Decreased expression of long non-coding RNA WT1-AS promotes cell proliferation and invasion in gastric cancer

AbstractTumor recurrence and metastasis remain the major obstacles for the successful treatment of patients diagnosed with gastric cancer. In recent years, long non-coding RNAs (lncRNAs) have been considered as key regulators of tumor behavior. In this study, we investigated the expression and biological role of a newly-identified cancer-related lncRNA, WT1-AS. We found that WT1-AS expression was significantly down-regulated in tumor tissues compared to matched adjacent non-tumor tissues. The WT1-AS expression level was also associated with tumor size and the clinicopathological stage. Cell proliferation, migration, and invasion were inhibited, and the proportion of G0/G1 cells increased when WT1-AS was ectopically-expressed in gastric cancer cells. Furthermore, ectopic expression of WT1-AS was demonstrated to inhibit tumor growth and metastasis in vivo. Finally, we found that WT1-AS overexpression could decrease ERK protein phosphorylation. Our study indicates that WT1-AS is significantly down-regulated in gastric cancers and may be correlated with tumor progression

Global systematic review with meta-analysis shows that warming effects on terrestrial plant biomass allocation are influenced by precipitation and mycorrhizal association

Biomass allocation in plants is fundamental for understanding and predicting terrestrial carbon storage. Yet, our knowledge regarding warming effects on root: shoot ratio (R/S) remains limited. Here, we present a meta-analysis encompassing more than 300 studies and including angiosperms and gymnosperms as well as different biomes (cropland, desert, forest, grassland, tundra, and wetland). The meta-analysis shows that average warming of 2.50 °C (median = 2 °C) significantly increases biomass allocation to roots with a mean increase of 8.1% in R/S. Two factors associate significantly with this response to warming: mean annual precipitation and the type of mycorrhizal fungi associated with plants. Warming-induced allocation to roots is greater in drier habitats when compared to shoots (+15.1% in R/S), while lower in wetter habitats (+4.9% in R/S). This R/S pattern is more frequent in plants associated with arbuscular mycorrhizal fungi, compared to ectomycorrhizal fungi. These results show that precipitation variability and mycorrhizal association can affect terrestrial carbon dynamics by influencing biomass allocation strategies in a warmer world, suggesting that climate change could influence belowground C sequestration

Forest restoration decouple soil C:N:P stoichiometry but has little effects on microbial biodiversity globally

11 páginas.- 7 figuras.- 71 referenciasIntroduction: Forest restoration is an effective way to promote ecosystem functions and mitigate climate change. However, how forest restoration affect soil C:N:P stoichiometry and microbial biodiversity, as well as their linkage across contrasting forest types globally remains largely illusive. Materials and Methods: Here we conducted a global meta-analysis by synthesizing 121 published papers with 1649 observations to explore how forest restoration affect soil C:N:P stoichiometry and microbial biodiversity globally. Results: Forest restoration significantly increased soil total carbon (C), nitrogen (N) and phosphorus (P) content, whereas having no significant impact on most microbial diversity indicator, except for an enhancement in bacterial operational taxonomic unit and fungal Simpson. Meanwhile, forest restoration effects on soil C:N:P stoichiometry varied with different forest types, with promoting more soil C and P in ectomycorrhizal than those in arbuscular mycorrhizal forests. Meanwhile, forest restoration induced changes in soil N and P were positively correlated with microbial Shannon index. More importantly, forest restoration effects on soil C:N:P stoichiometry and microbial biodiversity were regulated by climate factors such as mean annual temperature and mean annual precipitation. Conclusion: Our results highlight the crucial role of forest restoration in decoupling the biogeochemical cycles of C, N and P through changes in microbial biodiversity. Therefore, incorporating the decouple effects of forest restoration on soil C:N:P stoichiometry into Earth system models may improve predictions of climate–forest feedbacks in the Anthropocene. © 2023 The Authors. Journal of Sustainable Agriculture and Environment published by Global Initiative of Sustainable Agriculture and Environment and John Wiley & Sons Australia, Ltd.Guiyao Zhou was supported by Humboldt Research Foundation. This research was financially supported by the National Natural Science Foundation of China (grant numbers 32071593, 31930072, 31770559, 31600387, 31370489 and 42203076).Peer reviewe

Mycorrhizal associations relate to stable convergence in plant-microbial competition for nitrogen absorption under high nitrogen conditions

117 págibnas.- 4 figuras.- referencias.-Nitrogen (N) immobilization (Nim, including microbial N assimilation) and plant N uptake (PNU) are the two most important pathways of N retention in soils. The ratio of Nim to PNU (hereafter Nim:PNU ratio) generally reflects the degree of N limitation for plant growth in terrestrial ecosystems. However, the key factors driving the pattern of Nim:PNU ratio across global ecosystems remain unclear. Here, using a global data set of 1018 observations from 184 studies, we examined the relative importance of mycorrhizal associations, climate, plant, and soil properties on the Nim:PNU ratio across terrestrial ecosystems. Our results show that mycorrhizal fungi type (arbuscular mycorrhizal (AM) or ectomycorrhizal (EM) fungi) in combination with soil inorganic N mainly explain the global variation in the Nim:PNU ratio in terrestrial ecosystems. In AM fungi-associated ecosystems, the relationship between Nim and PNU displays a weaker negative correlation (r = −.06, p < .001), whereas there is a stronger positive correlation (r = .25, p < .001) in EM fungi-associated ecosystems. Our meta-analysis thus suggests that the AM-associated plants display a weak interaction with soil microorganisms for N absorption, while EM-associated plants cooperate with soil microorganisms. Furthermore, we find that the Nim:PNU ratio for both AM- and EM-associated ecosystems gradually converge around a stable value (13.8 ± 0.5 for AM- and 12.1 ± 1.2 for EM-associated ecosystems) under high soil inorganic N conditions. Our findings highlight the dependence of plant–microbial interaction for N absorption on both plant mycorrhizal association and soil inorganic N, with the stable convergence of the Nim:PNU ratio under high soil N conditions.This research was financially supported by the National Natural Science Foundation of China (grant nos. 32241032, 31930072, 42261144688, 32271713, 32071593, and 42203076), and the Fundamental Research Funds for the Central Universities (grant no. 2572022BA08). MPT acknowledges the support from the Swiss State Secretariat for Education, Research and Innovation (SERI) under contract number: M822.00029. G. Zhou acknowledges the support from Ramón y Cajal project (RYC2022-035226-I) funded by the Spanish Ministry of Science and Innovation, the NextGenerationEU program of the European Union (MICIU/AEI/10.13039/501100011033 y el FSE+), and AYUDAS DE EXCELENCIA RYC-MAX 2023 project from Spanish National Research Council.Peer reviewe

Relative importance of climatic variables, soil properties and plant traits to spatial variability in net CO2 exchange across global forests and grasslands

Compared to the well-known drivers of spatial variability in gross primary productivity (GPP), the relative importance of climatic variables, soil properties and plant traits to the spatial variability in net ecosystem exchange of CO2 between terrestrial ecosystem and atmosphere (NEE) is poorly understood. We used principal component regression to analyze data from 147 eddy flux sites to disentangle effects of climatic variables, soil properties and plant traits on the spatial variation in annual NEE and its components (GPP and ecosystem respiration (RE)) across global forests and grasslands. Our results showed that the largest unique contribution (proportion of variance only explained by one class of variables) to NEE variance came from climatic variables for forests (24%-30%) and soil properties for grasslands (41%-54%). Specifically, mean annual precipitation and potential evapotranspiration were the most important climatic variables driving forest NEE, whereas available soil water capacity, clay content and cation exchange capacity mainly influenced grassland NEE. Plant traits showed a small unique contribution to NEE in both forests and grasslands. However, leaf phosphorus content strongly interacted with soil total nitrogen density and clay content, and these combined factors represented a major contribution for grassland NEE. For GPP and RE, the majority of spatial variance was attributed to the common contribution of climate, soil and plant traits (50% - 62%, proportion of variance explained by more than one class of variables), rather than their unique contributions. Interestingly, those factors with only minor influences on GPP and RE variability (e.g., soil properties) have significant contributions to the spatial variability in NEE. Such emerging factors and the interactions between climatic variables, soil properties and plant traits are not well represented in current terrestrial biosphere models, which should be considered in future model improvement to accurately predict the spatial pattern of carbon cycling across forests and grasslands globally.Peer reviewe