Identification of the accessible chromatin regions in six tissues in the soybean.

Accessible chromatin regions (ACRs) are tightly associated with gene expressions in the genome. Conserved non-coding cis-regulatory elements, such as transcription factor binding motifs, are usually found in ACRs, indicating an essential regulatory role of ACRs in the plant genome architecture. However, there have been few studies on soybean ACRs, especially those focusing on specific tissues. Hence, in this study, with the convenient ATAC-seq, we identified the ACRs in six soybean tissues, including root, leaf bud, flower, flower bud, developing seed, and pod. In total, the ACRs occupied about 3.3% of the entire soybean genome. By integrating the results from RNA-seq and transcription factor (TF) ChIP-seq, ACRs were found to be tightly associated with gene expressions and TF binding capacities in soybean. Together, these data provide a comprehensive understanding of the genomic features of ACRs in soybean. As a collection of essential genomic resources, these processed data are made available at datahub.wildsoydb.org.

Facile strategy by hyaluronic acid functional carbon dot-doxorubicin nanoparticles for CD44 targeted drug delivery and enhanced breast cancer therapy.

A facile approach was developed to synthesize an innovative hyaluronic acid-modified carbon dot-doxorubicin nanoparticles drug delivery platform. CD44 targeted HA-modified carbon dots (HA-CDs) were synthesized as carrier by one-step hydrothermal treatment within one hour with citric acid and branch-PEI as core carbon source. HA not only functioned as carbon dot component but also as hydrophilic group and targeting ligand of this system. The as-prepared HA-CDs were then loaded with doxorubicin (HA-CD@p-CBA-DOX) via an acid-cleavable bond, which released drug in a pH-responsive manner. In in vitro experiments, HA-CD@p-CBA-DOX displayed good hemocompatibility and serum stability, while exhibited high cytotoxicity on 4T1 cells. The confocal laser scanning microscopy and flow cytometry results demonstrated that DOX-loaded nanoparticles were internalized by 4T1 cells via HA-mediated CD44-targeting effect. The enhanced in vivo tumor accumulation of HA-CD@p-CBA-DOX was testified by live imaging. Compared with free DOX, superior in vivo anti-tumor efficacy of HA-CD@p-CBA-DOX was observed in both heterotopic and orthotopic 4T1 cell tumor models. Furthermore, blood hematology and blood biochemistry analysis demonstrated that HA-CD@p-CBA-DOX did not induce noticeable toxicity, which further confirmed the good biocompatibility of HA-CD@p-CBA-DOX. The formulated HA-CD@p-CBA-DOX provides an alternative strategy for targeted breast cancer therapy.

HLA linked with leprosy in Southern China; HLA-linked resistance alleles to leprosy

According to the World Health Organization recommended multidrug therapy (WHO/MDT), we have carried out this study to investigate the presence of HLA-linked susceptibility or resistance to leprosy in a southern Chinese population. Sixty-nine leprosy patients and 112 healthy controls participated in the study. HLA-DR2 subtypes, HLA-B and MHC Class I chain-related A (MICA) alleles were typed at the DNA level using the polymerase chain reaction-single strand conformation polymorphism method. The frequencies of HLA-DR2-DRB1 alleles did not show any significant differences between the patient and the control groups, suggesting that the disease susceptibility was not associated with the DR2 subtypes in this southern Chinese population. On the other hand, in the multibacillary (MB) patients significantly decreased allele frequencies of HLA-B46 (0.040 in MB patients vs 0.129 in controls) and MICA-A5 (0.200 vs 0.380) were observed compared with the healthy controls. The calculated relative risk (RR) for B46 was 0.28; for MICA-A5, 0.52. In addition, on haplotype analysis the frequency of the HLA-B46/MICA-A5 haplotype was significantly decreased in the MB patients compared to controls (0.060 vs 0.233, RR = 0.22, p < 0.01). These results suggest that an HLA-linked disease-resistant gene to MB leprosy in southern China is in strong linkage disequilibrium with the HLA-B46/MICA-A5 haplotype. In other words, the resistant gene may be located near the HLA-B/MICA region and not in the HLA-DR locus.