Towards the Ictalurid Catfish Transcriptome: Generation and Analysis of 31,215 Catfish ESTs.

Background EST sequencing is one of the most efficient means for gene discovery and molecular marker development, and can be additionally utilized in both comparative genome analysis and evaluation of gene duplications. While much progress has been made in catfish genomics, large-scale EST resources have been lacking. The objectives of this project were to construct primary cDNA libraries, to conduct initial EST sequencing to generate catfish EST resources, and to obtain baseline information about highly expressed genes in various catfish organs to provide a guide for the production of normalized and subtracted cDNA libraries for large-scale transcriptome analysis in catfish. Results A total of 17 cDNA libraries were constructed including 12 from channel catfish (Ictalurus punctatus) and 5 from blue catfish (I. furcatus). A total of 31,215 ESTs, with average length of 778 bp, were generated including 20,451 from the channel catfish and 10,764 from blue catfish. Cluster analysis indicated that 73% of channel catfish and 67% of blue catfish ESTs were unique within the project. Over 53% and 50% of the channel catfish and blue catfish ESTs, respectively, had significant similarities to known genes. All ESTs have been deposited in GenBank. Evaluation of the catfish EST resources demonstrated their potential for molecular marker development, comparative genome analysis, and evaluation of ancient and recent gene duplications. Subtraction of abundantly expressed genes in a variety of catfish tissues, identified here, will allow the production of low-redundancy libraries for in-depth sequencing. Conclusion The sequencing of 31,215 ESTs from channel catfish and blue catfish has significantly increased the EST resources in catfish. The EST resources should provide the potential for microarray development, polymorphic marker identification, mapping, and comparative genome analysis

Real-world experience of teriflunomide in relapsing multiple sclerosis: paramagnetic rim lesions may play a role

ObjectivesThe aims of this study were to report the effectiveness and safety of teriflunomide in Chinese patients with relapsing–remitting multiple sclerosis (RRMS) and to explore the association of paramagnetic rim lesion (PRL) burden with patient outcome in the context of teriflunomide treatment and the impact of teriflunomide on PRL burden.MethodsThis is a prospective observational study. A total of 100 RRMS patients treated with teriflunomide ≥3 months were included in analyzing drug persistence and safety. Among them, 96 patients treated ≥6 months were included in assessing drug effectiveness in aspects of no evidence of disease activity (NEDA) 3. The number and total volume of PRL were calculated in 76 patients with baseline susceptibility-weighted imaging (SWI), and their association with NEDA3 failure during teriflunomide treatment was investigated.ResultsOver a treatment period of 19.7 (3.1–51.7) months, teriflunomide reduced annualized relapse rate (ARR) from 1.1 ± 0.8 to 0.3 ± 0.5, and Expanded Disability Status Scale (EDSS) scores remained stable. At month 24, the NEDA3% and drug persistence rate were 43.8% and 65.1%, respectively. In patients with a baseline SWI, 81.6% had at least 1 PRL, and 42.1% had ≥4 PRLs. The total volume of PRL per patient was 0.3 (0.0–11.5) mL, accounting for 2.3% (0.0%–49.0%) of the total T2 lesion volume. Baseline PRL number ≥ 4 (OR = 4.24, p = 0.009), younger onset age (OR = 0.94, p = 0.039), and frequent relapses in initial 2 years of disease (OR = 13.40, p = 0.026) were associated with NEDA3 failure. The PRL number and volume were not reduced (p = 0.343 and 0.051) after teriflunomide treatment for more than 24 months. No new safety concerns were identified in this study.ConclusionTeriflunomide is effective in reducing ARR in Chinese patients with RRMS. Patients with less PRL burden, less frequent relapses, and relatively older age are likely to benefit more from teriflunomide, indicating that PRL might be a valuable measurement to inform clinical treatment decision

Flexibility Provisions in Active Distribution Networks with Uncertainties

This paper proposes a risk-averse time-series joint scheduling method to release inherent benefits for improvements on operational cost, voltage profile and risk control, through flexibility extraction from grid-storage-demand resources in active distribution networks (ADNs). In particular, a flexibility analytical framework is developed to fully harness the controllability of various resources in both spatial and temporal scales, and is available for future analysis. The expected operational cost and the risks imposed by uncertainties are simultaneously addressed via conditional value at risk while satisfying physical and operating constraints, in which a sample weighted average approximation (SWAA) technique is employed for approximating the faced uncertainties. The SWAA-based stochastic scheduling problem is further transformed into a second-order cone programming problem via linearization and conic relaxation. Numerical simulations on 33-bus and 123-bus test systems verify the effectiveness of the proposed method

Pore-Scale Modeling of Air–Water Two Phase Flow and Oxygen Transport in Gas Diffusion Layer of Proton Exchange Membrane Fuel Cell

Understanding multiphase flow and gas transport occurring in electrodes is crucial for improving the performance of proton exchange membrane fuel cells. In the present study, a pore-scale model using the lattice Boltzmann method (LBM) was proposed to study the coupled processes of air–water two-phase flow and oxygen reactive transport processes in porous structures of the gas diffusion layer (GDL) and in fractures of the microscopic porous layer (MPL). Three-dimensional pore-scale numerical results show that the liquid water generation rate is gradually reduced as the oxygen consumption reaction proceeds, and the liquid water saturation in the GDL increases, thus the constant velocity inlet or pressure inlet condition cannot be maintained while the results showed that at t = 1,200,000 iterations after 2900 h running time, the local saturation at the GDL/MPL was about 0.7, and the maximum value was about 0.83, while the total saturation was 0.35. The current density reduced from 2.39 to 0.46 A cm−2. Effects of fracture number were also investigated, and the results showed that for the fracture numbers of 8, 12, 16, and 24, the breakthrough point number was 4, 3, 3, and 2, respectively. As the fracture number increased, the number of the water breakthrough points at the GDL/GC interface decreased, the liquid water saturation inside the GDL increased, the GDL/MPL interface was more seriously covered, and the current density decreased. The pore-scale model for the coupled multiphase reactive transport processes is helpful for understanding the mechanisms inside the porous electrodes of PEMFC

Discovery of host defence genes in the Japanese scallop Mizuhopecten yessoensis Jay by expressed sequence tag analysis of kidney tissue

The Japanese scallop Mizuhopecten yessoensis is one of the most important aquaculture mollusca in Japan and China. In the present study, a high-quality cDNA library of the Japanese scallop was constructed from the kidney tissue. A total of 2919 expressed sequence tags longer than 100 bp were generated from this library. A cluster of 1440 unique sequences, which consisted of 258 contigs and 1182 singletons, was revealed. Based on blast searches, 882 (61.3%) genes had significant (E-value 70 genes were involved in stress response, immunity and apoptosis. These results expanded our knowledge of the genetics and physiology of the Japanese scallop, and provided a useful resource for gene discovery for further research of this species

KEGG annotation of putative proteins.

<p>A, Cellular Processes; B, Enviromental Information Processing; C, Genetic Information Processing; D, Metabolism; E, Organismal Systems.</p

GO (Gene Ontology) categorization (Biological process, Cellular component and Molecular function) of unigenes in sea cucumber.

<p>Each annotated sequence is assigned at least one GO term. The x-axis represents GO subcategories. The left y-axis indicates the percentage of genes. The right y-axis indicates the number of DEGs.</p

Significantly enriched GO terms in DEGs.

<p>Significantly enriched GO terms in DEGs.</p