A Financial Management Platform Based on the Integration of Blockchain and Supply Chain.

Internet of Things (IoT) finance extends financial services to the whole physical commodity society with the help of IoT technology to realize financial automation and intelligence. However, the security of IoT finance still needs to be improved. Blockchain has the characteristics of decentralization, immutability, faster settlement, etc., and has been gradually applied to the field of IoT finance. Blockchain is also considered to be an effective way to resolve the problems of the traditional supply chain finance industry, such as the inability to transmit core enterprise credit, the failure of full-chain business information connections and the difficulty of clearing and settlement. Supply chain finance allows the strongest enterprise in the supply chain to apply for credit guarantee from the bank to obtain bank loans, and use the funds for circulation in the supply chain to ensure that each enterprise in the whole supply chain can obtain working capital to realize profits, so as to maximize common interests. In this paper, a financial management platform based on the integration of blockchain and supply chain has been designed and implemented. Blockchain is used to integrate supply chain finance to synchronize the bank account payment system, realize the automatic flow of funds, process supervision and automatically settle account periods based on smart contracts. The four functional modules of the system are designed using unified modeling language (UML), and the model view controller (MVC) architecture is selected as the main architecture of the system. The results of the system test show that the proposed platform can effectively improve the system security, and can use the information in the blockchain to provide multi-level financing services for enterprises in supply chain finance.

Exogenous Arachidonic Acid Affects Fucoxanthin Biosynthesis and Photoprotection in Phaeodactylum tricornutum.

Fucoxanthin is an oxygenated carotenoid component that has been reported to play important roles in anti-oxidation, anti-obesity and anti-cancer in the human body. Fucoxanthin-chlorophyll protein (FCP) complexes participate in light harvesting and photoprotection in diatom. In order to better understand the change of fucoxanthin content and its role in photoprotection, the growth, fucoxanthin biosynthesis and photosynthetic phenotypes were studied in the diatom Phaeodactylum tricornutum under the treatment of exogenous arachidonic acid (AA). Our results demonstrated that even low concentration of AA at 0.1 mg/L strongly induced fucoxanthin accumulation in algal cells to a maximum of 1.1 mg/g dry weight (DW), which was 36.6% higher than that in the untreated ones. By principal component analysis (PCA), we also identified a close correlation between fucoxanthin accumulation and the expression of genes involved in fucoxanthin biosynthesis, especially phytoene synthase (PSY), suggesting that AA change the metabolism of fucoxanthin by inducing carotenoid metabolic enzymes at the transcriptional level. Furthermore, we found that the exogenous application of AA affected non-photochemical quenching (NPQ) and photoinhibition, which resulted from the changed diadinoxanthin (DD) and diatoxanthin (DT) cycle, and thus played an important role in photoprotection.

Expression analysis of different ß-carotenoid hydroxylase gene families in stress response in Dunaliella viridis.

ß-carotenoid hydroxylase (CHYB) is an important rate-limiting enzyme in the biosynthesis of plant carotenoid. In this study, chyb1 and chyb2, two gene families in Dunaliella viridis were obtained by RNA-seq. The fragment of promoters of CHYB family genes, 1 080 bp for chyb1 (GenBank No. KY012338) and 1 155 bp for chyb2 (GenBank No. KY012339) were cloned by the Genome Walking Technology, respectively. Cis-acting elements of two promoters were analyzed by Plantcare soft. The results show that the chyb1 gene promoter contains more cis-acting elements in responses to abiotic stresses, such as methyl jasmonate, arachidonic acid, acetylsalicylic acid, and so on. On the other hand, the chyb2 promoter contains more cis-acting elements in response to light stress. qRT-PCR results show that the mRNA expression levels of CHYBs are modulated by their promoters, and different CHYB gene families response to distinct stresses.

[Transcriptome analysis of Dunaliella viridis].

In order to understand the gene information, function, haloduric pathway (glycerolipid metabolism) and related key genes for Dunaliella viridis, we used Illumina HiSeqTM 2000 high-throughput sequencing technology to sequence its transcriptome. Trinity soft was used to assemble the data to form transcripts. Based on the Clusters of Orthologous Groups (COG), Gene Ontology (GO) and Kyoto Encyclopedia of Genes and Genomes (KEGG ) databases, we carried out functional annotation and classification, pathway annotation, and the opening reading fragment (ORF) sequence prediction of transcripts. The key genes in the glycerolipid metabolism were analyzed. The results suggested that 81,593 transcripts were found, and 77,117 ORF sequences were predicted, accounting for 94.50% of all transcripts. COG classification results showed that 16,569 transcripts were assigned to 24 categories. GO classification annotated 76,436 transcripts. The number of transcripts for biologcial processes was 30,678, accounting for 40.14% of all transcripts. KEGG pathway analysis showed that 26,428 transcripts were annotated to 317 pathways, and 131 pathways were related to metabolism, accounting for 41.32% of all annotated pathways. Only one transcript was annotated as coding the key enzyme dihydroxyacetone kinase involved in the glycerolipid pathway. This enzyme could be related to glycerol biosynthesis under salt stress. This study further improved the gene information and laid the foundation of metabolic pathway research for Dunaliella viridis.

Recombinant Porcine Interferon-α Decreases Pseudorabies Virus Infection.

Interferon (IFN) is a cell-secreted cytokine possessing biological activities including antiviral functioning, immune regulation, and others. Interferon-alpha (IFN-α) mainly derives from plasmacytoid dendritic cells, which activate natural killer cells and regulate immune responses. IFN-α responds to the primary antiviral mechanism in the innate immune system, which can effectively cure acute infectious diseases. Pseudorabies (PR) is an acute infectious disease caused by pseudorabies virus (PRV). The clinical symptoms of PRV are as follows: reproductive dysfunction among pregnant sows and high mortality rates among piglets. These pose a severe threat to the swine industry. Related studies show that IFN-α has broad applications in preventing and treating viral diseases. Therefore, a PRV mouse model using artificial infection was established in this study to explore the pathogenic effect of IFN-α on PRV. We designed a sequence with IFN-α4 (M28623, Genbank) and cloned it on the lentiviral vector. CHO-K1 cells were infected and identified using WB and RT-PCR; a CHO-K1 cell line with a stable expression of the recombinant protein PoIFN-α was successfully constructed. H&E staining and virus titer detection were used to investigate the recombinant protein PoIFN-α's effect on PR in BALB/c mice. The results show that the PoIFN-α has a preventive and therapeutic impact on PR. In conclusion, the recombinant protein can alleviate symptoms and reduce the replication of PRV in vivo.

[Toxic Effect of Nano-ZnO in Liver of Zebrafish].

For acute toxicity test, zebrafish were respectively exposed to the different concentrations of nano-ZnO (0, 0.05, 0.1, 5, 10, 25, 50 mg x L(-1)) for 4, 24 and 96 h. The superoxide dismutase (SOD), malondialdehyde (MDA), and catalase (CAT) in the liver of zebrafish were studied, and the relative expression of Bcl-2, Bax, p53 and MDM2 in liver were also determined. Anatomical structure of the zebrafish liver was determined after exposure to nano-ZnO for 7, 15 and 30 d. Compared with the control group, the liver of the experimental groups showed obvious difference in following aspects: (1) oedema, cytoplastic vacuolation, and pyknotic nucleus were observed; (2) the number of hepatic macrophages deposited and the sinus clearance were increased; (3) the MDA contents and the activity of SOD were increased; (4) however, the activity of CAT was decreased; (5) the mRNA expression level of genes Bax/Bcl-2 ratio and p53 of stressed groups were up-regulated; the mRNA expression level of gene MDM2 down-regulation can be observed in the low concentration groups while the mRNA expression level of gene MDM2 was up-regulated in the high concentration groups. The results suggested that, the oxidative damage of nano-ZnO to the zebrafish liver was caused by the increase of oxidative stress, which made the change of antioxidant enzyme activity, induced the expression of cell apoptosis genetic and cell apoptosis, and caused the change of organizational structure of liver.