Synthesis, Crystal Structure and Biological Activity of Two Triketone-Containing Quinoxalines as HPPD Inhibitors

Two new triketone-containing quinoxaline derivatives were designed by fragment splicing strategy and synthesized using 3,4-diaminobenzoic acid and substituted cyclohexanedione as starting materials. Both compounds were characterized by IR, 1H and 13C NMR, HRMS and X-ray diffraction. 3-Hydroxy-5-methyl-2-(quinoxaline-6-carbonyl)cyclohex-2-en-1-one (6a) crystallized in the triclinic system, space group Pī, a = 7.9829(2) Å, b = 8.1462(2) Å, c = 10.7057(3) Å, α = 84.3590(10)°, β = 89.7760(10)°, γ = 87.4190(10)°, Z = 2, V = 692.12(3) Å3, F(000) = 296, Dc = 1.335 Mg/m3, m(MoKa) = 0.095 mm–1, R = 0.0683 and wR= 0.1983. 3-Hydroxy-5,5-dimethyl-2-(3-ethoxyquinoxaline-6-carbonyl)cyclohex-2-en-1-one (6b) crystallized in the monoclinic system, space group P21/c, a = 10.1554(6) Å, b = 9.6491(6) Å, c = 17.7645(10) Å, β = 90.784(2)°, Z = 4, V = 1740.59(18) Å3, F(000) = 720, Dc = 1.299 Mg/m3, m(MoKa) = 0.092 mm–1, R = 0.0462 and wR = 0.1235. Physicochemical property comparison and ADMET prediction showed that compound 6a had similar properties to the commercial herbicide mesotrione. Molecular docking results showed that the interactions between 6a and AtHPPD were similar to mesotrione. Moreover, the extended aromatic ring system and the additional alkyl form more interactions with the surrounding residues. Examination of AtHPPD inhibition and herbicidal activity showed that 6a had similar inhibition values to mesotrione and had a superior inhibitory effect on Echinochloa crus-galli

Dynamic Dual-Attentive Aggregation Learning for Visible-Infrared Person Re-identification

© 2020, Springer Nature Switzerland AG. Visible-infrared person re-identification (VI-ReID) is a challenging cross-modality pedestrian retrieval problem. Due to the large intra-class variations and cross-modality discrepancy with large amount of sample noise, it is difficult to learn discriminative part features. Existing VI-ReID methods instead tend to learn global representations, which have limited discriminability and weak robustness to noisy images. In this paper, we propose a novel dynamic dual-attentive aggregation (DDAG) learning method by mining both intra-modality part-level and cross-modality graph-level contextual cues for VI-ReID. We propose an intra-modality weighted-part attention module to extract discriminative part-aggregated features, by imposing the domain knowledge on the part relationship mining. To enhance robustness against noisy samples, we introduce cross-modality graph structured attention to reinforce the representation with the contextual relations across the two modalities. We also develop a parameter-free dynamic dual aggregation learning strategy to adaptively integrate the two components in a progressive joint training manner. Extensive experiments demonstrate that DDAG outperforms the state-of-the-art methods under various settings

Design, Synthesis, and Structure-Activity Relationships of 3,4,5-Trisubstituted 4,5-Dihydro-1,2,4-oxadiazoles as TGR5 Agonists

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Limited Regeneration Potential with Minimal Epicardial Progenitor Conversions in the Neonatal Mouse Heart after Injury

The regeneration capacity of neonatal mouse heart is controversial. In addition, whether epicardial cells provide a progenitor pool for de novo heart regeneration is incompletely defined. Following apical resection of the neonatal mouse heart, we observed limited regeneration potential. Fate-mapping of Tbx18MerCreMer mice revealed that newly formed coronary vessels and a limited number of cardiomyocytes were derived from the T-box transcription factor 18 (Tbx18) lineage. However, further lineage tracing with SM-MHCCreERT2 and Nfactc1Cre mice revealed that the new smooth muscle and endothelial cells are in fact derivatives of pre-existing coronary vessels. Our data show that neonatal mouse heart can regenerate but that its potential is limited. Moreover, although epicardial cells are multipotent during embryogenesis, their contribution to heart repair through "stem" or "progenitor" cell conversion is minimal after birth. These observations suggest that early embryonic heart development and postnatal heart regeneration are distinct biological processes. Multipotency of epicardial cells is significantly decreased after birth

Transcriptional Regulations on the Low-Temperature-Induced Floral Transition in an Orchidaceae Species, Dendrobium nobile: An Expressed Sequence Tags Analysis

Vernalization-induced flowering is a cold-relevant adaptation in many species, but little is known about the genetic basis behind in Orchidaceae species. Here, we reported a collection of 15017 expressed sequence tags (ESTs) from the vernalized axillary buds of an Orchidaceae species, Dendrobium nobile, which were assembled for 9616 unique gene clusters. Functional enrichment analysis showed that genes in relation to the responses to stresses, especially in the form of low temperatures, and those involving in protein biosynthesis and chromatin assembly were significantly overrepresented during 40 days of vernalization. Additionally, a total of 59 putative flowering-relevant genes were recognized, including those homologous to known key players in vernalization pathways in temperate cereals or Arabidopsis, such as cereal VRN1, FT/VRN3, and Arabidopsis AGL19. Results from this study suggest that the networks regulating vernalization-induced floral transition are conserved, but just in a part, in D. nobile, temperate cereals, and Arabidopsis

Evidence for genetic association of TBX21 and IFNG with systemic lupus erythematosus in a Chinese Han population

TBX21 recode T-bet which is an important transcription factor that drives the Th1 immune response primarily by promoting expression of the interferon-gamma (IFNG) gene. Recent studies have shown that genetic variants in TBX21 and IFNG are connected with risk of systemic lupus erythematosus (SLE). The aim of the present study was to replicate these genetic associations with SLE in Anhui Chinese population. Genotyping of 3 variants (rs4794067 in TBX21, rs2069705 and rs2069718 in IFNG) was performed. A total of 3732 subjects were included in the final analysis. The study only identified the association of rs2069705 with SLE susceptibility (T vs. C: odds ratio [OR] = 1.12, 95% confidence interval [CI] = 1.00-1.26, P = 0.046). Combined analysis with Hong Kong GWAS showed that the OR for rs2069705 was 1.10 (95% CI: 1.01-1.21, P = 0.027). Further pooled analysis with Korean populations involving 10498 subjects showed a more significant association between rs2069705 and SLE (T vs. C: OR = 1.11, 95%CI = 1.04-1.19, P = 0.002; TT + TC vs. CC: OR = 1.11, 95%CI = 1.02-1.21, P = 0.012; TT vs. TC + CC: OR = 1.28, 95%CI = 1.07-1.54, P = 0.008; TT vs. CC: OR = 1.33, 95%CI = 1.10-1.60, P = 0.003). In addition, we also identified a significant genetic interaction between rs2069705 and rs4794067 in Anhui Chinese population. Our study suggests that IFNG and IFNG-TBX21 interaction are involved in SLE susceptibility.published_or_final_versio

Beam based calibration of X-ray pinhole camera in SSRF

The Shanghai Synchrotron Radiation Facility (SSRF) contains a 3.5-GeV storage ring serving as a national X-ray synchrotron radiation user facility characterized by a low emittance and a low coupling. The stability and quality of the electron beams are monitored continuously by an array of diagnostics. In particular, an X-ray pinhole camera is employed in the diagnostics beamline of the ring to characterize the position, size, and emittance of the beam. The performance of the measurement of the transverse electron beam size is given by the width of the point spread function (PSF) of the X-ray pinhole camera. Typically the point spread function of the X-ray pinhole camera is calculated via analytical or numerical method. In this paper we will introduce a new beam based calibration method to derive the width of the PSF online

Effects of dietary energy levels on microorganisms and short-chain fatty acids of rumen and tight junction proteins in Honghe Yellow cattle

This study was conducted to investigate the effects of dietary energy levels on microorganisms and short-chain fatty acids (SCFAs) of rumen and the expression of tight junction proteins in Honghe Yellow cattle. A total of fifteen male Honghe Yellow cattle were randomly divided into three treatments (five replicates per treatment), consisting of formulated energy concentrations of 5.90 MJ/kg (high-energy diet, group H), 5.60 MJ/kg (medium-energy diet, group M) and 5.30 MJ/kg (low-energy diet, group L). The results showed that compared with group H, the expression of Claudin-1 in rumen epithelium of groups M and L was increased, but the expression of ZO-1 was decreased (p < 0.05). Moreover, compared with group H, group M down-regulated the expression of Occludin and Claudin-1 in the brain (p < 0.05). For rumen bacteria, the dominant phyla included Bacteroidetes and Firmicutes, the abundance of Actinobacteriota in groups M and L was significantly increased compared with group H (p < 0.05). At the genus level, the relative abundance of Corynebacterium, Eubacterium_nodatum_group and Neisseraceae in groups M and L was significantly decreased compared with group H (p < 0.05). For rumen fungi, the dominant phyla included Basidiomycota, Ascomycota and Neocariastigomycota, the relative abundance of Ascomycetes was significantly higher than that of groups M and L compared with group H (p < 0.05). At the genus level, the relative abundance of Neocelimastigaceae and Myceliophthora in groups M and L was significantly reduced compared with group H (p < 0.05). Furthermore, the expression of Claudin-1 in rumen epithelium was significantly positively correlated with Actinobacteriota, Corynebacterium and Neisseriaceae. The expression of ZO-1 in the spinal cord was significantly positively correlated with Myceliophthora. The expression of Occludin in brain was positively correlated with valerate content (p < 0.05). In summary, dietary energy levels affected the rumen microbiota of Honghe Yellow cattle. The expression of Claudin-1 in rumen epithelium and the total SCFAs concentration were increased with decreasing dietary energy levels, but the expression of Claudin-1 in brain and ZO-1 in the spinal cord were reduced with decreasing dietary energy levels. Meanwhile, the rumen microbiota and SCFAs were significantly correlated with the expression of TJP