Transcriptome analysis of ectopic chloroplast development in green curd cauliflower (Brassica oleracea L. var. botrytis)

<p>Abstract</p> <p>Background</p> <p>Chloroplasts are the green plastids where photosynthesis takes place. The biogenesis of chloroplasts requires the coordinate expression of both nuclear and chloroplast genes and is regulated by developmental and environmental signals. Despite extensive studies of this process, the genetic basis and the regulatory control of chloroplast biogenesis and development remain to be elucidated.</p> <p>Results</p> <p>Green cauliflower mutant causes ectopic development of chloroplasts in the curd tissue of the plant, turning the otherwise white curd green. To investigate the transcriptional control of chloroplast development, we compared gene expression between green and white curds using the RNA-seq approach. Deep sequencing produced over 15 million reads with lengths of 86 base pairs from each cDNA library. A total of 7,155 genes were found to exhibit at least 3-fold changes in expression between green and white curds. These included light-regulated genes, genes encoding chloroplast constituents, and genes involved in chlorophyll biosynthesis. Moreover, we discovered that the cauliflower <it>ELONGATED HYPOCOTYL5 </it>(<it>BoHY5</it>) was expressed higher in green curds than white curds and that 2616 HY5-targeted genes, including 1600 up-regulated genes and 1016 down-regulated genes, were differently expressed in green in comparison to white curd tissue. All these 1600 up-regulated genes were HY5-targeted genes in the light.</p> <p>Conclusions</p> <p>The genome-wide profiling of gene expression by RNA-seq in green curds led to the identification of large numbers of genes associated with chloroplast development, and suggested the role of regulatory genes in the high hierarchy of light signaling pathways in mediating the ectopic chloroplast development in the green curd cauliflower mutant.</p

Robust Super-Resolution Imaging Based on a Ring Core Fiber with Orbital Angular Momentum

Single fiber imaging technology offers unique insights for research and inspection in difficult to reach and narrow spaces. In particular, ultra-compact multimode fiber (MMF) imaging, has received increasing interest over the past decade. However, MMF imaging will be seriously distorted when subjected to dynamic perturbations due to time-varying mode coupling, and the imaging of space objects via Gaussian beam will be relatively degraded at the edge due to insufficient contrast. Here, a robust super-resolution imaging method based on a ring core fiber (RCF) with orbital angular momentum (OAM) has been proposed and experimentally demonstrated. The OAM modes propagating in the RCF form a series of weakly-coupled mode groups, making our imaging system robust to external perturbations. In addition, a spiral phase plate is used as a vortex filter to produce OAM for edge enhancement, thus improving the image resolution. Furthermore, a few-shot U-Transformer neural network is proposed to enhance the resilience of the developed RCF-OAM imaging system against environmental perturbations. Finally, the developed RCF-OAM imaging system achieves biological image transmission, demonstrating the practicality of our scheme. This pioneering RCF OAM imaging system may have broad applications, potentially revolutionising fields such as biological imaging and industrial non-destructive testing

Determination of tolbutamide and hydroxytolbutamide by LC–MS/MS in rat and its application to assessment of CYP2C9 activity

A sensitive and selective liquid chromatography–tandem mass spectrometry method (LC–MS/MS) for the determination of tolbutamide (TB) and its metabolite hydroxytolbutamide (HTB) in rat plasma was developed using carbamazepine as an internal standard. Chromatographic separation was performed by an Agilent Zorbax SB-C18 column (150 mmx2.1 mm, 3.5 μm), using the gradient elution of 0.1 % formic acid in water and acetonitrile. Calibration plots were linear over range of 5–1000 ng/mL for TB and 10–2000 ng/mL for HTB in rat plasma. The intra- and inter-day relative standard deviations of the assay were less than 10 % for both TB and HTB. The validated method is successfully used to analyze the influence of bupropion on cytochrome P450-mediated metabolism of TB. The biotransformation rates of TB administered either separately or both simultaneously were compared in this study. The results revealed that bupropion had no significant effect on TB hydroxylation.Colegio de Farmacéuticos de la Provincia de Buenos Aire

Finishing the euchromatic sequence of the human genome

The sequence of the human genome encodes the genetic instructions for human physiology, as well as rich information about human evolution. In 2001, the International Human Genome Sequencing Consortium reported a draft sequence of the euchromatic portion of the human genome. Since then, the international collaboration has worked to convert this draft into a genome sequence with high accuracy and nearly complete coverage. Here, we report the result of this finishing process. The current genome sequence (Build 35) contains 2.85 billion nucleotides interrupted by only 341 gaps. It covers ∼99% of the euchromatic genome and is accurate to an error rate of ∼1 event per 100,000 bases. Many of the remaining euchromatic gaps are associated with segmental duplications and will require focused work with new methods. The near-complete sequence, the first for a vertebrate, greatly improves the precision of biological analyses of the human genome including studies of gene number, birth and death. Notably, the human enome seems to encode only 20,000-25,000 protein-coding genes. The genome sequence reported here should serve as a firm foundation for biomedical research in the decades ahead

31st Annual Meeting and Associated Programs of the Society for Immunotherapy of Cancer (SITC 2016) : part two

Background The immunological escape of tumors represents one of the main ob- stacles to the treatment of malignancies. The blockade of PD-1 or CTLA-4 receptors represented a milestone in the history of immunotherapy. However, immune checkpoint inhibitors seem to be effective in specific cohorts of patients. It has been proposed that their efficacy relies on the presence of an immunological response. Thus, we hypothesized that disruption of the PD-L1/PD-1 axis would synergize with our oncolytic vaccine platform PeptiCRAd. Methods We used murine B16OVA in vivo tumor models and flow cytometry analysis to investigate the immunological background. Results First, we found that high-burden B16OVA tumors were refractory to combination immunotherapy. However, with a more aggressive schedule, tumors with a lower burden were more susceptible to the combination of PeptiCRAd and PD-L1 blockade. The therapy signifi- cantly increased the median survival of mice (Fig. 7). Interestingly, the reduced growth of contralaterally injected B16F10 cells sug- gested the presence of a long lasting immunological memory also against non-targeted antigens. Concerning the functional state of tumor infiltrating lymphocytes (TILs), we found that all the immune therapies would enhance the percentage of activated (PD-1pos TIM- 3neg) T lymphocytes and reduce the amount of exhausted (PD-1pos TIM-3pos) cells compared to placebo. As expected, we found that PeptiCRAd monotherapy could increase the number of antigen spe- cific CD8+ T cells compared to other treatments. However, only the combination with PD-L1 blockade could significantly increase the ra- tio between activated and exhausted pentamer positive cells (p= 0.0058), suggesting that by disrupting the PD-1/PD-L1 axis we could decrease the amount of dysfunctional antigen specific T cells. We ob- served that the anatomical location deeply influenced the state of CD4+ and CD8+ T lymphocytes. In fact, TIM-3 expression was in- creased by 2 fold on TILs compared to splenic and lymphoid T cells. In the CD8+ compartment, the expression of PD-1 on the surface seemed to be restricted to the tumor micro-environment, while CD4 + T cells had a high expression of PD-1 also in lymphoid organs. Interestingly, we found that the levels of PD-1 were significantly higher on CD8+ T cells than on CD4+ T cells into the tumor micro- environment (p < 0.0001). Conclusions In conclusion, we demonstrated that the efficacy of immune check- point inhibitors might be strongly enhanced by their combination with cancer vaccines. PeptiCRAd was able to increase the number of antigen-specific T cells and PD-L1 blockade prevented their exhaus- tion, resulting in long-lasting immunological memory and increased median survival

Investment Decision of New Energy Vehicle Enterprises Using the Interval Basic Probability Assignment-Based Intuitionistic Fuzzy Set

To evaluate the investment decisions of new energy vehicle enterprises scientifically and reasonably and improve the investment efficiency and accuracy of decision-makers, this paper proposes an investment decision method based on interval intuitionistic fuzzy sets. In the investment decision-making process of new energy vehicle enterprises, first, based on the characteristics of new energy vehicle enterprise investment projects, an index system is constructed to comprehensively cover the influencing factors of investment decisions. Second, we obtain the interval fuzzy number of the decision index through a questionnaire survey, use the structural entropy method to empower decision indicators, and comprehensively evaluate the decision index by the organic combination of the interval-valued intuitionistic fuzzy weighted averaging (IIFWA) operator and structural entropy method. Finally, interval BPA is used to express the value of each decision index interval intuitionistic fuzzy number. Based on the conversion relationship between interval evidence and the intuitionistic fuzzy set, the orthogonal sum operation results of the intuitionistic fuzzy set converted from the normalized interval BPA is replaced by the interval evidence combination result, and the final decision is determined by comparing the fusion result. Applying the investment decision method based on interval intuitionistic fuzzy sets to the field of new energy vehicle investment decision-making can provide a reference for investment decision-makers to make efficient and accurate decisions, and it has application value and practical significance to promote the effective development of new energy investment decisions