An arginine-to-histidine mutation in flavanone-3-hydroxylase results in pink strawberry fruits.

Fruit color is a very important external commodity factor for consumers. Compared to the most typical red octoploid strawberry (Fragaria × ananassa), the pink strawberry often sells for a more expensive price and has a higher economic benefit due to its outstanding color. However, few studies have examined the molecular basis of pink-colored strawberry fruit. Through an EMS mutagenesis of woodland strawberry (Fragaria vesca), we identified a mutant with pink fruits and green petioles. Bulked-segregant analysis sequencing analysis and gene function verification confirmed that the responsible mutation resides in a gene encoding flavanone-3-hydroxylase (F3H) in the anthocyanin synthesis pathway. This nonsynonymous mutation results in an arginine-to-histidine change at position 130 of F3H. Molecular docking experiments showed that the arginine-to-histidine mutation results in a reduction of intermolecular force-hydrogen bonding between the F3H protein and its substrates. Enzymatic experiments showed a greatly reduced ability of the mutated F3H protein to catalyze the conversion of the substrates and hence a blockage of the anthocyanin synthesis pathway. The discovery of a key residue in the F3H gene controlling anthocyanin synthesis provides a clear target of modification for the molecular breeding of strawberry varieties with pink-colored fruits, which may be of great commercial value.

The influence of 'deliberate' implementation intention on medical students' risk decision task outcomes.

Implementation intention is a kind of behaviour choice strategy in which individuals adopt specific and definite behaviour patterns to achieve behavioural goals. The standard form is 'if something happens, then I will do something'. Previous studies have shown that implementation intention strategy is a fast and effective mental skill with notable advantages. However, adding the requirement of 'deliberate' to the implementation plan will increase the probability of decision adjustment to a certain extent. In this study, the classic Balloon Analogue Risk Task (BART) was selected as the evaluation index of risk decision-making, and the 'deliberate' implementation intention was adopted to explore the impact of this behavioural strategy on risk selection. The recruited medical students were divided into two groups: the implementation intention group (n = 37) and the control group (n = 34). The baseline assessment for the BART was performed by all participants, and the intensive training of 'deliberate' implementation intention to 'make as much money as possible' was conducted before the post-test decision-making after one week. The adjusted BART (adj BART) value and AvgIncome were significantly higher than those at baseline in the implementation intention group(adj BART value: baseline 12.63 ± 2.90, post-test: 14.78 ± 2.66, F = 15.978, p < 0.001, η 2 = 0.307; AvgIncome: baseline 12.43 ± 2.56, post-test 15.00 ± 2.57, F = 20.953, p < 0.001, η 2 = 0.368). The mixed-model ANOVAs showed that there was a significant interaction between test time and group (adj BART value: F = 4.859, p = 0.031, η 2 = 0.066; AvgIncome: F = 4.261, p = 0.043, η 2 = 0.058). Conclusion: The implementation of 'deliberate' intention can help medical students make more rational judgements in risk decision-making tasks, avoid over conservative behaviour and obtain more benefits.

[Compatibility mechanism of Trichosanthis Fructus-Allii Macrostemonis Bulbus combination against atherosclerosis: based on metabolomics and network pharmacology].

This study aims to investigate the compatibility mechanism of Trichosanthis Fructus-Allii Macrostemonis Bulbus combination against atherosclerosis(AS) in apolipoprotein E-deficient(ApoE~(-/-)) mice. To be specific, high-fat diet was used to induce AS in mice. The pathological morphology of mice aorta was evaluated based on hematoxylin-eosin(HE) staining and Masson staining. The metabolic profiling of mouse serum samples was performed with ultra-performance liquid chromatography coupled with quadrupole time-of-flight tandem mass spectrometry. Multiple statistical analysis methods including partial least squares-discriminant analysis and orthogonal partial least squares-discriminant analysis were employed to screen potential biomarkers in mice. With the techniques in network pharmacology, the metabolites related to AS and the targets in the metabolic pathways were screened out. The results showed that Trichosanthis Fructus alone and the pair all reduced the plaque area of aortic sinus(P<0.05) and collagen area(P<0.05). Compared with the Trichosanthis Fructus alone and Allii Macrostemonis Bulbus alone, the combination significantly decreased the plaque area of aortic sinus(P<0.05) and collagen area(P<0.05). Metabolomics revealed 16 biomarkers in mice. Trichosanthis Fructus re-gulated the abnormal levels of 4 metabolites in glycerophosphatide metabolic pathway. Allii Macrostemonis Bulbus modulated the abnormal levels of 2 metabolites in arachidonic acid metabolic pathway and the combination recovered the levels of 8 metabolites in glycerophosphatide, linoleic acid, arachidonic acid, and pyrimidine metabolic pathways. Network pharmacology suggested that Trichosanthis Fructus regulated 24 targets which related to 2 AS-associated metabolites and involved glycerophosphatide metabolic pathway. Allii Macroste-monis Bulbus modulated 40 targets which related to 2 AS-associated metabolites and involved the arachidonic acid metabolic pathway. The combination regulated 57 targets which related to 6 AS-metabolites and involved linoleic acid metabolic pathway, glycerophosphatide metabolic pathway, and arachidonic acid metabolic pathway. These results indicate that the Trichosanthis Fructus-Allii Macrostemonis Bulbus combination enhances the regulation of linoleic acid metabolism, glycerophosphatide metabolism, and arachido-nic acid metabolism, thereby synergistically alleviating lipid disorder and inflammatory response in AS mice.

Photoexcited Cryptochrome2 Interacts Directly with TOE1 and TOE2 in Flowering Regulation.

Cryptochromes are photolyase-like, blue-light (BL) photoreceptors found in various organisms. Arabidopsis (Arabidopsis thaliana) cryptochromes (CRYs; CRY1, and CRY2) mediate many light responses including photoperiodic floral initiation. Cryptochromes interact with COP1 and SPA1, causing the stabilization of CONSTANS (CO) and promotion of FLOWERING LOCUS T (FT) transcription and flowering. The AP2-like transcriptional factor TOE1 negatively regulates FT expression and flowering by indirectly inhibiting CO transcriptional activation activity and directly binding to FT Here, we demonstrate that CRY1 and CRY2 physically interact with TOE1 and TOE2 in a BL-dependent manner in flowering regulation. Genetic studies showed that mutation of TOE1 and TOE2 partially suppresses the late-flowering phenotype of cry1 cry2 mutant plants. BL-triggered interactions of CRY2 with TOE1 and TOE2 promote the dissociation of TOE1 and TOE2 from CO, resulting in alleviation of their inhibition of CO transcriptional activity and enhanced transcription of FT Furthermore, we show that CRY2 represses TOE1 binding to the regulatory element within the Block E enhancer of FT These results reveal that TOE1 and TOE2 act as downstream components of CRY2, thus partially mediating CRY2 regulation of photoperiodic flowering through modulation of CO activity and FT transcription.

Photoexcited CRYPTOCHROME1 Interacts with Dephosphorylated BES1 to Regulate Brassinosteroid Signaling and Photomorphogenesis in Arabidopsis.

Cryptochromes (CRYs) are blue light photoreceptors that mediate a variety of light responses in plants and animals, including photomorphogenesis, flowering, and circadian rhythms. The signaling mechanism by which Arabidopsis thaliana cryptochromes CRY1 and CRY2 promote photomorphogenesis involves direct interactions with COP1, a RING motif-containing E3 ubiquitin ligase, and its enhancer SPA1. Brassinosteroid (BR) is a key phytohormone involved in the repression of photomorphogenesis, and here, we show that the signaling mechanism of Arabidopsis CRY1 involves the inhibition of BR signaling. CRY1 and CRY2 physically interact with BES1-INTERACTING MYC-LIKE1 (BIM1), a basic helix-loop-helix protein. BIM1, in turn, interacts with and enhances the activity of BRI1-EMS SUPPRESSOR1 (BES1), a master transcription factor in the BR signaling pathway. In addition, CRY1 and CRY2 interact specifically with dephosphorylated BES1, the physiologically active form of BES1 that is activated by BR in a blue light-dependent manner. The CRY1-BES1 interaction leads to both the inhibition of BES1 DNA binding activity and the repression of its target gene expression. Our study suggests that the blue light-dependent, BR-induced interaction of CRY1 with BES1 is a tightly regulated mechanism by which plants optimize photomorphogenesis according to the availability of external light and internal BR signals.

An event-related potential (ERP) study of the transfer of response inhibition training to interference control.

The classification of inhibitory control and the relationship between the subcomponents of inhibitory control have been the focus of many studies. This study mainly explored the influence of response inhibition training on interference control through event-related potential data. Forty college students were randomly divided into a training group and a control group. Two response inhibition tasks were used as training tasks and the Stroop and go/no-go tasks were used with electroencephalogram monitoring to evaluate students' abilities in the two kinds of inhibitory control. The results showed that the conflict effect of the training group significantly improved after training compared with those of the control group. In the training group, the N2 effect was enhanced not only in the no-go stimulation in the training task but also in the incongruent stimulation in the untrained Stroop task and there was a correlation in the enhancement of the N2 effect between the two tasks. To some extent, this study provided neuroscientific evidence that response inhibition training can transfer to interference control.

Arabidopsis TSO1 and MYB3R1 form a regulatory module to coordinate cell proliferation with differentiation in shoot and root.

Fundamental to plant and animal development is the regulated balance between cell proliferation and differentiation, a process intimately tied to cell cycle regulation. In Arabidopsis, mutations in TSO1, whose animal homolog is LIN54, resulted in severe developmental abnormalities both in shoot and root, including shoot meristem fasciation and reduced root meristematic zone. The molecular mechanism that could explain the tso1 mutant phenotype is absent. Through a genetic screen, we identified 32 suppressors that map to the MYB3R1 gene, encoding a conserved cell cycle regulator. Further analysis indicates that TSO1 transcriptionally represses MYB3R1, and the ectopic MYB3R1 activity mediates the tso1 mutant phenotype. Since animal homologs of TSO1 and MYB3R1 are components of a cell cycle regulatory complex, the DREAM complex, we tested and showed that TSO1 and MYB3R1 coimmunoprecipitated in tobacco leaf cells. Our work reveals a conserved cell cycle regulatory module, consisting of TSO1 and MYB3R1, for proper plant development.

Arabidopsis cryptochrome 1 promotes stomatal development through repression of AGB1 inhibition of SPEECHLESS DNA-binding activity.

Cryptochromes are blue light photoreceptors that mediate various light responses in plants and mammals. The heterotrimeric G-protein is known to regulate various physiological processes in plants and mammals. In Arabidopsis, cryptochrome 1 (CRY1) and the G-protein ß subunit AGB1 act antagonistically to regulate stomatal development. The molecular mechanism by which CRY1 and AGB1 regulate this process remains unknown. Here, we show that Arabidopsis CRY1 acts partially through AGB1, and AGB1 acts through SPEECHLESS (SPCH), a master transcription factor that drives stomatal initiation and proliferation, to regulate stomatal development. We demonstrate that AGB1 physically interacts with SPCH to block the bHLH DNA-binding domain of SPCH and inhibit its DNA-binding activity. Moreover, we demonstrate that photoexcited CRY1 represses the interaction of AGB1 with SPCH to release AGB1 inhibition of SPCH DNA-binding activity, leading to the expression of SPCH-target genes promoting stomatal development. Taken together, our results suggest that the mechanism by which CRY1 promotes stomatal development involves positive regulation of the DNA-binding activity of SPCH mediated by CRY1 inhibition of the AGB1-SPCH interaction. We propose that the antagonistic regulation of SPCH DNA-binding activity by CRY1 and AGB1 may allow plants to balance light and G-protein signaling and optimize stomatal density and pattern.

[Study on effect of "Trichosanthis Fructus-Allii Macrostemonis Bulbus" on atherosclerosis in ApoE~(-/-) mice based on liver metabonomics].

In this study, ultra-performance liquid chromatography coupled with quadrupole time-of-flight tandem mass spectrometry(UPLC-Q-TOF-MS)-based liver metabolomics approach was used to explore the mechanism of "Trichosanthis Fructus-Allii Macrostemonis Bulbus" in improving atherosclerosis(AS) of mice with apolipoprotein E gene knockout(ApoE~(-/-)). AS mouse model was induced by high-fat diet. The pathological and biochemical indexes such as the histopathological changes, body weight, liver weight, blood lipid level and inflammatory factors in the liver of mice were determined. The metabolic profiling of mice liver samples was performed with UPLC-Q-TOF-MS. Multiple statistical analysis methods including partial least squares discriminant analysis(PLS-DA) and orthogonal partial least squares discriminant analysis(OPLS-DA) were employed to screen and identify biomarkers. The levels of related enzymes including LCAT, sPLA2, EPT1 and ACER1 were detected. The results showed that "Trichosanthis Fructus-Allii Macrostemonis Bulbus" significantly reduced the areas of aortic plaque and fat vacuoles of liver in AS mice and decreased the accumulation of lipid droplets and liver coefficient. "Trichosanthis Fructus-Allii Macrostemonis Bulbus" also regulated the levels of blood lipid and inflammatory injury in the liver. The metabolites of the control group, the model group and the "Trichosanthis Fructus-Allii Macrostemonis Bulbus" group could be distinguished significantly. Fifteen potential biomarkers related to AS were discovered and preliminarily identified, seven of which could be regulated by "Trichosanthis Fructus-Allii Macrostemonis Bulbus" in a trend of returning to normal. Metabolic pathway analysis screened out two major metabolic pathways. "Trichosanthis Fructus-Allii Macrostemonis Bulbus" obviously regulated the levels of LCAT, sPLA2, EPT1 and ACER1. It was inferred that "Trichosanthis Fructus-Allii Macrostemonis Bulbus" could play a major role in AS treatment by regulating glycerophospholipid and sphingolipid metabolism disorders in the liver, with the mechanism probably relating to the intervention of the expression of LCAT, sPLA2, EPT1 and ACER1.

FvbHLH9 Functions as a Positive Regulator of Anthocyanin Biosynthesis by Forming a HY5-bHLH9 Transcription Complex in Strawberry Fruits.

Anthocyanin accumulation is transcriptionally regulated by the MYB-bHLH-WD40 complex. Light is indispensable for anthocyanin accumulation, and light-inducible MYB and HY5 were considered to promote anthocyanin accumulation in many fruits. Whether and how light-inducible bHLH transcription factor and HY5 regulate anthocyanin synthesis in strawberry is unknown. In this study, we identified a bHLH transcription factor, FvbHLH9, which was induced by light as well as FvHY5, and found that, similar to FvHY5, the transient overexpression and interference FvbHLH9 in strawberry fruits can promote and decrease anthocyanin accumulation, respectively, indicating FvbHLH9 functions as a positive regulator of anthocyanin biosynthesis. Furthermore, we confirmed that both FvHY5 and FvbHLH9 specifically bind to the promoter region of some key enzyme genes, including FvDFR, and the expression of FvDFR was activated through the heterodimer formation between FvHY5 and FvbHLH9. Finally, we confirmed that FvbHLH9-promoted anthocyanin accumulation is dependent on HY5-bHLH heterodimerisation in Arabidopsis. Our findings provide insights into a mechanism involving the synergistic regulation of light-dependent coloration and anthocyanin biosynthesis via a HY5-bHLH heterodimer formed by the interaction of FvHY5 and FvbHLH9 in strawberry fruits.

Photoexcited CRY1 and phyB interact directly with ARF6 and ARF8 to regulate their DNA-binding activity and auxin-induced hypocotyl elongation in Arabidopsis.

Arabidopsis CRY1 and phyB are the primary blue and red light photoreceptors mediating blue and red light inhibition of hypocotyl elongation, respectively. Auxin is a pivotal phytohormone involved in promoting hypocotyl elongation. CRY1 and phyB interact with and stabilize auxin/indole acetic acid proteins (Aux/IAAs) to inhibit auxin signaling. The present study investigated whether photoreceptors might interact directly with Auxin Response Factors (ARFs) to regulate auxin signaling. Protein-protein interaction studies demonstrated that CRY1 and phyB interact physically with ARF6 and ARF8 through their N-terminal domains in a blue and red light-dependent manner, respectively. Moreover, the N-terminal DNA-binding domain of ARF6 and ARF8 is involved in mediating their interactions with CRY1. Genetic studies showed that ARF6 and ARF8 act partially downstream from CRY1 and PHYB to regulate hypocotyl elongation under blue and red light, respectively. Chromatin immunoprecipitation-PCR assays demonstrated that CRY1 and phyB mediate blue and red light repression of the DNA-binding activity of ARF6 and ARF6-target gene expression, respectively. Altogether, the results herein suggest that the direct repression of auxin-responsive gene expression mediated by the interactions of CRY1 and phyB with ARFs constitutes a new layer of the regulatory mechanisms by which light inhibits auxin-induced hypocotyl elongation.

Visual motion perception improvements following direct current stimulation over V5 are dependent on initial performance.

Transcranial direct current stimulation (tDCS) can improve visual perception. However, the effect of tDCS on visual perception is largely variable, possibly due to individual differences in initial performance. The goal of the present study was to evaluate the dependency of visual motion perception improvements on initial performance. Twenty-eight observers were randomly divided into two groups. Anodal tDCS and sham stimulation were separately applied to V5 (1.5 mA, 20 min), while observers performed a coherent motion direction identification task. The results showed that compared to sham stimulation, anodal tDCS induced a significant improvement in motion perception that lasted at least 20 min. In addition, the degree of improvement was dependent on initial performance, with a greater improvement magnitude observed for those with poorer initial performance. These results may have implications for understanding the nature of the stimulation rule and for the use of a customised stimulation protocol to enhance tDCS efficiency in practical applications.

Reduced Contrast Sensitivity Function in Central and Peripheral Vision by Disability Glare.

Various glares can decrease visual performance and cause discomfort, thus increasing drivers' risk for traffic accidents in real life. The current study aimed to systematically investigate glare sensitivity in the central and peripheral visual fields by measuring contrast sensitivity function (CSF) under nonglare, steady glare, and transient glare conditions. Nine observers with normal visual acuity in the dominant eye were enrolled. The CSF in central and peripheral vision (the 5° upper left visual field) was measured in a mesopic environment while the stimulus was displayed under three conditions: nonglare, steady glare, and transient glare. An orientation identification task was used to obtain the CSF. After the experiment, the observers were asked to report their level of discomfort in the presence of the glare. The area under the log CSF (AULCSF) and cut-off spatial frequency served as indicators of visual performance. In agreement with previous studies, both steady and transient glare reduced the AULCSF and cut-off frequency. However, the AULCSF and cut-off frequency were reduced more for central vision than for nearly peripheral vision. In addition, the extent of the decreases in the AULCSF and cut-off frequency was greater for steady glare than for transient glare; in contrast, more discomfort was associated with transient glare than steady glare.

phyB Interacts with BES1 to Regulate Brassinosteroid Signaling in Arabidopsis.

Light is an important environmental factor, which mainly inhibits hypocotyl elongation through various photoreceptors. In contrast, brassinosteroids (BRs) are major hypocotyl elongation-promoting hormones in plants, which could optimize photomorphogenesis concurrent with external light. However, the precise molecular mechanisms underlying the antagonism of light and BR signaling remain largely unknown. Here we show that the Arabidopsis red light receptor phyB is involved in inhibition of BR signaling via its direct interaction with the BR transcription factor BES1. In our study, the phyB mutant displays BR hypersensitivity, which is repressed in transgenic plants overexpressing phyB, suggesting that phyB negatively regulates the BR signaling pathway. In addition, protein interaction results show that phyB directly interacts with dephosphorylated BES1, the physiologically active form of BES1 induced by BR, in a red light-dependent manner. Genetic analyses suggest that phyB may act partially through BES1 to regulate BR signaling. Transcriptomic data and quantitative real-time PCR assay further show that phyB-mediated red light inhibits BR signaling by repressing expression of BES1 target genes, including the BR biosynthesis genes DWF4, the SAUR family and the PRE family genes required for promoting cell elongation. Finally, we found that red light treatment inhibits the DNA-binding activity of BES1 and photoactivated phyB represses the transcriptional activity of BES1 under red light. Taken together, we suggest that the interaction of phyB with dephosphorylated BES1 may allow plants to balance light and BR signaling by repressing transcriptional activity of BES1 to regulate expression of its target genes.

CRY1 interacts directly with HBI1 to regulate its transcriptional activity and photomorphogenesis in Arabidopsis.

Cryptochromes (CRYs) are blue light photoreceptors that mediate various light responses in plants and animals. In Arabidopsis, there are two homologous CRYs, CRY1 and CRY2, which mediate blue light inhibition of hypocotyl elongation. It is known that CRY2 interacts with CIB1, a basic helix-loop-helix (bHLH) transcriptional factor, to regulate transcription and floral induction. In this study, we performed yeast two-hybrid screening and identified CIB1 as a CRY1-interacting protein. Moreover, we demonstrated that CRY1 physically interacted with the close homolog of CIB1, HBI1, which is known to act downstream of brassinosteroid (BR) and gibberellin acid (GA) signaling pathways to promote hypocotyl elongation, in a blue light-dependent manner. Transgenic and genetic interaction studies showed that overexpression of HBI1 resulted in enhanced hypocotyl elongation under blue light and that HBI1 acted downstream of CRYs to promote hypocotyl elongation. Genome-wide gene expression analysis indicated that CRYs and HBI1 antagonistically regulated the expression of genes involved in regulating cell elongation. Moreover, we demonstrated that CRY1-HBI1 interaction led to inhibition of HBI1's DNA binding activity and its target gene expression. Together, our results suggest that HBI1 acts as a new CRY1-interacting protein and that the signaling mechanism of CRY1 involves repression of HBI1 transcriptional activity by direct CRY1-HBI1 interaction.

Exploiting Geometric Features via Hierarchical Graph Pyramid Transformer for Cancer Diagnosis using Histopathological Images.

Cancer is widely recognized as the primary cause of mortality worldwide, and pathology analysis plays a pivotal role in achieving accurate cancer diagnosis. The intricate representation of features in histopathological images encompasses abundant information crucial for disease diagnosis, regarding cell appearance, tumor microenvironment, and geometric characteristics. However, recent deep learning methods have not adequately exploited geometric features for pathological image classification due to the absence of effective descriptors that can capture both cell distribution and gathering patterns, which often serve as potent indicators. In this paper, inspired by clinical practice, a Hierarchical Graph Pyramid Transformer (HGPT) is proposed to guide pathological image classification by effectively exploiting a geometric representation of tissue distribution which was ignored by existing state-of-the-art methods. First, a graph representation is constructed according to morphological feature of input pathological image and learn geometric representation through the proposed multi-head graph aggregator. Then, the image and its graph representation are feed into the transformer encoder layer to model long-range dependency. Finally, a locality feature enhancement block is designed to enhance the 2D local representation of feature embedding, which is not well explored in the existing vision transformers. An extensive experimental study is conducted on Kather-5K, MHIST, NCT-CRC-HE, and GasHisSDB for binary or multi-category classification of multiple cancer types. Results demonstrated that our method is capable of consistently reaching superior classification outcomes for histopathological images, which provide an effective diagnostic tool for malignant tumors in clinical practice.

FvDFR2 rather than FvDFR1 play key roles for anthocyanin synthesis in strawberry petioles.

The accumulation of anthocyanins can be found in both the fruit and petioles of strawberries, but the fruit appears red while the petioles appear purple-red. Additionally, in the white-fruited diploid strawberries, the petioles can accumulate anthocyanins normally, suggesting a different synthesis pattern between the petioles and fruits. We screened the EMS mutagenized population of a red-fruited diploid strawberry 'Ruegen' and discovered a mutant which showed no anthocyanin accumulation in the petioles but normal accumulation in the fruit. Through BSA sequencing and allelic test, it was found that a mutation in FvDFR2 was responsible for this phenotype. Furthermore, the complex formed by the interaction between the petiole-specific FvMYB10L and FvTT8 only binds the promoter of FvDFR2 but not FvDFR1, resulting in the expression of only FvDFR2 in the petiole. FvDFR2 can catalyze the conversion of DHQ and eventually the formation of cyanidin and peonidin, giving the petiole a purplish-red color. In the fruit, however, both FvDFR1 and FvDFR2 can be expressed, which can mediate the synthesis of cyanidin and pelargonidin. Our study clearly reveals different regulation of FvDFR1 and FvDFR2 in mediating anthocyanin synthesis in petioles and fruits.

Comprehensive Identification and Expression Analysis of the YTH Family of RNA-Binding Proteins in Strawberry.

Plant growth and development processes are tightly regulated at multiple levels, including transcriptional and post-transcriptional levels, and the RNA-binding protein YTH regulates gene expression during growth and development at the post-transcriptional level by regulating RNA splicing, processing, stability, and translation. We performed a systematic characterization of YTH genes in diploid forest strawberry and identified a total of nine YTH genes. With the help of phylogenetic analysis, these nine genes were found to belong to two different groups, YTHDC and YTHDF, with YTHDF being further subdivided into three subfamilies. Replication analysis showed that YTH3 and YTH4 are a gene pair generated by tandem repeat replication. These two genes have similarities in gene structure, number of motifs, and distribution patterns. Promoter analysis revealed the presence of multiple developmental, stress response, and hormone-response-related cis-elements. Analysis of available transcriptome data showed that the expression levels of most of the YTH genes were stable with no dramatic changes during development in different tissues. However, YTH3 maintained high expression levels in all tissues and during fruit development, and YTH4 was expressed at higher levels in tissues such as flowers, leaves, and seedlings, while it was significantly lower than YTH3 in white fruits and ripening fruits with little fluctuation. Taken together, our study provides insightful and comprehensive basic information for the study of YTH genes in strawberry.

A UHPLC-Q-TOF-MS-based serum and urine metabolomics approach reveals the mechanism of Gualou-Xiebai herb pair intervention against atherosclerosis process in ApoE-/- mice.

Atherosclerosis (AS) is a metabolic disorder commonly correlated with a high-fat diet (HFD). There are many endogenous metabolic changes associated with AS development. Gualou-Xiebai (GLXB) is a traditional Chinese medicine herb pair that has been used to treat AS. However, the mechanism of GLXB herb pair on the process of AS is still essentially unknown. In this study, aortic histopathological examination and biochemical analyses were used to validate the anti-atherosclerotic effects of GLXB herb pair on ApoE-/- mice during the disease course of AS. The mechanism of GLXB herb pair were performed by metabolomics approach based on ultra-high performance liquid chromatography-quadrupole time-of-flight mass spectrometry (UHPLC-Q-TOF-MS). As a result, GLXB herb pair has protective effects on AS lesion development and improves blood lipid levels in ApoE-/- mice. A total of 34, 39, and 49 metabolites were found to be profoundly altered in the 9-week, 14-week, and 19-week model groups compared with the corresponding control groups. Among them, 16, 18, and 18 metabolites showed a trend toward normal levels after pharmacological intervention. Metabolic pathway analysis found that GLXB herb pair mainly affects glycerophospholipid metabolism, pentose and glucuronate interconversions in 9 weeks; linoleic acid metabolism, cysteine and methionine metabolism, and arachidonic acid metabolism in 14 weeks; arachidonic acid metabolism and pentose and glucuronate interconversions in 19 weeks. The results demonstrated that GLXB herb pair mainly played a therapeutic role by regulating glycerophospholipid metabolism and pentose and glucuronate interconversions in the whole process of AS.

PIFs interact with SWI2/SNF2-related 1 complex subunit 6 to regulate H2A.Z deposition and photomorphogenesis in Arabidopsis.

Light is an essential environmental signal perceived by a broad range of photoreceptors in plants. Among them, the red/far-red light receptor phytochromes function to promote photomorphogenesis, which is critical to the survival of seedlings after seeds germination. The basic-helix-loop-helix transcription factors phytochrome-interacting factors (PIFs) are the pivotal direct downstream components of phytochromes. H2A.Z is a highly conserved histone variant regulating gene transcription, and its incorporation into nucleosomes is catalyzed by SWI2/SNF2-related 1 complex, in which SWI2/SNF2-related 1 complex subunit 6 (SWC6) and actin-related protein 6 (ARP6) serve as core subunits. Here, we show that PIFs physically interact with SWC6 in vitro and in vivo, leading to the disassociation of HY5 from SWC6. SWC6 and ARP6 regulate hypocotyl elongation partly through PIFs in red light. PIFs and SWC6 coregulate the expression of auxin-responsive genes such as IAA6, IAA19, IAA20, and IAA29 and repress H2A.Z deposition at IAA6 and IAA19 in red light. Based on previous studies and our findings, we propose that PIFs inhibit photomorphogenesis, at least in part, through repression of H2A.Z deposition at auxin-responsive genes mediated by the interactions of PIFs with SWC6 and promotion of their expression in red light.