MiR-106a targets ATG7 to inhibit autophagy and angiogenesis after myocardial infarction

Background:Myocardial infarction(MI)is an acute condition in which the heart mus-cle dies due to the lack of blood supply.Previous research has suggested that au-tophagy and angiogenesis play vital roles in the prevention of heart failure after MI,and miR-106a is considered to be an important regulatory factor in MI.But the specific mechanism remains unknown.In this study,using cultured venous endothelial cells and a rat model of MI,we aimed to identify the potential target genes of miR-106a and discover the mechanisms of inhibiting autophagy and angiogenesis.Methods:We first explored the biological functions of miR-106a on autophagy and angiogenesis on endothelial cells.Then we identified ATG7,which was the down-stream target gene of miR-106a.The expression of miR-106a and ATG7 was investi-gated in the rat model of MI.Results:We found that miR-106a inhibits the proliferation,cell cycle,autophagy and angiogenesis,but promoted the apoptosis of vein endothelial cells.Moreover,ATG7 was identified as the target of miR-106a,and ATG7 rescued the inhibition of autophagy and angiogenesis by miR-106a.The expression of miR-106a in the rat model of MI was decreased but the expression of ATG7 was increased in the infarction areas.Conclusion:Our results indicate that miR-106a may inhibit autophagy and angiogenesis by targeting ATG7.This mechanism may be a potential therapeutic treatment for MI.

Allele-defined genome reveals biallelic differentiation during cassava evolution

Dear Editor,Generation of heterozygous genomes by hybridization between or within species can help maintain plant diversity and serve as a potential source of new species(Baek et al.,2018).Moreover,genomic heterozygosity is associated with genomic coadaptation,developmental stability,and heterosis.Accurate definition of alleles in haplotypes is necessary to precisely characterize allelic variation controlling agriculturally important traits(Shi et al.,2019).Currently,most released genomes have mosaic assembly of haplotypes due to random selection or collapse of alleles during genome assembly(Shi et al.,2019),which masked allelic variation and functional differentiation of divergent alleles in heterozygous species.

Enhancement of morphological and emission stability of deep-blue small molecular emitter via a universal side-chain coupling strategy for optoelectronic device

Film morphology of emissive layers is crucial to the performance and stability of solution-processable organic light-emitting diodes(OLEDs). Compared to the interpenetration of conjugated polymer chain,small molecular emitter with a flexible side chain always presents easily aggregation upon external treatment, and caused π-electronic coupling, which is undesirable for the efficiency and stability of deep-blue OLEDs. Herein, we proposed a side-chain coupling strategy to enhance the film morphological an emission stability of solution-processable small molecular deep-blue emitter. In contrary to “parent” MC8 TPA,the crosslinkable styryl and vinyl units were introduced as ended unit at the side-chain of Cm TPA and OEYTPA. Interestingly, Cm TPA and OEYTPA films present a relatively stable morphology and uniform deep-blue emission after thermal annealing(160 ℃) in the atmosphere, different to the discontinuous MC8 TPA annealed film. Besides, compared to the Cm TPA and OEYTPA ones, serious polaron formation in the MC8 TPA annealed film also negative to the deep-blue emission, according to transient absorption analysis. Therefore, both Cm TPA and OEYTPA annealed film obtained at 140 ℃ present an excellent deep-blue ASE behavior with a 445 nm, but absence for MC8 TPA ones, associated with the disruption of annealed films. Finally, enhancement of device performance based on Cm TPA and OEYTPA film(~40%)after thermal annealing with a similar performance curves also confirmed the assumption above. Therefore, these results also supported the effectiveness of our side-chain coupling strategy for optoelectronic applications.

Universal 4-qualifiable fluorene-based building blocks for potential optoelectronic applications

In the design of conjugated molecules,modular production enables materials to easily realize structure modification and precisely tune their photoelectrical property.Construction of a novel and universal building block is crucial to design and manufacture high performance and stable conjugated molecules for optoelectronic application.Herein,we originally demonstrated a universal 4-qualifiable fluorene-based building block,which is a fundamental molecular segment to functionalize and obtain novel conjugated materials.Compared to the traditional modification at 9-site,additional 4-position functionalization provided an exciting blueprint to not only tune electronic structure and excited state via p-n molecular design engineering and space charge-transfer strategy,but also allow for optimizing intermolecular arrangement and obtaining solution-processing ability.The introduction of the 4-site substituent in fluorene based semiconductors may endow materials with unique properties.Finally,we successfully prepared two stable deep-blue light-emitting conjugated polymer,PODOPF and PODOF,by utilizing the 4-substituent fluorene based building block.It is believable that the performance,stability and processibility of reported outstanding fluorene-based conjugated molecules can be further optimized based on this universal building block.