to-normal (SDNN) interval had an independent causal effect on the risk of AF [odds ratio (OR): 0.515; 95% confidence interval (CI): 0.278-0.954; P=0.03], and the T-wave top amplitude in the aVR leads (OR: 0.998; 95% CI: 0.996-0.999; P<0.001) and the HRV_SDNN (OR: 0.988; 95% CI: 0.976-1.000; P=0.045) had independent causal effects on the risk of bradycardia. Conclusions: The HRV_SDNN had an independent causal effect on AF, while the HRV_SDNN and T-wave top amplitude in the aVR leads had independent causal effects on bradycardia, which suggests that some of the electrocardiographic parameters have preventive effects on the incidence of AF and bradycardia.

Development and Validation of a Feature-Based Broad-Learning System for Opportunistic Osteoporosis Screening Using Lumbar Spine Radiographs.

RATIONALE AND OBJECTIVES: Osteoporosis is primarily diagnosed using dual-energy X-ray absorptiometry (DXA); yet, DXA is significantly underutilized, causing osteoporosis, an underdiagnosed condition. We aimed to provide an opportunistic approach to screen for osteoporosis using artificial intelligence based on lumbar spine X-ray radiographs. MATERIALS AND METHODS: In this institutional review board-approved retrospective study, female patients aged ≥50 years who received both X-ray scans and DXA of the lumbar vertebrae, in three centers, were included. A total of 1180 cases were used for training and 145 cases were used for testing. We proposed a novel broad-learning system (BLS) and then compared the performance of BLS models using radiomic features and deep features as a source of input. The deep features were extracted using ResNet18 and VGG11, respectively. The diagnostic performances of these BLS models were evaluated with the area under the curve (AUC), sensitivity, and specificity. RESULTS: The incidence rate of osteoporosis in the training and test sets was 35.9% and 37.9%, respectively. The radiomic feature-based BLS model achieved higher testing AUC (0.802 vs. 0.654 vs. 0.632, both P = .002), sensitivity (78.2% vs. 56.4% vs. 50.9%), and specificity (82.2% vs. 74,4% vs. 75.6%) than the two deep feature-based BLS models. CONCLUSION: Our proposed radiomic feature-based BLS model has the potential to expand osteoporosis screening to a broader population by identifying osteoporosis on lumbar spine X-ray radiographs.

SR1, a calmodulin-binding transcription factor, modulates plant defense and ethylene-induced senescence by directly regulating NDR1 and EIN3.

Plant defense responses are tightly controlled by many positive and negative regulators to cope with attacks from various pathogens. Arabidopsis (Arabidopsis thaliana) ENHANCED DISEASE RESISTANCE2 (EDR2) is a negative regulator of powdery mildew resistance, and edr2 mutants display enhanced resistance to powdery mildew (Golovinomyces cichoracearum). To identify components acting in the EDR2 pathway, we screened for edr2 suppressors and identified a gain-of-function mutation in SIGNAL RESPONSIVE1 (SR1), which encodes a calmodulin-binding transcription activator. The sr1-4D gain-of-function mutation suppresses all edr2-associated phenotypes, including powdery mildew resistance, mildew-induced cell death, and ethylene-induced senescence. The sr1-4D single mutant is more susceptible to a Pseudomonas syringae pv tomato DC3000 virulent strain and to avirulent strains carrying avrRpt2 or avrRPS4 than the wild type. We show that SR1 directly binds to the promoter region of NON-RACE-SPECIFIC DISEASE RESISTANCE1 (NDR1), a key component in RESISTANCE TO PSEUDOMONAS SYRINGAE2-mediated plant immunity. Also, the ndr1 mutation suppresses the sr1-1 null allele, which shows enhanced resistance to both P. syringae pv tomato DC3000 avrRpt2 and G. cichoracearum. In addition, we show that SR1 regulates ethylene-induced senescence by directly binding to the ETHYLENE INSENSITIVE3 (EIN3) promoter region in vivo. Enhanced ethylene-induced senescence in sr1-1 is suppressed by ein3. Our data indicate that SR1 plays an important role in plant immunity and ethylene signaling by directly regulating NDR1 and EIN3.

A mutation in a coproporphyrinogen III oxidase gene confers growth inhibition, enhanced powdery mildew resistance and powdery mildew-induced cell death in Arabidopsis.

KEY MESSAGE: A gene encoding a coproporphyrinogen III oxidase mediates disease resistance in plants by the salicylic acid pathway. A number of genes that regulate powdery mildew resistance have been identified in Arabidopsis, such as ENHANCED DISEASE RESISTANCE 1 to 3 (EDR1 to 3). To further study the molecular interactions between the powdery mildew pathogen and Arabidopsis, we isolated and characterized a mutant that exhibited enhanced resistance to powdery mildew. The mutant also showed dramatic powdery mildew-induced cell death as well as growth defects and early senescence in the absence of pathogens. We identified the affected gene by map-based cloning and found that the gene encodes a coproporphyrinogen III oxidase, a key enzyme in the tetrapyrrole biosynthesis pathway, previously known as LESION INITIATION 2 (LIN2). Therefore, we designated the mutant lin2-2. Further studies revealed that the lin2-2 mutant also displayed enhanced resistance to Hyaloperonospora arabidopsidis (H.a.) Noco2. Genetic analysis showed that the lin2-2-mediated disease resistance and spontaneous cell death were dependent on PHYTOALEXIN DEFICIENT 4 (PAD4), SALICYLIC ACID INDUCTION-DEFICIENT 2 (SID2), and NONEXPRESSOR OF PATHOGENESIS-RELATED GENES 1 (NPR1), which are all involved in salicylic acid signaling. Furthermore, the relative expression levels of defense-related genes were induced after powdery mildew infection in the lin2-2 mutant. These data indicated that LIN2 plays an important role in cell death control and defense responses in plants.

A two-sample Mendelian randomization study of atherosclerosis and dementia.

The causality between atherosclerosis and dementia remains unclear. This study aimed to explore the causal effect of atherosclerosis related indicators on dementia risk based on two-sample Mendelian randomization (MR) using summary statistics of genome-wide association studies (GWASs). The inverse variance weighted (IVW) method was performed as the main analysis, supplemented by different sensitivity analyses. Suggestive evidence indicated that peripheral arterial disease (PAD) (odds ratio (OR): 0.864, 95% confidence interval (CI): 0.797-0.937), coronary atherosclerosis (CoAS) (OR: 0.927, 95% CI: 0.860-0.998) and atherosclerosis, excluding cerebral, coronary, and PAD (ATHSCLE) (OR: 0.812, 95% CI: 0.725-0.909) were inversely associated with the risk of AD. The sensitivity analysis confirmed a suggestive reverse effect of ATHSCLE on the risk of frontotemporal dementia (FTD) (OR, 0.812, 95% CI, 0.725-0.909). Findings provide suggestive evidence that PAD, CoAS, and ATHSCLE might be associated with the risk of AD or FTD, which requires further exploration in larger samples.

Vascular endothelial growth factor and risk of malignant brain tumor: A genetic correlation and two-sample Mendelian randomization study.

Objective: The relationship between vascular endothelial growth factor (VEGF) and the risk of malignant brain tumors has always been a concern in the medical field. However, the causal inferences from published observational studies on this issue may be affected by confounders, coinheritability and reverse causality. We aimed to investigate the causal relationship between VEGF and different types of malignant brain tumors. Methods: Using publicly available summary data from genome-wide association studies (GWAS) of VEGF (n=16,112) and different types of malignant brain tumors (n=174,097-174,646), we adopted a standard two-sample bidirectional Mendelian randomization (MR) to estimate potential causal associations of circulating VEGF levels and the risk of malignant brain tumors. Inverse variance weighted (IVW) was used as the primary analysis method to estimate causality. MR-Egger regression, weighted median (WM), penalty weighted median (PWM), MR robust adjusted profile score (MR.RAPS) and causal analysis using summary effect estimates (CAUSE) methods were used in sensitivity analyses to verify the robustness of the findings. Meanwhile, we applied the MR pleiotropy residual sum and outlier (MR-PRESSO) test and PhenoScanner tool to identify and remove potential horizontal pleiotropic single nucleotide polymorphisms (SNPs). Additionally, linkage disequilibrium score regression (LDSC) analysis was conducted to assess the coinheritability of exposure and outcome. Results: A total of 6 (VEGF), 12 (malignant brain tumor), 13 (brain glioblastoma) and 12 (malignant neoplasm of meninges) SNPs were identified as valid instrumental variables. No evidence supported a causal relationship between circulating VEGF levels and the risk of malignant brain tumors (forwards: odds ratio (OR) = 1.277, 95% confidence interval (CI), 0.812~2.009; reversed: ß = 0.005, 95% CI, -0.029~0.038), brain glioblastoma (forwards: OR (95% CI) = 1.278(0.463~3.528); reversed: ß = 0.010, 95% CI, -0.002~0.022) and malignant neoplasm of meninges (forwards: OR (95% CI) = 0.831(0.486~1.421); reversed: ß = 0.010, 95% CI, -0.030~0.050) using the main IVW method. Outliers and pleiotropy bias were not detected by sensitivity analyses and pleiotropy-robust methods in any estimates. LDSC failed to identify genetic correlations between VEGF and different types of malignant brain tumors. Conclusions: Our findings reported no coinheritability and failed to provide evidence for causal associations between VEGF and the risk of different types of malignant brain tumors. However, certain subtypes of VEGF for which genetic predictors have not been identified may play a role and need to be further investigated.

Characterization of Osmads6-5, a null allele, reveals that OsMADS6 is a critical regulator for early flower development in rice (Oryza sativa L.).

AGL6-clade genes are a subfamily of MADS-box genes and preferentially expressed in floral organs. OsMADS6 and OsMADS17 are two AGL6-like genes in rice. OsMADS17 has been shown to play a minor role in floral development and appears to result from a duplication of OsMADS6. OsMADS6 was initially named as MFO1 for mosaic floral organs based on its moderate mutant phenotypes. So far, four moderate or weak mutant alleles of OsMADS6 have been described, providing valuable insights into its role in flower development. Here, we report a null allele of OsMADS6 (Osmads6-5), which exhibited a strong mutant phenotype in spikelet without affecting vegetative traits, causing all floral organs except lemma homeotically transformed into lemma-like organs (LLOs) as well as an indeterminate floral meristem, thus resulting in a mutant floret consisting of reiterating whorls of lemma and LLOs. In consistently, over-expression of OsMADS6 led to additional lodicule-, stamen- and carpel-like organs. Expression analysis showed that OsMADS6 controls the formation of the incipient primordia of lodicule, stamen and carpel via regulating the expression of class B, C and SEP-like MADS-box genes. Taken together, our results revealed that OsMADS6 acts as a critical regulator for early flower development in rice and provide novel insights into the molecular mechanism of OsMADS6.

Opportunity of spinel ferrite materials in nonvolatile memory device applications based on their resistive switching performances.

The opportunity of spinel ferrites in nonvolatile memory device applications has been demonstrated by the resistive switching performance characteristics of a Pt/NiFe(2)O(4)/Pt structure, such as low operating voltage, high device yield, long retention time (up to 10(5) s), and good endurance (up to 2.2 × 10(4) cycles). The dominant conduction mechanisms are Ohmic conduction in the low-resistance state and in the lower-voltage region of the high-resistance state and Schottky emission in the higher-voltage region of the high-resistance state. On the basis of measurements of the temperature dependence of the resistances and magnetic properties in different resistance states, we explain the physical mechanism of resistive switching of Pt/NiFe(2)O(4)/Pt devices using the model of formation and rupture of conducting filaments by considering the thermal effect of oxygen vacancies and changes in the valences of cations due to the redox effect.

Robust anomalous Hall effect and temperature-driven Lifshitz transition in Weyl semimetal Mn3Ge.

Topological Weyl semimetals have attracted considerable interest because they manifest underlying physics and device potential in spintronics. Large anomalous Hall effect (AHE) in non-collinear antiferromagnets (AFMs) represents a striking Weyl phase, which is associated with Bloch-band topological features. In this work, we report robust AHE and Lifshitz transition in high-quality Weyl semimetal Mn3Ge thin film, comprising stacked Kagome lattice and chiral antiferromagnetism. We successfully achieved giant AHE in our Mn3Ge film, with a strong Berry curvature enhanced by the Weyl phase. The enormous coercive field HC in our AHE curve at 5 K reached an unprecedented 5.3 T among hexagonal Mn3X systems. Our results provide direct experimental evidence of an electronic topological transition in the chiral AFMs. The temperature was demonstrated to play an efficient role in tuning the carrier concentration, which could be quantitatively determined by the two-band model. The electronic band structure crosses the Fermi energy level and leads to the reversal of carrier type around 50 K. The results not only offer new functionality for effectively modulating the Fermi level location in topological Weyl semimetals but also present a promising route of manipulating the carrier concentration in antiferromagnetic spintronic devices.