Revealing the translator's style: A corpus-based study of english translations of Mencius.

Based on the self-built English translation corpus of Mencius, this study conducts a lexical, syntactical and textual comparative analysis of Mencius English translations by James Legge (1861), Leonard A.Lyall (1932) and D.C.Lau (1970) through adopting a combination of quantitative and qualitative methods and employing Tokenizer, Tree Tagger, WordSmith8.0, AntConc and Readability Analyzer software. By analyzing representative translation examples and the para-text of each translation, this study explores the relationship among the historical background, translator's cultural identity and translation motivation. The results reveal that the translator's style is closely related to the translation strategy determined by the translation purpose rooted in translator's cultural identity in different historical and social backgrounds.The study findings will bring a new perspective for the translator's cultural identity research, contribute to the translator's style study and deepen the understanding of the English translation and overseas dissemination of Mencius with the help of corpus technology.

A versatile nanozyme integrated colorimetric and photothermal lateral flow immunoassay for highly sensitive and reliable Aspergillus flavus detection.

Visual lateral flow immunoassays (LFA) have been recognized as the attractive point-of-care testing (POCT) for bioanalysis; however, they have been constrained by insufficient sensitivity and limited reliability. Herein, combining the catalytic sites of Cu nanoparticles with an inherent photothermal polydopamine (PDA) scaffold via a one-step process, a compact Cu-anchored PDA (PCu) was engineered as the efficient signal element for the multimodal LFA (mLFA). The robust PCu with peroxidase-mimics and photothermal properties, could simultaneously provide triple signal readouts for colorimetric, amplified colorimetric and photothermal detection toward Aspergillus flavus (A. flavus). Attractively, the multiple guaranteed detection of PCu-based mLFA enabled the accurate and sensitive detection of A. flavus mycelium biomass, down to 0.45 and 0.22 ng mL-1, which was 19- and 40-fold improvements compared to traditional colorimetry. Besides, mLFA was successfully applied to actual samples with satisfactory recoveries from 89.9 to 109%, indicating the highly reliable analytical performance. This work paved a prospective way for the construction of efficient peroxidase-mimics and superior photothermal multifunctional nanomaterials, providing a potential versatile visual POCT platform for analytical events.

Genome sequence of Isaria javanica and comparative genome analysis insights into family S53 peptidase evolution in fungal entomopathogens.

The fungus Isaria javanica is an important entomopathogen that parasitizes various insects and is effective for pest control. In this study, we sequenced and assembled the genomes (IJ1G and IJ2G) of two I. javanica strains isolated from different insects. The genomes were approximately 35 Mb in size with 11,441 and 11,143 protein-coding genes, respectively. Using a phylogenomic approach, we evaluated genome evolution across five entomopathogenic fungi in Cordycipitaceae. By comparative genome analysis, it was found that family S53 serine peptidases were expanded in Cordycipitaceae entomopathogens, particularly in I. javanica. Gene duplication events were identified based on phylogenetic relationships inferred from 82 S53 peptidases within six entomopathogenic fungal genomes. Moreover, we found that carbohydrate-active enzymes and proteinases were the largest secretory protein groups encoded in the I. javanica genome, especially chitinases (GH18), serine and aspartic peptidases (S53, S08, S10, A01). Pathogenesis-related genes and genes for bacterial-like toxins and secondary metabolites were also identified. By comparative transcriptome analysis, differentially expressed genes in response to insect nutrients (in vitro) were identified. Moreover, most S53 peptidases were detected to be significantly upregulated during the initial fungal infection process in insects (in vivo) by RT-qPCR. Our results provide new clues about understanding evolution of pathogenic proteases and may suggest that abundant S53 peptidases in the I. javanica genome may contribute to its effective parasitism on various insects.

Transcriptomic and ionomic analysis provides new insight into the beneficial effect of Al on tea roots' growth and nutrient uptake.

KEY MESSAGE: Transcriptome profiling of roots indicated that genes involved in cell wall modification, cytoskeleton, H+ exchange and K+ influx played important roles in tea root growth under Al addition. Tea (Camellia sinensis) is considered as an Al accumulator species. It can accumulate a high concentration of Al in mature leaves without any symptom of toxicity, even improve roots' growth and nutrient uptake. However, the molecular mechanisms underlying this tolerance remain unclear. Here, we investigated the accumulation of elements and transcriptional profiles in tea roots treated with various Al doses. The results showed that the growth of tea plants was improved by a low dose of Al (0.2, 0.4, 0.6, 1 mM); however, this beneficial effect disappeared when higher concentrations of Al were supplied (2, 4, 10 mM). Ionomic analysis suggested that accumulation of P and K increased under a low Al supply (< 1 mM), while Ca and Mg contents were negatively correlated with external Al doses. The RNA seq obtained 523,391 unigenes, among which 20,448 were annotated in all databases. In total, 1876 unigenes were expressed significantly different in any Al treatment. A large number of DEGs involved in cell growth and division, such as those linked to cell wall-modifying enzymes, actin cytoskeleton, cyclin and H+-ATPase were identified, suggesting that these pathways were involved in root growth under different Al supply. Furthermore, expression of transporters significantly changed in roots supplied with Al. Among them, HAK5, which is involved in K uptake by plants, had a significant positive correlation with the K content.

Genome and secretome analysis of Pochonia chlamydosporia provide new insight into egg-parasitic mechanisms.

Pochonia chlamydosporia infects eggs and females of economically important plant-parasitic nematodes. The fungal isolates parasitizing different nematodes are genetically distinct. To understand their intraspecific genetic differentiation, parasitic mechanisms, and adaptive evolution, we assembled seven putative chromosomes of P. chlamydosporia strain 170 isolated from root-knot nematode eggs (~44 Mb, including 7.19% of transposable elements) and compared them with the genome of the strain 123 (~41 Mb) isolated from cereal cyst nematode. We focus on secretomes of the fungus, which play important roles in pathogenicity and fungus-host/environment interactions, and identified 1,750 secreted proteins, with a high proportion of carboxypeptidases, subtilisins, and chitinases. We analyzed the phylogenies of these genes and predicted new pathogenic molecules. By comparative transcriptome analysis, we found that secreted proteins involved in responses to nutrient stress are mainly comprised of proteases and glycoside hydrolases. Moreover, 32 secreted proteins undergoing positive selection and 71 duplicated gene pairs encoding secreted proteins are identified. Two duplicated pairs encoding secreted glycosyl hydrolases (GH30), which may be related to fungal endophytic process and lost in many insect-pathogenic fungi but exist in nematophagous fungi, are putatively acquired from bacteria by horizontal gene transfer. The results help understanding genetic origins and evolution of parasitism-related genes.