Genome-Wide Identification of NAC Gene Family and Expression Analysis under Abiotic Stresses in Avena sativa.

In this study, a total of 177 NAC members were identified in Avena sativa, located on 21 chromosomes. Phylogenetic analysis showed that AsNAC proteins could be divided into seven subfamilies (I-VII), and that proteins in the same subfamily have similar protein motifs. Gene structure analysis found that NAC introns ranged from 1 to 17. Cis-element analysis of the promoter indicated that the gene family may have stress-related elements and growth regulation elements. Through qRT-PCR experiments, we speculated that AsNACs genes can respond to abiotic stresses such as cold, freezing, salt, and saline alkali. This study provides a theoretical basis for further exploring the function of the NAC gene family in A. sativa.

A Kinetic Model for the Generation and Annihilation of Thermally Induced Carrier Donors in a Semiconducting Metal-Oxide Thin Film.

Based on a kinetic model involving oxidant diffusion and an oxidation-reduction reaction, a 3-parameter equation is derived relating the change in the concentration of thermally induced carrier donors in common metal-oxide semiconductors (such as indium-gallium-zinc oxide and indium-tin-zinc oxide) to heat-treatment time. The change in the concentration of such donors is characterized by measuring the shift in the turn-on voltage of a thin-film transistor subjected to heat treatments in different atmospheres for different durations. The model parameters are extracted using optimal curve-fitting techniques, leading to the determination of relevant activation energies from the temperature dependence of the extracted parameters. The proposed model is found to be applicable to metal-oxide semiconductors of different compositions. It is discovered that the generation of donors in a non-oxidizing atmosphere is largely suppressed at a temperature below 250 °C, but the effective annihilation of the donors spans over a wider temperature range in an oxidizing atmosphere.

Advances and trends in microbial production of polyhydroxyalkanoates and their building blocks.

With the rapid development of synthetic biology, a variety of biopolymers can be obtained by recombinant microorganisms. Polyhydroxyalkanoates (PHA) is one of the most popular one with promising material properties, such as biodegradability and biocompatibility against the petrol-based plastics. This study reviews the recent studies focusing on the microbial synthesis of PHA, including chassis engineering, pathways engineering for various substrates utilization and PHA monomer synthesis, and PHA synthase modification. In particular, advances in metabolic engineering of dominant workhorses, for example Halomonas, Ralstonia eutropha, Escherichia coli and Pseudomonas, with outstanding PHA accumulation capability, were summarized and discussed, providing a full landscape of diverse PHA biosynthesis. Meanwhile, we also introduced the recent efforts focusing on structural analysis and mutagenesis of PHA synthase, which significantly determines the polymerization activity of varied monomer structures and PHA molecular weight. Besides, perspectives and solutions were thus proposed for achieving scale-up PHA of low cost with customized material property in the coming future.

Microfluidic synthesis as a new route to produce novel functional materials.

By geometrically constraining fluids into the sub-millimeter scale, microfluidics offers a physical environment largely different from the macroscopic world, as a result of the significantly enhanced surface effects. This environment is characterized by laminar flow and inertial particle behavior, short diffusion distance, and largely enhanced heat exchange. The recent two decades have witnessed the rapid advances of microfluidic technologies in various fields such as biotechnology; analytical science; and diagnostics; as well as physical, chemical, and biological research. On the other hand, one additional field is still emerging. With the advances in nanomaterial and soft matter research, there have been some reports of the advantages discovered during attempts to synthesize these materials on microfluidic chips. As the formation of nanomaterials and soft matters is sensitive to the environment where the building blocks are fed, the unique physical environment of microfluidics and the effectiveness in coupling with other force fields open up a lot of possibilities to form new products as compared to conventional bulk synthesis. This Perspective summarizes the recent progress in producing novel functional materials using microfluidics, such as generating particles with narrow and controlled size distribution, structured hybrid materials, and particles with new structures, completing reactions with a quicker rate and new reaction routes and enabling more effective and efficient control on reactions. Finally, the trend of future development in this field is also discussed.

Analysis of Molecular Mechanism of YiqiChutan Formula Regulating DLL4-Notch Signaling to Inhibit Angiogenesis in Lung Cancer.

In order to explore the specific mechanism of YiqiChutan formula (YQCTF) in inhibiting the angiogenesis of lung cancer and its relationship with delta-like ligand 4- (DLL4-) Notch signaling, 30 healthy BALB/c-nu/nu rats were selected and divided into three groups: A549 group (implanted with lung adenocarcinoma cell line A549), NCI-H460 group (implanted with human lung large-cell carcinoma cell line NCI-H460), and NCI-H446 group (implanted with human lung small cell carcinoma cell line NCI-H446) for constructing lung cancer transplanted tumor models. After modeling, the group treated with normal saline was taken as control group, 200 mg/kg of YQCTF was adopted for intervention, and the tumor volume and growth inhibition rate were compared with the vascular targeted inhibitor Sorafenib. HE staining, CD31 fluorescent antibody staining, and microelectron microscopy were adopted to observe the neovascular endothelial cells of the transplanted tumor. The expression of VEGF, HIF-1α, DLL4, and Notch-1 in the transplanted tumors in each group was detected by Western blot and RT-PCR at the protein level or mRNA level. Compared with the control group, the YQCTF-treated group had obvious inhibitory effect on lung cancer transplanted tumor and lung cancer angiogenesis. In the YQCTF-treated group, the density of angiogenesis decreased significantly and the vascular lumen structure also decreased, and the expression levels of VEGF, HIF-1α, DLL4, and Notch-1 in the YQCTF-treated group were all lower than those in the control group. YQCTF could inhibit the growth of lung cancer transplanted tumor through antiangiogenesis, and it could also reduce the amount of angiogenesis in lung cancer transplanted tumor. In addition, the generation of lumen structure was also hindered, which was realized through the VEGF signaling pathway and DLL4-Notch signaling pathway.

Construction and analysis of a competing endogenous RNA network to reveal potential prognostic biomarkers for Oral Floor Squamous Cell Carcinoma.

BACKGROUND: Patients diagnosed with Oral Floor Squamous Cell Carcinoma (OFSCC) face considerable challenges in physiology and psychology. This study explored prognostic signatures to predict prognosis in OFSCC through a detailed transcriptomic analysis. METHOD: We built an interactive competing endogenous RNA (ceRNA) network that included lncRNAs, miRNAs and mRNAs. Gene Ontology (GO) and Kyoto Encyclopedia of Genes and Genomes (KEGG) were used to predict the gene functions and regulatory pathways of mRNAs. Least absolute shrinkage and selection operator algorithm (LASSO) analysis and Cox regression analysis were used to screen prognosis factors. The Kaplan-Meier method was used to analyze the survival rate of prognosis factors. Risk score was used to assess the reliability of the prediction model. RESULTS: A specific ceRNA network consisting of 56 mRNAs, 16 miRNAs and 31 lncRNAs was established. Three key genes (HOXC13, TGFBR3, KLHL40) and 4 clinical factors (age, gender, TNM, and clinical stage) were identified and effectively predicted the for survival time. The expression of a gene signature was validated in two external validation cohorts. The signature (areas under the curve of 3 and 5 years were 0.977 and 0.982, respectively) showed high prognostic accuracy in the complete TCGA cohort. CONCLUSIONS: Our study successfully developed an extensive ceRNA network for OFSCC and further identified a 3-mRNA and 4-clinical-factor signature, which may serve as a biomarker.

Quality of primary health care in China: challenges and recommendations.

China has substantially increased financial investment and introduced favourable policies for strengthening its primary health care system with core responsibilities in preventing and managing chronic diseases such as hypertension and emerging infectious diseases such as coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19). However, widespread gaps in the quality of primary health care still exist. In this Review, we aim to identify the causes for this poor quality, and provide policy recommendations. System challenges include: the suboptimal education and training of primary health-care practitioners, a fee-for-service payment system that incentivises testing and treatments over prevention, fragmentation of clinical care and public health service, and insufficient continuity of care throughout the entire health-care system. The following recommendations merit consideration: (1) enhancement of the quality of training for primary health-care physicians, (2) establishment of performance accountability to incentivise high-quality and high-value care; (3) integration of clinical care with the basic public health services, and (4) strengthening of the coordination between primary health-care institutions and hospitals. Additionally, China should consider modernising its primary health-care system through the establishment of a learning health system built on digital data and innovative technologies.

The failure experience of complex total hip arthroplastyin osteopetrosis: case report and literature review.

There is rare literature elaborating the complex total hip arthroplasty (THA) in patients with osteopetrosis who experienced malunion from femoral neck fracture. We have summarized the failure experience of the complex THA in osteopetrosis. Learned from the resurgery in the case reported by this paper, we recommend to highlight the initial stability of the prosthesis and not to overestimate the potency of fracture healing in the complex THA in osteopetrosis.

Label-free high-throughput functional lytic assays.

Refractive index-sensitive resonant waveguide grating biosensors are used to assay the label-free enzymatic degradation of biomolecules. These assays provide a robust means of screening for functional lytic modulators. The biomolecular substrates in this study were covalently immobilized through amine groups. Using the Corning Epic System, the digestion signatures for multiple protein substrates on the biosensors are measured. Label-free digestion profiles for these proteins were substrate specific. Similarly, the authors find that the label-free digestion is protease specific. Enzyme-substrate pairs were used to evaluate high- throughput biosensors as tools for screening functional modulators. The lytic inhibitor properties for several proteases and dextranase are determined. The authors find that the IC50 values for the protease inhibitors agree with the reported values for several known inhibitors. The Z' values, using biosensor-based functional lytic screens, were routinely greater than 0.5, making this label-free application feasible for high-throughput screening.

Reduction of autofluorescence on DNA microarrays and slide surfaces by treatment with sodium borohydride.

Microarray technology is currently being used extensively in functional genomics research and modern drug discovery and development. Henceforward, tremendous application potential for this technology exists in the fields of clinical diagnostics and prognostics, pathology, and toxicology for high-throughput analysis of "disease" gene expression. However, the major hurdle now in this technology is not the performance of the arrays but rather the efficient reproducibility of the hybridization signal intensity in a fluorescence-based analysis. The sensitivity of fluorescence detection on an array is to a large extent limited by the amount of background signal arising due to nonspecifically bound probes and fluorescence that is intrinsically associated with the chip substrate and/or the attached target DNA, the so-called autofluorescence. Here, we describe a simple and efficient method to reduce autofluorescence from undetermined sources on coated glass slides with and without DNA arrays. This sodium borohydride-mediated reduction process resulted in significantly lower and more even background fluorescence. This in turn extended the dynamic range of detection and reduced the average coefficient of variation of fluorescent signal ratios on DNA microarrays in addition to improving the detection of genes that are expressed at a low level.

High-sensitivity detection of DNA hybridization on microarrays using resonance light scattering.

The application of resonance light scattering (RLS) particles for high-sensitivity detection of DNA hybridization on cDNA microarrays is demonstrated. Arrays composed of approximately 2000 human genes ("targets") were hybridized with colabeled (Cy3 and biotin) human lung cDNA probes at concentrations ranging from 8.3 ng/microL to 16.7 pg/microL. After hybridization, the arrays were imaged using a fluorescence scanner. The arrays were then treated with 80-nm-diameter gold RLS Particles coated with anti-biotin antibodies and imaged in a white light, CCD-based imaging system. At low probe concentrations, significantly more genes were detected by RLS compared to labeling by Cy3. For example, for hybridizations with a probe concentration of 83.3 pg/microL, approximately 1150 positive genes were detected using RLS compared to approximately 110 positive genes detected with Cy3. In a differential gene expression experiment using human lung and leukemia RNA samples, similar differential expression profiles were obtained for labeling by RLS and fluorescence technologies. The use of RLS Particles is particularly attractive for detection and identification of low-abundance mRNAs and for those applications in which the amount of sample is limited.