Microeukaryotic plankton community dynamics under ecological water replenishment: Insights from eDNA metabarcoding.

Ecological water replenishment (EWR) is an important strategy for river restoration globally, but timely evaluation of its ecological effects at a large spatiotemporal scale to further adjust the EWR schemes is of great challenge. Here, we examine the impact of EWR on microeukaryotic plankton communities in three distinct river ecosystems through environmental DNA (eDNA) metabarcoding. The three ecosystems include a long-term cut-off river, a short-term connected river after EWR, and long-term connected rivers. We analyzed community stability by investigating species composition, stochastic and deterministic dynamics interplay, and ecological network robustness. We found that EWR markedly reduced the diversity and complexity of microeukaryotic plankton, altered their community dynamics, and lessened the variation within the community. Moreover, EWR disrupted the deterministic patterns of community organization, favoring dispersal constraints, and aligning with trends observed in naturally connected rivers. The shift from an isolated to a temporarily connected river appeared to transition community structuring mechanisms from deterministic to stochastic dominance, whereas, in permanently connected rivers, both forces concurrently influenced community assembly. The ecological network in temporarily connected rivers post-EWR demonstrated significantly greater stability and intricacy compared to other river systems. This shift markedly bolstered the resilience of the ecological network. The eDNA metabarcoding insights offer a novel understanding of ecosystem resilience under EWR interventions, which could be critical in assessing the effects of river restoration projects throughout their life cycle.

Network analysis of smoking-related sleep characteristics in Chinese adults.

The associations between multiple sleep characteristics and smoking behavior are inconsistent, and it is unclear which sleep characteristics are most crucial for tobacco prevention. This study aimed to explore the associations between smoking status/intensity and multiple sleep characteristics and to identify the potential core domain of smoking-related sleep using network analysis. Data were obtained from a survey of cancer-related risk factors among Chinese adults. Logistic regression models were used to quantify the associations between sleep characteristics and smoking status/intensity. Network analyses were employed to identify the core sleep characteristics. A total of 5,228 participants with a median age of 44 years old were included in the study. Current smoking was significantly positively associated with long nap time, difficulty falling asleep, late bedtime, getting up after 7 am, and waking up earlier than expected. There was significant positive association between current smoking and short sleep duration in young adults under 45 years old. Late bedtime and getting up after 7 am were only associated with current heavy smoking, but not current light smoking. Network analyses showed that multiple smoking-related sleep characteristics were interconnected, with difficulty falling asleep and late bedtime as central characteristics in the network. The study found that the associations between sleep characteristics and smoking varied by age and smoking intensity and highlights the potential benefits of sleep health promotion in smoking cessation, with a particular focus on difficulty falling asleep and late bedtime.

The relationship between physical activity and stroke in middle-aged and elderly people after controlling demography variables, health status and lifestyle variables.

The increase in the number of stroke patients in China brain has led to the decline in quality of life and the burden of family economic conditions. This study explored the relationship between stroke and physical activity (PA) in middle-aged and elderly Chinese after controlling Demography, health status and lifestyle variables, providing a new basis for the prevention and treatment of stroke in the elderly. The data is from the 2018 China Health and Retirement Longitudinal study. Five thousand seventy people over 50 years old with complete information on PA, stroke, Demography, health status and lifestyle were included in the analysis. SPSS 27.0 software was used to conduct Z test, logistic regression analysis and linear hierarchical regression analysis on the collected data. The results showed that high-level physical exercise was significantly negatively correlated with stroke (P < .05). After adjusting Demographics characteristics (gender, registered residence type, education level, age, widowhood or not), health status characteristics and living habits (arthritis, bad mood, asthma, hyperlipidemia, disability, memory disease, health self-evaluation, hypertension, smoking, depression), There was still statistical significance (P < .05) between PA and stroke. This study concludes that middle-aged and elderly people with high PA have a lower risk of stroke. In the process of preventing and improving stroke symptoms in the elderly, it is important to maintain high PA while also paying attention to health management and a healthy lifestyle.

The relationship between frailty, walking ability, and depression in elderly Chinese people.

To explore the relationship between depression symptoms, frailty, and walking ability in Chinese elderly people, and to provide new evidence for research on the prevention and treatment of depression in Chinese elderly people. The data of this study is sourced from the 2018 CHARLS data (China Health and Retirement Longitudinal Study). Z-test, logistic regression, and linear stratified regression were used to analyze the walking ability, frailty, and depressive symptoms of 2927 participants. Good walking ability and non frailty were significantly negatively correlated with depression symptoms in the elderly (P < .05). This important negative association persists even after adjusting for demographic, health condition, and lifestyle factors. (P < .05). Elderly women are at a higher risk of developing depression than men, while elderly people with good walking ability and no frailty are at a lower risk of developing depression. At the same time, elderly people with disabilities, hypertension, arthritis, and low levels of physical activity are more likely to experience depressive symptoms. It is recommended that elderly people pay attention to maintaining walking ability and avoiding frailty to reduce the risk of depression.

The effects of physical activity and exercise therapy on frail elderly depression: A narrative review.

Due to aging, decreased immune function, and an increase in various diseases, frail elderly people are prone to symptoms of depression, which may seriously affect their quality of life. Physical activity and exercise therapy have been identified as a promising method for preventing and treating depression in the elderly. This narrative review assesses the relationship between physical activity and depressive symptoms in frail elderly people, the mechanisms by which physical activity affects depressive symptoms, and the effectiveness of exercise therapy on the health status of frail elderly people. Through searches on the web of science, scopus, PubMed, and CNKI databases, there are a large number of studies on the relationship between physical activity and depression; However, few of them give us a mechanism for how physical activity affects depression. Although all progress has been made in developing appropriate exercise therapy to treat depression, the mechanisms underlying the effects of different types of exercise therapy on depression in frail elderly people have not been satisfactorily addressed, and the optimal effect of exercise therapy on depression cannot be achieved. In this way, future research should more effectively clarify the mechanism of physical activity affecting depression in frail elderly people in China, in order to understand which exercise therapy or how to formulate exercise prescriptions can make exercise therapy play the greatest role in treating depression in vulnerable elderly people in China.

The effect of Baduanjin exercise on the physical and mental health of college students: A randomized controlled trial.

BACKGROUND AND PURPOSE: Around the world, college students physical and mental health is deteriorating. Finding practical ways to enhance college students health is crucial. One of the traditional Chinese Qigong exercises is Baduanjin, which is possibly one of the most efficient workout techniques out there. However, it is unknown how Baduanjin practice may affect college students health. The purpose of this study was to evaluate the effect of Qigong Baduanjin on the physical and mental health of female college freshmen. MATERIALS AND METHODS: A total of 78 female college students were recruited and randomly divided into Baduanjin group or control group. Participants in the control group were told to keep their original habits of life and exercise. The Baduanjin exercise group received 12 weeks of Baduanjin exercise, 3 days a week and 1 hour a day. After the 12 week randomized controlled trial, the physical and mental health indexes of female students in Baduanjin group and control group were evaluated, including physical shape, physical function, physical fitness and scl-90 self-assessment scale. RESULTS: Compared with the control group, at the end of the 12 week intervention, the weight, body mass index, diastolic blood pressure, systolic blood pressure, somatization score, obsessive-compulsive disorder score, interpersonal sensitivity score, depression score, anxiety score and phobic anxiety score of Baduanjin group decreased significantly. Compared with the control group, the vital capacity, vital capacity index, Stand test, Genchi test, Stand on 1 leg with closed eyes, standing bends and squats of the Baduanjin group have been significantly improved. CONCLUSION: Compared with usual activities, Qigong Baduanjin exercise has advantages in improving female college students body shape (weight and body mass index), cardiovascular and respiratory lung function, flexibility, balance ability, muscle endurance and mental health.

The relationship between walking ability, self-rated health, and depressive symptoms in middle-aged and elderly people after controlling demographic, health status, and lifestyle variables.

The global aging problem is very serious. With the increase of age, the risk of depression in the elderly is also increasing. It is necessary to find effective strategies to reduce the depressive symptoms of the elderly. This study investigated the relationship between depressive symptoms, walking ability, and self-evaluation health of middle-aged and elderly Chinese after controlling demographic variables, health status, and lifestyle. The data is from the China health and retirement longitudinal study database in 2018. Six thousand eight hundred thirty-five people over the age of 50 have complete information on walking ability, self-assessed health status, and depressive symptoms. SPSS 27.0 software was used to conduct Z-test, logistic regression and linear hierarchical regression analysis on the collected data. The results showed that poor walking ability and poor self-evaluation health status of middle-aged and elderly people were significantly related to depression. The study concluded that middle-aged and elderly people with good walking ability and self-rated health status had a lower risk of depression. This study can provide reference for formulating specific and effective intervention measures for senile depression.

Physical activity domains and patterns with risk of depressive symptoms: A cross-sectional study in China.

BACKGROUND: The health benefits of domain-specific physical activity (PA) on depressive symptoms were inconclusive. Few studies explored PA patterns and depressive symptoms. This study aimed to investigate the associations of PA domains and patterns with depressive symptoms. METHODS: We conducted a cross-sectional study in China with 5047 adults. Latent class analysis was applied to identify the PA patterns and logistic regression analysis was used to calculate odds ratios (ORs) and 95 % confidence intervals (CIs). RESULTS: The ORs (95 % CIs) for the active versus inactive groups were 0.79 (0.69-0.91) for leisure-time PA, 0.57 (0.49-0.65) for transport PA, 0.95 (0.82-1.09) for household PA, and 1.38 (1.18-1.62) for occupational PA. We found non-linear associations between leisure-time PA, transport PA and depressive symptoms, with the lowest risk at 11 METs-h/week of leisure-time PA (equal to 147 min/week moderate PA or 88 min/week vigorous PA) and 23 METs-h/week of transport PA. There was a marginal inverse association with household PA for men while not for women. We identified four PA patterns and found a lower risk of depressive symptoms associated with "low occupational PA pattern" versus "moderate PA level pattern" (0.45 (0.38-0.52)). LIMITATIONS: Given the cross-sectional design, causality cannot be inferred. CONCLUSIONS: Our study supported an inverse association of leisure-time PA and transport PA with depressive symptoms and a positive association of occupational PA. The observed inconsistent association of household PA among men and women, and the finding that "low occupational PA pattern" was associated with a lower risk of depressive symptoms warrant further investigation.

BiGRUD-SA: Protein S-sulfenylation sites prediction based on BiGRU and self-attention.

S-sulfenylation is a vital post-translational modification (PTM) of proteins, which is an intermediate in other redox reactions and has implications for signal transduction and protein function regulation. However, there are many restrictions on the experimental identification of S-sulfenylation sites. Therefore, predicting S-sulfoylation sites by computational methods is fundamental to studying protein function and related biological mechanisms. In this paper, we propose a method named BiGRUD-SA based on bi-directional gated recurrent unit (BiGRU) and self-attention mechanism to predict protein S-sulfenylation sites. We first use AAC, BLOSUM62, AAindex, EAAC and GAAC to extract features, and do feature fusion to obtain original feature space. Next, we use SMOTE-Tomek method to handle data imbalance. Then, we input the processed data to the BiGRU and use self-attention mechanism to do further feature extraction. Finally, we input the data obtained to the deep neural networks (DNN) to identify S-sulfenylation sites. The accuracies of training set and independent test set are 96.66% and 95.91% respectively, which indicates that our method is conducive to identifying S-sulfenylation sites. Furthermore, we use a data set of S-sulfenylation sites in Arabidopsis thaliana to effectively verify the generalization ability of BiGRUD-SA method, and obtain better prediction results.

The relationship between physical activity and diabetes in middle-aged and elderly people.

To investigate the association between diabetes symptoms and physical activity (PA) levels among middle-aged and older Chinese adults. Data for this study were obtained from 2018 Charles data. Z test, logistic regression analysis, and linear hierarchical regression analysis were performed in 5352 individuals aged ≥50 years with complete information. In terms of diabetes, 6.8% of the middle-aged and elderly people with diabetes were detected, and 93.2% of the middle-aged and elderly people without diabetes symptoms. The proportion of middle-aged and elderly people with high PA levels was 50.5%, and the proportion of middle-aged and elderly people with low PA was 49.5%. There was a significant positive correlation between low PA and diabetes (P < .05). After adjusting demographic characteristics (gender, registered permanent residence type, education level, age, widowhood) and health status characteristics (poor mood, asthma, hyperlipidemia, disability, memory disease, self-assessment of health status, hypertension, smoking, stroke, depression), there was still a statistical significance between PA level and diabetes (P < .05). The risk of diabetes of middle-aged and elderly people in China increases with age, while the risk of diabetes of middle-aged and elderly people with low level of PA is higher. The risk of diabetes is high among middle-aged and elderly people who are old, have poor self-evaluation health, suffer from hyperlipidemia, memory disease, and asthma. The middle-aged and old people should increase their PA levels to prevent and improve diabetes.

A Novel Methylation Marker NRN1 plus TERT and FGFR3 Mutation Using Urine Sediment Enables the Detection of Urothelial Bladder Carcinoma.

BACKGROUND: Aberrant DNA methylation is an early event during tumorigenesis. In the present study, we aimed to construct a methylation diagnostic tool using urine sediment for the detection of urothelial bladder carcinoma, and improved the diagnostic performance of the model by incorporating single-nucleotide polymorphism (SNP) sites. METHODS: A three-stage analysis was carried out to construct the model and evaluate the diagnostic performance. In stage I, two small cohorts from Xiangya hospital were recruited to validate and identify the detailed regions of collected methylation biomarkers. In stage II, proof-of-concept study cohorts from the Hunan multicenter were recruited to construct a diagnostic tool. In stage III, a blinded cohort comprising suspicious UBC patients was recruited from Beijing single center to further test the robustness of the model. RESULTS: In stage I, single NRN1 exhibited the highest AUC compared with six other biomarkers and the Random Forest model. At the best cutoff value of 5.16, a single NRN1 biomarker gave a diagnosis with a sensitivity of 0.93 and a specificity of 0.97. In stage II, the Random Forest algorithm was applied to construct a diagnostic tool, consisting of NRN1, TERT C228T and FGFR3 p.S249C. The tool exhibited AUC values of 0.953, 0.946 and 0.951 in training, test and all cohorts. At the best cutoff value, the model resulted in a sensitivity of 0.871 and a specificity of 0.947. In stage III, the diagnostic tool achieved a good discrimination in the external validation cohort, with an overall AUC of 0.935, sensitivity of 0.864 and specificity of 0.895. Additionally, the model exhibited a superior sensitivity and comparable specificity compared with conventional cytology and FISH. CONCLUSIONS: The diagnostic tool exhibited a highly specific and robust performance. It may be used as a replaceable approach for the detection of UBC.

Environmental and Behavioral Factors in Association with Lung Function Impairment in Children Living in Wuhan, China.

Children's lung function is a significant predictor of health status throughout their lifetime. This study aims to identify the prevalence of impaired lung function in children and the potential influencing factors in elementary school children of Wuhan, China. Children of 6−12 years old were enrolled from elementary schools in Wuhan, China, in 2018, on the basis of a cross-sectional study design. Information on personal behavior patterns and household characteristics, as well as parental factors, was collected based on a questionnaire survey. Spirometry was used to measure fifteen lung function indicators. Logistic regression models were used to estimate odds ratios of prevalence of impaired lung function with regard to socioeconomic, personal behavior patterns, household, and parental factors, respectively. Four lung function indicators such as FET and EVC in urban children had higher values than in the suburban children after adjusting for confounders (p < 0.05). A higher prevalence of impaired lung function (FEV6, FEV3, EVC, and VC) was found in the children from the rural area than in those from the urban area. A sex difference in FET impairment was observed, however, no significant difference in impairment in other lung function indicators were found between girls and boys. The elevated height and weight of the children was significantly associated with an increased and decreased prevalence of impaired lung function, respectively, particularly both for FEV6, FEV3, FIVC, and FIV1. Opening windows for a longer time in summer was significantly associated with a lower prevalence of impaired FEF25 and MVV, and an extended time of opening windows in winter was significantly associated with a lower prevalence of impaired FEV6. While, opening windows for a longer time in autumn was significantly associated with higher prevalence of impaired FEV6 and FEV1/VC. Home renovations, doing physical exercise for more than 30 min per day, air pollution exposure during commuting, sleeping in own rooms, height stunting, and preterm birth were significantly associated with an increased risk of impaired lung function. Breastfeeding, having a father with a white-collar profession and with a higher education level were positively associated with the lower prevalence of impaired lung function. Impaired lung function is commonly found in school children in Wuhan, nowadays. Breastfeeding, opening windows long-term in summer and winter, higher socioeconomics, and an urban living environment were protective factors for impaired lung function. However, opening windows long-term and using air conditioning short-term in autumn, as well as home renovations, doing physical exercise for more than 30 min per day, preterm birth, height stunting, and air pollution exposure during commuting were regarded as significant risk factors for impaired lung function. Promoting breastfeeding, lengthening window opening times in winter and summer, and controlling household renovation and air pollution exposure during commuting are recommended to reduce the risk of impaired lung function in children in Wuhan.

Domestic dogs as sentinels of children lead exposure: Multi-pathway identification and source apportionment based on isotope technique.

Environmental lead exposure poses risks to children' health, thus exposure sources and pathways identification remain important concern and research scope. Due to sharing the same environment, domestic animals, especially dogs, have been used as useful sentinels to identify human lead exposure. However, more evidence is needed on whether domestic dogs could be used to identify the lead exposure pathways and sources of children. Thus, this study investigated the dietary habits, behaviors, and household environment of children and dogs in a typical coal-fired area in China. The lead levels and lead isotope ratios (Acronym: LIRs, expressed as 208Pb/206Pb and 207Pb/206Pb) in dogs' and children's blood, as well as in environmental media (food, PM2.5, indoor/outdoor dust, drinking water and soil) were measured to explore the predominant lead pollution sources and exposure pathways of children. The results showed that the LIRs of children's blood (208Pb/206Pb = 2.0703 ± 0.0076, 207Pb/206Pb = 0.8501 ± 0.0052) were similar to those of dogs' blood (208Pb/206Pb = 2.0696 ± 0.0085, 207Pb/206Pb = 0.8499 ± 0.0052), as well as similar to the LIRs of environmental media, i.e. children's food (208Pb/206Pb = 2.0731 ± 0.0057, 207Pb/206Pb = 0.8491 ± 0.0036) and coal (208Pb/206Pb = 2.0683 ± 0.017, 207Pb/206Pb = 0.8515 ± 0.01). Children and dogs had similar lead exposure pathways, but the contributions of each exposure pathway were different, i.e., 83.1% vs. 76.9% for children and dogs via food ingestion, 1.4% vs. 5.6% via particulate matter exposure, and 15.5% vs. 17.5% via household dust exposure, respectively. The contribution of food via ingestion to lead exposure remains dominant, and coal combustion is a main lead exposure source for children and domestic dogs.

Long-term Effect of Hematopoietic Stem Cell Transplantation on the Quality of Life of Patients with ß-thalassemia Major in Guangxi, China - A Cross-sectional Study.

OBJECTIVE: The purpose of our study was to compare the quality of life (QOL) of patients with hematopoietic stem cell transplantation (HSCT) for more than 2 years for ß -thalassemia major (ß-TM) with that of ß-TM patients with conventional therapy (blood infusion and iron chelation) and that of the general population. METHODS: This was a cross-sectional comparative study on the QOL of 225 ß-TM patients treated with blood transfusion and iron chelation therapy, 133 ß-TM patients who had undergone HSCT or 270 ageand sex-matched healthy individuals from Guangxi, China. Child-self and parent-proxy reports of the PedsQL 4.0 Generic Core Scales were used to prospectively evaluate QOL. RESULTS: The incidence of acute GVHD was 14.3% (grade III-IV in 4.5% of patients), and that of chronic GVHD was 3.8%. This was lower than that of previous studies since the inclusion of anti-thymocyte globulin (ATG). Patients who underwent transplantation from a voluntary donor had higher QOL scores and lower rates of acute GVHD, chronic GVHD and comorbidities than those receiving stem cell sources from an HLA mismatched related donor (haploidentical donor). Transplants with PBSCs or UCBT, PBSCT+BMT, BMT, or BMT+UCBT as stem cell sources did not have any impact on QOL. The QOL of ß-TM patients was very similar to that of the general population. More complications (P<0.001), shorter post-transplantation time (P<0.001), and older age at HSCT (P=0.01) were associated with poorer child QOL (P=0.020). Additional analyses investigating QOL of ß-TM patients receiving conventional treatment with ß-TM revealed poorer outcomes than the cohort of transplanted patients. CONCLUSION: ß-TM patients can be cured by HSCT and regain QOL as good as that of the general population. ß-TM patients are suggested to undergo HSCT as soon as possible to avoid complications related to iron overload and blood infusion.

Effects of short-term exposure to gaseous pollutants on metabolic health indicators of patients with metabolic syndrome in Northwest China.

Currently few studies have explored the relationship between exposure to gaseous pollutants and metabolic health indicators in patients, especially in patients with metabolic syndrome (Mets). This study collected 15,520 patients with Mets in a prospective cohort of nearly 50,000 people with 7 years of follow-up from 2011 to 2017, and matched air pollutants and meteorological data during the same period. The mixed effects model was used to analyze the relationship between different short exposure windows (1-week, 1-month, 2-month, and 3-month) of gaseous pollutants (SO2, NO2, and O3) and the metabolic health indicators of patients after controlled the confounding factors. Stratified analysis was performed by demographic characteristics and behavioral factors. The effects of gaseous pollutants on patients with different Met components were also analyzed. The results showed that the short-term exposure to SO2, NO2, and O3 had a certain effect on the metabolic health indicators of patients with Mets in different exposure windows, and with the extension of the exposure window period, the effects increased. The stratified analysis showed that gender, age, and life behaviors might modify these detrimental effects. In addition, the effects of gaseous pollutants on metabolic health indicators in G4 and G7 were more obvious than other Met components, and the effects of gaseous pollutants on the level of LDL-C were found to be statistically significant in most components. Therefore, patients with Mets should pay more attention to the influence of gaseous pollutants to take appropriate protection to reduce potential health risk.

The relationship between hypertension and physical activity in middle-aged and older adults controlling for demographic, chronic disease, and mental health variables.

To explore the relationship between hypertension and physical activity (PA) in the middle-aged and elderly after controlling demographic characteristics, chronic diseases and mental health variables. The 2018 China Health and Retirement Longitudinal Study (CHARLS) was used to collect the data. A baseline survey of middle-aged and older people was carried out nationally using the PPS sample method to look into their demographic, health state, and other information. The investigation included 4593 adults over 50 with complete data on PA level and hypertension prevalence. Z-test, logistic regression analysis, and linear hierarchical regression analysis were performed on the gathered data using the SPSS 27.0 program. The prevalence of hypertension among middle-aged and senior persons was 12.2%, and the percentage of those who did not have it was 87.8%. Males were more likely than females to have hypertension. Participants who reported high levels of PA made up 49.2% of the total, while those who reported low levels of PA made up 50.8% of the total. High levels of PA were significantly inversely correlated with hypertension (P < .05). There was still a statistically significant relationship between PA and hypertension (P < .05) after controlling demographic factors (gender, age, household registration type, education level, widowhood), chronic disease (arthritis, diabetes, disability, asthma, self-assessment of health, memory disease, stroke, hyperlipidemia) and mental health variables (bad mood and depression). High-level PA is significantly related to the low risk of hypertension. After controlling demographic characteristics, chronic diseases and mental health variables, this correlation is still significant.

Active meiosis during dinoflagellate blooms: A 'sex for proliferation' hypothesis.

In dinoflagellates, sexual reproduction is best known to be induced by adverse environmental conditions and culminate in encystment for survival ('sex for encystment'). Although increasing laboratory observations indicate that sex can lead to production of vegetative cells bypassing encystment, the occurrence of this alternative pathway in natural populations and its ecological roles remain poorly understood. Here we report evidence that sex in dinoflagellates can potentially be an instrument for bloom proliferation or extension. By bloom metatranscriptome profiling, we documented elevated expression of meiosis genes in two evolutionarily distinct species (Prorocentrum shikokuense and Karenia mikimotoi) during bloom, a timing unexpected of the 'sex for encystment' scenario. To link these genes to meiosis, we induced encystment and cyst germination in the cyst-forming species Scrippsiella acuminata, and found that five of these genes were upregulated during cyst germination, when meiosis occurs. Integrating data from all three species revealed that SPO11, MND1, and DMC1 were likely common between cyst-forming and non-encysting sex in dinoflagellates. Furthermore, flow cytometric analyses revealed consecutive rounds of DNA halving during blooms of P. shikokuense and K. mikimotoi, evidencing meiosis. These data provided novel evidence that sexual reproduction in dinoflagellates might serve to promote cell proliferation, and along with the consequent enhancement of genetic diversity facilitating resistance against pathogens and environmental stress, to boost or extend a bloom ('sex for proliferation'). The putative meiosis-specific genes and insights reported here will prove to be helpful for rigorously testing the hypothesis and addressing whether the two modes of sex are genetically predisposed (i.e. species-specific) or environmentally induced (switchable within species), and if the latter what triggers the switch.

Source apportionment based on lead isotope ratios: Could domestic dog's blood lead be used to identify the level and sources of lead pollution in children?

Domestic dogs have been proved to be used as "sentinel organisms" to monitor human lead exposure. However, whether dogs' blood can be used to identify the levels and pollution source of children's lead exposure still needs evidence. To evaluate the potential use of domestic dogs' blood lead as an indicator of lead exposure levels and pollution source of children, accompanying with potential environmental media samples, lead concentrations and isotope ratios (expressed as 207Pb/206Pb, 208Pb/206Pb) in blood were investigated and compared between children and dogs, who came from a Pb-Zn smelter area, a coal fired area and a control area without industrial activity. The results showed that there were significant correlations in blood lead levels (BLLs) between children and dogs in the study areas (p < 0.01). The lead isotope ratios (LIRs) in blood of children and dogs were disparate among the three areas, however, the LIRs of dogs were quite correlated with those of children in each area (p < 0.01). With the comparison of LIRs between potential pollution sources (slag, ore, coal, paint) and blood samples, the identified lead sources based on dogs' blood were found to be coincident with those based on children's blood. Ore smelting and coal combustion were the main sources of lead exposure for the dogs and children in the smelting area, and coal combustion was the predominant source for the children and dogs living in the coal burning area and control area. The results showed that dogs' BLLs might be used to estimate children's BLLs, and blood LIRs measurements of dogs' could be used as an alternative for identifying the sources of children's lead exposure. This study further provided relevant evidence for dogs to be sentinels exposed to human lead exposure and an alternative method for source apportionment of children's lead exposure.

LncRNA-mRNA integrated profiling analysis in response to white spot syndrome virus in hepatopancreas in Penaeus japonicus.

Penaeus japonicas is an important shrimp species, which is exposed to stressors including a variety of epidemic diseases. To date, little is known about the mechanisms involved in the response to white spot syndrome virus (WSSV) mediated by long non-coding RNAs (lncRNAs). A total of 6544 putative lncRNAs were identified in the hepatopancreas in P. japonicas, which provides a useful lncRNA reference resource for use in future studies. In addition, a total of 444 differentially expressed mRNAs and 457 differentially expressed lncRNAs were identified at 6, 12, and 24 h after WSSV infection in the hepatopancreas of P. japonicas. Functional enrichment analysis showed that the differentially expressed mRNAs were enriched in terms related to immune response and viral infectivity such as defense response, aminopeptidase activity, whereas the differentially expressed lncRNA partner genes were enriched in ubiquitin-dependent protein catabolic process, lipoprotein metabolic process, and antigen processing and presentation. Moreover, several lncRNAs were induced by WSSV infection, indicating these lncRNAs might participate in regulating many immune processes referring to their partner genes. Co-expression analysis of the lncRNAs and their partner genes identified some high lncRNA-mRNA correlations. These results suggest that WSSV stimulates the immune response in the hepatopancreas potentially through an important coding and non-coding gene network, thereby providing valuable information regarding non-coding responses to WSSV in Penaeus species.

Advances in plant-derived C-glycosides: Phytochemistry, bioactivities, and biotechnological production.

C-glycosides represent a large group of natural products with a C-C bond between the aglycone and the sugar moiety. They exhibit great structural diversity, wide natural distribution, and significant biological activities. By the end of 2021, at least 754 C-glycosides and their derivatives have been isolated and characterized from plants. Thus far, 66 functional C-glycosyltransferases (CGTs) have been discovered from plants, and provide green and efficient approaches to synthesize C-glycosides. Herein, advances in plant-derived C-glycosides are comprehensively summarized from aspects of structural diversity and identification, bioactivities, and biotechnological production. New strategies to discover novel C-glycosides and CGTs, as well as the applications of biotechnological methods to produce C-glycosides in the future are also discussed.