Projecting future impacts of cropland reclamation policies on carbon storage

Cropland reclamation policies result in carbon storage loss by the conversion of natural land. However, the future impacts of cropland reclamation policies (CRP) on carbon storage have seldom been explored. Taking Hubei, China as study area, this study assesses the impacts of cropland reclamation policies before and after optimization on carbon storage from 2010 to 2030. The LAND System Cellular Automata model for Potential Effects (LANDSCAPE) was used to simulate the land use patterns in 2030, while the Integrated Valuation of Ecosystem Services and Trade-offs (InVEST) Carbon Storage and Sequestration model was applied to calculate the changes in carbon storage. Results indicate that carbon storage loss due to cropland reclamation policies is expected to increase from 0.48 Tg·C to 4.34 Tg·C between 2010 and 2030 in Hubei. This increase is related to the loss of wetland and forest. Carbon storage loss can be reduced by 52%–73% by protecting carbon-rich lands. This study highlights the importance of considering the carbon storage loss when implementing cropland reclamation policies

Cellular prion protein distribution in the vomeronasal organ, parotid, and scent glands of white-tailed deer and mule deer

Chronic wasting disease (CWD) is a contagious and fatal transmissible spongiform encephalopathy affecting species of the cervidae family. CWD has an expanding geographic range and complex, poorly understood transmission mechanics. CWD is disproportionately prevalent in wild male mule deer and male white-tailed deer. Sex and species influences on CWD prevalence have been hypothesized to be related to animal behaviours that involve deer facial and body exocrine glands. Understanding CWD transmission potential requires a foundational knowledge of the cellular prion protein (PrPC) in glands associated with cervid behaviours. In this study, we characterized the presence and distribution of PrPC in six integumentary and two non-integumentary tissues of hunter-harvested mule deer (Odocoileus hemionus) and white-tailed deer (O. virginianus). We report that white-tailed deer expressed significantly more PrPC than their mule deer in the parotid, metatarsal, and interdigital glands. Females expressed more PrPC than males in the forehead and preorbital glands. The distribution of PrPC within the integumentary exocrine glands of the face and legs were localized to glandular cells, hair follicles, epidermis, and immune cell infiltrates. All tissues examined expressed sufficient quantities of PrPC to serve as possible sites of prion initial infection, propagation, and shedding

Chondrogenic Regeneration Using Bone Marrow Clots and a Porous Polycaprolactone-Hydroxyapatite Scaffold by Three-Dimensional Printing

Scaffolds play an important role in directing three-dimensional (3D) cartilage regeneration. Our recent study reported the potential advantages of bone marrow clots (MC) in promoting extracellular matrix (ECM) scaffold chondrogenic regeneration. The aim of this study is to build a new scaffold for MC, with improved characteristics in mechanics, shaping, and biodegradability, compared to our previous study. To address this issue, this study prepared a 3D porous polycaprolactone (PCL)-hydroxyapatite (HA) scaffold combined with MC (Group A), while the control group (Group B) utilized a bone marrow stem cell seeded PCL-HA scaffold. The results of in vitro cultures and in vivo implantation demonstrated that although an initial obstruction of nutrient exchange caused by large amounts of fibrin and erythrocytes led to a decrease in the ratio of live cells in Group A, these scaffolds also showed significant improvements in cell adhesion, proliferation, and chondrogenic differentiation with porous recanalization in the later culture, compared to Group B. After 4 weeks of in vivo implantation, Group A scaffolds have a superior performance in DNA content, Sox9 and RunX2 expression, cartilage lacuna-like cell and ECM accumulation, when compared to Group B. Furthermore, Group A scaffold size and mechanics were stable during in vitro and in vivo experiments, unlike the scaffolds in our previous study. Our results suggest that the combination with MC proved to be a highly efficient, reliable, and simple new method that improves the biological performance of 3D PCL-HA scaffold. The MC-PCL-HA scaffold is a candidate for future cartilage regeneration studies.Cell & Tissue EngineeringBiotechnology & Applied MicrobiologyCell BiologySCI(E)[email protected]; [email protected]; [email protected]

A novel molecular signature for predicting prognosis and immunotherapy response in osteosarcoma based on tumor-infiltrating cell marker genes

BackgroundTumor infiltrating lymphocytes (TILs), the main component in the tumor microenvironment, play a critical role in the antitumor immune response. Few studies have developed a prognostic model based on TILs in osteosarcoma.MethodsScRNA-seq data was obtained from our previous research and bulk RNA transcriptome data was from TARGET database. WGCNA was used to obtain the immune-related gene modules. Subsequently, we applied LASSO regression analysis and SVM algorithm to construct a prognostic model based on TILs marker genes. What’s more, the prognostic model was verified by external datasets and experiment in vitro. ResultsEleven cell clusters and 2044 TILs marker genes were identified. WGCNA results showed that 545 TILs marker genes were the most strongly related with immune. Subsequently, a risk model including 5 genes was developed. We found that the survival rate was higher in the low-risk group and the risk model could be used as an independent prognostic factor. Meanwhile, high-risk patients had a lower abundance of immune cell infiltration and many immune checkpoint genes were highly expressed in the low-risk group. The prognostic model was also demonstrated to be a good predictive capacity in external datasets. The result of RT-qPCR indicated that these 5 genes have differential expression which accorded with the predicting outcomes.ConclusionsThis study developed a new molecular signature based on TILs marker genes, which is very effective in predicting OS prognosis and immunotherapy response

A Bispecific Antibody Based Assay Shows Potential for Detecting Tuberculosis in Resource Constrained Laboratory Settings

The re-emergence of tuberculosis (TB) as a global public health threat highlights the necessity of rapid, simple and inexpensive point-of-care detection of the disease. Early diagnosis of TB is vital not only for preventing the spread of the disease but also for timely initiation of treatment. The later in turn will reduce the possible emergence of multi-drug resistant strains of Mycobacterium tuberculosis. Lipoarabinomannan (LAM) is an important non-protein antigen of the bacterial cell wall, which is found to be present in different body fluids of infected patients including blood, urine and sputum. We have developed a bispecific monoclonal antibody with predetermined specificities towards the LAM antigen and a reporter molecule horseradish peroxidase (HRPO). The developed antibody was subsequently used to design a simple low cost immunoswab based assay to detect LAM antigen. The limit of detection for spiked synthetic LAM was found to be 5.0 ng/ml (bovine urine), 0.5 ng/ml (rabbit serum) and 0.005 ng/ml (saline) and that for bacterial LAM from M. tuberculosis H37Rv was found to be 0.5 ng/ml (rabbit serum). The assay was evaluated with 21 stored clinical serum samples (14 were positive and 7 were negative in terms of anti-LAM titer). In addition, all 14 positive samples were culture positive. The assay showed 100% specificity and 64% sensitivity (95% confidence interval). In addition to good specificity, the end point could be read visually within two hours of sample collection. The reported assay might be used as a rapid tool for detecting TB in resource constrained laboratory settings

Impacts of cropland expansion on carbon storage : A case study in Hubei, China

When cropland expansion encroaches on ecological land (e.g., forest, grassland, wetland), it seriously affects carbon storage which plays an important role in global climate change. Taking Hubei as the study area, this study explored the effects of cropland expansion on carbon storage in both 2000–2010 and 2010–2030 in different scenarios by using the Integrated Valuation of Ecosystem Services and Trade-offs (InVEST) model and the LAND System Cellular Automata model for Potential Effects (LANDSCAPE). The results showed that cropland expansion led to a massive loss of carbon storage (1.76 Tg C) during 2000–2010, which is expected to continue during 2010–2030 in different scenarios. The loss is predicted to be 3.70 Tg C in the Business-As-Usual scenario and be 0.88 Tg C in the Requisition–Compensation Balance of Cropland Policy scenario. Noticeably, the loss of carbon storage due to cropland expansion was 1.12 times more than that due to urban expansion during 2000–2010. For the period of 2010–2030, the loss of carbon storage caused by cropland expansion is predicted to be 3.89 times more than that caused by urban expansion in the Business-As-Usual scenario, while the losses caused by cropland expansion and urban expansion are predicted to be almost equal in the Requisition–Compensation Balance of Cropland Policy scenario. The main cause of carbon storage loss due to cropland expansion is that it leads to the considerable loss of forest and wetland. This study highlights the importance of considering the loss of carbon storage caused by cropland expansion when conducting cropland protection policies and land use planning.</p

Research on effectiveness evaluation of anti-tank minefield based on IHHO-MCNN

Aiming at the problem of operational effectiveness evaluation of anti-tank minefield, a method of operational effectiveness evaluation of anti-tank minefield based on Harris Hawks Optimization (HHO) optimized Monte Carlo neural network (MCNN) is proposed. Firstly, the basic principles and algorithm flow of IHHO algorithm and Monte Carlo neural network are introduced. Then the main influencing factors of the effectiveness evaluation of anti-tank minefield are analyzed, and the index system of the effectiveness evaluation of anti-tank minefield is summarized. Finally, the IHHO-MCNN neural network evaluation model is constructed. The simulation results show that the model can effectively evaluate the effectiveness of anti-tank minefield