Responses of Drought-Resistant Mutant vem1 to Stress and Cloning of VEM1 Gene in Arabidopsis

[ Objective] This study aimed to investigate the responses of drought-resistant mutant veml to stress and clone VEM1 gene in Arabidopsis. [ Method] A drought-resistant mutant veml was isolated from the Arabidops/s mutant pool. The germination rates of wild-type （WT） and mutant veml were detected to investigate the responses of mutant veml to mannitol, NaCl and ABA stress. [ Result] The mutant veml was resistant to mannitol and NaC1 stress but sensitive to ABA stress. VEM1 gene was cloned by Tail-PCR technology and sequenced. The sequencing result was submitted to NCBI for sequence alignment and gene mapping using BLAST. Database analysis suggested that VEM1 gene was a transposable clement gene. [ Conclusion] This study laid the foundation for functional analysis of drought-resistant gene VEM1.

Drug repurposing screen identifies vidofludimus calcium and pyrazofurin as novel chemical entities for the development of hepatitis E interventions

Hepatitis E virus(HEV)infection can cause severe complications and high mortality,particularly in pregnant women,organ transplant recipients,individuals with pre-existing liver disease and immunosuppressed patients.However,there are still unmet needs for treating chronic HEV infections.Herein,we screened a best-in-class drug repurposing library consisting of 262 drugs/compounds.Upon screening,we identified vidofludimus calcium and pyrazofurin as novel anti-HEV entities.Vidofludimus calcium is the next-generation dihydroorotate dehydrogenase(DHODH)inhibitor in the phase 3 pipeline to treat autoimmune diseases or SARS-CoV-2 infection.Pyrazofurin selectively targets uridine monophosphate synthetase(UMPS).Their anti-HEV effects were further investigated in a range of cell culture models and human liver organoids models with wild type HEV strains and ribavirin treatment failure-associated HEV strains.Encouragingly,both drugs exhibited a sizeable therapeutic window against HEV.For instance,the IC50 value of vidofludimus calcium is 4.6–7.6-fold lower than the current therapeutic doses in patients.Mechanistically,their anti-HEV mode of action depends on the blockage of pyrimidine synthesis.Notably,two drugs robustly inhibited ribavirin treatment failure-associated HEV mutants(Y1320H,G1634R).Their combination with IFN-αresulted in synergistic antiviral activity.In conclusion,we identified vidofludimus calcium and pyrazofurin as potent candidates for the treatment of HEV infections.Based on their antiviral potency,and also the favorable safety profile identified in clinical studies,our study supports the initiation of clinical studies to repurpose these drugs for treating chronic hepatitis E.

Engineering CRISPR/Cas-based nanosystems for therapeutics, diagnosis and bioimaging

CRISPR/Cas system has been utilized to rationally manipulate intracellular genes,and it has been engineered as versatile and efficient gene editing tools with precise site-specificity and excellent targeting ability for therapeutics,diagnostics,and bioimaging.Here,the evolution and application of CRISPR/Cas systems were sketched chronologically.Landmark works were exemplified to illustrate the design principles of CRISPR/Cas systems.Furthermore,the delivery vectors of CRISPR/Cas system especially DNA nanomaterials-based vectors were categorized and illuminated.DNA nanomaterials are suitable for CRISPR/Cas system delivery via base pairing due to its sequence programmability and biocompatibility.Then the applications of CRISPR/Cas in diagnosis and genomic imaging were highlighted.At the end of the review,the challenges and opportunities of CRISPR/Cas systems were deeply discussed.We envision that the grant advances on CRISPR/Cas systems will promote the development of interdisciplinary fields in chemistry,biology and medicine.

A Scale Sequence Object-based Convolutional Neural Network(SS-OCNN)for crop classification from fine spatial resolution remotely sensed imagery

The highly dynamic nature of agro-ecosystems in space and time usually leads to high intra-class variance and low inter-class separability in the fine spatial resolution(FSR)remotely sensed imagery.This makes traditional classifiers essentially relying on spectral information for crop mapping from FSR imagery an extremely challenging task.To mine effectively the rich spectral and spatial information in FSR imagery,this paper proposed a Scale Sequence Object-based Convolutional Neural Network(SS-OCNN)that classifies images at the object level by taking segmented objects(crop parcels)as basic units of analysis,thus,ensuring that the boundaries between crop parcels are delineated precisely.These segmented objects were subsequently classified using a CNN model integrated with an automatically generated scale sequence of input patch sizes.This scale sequence can fuse effectively the features learned at different scales by transforming progressively the information extracted at small scales to larger scales.The effectiveness of the SS-OCNN was investigated using two heterogeneous agricultural areas with FSR SAR and optical imagery,respectively.Experimental results revealed that the SS-OCNN consistently achieved the most accurate classification results.The SS-OCNN,thus,provides a new paradigm for crop classification over heterogeneous areas using FSR imagery,and has a wide application prospect.

Trade-off between leaf chlorophyll and betacyanins in Suaeda salsa in the Liaohe estuary wetland in northeast China

Aims Pigment composition is an important functional trait that can be affected by environmental factors.the objective of this study was to investigate the effect of soil salinity on pigment composition in Suaeda salsa by comparing chlorophyll and betacyanin content in the Liaohe estuary wetland,a typical coastal wetland in northeast China.Methods We investigated the plant biomass,percentage of red leaves and pigment content(chlorophyll a,chlorophyll b and betacyanins)in S.salsa in intertidal and supratidal zones of the upper,middle and lower reaches of the Liaohe estuary wetlands.the Na^(+)content of both the soil and plant was also measured.Full analysis of variance and multivariate analysis were used to compare differences in pig-ment content and Na^(+)content between the supratidal and intertidal zones.Important Findings Pigment composition was significantly affected by soil salinity.With increasing soil salinity,the percentage of red leaves was higher in the intertidal zone than in the supratidal zone.In all three reaches,plants had lower chlorophyll a content and higher betacyanin con-tent in the intertidal zone than in the supratidal zone.Compared to chlorophyll a,chlorophyll b was less sensitive to soil salinity.there were no differences in chlorophyll b content between the intertidal and supratidal zones in the upper and lower reaches.Furthermore,pigment composition was associated with both the plant tissue and soil Na^(+)content.Compared to the supratidal zone,the intertidal zone had a higher Na^(+)content in plants.there was a negative rela-tionship between plant chlorophyll content and soil Na^(+)content,but a positive relationship between betacyanin content and soil Na^(+)content.Overall,the results indicated that there might be a trade-off between leaf chlorophyll and betacyanin content in S.salsa to main-tain its growth and survival in high salinity environments.

The Legends of Celestial Master Zhang and Jataka Tales

道教的张天师传说与佛教的佛本生故事均以两种宗教信奉的神圣偶像为中心人物来编织故事,都与本国的民间口头叙事有密切关联。二者因植根于不同的文化土壤而风格迥异:首先,佛本生故事通过虚构前生世界,将佛陀化为各种角色以展现其不凡品格,寄寓佛教义理;张天师传说则以张天师降妖除魔、护佑百姓为主题。其次,佛本生故事由佛教徒按照固定的程式将现成的民间故事简单改造而来;张天师传说则渊源于中国古代的"神仙传",由中国近现代民众的口头鲜活叙事构成。