Detection and identification of huwentoxin-IV interacting proteins by biotin-avidin chemistry combined with mass spectrometry

<div><p>Background : Numerous spider toxins are of interest as tools for neurophysiological research or as lead molecules for the development of pharmaceuticals and insecticides. Direct detection and identification of the interacting proteins of a spider toxin are helpful for its action-mechanism analysis and practical application. The present study employed a combinative strategy for the analysis of interacting proteins of huwentoxin-IV (HWTX-IV), a peptidic neurotoxin from the venom of the spiderSelenocosmia huwena.Results : HWTX-IV was first lightly labeled with biotin under the optimized mild experimental conditions and the toxin labeled with a single biotin group (monobiotinylated HWTX-IV) was demonstrated by electrophysiological experiments to retain its original bioactivity and was used in combination with far-western blotting to detect its interacting proteins. Comparative experiments indicated that some membrane proteins from rat neuromuscular junction preparations bind to monobiotinylated HWTX-IV after being transferred onto a PVDF membrane from the SDS-gel. With capillary high performance liquid chromatography-tandem mass spectrometry, several membrane proteins with which HWTX-IV potentially interacted were identified from the preparations and then bioinformatically analyzed.Conclusions : This work has provided not only a new insight into the action mechanism of HWTX-IV but also a reference technology for the relevant researches.</p></div

Evaluation of renal cold ischemia–reperfusion injury with intravoxel incoherent motion diffusion-weighted imaging and blood oxygenation level-dependent MRI in a rat model

Purpose: Cold ischemia-reperfusion injury (CIRI) is one of the most serious complications following renal transplantation. The current study investigated the feasibility of Intravoxel Incoherent Motion (IVIM) imaging and blood oxygenation level-dependent (BOLD) in the evaluation of different degrees of renal cold ischemia-reperfusion injury in a rat model.Methods: Seventy five rats were randomly divided into three groups (N = 25 for each group): T0: sham-operated group, T2/T4: CIRI groups with different cold ischemia hours (2, 4 h, respectively). The rat model of CIRI group was established by left kidney cold ischemia with right nephrectomy. All the rats received a baseline MRI before the surgery. Five rats in each group were randomly selected to undergo an MRI examination at 1 h, day 1, day 2 and day 5 after CIRI. The IVIM and BOLD parameters were studied in the renal cortex (CO), the outer stripe of the outer medulla (OSOM), and the inner stripe of the outer medulla (ISOM) followed by histological analysis to examine Paller scores, peritubular capillary (PTC) density, apoptosis rate and biochemical indicators to obtain the contents of serum creatinine (Scr), blood urea nitrogen (BUN), superoxide dismutase (SOD) and malondialdehyde (MDA).Results: The D, D*, PF and T2* values in the CIRI groups were lower than those in the sham-operated group at all timepoints (all p &lt; 0.05). The prolonged cold ischemia times resulted in gradually lower D, D*, PF and T2* values (all p &lt; 0.05). The D and T2* values of cortex and OSOM in Group T0 and T2 returned to the baseline level (all p &gt; 0.05) except Group T4. The D* and PF values of cortex, OSOM and ISOM in Group T2 and T4 still remained below the normal levels (all p &lt; 0.05) except Group T0. D, D*, PF and T2* values were strongly correlated with histopathological (Paller scores, PTC density and apoptosis rate) and the biochemistry indicators (SOD and MDA) (|r|&gt;0.6, p &lt; 0.001). D*, PF and T2* values were moderately to poorly correlated with some biochemistry indicators (Scr and BUN) (|r|&lt;0.5, p &lt; 0.05).Conclusion: IVIM and BOLD can serve as noninvasive radiologic markers for monitoring different degrees of renal impairment and recovery after renal CIRI

Sciences for The 2.5-meter Wide Field Survey Telescope (WFST)

The Wide Field Survey Telescope (WFST) is a dedicated photometric survey facility under construction jointly by the University of Science and Technology of China and Purple Mountain Observatory. It is equipped with a primary mirror of 2.5m in diameter, an active optical system, and a mosaic CCD camera of 0.73 Gpix on the main focus plane to achieve high-quality imaging over a field of view of 6.5 square degrees. The installation of WFST in the Lenghu observing site is planned to happen in the summer of 2023, and the operation is scheduled to commence within three months afterward. WFST will scan the northern sky in four optical bands (u, g, r, and i) at cadences from hourly/daily to semi-weekly in the deep high-cadence survey (DHS) and the wide field survey (WFS) programs, respectively. WFS reaches a depth of 22.27, 23.32, 22.84, and 22.31 in AB magnitudes in a nominal 30-second exposure in the four bands during a photometric night, respectively, enabling us to search tremendous amount of transients in the low-z universe and systematically investigate the variability of Galactic and extragalactic objects. Intranight 90s exposures as deep as 23 and 24 mag in u and g bands via DHS provide a unique opportunity to facilitate explorations of energetic transients in demand for high sensitivity, including the electromagnetic counterparts of gravitational-wave events detected by the second/third-generation GW detectors, supernovae within a few hours of their explosions, tidal disruption events and luminous fast optical transients even beyond a redshift of 1. Meanwhile, the final 6-year co-added images, anticipated to reach g about 25.5 mag in WFS or even deeper by 1.5 mag in DHS, will be of significant value to general Galactic and extragalactic sciences. The highly uniform legacy surveys of WFST will also serve as an indispensable complement to those of LSST which monitors the southern sky.Comment: 46 pages, submitted to SCMP

The complete chloroplast genome sequence of Tribulus terrestris, an important traditional Chinese medicine

Tribulus terrestris is an important traditional medicine in China, which is widely distributed in north China. Here, the chloroplast genome sequences were detected. The chloroplast genome of T. terrestris is circular-mapping molecule of 158,184 bp in size, which consisted of a pair of inverted repeat regions of 25,842 bp each, a large single copy region of 88,878 bp, and a small single copy region of 17,622 bp. A total of 129 genes were annotated, including 37 tRNA, 8 rRNA, and 84 protein-coding genes. Phylogenetic analysis showed T. terrestris clustered with Krameria lanceolate and Krameria bicolor

ZNF143 facilitates the growth and migration of glioma cells by regulating KPNA2-mediated Hippo signalling

Abstract The disordered expression of ZNF143 is closely related to the malignant progression of tumours. However, the basic control mechanism of ZNF143 in glioma has not yet been clarified. Therefore, we tried to find a new pathway to illustrate the function of ZNF143 in glioma. To explore the function of KPNA2 in the development of glioma, we used survival analysis by the Kaplan‒Meier method to assess the overall survival (OS) of patients with low and high KPNA2 expression in the TCGA and CGGA cohorts. Western blotting assays and RT‒PCR assays were utilized to determine the expression level of KPNA2 in glioma cells. The interaction between ZNF143 and KPNA2 was confirmed by ChIP assays. Proliferation was assessed by CCK-8 assays, and migration was evaluated by wound healing and Transwell assays. Apoptosis was determined by flow cytometry, and the expression level of YAP/TAZ was visualized using an immunofluorescence assay. The expression levels of LATS1, LATS2, YAP1, and p-YAP1 were determined. Patients with low KPNA2 expression showed a better prognosis than those with high KPNA2 expression. KPNA2 was found to be upregulated in human glioma cells. ZNF143 can bind to the promoter region of KPNA2. Downregulation of ZNF143 and KPNA2 can activate the Hippo signalling pathway and reduce YAP/TAZ expression in human glioma cells, thus inducing apoptosis of human glioma cells and weakening their proliferation, migration and invasion. In conclusion, ZNF143 mediates the Hippo/YAP signalling pathway and inhibits the growth and migration of glioma cells by regulating KPNA2

Application of a Hybrid CEEMD-LSTM Model Based on the Standardized Precipitation Index for Drought Forecasting: The Case of the Xinjiang Uygur Autonomous Region, China

Accurate forecasting of droughts can effectively reduce the risk of drought. We propose a hybrid model based on complementary ensemble empirical mode decomposition (CEEMD) and long short-term memory (LSTM) to improve drought prediction accuracy. Taking the Xinjiang Uygur Autonomous Region as an example, the prediction accuracy of the LSTM and CEEMD-LSTM models for the standardized precipitation index (SPI) on multiple timescales was compared and analyzed. Multiple evaluation metrics were used in the comparison of the models, such as the Nash–Sutcliffe efficiency (NSE). The results show that (1) with increasing timescale, the prediction accuracy of the LSTM and CEEMD-LSTM models gradually improves, and both reach their highest accuracy at the 24-month timescale; (2) the CEEMD can effectively stabilize the time-series, and the prediction accuracy of the hybrid model is higher than that of the single model at each timescale; and (3) the NSE values for the hybrid CEEMD-LSTM model at SPI24 were 0.895, 0.930, 0.908, and 0.852 for Fuhai, Kuerle, Yutian, and Hami station, respectively. This indicates the applicability of the hybrid model in the forecasting of drought

Application of a Hybrid CEEMD-LSTM Model Based on the Standardized Precipitation Index for Drought Forecasting: The Case of the Xinjiang Uygur Autonomous Region, China

Accurate forecasting of droughts can effectively reduce the risk of drought. We propose a hybrid model based on complementary ensemble empirical mode decomposition (CEEMD) and long short-term memory (LSTM) to improve drought prediction accuracy. Taking the Xinjiang Uygur Autonomous Region as an example, the prediction accuracy of the LSTM and CEEMD-LSTM models for the standardized precipitation index (SPI) on multiple timescales was compared and analyzed. Multiple evaluation metrics were used in the comparison of the models, such as the Nash&ndash;Sutcliffe efficiency (NSE). The results show that (1) with increasing timescale, the prediction accuracy of the LSTM and CEEMD-LSTM models gradually improves, and both reach their highest accuracy at the 24-month timescale; (2) the CEEMD can effectively stabilize the time-series, and the prediction accuracy of the hybrid model is higher than that of the single model at each timescale; and (3) the NSE values for the hybrid CEEMD-LSTM model at SPI24 were 0.895, 0.930, 0.908, and 0.852 for Fuhai, Kuerle, Yutian, and Hami station, respectively. This indicates the applicability of the hybrid model in the forecasting of drought