33 research outputs found
Diverse biological effects of glycosyltransferase genes from Tartary buckwheat
Background: Tartary buckwheat (Fagopyrum tataricum) is an edible cereal crop whose sprouts have been marketed and commercialized for their higher levels of anti-oxidants, including rutin and anthocyanin. UDP-glucose flavonoid glycosyltransferases (UFGTs) play an important role in the biosynthesis of flavonoids in plants. So far, few studies are available on UFGT genes that may play a role in tartary buckwheat flavonoids biosynthesis. Here, we report on the identification and functional characterization of seven UFGTs from tartary buckwheat that are potentially involved in flavonoid biosynthesis (and have varying effects on plant growth and development when overexpressed in Arabidopsis thaliana.)
Results: Phylogenetic analysis indicated that the potential function of the seven FtUFGT proteins, FtUFGT6, FtUFGT7, FtUFGT8, FtUFGT9, FtUFGT15, FtUFGT40, and FtUFGT41, could be divided into three Arabidopsis thaliana functional subgroups that are involved in flavonoid biosynthesis of and anthocyanin accumulation. A significant positive correlation between FtUFGT8 and FtUFGT15 expression and anthocyanin accumulation capacity was observed in the tartary buckwheat seedlings after cold stress. Overexpression in Arabidopsis thaliana showed that FtUFGT8, FtUFGT15, and FtUFGT41 significantly increased the anthocyanin content in transgenic plants. Unexpectedly, overexpression of FtUFGT6, while not leading to enhanced anthocyanin accumulation, significantly enhanced the growth yield of transgenic plants. When wild-type plants have only cotyledons, most of the transgenic plants of FtUFGT6 had grown true leaves. Moreover, the growth speed of the oxFtUFGT6 transgenic plant root was also significantly faster than that of the wild type. At later growth, FtUFGT6 transgenic plants showed larger leaves, earlier twitching times and more tillers than wild type, whereas FtUFGT15 showed opposite results.
Conclusions: Seven FtUFGTs were isolated from tartary buckwheat. FtUFGT8, FtUFGT15, and FtUFGT41 can significantly increase the accumulation of total anthocyanins in transgenic plants. Furthermore, overexpression of FtUFGT6 increased the overall yield of Arabidopsis transgenic plants at all growth stages. However, FtUFGT15 shows the opposite trend at later growth stage and delays the growth speed of plants. These results suggested that the biological function of FtUFGT genes in tartary buckwheat is diverse
Flew Over Learning Trap: Learn Unlearnable Samples by Progressive Staged Training
Unlearning techniques are proposed to prevent third parties from exploiting
unauthorized data, which generate unlearnable samples by adding imperceptible
perturbations to data for public publishing. These unlearnable samples
effectively misguide model training to learn perturbation features but ignore
image semantic features. We make the in-depth analysis and observe that models
can learn both image features and perturbation features of unlearnable samples
at an early stage, but rapidly go to the overfitting stage since the shallow
layers tend to overfit on perturbation features and make models fall into
overfitting quickly. Based on the observations, we propose Progressive Staged
Training to effectively prevent models from overfitting in learning
perturbation features. We evaluated our method on multiple model architectures
over diverse datasets, e.g., CIFAR-10, CIFAR-100, and ImageNet-mini. Our method
circumvents the unlearnability of all state-of-the-art methods in the
literature and provides a reliable baseline for further evaluation of
unlearnable techniques
ANPL: Compiling Natural Programs with Interactive Decomposition
The advents of Large Language Models (LLMs) have shown promise in augmenting
programming using natural interactions. However, while LLMs are proficient in
compiling common usage patterns into a programming language, e.g., Python, it
remains a challenge how to edit and debug an LLM-generated program. We
introduce ANPL, a programming system that allows users to decompose
user-specific tasks. In an ANPL program, a user can directly manipulate sketch,
which specifies the data flow of the generated program. The user annotates the
modules, or hole with natural language descriptions offloading the expensive
task of generating functionalities to the LLM. Given an ANPL program, the ANPL
compiler generates a cohesive Python program that implements the
functionalities in hole, while respecting the dataflows specified in sketch. We
deploy ANPL on the Abstraction and Reasoning Corpus (ARC), a set of unique
tasks that are challenging for state-of-the-art AI systems, showing it
outperforms baseline programming systems that (a) without the ability to
decompose tasks interactively and (b) without the guarantee that the modules
can be correctly composed together. We obtain a dataset consisting of 300/400
ARC tasks that were successfully decomposed and grounded in Python, providing
valuable insights into how humans decompose programmatic tasks. See the dataset
at https://iprc-dip.github.io/DARC
Self-driven Grounding: Large Language Model Agents with Automatical Language-aligned Skill Learning
Large language models (LLMs) show their powerful automatic reasoning and
planning capability with a wealth of semantic knowledge about the human world.
However, the grounding problem still hinders the applications of LLMs in the
real-world environment. Existing studies try to fine-tune the LLM or utilize
pre-defined behavior APIs to bridge the LLMs and the environment, which not
only costs huge human efforts to customize for every single task but also
weakens the generality strengths of LLMs. To autonomously ground the LLM onto
the environment, we proposed the Self-Driven Grounding (SDG) framework to
automatically and progressively ground the LLM with self-driven skill learning.
SDG first employs the LLM to propose the hypothesis of sub-goals to achieve
tasks and then verify the feasibility of the hypothesis via interacting with
the underlying environment. Once verified, SDG can then learn generalized
skills with the guidance of these successfully grounded subgoals. These skills
can be further utilized to accomplish more complex tasks which fail to pass the
verification phase. Verified in the famous instruction following task
set-BabyAI, SDG achieves comparable performance in the most challenging tasks
compared with imitation learning methods that cost millions of demonstrations,
proving the effectiveness of learned skills and showing the feasibility and
efficiency of our framework
Assessing and Understanding Creativity in Large Language Models
In the field of natural language processing, the rapid development of large
language model (LLM) has attracted more and more attention. LLMs have shown a
high level of creativity in various tasks, but the methods for assessing such
creativity are inadequate. The assessment of LLM creativity needs to consider
differences from humans, requiring multi-dimensional measurement while
balancing accuracy and efficiency. This paper aims to establish an efficient
framework for assessing the level of creativity in LLMs. By adapting the
modified Torrance Tests of Creative Thinking, the research evaluates the
creative performance of various LLMs across 7 tasks, emphasizing 4 criteria
including Fluency, Flexibility, Originality, and Elaboration. In this context,
we develop a comprehensive dataset of 700 questions for testing and an
LLM-based evaluation method. In addition, this study presents a novel analysis
of LLMs' responses to diverse prompts and role-play situations. We found that
the creativity of LLMs primarily falls short in originality, while excelling in
elaboration. Besides, the use of prompts and the role-play settings of the
model significantly influence creativity. Additionally, the experimental
results also indicate that collaboration among multiple LLMs can enhance
originality. Notably, our findings reveal a consensus between human evaluations
and LLMs regarding the personality traits that influence creativity. The
findings underscore the significant impact of LLM design on creativity and
bridges artificial intelligence and human creativity, offering insights into
LLMs' creativity and potential applications
A replicative recombinant HPV16 E7 expression virus upregulates CD36 in C33A cells
ObjectiveIn past decades, the role of high-risk HPV (HR-HPV) infection in cancer pathogenesis has been extensively studied. The viral E7 protein expressed in pre-malignant cells has been identified as an ideal target for immunological intervention. However, the cultivation of HPV in vitro remains a significant challenge, as well as the lack of methods for expressing the HPV E7 protein and generating replication-competent recombinant viral particles, which posed a major obstacle to further exploration of the function and carcinogenic mechanisms of the E7 oncoprotein. Therefore, it is imperative to investigate novel methodologies to construct replication-competent recombinant viral particles that express the HPV E7 protein to facilitate the study of its function.MethodsWe initiated the construction of recombinant viral particles by utilizing the ccdB-Kan forward/reverse screening system in conjunction with the Red/ExoCET recombinant system. We followed the infection of C33A cells with the obtained recombinant virus to enable the continuous expression of HPV16 E7. Afterwards, the total RNA was extracted and performed transcriptome sequencing using RNA-Seq technology to identify differentially expressed genes associated with HPV-induced oncogenicity.ResultsWe successfully established replicative recombinant viral particles expressing HPV16 E7 stably and continuously. The C33A cells were infected with recombinant viral particles to achieve overexpression of the E7 protein. Subsequently, RNA-Seq analysis was conducted to assess the changes in host cell gene expression. The results revealed an upregulation of the CD36 gene, which is associated with the HPV-induced oncogenic pathways, including PI3K-Akt and p53 signaling pathway. qRT-PCR analysis further identified that the upregulation of the CD36 gene due to the expression of HPV16 E7.ConclusionThe successful expression of HPV16 E7 in cells demonstrates that the replicated recombinant virus retains the replication and infection abilities of Ad4, while also upregulating the CD36 gene involved in the PI3K-Akt signaling and p53 pathways, thereby promoting cell proliferation. The outcome of this study provides a novel perspective and serves as a solid foundation for further exploration of HPV-related carcinogenesis and the development of replicative HPV recombinant vaccines capable of inducing protective immunity against HPV
Transcriptional reprogramming of mature CD4 + helper T cells generates distinct MHC class II- restricted cytotoxic T lymphocytes
2 8 1 CD4 + T cells are commonly classified as 'helper' T cells on the basis of their roles in providing help to promote or dampen cellular and humoral immune responses. In contrast, CD8αβ + cytotoxic T lympho cytes (CTLs) provide direct protective immunity by killing infected or transformed cells. The helper T cell program is initially induced during thymic development, during which thymocytes expressing a major histocompatibility complex (MHC) class II-reactive T cell antigen receptor (TCR) develop into the CD4 + helper T cell lineage, whereas thymocytes with specificity for MHC class I differentiate into the CD8 + CTL lineage. The functional programming, which coincides with but does not depend on the MHC restriction or expression of the coreceptor CD4 or CD8αβ, is controlled by the action and counter action of key transcription factors. Together with Tox and GATA3, the helper T cell transcription factor ThPOK (cKrox; encoded by Zbtb7b (called 'Thpok' here)) first induces the CD4 + helper T cell fate and prevents thymocytes from differentiating into CD8 + CTLs 1-6 . Runx3, a member of the Runx family of transcription factors, has the opposite effect and terminates CD4 expression while promoting differentiation into the CTL lineage That lineage separation, however, is not all encompassing, and reports have repeatedly indicated the presence of CD4 + T cells with cytolytic functions in various species, including humans and rodent
Research on Management Conflict Matrix of Cross-border E-commerce Logistics Based on TRIZ Model
Cross-border E-commerce and international logistics are national key projects. International logistics is more important as Cross-border E-commerce becomes the main form of international trade. Based on the features of Cross-border E-commerce logistics, this paper selects Guangdong, where developing factors of Cross-border E-commerce industry and international logistics industry are relatively complete, as the representative research site. Questionnaires are distributed to 503 researchers from Cross-border E-commerce companies and universities in Guangdong province. Researchers use SPSS to analyze the reliability and validity of the data, and adopt the TRIZ theory to construct a logistics conflict matrix. The positive factor is inversely proportional to the negative factor variable. On the one hand, the ideal state of logistics weakens as the negative factor of logistics increases; on the other hand, the ideal state of logistics strengthens as the positive factor of logistics increases