Human Influenza A (H5N1) Cases, Urban Areas of People’s Republic of China, 2005–2006

We investigated potential sources of infection for 6 confirmed influenza A (H5N1) patients who resided in urban areas of People’s Republic of China. None had known exposure to sick poultry or poultry that died from illness, but all had visited wet poultry markets before illness

PtNi Alloy Cocatalyst Modification of Eosin Y-Sensitized g-C3N4/GO Hybrid for Efficient Visible-Light Photocatalytic Hydrogen Evolution

Abstract An economic and effective Pt-based alloy cocatalyst has attracted considerable attention due to their excellent catalytic activity and reducing Pt usage. In this study, PtNi alloy cocatalyst was successfully decorated on the g-C3N4/GO hybrid photocatalyst via a facile chemical reduction method. The Eosin Y-sensitized g-C3N4/PtNi/GO-0.5% composite photocatalyst yields about 1.54 and 1178 times higher hydrogen evolution rate than the Eosin Y-sensitized g-C3N4/Pt/GO-0.5% and g-C3N4/Ni/GO-0.5% samples, respectively. Mechanism of enhanced performance for the g-C3N4/PtNi/GO composite was also investigated by different characterization, such as photoluminescence, transient photocurrent response, and TEM. These results indicated that enhanced charge separation efficiency and more reactive sites are responsible for the improved hydrogen evolution performance due to the positive synergetic effect between Pt and Ni. This study suggests that PtNi alloy can be used as an economic and effective cocatalyst for hydrogen evolution reaction. Graphical abstractA significant enhancement of photocatalytic H2 evolution is realized over the Eosin Y-sensitized g-C3N4/PtNi/GO composite with PtNi alloy as an efficient cocatalyst

Genome-Wide Identification of PIFs in Grapes (Vitis vinifera L.) and Their Transcriptional Analysis under Lighting/Shading Conditions

Phytochrome-interacting factors (PIFs), as the basic helix–loop–helix (bHLH) transcription factors, are the primary signaling partners for phytochromes (PHY) that play a key role in PHY-mediated light signal transduction. At present, there are few studies on PIFs in fruit trees. In order to clarify the status of PIFs in grapevines, we identified members of the grape PIFs family and conducted phylogenetic and expression analysis. We identified PIF1, PIF3, PIF4, and PIF7 in PIFs families of the grapevine (Vitis vinifera L.), which were distributed on four different chromosomes with similar gene structures. Except for the closer relationship with PIF1 of citrus, PIFs of grape were distant from the other fruit species such as apple, pear, peach, and strawberry. The VvPIFs (except VvPIF4) were located in the syntenic block with those from Arabidopsis thaliana, Solanum lycopersicum, or Citrus sinensis. In addition to PIF1, all PIFs in grapevines have conserved active PHYB binding (APB) sequences. VvPIF1 has a conserved PIF1-specific active PHYA binding (APA) sequence, while amino acid mutations occurred in the specific APA sequence in VvPIF3. Interestingly, two specific motifs were found in the PIF4 amino acid sequence. The photoreceptor-related elements in the VvPIFs promoter region were the most abundant. PIF1, LONG HYPOCOTYL 5 (HY5) and PIF3, PIF4, GIBBERELLIC ACID INSENSITIVE 1 (GAI1) may interact with each other and participate together in light signal transduction. The relative expression levels of the VvPIFs showed diverse patterns in the various organs at different developmental stages, of which PIF4 was most highly expressed. Prior to maturation, the expression of PIF4 and PIF7 in the skin of the different cultivars increased, while the expression of all PIFs in the flesh decreased. The transcription level of PIFs in grape leaves was sensitive to changes in lighting and shading. Shading treatment was beneficial for enhancing the transcription level of VvPIFs, but the effect on VvPIF3 and VvPIF4 was time-controlled. We concluded that PIFs in grapevines are both conservative and species-specific. The identification and analysis of grape PIFs could provide a theoretical foundation for the further construction of grape light regulation networks