CD169+ classical monocyte as an important participant in Graves' ophthalmopathy through CXCL12-CXCR4 axis.

Patients with Graves' disease (GD) can develop Graves' ophthalmopathy (GO), but the underlying pathological mechanisms driving this development remain unclear. In our study, which included patients with GD and GO, we utilized single-cell RNA sequencing (scRNA-seq) and multiplatform analyses to investigate CD169+ classical monocytes, which secrete proinflammatory cytokines and are expanded through activated interferon signaling. We found that CD169+ clas_mono was clinically significant in predicting GO progression and prognosis, and differentiated into CD169+ macrophages that promote inflammation, adipogenesis, and fibrosis. Our murine model of early-stage GO showed that CD169+ classical monocytes accumulated in orbital tissue via the Cxcl12-Cxcr4 axis. Further studies are needed to investigate whether targeting circulating monocytes and the Cxcl12-Cxcr4 axis could alleviate GO progression.

Auxin Profiling and GmPIN Expression in Phytophthora sojae-Soybean Root Interactions.

Auxin (indole-3-acetic acid, IAA) has been implicated as a susceptibility factor in both beneficial and pathogenic molecular plant-microbe interactions. Previous studies have identified a large number of auxin-related genes underlying quantitative disease resistance loci (QDRLs) for Phytophthora sojae. Thus, we hypothesized that auxin may be involved the P. sojae-soybean interaction. The levels of IAA and related metabolites were measured in mycelia and media supernatant as well as in mock and inoculated soybean roots in a time course assay. The expression of 11 soybean Pin-formed (GmPIN) auxin efflux transporter genes was also examined. Tryptophan, an auxin precursor, was detected in the P. sojae mycelia and media supernatant. During colonization of roots, levels of IAA and related metabolites were significantly higher in both moderately resistant Conrad and moderately susceptible Sloan inoculated roots compared with mock controls at 48 h postinoculation (hpi) in one experiment and at 72 hpi in a second, with Sloan accumulating higher levels of the auxin catabolite IAA-Ala than Conrad. Additionally, one GmPIN at 24 hpi, one at 48 hpi, and three at 72 hpi had higher expression in inoculated compared with the mock control roots in Conrad. The ability of resistant cultivars to cope with auxin accumulation may play an important role in quantitative disease resistance. Levels of jasmonic acid (JA), another plant hormone associated with defense responses, were also higher in inoculated roots at these same time points, suggesting that JA also plays a role during the later stages of infection.

Seasonal nitrogen remobilization and the role of auxin transport in poplar trees.

Seasonal nitrogen (N) cycling in Populus, involves bark storage proteins (BSPs) that accumulate in bark phloem parenchyma in the autumn and decline when shoot growth resumes in the spring. Little is known about the contribution of BSPs to growth or the signals regulating N remobilization from BSPs. Knockdown of BSP accumulation via RNAi and N sink manipulations were used to understand how BSP storage influences shoot growth. Reduced accumulation of BSPs delayed bud break and reduced shoot growth following dormancy. Further, 13N tracer studies also showed that BSP accumulation is an important factor in N partitioning from senescing leaves to bark. Thus, BSP accumulation has a role in N remobilization during N partitioning both from senescing leaves to bark and from bark to expanding shoots once growth commences following dormancy. The bark transcriptome during BSP catabolism and N remobilization was enriched in genes associated with auxin transport and signaling, and manipulation of the source of auxin or auxin transport revealed a role for auxin in regulating BSP catabolism and N remobilization. Therefore, N remobilization appears to be regulated by auxin produced in expanding buds and shoots that is transported to bark where it regulates protease gene expression and BSP catabolism.

Arabidopsis phospholipase Dα1 and Dδ oppositely modulate EDS1- and SA-independent basal resistance against adapted powdery mildew.

Plants use a tightly regulated immune system to fight off various pathogens. Phospholipase D (PLD) and its product, phosphatidic acid, have been shown to influence plant immunity; however, the underlying mechanisms remain unclear. Here, we show that the Arabidopsis mutants pldα1 and pldδ, respectively, exhibited enhanced resistance and enhanced susceptibility to both well-adapted and poorly adapted powdery mildew pathogens, and a virulent oomycete pathogen, indicating that PLDα1 negatively while PLDδ positively modulates post-penetration resistance. The pldα1δ double mutant showed a similar infection phenotype to pldα1, genetically placing PLDα1 downstream of PLDδ. Detailed genetic analyses of pldδ with mutations in genes for salicylic acid (SA) synthesis (SID2) and/or signaling (EDS1 and PAD4), measurement of SA and jasmonic acid (JA) levels, and expression of their respective reporter genes indicate that PLDδ contributes to basal resistance independent of EDS1/PAD4, SA, and JAsignaling. Interestingly, while PLDα1-enhanced green fluorescent protein (eGFP) was mainly found in the tonoplast before and after haustorium invasion, PLDδ-eGFP's focal accumulation to the plasma membrane around the fungal penetration site appeared to be suppressed by adapted powdery mildew. Together, our results demonstrate that PLDα1 and PLDδ oppositely modulate basal, post-penetration resistance against powdery mildew through a non-canonical mechanism that is independent of EDS1/PAD4, SA, and JA.

Fault Diagnosis of Gearboxes Using Nonlinearity and Determinism by Generalized Hurst Exponents of Shuffle and Surrogate Data.

Vibrations of defective gearboxes show great complexities. Therefore, dynamics and noise levels of vibrations of gearboxes vary with operation of gearboxes. As a result, nonlinearity and determinism of data can serve to describe running conditions of gearboxes. However, measuring of nonlinearity and determinism of data is challenging. This paper defines a two-dimensional measure for simultaneously quantifying nonlinearity and determinism of data by comparing generalized Hurst exponents of original, shuffle and surrogate data. Afterwards, this paper proposes a novel method for fault diagnosis of gearboxes using the two-dimensional measure. Robustness of the proposed method was validated numerically by analyzing simulative signals with different noise levels. Moreover, the performance of the proposed method was benchmarked against Approximate Entropy, Sample Entropy, Permutation Entropy and Delay Vector Variance by conducting two independent gearbox experiments. The results show that the proposed method achieves superiority over the others in fault diagnosis of gearboxes.

The major leaf ferredoxin Fd2 regulates plant innate immunity in Arabidopsis.

Ferredoxins, the major distributors for electrons to various acceptor systems in plastids, contribute to redox regulation and antioxidant defence in plants. However, their function in plant immunity is not fully understood. In this study, we show that the expression of the major leaf ferredoxin gene Fd2 is suppressed by Pseudomonas syringae pv. tomato (Pst) DC3000 infection, and that knockout of Fd2 (Fd2-KO) in Arabidopsis increases the plant's susceptibility to both Pst DC3000 and Golovinomyces cichoracearum. On Pst DC3000 infection, the Fd2-KO mutant accumulates increased levels of jasmonic acid and displays compromised salicylic acid-related immune responses. Fd2-KO also shows defects in the accumulation of reactive oxygen species induced by pathogen-associated molecular pattern-triggered immunity. However, Fd2-KO shows enhanced R-protein-mediated resistance to Pst DC3000/AvrRpt2 infection, suggesting that Fd2 plays a negative role in effector-triggered immunity. Furthermore, Fd2 interacts with FIBRILLIN4 (FIB4), a harpin-binding protein localized in chloroplasts. Interestingly, Fd2, but not FIB4, localizes to stromules that extend from chloroplasts. Taken together, our results demonstrate that Fd2 plays an important role in plant immunity.

DAO1 catalyzes temporal and tissue-specific oxidative inactivation of auxin in Arabidopsis thaliana.

Tight homeostatic regulation of the phytohormone auxin [indole-3-acetic acid (IAA)] is essential to plant growth. Auxin biosynthetic pathways and the processes that inactivate auxin by conjugation to amino acids and sugars have been thoroughly characterized. However, the enzyme that catalyzes oxidation of IAA to its primary catabolite 2-oxindole-3-acetic acid (oxIAA) remains uncharacterized. Here, we show that DIOXYGENASE FOR AUXIN OXIDATION 1 (DAO1) catalyzes formation of oxIAA in vitro and in vivo and that this mechanism regulates auxin homeostasis and plant growth. Null dao1-1 mutants contain 95% less oxIAA compared with wild type, and complementation of dao1 restores wild-type oxIAA levels, indicating that DAO1 is the primary IAA oxidase in seedlings. Furthermore, dao1 loss of function plants have altered morphology, including larger cotyledons, increased lateral root density, delayed sepal opening, elongated pistils, and reduced fertility in the primary inflorescence stem. These phenotypes are tightly correlated with DAO1 spatiotemporal expression patterns as shown by DAO1pro:ß-glucuronidase (GUS) activity and DAO1pro:YFP-DAO1 signals, and transformation with DAO1pro:YFP-DAO1 complemented the mutant phenotypes. The dominant dao1-2D mutant has increased oxIAA levels and decreased stature with shorter leaves and inflorescence stems, thus supporting DAO1 IAA oxidase function in vivo. A second isoform, DAO2, is very weakly expressed in seedling root apices. Together, these data confirm that IAA oxidation by DAO1 is the principal auxin catabolic process in Arabidopsis and that localized IAA oxidation plays a role in plant morphogenesis.

Microstructure and performance of rare earth element-strengthened plasma-facing tungsten material.

Pure W and W-(2%, 5%, 10%) Lu alloys were manufactured via mechanical alloying for 20 h and a spark plasma sintering process at 1,873 K for 2 min. The effects of Lu doping on the microstructure and performance of W were investigated using various techniques. For irradiation performance analysis, thermal desorption spectroscopy (TDS) measurements were performed from room temperature to 1,000 K via infrared irradiation with a heating rate of 1 K/s after implantations of He(+) and D(+) ions. TDS measurements were conducted to investigate D retention behavior. Microhardness was dramatically enhanced, and the density initially increased and then decreased with Lu content. The D retention performance followed the same trend as the density. Second-phase particles identified as Lu2O3 particles were completely distributed over the W grain boundaries and generated an effective grain refinement. Transgranular and intergranular fracture modes were observed on the fracture surface of the sintered W-Lu samples, indicating some improvement of strength and toughness. The amount and distribution of Lu substantially affected the properties of W. Among the investigated alloy compositions, W-5%Lu exhibited the best overall performance.

The diagnostic line: A novel criterion for condition monitoring of rotating machinery.

This study examined scaling properties of an increment series from rotating machinery. Moreover, two fluctuation parameters for the smallest and largest time scales of a scaling range served as a pair of fluctuation parameters to describe system conditions. Therefore, an interesting phenomenon is observed: the data points, each representing a pair of fluctuation parameters, for fault conditions almost form a straight line, while those for normal clearly depart from the straight line. To describe the phenomenon, a novel concept termed the diagnostic line was introduced. Subsequently, properties of the diagnostic line were carefully investigated theoretically and numerically. Consequently, a decisive role of noise in forming the diagnostic line was determined. Accordingly, this study develops a novel criterion for condition monitoring of rotating machinery.

Candidate gene selection and detailed morphological evaluations of fs8.1, a quantitative trait locus controlling tomato fruit shape.

fs8.1 is a major quantitative trait locus (QTL) that controls the elongated shape of tomato (Solanum lycopersicum) fruit. In this study, we fine-mapped the locus from a 47Mb to a 3.03Mb interval on the long arm of chromosome 8. Of the 122 annotated genes found in the fs8.1 region, 51 were expressed during floral development and six were differentially expressed in anthesis-stage ovaries in fs8.1 and wild-type (WT) lines. To identify possible nucleotide polymorphisms that may underlie the fruit shape phenotype, genome sequence analyses between tomato cultivars carrying the mutant and WT allele were conducted. This led to the identification of 158 single-nucleotide polymorphisms (SNPs) and five small indels in the fs8.1 interval, including 31 that could be associated with changes in gene expression or function. Morphological and histological analyses showed that the effects of fs8.1 were mainly on reproductive organ elongation by increasing cell number in the proximal-distal direction. Fruit weight was also increased in fs8.1 compared with WT, which was predominantly attributed to the increased fruit length. By combining the findings from the different analyses, we consider 12 likely candidate genes to underlie fs8.1, including Solyc08g062580 encoding a pentatricopeptide repeat protein, Solyc08g061560 encoding a putative orthologue of ERECTA, which is known to control fruit morphology and inflorescence architecture in Arabidopsis, Solyc08g061910 encoding a GTL2-like trihelix transcription factor, Solyc08g061930 encoding a protein that regulates cytokinin degradation, and two genes, Solyc08g062340 and Solyc08g062450, encoding 17.6kDa class II small heat-shock proteins.