Oryza sativa Cytochrome P450 Family Member OsCYP96B4 Reduces Plant Height in a Transcript Dosage Dependent Manner

Background: Plant cytochromes P450 are involved in a wide range of biosynthetic reactions and play various roles in plant development. However, little is known about the biological functions of the subfamily CYP96 in plants. Methodology/Principal Findings: Here, we report a novel semi-dwarf rice mutant, in which a single copy of transposon dissociator (Ds) was inserted into the gene OsCYP96B4 (Oryza sativa Cytochrome P450 96B4). The mutant exhibits the defects in cell elongation and pollen germination, which can be complemented by the wild type OsCYP96B4 and be rescued by remobilization of the Ds element with the presence of the transposase Activator (Ac). Transgenic plants harboring OsCYP96B4 double-stranded RNA interference construct mimicked the mutant phenotype. The oscyp96b4 mutant phenotype could not be rescued by all the tested phytohormones and it was found that OsCYP96B4 reduced plant height in a transcript dosage dependent manner. Heterologous expression of OsCYP96B4 in Schizosaccharomyces pombe resulted in missegregation and wider cells. Further investigation showed that the mutant exhibited the defects in the metabolism of some lipid molecular species when compared with the wild type. Conclusions/Significance: The oscyp96b4 mutant is a novel rice semi-dwarf mutant. Our data suggest that OsCYP96B

Evolutionary history and stress regulation of the lectin superfamily in higher plants

10.1186/1471-2148-10-79BMC Evolutionary Biology101

The Tragedy of Corruption Corruption as a social dilemma

We investigate corruption as a social dilemma by means of a bribery game in which a risk of collective failure is introduced when the number of public officials accepting a bribe from firms reaches a certain threshold. We show that, despite the social risk, the pursuit of individual interest prevails and leads to the elimination of honest officials over time. Reducing the size of the groups while increasing the probability of collective failure diminishes the public officials' corruptibility but is not sufficient to eliminate the tragedy of corruption altogether

Analysis of the Willingness and Factors Influencing the Residents to Choose Between Chinese Medicine and Western Medicine under the New Coronavirus Pandemic: A Study in Zhejiang Province Community Health Service Center

Objective: To understand the willingness of Chinese residents to choose between Chinese and Western medicine in the face of sudden outbreak, this study aims to investigate and analyze the willingness and factors influencing Chinese residents (taking Zhejiang Province as an example) to choose between Chinese and Western medicine under the new coronavirus pandemic. Methods: The present study performed a large-scale cross-sectional online survey among 666 random residents in Zhejiang Province. We used questionnaires to investigate the feedback form from residents seeking medical care. In addition, a multivariate logistic regression model was used to analyze the influence of gender, education, medical reimbursement, and age on the choice of Chinese and Western medicine. Results: Among the patients with mild disease, 55.9% patients chose traditional Chinese medicine, while 44.1% chose Western medicine. Moreover, the proportion of patients with severe diseases who chose traditional Chinese medicine was 7.0%, while the rate of Western medicine was 93.0%. Among the patients suffering from mild diseases, the proportion of men who chose traditional Chinese medicine (46.2%) was lower than that of women (53.8%). The usage of Chinese medicine was preferred among residents of all ages, income levels, and educational backgrounds. A total of 93.0% of patients who chose Western medicine for treatment were severely ill, and the residents with severe diseases preferred Western medicine to Chinese medicine. People with high education and young were more inclined toward Western medicine for treatment compared with Chinese medicine. It was noted that people paid most attention to the medical insurance reimbursement ratio, followed by the distance between the medical institution and the place of residence. Conclusion: The acceptance of Chinese medicine among patients has generally increased; however, gender, educational background, and income still exert a great influence on the choice between Chinese and Western medicine

Kinetically Controlled Synthesis of Cefaclor with Immobilized Penicillin Acylase in the Presence of Organic Cosolvents

Enzymatic syntheses of cefaclor with immobilized penicillin acylase in organic cosolvents under kinetic control were carried out. KcPGA from Kluyvera citrophila was selected as the best catalyst among the three species of immobilized penicillin acylase. Ethylene glycol, glycerol, methanol, ethyl estate and polyethyleneglycol (PEG) were selected accordingly and cefaclor syntheses were preformed respectively. Best results in terms of yield were obtained in ethylene glycol, with which further studies were investigated and the maximum yield was Y = 93.5 %. The optimal conditions were pH 6.5, temperature θ = 5 °C, 3 mol D-phenylglycine methyl ester (PGME) per mol 7-aminodesacetoxymehtyl-3-chlorocephalosporin acid (7ACCA) and x = 30 % ethylene glycol fraction. Under above mentioned conditions, the yield was Y = 91.1 %

The influence of mass-ratio in extreme-mass-ratio inspirals for testing general relativity

The popular waveform templates of extreme-mass-ratio inspirals usually omit the mass-ratio in the conservative dynamics, and employ adiabatic approximation to include the radiation reaction. With the help of effective-one-body dynamics, we investigate the influence of mass-ratio in the conservative part on the gravitational waves. We find that for the extra-relativistic orbits, the mass-ratio can produce obvious orbital dephasing even for very small mass-ratio and then affect the waveforms. More importantly, it is noted that omitting the mass-ratio in waveform templates may induce a fake signal of deviation from general relativity