Genome-wide identification, functional analysis and expression profiling of pleiotropic drug resistance (PDR) sub-family in potato

The plant pleiotropic drug resistance (PDR) family of ATP-binding cassette (ABC) transporters has comprehensively been researched in relation to transport of antifungal agents and resistant pathogens. In our study, analyses of the whole family of PDR genes present in the potato genome were provided. This analysis resolves discrepancies of potato PDR proteins and provides an expression analysis of all annotated potato PDR genes based on RNA-seq data. The results indicate that the potato genome contains 76 encoding PDR proteins and that these genes show a specific expression patterns, both at the organ level and in response to various hormonal treatment. These data provide some clues for future molecular genetic analysis of this important subfamily of ABC transporters. In addition, potato PDR genes may also play some important roles in the transportation of antifungal agents and resistant pathogens.Keywords: ABC transporter, potato, pleiotropic drug resistance (PDR), RNA-seq.African Journal of Biotechnology Vol. 12(30), pp. 4722-472

Improved test-retest reliability of R2∗\textit{R}_2^* and susceptibility quantification using multi-shot multi echo 3D EPI

This study aimed to evaluate the potential of 3D echo-planar imaging (EPI) for improving the reliability of $T_2^*$-weighted ($T_2^*w$) data and quantification of $\textit{R}_2^*$ decay rate and susceptibility ($\chi$) compared to conventional gradient echo (GRE)-based acquisition. Eight healthy subjects in a wide age range were recruited. Each subject received repeated scans for both GRE and EPI acquisitions with an isotropic 1 mm resolution at 3 T. Maps of $\textit{R}_2^*$ and $\chi$ were quantified and compared using their inter-scan difference to evaluate the test-retest reliability. Inter-protocol differences of $\textit{R}_2^*$ and $\chi$ between GRE and EPI were also measured voxel by voxel and in selected ROIs to test the consistency between the two acquisition methods. The quantifications of $\textit{R}_2^*$ and $\chi$ using EPI protocols showed increased test-retest reliability with higher EPI factors up to 5 as performed in the experiment and were consistent with those based on GRE. This result suggested multi-shot multi-echo 3D EPI can be a useful alternative acquisition method for $T_2^*w$ MRI and quantification of $\textit{R}_2^*$ and $\chi$ with reduced scan time, improved test-retest reliability and similar accuracy compared to commonly used 3D GRE.Comment: 18 pages, 8 figures and 1 tabl

What determine firms’ capital structure in China?

Purpose – This paper investigates the determinants of capital structure using a cross-section sample of 1481 non-financial firms listed on the Chinese stock exchanges in 2011. Design/methodology/approach – Employing four leverage measures (total leverage and long-term leverage in terms of both book value and market value, respectively), this study examines the effects of factors with proven influences on capital structure in literature, along with industry effect and ownership effect. Findings – We find that large firms favour debt financing while profitable firms rely more on internal capital accumulation. Intangibility and business risk increase the level of debt financing but tax has little impact on capital structure. We also observe strong industrial effect and ownership effect. Real estate firms borrow considerably more and firms from utility and manufacturing industries use more long-term debt despite compared with commercial firms. On the other hand, firms with state ownership tend to borrow more, while firms with foreign ownership choose more equity financing. Research limitations – The study uses cross-section data to avoid any potential time effects, which allows us to focus on our main research question – to identify the determinants of capital structure for Chinese firms. Future research may gain more insights using panel data and considering other factors such as crisis and financial reforms. Practical implications – These results may provide important implications to investors in making investment decision and to firms in making financing decisions. Originality/value – this paper uses by far the largest and latest cross-section sample from the Chinese stock markets, offering a more complete picture of the financing behaviours in the Chinese firms, with known characters and the impact of ownerships

ToxicChat: Unveiling Hidden Challenges of Toxicity Detection in Real-World User-AI Conversation

Despite remarkable advances that large language models have achieved in chatbots, maintaining a non-toxic user-AI interactive environment has become increasingly critical nowadays. However, previous efforts in toxicity detection have been mostly based on benchmarks derived from social media content, leaving the unique challenges inherent to real-world user-AI interactions insufficiently explored. In this work, we introduce ToxicChat, a novel benchmark based on real user queries from an open-source chatbot. This benchmark contains the rich, nuanced phenomena that can be tricky for current toxicity detection models to identify, revealing a significant domain difference compared to social media content. Our systematic evaluation of models trained on existing toxicity datasets has shown their shortcomings when applied to this unique domain of ToxicChat. Our work illuminates the potentially overlooked challenges of toxicity detection in real-world user-AI conversations. In the future, ToxicChat can be a valuable resource to drive further advancements toward building a safe and healthy environment for user-AI interactions

Altered gene-expression profile in rat plasma and promoted body and brain development by environmental enrichment

Environmental enrichment (EE) refers to the exposure of laboratory animals to physical and social stimulation, which can improve animals’ well-being. The study was aimed to explore how the prenatal EE impacts affect the development, behavior, hormones and gene expression of the offspring. 28 pregnant rats were randomized into an EE group (EEG) housed in cages with EE or a control group (CG) housed in normal cages. Measurements included offspring development parameters (body weight, body length, and tail length) and behavior (open-field test, OFT), hormone levels (cortisol, dopamine, 5-HT, and growth hormone) and gene expression profile. Results showed that the development parameters of EEG offspring were statistically superior to the CG offspring. OFT count of EEG offspring was more than CG. EEG and CG offspring did not differ on cortisol, dopamine, 5-HT or growth factor. Gene expression profile chip test showed that 25 genes were up-regulated and 23 genes down-regulated in the EEG vs CG comparison, among which five GO annotations and four KEGG pathways were annotated. Findings indicate that EE during pregnancy could positively promote the body and nervous system development of offspring, involving the evidence for altered gene expression profile.Keywords: Environmental enrichment, rats, gene expression, behavior, developmentAfrican Journal of Biotechnology Vol. 12(20), pp. 3071-308

Systematically characterizing dysfunctional long intergenic noncoding RNAs in multiple brain regions of major psychosis

Schizophrenia (SZ) and bipolar disorder (BD) are severe neuropsychiatric disorders with serious impact on patients, together termed “major psychosis”. Recently, long intergenic non-coding RNAs (lincRNAs) were reported to play important roles in mental diseases. However, little was known about their molecular mechanism in pathogenesis of SZ and BD. Here, we performed RNA sequencing on 82 postmortem brain tissues from three brain regions (orbitofrontal cortex (BA11), anterior cingulate cortex (BA24) and dorsolateral prefrontal cortex (BA9)) of patients with SZ and BD and control subjects, generating over one billion reads. We characterized lincRNA transcriptome in the three brain regions and identified 20 differentially expressed lincRNAs (DELincRNAs) in BA11 for BD, 34 and 1 in BA24 and BA9 for SZ, respectively. Our results showed that these DELincRNAs exhibited brain region-specific patterns. Applying weighted gene co-expression network analysis, we revealed that DELincRNAs together with other genes can function as modules to perform different functions in different brain regions, such as immune system development in BA24 and oligodendrocyte differentiation in BA9. Additionally, we found that DNA methylation alteration could partly explain the dysregulation of lincRNAs, some of which could function as enhancers in the pathogenesis of major psychosis. Together, we performed systematical characterization of dysfunctional lincRNAs in multiple brain regions of major psychosis, which provided a valuable resource to understand their roles in SZ and BD pathology and helped to discover novel biomarkers