Relationship between polymorphisms in vitamin D metabolism-related genes and the risk of rickets in Han Chinese children

BACKGROUND: Vitamin D deficiency rickets is common in China. Genetic factors may play an important role in the susceptibility to rickets. Our study aimed to identify the relationship between three vitamin D-related genes (group specific component [GC], cytochrome P450, family 2, subfamily R, polypeptide 1 (CYP2R1), and 7-dehydrocholesterol reductase/nicotinamide-adenine dinucleotide synthetase 1 (DHCR7/NADSYN1) and rickets in Han Chinese children from northeastern China. METHODS: A total of 506 Han children from northeastern China were enrolled in the current study. Twelve SNPs in three candidate genes were genotyped using the SNaPshot assay. Linear regression was used to examine the effect of 12 single-nucleotide polymorphisms (SNPs) on the risk of rickets. RESULTS: In our case–control cohort, six alleles of the 12 SNPs conferred a significantly increased risk of rickets in GC (rs4588 C, P = 0.003, OR: 0.583, 95% CI: 0.412-0.836; rs222020 C, P = 0.009, OR: 1.526, 95% CI: 1.117-2.0985; rs2282679 A, P = 0.010, OR: 0.636, 95% CI: 0.449-0.900; and rs2298849 C, P = 0.001, OR: 1.709, 95% CI: 1.250-2.338) and in CYP2R1 (rs10741657 G, P = 0.019, OR: 1.467, 95% CI: 1.070-2.011; and rs2060793 G, P = 0.023, OR: 0.689, 95% CI: 0.502-0.944). The results remained significant after adjustment for sex and body mass index. We further analyzed the effect of genotypes under three different genetic models. After using Bonferroni’s method for multiple corrections, rs4588, rs2282679, and rs2298849 of the GC gene were significantly associated with rickets under the dominant (P =0.003 for rs4588, P =0.024 for rs2282679, and P =0.005 for rs2298849) and additive models (P = 0.006 for rs4588, P = 0.024 for rs2282679, and P = 0.005 for rs2298849). Haplotype analysis showed that the CAT haplotype of the GC gene (P = 0.005) and the GAA haplotype of the CYP2R1 gene (P = 0.026) were associated with susceptibility to rickets. CONCLUSIONS: This case–control study confirmed the strong effect of GC and CYP2R1 loci on rickets in Han children from northeastern China

MicroRNA390-Directed TAS3 Cleavage Leads to the Production of tasiRNA-ARF3/4 During Somatic Embryogenesis in Dimocarpus longan Lour

Trans-acting short-interfering RNAs (tasiRNAs) originate from TAS3 families through microRNA (miRNA) 390-guided cleavage of primary transcripts and target auxin response factors (ARF3/-4), which are involved in the normal development of lateral roots and flowers in plants. However, their roles in embryo development are still unclear. Here, the pathway miR390-TAS3-ARF3/-4 was identified systematically for the first time during somatic embryo development in Dimocarpus longan. We identified the miR390 primary transcript and promoter. The promoter contained cis-acting elements responsive to stimuli such as light, salicylic acid, anaerobic induction, fungal elicitor, circadian control and heat stress. The longan TAS3 transcript, containing two miR390-binding sites, was isolated; the miR390- guided cleavage site located near the 3' end of the TAS3 transcript was verified. Eight TAS3-tasiRNAs with the 21-nucleotide phase were found among longan small RNA data, further confirming that miR390-directed TAS3 cleavage leads to the production of tasiRNA in longan. Among them, TAS3_5'D5+ and 5'D6+ tasiRNAs were highly abundant, and verified to target ARF3 and -4, implying that miR390-guided TAS3 cleavage with 21-nucleotide phase leading to the production of tasiRNA-ARF is conserved in plants. Pri-miR390 was highly expressed in friable-embryogenic callus (EC), and less expressed in incomplete compact pro-embryogenic cultures,while miR390 showed its lowest expression in EC and highest expression in torpedo-shaped embryo. DlTAS3 and DlARF4 both exhibited their lowest expressions in EC, and reached their peaks in the globular embryos stage, which were mainly inversely proportional to the expression of miR390, especially at the GE to CE stages. While DlARF3 showed little variation from the EC to torpedo-shaped embryos stages, and exhibited its lowest expression in the cotyledonary embryos stage. There was a general lack of correlation between the expressions of DlARF3 and miR390. In addition, miR390, DlTAS3, DlARF3, and -4 were up-regulated by 2,4-D in a concentration-dependent manner. They were also preferentially expressed in roots, pulp, and seeds of ‘Sijimi’ longan, implying their extended roles in the development of longan roots and fruit. This study provided insights into a possible role of miR390-tasiRNAs-ARF in plant somatic embryo development

ANALYSIS AND DESIGN OF AN ULTRA-LOW POWER LOW-NOISE DTMOS BASED INSTRUMENTATION AMPLIFIER APPLIED TO THE PHYSIOLOGICAL SIGNAL ACQUISITION SYSTEM

With the rapid development of Internet of Things (IoT) technology and the popularity of portable devices, portable medical devices will become widely available soon. Physiological signal monitoring sensors are widely used for personal health management and long-term healthcare monitoring, especially for preventing acute illnesses and chronic disease monitoring for pediatric and elderly. Physiological signal monitoring sensors have the ability to monitor people's behavior in real-time for various daily activities, such as physiological signals that exhibit different waveforms and amplitudes when sleeping and awake. The real-time collected signals can be frequently compared to medical databases to detect abnormal health data for preventive healthcare. Therefore, an accurate and error-free system that provides high-quality monitoring of physiological signals is very important. Typically, an instrumentation amplifier (IA) is used for high accurate acquisition and amplification within this system. An IA with excellent performance gives patients safer health conditions and allows patients to have better health protection.This work introduces an ultra-low-power instrumentation amplifier operating at sub-0.4V voltage. Using dynamic threshold voltage MOSFET (DTMOS). The DTMOS reduces threshold voltage further and increases the driven current while the device is operating. Therefore, the DTMOS-based folded-cascode has been chosen, resulting in an increases the common-mode rejection ratio (CMRR) of the circuit while increasing the output signal swing compared over conventional topologies. The IA takes the benefit of the rail-to-rail common-mode feedback circuit and chopping to reduce flicker noise and DC offset. Reducing the chip area and power consumption leads to the output signal's high signal-to-noise ratio (SNR). The post-simulation shows that the circuit archives 45dB gain, DC to 2.07KHz operating bandwidth, and 0.8μW total power consumption. The simulated CMRR is 103dB, with 80dB power supply rejection ratio (PSRR). The simulated input reference noise is 140nV/√Hz (@100Hz) with 7.27 Noise Efficiency Factor (NEF).Keywords: Instrumentation Amplifier, DTMOS, rail-to-rail, chopping, clock boosting switch, physiological acquisition, bio-medical application

How Low Nucleation Density of Graphene on CuNi Alloy is Achieved

CuNi alloy foils are demonstrated to be one of the best substrates for synthesizing large area single-crystalline graphene because a very fast growth rate and low nucleation density can be simultaneously achieved. The fast growth rate is understood to be due the abundance of carbon precursor supply, as a result of the high catalytic activity of Ni atoms. However, a theoretical understanding of the low nucleation density remains controversial because it is known that a high carbon precursor concentration on the surface normally leads to a high nucleation density. Here, the graphene nucleation on the CuNi alloy surfaces is systematically explored and it is revealed that: i) carbon atom dissolution into the CuNi alloy passivates the alloy surface, thereby drastically increasing the graphene nucleation barrier; ii) carbon atom diffusion on the CuNi alloy surface is greatly suppressed by the inhomogeneous atomic structure of the surface; and iii) a prominent increase in the rate of carbon diffusion into the bulk occurs when the Ni composition is higher than the percolation threshold. This study reveals the key mechanism for graphene nucleation on CuNi alloy surfaces and provides a guideline for the catalyst design for the synthesis of graphene and other 2D materials

How Does Suppliers’ Fairness Affect the Relationship Quality of Agricultural Product Supply Chains?

Although many studies have suggested that the relationship between different supply chain members significantly affects agricultural product quality, suppliers’ perceptions of fairness, which greatly influence their decisions on building the relationship quality, are often overlooked. Particularly, the empirical evidence to investigate the impacts of suppliers’ fairness on the relationship quality and the factors that affect the suppliers’ fairness is missing, and therefore this knowledge gap needs to be filled by new research. Herein, we conducted a survey of 450 agricultural product suppliers and systemically analyzed the impact of antecedents on fairness perception and the impact of fairness perception on relationship quality. In addition, we developed a structural equation model and found that information sharing and price satisfaction had significantly positive effects on procedural fairness and distributive fairness, respectively. Furthermore, our studies demonstrated that procedural fairness is more important in improving the relationship quality than distributive fairness. However, supplier dependence is another important impact factor, and it greatly decreases the positive effects of suppliers’ fairness on relationship quality. In summary, the study results provide several managerial implications and extend our understanding of the importance of suppliers’ fairness in the relationship quality, which involves product development with respect to the supplier’s performance