Bacillus thuringiensis Suppresses the Humoral Immune System to Overcome Defense Mechanism of Plutella xylostella

Background:Plutella xylostella has become a notorious pest of cruciferous crops all over the world. Delta-endotoxins of Bacillus thuringiensis are widely used insecticidal proteins for controlling P. xylostella. However, the interaction mechanism of B. thuringiensis with the immune system of P. xylostella, at the genomic level, is still unclear. This study explored the immune response of P. xylostella to B. thuringiensis, at different time intervals, 6 h, 12 h, 18 h, 24 h, and 36 h, by using RNA-Sequencing (RNA-Seq) and RT-qPCR.Results: In total, 167 immunity-related genes were identified and placed into different families, including pattern recognition receptors (PRRs), signal modulators, immune pathways (Toll, IMD, and JAK/STAT), and immune effectors. It is worth mentioning that the analyses of the differentially expressed immunity-related genes revealed that most of the differentially expressed genes (DEGs) (87, 56, 76, 67, and 73 genes) were downregulated in P. xylostella following B. thuringiensis oral infection at 6 h, 12 h, 18 h, 24 h, and 36 h. Interestingly, our RNA-Seq analysis also revealed reduced expression of antimicrobial peptides, that play a vital role in the humoral immune system of P. xylostella.Conclusion: This study demonstrates that B. thuringiensis plays a novel role in controlling P. xylostella, by suppressing the immune system

A New Construction of Disjunct Matrix in Pooling Designs

Pooling design is a very helpful tool for reducing the number of tests for DNA library screening. A disjunct matrix is usually used to represent the pooling design. In this paper, we construct a new family of disjunct matrices and prove that it has good row to column ratio and error-tolerant property. DOI Number 10.1017/S000497271100256

integrating load balancing into channelization strategy in publish/subscribe

IEEE Computer Society; IEEE Technical Committee Distributed Processing (TCDP)In Pub/Sub systems, channel-based approaches to routing the subscriptions and events have many advantages such as fewer routing messages, lower costs for subscription management, etc. But a potential issue embedded in this kind of approach, i.e. loadings on different event brokers are apt to unbalancing, is ignored more or less. In this paper, we design a load balancing mechanism and integrate it into a channel-based approach in a Pub/Sub system. In particular, we define a balancing state in a Pub/Sub system, and then propose the balancing control initiation algorithm which decides not only whether to perform load balancing among event brokers but also whether to adjust the number of event brokers. Also we present the load scheduling algorithm which can achieve load balancing by channel splitting, merging and migration. We conduct the experiments by taking loads with different distributions as input to reveal the capability of dealing with changing loads. The experimental data prove that our mechanism can help balance the system loads efficiently and dynamically start or shut down event brokers when facing overloads or insufficient loads. © 2010 IEEE

trajectory prediction for routing optimization in pub/sub systems

In a Pub/Sub system, if the clients are permitted to move randomly, their mobility will cause their access brokers to be changed, which has brought in problems in dissemination of subscriptions and distribution of matching results. We claim t

Recent Advances and Future Potential of Long Non-Coding RNAs in Insects

Over the last decade, long non-coding RNAs (lncRNAs) have witnessed a steep rise in interest amongst the scientific community. Because of their functional significance in several biological processes, i.e., alternative splicing, epigenetics, cell cycle, dosage compensation, and gene expression regulation, lncRNAs have transformed our understanding of RNA’s regulatory potential. However, most knowledge concerning lncRNAs comes from mammals, and our understanding of the potential role of lncRNAs amongst insects remains unclear. Technological advances such as RNA-seq have enabled entomologists to profile several hundred lncRNAs in insect species, although few are functionally studied. This article will review experimentally validated lncRNAs from different insects and the lncRNAs identified via bioinformatic tools. Lastly, we will discuss the existing research challenges and the future of lncRNAs in insects

Analysis of Long Non-Coding RNA-Mediated Regulatory Networks of <i>Plutella xylostella</i> in Response to <i>Metarhizium anisopliae</i> Infection

Long non-coding RNAs (lncRNAs) represent a diverse class of RNAs that are structurally similar to messenger RNAs (mRNAs) but do not encode proteins. Growing evidence suggests that in response to biotic and abiotic stresses, the lncRNAs play crucial regulatory roles in plants and animals. However, the potential role of lncRNAs during fungal infection has yet to be characterized in Plutella xylostella, a devastating pest of cruciferous crops. In the current study, we performed a strand-specific RNA sequencing of Metarhizium anisopliae-infected (Px36hT, Px72hT) and uninfected (Px36hCK, Px72hCK) P. xylostella fat body tissues. Comprehensive bioinformatic analysis revealed a total of 5665 and 4941 lncRNAs at 36 and 72-h post-infection (hpi), including 563 (Px36hT), 532 (Px72hT) known and 5102 (Px36hT), 4409 (Px72hT) novel lncRNA transcripts. These lncRNAs shared structural similarities with their counterparts in other species, including shorter exon and intron length, fewer exon numbers, and a lower expression profile than mRNAs. LncRNAs regulate the expression of neighboring protein-coding genes by acting in a cis and trans manner. Functional annotation and pathway analysis of cis-acting lncRNAs revealed their role in several immune-related genes, including Toll, serpin, transferrin, βGRP etc. Furthermore, we identified multiple lncRNAs acting as microRNA (miRNA) precursors. These miRNAs can potentially regulate the expression of mRNAs involved in immunity and development, suggesting a crucial lncRNA–miRNA-mRNA complex. Our findings will provide a genetic resource for future functional studies of lncRNAs involved in P. xylostella immune responses to M. anisopliae infection and shed light on understanding insect host–pathogen interactions

Recent Advances and Future Potential of Long Non-Coding RNAs in Insects

Over the last decade, long non-coding RNAs (lncRNAs) have witnessed a steep rise in interest amongst the scientific community. Because of their functional significance in several biological processes, i.e., alternative splicing, epigenetics, cell cycle, dosage compensation, and gene expression regulation, lncRNAs have transformed our understanding of RNA&rsquo;s regulatory potential. However, most knowledge concerning lncRNAs comes from mammals, and our understanding of the potential role of lncRNAs amongst insects remains unclear. Technological advances such as RNA-seq have enabled entomologists to profile several hundred lncRNAs in insect species, although few are functionally studied. This article will review experimentally validated lncRNAs from different insects and the lncRNAs identified via bioinformatic tools. Lastly, we will discuss the existing research challenges and the future of lncRNAs in insects

reuse strategies in distributed complex event detection

Software Engineering Society of Korean; Institute for Information Scientists and Engineers; IEEE Reliability Society; KAIST (Korea Advanced Institute of Science and Technology); Korea Information Promotion Agency; Samsung SDSIn a Pub/Sub system, the procedure of distributed event detection can be divided into two interacting phases: the subscription matching and the subscription/ event routing. Also, the performance of the system is greatly influenced by these two parts. Adopting a reuse strategy in matching and routing can reduce matching workload and network traffic. However, few of the existing researches provide a reuse solution comprehensively in distributed environments. This paper focuses on exploiting reuse to improve distributed complex event detection. The Pub/Sub system OGENS is introduced, in which the reuses are exploited in the channel-based subscription/event routing and the complex event matching. © 2009 IEEE