Complex Alternative Splicing of the Smarca2 Gene Suggests the Importance of Smarca2-B Variants

BRM is an ATPase component of the SWI/SNF complex that regulates chromatin remodeling and cell proliferation and is considered a tumor suppressor. In this study we characterized transcripts from the Smarca2 gene that encodes the BRM protein. We found that the human Smarca2 gene (hSmarca2), like its mouse counterpart (mSmarca2), also initiated a short transcript from intron 27 of the long transcript. We name the long and short transcripts as Smarca2-a and Smarca2-b, respectively. Like its human counterpart, mSmarca2-a also underwent alternative splicing at the 54-bp exon 29. The hSmarca2-b had two alternative initiation sites and underwent alternative splicing at three different 3' sites of exon 1 and at exons 2, 3 and/or 5. We identified nine hSmarca2-b mRNA variants that might produce five different proteins. mSmarca2-b also underwent alternative splicing at exon 3 and/or exon 5, besides alternatively retaining part of intron 1 in exon 1. Smarca2-b was expressed more abundantly than Smarca2-a in many cell lines and was more sensitive to serum starvation. Moreover, cyclin D1 also regulated the expression of both Smarca2-a and Smarca2-b in a complex manner. These data suggest that the functions of the Smarca2 gene may be very complex, not just simply inhibiting cell proliferation, and in certain situations may be elicited mainly by expressing the much less known Smarca2-b, not the better studied Smarca2-a and its products BRM proteins

Australobius polyspinipes sp. n., a new species of Australobius Chamberlin, 1920 (Lithobiomorpha: Lithobiidae) from China

Australobius polyspinipes sp. n. (Lithobiomorpha: Lithobiidae) was recently discovered from Tianheshan Mountain, Hebei Province, China, and it is described here. Morphologically the new species is similar to A. nodulus Ma, Song &Zhu, 2008 and A. magnus (Trozina, 1894), both recorded from China. The new species can be easily distinguished from those by having 7+7–8+8 coxosternal teeth, 10–12 ocelli on each side of the cephalic plate, 5+5 spurs on the first article of the female gonopods and differences in plectrotaxy of legs. The main morphological characters and a key to the known Chinese species of genus Australobius based on adult specimens is presented

Simulation Research on Driving Behaviour of Autonomous Vehicles on Expressway Ramp Under the Background of Vehicle-Road Coordination

Constructing a risk model with the subject of autonomous vehicles to screen out the vehicles of potential conflicts and analyze their choices under different strategies. Based on the co-simulation of Python and SUMO, establishing a model of on-ramp merge driving behaviour of autonomous vehicles based on non-cooperative static game. Under this model, the experiment results that the average speed in the merging area is increased by 12.7%, the standard deviation of the average speed is reduced by 35.46%, and the number of the vehicles successfully merged before the end of the merging area is 4.86 times that of traditional method, indicate that the model can effectively help the vehicles be merged and improve the traffic efficiency to a certain extent