The early life immune dynamics and cellular drivers at single-cell resolution in lamb forestomachs and abomasum

Background Four-chambered stomach including the forestomachs(rumen,reticulum,and omasum)and abomasum allows ruminants convert plant fiber into high-quality animal products.The early development of this four-chambered stomach is crucial for the health and well-being of young ruminants,especially the immune development.However,the dynamics of immune development are poorly understood.Results We investigated the early gene expression patterns across the four-chambered stomach in Hu sheep,at 5,10,15,and 25 days of age.We found that forestomachs share similar gene expression patterns,all four stomachs underwent widespread activation of both innate and adaptive immune responses from d 5 to 25,whereas the metabolic function were significantly downregulated with age.We constructed a cell landscape of the four-chambered stomach using single-cell sequencing.Integrating transcriptomic and single-cell transcriptomic analyses revealed that the immune-associated module hub genes were highly expressed in T cells,monocytes and macrophages,as well as the defense-associated module hub genes were highly expressed in endothelial cells in the four-stomach tissues.Moreover,the non-immune cells such as epithelial cells play key roles in immune maturation.Cell communication analysis predicted that in addition to immune cells,non-immune cells recruit immune cells through macrophage migration inhibitory factor signaling in the forestomachs.Conclusions Our results demonstrate that the immune and defense responses of four stomachs are quickly developing with age in lamb's early life.We also identified the gene expression patterns and functional cells associated with immune development.Additionally,we identified some key receptors and signaling involved in immune regulation.These results help to understand the early life immune development at single-cell resolution,which has implications to develop nutritional manipulation and health management strategies based on specific targets including key receptors and signaling pathways.

挤压比对双相Mg-8Li-6Zn-2Gd合金显微组织、织构和力学性能的影响

通过显微组织观察、织构分析和拉伸测试等手段研究挤压比对双相Mg-8Li-6Zn-2Gd合金显微组织、织构和力学性能的影响。结果表明:均匀化态Mg-8Li-6Zn-2Gd合金中含有α-Mg、β-Li、Mg Li Zn、I相和W相。经热挤压后,共晶I相被碾碎成细小颗粒状,而W相保持原有块状形状。合金中α-Mg基体和β-Li基体在热挤压过程中均发生了动态再结晶(DRX),且晶粒随着挤压比的增加逐渐细化。经热挤压后,α-Mg基体的基面织构弱化和柱面织构增强是由于非基面滑移的激活;β-Li基体中形成明显的α和γ纤维织构主要与动态回复与动态再结晶相关。热挤压同时提升Mg-8Li-6Zn-2Gd合金的抗拉强度和伸长率,并在挤压比为16:1时获得最佳的综合力学性能。

Role of tannin pretreatment in flotation separation of magnesite and dolomite

Flotation separation of magnesite and its calcium-containing carbonate minerals is a difficult problem.Recently,new regulat-ors have been proposed for magnesite flotation decalcification,although traditional regulators such as tannin,water glass,sodium carbon-ate,and sodium hexametaphosphate are more widely used in industry.However,they are rarely used as the main regulators in research because they perform poorly in magnesite and dolomite single-mineral flotation tests.Inspired by the limonite presedimentation method and the addition of a regulator to magnesite slurry mixing,we used a tannin pretreatment method for separating magnesite and dolomite.Microflotation experiments confirmed that the tannin pretreatment method selectively and largely reduces the flotation recovery rate of dolomite without affecting the flotation recovery rate of magnesite.Moreover,the contact angles of the tannin-pretreated magnesite and dolomite increased and decreased,respectively,in the presence of NaOl.Zeta potential and Fourier transform infrared analyses showed that the tannin pretreatment method efficiently hinders NaOl adsorption on the dolomite surface but does not affect NaOl adsorption on the magnesite surface.X-ray photoelectron spectroscopy and density functional theory calculations confirmed that tannin interacts more strongly with dolomite than with magnesite.

Label Recovery and Trajectory Designable Network for Transfer Fault Diagnosis of Machines With Incorrect Annotation

The success of deep transfer learning in fault diagnosis is attributed to the collection of high-quality labeled data from the source domain.However,in engineering scenarios,achieving such high-quality label annotation is difficult and expensive.The incorrect label annotation produces two negative effects:1)the complex decision boundary of diagnosis models lowers the generalization performance on the target domain,and2)the distribution of target domain samples becomes misaligned with the false-labeled samples.To overcome these negative effects,this article proposes a solution called the label recovery and trajectory designable network(LRTDN).LRTDN consists of three parts.First,a residual network with dual classifiers is to learn features from cross-domain samples.Second,an annotation check module is constructed to generate a label anomaly indicator that could modify the abnormal labels of false-labeled samples in the source domain.With the training of relabeled samples,the complexity of diagnosis model is reduced via semi-supervised learning.Third,the adaptation trajectories are designed for sample distributions across domains.This ensures that the target domain samples are only adapted with the pure-labeled samples.The LRTDN is verified by two case studies,in which the diagnosis knowledge of bearings is transferred across different working conditions as well as different yet related machines.The results show that LRTDN offers a high diagnosis accuracy even in the presence of incorrect annotation.

Single-cell profiling of the pig cecum at various developmental stages

The gastrointestinal tract is essential for food digestion,nutrient absorption,waste elimination,and microbial defense.Single-cell transcriptome profiling of the intestinal tract has greatly enriched our understanding of cellular diversity,functional heterogeneity,and their importance in intestinal tract development and disease.Although such profiling has been extensively conducted in humans and mice,the single-cell gene expression landscape of the pig cecum remains unexplored.Here,single-cell RNA sequencing was performed on 45572 cells obtained from seven cecal samples in pigs at four different developmental stages(days(D)30,42,150,and 730).Analysis revealed 12 major cell types and 38 subtypes,as well as their distinctive genes,transcription factors,and regulons,many of which were conserved in humans.An increase in the relative proportions of CD8^(+)T and Granzyme A(low expression)natural killer T cells(GZMA^(low)NKT)cells and a decrease in the relative proportions of epithelial stem cells,Tregs,RHEX^(+)T cells,and plasmacytoid dendritic cells(pDCs)were noted across the developmental stages.Moreover,the post-weaning period exhibited an up-regulation in mitochondrial genes,COX2 and ND2,as well as genes involved in immune activation in multiple cell types.Cell-cell crosstalk analysis indicated that IBP6^(+)fibroblasts were the main signal senders at D30,whereas IBP6^(−)fibroblasts assumed this role at the other stages.NKT cells established interactions with epithelial cells and IBP6^(+)fibroblasts in the D730 cecum through mediation of GZMA-F2RL1/F2RL2 pairs.This study provides valuable insights into cellular heterogeneity and function in the pig cecum at different development stages.

Pig H3K4me3,H3K27ac,and gene expression profiles reveal reproductive tissue-specific activity of transposable elements

Regulatory sequences and transposable elements(TEs)account for a large proportion of the genomic sequences of species;however,their roles in gene transcription,especially tissue-specific expression,remain largely unknown.Pigs serve as an excellent animal model for studying genomic sequence biology due to the extensive diversity among their wild and domesticated populations.Here,we conducted an integrated analysis using H3K27ac ChIP-seq,H3K4me3 ChIP-seq,and RNA-seq data from 10 different tissues of seven fetuses and eight closely related adult pigs.We aimed to annotate the regulatory elements and TEs to elucidate their associations with histone modifications and mRNA expression across different tissues and developmental stages.Based on correlation analysis between mRNA expression and H3K27ac and H3K4me3 peak activity,results indicated that H3K27ac exhibited stronger associations with gene expression than H3K4me3.Furthermore,1.45%of TEs overlapped with either the H3K27ac or H3K4me3 peaks,with the majority displaying tissue-specific activity.Notably,a TE subfamily(LTR4C_SS),containing binding motifs for SIX1 and SIX4,showed specific enrichment in the H3K27ac peaks of the adult and fetal ovaries.RNA-seq analysis also revealed widespread expression of TEs in the exons or promoters of genes,including 4688 TE-containing transcripts with distinct development stage-specific and tissue-specific expression.Of note,1967 TE-containing transcripts were enriched in the testes.We identified a long terminal repeat(LTR),MLT1F1,acting as a testis-specific alternative promoter in SRPK2(a cell cycle-related protein kinase)in our pig dataset.This element was also conserved in humans and mice,suggesting either an ancient integration of TEs in genes specifically expressed in the testes or parallel evolutionary patterns.Collectively,our findings demonstrate that TEs are deeply embedded in the genome and exhibit important tissue-specific biological functions,particularly in the reproductive organs.

Dynamic Vision Enabled Contactless Cross-Domain Machine Fault Diagnosis With Neuromorphic Computing

Dear Editor,This letter presents a novel dynamic vision enabled contactless cross-domain fault diagnosis method with neuromorphic computing.The event-based camera is adopted to capture the machine vibration states in the perspective of vision.

Comprehensive prognostic and immune analysis of sterol Oacyltransferase 1 in patients with hepatocellular carcinoma

BACKGROUND Sterol O-acyltransferase 1(SOAT1)is an important target in the diagnosis and treatment of liver cancer.However,the prognostic value of SOAT1 in patients with hepatocellular carcinoma(HCC)is still not clear.AIM To investigate the correlation of SOAT1 expression with HCC,using RNA-seq and gene expression data of The Cancer Genome Atlas(TCGA)-liver hepatocellular carcinoma(LIHC)and pan-cancer.METHODS The correlation between SOAT1 expression and HCC was analyzed.Cox hazard regression models were conducted to investigate the prognostic value of SOAT1 in HCC.Overall survival and disease-specific survival were explored based on TCGA-LIHC data.Biological processes and functional pathways mediated by SOAT1 were characterized by gene ontology(GO)analysis and the Kyoto Encyclopedia of Genes and Genomes(KEGG)analysis of differentially expressed genes.In addition,the protein-protein interaction network and co-expression analyses of SOAT1 in HCC were performed to better understand the regulatory mechanisms of SOAT1 in this malignancy.RESULTS SOAT1 and SOAT2 were highly expressed in unpaired samples,while only SOAT1 was highly expressed in paired samples.The area under the receiver operating characteristic curve of SOAT1 expression in tumor samples from LIHC patients compared with para-carcinoma tissues was 0.748,while the area under the curve of SOAT1 expression in tumor samples from LIHC patients compared with GTEx was 0.676.Patients with higher SOAT1 expression had lower survival rates.Results from GO/KEGG and gene set enrichment analyses suggested that the PI3K/AKT signaling pathway,the IL-18 signaling pathway,the calcium signaling pathway,secreted factors,the Wnt signaling pathway,the Jak/STAT signaling pathway,the MAPK family signaling pathway,and cell–cell communication were involved in such association.SOAT1 expression was positively associated with the abundance of macrophages,Th2 cells,T helper cells,CD56bright natural killer cells,and Th1 cells,and negatively linked to the abundance of Th17 cells,dendritic cells,and cytotoxic cells.CONCLUSION Our findings demonstrate that SOAT1 may serve as a novel target for HCC treatment,which is helpful for the development of new strategies for immunotherapy and metabolic therapy.

Near-Infrared Spectroscopy Combined with Partial Least Squares Discriminant Analysis Applied to Identification of Liquor Brands

The identification of liquor brands is very important for food safety. Most of the fake liquors are usually made into the products with the same flavor and alcohol content as regular brand, so the identification for the liquor brands with the same flavor and the same alcohol content is essential. However, it is also difficult because the components of such liquor samples are very similar. Near-infrared (NIR) spectroscopy combined with partial least squares discriminant analysis (PLS-DA) was applied to identification of liquor brands with the same flavor and alcohol content. A total of 160 samples of Luzhou Laojiao liquor and 200 samples of non-Luzhou Laojiao liquor with the same flavor and alcohol content were used for identification. Samples of each type were randomly divided into the modeling and validation sets. The modeling samples were further divided into calibration and prediction sets using the Kennard-Stone algorithm to achieve uniformity and representativeness. In the modeling and validation processes based on PLS-DA method, the recognition rates of samples achieved 99.1% and 98.7%, respectively. The results show high prediction performance for the identification of liquor brands, and were obviously better than those obtained from the principal component linear discriminant analysis method. NIR spectroscopy combined with the PLS-DA method provides a quick and effective means of the discriminant analysis of liquor brands, and is also a promising tool for large-scale inspection of liquor food safety.

腹腔镜下保留脾脏胰体尾切除术治疗胰腺囊实性肿瘤中青年患者的临床效果(附30例报告)

目的 探讨腹腔镜下保留脾脏胰体尾切除术治疗胰腺囊实性肿瘤中青年患者的可行性和安全性。方法 回顾性分析该院收治的30例胰腺囊实性肿瘤中青年患者的临床资料,均实施腹腔镜下保留脾脏胰体尾切除术,观察统计患者的手术时间、出血量、术后下床时间、术后肛门恢复排气时间、术后住院时间、术后并发症及处理方法、病理类型及随访结果。结果 30例患者均于腹腔镜下顺利完成手术,无中转开腹。其中,29例成功保留脾脏,1例术中联合脾脏切除。手术时间(200.5±20.5) min,出血量(220.4±30.5) mL,术后下床时间(1.5±0.5) d,术后肛门恢复排气时间(2.1±1.1) d,术后住院时间(6.5±1.5) d。术后5例出现胰漏,4例经保守治疗治愈,1例经穿刺引流治愈。术后病理报告显示,胰腺实性假乳头状瘤12例,黏液性囊腺瘤10例,浆液性囊腺瘤3例,神经内分泌肿瘤5例。术后平均随访1年,未见肿瘤复发和大范围脾脏梗死。结论 腹腔镜下保留脾脏胰体尾切除术需要由具备丰富腹腔镜操作技能的医师实施,用该方法治疗胰腺囊实性肿瘤中青年患者安全且高效,其具有创伤小、恢复快和并发症少等优点。

真空区域熔炼法制备高纯铝过程中杂质的分布

提出一种真空区域熔炼法制备高纯铝的新工艺。通过确定平衡分配系数,研究杂质的轴向偏析。理论分析和实验结果表明,平衡分配系数k0<1的杂质(Cu、Si和Fe)在铝锭尾部累积,而Ti(k0>1)在铝锭首端累积。当熔区以1.5 mm/min的速度移动并进行15次区域熔炼后,杂质的去除率和铝的纯度最高。在铝锭中部,即距铝样首端140 mm处,铜、铁和硅的去除率均高于90%,钛的去除率高于75%,铝纯度高于99.999%。铝样品的纯度符合99.999%(5N)工业用高纯铝标准的要求。

Withaferin A inhibits ferroptosis and protects against intracerebral hemorrhage

Recent studies have indicated that suppressing oxidative stress and ferroptosis can considerably improve the prognosis of intracerebral hemorrhage(ICH).Withaferin A(WFA),a natural compound,exhibits a positive effect on a number of neurological diseases.However,the effects of WFA on oxidative stress and ferroptosis-mediated signaling pathways to ICH remain unknown.In this study,we investigated the neuroprotective effects and underlying mechanism for WFA in the regulation of ICH-induced oxidative stress and ferroptosis.We established a mouse model of ICH by injection of autologous tail artery blood into the caudate nucleus and an in vitro cell model of hemin-induced ICH.WFA was injected intracerebroventricularly at 0.1,1 or 5μg/kg once daily for 7 days,starting immediately after ICH operation.WFA markedly reduced brain tissue injury and iron deposition and improved neurological function in a dose-dependent manner 7 days after cerebral hemorrhage.Through in vitro experiments,cell viability test showed that WFA protected SH-SY5Y neuronal cells against hemin-induced cell injury.Enzyme-linked immunosorbent assays in vitro and in vivo showed that WFA markedly decreased the level of malondialdehyde,an oxidative stress marker,and increased the activities of anti-oxidative stress markers superoxide dismutase and glutathione peroxidase after ICH.Western blot assay,quantitative polymerase chain reaction and immunofluorescence results demonstrated that WFA activated the nuclear factor E2-related factor 2(Nrf2)/heme oxygenase-1(HO-1)signaling axis,promoted translocation of Nrf2 from the cytoplasm to nucleus,and increased HO-1 expression.Silencing Nrf2 with siRNA completely reversed HO-1 expression,oxidative stress and protective effects of WFA.Furthermore,WFA reduced hemin-induced ferroptosis.However,after treatment with an HO-1 inhibitor,the neuroprotective effects of WFA against hemin-induced ferroptosis were weakened.MTT test results showed that WFA combined with ferrostatin-1 reduced hemin-induced SH-SY5Y neuronal cell injury.Our findings reveal that WFA treatment alleviated ICH injury-induced ferroptosis and oxidative stress through activating the Nrf2/HO-1 pathway,which may highlight a potential role of WFA for the treatment of ICH.

Remaining Useful Life Prediction With Partial Sensor Malfunctions Using Deep Adversarial Networks

In recent years,intelligent data-driven prognostic methods have been successfully developed,and good machinery health assessment performance has been achieved through explorations of data from multiple sensors.However,existing datafusion prognostic approaches generally rely on the data availability of all sensors,and are vulnerable to potential sensor malfunctions,which are likely to occur in real industries especially for machines in harsh operating environments.In this paper,a deep learning-based remaining useful life(RUL)prediction method is proposed to address the sensor malfunction problem.A global feature extraction scheme is adopted to fully exploit information of different sensors.Adversarial learning is further introduced to extract generalized sensor-invariant features.Through explorations of both global and shared features,promising and robust RUL prediction performance can be achieved by the proposed method in the testing scenarios with sensor malfunctions.The experimental results suggest the proposed approach is well suited for real industrial applications.

Synergistic activation of smithsonite with copper-ammonium species for enhancing surface reactivity and xanthate adsorption

Copper ions(Cu^(2+))are usually added to activate the sulfidized surface of zinc oxide minerals to enhance xanthate attachment using sulfidization xanthate flotation technology.The adsorption of Cu^(2+)and xanthate on the sulfidized surface was investigated in various systems,and its effect on the surface hydrophobicity and flotation performance was revealed by multiple analytical methods and experiments.X-ray photoelectron spectroscopy(XPS)and time-of-flight secondary ion mass spectrometry(To F-SIMS)characterization demonstrated that the adsorption of Cu^(2+)on sulfidized smithsonite surfaces increased the active Cu—S content,regardless of treatment in any activation system.The sulfidized surface pretreated with NH_(4)^(+)-Cu^(2+)created favorable conditions for the adsorption of more Cu^(2+),significantly enhancing the smithsonite reactivity.Zeta potential determination,ultraviolet(UV)-visible spectroscopy,Fourier transform-infrared(FT-IR)measurements,and contact angle detection showed that xanthate was chemically adsorbed on the sulfidized surface,and its adsorption capacity in various systems was illustrated from qualitative and quantitative aspects.In comparison to the Na2S–Cu^(2+)and Cu^(2+)–Na2S–Cu^(2+)systems,xanthate exhibited a higher adsorption capacity on sulfidized smithsonite surfaces in NH_(4)^(+)-Cu^(2+)–Na2S–Cu^(2+)system.Hence,activation with Cu^(2+)–NH4+synergistic species prior to sulfidization significantly enhanced the mineral surface hydrophobicity,thereby increasing its flotation recovery.

Strong internal electric field enhanced polysulfide trapping and ameliorates redox kinetics for lithium-sulfur battery

The shuttle effect of polysulfides is a major challenge for the commercialization of lithium-sulfur battery.The systematic modification of separators has the potential to solve these problems by enhancing the adsorption and catalytic conversion of polysulfides.Herein,strong internal electric field bismuth oxycarbonate(Bi_(2)O_(2)CO_(3))nanoflowers decorated conductive carbon(DC+BOC)is proposed to be systematically modified on separator.This intermediate layer not only possesses a strong affinity for polysulfides,but also promotes the conversion of polysulfides and induces the formation of a stable solid electrolyte interphase(SEI)layer,thereby improving the rate performance and cycling stability of the battery.As expected,the modified membrane achieved a high specific capacity of 713 mA h g^(-1) at 5 C.At 1 C,high reversibility of 719 mA h g^(-1) was achieved after 550 cycles with only 0.044%decay per cycle.More importantly,under the sulfur loading of 5.1 mg cm^(-2),the area specific capacity remained at4.1 mA h cm^(-2) after 200 cycles,and the attenuation rate per cycle was only 0,056%.This work provides a new strategy to overcome the shuttle effect of polysulfide,and shows great potential in the application of high-performance lithium-sulfur batteries.

Fecal microbiota dynamics and its relationship to diarrhea and health in dairy calves

Background:Diarrhea is a major cause of morbidity and mortality in young calves,resulting in considerable economic loss for dairy farms.To determine if some gut microbes might have resistance to dysbiotic process with calf diarrhea by dictating the microbial co-occurrence patterns from birth to post-weaning,we examined the dynamic development of the gut microbiota and diarrhea status using two animal trials,with the first trial having 14 Holstein dairy calves whose fecal samples were collected 18 times over 78 d from birth to 15 d post-weaning and the second trial having 43 Holstein dairy calves whose fecal samples were collected daily from 8 to 18 days of age corresponding to the first diarrhea peak of trial 1.Results:Metataxonomic analysis of the fecal microbiota showed that the development of gut microbiota had three age periods with birth and weaning as the separatrices.Two diarrhea peaks were observed during the transition of the three age periods.Fusobacteriaceae was identified as a diarrhea-associated taxon both in the early stage and during weaning,and Clostridium_sensu_stricto_1 was another increased genus among diarrheic calves in the early stage.In the neonatal calves,Prevotella_2(ASV4 and ASV26),Prevotella_9(ASV43),and Alloprevotella(ASV14)were negatively associated with Clostridium_sensu_stricto_1(ASV48),the keystone taxa of the diarrhea-phase module.During weaning,unclassified Muribaculaceae(ASV28 and ASV44),UBA1819(ASV151),Barnesiella(ASV497),and Ruminococcaceae_UCG-005(ASV254)were identified being associated with non-diarrheic status,and they aggregated in the non-diarrhea module of co-occurrence patterns wherein unclassified Muribaculaceae(ASV28)and Barnesiella(ASV497)had a direct negative relationship with the members of the diarrhea module.Conclusions:Taken together,our results suggest that the dynamic successions of calf gut microbiota and the interactions among some bacteria could influence calf diarrhea,and some species of Prevotella might be the core microbiota in both neonatal and weaning calves,while species of Muribaculaceae might be the core microbiota in weaning calves for preventing calf diarrhea.Some ASVs affiliated with Prevotella_2(ASV4 and ASV26),Prevotella_9(ASV43),Alloprevotella(AVS14),unclassified Muribaculaceae(ASV28 and ASV44),UBA1819(ASV151),Ruminococcaceae_UCG-005(ASV254),and Barnesiella(ASV497)might be proper probiotics for preventing calf diarrhea whereas Clostridium_sensu_stricto_1(ASV48)might be the biomarker for diarrhea risk in specific commercial farms.

Ca2+依赖的膜结合蛋白7在胃癌中的表达及临床意义

目的:探讨Ca2+依赖的膜结合蛋7(CPNE7)在胃癌中的表达水平及其与肿瘤发生发展的关系。方法:首先通过生物信息学分析CPNE7在胃癌及癌旁中的表达差异及其与预后的关系。收集2020年1月至2021年5月在兰州大学附属第二医院行手术治疗的102例胃癌患者的癌组织及其癌旁组织,制作成组织芯片(TMA),采用免疫组织化学染色法检测CPNE7的表达水平,Spearman相关分析CPNE7表达与胃癌患者临床病理特征的关系。采用RT-PCR和Western blot检测CPNE7在胃癌细胞(MKN45/AGS/HGC-27)和人正常胃黏膜细胞(GES-1)中mRNA和蛋白的表达水平。结果:CPNE7蛋白及其mRNA水平在胃癌中高于癌旁组织(P<0.05),CPNE7的表达与患者的临床分期(P<0.001)、T分期(P=0.012)、N分期(P=0.01)以及有无淋巴结浸润(P=0.005)和Lauren’s分型(P=0.007)显著相关,与年龄(P=0.37)、性别(P=0.121)、分化程度(P=0.15)、有无转移(P=0.835)、血管浸润(P=0.275)、神经浸润无相关(P=0.814)。结论:CPNE7在胃癌组织和细胞中呈高表达,其表达与临床分期、T分期、N分期、淋巴结浸润和Lauren’s分型相关,提示CPNE7可能参与胃癌的发生发展,有望成为胃癌的诊断标志物。

Two new species of Polyalthiopsis(Annonaceae) based on morphological characters and phylogenetic evidence,with a supplementary description of P.chinensis from China

Two new species of Polyalthiopsis(Annonaceae),P.nigra Y.H.Tan & Bin Yang from Guangxi and Yunnan Provinces and P.xui Y.H.Tan & Bin Yang from Yunnan Province,are described and illustrated.P.nigra is morphologically similar to P.chinensis in having narrowly elliptic-oblong,lemon to yellowish green petals,but differs by having obovoid monocarps,a higher number of leaf secondary veins,leaf blades usually widest above the middle,and a lower ratio of leaf blade length to width.P.xui is morphologically similar to P.floribunda in having axillary inflorescences,1-3(-4) flowers,elliptic leaves,and ellipticovate petals,but differs in the numbers of carpels per flower and ovules per carpel.The molecular phylogenetic analysis using five plastid markers confirm that the two new species belong to the genus Polyalthiopsis and show clear interspecific divergences between P.nigra and P.xui and between them and other species in the genus.Detailed descriptions,colored photographs,and habitat and distribution data for the two new species are provided.In addition,the fruit morphology of P.chinensis is described for the first time,based on living collections.Geographical distributions and a diagnostic key for all Polyalthiopsis species are also presented.

Construction of a transposase accessible chromatin landscape reveals chromatin state of repeat elements and potential causal variant for complex traits in pigs

Background:A comprehensive landscape of chromatin states for multiple mammalian tissues is essential for elucidating the molecular mechanism underlying regulatory variants on complex traits.However,the genome-wide chromatin accessibility has been only reported in limited tissue types in pigs.Results:Here we report a genome-wide landscape of chromatin accessibility of 20 tissues in two female pigs at ages of 6 months using ATAC-seq,and identified 557,273 merged peaks,which greatly expanded the pig regulatory ele-ment repository.We revealed tissue-specific regulatory elements which were associated with tissue-relevant biologi-cal functions.We identified both positive and negative significant correlations between the regulatory elements and gene transcripts,which showed distinct distributions in terms of their strength and distances from corresponding genes.We investigated the presence of transposable elements(TEs)in open chromatin regions across all tissues,these included identifications of porcine endogenous retroviruses(PERVs)exhibiting high accessibility in liver and homology of porcine specific virus sequences to universally accessible transposable elements.Furthermore,we prior-itized a potential causal variant for polyunsaturated fatty acid in the muscle.Conclusions:Our data provides a novel multi-tissues accessible chromatin landscape that serve as an important resource for interpreting regulatory sequences in tissue-specific and conserved biological functions,as well as regula-tory variants of loci associated with complex traits in pigs.

Sedimentary nitrogen dynamics in a coastal reef area with relatively high nitrogen concentration

The migration and transformation of nitrogen(N)in sediments play an important role in regulating the N concentration and nutrient structures in shallow seas.However,studies of sedimentary N dynamics are rarely focused on carbonate sediments,although these account for about 40%of the continental shelf area.Thus,the regulation mechanisms of the N dynamics in the carbonate sands of coral reefs are not clear.Taking the coral reef area of Weizhou Island,which has a relatively high N concentration,as the research object,we conducted a series of flow-through reactor experiments to investigate the fluxes of different N forms at the interface of sediment and seawater and their regulation mechanism by environmental factors.The fluxes of dissolved inorganic and organic N(DIN and DON)at different stations were-0.39-0.12 mmol/(m^(2)·h) and-0.18-0.39 mmol/(m^(2)·h),respectively.Denitrification(0.11-0.25 mmol/(m^(2)·h) was closely coupled to nitrification,which was limited by the availability of organic matter and its degradation product(i.e.,NH_(4)^(+)).Thus,the excessive NO_(3)^(-) might be reduced to NH4+by dissimilatory nitrate reduction to ammonium,rather than to N_(2) by denitrification.NO_(3)^(-) reduction peaked at intermediate advection rates(96 L/(m^(2)·h)) and flow path lengths(10 cm),but the release of DON also peaked at the same condition.In addition,climate warming would significantly affect sedimentary N dynamics at Weizhou Island.These results may help address the broader issue of the N cycle in coral reef eco systems under the dual pressure of climate warming and anthropogenic activities,and these results are beneficial to coral reef protection and local ecological management.