Transcriptome analysis of Artemisia argyi following methyl jasmonate (MeJA) treatment and the mining of genes related to the stress resistance pathway.

Artemisia argyi Lev. et Vant. (A. argyi) is a perennial grass in the Artemisia family, the plant has a strong aroma. Methyl jasmonate (MeJA) is critical to plant growth and development, stress response, and secondary metabolic processes. The experimental material Artemisia argyi was utilized in this study to investigate the treatment of A. argyi with exogenous MeJA at concentrations of 100 and 200 µmol/L for durations of 9 and 24 h respectively. Transcriptome sequencing was conducted using the Illumina HiSeq platform to identify stress resistance-related candidate genes. Finally, a total of 102.43 Gb of data were obtained and 162,272 unigenes were identified. Differential analysis before and after MeJA treatment resulted in the screening of 20,776 differentially expressed genes. The GO classification revealed that the annotated unigenes were categorized into three distinct groups: cellular component, molecular function, and biological process. Notably, binding, metabolic process, and cellular process emerged as the most prevalent categories among them. The results of KEGG pathway statistical analysis revealed that plant hormone signal transduction, MAPK signaling pathway-plant, and plant-pathogen interaction were significant transduction pathways in A. argyi's response to exogenous MeJA-induced abiotic stress. With the alteration of exogenous MeJA concentration and duration, a significant upregulation was observed in the expression levels of calmodulin CaM4 (ID: EVM0136224) involved in MAPK signaling pathway-plant and auxin response factor ARF (ID: EVM0055178) associated with plant-pathogen interaction. The findings of this study establish a solid theoretical foundation for the future development of highly resistant varieties of A. argyi.

Integrated metabolite profiling and transcriptome analysis reveals tissue-specific regulation of terpenoid biosynthesis in Artemisia argyi.

Artemisia argyi L. is a widely distributed medicinal plant in China. The major bioactive substances of essential oils extracted from leaves are terpenoids. Although many researches have studied the pharmacological effects of the essential oils, the tissue-specific accumulation of terpenoid biosynthesis and the regulatory networks in A. argyi are poorly understood. This study conducted an integrated metabolomic and transcriptomic analysis of roots, stems, and leaves to investigate the tissue-specific regulatory network of terpenoid biosynthesis in A. argyi. We identified 77 unigenes putatively involved in terpenoid backbone biosynthesis. Three rate-determining enzyme genes (DXS, DXR, and HDR) of the methylerythritol phosphate pathway were predominantly expressed in leaves, and strongly co-expressed with eight transcription factors (2 MYBs, 4 WRKYs, and 2 AP2s). An metabolite-transcript correlation analysis revealed 26 putative cytochrome P450s related to terpenoid metabolism in leaves. These results provide a foundation for the future metabolic engineering of useful terpenoids in A. argyi.

Molecular identification and expression analysis of five sucrose synthase genes in Sorghum Bicolor.

In higher plants, sucrose synthase (Susy, EC 2.4.1.13) as an enzyme with a core function, involved in the synthesis and breakdown of sugars, and plays an important role in growth and metabolism. Although, the different genes encoding Susy isozyme proteins have been cloned and functionally verified in several plant species, to date detailed information about the Susy genes is lacking in Sorghum. Here, we demonstrated the identification of five novel Susy genes from the sorghum genome database. Sequence, structure and phylogenetic analyses of these five SbSusy genes revealed evolutionary conservation through Susy gene family members across Sorghum and other crop plants. The expression of sorghum Susy genes was investigated via transcriptome database in various developmental stages and different tissues. Further qRT-PCR was performed to reveal the induction of SbSusy genes under salt, drought and sugar induction. The results indicated that all Susy genes were differentially expressed in various tissues and highly associated with sucrose metabolism. This study shows a theoretical reference of Susy genes in Sorghum, which provides new insights for the knowledge of the evolution relationships, and basic information to help clarify the molecular mechanism of Susy synthase genes in Sorghum. Supplementary Information: The online version contains supplementary material available at 10.1007/s12298-022-01166-8.

Giant and reversible low field magnetocaloric effect in LiHoF4 compound.

Cryogenic refrigeration technology is gradually penetrating into increasing aspects of human life and industrial production. Magnetic refrigeration shows excellent application potential due to its high efficiency, good stability and environmental friendliness. It is important for a magnetic refrigeration system to secure a high-performance magnetocaloric material under a low applied magnetic field, which can greatly simplify the design and reduce the expense. In this study, LiHoF4, a polycrystalline compound prepared by an improved solid-state reaction method undergoes a second-order phase transition below 2 K. Meanwhile, an unexpected giant low-field magnetocaloric effect has been observed. The maximum magnetic entropy changes are 11.0 J kg-1 K-1, 19.0 J kg-1 K-1, and 25.9 J kg-1 K-1 in field changes of 0.6 T, 1.0 T, and 2.0 T, respectively. The giant and reversible low field magnetocaloric effect proves it to be one of the most practical candidates among the cryogenic magnetic refrigerants.

Diversity of Endophytic Fungal Community in Leaves of Artemisia argyi Based on High-throughput Amplicon Sequencing.

To investigate the community structure and diversity of endophytic fungi in the leaves of Artemisia argyi, leaf samples were collected from five A. argyi varieties grown in different cultivation areas in China, namely, Tangyin Beiai in Henan (BA), Qichun Qiai in Hubei (QA), Wanai in Nanyang in Henan (WA), Haiai in Ningbo in Zhejiang (HA), and Anguo Qiai in Anguo in Hebei (AQA), and analyzed using Illumina high-throughput sequencing technology. A total of 365,919 pairs of reads were obtained, and the number of operational taxonomic units for each sample was between 165 and 285. The alpha diversity of the QA and BA samples was higher, and a total of two phyla, eight classes, 12 orders, 15 families, and 16 genera were detected. At the genus level, significant differences were noted in the dominant genera among the samples, with three genera being shared in all the samples. The dominant genus in QA was Erythrobasidium, while that in AQA, HA, and BA was Sporobolomyces, and that in WA was Alternaria, reaching a proportion of 16.50%. These results showed that the fungal community structure and diversity in QA and BA were high. The endophytes are of great importance to the plants, especially for protection, phytohormone and other phytochemical production, and nutrition. Therefore, this study may be significant with the industrial perspective of Artemisia species.

Full-Length Transcriptome Analysis Reveals Candidate Genes Involved in Terpenoid Biosynthesis in Artemisia argyi.

Artemisia argyi is an important medicinal plant widely utilized for moxibustion heat therapy in China. The terpenoid biosynthesis process in A. argyi is speculated to play a key role in conferring its medicinal value. However, the molecular mechanism underlying terpenoid biosynthesis remains unclear, in part because the reference genome of A. argyi is unavailable. Moreover, the full-length transcriptome of A. argyi has not yet been sequenced. Therefore, in this study, de novo transcriptome sequencing of A. argyi's root, stem, and leaf tissues was performed to obtain those candidate genes related to terpenoid biosynthesis, by combining the PacBio single-molecule real-time (SMRT) and Illumina sequencing NGS platforms. And more than 55.4 Gb of sequencing data and 108,846 full-length reads (non-chimeric) were generated by the Illumina and PacBio platform, respectively. Then, 53,043 consensus isoforms were clustered and used to represent 36,820 non-redundant transcripts, of which 34,839 (94.62%) were annotated in public databases. In the comparison sets of leaves vs roots, and leaves vs stems, 13,850 (7,566 up-regulated, 6,284 down-regulated) and 9,502 (5,284 up-regulated, 4,218 down-regulated) differentially expressed transcripts (DETs) were obtained, respectively. Specifically, the expression profile and KEGG functional enrichment analysis of these DETs indicated that they were significantly enriched in the biosynthesis of amino acids, carotenoids, diterpenoids and flavonoids, as well as the metabolism processes of glycine, serine and threonine. Moreover, multiple genes encoding significant enzymes or transcription factors related to diterpenoid biosynthesis were highly expressed in the A. argyi leaves. Additionally, several transcription factor families, such as RLK-Pelle_LRR-L-1 and RLK-Pelle_DLSV, were also identified. In conclusion, this study offers a valuable resource for transcriptome information, and provides a functional genomic foundation for further research on molecular mechanisms underlying the medicinal use of A. argyi leaves.

Progress of Research on the Regulatory Pathway of the Plant Shade-Avoidance Syndrome.

When subject to vegetational shading, shade-avoiding plants detect neighbors by perceiving reduced light quantity and altered light quality. The former includes decreases in the ratio of red to far-red wavelengths (low R:FR) and low blue light ratio (LBL) predominantly detected by phytochromes and cryptochromes, respectively. By integrating multiple signals, plants generate a suite of responses, such as elongation of a variety of organs, accelerated flowering, and reduced branching, which are collectively termed the shade-avoidance syndrome (SAS). To trigger the SAS, interactions between photoreceptors and phytochrome-interacting factors are the general switch for activation of downstream signaling pathways. A number of transcription factor families and phytohormones, especially auxin, gibberellins, ethylene, and brassinosteroids, are involved in the SAS processes. In this review, shade signals, the major photoreceptors involved, and the phenotypic characteristics of the shade-intolerant plant Arabidopsis thaliana are described in detail. In addition, integration of the signaling mechanisms that link photoreceptors with multiple hormone signaling pathways is presented and future research directions are discussed.

Implications from China patient safety incidents reporting system.

OBJECTIVE: We aimed to explain the operational mechanism of China National Patient Safety Incidents Reporting System, analyze patterns and trends of incidents reporting, and discuss the implication of the incidents reporting to improve hospital patient safety. DESIGN: A nationwide, registry-based, observational study design. DATA SOURCE: The database of China National Patient Safety Incidents Reporting System. OUTCOME MEASURES: Outcome measures of this study included the temporal, regional, and hospital distribution of the reports, as well as the incident type, location, parties, and possible reasons for frequently occurring incidents. RESULTS: During 2012-2017, 36,498 patient safety incidents were reported. By analyzing the time trends, we found that there was a significant upward trend on incidents reporting in China. The most common type of incidents was drug-related incidents, followed by nursing-related incidents and surgery-related incidents. The three most frequent locations of incident occurrence were Patient's Room (65.4%), Ambulatory Care Unit (8.4%), and Intensive Care Unit (7.4%). The majority of the incidents involved nurses (40.7%), followed by physicians (29.5%) and medical technologist (13.6%). About 44.4% of the incidents were attributed to the junior staff (work experience ≤5 years). In addition, incidents triggered by the senior staff (work experience >5 years) were more often associated with severe patient harm. CONCLUSION: To strengthen the incidents reporting system and generate useful evidence through learning from incidents reporting will be important to China's success in improving the nation's patient safety status.

Multimodal hyper-connectivity of functional networks using functionally-weighted LASSO for MCI classification.

Recent works have shown that hyper-networks derived from blood-oxygen-level-dependent (BOLD) fMRI, where an edge (called hyper-edge) can be connected to more than two nodes, are effective biomarkers for MCI classification. Although BOLD fMRI is a high temporal resolution fMRI approach to assess alterations in brain networks, it cannot pinpoint to a single correlation of neuronal activity since BOLD signals are composite. In contrast, arterial spin labeling (ASL) is a lower temporal resolution fMRI technique for measuring cerebral blood flow (CBF) that can provide quantitative, direct brain network physiology measurements. This paper proposes a novel sparse regression algorithm for inference of the integrated hyper-connectivity networks from BOLD fMRI and ASL fMRI. Specifically, a least absolution shrinkage and selection operator (LASSO) algorithm, which is constrained by the functional connectivity derived from ASL fMRI, is employed to estimate hyper-connectivity for characterizing BOLD-fMRI-based functional interaction among multiple regions. An ASL-derived functional connectivity is constructed by using an Ultra-GroupLASSO-UOLS algorithm, where the combination of ultra-least squares (ULS) criterion with a group LASSO (GroupLASSO) algorithm is applied to detect the topology of ASL-based functional connectivity networks, and then an ultra-orthogonal least squares (UOLS) algorithm is used to estimate the connectivity strength. By combining the complementary characterization conveyed by rs-fMRI and ASL fMRI, our multimodal hyper-networks demonstrated much better discriminative characteristics than either the conventional pairwise connectivity networks or the unimodal hyper-connectivity networks. Experimental results on publicly available ADNI dataset demonstrate that the proposed method outperforms the existing single modality based sparse functional connectivity inference methods.

Multimodal Hyper-connectivity Networks for MCI Classification.

Hyper-connectivity network is a network where every edge is connected to more than two nodes, and can be naturally denoted using a hyper-graph. Hyper-connectivity brain network, either based on structural or functional interactions among the brain regions, has been used for brain disease diagnosis. However, the conventional hyper-connectivity network is constructed solely based on single modality data, ignoring potential complementary information conveyed by other modalities. The integration of complementary information from multiple modalities has been shown to provide a more comprehensive representation about the brain disruptions. In this paper, a novel multimodal hyper-network modelling method was proposed for improving the diagnostic accuracy of mild cognitive impairment (MCI). Specifically, we first constructed a multimodal hyper-connectivity network by simultaneously considering information from diffusion tensor imaging and resting-state functional magnetic resonance imaging data. We then extracted different types of network features from the hyper-connectivity network, and further exploited a manifold regularized multi-task feature selection method to jointly select the most discriminative features. Our proposed multimodal hyper-connectivity network demonstrated a better MCI classification performance than the conventional single modality based hyper-connectivity networks.

[Current situation and countermeasures of medical damage risk sharing system in China].

Although medical damage risks really exist, an effective medical risk sharing system is still not available in China right now. By analyzing the status quo of Chinese medical damage risks sharing system, the authors put forward the following suggestions to improve the current system: Upgrading the preventive strategy for medical disputes, establishing multi-level and multi-channel comprehensive medical damage risks sharing system, promoting the effective cooperation between insurance relief systems and mediation system for medical disputes, and constructing highly effective pathways to resolve the medical disputes.

Alteration of osa-miR156e expression affects rice plant architecture and strigolactones (SLs) pathway.

KEY MESSAGE: Overexpressing osa--miR156e in rice produced a bushy mutant and osa--miR156e regulation of tillering may do this through the strigolactones (SLs) pathway. Appropriate downregulation of osa--miR156 expression contributed to the improvement of plant architecture. Tillering is one of the main determinants for rice architecture and yield. In this study, a bushy mutant of rice was identified with increased tiller number, reduced plant height, prolonged heading date, low seed setting, and small panicle size due to a T-DNA insertion which essentially elevated the expression of osa-miR156e. Transgenic plants with constitutive expression of osa-miR156e also had the bushy phenotype, which showed osa-miR156 may control apical dominance and tiller outgrowth via regulating the strigolactones signaling pathway. Furthermore, the extent of impaired morphology was correlated with the expression level of osa-miR156e. In an attempt to genetically improve rice architecture, ectopic expression of osa-miR156e under the GAL4-UAS system or OsTB1 promoter was conducted. According to agronomic trait analysis, pTB1:osa-miR156e transgenic plants significantly improved the grain yield per plant compared to plants overexpressing osa-miR156e, even though the yield was still inferior to the wild type, making it a very interesting albeit negative result. Our results suggested that osa-miR156 could serve as a potential tool for modifying rice plant architecture through genetic manipulation of the osa-miR156 expression level.

Epidemiological analysis of trauma patients following the Lushan earthquake.

BACKGROUND: A 7.0-magnitude earthquake hit Lushan County in China's Sichuan province on April 20, 2013, resulting in 196 deaths and 11,470 injured. This study was designed to analyze the characteristics of the injuries and the treatment of the seismic victims. METHODS: After the earthquake, an epidemiological survey of injured patients was conducted by the Health Department of Sichuan Province. Epidemiological survey tools included paper-and-pencil questionnaires and a data management system based on the Access Database. Questionnaires were completed based on the medical records of inpatients with earthquake-related injuries. Outpatients or non-seismic injured inpatients were excluded. A total of 2010 patients from 140 hospitals were included. RESULTS: The most common type of injuries involved bone fractures (58.3%). Children younger than 10 years of age suffered fewer fractures and chest injuries, but more skin and soft -tissue injuries. Patients older than 80 years were more likely to suffer hip and thigh fractures, pelvis fractures, and chest injuries, whereas adult patients suffered more ankle and foot fractures. A total of 207 cases of calcaneal fracture were due to high falling injuries related to extreme panic. The most common type of infection in hospitalized patients was pulmonary infections. A total of 70.5% patients had limb dysfunction, and 60.1% of this group received rehabilitation. Most patients received rehabilitation within 1 week, and the median duration of rehabilitation was 3 weeks. The cause of death of all seven hospitalized patients who died was severe traumatic brain injuries; five of this group died within 24 h after the earthquake. CONCLUSIONS: Injuries varied as a function of the age of the victim. As more injuries were indirectly caused by the Lushan earthquake, disaster education is urgently needed to avoid secondary injuries.

OsLIS-L1 encoding a lissencephaly type-1-like protein with WD40 repeats is required for plant height and male gametophyte formation in rice.

Although a large number of genes encoding the WD40 motif have been identified as being involved in various developmental processes in Arabidopsis, little is known about the function of these genes in rice (Oryza sativa). Here, we report the cloning and functional characterization of a novel rice gene OsLIS-L1 (Lissencephaly type-1-like 1), which is required for normal fertility and the first internode elongation. OsLIS-L1 encodes a lissencephaly type-1-like protein containing the WD40 motif that is required for brain development in human. SMART algorithm analysis indicated that OsLIS-L1 contains a LIS1 homology (LisH) domain, a C terminus to LisH (CTLH) domain, a five WD40-repeat domain in the middle, and a domain with four WD40 repeats which is homologous to the ß subunit of trimeric G-proteins (G(ß)). OsLIS-L1 transcript is relatively highly abundant in stem and panicle and has a dynamic expression pattern at different panicle developmental stages. Two independent alleles, designated oslis-l1-1 and oslis-l1-2, exhibited similar abnormal developmental phenotypes, including semi-dwarf, shorter panicle length, and reduced male fertility. Cytological examination confirmed that OsLIS-L1 does not affect the meiosis in pollen mother cells. Compared with wild type, the oslis-l1 mutant had abnormal male gametophyte formation, but anther cell wall and pollen wall development were not affected. Histological analysis revealed that OsLIS-L1 regulates the cell proliferation in the first internode under the panicle. Our results indicate that OsLIS-L1 plays an important role in male gametophyte formation and the first internode elongation in rice.

Rice APOPTOSIS INHIBITOR5 coupled with two DEAD-box adenosine 5'-triphosphate-dependent RNA helicases regulates tapetum degeneration.

Programmed cell death (PCD) during tapetum degeneration in postmeiotic anthers is critical for the proper development of male gametophytes in flowering plants. Although several genes involved in this process have been identified recently, the molecular mechanism is still poorly understood. Here, we show that knockout of rice (Oryza sativa) APOPTOSIS INHIBITOR5 (API5), which encodes a putative homolog of antiapoptosis protein Api5 in animals, results in delayed degeneration of the tapetum due to inhibition of the tapetal PCD process leading to defects in formation of male gametophytes. Os API5 is a nuclear protein that interacts with two DEAD-box ATP-dependent RNA helicases, API5-INTERACTING PROTEIN1 (AIP1) and AIP2. AIP1 and AIP2 are homologs of yeast (Saccharomyces cerevisiae) Suppressor of Bad Response to Refrigeration1 protein 2 (SUB2p) that have critical roles in transcription elongation and pre-mRNA splicing. Os AIP1 and AIP2 can form dimers and interact directly with the promoter region of CP1, a rice cysteine protease gene. Suppression of Os AIP1/2 leads to down-regulation of CP1, resulting in sterility, which is highly similar to the effects of suppressed expression of Os CP1. Our results uncover a previously unknown pathway for regulating PCD during tapetum degeneration in rice, one that may be conserved among eukaryotic organisms.