Relationship between Photosynthetic CO2 Assimilation and Chlorophyll Fluorescence for Winter Wheat under Water Stress.

Solar-induced chlorophyll fluorescence (SIF) has a high correlation with Gross Primary Production (GPP). However, studies focusing on the impact of drought on the SIF-GPP relationship have had mixed results at various scales, and the mechanisms controlling the dynamics between photosynthesis and fluorescence emission under water stress are not well understood. We developed a leaf-scale measurement system to perform concurrent measurements of active and passive fluorescence, and gas-exchange rates for winter wheat experiencing a one-month progressive drought. Our results confirmed that: (1) shifts in light energy allocation towards decreasing photochemistry (the quantum yields of photochemical quenching in PSII decreased from 0.42 to 0.21 under intermediate light conditions) and increasing fluorescence emissions (the quantum yields of fluorescence increased to 0.062 from 0.024) as drought progressed enhance the degree of nonlinearity of the SIF-GPP relationship, and (2) SIF alone has a limited capacity to track changes in the photosynthetic status of plants under drought conditions. However, by incorporating the water stress factor into a SIF-based mechanistic photosynthesis model, we show that drought-induced variations in a variety of key photosynthetic parameters, including stomatal conductance and photosynthetic CO2 assimilation, can be accurately estimated using measurements of SIF, photosynthetically active radiation, air temperature, and soil moisture as inputs. Our findings provide the experimental and theoretical foundations necessary for employing SIF mechanistically to estimate plant photosynthetic activity during periods of drought stress.

Structural Electronic Skin for Conformal Tactile Sensing.

The conformal integration of the electronic skin on the non-developable surface is in great demand for the comprehensive tactile sensing of robotics and prosthetics. However, the current techniques still encounter obstacles in achieving conformal integration of film-like electronic skin on non-developable surfaces with substantial curvatures for contact pressure detection and tactile mapping. In this paper, by utilizing the 3D printing technology to prepare the 3D electrode array in the structural component following its surface curvature, and covering it with a molded functional shell to form the pressure sensitive iontronic interface, a device is proposed to achieve high-sensitive pressure detection and high-fidelity tactile mapping on a complicated non-developable surface, called structural electronic skin (SES). The SES is prepared in a 3D printed fingertip with 46 tactile sensing units distributed on its curved surface, achieving the integration of both structural and tactile functions in a single component. By integrating the smart fingertip into a dexterous hand, a series of demonstrations are presented to show the dead-zone free pressure detection and tactile mapping with high sensitivity, for instance, 2D pulse wave monitoring and robotic injection in a medical robot, object recognition and compliant control in a smart prosthesis.

Genome-Wide Analysis of the ERF Family and Identification of Potential Genes Involved in Fruit Ripening in Octoploid Strawberry.

Ethylene response factors (ERFs) belonging to the APETALA2/ERF superfamily acted at the end of the ethylene signaling pathway, and they were found to play important roles in plant growth and development. However, the information of ERF genes in strawberry and their involvement in fruit ripening have been limited. Here, a total of 235 ERF members were identified from 426 AP2/ERF genes at octoploid strawberry genome level and classified into six subgroups according to their sequence characteristics and phylogenetic relationship. Conserved motif and gene structure analysis supported the evolutionary conservation of FaERFs. Syntenic analysis showed that four types of duplication events occurred during the expansion of FaERF gene family. Of these, WGD/segmental duplication played a major role. Transcriptomic data of FaERF genes during fruit ripening and in response to abscisic acid screened one activator (FaERF316) and one repressor (FaERF118) that were involved in fruit ripening. Transcriptional regulation analysis showed some transcription factors related to ripening such as ABI4, TCP15, and GLK1 could bind to FaERF316 or FaERF118 promoters, while protein-protein interaction analysis displayed some proteins associated with plant growth and development could interact with FaERF118 or FaERF316. These results suggested that FaERF118 and FaERF316 were potential genes to regulate strawberry ripening. In summary, the present study provides the comprehensive and systematic information on FaERF family evolution and gains insights into FaERF's potential regulatory mechanism in strawberry ripening.

The study on interactions between levofloxacin and model proteins by using multi-spectroscopic and molecular docking methods.

The interactions of levofloxacin (LEV) with lysozyme (LYZ), trypsin and bovine hemoglobin (BHb) were investigated, respectively, by using multi-spectral techniques and molecular docking in vitro. Fluorescence studies showed that LEV quenched LYZ/trypsin fluorescence in a combined quenching ways and BHb fluorescence in a static quenching with binding constants of .14, .51 and .20 × 105 L mol-1 at 298 K, respectively. The thermodynamic parameters demonstrated that hydrophobic forces, hydrogen bonds, and van der Waals forces played the major role in the binding process. The binding distances between LEV and the inner tryptophan residues of LYZ, trypsin, and BHb were calculated to be 4.04, 3.38, and 4.52 nm, respectively. Furthermore, the results of circular dichroism spectra (CD), UV-vis, and three-dimensional fluorescence spectra indicated that the secondary structures of LYZ, trypsin, and BHb were partially changed by LEV with the α-helix percentage of LYZ-LEV system increased while that of BHb-LEV system was decreased, the ß-sheet percentage of trypsin-LEV system increased from 41.3 to 42.9%. UV-vis spectral results showed that the binding interactions could cause conformational and some micro-environmental changes of LYZ, trypsin, and BHb. The results of molecular docking revealed that in LYZ and trypsin systems, LEV bound to the active sites residues GLU 35 and ASP 52 of LYZ and trypsin at the active site SER 195, and in BHb system, LEV was located in the central cavity, which was consistent with the results of synchronous fluorescence experiment. Besides, LEV made the activity of LYZ decrease while the activity of trypsin increased.

Iterative Learning Impedance for Lower Limb Rehabilitation Robot.

This paper discusses the problem of squatting training of stroke patients. The main idea is to correct the patient's training trajectory through an iterative learning control (ILC) method. To obtain better rehabilitation effect, a patient will typically be required to practice a reference posture for many times, while most of active training methods can hardly keep the patients training with correct posture. Instead of the conventional ILC strategy, an impedance-based iterative learning method is proposed to regulate the impedance value dynamically and smartly which will help patients correct their posture gradually and perform better. To facilitate impedance-based ILC, we propose two objectives. The first objective is to find the suitable values of impedance based on the ILC scheme. The second objective is to search the moderate learning convergence speed and robustness in the iterative domain. The simulation and experimental results demonstrate that the performance of trajectory tracking will be improved greatly via the proposed algorithm.

Probing the Binding of Torasemide to Pepsin and Trypsin by Spectroscopic and Molecular Docking Methods.

Torasemide (TOR) belongs to the pyridine sulfonylurea class of loop diuretics and is widely and effectively used in the treatment of hypertension, heart failure, chronic renal failure and liver disease. One of the adverse reactions caused by TOR was a slight gastrointestinal discomfort in the course of treatment. However, the molecular interactions of TOR with digestive proteases (trypsin and pepsin) rarely reported. The attempt of this paper was to completely investigate the binding characteristics between TOR and trypsin or pepsin at different temperatures under imitated physiological conditions by fluorescence spectroscopy, UV-vis absorption, circular dichroism (CD) and molecular modeling technique. The inner filter effect of all fluorescence data in the paper was eliminated to get accurate binding parameters. It was found that the fluorescence quenching of trypsin and pepsin by TOR was a static quenching type. The Stern-Volmer quenching constants (KSV) of TOR-pepisn and TOR-trypsin were inversely correlated with temperatures. The binding of TOR changed the conformational structures and internal micro-environment of pepsin and trypsin by UV-vis absorption, synchronous fluorescence, three dimensional (3D) fluorescence and circular dichroism (CD) spectroscopy. The results showed the polarity around Tyr residues of pepsin or trypsin was changed more obviously than that around Trp residues, the TOR alters the secondary structure of trypsin and pepsin and reduces the ß-sheet content of protein, which may affect its physiological function. The molecular docking results showed that TOR inserted into the active site of pepsin to interact with the catalytic residues Asp32 and Asp215, and caused a decrease in pepsin activity. TOR bound into the primary substrate-binding pocket (S1 binding pocket) of trypsin by hydrophobic forces and affected the function of trypsin by increasing its catalytic activity. Our results offer insights for the binding and toxicity mechanism of TOR with pepsin and trypsin in vivo, which provides important information for using the TOR safely.