Multifunctional 2-bit coded reconfigurable metasurface based on graphene-vanadium dioxide.

In this paper, a graphene-vanadium dioxide-based reconfigurable metasurface unit structure is proposed. Using the change at a graphene Fermi energy level on the surface of the unit structure to satisfy the 2-bit coding condition, four reflection units with a phase difference of 90 ∘ can be discovered. The modulating impact of the multi-beam reflection wave with 1-bit coding is then confirmed. Then we study the control of a single-beam reflected wave by metasurfaces combined with a convolution theorem in a 2-bit coding mode. Finally, when vanadium dioxide is in an insulating condition, the structure can also be transformed into a terahertz absorber. It is possible to switch between a reflection beam controller and a terahertz multifrequency absorber simply by changing the temperature of the vanadium dioxide layer without retooling a new metasurface. Moreover, compared with the 1-bit coded metasurface, it increases the ability of single-beam regulation, which makes the device more powerful for beam regulation.

Review of the genus Laena Dejean, 1821 (Coleoptera, Tenebrionidae) from Gansu Province, China, with the description of a new species.

A new species of the genus Laena from Xiaolongshan in Gansu Province, China is described as Laenahuisp. nov. All Laena species known to occur in Gansu Province are reviewed, and an identification key is provided. The mitochondrial gene COI to confirm the identity of the new species, which is morphologically most similar and phylogenetically close to L.fengileana. The new species can be recognized by features of elytra and tibiae.

Mitogenomic analysis and phylogenetic relationships of Agrilinae: Insights into the evolutionary patterns of a diverse buprestid subfamily.

Agrilinae is the largest subfamily in Buprestidae, which includes the four tribes, namely Coraebini, Agrilini, Aphanisticini, and Tracheini. However, there is a need to verify the evolutionary relationships among the taxa in Buprestidae. Thus, to explore the phylogenetic position of Aphanisticini, the mitochondrial genomes of Endelus continentalis and Cantonius szechuanensis were sequenced using next-generation sequencing technology. Three other mitogenomes of agriline beetles, Agrilus discalis, Sambus kanssuensis, and Habroloma sp., were also sequenced for the phylogenetic analyses. The divergence time of Buprestidae was estimated based on the mitogenomes. The general features of the known mitogenomes of Agrilinae were compared, analyzed, and summarized. Out of these five species, S. kanssuensis had the shortest mitogenome length (15,411), while Habroloma sp. had the longest (16,273). The gene arrangement of the five new sequences was identical to that of the reported buprestid mitogenomes. The Ka/Ks ratios of Meliboeus (0.79) and Endelus (0.78) were significantly larger than those of the other agriline genera. The results of the phylogeny indicated that Aphanisticini was more closely related to Tracheini and that the genus Sambus separated from the base of the Agrilinae clade at about 130 Ma. Moreover, Aphanisticini and Tracheini diverged at around 26 Ma.

Two new species of the genus Laena (Coleoptera, Tenebrionidae, Lagriinae) from northern Sichuan in China based on morphological and molecular data.

In this study, the Laena species from northern Sichuan Province were reviewed using a combination of molecular and morphological datasets. Three molecular methods for species delimitation were firstly used in the genus Laena to explore species boundaries. The results show that the number of morphospecies and putative species using Automatic Barcode Gap Discovery (ABGD) is consistent. Based on the results, two new species are described and illustrated: Laenamounigouicasp. nov. and Laenadentithoraxasp. nov. New materials and distribution of 10 Laena species are also provided in this study. This work also provides valuable molecular data for species identification and phylogenetic analyses of the genus Laena and subfamily Lagriinae.

The complete mitochondrial genomes of four lagriine species (Coleoptera, Tenebrionidae) and phylogenetic relationships within Tenebrionidae.

It is common to use whole mitochondrial genomes to analyze phylogenetic relationships among insects. In this study, seven mitogenomes of Tenebrionidae are newly sequenced and annotated. Among them, four species (Cerogira janthinipennis (Fairmaire, 1886), Luprops yunnanus (Fairmaire, 1887), Anaedus unidentasus Wang & Ren, 2007, and Spinolyprops cribricollis Schawaller, 2012) represent the subfamily Lagriinae. In this subfamily, the mitogenomes of the tribes Goniaderini (A. unidentasus) and Lupropini (L. yunnanus and S. cribricollis) were first reported; they were found to be 15,328-16,437 bp in length and encode 37 typical mitochondrial genes (13 PCGs, 2 rRNAs, 22 tRNAs, and a single noncoding control region). Most protein-coding genes in these mitogenomes have typical ATN start codons and TAR or an incomplete stop codon T-. In these four lagriine species, F, L2, I, and N are the most frequently used amino acids. In the 13 PCGs, the gene atp8 (Pi = 0.978) was the most diverse nucleotide, while cox1 was the most conserved gene with the lowest value (Pi = 0.211). The phylogenetic results suggest that Pimelinae, Lagriinae, Blaptinae, Stenochiinae, and Alleculinae are monophyletic, Diaperinae is paraphyletic, and Tenebrioninae appears polyphyletic. In Lagriinae, the tribe Lupropini appears paraphyletic because Spinolyprops is clustered with Anaedus in Goniaderini. These mitogenomic data provide important molecular data for the phylogeny of Tenebrionidae.

Global Phosphoproteomic Analysis Reveals the Defense and Response Mechanisms of Japonica Rice under Low Nitrogen Stress.

Nitrogen-based nutrients are the main factors affecting rice growth and development. As the nitrogen (N) application rate increased, the nitrogen use efficiency (NUE) of rice decreased. Therefore, it is important to understand the molecular mechanism of rice plant morphological, physiological, and yield formation under low N conditions to improve NUE. In this study, changes in the rice morphological, physiological, and yield-related traits under low N (13.33 ppm) and control N (40.00 ppm) conditions were performed. These results show that, compared with control N conditions, photosynthesis and growth were inhibited and the carbon (C)/N and photosynthetic nitrogen use efficiency (PNUE) were enhanced under low N conditions. To understand the post-translational modification mechanism underlying the rice response to low N conditions, comparative phosphoproteomic analysis was performed, and differentially modified proteins (DMPs) were further characterized. Compared with control N conditions, a total of 258 DMPs were identified under low N conditions. The modification of proteins involved in chloroplast development, chlorophyll synthesis, photosynthesis, carbon metabolism, phytohormones, and morphology-related proteins were differentially altered, which was an important reason for changes in rice morphological, physiological, and yield-related traits. Additionally, inconsistent changes in level of transcription and protein modification, indicates that the study of phosphoproteomics under low N conditions is also important for us to better understand the adaptation mechanism of rice to low N stress. These results provide insights into global changes in the response of rice to low N stress and may facilitate the development of rice cultivars with high NUE by regulating the phosphorylation level of carbon metabolism and rice morphology-related proteins.

ClusterSeg: A crowd cluster pinpointed nucleus segmentation framework with cross-modality datasets.

The detection and segmentation of individual cells or nuclei is often involved in image analysis across a variety of biology and biomedical applications as an indispensable prerequisite. However, the ubiquitous presence of crowd clusters with morphological variations often hinders successful instance segmentation. In this paper, nuclei cluster focused annotation strategies and frameworks are proposed to overcome this challenging practical problem. Specifically, we design a nucleus segmentation framework, namely ClusterSeg, to tackle nuclei clusters, which consists of a convolutional-transformer hybrid encoder and a 2.5-path decoder for precise predictions of nuclei instance mask, contours, and clustered-edges. Additionally, an annotation-efficient clustered-edge pointed strategy pinpoints the salient and error-prone boundaries, where a partially-supervised PS-ClusterSeg is presented using ClusterSeg as the segmentation backbone. The framework is evaluated with four privately curated image sets and two public sets with characteristic severely clustered nuclei across a variety range of image modalities, e.g., microscope, cytopathology, and histopathology images. The proposed ClusterSeg and PS-ClusterSeg are modality-independent and generalizable, and superior to current state-of-the-art approaches in multiple metrics empirically. Our collected data, the elaborate annotations to both public and private set, as well the source code, are released publicly at https://github.com/lu-yizhou/ClusterSeg.

First mitochondrial genome of subfamily Julodinae (Coleoptera, Buprestidae) with its phylogenetic implications.

Complete mitochondrial genomes of three species of the family Buprestidae were sequenced, annotated, and analyzed in this study. To explore the mitogenome features of the subfamily Julodinae and verify its phylogenetic position, the complete mitogenome of Julodisvariolaris was sequenced and annotated. The complete mitogenomes of Ptosimachinensis and Chalcophorajaponica were also provided for the phylogenetic analyses within Buprestidae. Compared to the known mitogenomes of Buprestidae species varied from 15,499 bp to 16,771 bp in length, three newly sequenced mitogenomes were medium length (15,759-16,227 bp). These mitogenomes were encoded 37 typical mitochondrial genes. Among the three studied mitogenomes, Leu2 (L2), Ser2 (S2), and Pro (P) were the three most frequently encoded amino acids. Within the Buprestidae, the heterogeneity in sequence divergences of Agrilinae was highest, whereas the sequence homogeneity of Chrysochroinae was highest. Moreover, phylogenetic analyses were performed based on nucleotide matrix (13 PCGs + 2 rRNAs) among the available sequenced species of Buprestidae using Bayesian Inference and Maximum Likelihood methods. The results showed that the Julodinae was closely related to the subfamily Polycestinae. Meanwhile, the genera Melanophila, Dicerca, and Coomaniella were included in Buprestinae, which was inconsistent with the current classification system of Buprestidae. These results could contribute to further studies on genetic diversity and phylogeny of Buprestidae.

The larval, pupal and mitogenomic characteristics of Agrilusadelphinus Kerremans, 1895 (Coleoptera, Buprestidae) from China.

In this study, the larva and pupa of Agrilusadelphinus are described and illustrated. DNA barcoding (COI gene) was used to associate the larval and pupal stages with adults based on the maximum-likelihood method. In the resulting phylogenetic tree, species from the same species-group were found to be clustered on a branch with high support value. To better understand A.adelphinus, the complete mitochondrial genome of this species was also sequenced and annotated. Comparing this genome to the known mitogenomes of Agrilus species, the newly sequenced genome is shorter, with 15,732 bp. However, its whole mitogenome composition and gene orientation were consistent with that of most species of Buprestidae. In the mitogenome of A.adelphinus, the ATGATAG sequence was observed between ATP8 and ATP6, which is ATGATAA in other insect mitogenomes. Leu2, Phe, Ile, Gly, and Ser2 were the five most frequently encoded amino acids. The results further prove that DNA barcoding can remove the limitation of traditional taxonomy which cannot identify to species all developmental stages. This study also provides valuable molecular and morphological data for species identification and phylogenetic analyses of the genus Agrilus.

First Report of Complete Mitochondrial Genome in the Tribes Coomaniellini and Dicercini (Coleoptera: Buprestidae) and Phylogenetic Implications.

The complete mitochondrial genomes (mitogenomes) of the tribes Coomaniellini and Dicercini were sequenced and described in this study, including Coomaniella copipes (16,196 bp), Coomaniella dentata (16,179 bp), and Dicerca corrugata (16,276 bp). These complete mitogenomes are very similar in length and encoded 37 typical mitochondrial genes, including 22 transfer RNA genes (tRNAs), 2 ribosomal RNA genes (rRNAs) and 13 protein-coding genes (PCGs). Most of PCGs had typical ATN start codons and terminated with TAR. Among these mitogenomes, Leu2 (L2), Ile (I), Ser2 (S2), and Phe (F) were the four most frequently encoded amino acids. Moreover, phylogenetic analyses were performed based on three kinds of nucleotide matrixes (13 PCGs, 2 rRNAs, and 13 PCGs + 2 rRNAs) among the available sequenced species of the family Buprestidae using Bayesian inference and Maximum-likelihood methods. The results showed that a Chrysochroninae species interspersed in Buprestinae, and Coomaniellini is more closely related to Dicercini than Melanophilini. Moreover, the clade of Buprestidae was well separated from outgroups and the monophyly of Agrilinae is confirmed again. Our whole mitogenome phylogenetic results support that the genus Dicerca can be transferred from Chrysochroinae to Buprestinae; whether Dicercini can be completely transferred remains to be further verified after enriching samples. Our results have produced new complete mitogenomic data, which will provide information for future phylogenetic and taxonomic research.

The complete mitochondrial genomes of five Agrilinae (Coleoptera, Buprestidae) species and phylogenetic implications.

Five complete mitochondrial genomes of five species from the subfamily Agrilinae were sequenced and annotated, including Coraebusdiminutus Gebhardt, 1928 (15,499 bp), Coraebuscloueti Théry, 1893 (15,514 bp), Meliboeussinae Obenberger, 1935 (16,108 bp), Agrilussichuanus Jendek, 2011 (16,521 bp), and Sambusfemoralis Kerremans, 1892 (15,367 bp). These mitogenomes ranged from 15,367 to 16,521 bp in length and encoded 37 typical mitochondrial genes: 13 protein-coding genes (13 PCGs), 2 ribosomal RNA genes (2 rRNAs), 22 transfer RNA genes (22 tRNAs), and a control region (CR). Most of PCGs had typical ATN start codons and terminated with TAR or an incomplete stop codon T-. Among these five mitogenomes, Leu2, Ile, Phe, Ser2, Gly, Met, and Val were the seven most frequently encoded amino acids. Interestingly, in A.sichuanus, a 774 bp insertion was present at trnW and trnC junction, which is unusual in Buprestidae. Additionally, phylogenetic analyses were performed based on three kinds of nucleotide matrixes (13 PCGs, 2 rRNAs, and 13 PCGs + 2 rRNAs) using Bayesian inference and maximum-likelihood methods. The results showed that the clade of Buprestidae was well separated from outgroups and all Agrilinae species formed to a single highly supported clade. The tribe Coraebini was polyphyletic, as the genus Meliboeus (Coraebini) clustered with the genus Trachys (Tracheini). The rRNA genes had important impact for the tree topology of Agrilinae. Compared to the tribes Tracheini and Agrilini, the tribe Coraebini is a younger group.

A new species of the genus Coraebus from China (Coleoptera: Buprestidae: Agrilinae).

A new species of the genus Coraebus Gory Laporte, 1839 from Guangxi, Guangdong and Hunan in China is described and illustrated: Coraebus bimaculatus sp. nov. It is similar to C. violaceipennis Saunders, 1866, but can be easily distinguished from the latter by the elytral surface with spots, posterior margin of ventrite V distinctly concaved, elytral apices with small serrations, and parameral membrane of male terminalia with very short setae. This new species has distinct sexual dimorphism in the numbers of elytral spots and the tibiae shape.

Overestimate of remediation efficiency due to residual sodium persulfate in PAHs contaminated soil and a solution.

Oxidation remediation is a commonly used technology for PAHs contaminated soil presently, but the overestimate of efficiency due to ongoing remediation by residual oxidants during extraction and testing has not been paid enough attention. In this study, persulfate was activated by Fe(II) to investigate the effects of residual oxidants on PAHs removal during detection process and the elimination effects of adding Na2SO3 and extending sampling time on residual oxidants. Results verified that the residual oxidants removed PAHs in extraction process, making the results lower than the actual values: the detection recovery rate η of ∑PAHs and 3-6 ring PAHs ranged from 24.3% (25% Na2S2O8 treatment) to 87.4% (5% Na2S2O8+4/4Fe2+ treatment), 20.1%-99.0%, 28.9%-87.9%, 20.8%-89.4%, and 18.6%-76.9%, respectively. After adding Na2SO3, the accuracy of detection results increased significantly: the η of ∑PAHs and 3-6 ring PAHs increased to 64.1%-96.5%, 58.8%-95.5%, 73.8%-114.4%, 60.6%-95.6%, and 45.4%-77.1%, respectively. After 49 days of adding oxidants, residual oxidants had no considerable effect on the detection of PAHs, indicating it was appropriate to start soil remediation verification sampling49 days after the remediation was completed. The observed results will help scientific evaluation of the remediation effects of chemical oxidation on organic contaminated soil.

Effects of dietary supplementation with quercetagetin on nutrient digestibility, intestinal morphology, immunity, and antioxidant capacity of broilers.

Quercetagetin (QG) is gaining increased attention as a potential alternative to in-feed antioxidants due to its antioxidant activity. This experiment was conducted to investigate the effects of dietary supplementation with QG on nutrient digestibility, intestinal morphology, immunity, and antioxidant capacity of broilers. Four hundred 1-day-old Ross 308 broilers were randomly assigned into 4 groups with 10 replicates in each group and 10 broilers in each replicate. The four dietary treatments included the basal diet supplemented with 0, 3.2, 4.8, or 6.4 mg/kg QG. The results showed that dietary supplementation with QG significantly promoted the broilers' apparent digestibility of phosphorus (P < 0.05), increased the villus height in jejunum and ileum, and reduced the crypt depth in jejunum and ileum, which significantly increased the ratio of villus height to crypt depth in the jejunum and ileum (P < 0.05). The dietary supplementation with QG also significantly enhanced the immunoglobulin G (IgG) and complement 4 (C4) levels in the blood (P < 0.05), the activity of total antioxidant capacity (T-AOC) in serum, jejunum mucosa, and ileum mucosa, the activity of superoxide dismutase (SOD) in the serum and liver (P < 0.05), and significantly up-regulated the kelch-like ECH-associated protein 1 (Keap1), nuclear factor E2 related factor 2 (Nrf2), heme oxygenase-1 (HO-1), NAD(P)H: quinone oxidoreductase 1 (NQO-1), glutathione peroxidase (GSH-Px) and superoxide dismutase 1 (SOD1) mRNA expression levels in the jejunum mucosa, ileum mucosa, and liver tissues of broilers. Therefore, supplementing broilers' diets with QG can enhance the apparent digestibility of phosphorus, improve the structure and morphology of jejunum and ileum, promote immunity, and increase the activity of antioxidant enzymes and the antioxidantive capacity through the Nrf2/antioxidant response element (ARE) signaling pathway mediated by Keap1.

The complete mitochondrial genome of the jewel beetle, Anthaxia chinensis (Coleoptera: Buprestidae).

The mitogenome of Anthaxia chinensis is a typical circular DNA molecule of 15,881 bp. All protein-coding genes use ATN codons as the start codon except for ATP8 and COI. The stop codon TAA and TAG are assigned to all protein-coding genes. Most of tRNAs have the typical secondary clover-leaf structure except for tRNA-Ala, tRNA-Phe, tRNA-His, and tRNA-Ser (AGN). The length of tRNAs ranged from 63 bp to 70 bp. Genome organization and nucleotide composition of the mitogenome were also noted.

Thermal Preparation and Application of a Novel Silicon Fertilizer Using Talc and Calcium Carbonate as Starting Materials.

The deficiency of available silicon (Si) incurred by year-round agricultural and horticultural practices highlights the significance of Si fertilization for soil replenishment. This study focuses on a novel and economical route for the synthesis of Si fertilizer via the calcination method using talc and calcium carbonate (CaCO3) as starting materials. The molar ratio of talc to CaCO3 of 1:2.0, calcination temperature of 1150 °C and calcination time of 120 min were identified as the optimal conditions to maximize the available Si content of the prepared Si fertilizer. X-ray diffraction (XRD) and Fourier-transform infrared spectroscopy (FTIR) characterizations elucidate the principles of the calcination temperature-dependent microstructure evolution of Si fertilizers, and the akermanite Ca2Mg(Si2O7) and merwinite Ca3Mg(SiO4)2 were identified as the primary silicates products. The results of release and solubility experiments suggest the content of available metallic element and slow-release property of the Si fertilizer obtained at the optimum preparation condition (Si-OPC). The surface morphology and properties of Si-OPC were illuminated by the results of scanning electron microscope (SEM), surface area and nitrogen adsorption analysis. The acceleration action of CaCO3 in the decomposition process of talc was demonstrated by the thermogravimetry-differential scanning calorimetry (TG-DSC) test. The pot experiment corroborates that 5 g kg-1 soil Si-OPC application sufficed to facilitate the pakchoi growth by providing nutrient elements. This evidence indicates the prepared Si fertilizer as a promising candidate for Si-deficient soil replenishment.

A note on the larva of Chalcophora japonica chinensis (Coleoptera, Buprestidae) based on morphological characters and molecular data.

Larvae of Chalcophora japonica chinensis Schaufuss, 1879 were collected from within dead trunks in Hubei Province, China, in February 2019. These specimens created an opportunity to provide the first description of the larval stage of this subspecies; The larva is described and illustrated based on morphological characters and DNA barcoding.

Circ-MMP2 (circ-0039411) induced by FOXM1 promotes the proliferation and migration of lung adenocarcinoma cells in vitro and in vivo.

Numerous reports have stated the significance of cellular events such as proliferation, migration and EMT (epithelial-mesenchymal transition) for cancer development, but the related molecular mechanism remains elusive. FOXM1 (forkhead box transcription M1) is a nuclear co-activator participating in lung adenocarcinoma (LUAD). Thus, this study tried to explain the function of FOXM1 and its downstream molecular mechanism in LUAD. We uncovered FOXM1 upregulation in LUAD and demonstrated that FOXM1 facilitated ß-catenin nuclear translocation to activate the transcription of downstream genes. Moreover, we discovered that FOXM1 transcriptionally activated circ0039411 which derived from matrix metallopeptidase 2 (MMP2) (also named as circ-MMP2), while MMP2 is a known downstream target of ß-catenin. As for functional investigation, knockdown of circ-0039411 suppressed the proliferation, migration and EMT in LUAD cells and also hindered in vivo growth and metastasis of LUAD tumor. Mechanistically, circ-0039411 enhanced the stability of FOXM1 mRNA by recruiting IGF2BP3 (insulin like growth factor 2 mRNA binding protein 3), thus forming a positive feedback loop. In conclusion, this study revealed that FOXM1-induced circ-MMP2 (circ-0039411) contributes to malignant behaviors of LUAD cells via relying on FOXM1, potentially infusing inspirations for the search of new molecular targets for LUAD treatment.

Description of larva and pupa of Laenahaigouica (Tenebrionidae, Laenini) from China based on morphology and four DNA makers.

The larvae, pupae, and adults of Laenahaigouica Schawaller, 2001 were collected during recent fieldwork in the Sichuan Province (China). Since the pupal morphology of Laena has never been investigated this created an opportunity to provide the first description. Moreover, prior to this study larval characters of only one species, Laenastarcki Reitter, 1887, were known. Therefore, description of the larva of L.haigouica enabled the first verification of the intrageneric stability of larval characters revealed for other Laena species. Association of the studied immature stages with the adults was confirmed by analysing COI sequences. Additionally, three other loci (16S, Cytb, 28S) were sequenced for L.haigouica during this study.

Downregulating microRNA-144 mediates a metabolic shift in lung cancer cells by regulating GLUT1 expression.

Lung cancer is the leading cause of cancer-associated mortality worldwide. Increasing evidence has found that cancer metabolism alternations represent a critical hallmark for lung cancer. There is an urgent requirement to understand and dissect the molecular mechanisms underlying cancer metabolism for lung cancer therapy. It remains largely unknown whether the deregulation of miRNAs contributes to the cancer metabolism. The present study aimed to investigate the role of miR-144 in lung cancer. Glucose uptake rate and lactate production assays demonstrated that miR-144 expression is decreased and therefore enhances the aerobic metabolism in lung cancer cells. In addition, western blot analysis revealed that miR-144 performs this function by increasing the expression of glucose transporter 1 (GLUT1), leading to an increase in glucose uptake and lactate production. Furthermore, cell viability assays demonstrated that the altered metabolism induced by miR-144 results in the rapid growth of cancer cells. In conclusion, these results identify miR-144 as a molecular switch involved in the orchestration of the Warburg effect in lung cancer cells via targeting the expression of GLUT1.