Precise Determination of Selenium Forms and Contents in Selenium-Enriched Rapeseed Seedlings and Flowering Stalks by HPLC-ICP-MS.

Rapeseed (Brassica napus L.) has the ability of selenium (Se) enrichment. Identification of selenides in Se-rich rapeseed products will promote the development and utilization of high value. By optimizing the Se species extraction process (protease type, extraction reagent, enzyme sample ratio, extraction time, etc.) and chromatographic column, an efficient, stable, and accurate method was established for the identification of Se species and content in rapeseed seedlings and flowering stalks, which were cultured by inorganic Se hydroponics. Five Se compounds, including selenocystine (SeCys2), methylselenocysteine (MeSeCys), selenomethionine (SeMet), selenite (SeIV), and selenate (SeVI) were qualitatively and quantitatively identified. Organoselenium was absolutely dominant in both seedlings and flowering stalks among the detected rapeseed varieties, with 64.18-90.20% and 94.38-98.47%, respectively. Further, MeSeCys, a highly active selenide, predominated in rapeseed flowering stalks with a proportion of 56.36-72.93% and a content of 1707.3-5030.3 µg/kg. This study provides a new source of MeSeCys supplementation for human Se fortification.

Increasing Sufu gene dosage reveals its unorthodox role in promoting polydactyly and medulloblastoma tumorigenesis.

Suppressor of fused (SUFU) is widely regarded as a key negative regulator of the sonic hedgehog (SHH) morphogenic pathway and a known tumor suppressor of medulloblastoma (MB). However, we report here that SUFU expression was markedly increased in 75% of specimens compiled in a tissue array comprising 49 unstratified MBs. The SUFU and GLI1 expression levels in this MB array showed strong positive correlation, which was also identified in a large public data set containing 736 MBs. We further report that increasing Sufu gene dosage in mice caused preaxial polydactyly, which was associated with the expansion of the Gli3 domain in the anterior limb bud and heightened Shh signaling responses during embryonic development. Increasing Sufu gene dosage also led to accelerated cerebellar development and, when combined with ablation of the Shh receptor encoded by Patched1 (Ptch1), promoted MB tumorigenesis. These data reveal multifaceted roles of SUFU in promoting MB tumorigenesis by enhancing SHH signaling. This revelation clarifies potentially counterintuitive clinical observation of high SUFU expression in MBs and may pave way for novel strategies to reduce or reverse MB progression.

A dataset of tomato fruits images for object detection in the complex lighting environment of plant factories.

Plant factories are an advanced form of facility agriculture that enable efficient plant cultivation through controllable environmental conditions, making them highly suitable for the automation and intelligent application of machinery. Tomato cultivation in plant factories has significant economic and agricultural value and can be utilized for various applications such as seedling cultivation, breeding, and genetic engineering. However, manual completion is still required for operations such as detection, counting, and classification of tomato fruits, and the application of machine detection is currently inefficient. Furthermore, research on the automation of tomato harvesting in plant factory environments is limited due to the lack of a suitable dataset. To address this issue, a tomato fruit dataset was constructed for plant factory environments, named as TomatoPlantfactoryDataset, which can be quickly applied to multiple tasks, including the detection of control systems, harvesting robots, yield estimation, and rapid classification and statistics. This dataset features a micro tomato variety and was captured under different artificial lighting conditions, including changes in tomato fruit, complex lighting environment changes, distance changes, occlusion, and blurring. By facilitating the intelligent application of plant factories and the widespread adoption of tomato planting machinery, this dataset can contribute to the detection of intelligent control systems, operation robots, and fruit maturity and yield estimation. The dataset is publicly available for free and can be utilized for research and communication purposes.

Spontaneous fracture of a titanium mesh cranioplasty implant in a child: A case report.

BACKGROUND: Titanium mesh cranioplasty is often performed after decompressive craniectomy. Spontaneous fracture of the titanium prosthesis is an extremely rare postoperative complication. Here, we report a 10-year-old boy who presented with a spontaneous fracture of titanium mesh without antecedent head trauma. CASE SUMMARY: A 10-year-old boy presented with a 1-wk history of a tender bulge over the left temporo-parieto-occipital scalp. He had undergone a temporo-parieto-occipital titanium mesh cranioplasty 26 mo previously. He denied antecedent head trauma. Computerized tomography disclosed a perpendicular fissure in the titanium mesh, suggesting a diagnosis of spontaneous titanium mesh fracture. He underwent a second temporo-parieto-occipital cranioplasty and made an uneventful recovery. Three-dimensional modeling and finite element analyses were used to explore potential risk factors of titanium mesh fracture. CONCLUSION: We report a case of spontaneous fracture of a titanium mesh cranioplasty implant. The current case and literature review indicate that titanium mesh implants should be well-anchored to the base of bony defects to prevent fatigue-induced fractures.

Biochemical effects of venlafaxine on astrocytes as revealed by 1H NMR-based metabolic profiling.

As a serotonin-norepinephrine reuptake inhibitor [SNRI], venlafaxine is one of the most commonly prescribed clinical antidepressants, with a broad range of antidepressant effects. Accumulating evidence shows that venlafaxine may target astrocytes to exert its antidepressant activity, although the underlying pharmacological mechanisms remained largely unknown. Here, we used a 1H nuclear magnetic resonance (NMR)-based metabonomics method coupled with multivariate statistical analysis to characterize the metabolic profiling of astrocytes treated with venlafaxine to explore the potential mechanism of its antidepressant effect. In total, 31 differential metabolites involved in energy, amino acid and lipid metabolism were identified. Ingenuity pathway analysis was used to identify the predicted pathways and biological functions with venlafaxine and fluoxetine. The most significantly altered network was "amino acid metabolism, cellular growth and proliferation", with a score above 20. Certain metabolites (lysine, tyrosine, glutamate, methionine, ethanolamine, fructose-6-phosphate, and phosphorylethanolamine) are involved in and play a central role in this network. Collectively, the biological effects of venlafaxine on astrocytes provide us with the further understanding of the mechanisms by which venlafaxine treats major depressive disorder.

Seed structure characteristics to form ultrahigh oil content in rapeseed.

BACKGROUND: Rapeseed (Brassica napus L.) is an important oil crop in the world, and increasing its oil content is a major breeding goal. The studies on seed structure and characteristics of different oil content rapeseed could help us to understand the biological mechanism of lipid accumulation, and be helpful for rapeseed breeding. METHODOLOGY/PRINCIPAL FINDINGS: Here we report on the seed ultrastructure of an ultrahigh oil content rapeseed line YN171, whose oil content is 64.8%, and compared with other high and low oil content rapeseed lines. The results indicated that the cytoplasms of cotyledon, radicle, and aleuronic cells were completely filled with oil and protein bodies, and YN171 had a high oil body organelle to cell area ratio for all cell types. In the cotyledon cells, oil body organelles comprised 81% of the total cell area in YN171, but only 53 to 58% in three high oil content lines and 33 to 38% in three low oil content lines. The high oil body organelle to cotyledon cell area ratio and the cotyledon ratio in seed were the main reasons for the ultrahigh oil content of YN171. The correlation analysis indicated that oil content is significantly negatively correlated with protein content, but is not correlated with fatty acid composition. CONCLUSIONS/SIGNIFICANCE: Our results indicate that the oil content of YN171 could be enhanced by increasing the oil body organelle to cell ratio for some cell types. The oil body organelle to seed ratio significantly highly positively correlates with oil content, and could be used to predict seed oil content. Based on the structural analysis of different oil content rapeseed lines, we estimate the maximum of rapeseed oil content could reach 75%. Our results will help us to screen and identify high oil content lines in rapeseed breeding.

The BnGRF2 gene (GRF2-like gene from Brassica napus) enhances seed oil production through regulating cell number and plant photosynthesis.

Seed yield and oil content are two important agricultural characteristics in oil crop breeding, and a lot of functional gene research is being concentrated on increasing these factors. In this study, by differential gene expression analyses between rapeseed lines (zy036 and 51070) which exhibit different levels of seed oil production, BnGRF2 (Brassica napus growth-regulating factor 2-like gene) was identified in the high oil-producing line zy036. To elucidate the possible roles of BnGRF2 in seed oil production, the cDNA sequences of the rapeseed GRF2 gene were isolated. The Blastn result showed that rapeseed contained BnGRF2a/2b which were located in the A genome (A1 and A3) and C genome (C1 and C6), respectively, and the dominantly expressed gene BnGRF2a was chosen for transgenic research. Analysis of 35S-BnGRF2a transgenic Arabidopsis showed that overexpressed BnGRF2a resulted in an increase in seed oil production of >50%. Moreover, BnGRF2a also induced a >20% enlargement in extended leaves and >40% improvement in photosynthetic efficiency because of an increase in the chlorophyll content. Furthermore, transcriptome analyses indicated that some genes associated with cell proliferation, photosynthesis, and oil synthesis were up-regulated, which revealed that cell number and plant photosynthesis contributed to the increased seed weight and oil content. Because of less efficient self-fertilization induced by the longer pistil in the 35S-BnGRF2a transgenic line, Napin-BnGRF2a transgenic lines were further used to identify the function of BnGRF2, and the results showed that seed oil production also could increase >40% compared with the wild-type control. The results suggest that improvement to economically important characteristics in oil crops may be achieved by manipulation of the GRF2 expression level.

Maternal control of seed oil content in Brassica napus: the role of silique wall photosynthesis.

Seed oil content is an important agronomic trait in rapeseed. However, our understanding of the regulatory processes controlling oil accumulation is still limited. Using two rapeseed lines (zy036 and 51070) with contrasting oil content, we found that maternal genotype greatly affects seed oil content. Genetic and physiological evidence indicated that difference in the local and tissue-specific photosynthetic activity in the silique wall (a maternal tissue) was responsible for the different seed oil contents. This effect was mimicked by in planta manipulation of silique wall photosynthesis. Furthermore, the starch content and expression of the important lipid synthesis regulatory gene WRINKLED1 in developing seeds were linked with silique wall photosynthetic activity. 454 pyrosequencing was performed to explore the possible molecular mechanism for the difference in silique wall photosynthesis between zy036 and 51070. Interestingly, the results suggested that photosynthesis-related genes were over-represented in both total silique wall expressed genes and genes that were differentially expressed between genotypes. A potential regulatory mechanism for elevated photosynthesis in the zy036 silique wall is proposed on the basis of knowledge from Arabidopsis. Differentially expressed ribulose-1,5-bisphosphate carboxylase/oxygenase (Rubisco)-related genes were used for further investigations. Oil content correlated closely with BnRBCS1A expression levels and Rubisco activities in the silique wall, but not in the leaf. Taken together, our results highlight an important role of silique wall photosynthesis in the regulation of seed oil content in terms of maternal effects.

Quantitative determination of oil content in small quantity of oilseed rape by ultrasound-assisted extraction combined with gas chromatography.

Accurately quantitative determination of oil content in oilseed rape plays an important role in varieties breeding for improving oil content in seeds. However, large quantity of oilseeds were needed in order to obtain accuracy and precision results by using standard Soxhlet extraction method, which may be a handicap in analysis of small, rare and precious samples in plant breeding. In the present work, ultrasound-assisted extraction was evaluated as a simpler and more effective alternative to conventional extraction method for the isolation of oil from small quantity of oilseed rape (<20 mg). The oil of oilseed rape samples was extracted by ultrasound-assisted method, and then the fatty acids and total oil content of the seeds were qualitatively and quantitatively determined by gas chromatography (GC). Extraction efficiency of total oil obtained by ultrasound-assisted extraction through an orthogonal experiment (L(9) (3(4))) were investigated to get the best extraction conditions. Statistical analysis showed that the variable with the largest effect was the ultrasound-assisted extraction time which was followed by the ultrasound-assisted extraction power, and the liquid:solid ratio. A liquid:solid ratio of 1:4 (L:g), an ultrasound-assisted extraction time of 60 min and an ultrasound-assisted extraction power of 500 W were found to be optimal for oil extraction from oilseed rape. By comparing with the conventional method, it was found that the ultrasound-assisted extraction of oil from oilseed rape was about five times faster than the traditional extraction method. By the use of ultrasound-assisted extraction combined with GC analysis, the fatty acids and total oil content in small quantity of seeds (<20 mg) were successfully qualitatively determined and the results are in agreement with that obtained by traditional standard method.