Morphological Redescription and Morphogenesis of Urosoma macrostyla (Wrześniowski, 1866) Berger, 1999 (Ciliophora, Hypotrichida)

The morphology and morphogenesis of the hypotrich ciliate Urosoma macrostyla (Wrześniowski, 1866) Berger, 1999, collected from a puddle in Harbin, China, were investigated using live observation and protargol impregnation. Based on previous and present studies, an improved diagnosis of U. macrostyla is supplied. It differs from its congeners mainly by the body shape, no cortical granules and number of macronuclear nodules. The ontogenesis of U. macrostyla is typical for species with such a somatic ciliary pattern: the oral primordium develops hypoapokinetally and FVT-anlagen develop in 5-streaks and primary mode. However, a unique characteristic in morphogenetic process is reported: anlagen for both the left and right marginal cirri occur de novo to the right of the parental structure which has never been seen in other oxytrichids. This characteristic was considered an apomorphy (Berger 1999). This indicates that U. macrostyla possibly has a high phylogenetic position within the genus Urosoma, or perhaps it represents a distinct subgenus

A Ferroelectric Compute-in-Memory Annealer for Combinatorial Optimization Problems

Computationally hard combinatorial optimization problems (COPs) are ubiquitous in many applications, including logistical planning, resource allocation, chip design, drug explorations, and more. Due to their critical significance and the inability of conventional hardware in efficiently handling scaled COPs, there is a growing interest in developing computing hardware tailored specifically for COPs, including digital annealers, dynamical Ising machines, and quantum/photonic systems. However, significant hurdles still remain, such as the memory access issue, the system scalability and restricted applicability to certain types of COPs, and VLSI-incompatibility, respectively. Here, a ferroelectric field effect transistor (FeFET) based compute-in-memory (CiM) annealer is proposed. After converting COPs into quadratic unconstrained binary optimization (QUBO) formulations, a hardware-algorithm co-design is conducted, yielding an energy-efficient, versatile, and scalable hardware for COPs. To accelerate the core vector-matrix-vector (VMV) multiplication of QUBO formulations, a FeFET based CiM array is exploited, which can accelerate the intended operation in-situ due to its unique three-terminal structure. In particular, a lossless compression technique is proposed to prune typically sparse QUBO matrix to reduce hardware cost. Furthermore, a multi-epoch simulated annealing (MESA) algorithm is proposed to replace conventional simulated annealing for its faster convergence and better solution quality. The effectiveness of the proposed techniques is validated through the utilization of developed chip prototypes for successfully solving graph coloring problem, indicating great promise of FeFET CiM annealer in solving general COPs.Comment: 39 pages, 12 figure

Nickel-Catalyzed Acylation of Aryl Bromides with Acyl Imidazoles

Alkyl imidazolides were herein found to be viable coupling partners for the Ni-catalyzed acylation of aryl bromides. This cross-coupling reaction features a broad substrate scope and be performed in an extremely cost-efficient fashion. Mechanistically, formation of acyl radicals via reduction of imidazolides represents a major departure from other reported radical acylation reactions. Of particular note, extensive studies revealed an intriguing radical chain mechanism and a remarkable CO-extrusion-recombination phenomenon. Finally, the practicality of this cross-coupling was demonstrated with a gram-scale reaction for the synthesis of a furan diterpenoid natural product

Morphological Redescription and Morphogenesis of Urosoma macrostyla (Wrześniowski, 1866) Berger, 1999 (Ciliophora, Hypotrichida)

The morphology and morphogenesis of the hypotrich ciliate Urosoma macrostyla (Wrześniowski, 1866) Berger, 1999, collected from a puddle in Harbin, China, were investigated using live observation and protargol impregnation. Based on previous and present studies, an improved diagnosis of U. macrostyla is supplied. It differs from its congeners mainly by the body shape, no cortical granules and number of macronuclear nodules. The ontogenesis of U. macrostyla is typical for species with such a somatic ciliary pattern: the oral primordium develops hypoapokinetally and FVT-anlagen develop in 5-streaks and primary mode. However, a unique characteristic in morphogenetic process is reported: anlagen for both the left and right marginal cirri occur de novo to the right of the parental structure which has never been seen in other oxytrichids. This characteristic was considered an apomorphy (Berger 1999). This indicates that U. macrostyla possibly has a high phylogenetic position within the genus Urosoma, or perhaps it represents a distinct subgenus

Exploring the RNA Editing Events and Their Potential Regulatory Roles in Tea Plant (<i>Camellia sinensis</i> L.)

RNA editing is a post-transcriptional modification process that alters the RNA sequence relative to the genomic blueprint. In plant organelles (namely, mitochondria and chloroplasts), the most common type is C-to-U, and the absence of C-to-U RNA editing results in abnormal plant development, such as etiolation and albino leaves, aborted embryonic development and retarded seedling growth. Here, through PREP, RES-Scanner, PCR and RT-PCR analyses, 38 and 139 RNA editing sites were identified from the chloroplast and mitochondrial genomes of Camellia sinensis, respectively. Analysis of the base preference around the RNA editing sites showed that in the −1 position of the edited C had more frequent occurrences of T whereas rare occurrences of G. Three conserved motifs were identified at 25 bases upstream of the RNA editing site. Structural analyses indicated that the RNA secondary structure of 32 genes, protein secondary structure of 37 genes and the three-dimensional structure of 5 proteins were altered due to RNA editing. The editing level analysis of matK and ndhD in six tea cultivars indicated that matK-701 might be involved in the color change of tea leaves. Furthermore, 218 PLS-CsPPR proteins were predicted to interact with the identified RNA editing sites. In conclusion, this study provides comprehensive insight into RNA editing events, which will facilitate further study of the RNA editing phenomenon of the tea plant

Hyperplasia and Cellularity Changes in IGF-1-Overexpressing Skeletal Muscle of Crucian Carp

The zebrafish skeletal muscle-specific promoter mylz2 was used to cause crucian carp overexpression of the zebrafish IGF-1 cDNA. In stable transgenic germline F-1 progenies, a 5-fold increase in the level of IGF-1 in skeletal muscle was observed. Evident skeletal muscle hyperplasia was observed in the transgenic fish through histologic analysis. By analyzing the RNA sequencing transcriptome of the skeletal muscle of IGF-1 transgenic fish and nontransgenic control fish at 15 months of age, 10 966 transcripts with significant expression levels were identified with definite gene descriptions based on the corresponding zebrafish genome information. Based on the results of our RNA sequencing transcriptome profiling analysis and the results of the real-time quantitative PCR analysis performed to confirm the skeletal muscle transcriptomics analysis, several pathways, including IGF-1 signaling, aerobic metabolism, and protein degradation, were found to be activated in the IGF-1-overexpressing transgenic fish. Intriguingly, our transcriptional expression and protein assays indicated that the overexpression of IGF-1 stimulated a significant shift in the myofiber type toward a more oxidative slow muscle type. Although the body weight was surprisingly decreased by IGF-1 transgenic expression, significantly higher oxygen consumption rates were measured in IGF-1-overexpressing transgenic fish compared with their nontransgenic control fish. These results indicate that the sustained overexpression of IGF-1 in crucian carp skeletal muscle promotes myofiber hyperplasia and cellularity changes, which elicit alterations in the body energy metabolism and skeletal muscle growth

Neuroendocrine regulation of somatic growth in fishes

Growth is a polygenic trait that is under the influence of multiple physiological pathways regulating energy metabolism and muscle growth. Among the possible growth-regulating pathways in vertebrates, components of the somatotropic axis are thought to have the greatest influence. There is growing body of literature focusing on the somatotropic axis and its role regulating growth in fish. This includes research into growth hormone, upstream hypothalamic hormones, insulin-like growth factors, and downstream signaling molecules. Many of these signals have both somatic effects stimulating the growth of tissues and metabolic effects that play a role in nutrient metabolism. Signals of other endocrine axes exhibit profound effects on the function of the somatotropic axis in vivo. In this review we highlight recent advances in our understanding of the teleost fish endocrine somatotropic axis, including emerging research using genetic modified models. These studies have revealed new aspects and challenges associated with regulation of the important steps of somatic growth

Machine learning and robot-assisted synthesis of diverse gold nanorods via seedless approach

The challenge of data-driven synthesis of advanced nanomaterials can be minimized by using machine learning algorithms to optimize synthesis parameters and expedite the innovation process. In this study, a high-throughput robotic platform was employed to synthesize over 1356 gold nanorods with varying aspect ratios via a seedless approach. The developed models guided us in synthesizing gold nanorods with customized morphology, resulting in highly repeatable morphological yield with quantifiable structure-modulating precursor adjustments. The study provides insight into the dynamic relationships between key structure-modulating precursors and the structural morphology of gold nanorods based on the expected aspect ratio. The high-throughput robotic platform-fabricated gold nanorods demonstrated precise aspect ratio control when spectrophotometrically investigated and further validated with the transmission electron microscopy characterization. These findings demonstrate the potential of high-throughput robot-assisted synthesis and machine learning in the synthesis optimization of gold nanorods and aided in the development of models that can aid such synthesis of as-desired gold nanorods