Arbuscular mycorrhizal fungi inoculation exerts weak effects on species- and community-level growth traits for invading or native plants under nitrogen deposition

Nitrogen deposition and biological invasion are two major components of global environmental change. Nitrogen deposition has been considered to enhance the resource availability of recipient habitats, which influences the invasiveness of plant invader and the invasibility of recipient native communities. Nitrogen deposition has been shown to reduce the relative abundances of arbuscular mycorrhizal fungi (AMF) globally. AMF have been found to mutualistically symbiose with approximately 75% of plant species and act as a nutrient supplier. AMF may modify the structure of native plant communities, collaborate with alien plant invaders and thus promote their invasion. The alien woody invader, Rhus typhina L. has been introduced into North China as a horticultural species, invaded the native plant community and outperformed the native competitors in growth and in photosynthetic efficiency. Nevertheless, little is known about if nitrogen deposition and AMF inoculation synergistically alter the invasibility of native plant community. In this study, R. typhina was subjected to the artificial plant community assembled by four co-existing native species – Chenopodium album L., Vitex negundo var. heterophylla (Franch.) Rehd., Rhus chinensis Mill. and Acer truncatum Bunge in a mesocosm experiment. Nitrogen deposition and AMF inoculation were simulated as environmental and biotic filters respectively. Aboveground biomass and biomass proportion, reflecting plant growth and performance, and specific leaf area and chlorophyll concentration correlated with carbon use and photosynthetic capacity of both the alien invader and the native plants were measured and calculated after harvest. We found that AMF inoculation did not alter the trait variation of alien and native species to increasing nitrogen deposition level in general, although AMF inoculation impeded the increase of aboveground biomass for C. album, V. negundo and native community with increasing nitrogen deposition level. In the scenario of nitrogen deposition and AMF inoculation, a stable status of invasion dynamic may be maintained and needs to be checked with integration of traits at extended temporal scale

Impact of GADD34 on Apoptosis of Tonsillar Mononuclear Cells from IgA Nephropathy Patients by Regulating Eif2α Phosphorylation

Background/Aims: Tonsillectomy may be an important method to achieve a long-term remission of IgAN, but patients’ physical status may limit their access to this surgery. We proposed an encouraging solution through inhibiting GADD34 expression in order to promote tonsillar mononuclear cells (TMCs) apoptosis and reduce nephropathic IgA secretion. Methods: A total of 12 IgAN and 9 non-IgAN patients were involved from March 2015 to May 2016. After TMCs were extracted by density gradient centrifugation and stimulated by inactivated hemolytic streptococcus, the mRNA and protein expression of GADD34, GRP78, CHOP, Bcl-2, Bcl-XL, AID, Iα-Cα, and cleaved caspase-3 were examined by fluorescent RT-PCR and Western blotting. Guanabenz treatment and siRNA interference were applied to downregulate GADD34 in tonsillar mononuclear cells from IgAN patients, and P-eIF2α expression was examined by Western Blotting. Cell apoptosis was evaluated by Annexin V FITC/PI flowcytometry, and IgA secretion in cultural supernatant was inspected by enzyme linked immunosorbent assay. Results: After stimulation, the expression of GADD34 was significantly increased in IgAN patients (P< 0.05). Cell apoptosis was mitigated and IgA secretion level was elevated (P< 0.05). To be noticed, CHOP expression had no significant difference between two groups. After guanabenz treatment and siRNA interference, a prolonged elevation of P-eIF2α expression was observed. Cell apoptosis was reinforced and IgA secretion level was decreased (P< 0.05). Conclusion: GADD34 may be a potential therapeutic target for IgAN treatment due to its effect on cell apoptosis

Identification of Novel Variants of Metadherin in Breast Cancer

Metadherin (MTDH, also known as AEG-1, and Lyric) has been demonstrated to play a potential role in several significant aspects of tumor progression. It has been reported that overexpression of MTDH is associated with progression of disease and poorer prognosis in breast cancer. However, there are no studies to date assessing variants of the MTDH gene and their potential relationship with breast cancer susceptibility. Thus, we investigated all variants of the MTDH gene and explored the association of the variants with breast cancer development. Our cohort consisted of full-length gene sequencing of 108 breast cancer cases and 100 healthy controls; variants were detected in 11 breast cancer cases and 13 controls. Among the variants detected, 9 novel variants were discovered and 2 were found to be associated with the susceptibility of breast cancer. However, additional studies need to be conducted in larger sample sizes to validate these findings and to further investigate whether these variants are prognostic in breast cancer patients

Altered Gut Microbiota Composition in Subjects Infected With Clonorchis sinensis

Clonorchiasis is an infectious disease caused by helminths of Clonorchis sinensis (C. sinensis). The adult parasite mainly inhabits the bile duct and gall bladder, and results in various complications to the hepatobiliary system. The amount of bile secreted into the intestine is reduced in cases of C. sinensis infection, which may alter the pH of the gut and decrease the amount of surfactant protein D released from the gallbladder. However, the impact of parasitic infection on the human gut microbiome remains unclear. To this end, we examined the gut microbiota composition in 47 modified Kato–Katz thick smear-positive (egg-positive) volunteers and 42 healthy controls from five rural communities. Subjects were grouped into four sub-populations based on age and infection status. High-throughput 16S rRNA gene sequencing revealed significant changes in alpha diversity between EP1 and EN1. The beta diversity showed alterations between C. sinensis-infected subjects and healthy controls. In C. sinensis infected patients, we found the significant reduction of certain taxa, such as Bacteroides and anti-inflammatory Bifidobacterium (P < 0.05). Bacteroides, a predominant gut bacteria in healthy populations, was negatively correlated with the number of C. sinensis eggs per gram (EPG, r = −0.37, P adjust < 0.01 in 20–60 years old group; r = −0.64, P adjust = 0.04 in the 60+ years old group). What’s more, the reduction in the abundance of Bifidobacterium, a common probiotic, was decreased particularly in the 60 + years old group (r = −0.50, P = 0.04). The abundance of Dorea, a potentially pro-inflammatory microbe, was higher in infected subjects than in healthy individuals (P < 0.05). Variovorax was a unique bacteria that was only detected in infected subjects. These results clearly demonstrate the significant influence of C. sinensis infection on the human gut microbiota and provided new insights into the control, prevention, diagnosis, and clinical study of clonorchiasis through the human gut microbiota

Oxygen redox chemistry without excess alkali-metal ions in Na2/3_{2/3}[Mg0.28_{0.28}Mn0.72_{0.72}]O2_2

The search for improved energy-storage materials has revealed Li- and Na-rich intercalation compounds as promising high-capacity cathodes. They exhibit capacities in excess of what would be expected from alkali-ion removal/reinsertion and charge compensation by transition-metal (TM) ions. The additional capacity is provided through charge compensation by oxygen redox chemistry and some oxygen loss. It has been reported previously that oxygen redox occurs in O 2$p$ orbitals that interact with alkali ions in the TM and alkali-ion layers (that is, oxygen redox occurs in compounds containing Li$^+$–O(2$p$)–Li$^+$ interactions). Na$_{2/3}$[Mg$_{0.28}$Mn$_{0.72}$]O$_2$ exhibits an excess capacity and here we show that this is caused by oxygen redox, even though Mg$^{2+}$ resides in the TM layers rather than alkali-metal (AM) ions, which demonstrates that excess AM ions are not required to activate oxygen redox. We also show that, unlike the alkali-rich compounds, Na$_{2/3}$[Mg$_{0.28}$Mn$_{0.72}$]O$_2$ does not lose oxygen. The extraction of alkali ions from the alkali and TM layers in the alkali-rich compounds results in severely underbonded oxygen, which promotes oxygen loss, whereas Mg$^{2+}$ remains in Na$_{2/3}$[Mg$_{0.28}$Mn$_{0.72}$]O$_2$, which stabilizes oxygen

An Approach for Prediction of Acute Hypotensive Episodes via the Hilbert-Huang Transform and Multiple Genetic Programming Classifier

Acute hypotensive episodes (AHEs) are one of the hemodynamic instabilities with high mortality rate that is frequent among many groups of patients. This study presents a methodology to predict AHE for ICU patients based on big data time series. The experimental data we used is mean arterial pressure (MAP), which is transformed from arterial blood pressure (ABP) data. Then, the Hilbert-Huang transform method was used to calculate patient's MAP time series and some features, which are the bandwidth of the amplitude modulation, the frequency modulation, and the power of intrinsic mode function (IMF), were extracted. Finally, the multiple genetic programming (Multi-GP) is used to build the classification models for detection of AHE. The methodology is applied in the datasets of the 10th PhysioNet and Computers Cardiology Challenge in 2009 and Multiparameter Intelligent Monitoring for Intensive Care (MIMIC-II). We achieve the accuracy of 83.33% in the training set and 91.89% in the testing set of the 2009 challenge's dataset and the 84.13% in the training set and 82.41% in the testing set of the MIMIC-II dataset

The cumulative effects assessment of a coastal ecological restoration project in China: An integrated perspective

© 2017 Elsevier Ltd Large scale coastal land-claim and sea-enclosing (CLASE) activities have caused habitat destruction, biodiversity losses and water deterioration, thus the local governments in China have recently undertaken seabed dredging and dyke opening (SDADO) as typical ecological restoration projects. However, some projects focus on a single impact on hydrodynamic conditions, water quality or marine organisms. In a case study in Xiamen, China, an integrated effects assessment framework centres on ecohydrology, using modeling of hydrodynamic conditions and statistical analysis of water quality, was developed to assess the effects of ecological restoration projects. The benefits of SDADO projects include improving hydrodynamic conditions and water quality, as a precursor to further marine biological improvements. This study highlights the need to comprehensively consider ecological effects of SDADO projects in the planning stage, and an integrative assessment method combining cumulative effects of hydrodynamic conditions, water quality and biological factors

HTMC: hierarchical tolerance mask correspondence for human body point cloud registration

Point cloud registration can be solved by searching for correspondence pairs. Searching for correspondence pairs in human body point clouds poses some challenges, including: (1) the similar geometrical shapes of the human body are difficult to distinguish. (2) The symmetry of the human body confuses the correspondence pairs searching. To resolve the above issues, this article proposes a Hierarchical Tolerance Mask Correspondence (HTMC) method to achieve better alignment by tolerating obfuscation. First, we define various levels of correspondence pairs and assign different similarity scores for each level. Second, HTMC designs a tolerance loss function to tolerate the obfuscation of correspondence pairs. Third, HTMC uses a differentiable mask to diminish the influence of non-overlapping regions and enhance the influence of overlapping regions. In conclusion, HTMC acknowledges the presence of similar local geometry in human body point clouds. On one hand, it avoids overfitting caused by forcibly distinguishing similar geometries, and on the other hand, it prevents genuine correspondence relationships from being masked by similar geometries. The codes are available at https://github.com/ChenPointCloud/HTMC