A study of deputies in local people's congresses in China

Ph.DDOCTOR OF PHILOSOPH

Population and allelic variation of A-to-I RNA editing in human transcriptomes.

BackgroundA-to-I RNA editing is an important step in RNA processing in which specific adenosines in some RNA molecules are post-transcriptionally modified to inosines. RNA editing has emerged as a widespread mechanism for generating transcriptome diversity. However, there remain significant knowledge gaps about the variation and function of RNA editing.ResultsIn order to determine the influence of genetic variation on A-to-I RNA editing, we integrate genomic and transcriptomic data from 445 human lymphoblastoid cell lines by combining an RNA editing QTL (edQTL) analysis with an allele-specific RNA editing (ASED) analysis. We identify 1054 RNA editing events associated with cis genetic polymorphisms. Additionally, we find that a subset of these polymorphisms is linked to genome-wide association study signals of complex traits or diseases. Finally, compared to random cis polymorphisms, polymorphisms associated with RNA editing variation are located closer spatially to their respective editing sites and have a more pronounced impact on RNA secondary structure.ConclusionsOur study reveals widespread cis variation in RNA editing among genetically distinct individuals and sheds light on possible phenotypic consequences of such variation on complex traits and diseases

Development and Control of Soybean Aphid, Aphis glycines, in Heilongjiang Province

Originating text in Chinese.Citation: Wang, Chunrong, Chen, Jiguang, Guo, Yuren, Gong, Xiangyu, Xu, Zhaofei, Lin, Chao. (1998). Development and Control of Soybean Aphid, Aphis glycines, in Heilongjiang Province. Soybean Bulletin, 6, 15

Entomopathogenic Fungi on Hemiberlesia pitysophila

Hemiberlesia pitysophila Takagi is an extremely harmful exotic insect in forest to Pinus species, including Pinus massoniana. Using both morphological taxonomy and molecular phylogenetics, we identified 15 strains of entomogenous fungi, which belong to 9 genera with high diversities. Surprisingly, we found that five strains that were classified as species of Pestalotiopsis, which has been considered plant pathogens and endophytes, were the dominant entomopathogenic fungus of H. pitysophila. Molecular phylogenetic tree established by analyzing sequences of ribosomal DNA internal transcribed spacer showed that entomopathogenic Pestalotiopsis spp. were similar to plant Pestalotiopsis, but not to other pathogens and endophytes of its host plant P. massoniana. We were the first to isolate entomopathogenic Pestalotiopsis spp. from H. pitysophila. Our findings suggest a potential and promising method of H. pitysophila bio-control

Inferring a protein interaction map of Mycobacterium tuberculosis based on sequences and interologs

Background: Mycobacterium tuberculosis is an infectious bacterium posing serious threats to human health. Due to the difficulty in performing molecular biology experiments to detect protein interactions, reconstruction of a protein interaction map of M. tuberculosis by computational methods will provide crucial information to understand the biological processes in the pathogenic microorganism, as well as provide the framework upon which new therapeutic approaches can be developed.Results: In this paper, we constructed an integrated M. tuberculosis protein interaction network by machine learning and ortholog-based methods. Firstly, we built a support vector machine (SVM) method to infer the protein interactions of M. tuberculosis H37Rv by gene sequence information. We tested our predictors in Escherichia coli and mapped the genetic codon features underlying its protein interactions to M. tuberculosis. Moreover, the documented interactions of 14 other species were mapped to the interactome of M. tuberculosis by the interolog method. The ensemble protein interactions were validated by various functional relationships, i.e., gene coexpression, evolutionary relationship and functional similarity, extracted from heterogeneous data sources. The accuracy and validation demonstrate the effectiveness and efficiency of our framework.Conclusions: A protein interaction map of M. tuberculosis is inferred from genetic codons and interologs. The prediction accuracy and numerically experimental validation demonstrate the effectiveness and efficiency of our method. Furthermore, our methods can be straightforwardly extended to infer the protein interactions of other bacterial species. © 2012 Liu et al.; licensee BioMed Central Ltd.Link_to_subscribed_fulltex

A deterministic-statistical approach to reconstruct moving sources using sparse partial data

We consider the reconstruction of moving sources using partial measured data. A two-step deterministic-statistical approach is proposed. In the first step, an approximate direct sampling method is developed to obtain the locations of the sources at different times. Such information is coded in the priors, which is critical for the success of the Bayesian method in the second step. The well-posedness of the posterior measure is analyzed in the sense of the Hellinger distance. Both steps are based on the same physical model and use the same set of measured data. The combined approach inherits the merits of the deterministic method and Bayesian inversion as demonstrated by the numerical examples

Involvement of Mitochondrial Dynamics and Mitophagy in Sevoflurane-Induced Cell Toxicity

General anesthesia is a powerful and indispensable tool to ensure the accomplishment of surgical procedures or clinical examinations. Sevoflurane as an inhalational anesthetic without unpleasant odor is commonly used in clinical practice, especially for pediatric surgery. However, the toxicity caused by sevoflurane has gained growing attention. Mitochondria play a key role in maintaining cellular metabolism and survival. To maintain the stability of mitochondrial homeostasis, they are constantly going through fusion and fission. Also, damaged mitochondria need to be degraded by autophagy, termed as mitophagy. Accumulating evidence proves that sevoflurane exposure in young age could lead to cell toxicity by triggering the mitochondrial pathway of apoptosis, inducing the abnormalities of mitochondrial dynamics and mitophagy. In the present review, we focus on the current understanding of mitochondrial apoptosis, dynamics and mitophagy in cell function, the implications for cell toxicity in response to sevoflurane, and their underlying potential mechanisms

Preparation of Mn2O3-Co3O4 and its xylene removal by oxidation

Xylene is one of the main components of volatile organic compounds (VOCs), the catalytic oxidation of xylene has been studied. In this work, the manganese-cobalt mixed oxide catalysts for the xylene removal have been prepared by one step direct decomposition method with the aid of glucose. The physicochemical properties of the catalysts were characterized by TG, XRD, TEM, BET, TPR and XPS. The catalytic experiments results show that the Mn-Co catalysts are composite oxides composed of Mn2O3 and Co3O4. The Mn1Co1.4Ox catalyst with the molar ratio of Mn to Co of 1:1.4 has excellent oxidation removal performance of xylene. At the space velocity of 20000 mL (g·h)−1 and the concentration xylene of 500 ppm, the temperature of complete conversion of xylene is 210 °C, which is related to the developed pore structure, high specific surface area, excellent reduction performance, abundant adsorbed oxygen species, coexistence and interaction of polyvalent species. The space structure and competitive adsorption of reactants make the oxidation performance of low polarity p-xylene better. The participation of water vapor reduced the catalytic performance of the reaction system by 12-19%, which is related to the ads-desorption of water molecules and the decomposition of active components