Genome-wide identification and evolutionary analyses of the PP2C gene family with their expression profiling in response to multiple stresses in Brachypodium distachyon

Expression pattern of duplication BdPP2C genes under biotic/abiotic stresses and phytohormone treatments. (TIF 9276 kb

Thyroid dysfunction and Alzheimer's disease, a vicious circle

Recently, research into the link between thyroid dysfunction and Alzheimer’s disease (AD) remains a current topic of interest. Previous research has primarily concentrated on examining the impact of thyroid dysfunction on the risk of developing AD, or solely explored the mechanisms of interaction between hypothyroidism and AD, a comprehensive analysis of the mechanisms linking thyroid dysfunction, including hyperthyroidism and hypothyroidism, to Alzheimer’s disease (AD) still require further elucidation. Therefore, the aim of this review is to offer a thorough and comprehensive explanation of the potential mechanisms underlying the causal relationship between thyroid dysfunction and AD, highlighting the existence of a vicious circle. The effect of thyroid dysfunction on AD includes neuron death, impaired synaptic plasticity and memory, misfolded protein deposition, oxidative stress, and diffuse and global neurochemical disturbances. Conversely, AD can also contribute to thyroid dysfunction by affecting the stress repair response and disrupting pathways involved in thyroid hormone (TH) production, transport, and activation. Furthermore, this review briefly discusses the role and significance of utilizing the thyroid as a therapeutic target for cognitive recovery in AD. By exploring potential mechanisms and therapeutic avenues, this research contributes to our understanding and management of this devastating neurodegenerative disease

Adaptive expression responses in the Pol-γ null strain of S. pombe depleted of mitochondrial genome

<p>Abstract</p> <p>Background</p> <p>DNA polymerase γ(Pol-γ) has been shown to be essential for maintenance of the mitochondrial genome (mtDNA) in the petite-positive budding yeast <it>Saccharomyces cerevisiae</it>. Budding yeast cells lacking mitochondria exhibit a slow-growing or petite-colony phenotype. Petite strains fail to grow on non-fermentable carbon sources. However, it is not clear whether the Pol-γ is required for mtDNA maintenance in the petite-negative fission yeast <it>Schizosaccharomyces pombe</it>.</p> <p>Results</p> <p>We show that disruption of the nuclear gene <it>pog1</it>⁺that encodes Pol-γ is sufficient to deplete mtDNA in <it>S. pombe</it>. Cells bearing <it>pog1Δ </it>allele require substantial growth periods to form petite colonies. Mitotracker assays indicate that <it>pog1Δ </it>cells are defective in mitochondrial function and EM analyses suggest that <it>pog1Δ </it>cells lack normal mitochondrial structures. Depletion of mtDNA in <it>pog1Δ </it>cells is evident from quantitative real-time PCR assays. Genome-wide expression profiles of <it>pog1Δ </it>and other mtDNA-less cells reveal that many genes involved in response to stimulus, energy derivation by oxidation of organic compounds, cellular carbohydrate metabolism, and energy reserve metabolism are induced. Conversely, many genes encoding proteins involved in amino acid metabolism and oxidative phosphorylation are repressed.</p> <p>Conclusion</p> <p>By showing that Pol-γ is essential for mtDNA maintenance and disruption of <it>pog1</it>⁺alters the genome-wide expression profiles, we demonstrated that cells lacking mtDNA exhibit adaptive nuclear gene expression responses in the petite-negative <it>S. pombe</it>.</p

Decreased Glomerular Filtration Rate Is Associated with Mortality and Cardiovascular Events in Patients with Hypertension: A Prospective Study

BACKGROUND: Few studies reported the associations between decreased glomerular filtration rate (GFR) and mortality, coronary heart disease (CHD), and stroke in hypertensive patients. We aim to assess the associations between GFR and mortality, CHD, and stroke in hypertensive patients and to evaluate whether low GFR can improve the prediction of these outcomes in addition to conventional cardiovascular risk factors. METHODS AND FINDINGS: This is an observational prospective study and 3,711 eligible hypertensive patients aged ≥5 years from rural areas of China were used for the present analysis. The associations between eGFR and outcomes, followed by a median of 4.9 years, were evaluated using Cox proportional hazards models adjusting for other potential confounders. Low eGFR was independently associated with risk of all-cause mortality, cardiovascular mortality, and incident stroke [multivariable adjusted hazard ratios (95% confidence intervals) for eGFR <60 ml/min/1.73 m(2) relative to eGFR ≥90 ml/min/1.73 m(2) were 1.824 (1.047-3.365), 2.371 (1.109-5.068), and 2.493 (1.193-5.212), respectively]. We found no independent association between eGFR and the risk of CHD. For 4-year all-cause and cardiovascular mortality, integrated discrimination improvement (IDI) was positive when eGFR were added to traditional risk factors (1.51%, P = 0.016, and 1.99%, P = 0.017, respectively). For stroke and CHD events, net reclassification improvements (NRI) were 5.9% (P = 0.012) and 1.8% (P = 0.083) for eGFR, respectively. CONCLUSIONS: We have established an inversely independent association between eGFR and all-cause mortality, cardiovascular mortality, and stroke in hypertensive patients in rural areas of China. Further, addition of eGFR significantly improved the prediction of 4-year mortality and stroke over and above that of conventional risk factors. We recommend that eGFR be incorporated into prognostic assessment for patients with hypertension in rural areas of China. LIMITATIONS: We did not have sufficient information on atrial fibrillation to control for the potential covariate. These associations should be further confirmed in future

Establishment and Optimization of Two-dimensional Electrophoresis Technique in Hydatid Fluid Proteome of Echinococcus granulosus

Abstract -The aim of this study was to establish and optimize the two-dimensional electrophoresis (2-DE) technology for hydatid fluid proteome of the Echinococcus granulosus, and obtain 2-DE map of hydatid fluid proteome. Total proteins of hydatid fluid were extracted by lyophilization. A series of important factors, such as sample preparation, protein quantities, pH range of immobilized pH gradient (IPG) strip and extraction methods, were optimized to improve the resolution and repeatability. Two-dimensional electrophoresis maps were analyzed after staining. The 2-DE profiles with high resolution and good repeatability were obtained, when the hydatid fluid dealt with ReadyPrep TM 2-D Cleanup Kit were analyzed with the established 2-DE using 400µg of quantitative loading and IPG strips pH7-10. We identified 30 protein spots using PDQuest 8.0 2D analysis software. The molecular weight of most of these proteins ranged from 43 to 97kDa and the isoelectric points of these proteins ranged from 5 to 9. An optimized 2-DE system is set up successfully in this study, electrophoresis pattern of which shows a high resolution and good repeatability, and can be used for the study of E. granulosus proteomics effectively

In-plane Hall effect in rutile oxide films induced by the Lorentz force

The conventional Hall effect is linearly proportional to the field component or magnetization component perpendicular to a film. Despite the increasing theoretical proposals on the Hall effect to the in-plane field or magnetization in various special systems induced by the Berry curvature, such an unconventional Hall effect has only been experimentally reported in Weyl semimetals and in a heterodimensional superlattice. Here, we report an unambiguous experimental observation of the in-plane Hall effect (IPHE) in centrosymmetric rutile RuO2 and IrO2 single-crystal films under an in-plane magnetic field. The measured Hall resistivity is found to be proportional to the component of the applied in-plane magnetic field along a particular crystal axis and to be independent of the current direction or temperature. Both the experimental observations and theoretical calculations confirm that the IPHE in rutile oxide films is induced by the Lorentz force. Our findings can be generalized to ferromagnetic materials for the discovery of in-plane anomalous Hall effects and quantum anomalous Hall effects. In addition to significantly expanding knowledge of the Hall effect, this work opens the door to explore new members in the Hall effect family

Integrated bioinformatics analysis of As, Au, Cd, Pb and Cu heavy metal responsive marker genes through Arabidopsis thaliana GEO datasets

Background Current environmental pollution factors, particularly the distribution and diffusion of heavy metals in soil and water, are a high risk to local environments and humans. Despite striking advances in methods to detect contaminants by a variety of chemical and physical solutions, these methods have inherent limitations such as small dimensions and very low coverage. Therefore, identifying novel contaminant biomarkers are urgently needed. Methods To better track heavy metal contaminations in soil and water, integrated bioinformatics analysis to identify biomarkers of relevant heavy metal, such as As, Cd, Pb and Cu, is a suitable method for long-term and large-scale surveys of such heavy metal pollutants. Subsequently, the accuracy and stability of the results screened were experimentally validated by quantitative PCR experiment. Results We obtained 168 differentially expressed genes (DEGs) which contained 59 up-regulated genes and 109 down-regulated genes through comparative bioinformatics analyses. Subsequently, the gene ontology (GO) and Kyoto Encyclopedia of Genes and Genomes (KEGG) pathway enrichments of these DEGs were performed, respectively. GO analyses found that these DEGs were mainly related to responses to chemicals, responses to stimulus, responses to stress, responses to abiotic stimulus, and so on. KEGG pathway analyses of DEGs were mainly involved in the protein degradation process and other biologic process, such as the phenylpropanoid biosynthesis pathways and nitrogen metabolism. Moreover, we also speculated that nine candidate core biomarker genes (namely, NILR1, PGPS1, WRKY33, BCS1, AR781, CYP81D8, NR1, EAP1 and MYB15) might be tightly correlated with the response or transport of heavy metals. Finally, experimental results displayed that these genes had the same expression trend response to different stresses as mentioned above (Cd, Pb and Cu) and no mentioned above (Zn and Cr). Conclusion In general, the identified biomarker genes could help us understand the potential molecular mechanisms or signaling pathways responsive to heavy metal stress in plants, and could be applied as marker genes to track heavy metal pollution in soil and water through detecting their expression in plants growing in those environments