Research Progress in Molecular Biology of Fish Immunoglobulin M (IgM)

Immunoglobulin (Ig) is a type of globulin produced by B lymphocytes during pathogenic infection of vertebrates. It has immune functions and can realize specific recognition and neutralization of corresponding antigens. As IgM is reported first in fish, IgM is the first antibody produced during immune responses and plays a vital role in systemic and mucosal immune tissues. IgM molecules have two forms: membrane-bound IgM (mIgM) and secreted IgM (sIgM). The latter is produced by plasmacytes and secreted into body fluid, existing as immunological effect molecules. The former embeds into B cytomembrane and exists as an antigen receptor. It binds with assistant molecules to form cell receptor compounds. This study reviews research progress on the structures and production processes of IgM genes in different fish species and the distribution characteristics of IgM on B cells, mediated signal pathways, and functions. It aims to enrich basic theoretical knowledge of fish immunology and provide some scientific references for disease control in fishes

Research Progress on the Fish Complement C3 Gene

Complement (C) is a serum protein with immunity-related functions and enzymatic activities. It can induce inflammatory responses and antibody formation following activation by substances such as pathogens. Moreover, it is a crucial molecule in the congenital immune defense system. Complement manifests earlier than immunoglobulin in the evolutionary process of fish's immune system. Therefore, the complement system of fish is vital for congenital and acquired immunities. A complement system is a polymolecule system comprising more than 30 soluble proteins, membrane-bound proteins, and complement receptors. It can be activated through three pathways for immunoregulation, the clearance of the immune complex, etc. The liver primarily produces the fish complement C3, which is a significant component of the complement system of fishes. C3 is the hub of three activation pathways. Research works concerning the structure, generation process, expression, and functions of C3 in fishes are reviewed in this study

Polymorphism of Transferrin Gene Impacts the Mediating Effects of Psychotic Symptoms on the Relationship between Oxidative Stress and Cognition in Patients with Chronic Schizophrenia

A series of studies indicated that iron distribution that partly derives from transferrin-bound iron in the peripheral nervous system in the brain may act in processes such as myelination and brain development. However, the relationship between schizophrenia, its psychotic symptoms, and the transferrin (TF) gene has not been systematically explored. Our study aimed to investigate how a particular polymorphism of the transferrin gene, rs3811655, affects the superoxide dismutase (SOD), malondialdehyde (MDA), psychotic symptoms, cognition, or the mediation model between antioxidant enzymes and cognition via symptoms. A total of 564 patients with chronic schizophrenia and 468 healthy control subjects were recruited. The psychotic symptoms and cognition were assessed by the Positive and Negative Syndrome Scale (PANSS) and the Repeatable Battery for the Assessment of Neuropsychological Status (RBANS), respectively. Furthermore, the serum SOD, MDA activity, and transferrin gene polymorphism were measured in patients. Our results demonstrated that patients with the G allele possessed more severe negative symptoms, worse cognitive performance with respect to attention, and higher serum Mn-SOD activity. Additionally, the rs3811655 polymorphism may act as a moderator in the association between Cu/Zn-SOD activity and cognition, as well as psychotic symptoms in patients suffering from schizophrenia. According to this study, the single nucleotide polymorphism (SNP) rs3811655 polymorphism may fail to contribute to the susceptibility of schizophrenia in an individual but is involved in the iron-induced oxidative stress disturbance and cognitive impairment in schizophrenia. This deepens our understanding of the critical role of iron-induced oxidative stress that might underlie the pathophysiology of schizophrenia

Floorplan sizing by linear programming approximation

In this paper, we present an approximation algorithm by linear programming(LP) for floorplan sizing problem. Given any topological constraints between blocks, we can formulate it as an LP problem with a cost function for the minimum bounding box area. Unlike slicing structures, this approach can handle any topological constraints as well as soft/hard/preplaced blocks, and timing constraints. Empirically, our method needs few iterations to find the optimum solution and shows one order of improvement over previous methods both in run time and capability to handle a larger problem size even on a very limited computing resource PC

Recent advances in hypervalent iodine(III)-catalyzed functionalization of alkenes

Hypervalent iodine(III) reagents have been well-developed and widely utilized in functionalization of alkenes, however, generally either stoichiometric amounts of iodine(III) reagents are required or stoichiometric oxidants such as mCPBA are employed to in situ generate iodine(III) species. In this review, recent developments of hypervalent iodine(III)-catalyzed functionalization of alkenes and asymmetric reactions using a chiral iodoarene are summarized

Refining switching window by time slots for crosstalk noise calculation

For crosstalk noise calculation, computing switching windows of a net helps us identify noise sources accurately. Traditional approaches use a single continuous switching window for a net. Under this model, signal switching is assumed to happen any time within the window. Although conservative and sound, this model can result in too much pessimism since in reality the exact timing of signal switching is determined by a path delay up to the net, i.e. the underlying circuit structure does not always allow signal switching at arbitrary time within the continuous switching window. To address this inherent inaccuracy of the continuous switching window, we propose a refinement of the traditional approaches, where signal switching is characterized by a set of discontinuous switching windows instead of a single continuous window. Each continuous switching window is divided into multiple windows, called time slots, and the signal switching activity of each slot is analyzed separately to calculate the maximum noise with more accuracy. By controlling the size of a time slot we can trade off accuracy and runtime, which makes this approach highly scalable. We have confirmed by experiments on industrial circuits that up to 90 % of the noise violations detected by the traditional approach can be unreal. 1