Spraying coagulation-assisted hydrothermal synthesis of MoS2/carbon/graphene composite microspheres for lithium-ion battery applications

Composite microspheres consisting of molybdenum disulfide, amorphous carbon, and reduced graphene oxide (named MoS-AC-RGO) were prepared by using a hydrothermal approach combined with the spraying coagulation process and calcinations step. Intercalation compound cellulose−MoS was obtained after the spraying coagulation-assisted hydrothermal treatment, which then converts to MoS-AC-RGO after calcination. Graphene oxide and cellulose were utilized as the precursors of RGO and AC, respectively. Thiourea was adopted as both the species for cellulose dissolution and the sulfur precursor for MoS. The suspension of GO and sodium molybdate also played the role of the coagulation bath. The influence of cellulose on the structure, morphology, and electrochemical performance of the resultant MoS-AC-RGO microspheres was investigated based on XRD, SEM, TEM, Raman spectra, TGA, and N adsorption−desorption technique as well as electrochemical measurements. The composite microspheres show superior electrochemical properties as anode materials for lithium-ion batteries and exhibit a high reversible capacity of 910 mAhg at a current density of 200 mA g, excellent rate capability, and superior cyclic stability with a capacity of 86% after 70 cycles. The roles of the graphene and the cellulose in improving the electrochemical properties of the MoS-AC-RGO composites are discussed based on the morphology, structure, phase, and electrochemical performance studies

De novo Transcriptome Reveals Gene Changes in the Development of the Endosperm Chalazal Haustorium in Taxillus chinensis (DC.) Danser

Loranthus (Taxillus chinensis) is a facultative, hemiparasite and stem parasitic plant that attacks other plants for living. Transcriptome sequencing and bioinformatics analysis were applied in this study to identify the gene expression profiles of fresh seeds (CK), baby (FB), and adult haustoria tissues (FD). We assembled 160,571 loranthus genes, of which 64,926, 35,417, and 47,249 were aligned to NR, GO, and KEGG pathway databases, respectively. We identified 14,295, 15,921, and 16,402 genes in CK, FB, and FD, respectively. We next identified 5,480 differentially expressed genes (DEGs) in the process, of which 258, 174, 81, and 94 were encoding ribosomal proteins (RP), transcription factors (TF), ubiquitin, and disease resistance proteins, respectively. Some DEGs were identified to be upregulated along with the haustoria development (e.g., 68 RP and 26 ubiquitin genes). Notably, 36 RP DEGs peak at FB; 10 ER, 5 WRKY, 6 bHLH, and 4 MYB TF genes upregulated only in FD. Further, we identified 4 out of 32 microRNA genes dysregulated in the loranthus haustoria development. This is the first haustoria transcriptome of loranthus, and our findings will improve our understanding of the molecular mechanism of haustoria

Molecular Identification and Targeted Quantitative Analysis of Medicinal Materials from Uncaria Species by DNA Barcoding and LC-MS/MS

The genus Uncaria is an important source of traditional Chinese medicines with multiple therapeutic effects. The identification of the correct species and accurate determination of the contents of bioactive constituents are important for quality control of Uncaria medicinal materials. Here, an integrated evaluation system based on DNA barcoding for species identification and quantitative analysis by LC-MS/MS has been established. DNA barcoding based on the ITS2 barcode region showed sufficient discriminatory power to precisely identify 24 samples from seven Uncaria species. The length of the 24 ITS2 sequences of Uncaria samples is 227 bp, and 17 variation sites were detected. Additionally, the results of qualitative and quantitative chemical analyses by LC-MS/MS indicated that the chemical compositions of all Uncaria samples were similar; while their contents of targeted alkaloids in samples from different species and origin areas were different. The contents of rhynchophylline (RC) and isorhynchophylline (IRC) were 2.9–1612 mg/kg and 2.60–1299 mg/kg in all tested samples, respectively. This study concludes that DNA barcoding should be used as the first screening step for Uncaria medicinal materials. Then, integration of DNA barcoding with chemical analyses should be applied in quality control of Uncaria medicinal materials in the medicinal industry

Differences and biocontrol potential of haustorial endophytic fungi from Taxillus Chinensis on different host plants

Abstract Background To explore the community composition and diversity of the endophytic fungi in Taxillus chinensis, samples of the parasites growing on seven different hosts, Morus alba, Prunus salicina, Phellodendron chinense, Bauhinia purpurea, Dalbergia odorifera, Diospyros kaki and Dimocarpus longan, were isolated. The strains were identified by their morphological characteristics and their internal transcribed spacer (ITS) sequences. Results 150 different endophytic fungi were isolated from the haustorial roots of the seven hosts with a total isolation rate of 61.24%. These endophytic fungi were found to belong to 1 phylum, 2 classes, 7 orders, 9 families, 11 genera and 8 species. Among of them, Pestalotiopsis, Neopestalotiopsis and Diaporthe were the dominant genera, accounting for 26.67, 17.33 and 31.33% of the total number of strains, respectively. Diversity and similarity analyses showed that the endophytic fungi isolated from D. longan (H’=1.60) had the highest diversity index. The highest richness indexes were found in M. alba and D. odorifera (both 2.23). The evenness index of D. longan was the highest (0.82). The similarity coefficient of D. odorifera was the most similar to D. longan and M. alba (33.33%), while the similarity coefficient of P. chinense was the lowest (7.69%) with M. alba and D. odorifera. Nine strains showed antimicrobial activities. Among them, Pestalotiopsis sp., N. parvum and H. investiens showed significant antifungal activity against three fungal phytopathogens of medicinal plants. At the same time, the crude extracts from the metabolites of the three endophytic fungi had strong inhibitory effects on the three pathogens. Pestalotiopsis sp., N. parvum and H. investiens had the strongest inhibitory effects of S. cucurbitacearum, with inhibitory rates of 100%, 100% and 81.51%, respectively. In addition, N. parvum had a strong inhibitory effect on D. glomerata and C. cassicola, with inhibitory rates of 82.35% and 72.80%, respectively. Conclusions These results indicate that the species composition and diversity of endophytic fungi in the branches of T. chinensis were varied in the different hosts and showed good antimicrobial potential in the control of plant pathogens

Transcriptome Analysis of <i>Taxillusi chinensis (DC</i>.<i>) </i>Danser Seeds in Response to Water Loss

<div><p>Background</p><p><i>Taxillus chinensis (DC</i>.<i>)</i> Danser, the official species of parasitic loranthus that grows by parasitizing other plants, is used in various traditional Chinese medicine prescriptions. ABA-dependent and ABA-independent pathways are two major pathways in response to drought stress for plants and some genes have been reported to play a key role during the dehydration including dehydration-responsive protein RD22, late embryogenesis abundant (LEA) proteins, and various transcription factors (TFs) like MYB and WRKY. However, genes responding to dehydration are still unknown in loranthus.</p><p>Methods and Results</p><p>Initially, loranthus seeds were characterized as recalcitrant seeds. Then, biological replicates of fresh loranthus seeds (CK), and seeds after being dehydrated for 16 hours (Tac-16) and 36 hours (Tac-36) were sequenced by RNA-Seq, generating 386,542,846 high quality reads. A total of 164,546 transcripts corresponding to 114,971 genes were assembled by Trinity and annotated by mapping them to NCBI non-redundant (NR), UniProt, GO, KEGG pathway and COG databases. Transcriptome profiling identified 60,695, 56,027 and 66,389 transcripts (>1 FPKM) in CK, Tac-16 and Tac-36, respectively. Compared to CK, we obtained 2,102 up-regulated and 1,344 down-regulated transcripts in Tac-16 and 1,649 up-regulated and 2,135 down-regulated transcripts in Tac-36 by using edgeR. Among them some have been reported to function in dehydration process, such as RD22, heat shock proteins (HSP) and various TFs (MYB, WRKY and ethylene-responsive transcription factors). Interestingly, transcripts encoding ribosomal proteins peaked in Tac-16. It is indicated that HSPs and ribosomal proteins may function in early response to drought stress. Raw sequencing data can be accessed in NCBI SRA platform under the accession number SRA309567.</p><p>Conclusions</p><p>This is the first time to profile transcriptome globally in loranthus seeds. Our findings provide insights into the gene regulations of loranthus seeds in response to water loss and expand our current understanding of drought tolerance and germination of seeds.</p></div

Transcripts associated with seed germination.

<p>Different symbols are used show the significance of different expression: < 0.05 (*), <0.01 (**) and <0.001 (***). Error bar represents the standard deviation.</p

qRT-PCR validation for 9 candidate transcripts.

<p>Log2FC means log2 fold change in RNA-Seq experiment while RNE means relative normalized expression (2^-ΔΔCt) in qRT-PCR experiment. Error bar represents the standard deviation.</p

Annotation of the assembled transcriptome.

<p>(<b>A</b>) Number of transcripts aligned to different databases. (<b>B</b>) Species aligned by the assembled loranthus seed transcriptome. (<b>C</b>) Gene Ontology analysis for the assembled loranthus seed transcriptome. (<b>D</b>) Top 10 significant KEGG pathways. (<b>E</b>) COG annotation.</p

Length distribution of the assembled transcripts and transcripts (> 1FPKM) detected in CK, Tac-16 and Tac-36.

<p>Length distribution of the assembled transcripts and transcripts (> 1FPKM) detected in CK, Tac-16 and Tac-36.</p