38 research outputs found

    Mirror energy difference and the structure of loosely bound proton-rich nuclei around A = 20

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    The properties of loosely bound proton-rich nuclei around A = 20 are investigated within the framework of nuclear shell model. In these nuclei, the strength of the effective interactions involving the loosely bound proton s1=2 orbit are significantly reduced in comparison with those in their mirror nuclei. We evaluate the reduction of the effective interaction by calculating the monopole-baseduniversal interaction (VMU) in the Woods-Saxon basis. The shell-model Hamiltonian in the sd shell, such as USD, can thus be modified to reproduce the binding energies and energy levels of the weakly bound proton-rich nuclei around A = 20. The effect of the reduction of the effective interaction on the structure and decay properties of these nuclei is also discussed.Comment: accepted by Physical Review

    Genome sequences reveal global dispersal routes and suggest convergent genetic adaptations in seahorse evolution

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    Seahorses have a circum-global distribution in tropical to temperate coastal waters. Yet, seahorses show many adaptations for a sedentary, cryptic lifestyle: they require specific habitats, such as seagrass, kelp or coral reefs, lack pelvic and caudal fins, and give birth to directly developed offspring without pronounced pelagic larval stage, rendering long-range dispersal by conventional means inefficient. Here we investigate seahorses’ worldwide dispersal and biogeographic patterns based on a de novo genome assembly of Hippocampus erectus as well as 358 re-sequenced genomes from 21 species. Seahorses evolved in the late Oligocene and subsequent circum-global colonization routes are identified and linked to changing dynamics in ocean currents and paleo-temporal seaway openings. Furthermore, the genetic basis of the recurring “bony spines” adaptive phenotype is linked to independent substitutions in a key developmental gene. Analyses thus suggest that rafting via ocean currents compensates for poor dispersal and rapid adaptation facilitates colonizing new habitats.Fil: Chunyan, Li. Southern Marine Science and Engineering Guangdong Laboratory; China. Pilot National Laboratory for Marine Science and Technology; China. Chinese Academy of Sciences; RepĂșblica de ChinaFil: Olave, Melisa. Consejo Nacional de Investigaciones CientĂ­ficas y TĂ©cnicas. Centro CientĂ­fico TecnolĂłgico Conicet - Mendoza. Instituto Argentino de Investigaciones de las Zonas Áridas. Provincia de Mendoza. Instituto Argentino de Investigaciones de las Zonas Áridas. Universidad Nacional de Cuyo. Instituto Argentino de Investigaciones de las Zonas Áridas; Argentina. University of Konstanz; AlemaniaFil: Hou, Yali. Chinese Academy of Sciences; RepĂșblica de ChinaFil: Geng, Qi. Chinese Academy of Sciences; RepĂșblica de China. Southern Marine Science and Engineering Guangdong Laboratory; ChinaFil: Schneider, Ralf. University Of Konstanz; Alemania. Helmholtz Centre for Ocean Research Kie; AlemaniaFil: Zeixa, Gao. Huazhong Agricultural University; ChinaFil: Xiaolong, Tu. Allwegene Technologies ; ChinaFil: Xin, Wang. Chinese Academy of Sciences; RepĂșblica de ChinaFil: Furong, Qi. China National Center for Bioinformation; China. University of Chinese Academy of Sciences; ChinaFil: Nater, Alexander. University of Konstanz; AlemaniaFil: Kautt, Andreas F.. University of Konstanz; Alemania. Harvard University; Estados UnidosFil: Wan, Shiming. Chinese Academy of Sciences; RepĂșblica de ChinaFil: Yanhong, Zhang. Chinese Academy of Sciences; RepĂșblica de ChinaFil: Yali, Liu. Chinese Academy of Sciences; RepĂșblica de ChinaFil: Huixian, Zhang. Chinese Academy of Sciences; RepĂșblica de ChinaFil: Bo, Zhang. Chinese Academy of Sciences; RepĂșblica de ChinaFil: Hao, Zhang. Chinese Academy of Sciences; RepĂșblica de ChinaFil: Meng, Qu ,. Chinese Academy of Sciences; RepĂșblica de ChinaFil: Shuaishuai, Liu. Chinese Academy of Sciences; RepĂșblica de ChinaFil: Zeyu, Chen. Chinese Academy of Sciences; RepĂșblica de China. University of Chinese Academy of Sciences; ChinaFil: Zhong, Jia. Chinese Academy of Sciences; RepĂșblica de ChinaFil: Zhang, He. BGI-Shenzhen; ChinaFil: Meng, Lingfeng. BGI-Shenzhen; ChinaFil: Wang, Kai. Ludong University; ChinaFil: Yin, Jianping. Chinese Academy of Sciences; RepĂșblica de ChinaFil: Huang, Liangmin. Chinese Academy of Sciences; RepĂșblica de China. University of Chinese Academy of Sciences; ChinaFil: Venkatesh, Byrappa. Institute of Molecular and Cell Biology; SingapurFil: Meyer, Axel. University of Konstanz; AlemaniaFil: Lu, Xuemei. Chinese Academy of Sciences; RepĂșblica de ChinaFil: Lin, Qiang. Chinese Academy of Sciences; RepĂșblica de China. Southern Marine Science and Engineering Guangdong Laboratory; China. Pilot National Laboratory for Marine Science and Technology; China. University of Chinese Academy of Sciences; Chin

    Epigenetic targeting of Hedgehog pathway transcriptional output through BET bromodomain inhibition

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    Hedgehog signaling drives oncogenesis in several cancers and strategies targeting this pathway have been developed, most notably through inhibition of Smoothened. However, resistance to Smoothened inhibitors occurs via genetic changes of Smoothened or other downstream Hedgehog components. Here, we overcome these resistance mechanisms by modulating GLI transcription via inhibition of BET bromodomain proteins. We show the BET bromodomain protein, BRD4, regulates GLI transcription downstream of SMO and SUFU and chromatin immunoprecipitation studies reveal BRD4 directly occupies GLI1 and GLI2 promoters, with a substantial decrease in engagement of these sites upon treatment with JQ1, a small molecule inhibitor targeting BRD4. Globally, genes associated with medulloblastoma-specific GLI1 binding sites are downregulated in response to JQ1 treatment, supporting direct regulation of GLI activity by BRD4. Notably, patient- and GEMM-derived Hedgehog-driven tumors (basal cell carcinoma, medulloblastoma and atypical teratoid/rhabdoid tumor) respond to JQ1 even when harboring genetic lesions rendering them resistant to Smoothened antagonists

    A Multi-Level Strategy Based on Metabolic and Molecular Genetic Approaches for the Characterization of Different <i>Coptis</i> Medicines Using HPLC-UV and RAD-seq Techniques

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    Coptis plants (Ranunculaceae) to have played an important role in the prevention and treatment human diseases in Chinese history. In this study, a multi-level strategy based on metabolic and molecular genetic methods was performed for the characterization of four Coptis herbs (C. chinensis, C. deltoidea, C. omeiensis and C. teeta) using high performance liquid chromatography-ultraviolet (HPLC-UV) and restriction site-associated DNA sequencing (RAD-seq) techniques. Protoberberine alkaloids including berberine, palmatine, coptisine, epiberberine, columbamine, jatrorrhizine, magnoflorine and groenlandicine in rhizomes were identified and determined based on the HPLC-UV method. Among them, berberine was demonstrated as the most abundant compound in these plants. RAD-seq was applied to discover single nucleotide polymorphisms (SNPs) data. A total of 44,747,016 reads were generated and 2,443,407 SNPs were identified in regarding to four plants. Additionally, with respect to complicated metabolic and SNP data, multivariable statistical methods of principal component analysis (PCA) and hierarchical cluster analysis (HCA) were successively applied to interpret the structure characteristics. The metabolic variation and genetic relationship among different Coptis plants were successfully illustrated based on data visualization. Summarily, this comprehensive strategy has been proven as a reliable and effective approach to characterize Coptis plants, which can provide additional information for their quality assessment

    Mirror energy difference and the structure of loosely bound proton-rich nuclei around A=20

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    The properties of loosely bound proton-rich nuclei around A=20 are investigated within the framework of the nuclear shell model. In these nuclei, the strength of the effective interactions involving the loosely bound proton s1/2 orbit is significantly reduced in comparison with that of those in their mirror nuclei. We evaluate the reduction of the effective interaction by calculating the monopole-based-universal interaction (VMU) in the Woods-Saxon basis. The shell-model Hamiltonian in the sd shell, such as USD, can thus be modified to reproduce the binding energies and energy levels of the weakly bound proton-rich nuclei around A=20. The effect of the reduction of the effective interaction on the structure and decay properties of these nuclei is also discussed. © 2014 American Physical Society.status: publishe

    A Balancing Current Ratio based State-of-Health Estimation Solution for Lithium-ion Battery Pack

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    The inevitable battery ageing is a bottleneck that hinders the advancement of battery-based energy storage systems. Developing a feasible health assessment strategy for battery pack is important but challenging due to the joint requirements of the computational burden, modeling cost, estimation accuracy, and battery equalization. This article proposes a balancing current ratio (BCR) based solution to achieve reliable state-of-health (SoH) estimations of all series-connected cells within a pack while significantly reduce the overall reliance on cell-level battery models. Specifically, after employing BCR to describe the properties of the balancing process, the voltage-based active balancing is combined into the SoH estimator design for the first time, leading to a weighted fusion strategy to effectively estimate SoHs of all cells within a pack. Hardware-in-the-loop experiments show that even if a parameter-fixed open-circuit-voltage-resistance model is used for modeling, the typical estimation error of our proposed solution can still be bounded by only 1.5%, which is 70% lower than that of the benchmarking algorithms. Due to the model-free nature of the integrated voltage-based balancing, the robustness and flexibility of the proposed pack SoH estimation solution are also significantly improved

    Targeting Lymph Nodes for Systemic Immunosuppression Using Cell‐Free‐DNA‐Scavenging And cGAS‐Inhibiting Nanomedicine‐In‐Hydrogel for Rheumatoid Arthritis Immunotherapy

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    Abstract Rheumatoid arthritis (RA) is a systemic autoimmune disease with pathogenic inflammation caused partly by excessive cell‐free DNA (cfDNA). Specifically, cfDNA is internalized into immune cells, such as macrophages in lymphoid tissues and joints, and activates pattern recognition receptors, including cyclic guanosine monophosphate–adenosine monophosphate synthase (cGAS), resulting in overly strong proinflammation. Here, nanomedicine‐in‐hydrogel (NiH) is reported that co‐delivers cGAS inhibitor RU.521 (RU) and cfDNA‐scavenging cationic nanoparticles (cNPs) to draining lymph nodes (LNs) for systemic immunosuppression in RA therapy. Upon subcutaneous injection, NiH prolongs LN retention of RU and cNPs, which pharmacologically inhibit cGAS and scavenged cfDNA, respectively, to inhibit proinflammation. NiH elicits systemic immunosuppression, repolarizes macrophages, increases fractions of immunosuppressive cells, and decreases fractions of CD4+ T cells and T helper 17 cells. Such skewed immune milieu allows NiH to significantly inhibit RA progression in collagen‐induced arthritis mice. These studies underscore the great potential of NiH for RA immunotherapy
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