Aroma Evaluation of Young Chinese Merlot Wines with Denomination of Origin

Merlot wines from four premium wine-producing districts in China were analysed for their volatilecomposition and sensory properties. Fifty-seven aroma compounds were quantified by SPME-GC-MSOAVanalysis, which showed that thirty of these compounds were active on the basis of their odour active value(OAV). According to the aroma descriptions of eleven impact odorants in all the sample wines, the collectivearoma characteristics of Chinese Merlot red wine are complex. Its main flavour is that of some tropical andtemperate fruits, such as banana, pineapple, green apple, pear and strawberry, along with a lactic flavourfrom the malolactic fermentation. It also has some traits of processed fruits, Muscat and floral pollen flavour.Moreover, different districts gave Merlot wine distinct characters. Changli wine had a higher intensity andcomplexity of global aroma, a strong fruity aroma, and an obvious nuance of lactic and nut traits. Thesine from Helanshan had weak fusel flavour and some lemon fruity flavour. Shacheng wine had weak fuselflavour, along with green grass and some fruity flavour of raspberry and violet. Manasi wine had the odourof unpleasant fatty acids and phenol due to its high content of fatty acids and volatile phenol. The sensoryanalysis confirmed the aroma prediction from the active odorants of the sample wines. Changli wine hadthe highest sensory scores, while Manasi wine had the worst evaluation of aroma, taste and harmony. Theresults suggest that the Merlot variety is more suitable for planting in Changli than in the Manasi region

Geographical effects on epidemic spreading in scale-free networks

Many real networks are embedded in a metric space: the interactions among individuals depend on their spatial distances and usually take place among their nearest neighbors. In this paper, we introduce a modified susceptible-infected-susceptible (SIS) model to study geographical effects on the spread of diseases by assuming that the probability of a healthy individual infected by an infectious one is inversely proportional to the Euclidean distance between them. It is found that geography plays a more important role than hubs in disease spreading: the more geographically constrained the network is, the more highly the epidemic prevails.Comment: 4 pages, 5 figure

Ground state of a polydisperse electrorheological solid: Beyond the dipole approximation

The ground state of an electrorheological (ER) fluid has been studied based on our recently proposed dipole-induced dipole (DID) model. We obtained an analytic expression of the interaction between chains of particles which are of the same or different dielectric constants. The effects of dielectric constants on the structure formation in monodisperse and polydisperse electrorheological fluids are studied in a wide range of dielectric contrasts between the particles and the base fluid. Our results showed that the established body-centered tetragonal ground state in monodisperse ER fluids may become unstable due to a polydispersity in the particle dielectric constants. While our results agree with that of the fully multipole theory, the DID model is much simpler, which offers a basis for computer simulations in polydisperse ER fluids.Comment: Accepted for publications by Phys. Rev.

Continuous extremal optimization for Lennard-Jones Clusters

In this paper, we explore a general-purpose heuristic algorithm for finding high-quality solutions to continuous optimization problems. The method, called continuous extremal optimization(CEO), can be considered as an extension of extremal optimization(EO) and is consisted of two components, one is with responsibility for global searching and the other is with responsibility for local searching. With only one adjustable parameter, the CEO's performance proves competitive with more elaborate stochastic optimization procedures. We demonstrate it on a well known continuous optimization problem: the Lennerd-Jones clusters optimization problem.Comment: 5 pages and 3 figure

Genetic evidence for an East Asian origin of Chinese Muslim populations Dongxiang and Hui

There is a long-going debate on the genetic origin of Chinese Muslim populations, such as Uygur, Dongxiang, and Hui. However, genetic information for those Muslim populations except Uygur is extremely limited. In this study, we investigated the genetic structure and ancestry of Chinese Muslims by analyzing 15 autosomal short tandem repeats in 652 individuals from Dongxiang, Hui, and Han Chinese populations in Gansu province. Both genetic distance and Bayesian-clustering methods showed significant genetic homogeneity between the two Muslim populations and East Asian populations, suggesting a common genetic ancestry. Our analysis found no evidence of substantial gene flow from Middle East or Europe into Dongxiang and Hui people during their Islamization. The dataset generated in present study are also valuable for forensic identification and paternity tests in China

Cloning and molecular characterization of TaAGO1, a member of argonaute gene family in wheat (Triticum aestivum L.)

Argonaute (AGO) proteins play important roles in RNA silencing processes through formation of complexes with the mature microRNAs. In this study, a wheat AGO gene referred to TaAGO1, which shares high similarities to AtAGO1 in Arabidopsis and OsAGO1 in rice, was characterized. As a cDNA full length of 3747 bp, TaAGO1 encodes a 1099-aa polypeptide with a molecular weight of 122 kD and an isoelectric point (pI) of 9.52. Subcellular prediction analysis suggests that TaAGO1 is to target onto the cytoplasm after endoplasmic reticulum (ER) sorted. Similar to AtAGO1 and OsAGO1, TaAGO1 contains PIWI and DDH, two conserved domains in AGOs. Phylogenetic analysis indicated that TaAGO1 was possibly derived from different progenitors with its homologous across diverse plant species. The transcripts of TaAGO1 were significantly regulated by the stresses of phosphorus deprivation and dehydration, and exogenous treatment of abscisic acid (ABA), suggesting that this wheat AGO member also exerts roles on mediating above signaling transductions. Southern blotting analysis revealed that genome AA, SS, and DD, three diploids composing of the hexaploid wheat, all harbored two copies of TaAGO1. Down-regulation of TaAGO1 in wheat led to conspicuously phenotypic alterations of the young plantlets, with a variety of abnormal growth features. Taking the results in this study together, it was implicated that TaAGO1 exists as a subset of copies in wheat and plays critical roles on silencing of appropriate target genes via regulation of TaAGO1-MiRNAs complex formation.Key words: Wheat (Triticum aestivum L.), argonaute (AGO) gene 1, cloning, molecular characterization, antisense expression

Furanodiene alters mitochondrial function in doxorubicin-resistant MCF-7 human breast cancer cells in an AMPK-dependent manner

Furanodiene is a bioactive sesquiterpene isolated from the spice-producing Curcuma wenyujin plant (Y. H. Chen and C. Ling) (C. wenyujin), which is a commonly prescribed herb used in clinical cancer therapy by modern practitioners of traditional Chinese medicine. Previously, we have shown that furanodiene inhibits breast cancer cell growth both in vitro and in vivo, however, the mechanism for this effect is not yet known. In this study, therefore, we asked (1) whether cultured breast cancer cells made resistant to the chemotherapeutic agent doxorubicin (DOX) via serial selection protocols are susceptible to furanodiene\u27s anticancer effect, and (2) whether AMP-activated protein kinase (AMPK), which is a regulator of cellular energy homeostasis in eukaryotic cells, participates in this effect. We show here (1) that doxorubicin-resistant MCF-7 (MCF-7/DOXR) cells treated with furanodiene exhibit altered mitochondrial function and reduced levels of ATP, resulting in apoptotic cell death, and (2) that AMPK is central to this effect. In these cells, furanodiene (as opposed to doxorubicin) noticeably affects the phosphorylation of AMPK and AMPK pathway intermediates, ACLY and GSK-3β, suggesting that furanodiene reduces mitochondrial function and cellular ATP levels by way of AMPK activation. Finally, we find that the cell permeable agent and AMPK inhibitor compound C (CC), abolishes furanodiene-induced anticancer activity in these MCF-7/DOXR cells, with regard to cell growth inhibition and AMPK activation; in contrast, AICAR (5-aminoimidazole-4-carboxamide-1-β-4-ribofuranoside, acadesine), an AMPK activator, augments furanodiene-induced anticancer activity. Furthermore, specific knockdown of AMPK in MCF-7/DOXR cells protects these cells from furanodiene-induced cell death. Taken together, these findings suggest that AMPK and its pathway intermediates are promising therapeutic targets for treating chemoresistant breast cancer, and that furanodiene may be an important chemical agent incorporated in next-generation chemotherapy protocols