Virus-induced gene silencing of TaERECTA increases stomatal density in bread wheat

Barley stripe mosaic virus (BSMV)-based virus induced gene silencing (VIGS) is an effective strategy for rapid determination of functional genes in wheat plants. ERECTA genes are reported to regulate stomatal pattern of plants, and manipulation of TaERECTA (a homologue of ERECTA in bread wheat) is a potential route for investigating stomatal development. Here, the leucine-rich repeat domains (LRRs) and transmembrane domains of TaERECTA were selected to gain BSMV:ER-LR and BSMV:ER-TM constructs, respectively, targeting TaERECTA for silencing in wheat cultivars ‘Bobwhite’ and ‘Cadenza’, to identify the function of TaERECTA on stomatal patterns. The results showed that reduced expression of TaERECTA caused an increased stomatal and epidermal cell density by average 13.5% and 3.3%, respectively, due to the significantly reduced size of leaf epidermal and stomatal cells, and this led to an increase in stomatal conductance. These suggest that modulation of TaERECTA offers further opportunities in stomatal engineering for the adaptation of photosynthesis in wheat

Intrasubband and Intersubband Electron Relaxation in Semiconductor Quantum Wire Structures

We calculate the intersubband and intrasubband many-body inelastic Coulomb scattering rates due to electron-electron interaction in two-subband semiconductor quantum wire structures. We analyze our relaxation rates in terms of contributions from inter- and intrasubband charge-density excitations separately. We show that the intersubband (intrasubband) charge-density excitations are primarily responsible for intersubband (intrasubband) inelastic scattering. We identify the contributions to the inelastic scattering rate coming from the emission of the single-particle and the collective excitations individually. We obtain the lifetime of hot electrons injected in each subband as a function of the total charge density in the wire.Comment: Submitted to PRB. 20 pages, Latex file, and 7 postscript files with Figure

Elucidating Mechanisms behind Ambient Storage-Induced Efficiency Improvements in Perovskite Solar Cells

ペロブスカイト太陽電池の常温熟成機構の解明. 京都大学プレスリリース. 2021-02-17.Initial improvement in power conversion efficiency (PCE) during ambient storage is often seen in perovskite solar cells (PSCs). In this work, we studied the origin of PCE enhancement by ambient storage on typical n-i-p PSCs. We found improvements in both fill factor and open-circuit voltage during the first 2 days of storage. By analyzing temperature and light intensity-dependent VOC, we found that the charge recombination mechanism changed from surface- to bulk-dominated because of defect passivation at the perovskite surface upon storage. In addition, we found that storage improves the conductivity and lowers the highest occupied molecular orbital level of the spiro-OMeTAD, improving charge extraction. These results show that there is more than one factor causing the storage-induced improvements in perovskite solar cells

A substitution-dependent light-up fluorescence probe for selectively detecting Fe3+ ions and its cell imaging application

Deliberate design of specific and sensitive molecular probes with distinctive physical/chemical properties for analyte sensing is of great significance. Herein, by taking advantage of the position-dependent substituent effects, an aggregation-induced emission featured iron (III) probe from ortho-substituted pyridinyl-functionalized tetraphenylethylene (TPE-o-Py) is synthesized. It displays high sensitivity and selectivity toward iron (III) detection. The recognition arises from the position isomer of ortho-substitution, and the fact that TPE-o-Py has a low acid dissociation constant (pKa) that is close to that of hydrolyzed Fe3+. Importantly, TPE-o-Py as a light-up fluorescence probe could be employed for Fe3+sensing in living cells with a pronounced red-shift in fluorescence emission

Incompressible SPH method based on Rankine source solution for violent water wave simulation

With wide applications, the smoothed particle hydrodynamics method (abbreviated as SPH) has become an important numerical tool for solving complex flows, in particular those with a rapidly moving free surface. For such problems, the incompressible Smoothed Particle Hydrodynamics (ISPH) has been shown to yield better and more stable pressure time histories than the traditional SPH by many papers in literature. However, the existing ISPH method directly approximates the second order derivatives of the functions to be solved by using the Poisson equation. The order of accuracy of the method becomes low, especially when particles are distributed in a disorderly manner, which generally happens for modelling violent water waves. This paper introduces a new formulation using the Rankine source solution. In the new approach to the ISPH, the Poisson equation is first transformed into another form that does not include any derivative of the functions to be solved, and as a result, does not need to numerically approximate derivatives. The advantage of the new approach without need of numerical approximation of derivatives is obvious, potentially leading to a more robust numerical method. The newly formulated method is tested by simulating various water waves, and its convergent behaviours are numerically studied in this paper. Its results are compared with experimental data in some cases and reasonably good agreement is achieved. More importantly, numerical results clearly show that the newly developed method does need less number of particles and so less computational costs to achieve the similar level of accuracy, or to produce more accurate results with the same number of particles compared with the traditional SPH and existing ISPH when it is applied to modelling water waves

Thermal excitations of frustated XY spins in two dimensions

We present a new variational approach to the study of phase transitions in frustrated 2D XY models. In the spirit of Villain's approach for the ferromagnetic case we divide thermal excitations into a low temperature long wavelength part (LW) and a high temperature short wavelength part (SW). In the present work we mainly deal with LW excitations and we explicitly consider the cases of the fully frustrated triangular (FFTXY) and square ( FFSQXY) XY models. The novel aspect of our method is that it preserves the coupling between phase (spin angles) and chiral degrees of freedom. LW fluctuations consist of coupled phase and chiral excitations. As a result, we find that for frustrated systems the effective interactions between phase variables is long range and oscillatory in contrast to the unfrustrated problem. Using Monte Carlo (MC) simulations we show that our analytical calculations produce accurate results at all temperature $T$; this is seen at low $T$ in the spin wave stiffness constant and in the staggered chirality; this is also the case near $T_c$: transitions are driven by the SW part associated with domain walls and vortices, but the coupling between phase and chiral variables is still relevant in the critical region. In that regime our analytical results yield the correct $T$ dependence for bare couplings (given by the LW fluctuations) such as the Coulomb gas temperature $T_{CG}$ of the frustrated XY models . In particular we find that $T_{CG}$ tracks chiral rather than phase fluctuations. Our results provides support for a single phase transition scenario in the FFTXY and FFSQXY models.Comment: 32 pages, RevTex, 11 eps figures available upon request, article to appear in Phys. Rev.

VHL substrate transcription factor ZHX2 as an oncogenic driver in clear cell renal cell carcinoma

Inactivation of the von Hippel-Lindau (VHL) E3 ubiquitin ligase protein is a hallmark of clear cell renal cell carcinoma (ccRCC). Identifying how pathways affected by VHL loss contribute to ccRCC remains challenging. We used a genome-wide in vitro expression strategy to identify proteins that bind VHL when hydroxylated. Zinc fingers and homeoboxes 2 (ZHX2) was found as a VHL target, and its hydroxylation allowed VHL to regulate its protein stability. Tumor cells from ccRCC patients with VHL loss-of-function mutations usually had increased abundance and nuclear localization of ZHX2. Functionally, depletion of ZHX2 inhibited VHL-deficient ccRCC cell growth in vitro and in vivo. Mechanistically, integrated chromatin immunoprecipitation sequencing and microarray analysis showed that ZHX2 promoted nuclear factor κB activation. These studies reveal ZHX2 as a potential therapeutic target for ccRCC

Electronic Structures of Cu/S Co-doped/Anatase TiO 2 by First-principles

ABSTRACT The structural parameters, band structures and density of states of anatase TiO2 co-doped with Cu and S were calculated by first-principles based on the density functional theory. The results indicate that the volumes of the co-doped TiO2 increase due to the lattice distortion. The calculated X-ray diffraction pattern shows that the crystal phase of TiO2 is still kept as anatase after Cu and S co-doping. The band gap of TiO2 broadened when S substitutes for Ti or O along with Cu substitutes for Ti. The calculated partial density of states shows that the impurity energy levels mainly come from the Cu 3d and S 3p orbital. The calculated results may provide some theoretical foundations for the photocatalytic activity enhancement of TiO2 co-doped with Cu and S