Dynamic axial control over optically levitating particles in air with an electrically-tunable variable-focus lens

Efficient delivery of viruses, proteins and biological macromelecules into a micrometer-sized focal spot of an XFEL beam for coherent diffraction imaging inspired new development in touch-free particle injection methods in gaseous and vacuum environments. This paper lays out our ongoing effort in constructing an all-optical particle delivery approach that uses piconewton photophoretic and femtonewton light-pressure forces to control particle delivery into the XFEL beam. We combine a spatial light modulator (SLM) and an electrically tunable lens (ETL) to construct a variable-divergence vortex beam providing dynamic and stable positioning of levitated micrometer-size particles, under normal atmospheric pressure. A sensorless wavefront correction approach is used to reduce optical aberrations to generate a high quality vortex beam for particle manipulation. As a proof of concept, stable manipulation of optically-controlled axial motion of trapped particles is demonstrated with a response time of 100ms. In addition, modulation of trapping intensity provides a measure of the mass of a single, isolated particle. The driving signal of this oscillatory motion can potentially be phase-locked to an external timing signal enabling synchronization of particle delivery into the x-ray focus with XFEL pulse train.This work has been supported by the Australian Research Council under DP110100975. W. M. Lee acknowledges the support of Australian Research Council Early Career Researcher Award, DE160100843

Overexpression of a cysteine proteinase inhibitor gene from Jatropha curcas confers enhanced tolerance to salinity stress

Background: Cysteine proteinase inhibitor (cystatin, CPI) is one of themost importantmolecules involved in plant development and defense, especially in the regulation of stress responses. However, it is still unclearwhether the Jatropha curcas CPI (JcCPI) gene functions in salinity response and tolerance. In this study, the sequence of the JcCPI gene, its expression pattern, and the effects of overexpression in Escherichia coli and Nicotiana benthamiana were examined. The purpose of this study was to evaluate the regulatory role of JcCPI in salinity stress tolerance. Results: The CPI gene, designated JcCPI, was cloned from J. curcas; its sequence shared conserved domains with other plant cystatins. Based on a transcription pattern analysis, JcCPI was expressed in all tissues examined, but its expression was highest in the petiole. Additionally, the expression of JcCPI was induced by salinity stress. A potential role of JcCPI was detected in transgenic E. coli, which exhibited strong CPI activity and high salinity tolerance. JcCPI was also transferred to tobacco plants. In comparison to wild-type plants, transgenic plants expressing JcCPI exhibited increased salinity resistance, better growth performance, lower malondialdehyde (MDA) contents, higher anti-oxidase activity, and higher cell viability under salinity stress. Conclusions: Based on the results of this study, overexpression of JcCPI in E. coli and N. benthamiana conferred salinity stress tolerance by blocking cysteine proteinase activity. The JcCPI gene cloned in this study will be very useful for the development of stress-tolerant crops

Enhancing Apoptosome Assembly via Mito-Biomimetic Lipid Nanocarrier for Cancer Therapy

Apoptosis is the natural programmed cell death process, which is responsible for abnormal cell clearance. However, many cancer cells develop various mechanisms to escape apoptosis through interrupting apoptosome assembly, which is a key step to initiate apoptosis. This promotes tumorigenesis and drug resistance, and thus, poses a great challenge in cancer treatment. Herein, a biomimetic lipid nanocarrier mimicking mitochondrial Cytochrome C (Cyt C) binding is developed. Cardiolipin, the major phospholipid of mitochondrial inner membrane, is introduced as the main component in biomimetic liposomal formulation. With the help of cardiolipin, Cyt C is sufficiently loaded in liposome based on electrostatic and hydrophobic interaction with cardiolipin. Lonidamine (LND) is added in hydrophobic phase of liposome to modulate the metabolic activity within cancer cells and sensitize the cells to Cyt C-induced apoptosis. The results suggest that LND reduces ATP level and creates favorable environment for Cyt C induced apoptosome assembly, exhibiting higher apoptosis level and anti-tumor efficacy in vitro and in vivo. The conjugation of a tumor-homing peptide, LinTT1, on the nanovesicle, increases the efficacy due to enhanced tumor accumulation. Overall, this biomimetic lipid nanocarrier proves to be an efficient delivery system with great potential of pro-apoptosis cancer therapy

Robust information hiding in low-resolution videos with quantization index modulation in DCT-CS domain

Video information hiding and transmission over noisy channels leads to errors on video and degradation of the visual quality notably. In this paper, a video signal fusion scheme is proposed to combine sensed host signal and the hidden signal with quantization index modulation (QIM) technology in the compressive sensing (CS) and discrete cosine transform (DCT) domain. With quantization based signal fusion, a realistic solution is provided to the receiver, which can improve the reconstruction video quality without requiring significant extra channel resource. The extensive experiments have shown that the proposed scheme can effectively achieve the better trade-off between robustness and statistical invisibility for video information hiding communication. This will be extremely important for low-resolution video analytics and protection in big data era

Evaluating active versus passive sources of human brucellosis in Jining City, China

Human brucellosis (HB) remains a serious public health concern owing to its resurgence across the globe and specifically in China. The timely detection of this disease is the key to its prevention and control. We sought to describe the differences in the demographics of high-risk populations with detected cases of HB contracted from active versus passive sources. We collected data from a large sample population from January to December 2018, in Jining City, China. We recruited patients that were at high-risk for brucellosis from three hospitals and Centers of Disease Control and Prevention (CDCs). These patients were classified into two groups: the active detection group was composed of individuals receiving brucellosis counseling at the CDCs; the passive detection group came from hospitals and high-risk HB groups. We tested a total of 2,247 subjects and 13.3% (299) presented as positive for HB. The positive rates for active and passive detection groups were 20.5% (256/1,249) and 4.3% (43/998), respectively (p < 0.001). The detection rate of confirmed HB cases varied among all groups but was higher in the active detection group than in the passive detection group when controlled for age, sex, ethnicity, education, career, and contact history with sheep or cattle (p < 0.05). Males, farmers, those with four types of contact history with sheep or cattle, and those presenting fever, hyperhidrosis and muscle pain were independent factors associated with confirmed HB cases in multivariate analysis of the active detection group. Active detection is the most common method used to detect brucellosis cases and should be applied to detect HB cases early and avoid misdiagnosis. We need to improve our understanding of brucellosis for high-risk populations. Passive HB detection can be supplemented with active detection when the cognitive changes resulting from brucellosis are low. It is important that healthcare providers understand and emphasis the timely diagnosis of HB