Discovery of Topsentin Alkaloids and Their Derivatives as Novel Antiviral and Anti-phytopathogenic Fungus Agents

Topsentin alkaloids and their derivatives were designed, synthesized, and characterized on the basis of NMR and mass spectroscopy. The antiviral activities against tobacco mosaic virus (TMV) and anti-phytopathogenic fungus activities of these alkaloids were evaluated for the first time. Alkaloids <b>1c</b>, <b>1e</b>, <b>2b</b>, and <b>2d</b> displayed significantly higher antiviral activities against TMV than Ribavirin, emerging as new lead compounds for anti-TMV research. Further fungicidal activity tests against 14 kinds of phytopathogenic fungi revealed that these alkaloids displayed broad-spectrum fungicidal activities. Topsentin derivative <b>2d</b> with 4–5 mg/kg EC₅₀ values against Sclerotinia sclerotiorum (Lib.), Rhizoctonia solani (Kuhn), and Botrytis cinerea (Pers.) emerged as a new lead compound for fungicidal research. Current studies provide support for the application of topsentin alkaloids as novel agrochemicals

Size variation observed in PCR products for representative individuals from each of the four <i>R. sinicus</i> taxa.

<p>FGB008, WLB007, LLJ028, and YH05 were from East <i>sinicus</i>; CX03 and YGL418 were from Hainan <i>sinicus</i>; TL07 and JJ08 were from Central <i>sinicus</i>; YBG15 and WM32 were from <i>septentrionalis</i>.</p

Heteroplasmy and Ancient Translocation of Mitochondrial DNA to the Nucleus in the Chinese Horseshoe Bat (<i>Rhinolophus sinicus</i>) Complex

<div><p>The utility and reliability of mitochondrial DNA sequences in phylogenetic and phylogeographic studies may be compromised by widespread and undetected nuclear mitochondrial copies (numts) as well as heteroplasmy within individuals. Both numts and heteroplasmy are likely to be common across diverse taxa yet few studies have characterised their frequencies and variation at the intra-specific level. Here we report the presence of both numts and heteroplasmy in the mitochondrial control region of the Chinese horseshoe bat <i>Rhinolophus sinicus</i>. In total we generated 123 sequences from 18 bats, which contained two different numt clades (i.e. Numt-1 and Numt-2) and one mtDNA clade. The sequence divergence between Numt-1 and Numt-2 was 16.8% and each numt type was found in all four <i>R. sinicus</i> taxa, suggesting either two ancient translocations of mitochondrial DNA into the nucleus from the same source taxon, or a single translocation from different source taxa that occurred before the split of <i>R. sinicus</i> into different lineages. Within the mtDNA clade, phylogenetic relationships among the four taxa of <i>R. sinicus</i> were similar to those seen in previous results. Based on PCR comparisons, heteroplasmy was inferred between almost all individuals of <i>R. sinicus</i> with respect to sequence variation. Consistent with introgression of mtDNA between Central <i>sinicus</i> and <i>septentrionalis</i>, individuals from these two taxa exhibited similar signatures of repeated sequences in the control region. Our study highlights the importance of testing for the presence of numts and heteroplasmy when applying mtDNA markers to phylogenetic studies.</p></div

Trees and networks based on the control region sequences excluding the R2 repeats.

<p>(a) Phylogenetic tree constructed using Bayesian inference. Numbers on branches are posterior probabilities. Individuals are coded as ID_L or ID_S (the clone number); (b) Statistical parsimony networks for each clade. Each circle represents a single haplotype and circle size is scaled by haplotype frequency. Filled black circles represent missing or unsampled haplotypes. The numbers between haplotypes and sub-networks represent the mutational steps between them. Individuals and haplotypes are coloured by taxon membership as in <a href="http://www.plosone.org/article/info:doi/10.1371/journal.pone.0098035#pone-0098035-g001" target="_blank">Figure 1</a>.</p

Heteroplasmic sequence and length variations of the R2 repeated sequences in the mitochondrial control region.

<p>Size class means classes of sequences with different length and/or motifs. Repeat motif A: AACGTACACGT; B: GACGTACACGT; C: AACGTATACGC; D: AACGCATACGC; E: AACACATACGC. N is the total number of tandem repeats.</p

Nanoseed Assisted PVT Growth of Ultrathin 2D Pentacene Molecular Crystal Directly onto SiO₂ Substrate

High order of molecular packing and perfect semiconductor/dielectric interface are two key factors to achieve high performance for organic field-effect transistors (OFET). Moreover, the thin crystal offers an improved efficiency of carrier injection for OFETs. To this aim, formation of thin and large single crystal directly on dielectrics is the basis to obtain the ideal crystal OFETs. Herein, we report the controlled growth of ultrathin 2D Pentacene (Pn) crystal via nanoseed assisted physical vapor transport (PVT) method grown directly on SiO₂. The size, thickness, and density of Pn crystals are systematically studied. Potentially effective parameters such as initially lowered Pn coverage and decreased supersaturation with the aid of carrier gas flow were optimized to grow large, ultrathin 2D Pn crystalline flakes efficient for the fabrication of crystal OFETs. The typical size and thickness of as-grown Pn crystalline flakes can be controlled to be large and thin enough. Device of ultrathin crystal with bottom gate and top contact configuration showed mobility as high as 5.6 cm² V^–1 s^–1, indicating that the proposed novel architecture of organic molecular crystals may pave the way toward the application of large-sized single crystals of Pn in organic electronics

Additional file 3: of Single-cell RNA-seq analysis unveils a prevalent epithelial/mesenchymal hybrid state during mouse organogenesis

Cell information and classification. (XLSX 270 kb

Additional file 2: of Single-cell RNA-seq analysis unveils a prevalent epithelial/mesenchymal hybrid state during mouse organogenesis

Barcode-RT primer information, cell cycle gene list, and E-, M- and S-score gene list. (XLSX 18 kb

Additional file 1: of Single-cell RNA-seq analysis unveils a prevalent epithelial/mesenchymal hybrid state during mouse organogenesis

Figure S1. Quality control of the dataset and the characteristics of clusters. Figure S2. Interaction between epithelial and mesenchymal cells sampled from intestine, liver, lung, and skin. Figure S3. Immunostaining of Cdh1, Vim, and Fn1 in E9.5 and adult liver. Figure S4. Comparison between definitive and primitive erythroid cells. Figure S5. Comparison between neuronal cells sampled from forebrain and hindbrain. Figure S6. Expression patterns of cells sampled from heart. Figure S7. Expression patterns of cells sampled from somites. (PDF 17147 kb

Additional file 4: of Single-cell RNA-seq analysis unveils a prevalent epithelial/mesenchymal hybrid state during mouse organogenesis

DEGs and top TFs among groups and clusters. (XLSX 635 kb