High-resolution QTL mapping for grain appearance traits and co-localization of chalkiness-associated differentially expressed candidate genes in rice

Table S4. Annotated function of differentially expressed genes identified between parents. (XLSX 1232 kb

Shear Wave Propagation in Soft Tissue with Ultrasound Vibrometry

Studies have found that shear moduli, having the dynamic range of several orders of magnitude for various biological tissues, are highly correlated with the pathological statues of human tissue such as livers. Shear moduli can be investigated by measuring the attenuation and velocity of the shear wave propagation in a tissue region. Many efforts have been made to measure shear wave propagations induced by different types of force, which include the motion force of human organs, external applied force, and ultrasound radiation force. In the past 15 years, ultrasound radiation force has been successfully used to induce tissue motion for imaging tissue elasticity. Vibroacoustography (VA) uses bifocal beams to remotely induce vibration in a tissue region and detect the vibration using a hydrophone. The vibration center is sequentially moved in the tissue region to form a two-dimensional image. Acoustic Radiation Force Imaging (ARFI) uses focused ultrasound to apply localized radiation force to small volumes of tissue for short durations and the resulting tissue displacements are mapped using ultrasonic correlation based methods. Supersonic shear image remotely vibrates tissue and sequentially moves vibration center along the beam axis to create intense shear plan wave that is imaged at a high frame rate (5000 frames per second). These image methods provide measurements of tissue elasticity, but not the viscosity. Because of the dispersive property of biological tissue, the induced tissue displacement and the shear wave propagation are frequency dependent. Tissue shear property can be modeled by several models including Kelvin-Voigt (Voigt) model, Maxwell model, and Zener model. The Voigt model effectively describes the creep behavior of tissue, The Maxwell model effectively describes the relaxation process, and the Zener model effectively describes both creep and relaxation but it requires one extra parameter. The Voigt model is often used by many researchers because of its simplicity and the effectiveness of modeling soft tissue. The Voigt model consists of a purely viscous damper and a purely elastic spring connected in parallel. For Voigt tissue, the tissue motion at a very low frequency largely depends on the elasticity, while the motion at a very high frequency largely depends on the viscosity. In general, the tissue motion depends on both elasticity and viscosity, and estimates of elasticity by ignoring viscosity are biased or erroneous. In 1951, Dr. Oestreicher published his work to solve the wave equation for the Voigt soft tissue with harmonic motions. With assumptions of isotropic tissue and plane wave, he derived equations that relate the shear wave attenuation and speed to the elasticity and viscosity of soft tissue. However, Oestreicher’s method was not realized for applications until the half century later. In the past ten years, Oestreicher’s method was utilized to quantitatively measure both tissue elasticity and viscosity. Ultrasound vibrometry has been developed to noninvasively and quantitatively measure tissue shear moduli. It induces shear waves using ultrasound radiation force and estimates the shear moduli using shear wave phase velocities at several frequencies by measuring the phase shifts of the propagating shear wave over a short distance using pulse echo ultrasound. Applications of the ultrasound vibrometry were conducted for viscoelasticities of liver, bovine and porcine striated muscles, blood vessels, and hearts. A recent in vivo liver study shows that the ultrasound vibrometry can be implemented on a clinical ultrasound scanner of using an array transducer. One potential application of ultrasound vibrometry is to characterize shear moduli of livers. The shear moduli of liver are highly correlated with liver pathology status. Recently, the shear viscoelasticity of liver tissue has been investigated by several research groups. Most of these studies applied ultrasound radiation force in liver tissue regions, measured the phase velocities of shear wave in a limited frequency range, and inversely solved the Voigt model with an assumption that liver local tissue is isotropic without considering boundary conditions. Because of the boundary conditions, shear wave propagations are impacted by the limited physical dimensions of tissue. Studies shows that considerations of boundary conditions should be taken for characterizing tissue that have limited physical dimensions such as heart, blood vessels, and liver, when ultrasound vibrometry is used

A study on non-invasive prenatal screening for the detection of aneuploidy

Objectives: To explore the feasibility of clinical application of non-invasive prenatal screening to detect aneuploidy diseases. Material and methods: A total of 14,574 singleton pregnant women who underwent Non-invasive prenatal testing (NIPT) in the Southern Hospital from 2015 to June 2017 were selected, and 6471 pregnant women with twin pregnancy who underwent NIPT in the laboratory of Bei Rui He Kang Southern Hospital from June 2016 to October 2017 were included in this study. We analyzed NIPT screening efficiency (sensitivity, specificity) in twin pregnancies and singleton pregnancies, compared the positive detection rate of NIPT in patients with or without clinical symptoms. All NIPT high-risk results were validated by karyotyping, which were further verified by the follow-up physical examination of the neonatal. Results: A total of 68 cases of twin pregnancy abnormalities were detected by NIPT, including 18 cases of trisomy 21, 6 cases of trisomy 18, 1 case of trisomy 13, 39 cases of Spinocerebellar ataxias (SCAs), and 4 cases of other chromosomal abnormalities. The sensitivity for trisomy 21, 18, and 13 and sex chromosome abnormality was 100%; the specificity for trisomy 21, 18, and 13 and sex chromosome abnormality was 99.97%, 99.95%, 99.97%, and 99.91% respectively. The screening efficiency was similar to that of singleton pregnancy, indicating that the NIPT technology in our laboratory for screening for aneuploidy diseases in twin pregnancy has reached the accuracy level of singleton pregnancy screening. There was a statistical difference between the risk group and the non-risk group in pregnant women with singleton pregnancy. The screening efficiency of NIPT was higher in pregnant women in the risk group, which implies that the clinical application of NIPT is inclined to detect high-risk group. Conclusions: Non-invasive prenatal testing (NIPT) is a rapid and safe screening method with high efficiency. Non-invasive prenatal testing (NIPT) is used for the screening of aneuploidy in twin pregnancy. The efficiency is similar to that of singleton pregnancy, indicating the feasibility of clinical application. However, the efficiency of NIPT screening tends to favor the detection in high-risk groups

(S)-2-(1H-Imidazol-1-yl)-3-phenyl­propanol

In the title compound, C12H14N2O, the middle C atom in the propanol chain is a chiral center and possesses an S absolute configuration, according to the synthesis. In the crystal structure, inter­molecular O—H⋯N hydrogen bonds link the mol­ecules into a chain along the b axis

On-site and visual detection of sorghum mosaic virus and rice stripe mosaic virus based on reverse transcription-recombinase-aided amplification and CRISPR/Cas12a

Rapid, sensitive and visual detection of plant viruses is conducive to effective prevention and control of plant viral diseases. Therefore, combined with reverse transcription and recombinase-aided amplification, we developed a CRISPR/Cas12a-based visual nucleic acid detection system targeting sorghum mosaic virus and rice stripe mosaic virus, which cause harm to crop production in field. When the RT-RAA products were recognized by crRNA and formed a complex with LbCas12a, the ssDNA labeled with a quenched green fluorescent molecule will be cleaved by LbCas12a, and then a significant green fluorescence signal will appear. The entire detection process can be completed within 30 min without using any sophisticated equipment and instruments. The detection system could detect samples at a dilution of 107, about 104-fold improvement over RT-PCR, so the system was successfully to detect rice stripe mosaic virus in a single leafhopper, which is the transmission vector of the virus. Finally, the CRISPR/Cas12a-based detection system was utilized to on-site detect the two viruses in the field, and the results were fully consistent with that we obtained by RT-PCR in laboratory, demonstrating that it has the application prospect of detecting important crop viruses in the field