《生物多样性公约》及其议定书下“能力建设与发展”议题的磋商、挑战及政策建议

能力建设与发展一直是《生物多样性公约》(以下简称《公约》)及其议定书下的重要议题,《昆明-蒙特利尔全球生物多样性框架》更是将其作为履约的有效执行手段之一。本文旨在增进生物多样性利益相关方对能力建设与发展问题的全面、深入理解,以及探讨为处理这个问题可选择的优先政策事项。首先,从能力、能力建设和能力发展基本概念入手,概述了这些术语在《公约》及其议定书相关文件中的演变历史;然后,基于历届《公约》及其议定书的决定,全面梳理了能力建设与发展的磋商进程和COP15主要争论焦点,分析了该领域面临的资金、规划、项目、信息分享以及与其他国际公约之间的协同等关键性挑战及其原因;最后,针对能力建设与发展问题,在国际层面上,从扩宽资金渠道、制定或协调不同层次的战略与行动规划、确保项目和方案的长期性和可持续性、完善信息交流机制、提升相关公约间协同增效等方面提出了政策关注点;在国内层面上,从强化顶层设计、更新生物多样性战略与行动计划、查明生物安全和生物遗传资源领域的能力建设需求、加大宣传与参与以及充分利用“昆明生物多样性基金”和“一带一路”倡议等方面提出了政策建议。

Carbon nanotube promotes contraction and electrical activity of neonatal cardiomyocytes by targeting sodium/calcium exchanger NCX1

Dear Editor,The conductive nanomaterials,such as carbon nanotubes(CNTs),have attracted much attention in biomedical applications.Particularly,it has been found that CNTs can promote the electrical activity of cardiomyocytes,but little is known about the mechanism.^(1,2)To better understand the CNTs’biological effects on cardiomyocytes and the underlying mechanism.

Bulking sludge for PHA production:Energy saving and comparative storage capacity with well-settled sludge

Two acetate-fed sequencing batch reactors （SBR） were operated under an aerobic dynamic feeding （ADF） model （SBR#2） and with anaerobic phase before aerobic phase （SBR#1） to select mixed cultures with a high polyhydroxyalkanoates （PHA） storage response. Although kinetic selection based on storage response should bring about a predominance of floc-formers, a bulking sludge with storage response comparable to well-settled sludge was steadily established. An anaerobic phase was introduced before the aerobic phase in the ADF model to improve the sludge settleability （SBR #1）, however, due to the consequent increased feast/famine ratio, the performance of SBR #1, in terms of both the maximum PHB （polyhydroxybutyrate） cell content and APHB, was lower than that of SBR #2. SBR #2 gradually reached a steady state while SBR #1 failed suddenly after 50 days of operation. The maximum specific substrate uptake rate and storage rate for the selected bulking sludge were 0.4 Cmol Ae/（Cmol X.hr） and 0.18 Cmol Ac/（Cmol PHB.hr）, respectively, resulting a yield of 0.45 Cmol PHB/（Cmol Ae） in SBR #2 in the culture enrichment phase. A maximum PHB content of 53% of total suspended solids and PHB storage rate of 1.36 Cmol Ac/（Cmol PHB.hr） was achieved at 10.2 hr in batch accumulation tests under nitrogen starvation. The results indicated that it was feasible to utilize filamentous bacteria to accumulate PHA with a rate comparable to well-settled sludge, Furthermore, the lower dissolved oxygen demand of filamentous bacteria would save energy required for aeration in the culture enrichment stage.

Embryoid bodies formation and differentiation from mouse embryonic stem cells in collagen/Matrigel scaffolds

Embryonic stem （ES） cells have the potential to develop into any type of tissue and are considered as a promising source of seeding cells for tissue engineering and transplantation therapy.The main catalyst for ES cells differentiation is the growth into embryoid bodies （EBs）,which are utilized widely as the trigger of in vitro differentiation.In this study,a novel method for generating EBs from mouse ES cells through culture in collagen/Matrigel scaffolds was successfully established.When single ES cells were seeded in three dimensional collagen/Matrigel scaffolds,they grew into aggregates gradually and formed simple EBs with circular structures.After 7 days＇ culture,they formed into cystic EBs that would eventually differentiate into the three embryonic germ layers.Evaluation of the EBs in terms of morphology and potential to differentiate indicated that they were typical in structure and could generate various cell types;they were also able to form into tissue-like structures.Moreover,with introduction of ascorbic acid,ES cells differentiated into cardiomyocytes efficiently and started contracting synchronously at day 19.The results demonstrated that collagen/Matrigel scaffolds supported EBs formation and their subsequent differentiation in a single three dimensional environment.

Modulation of Beta Oscillations for Implicit Motor Timing in Primate Sensorimotor Cortex during Movement Preparation

Motor timing is an important part of sensorimotor control. Previous studies have shown that beta oscillations embody the process of temporal perception in explicit timing tasks. In contrast, studies focusing on beta oscillations in implicit timing tasks are lacking. In this study, we set up an implicit motor timing task and found a modulation pattern of beta oscillations with temporal perception during movement preparation. We trained two macaques in a repetitive visually-guided reach-to-grasp task with different holding intervals. Spikes and local field potentials were recorded from microelectrode arrays in the primary motor cortex, primary somatosensory cortex, and posterior parietal cortex. We analyzed the association between beta oscillations and temporal interval in fixedduration experiments(500 ms as the Short Group and1500 ms as the Long Group) and random-duration experiments(500 ms to 1500 ms). The results showed that the peak beta frequencies in both experiments ranged from15 Hz to 25 Hz. The beta power was higher during the hold period than the movement(reach and grasp) period.Further, in the fixed-duration experiments, the mean poweras well as the maximum rate of change of beta power in the first 300 ms were higher in the Short Group than in the Long Group when aligned with the Center Hit event. In contrast, in the random-duration experiments, the corresponding values showed no statistical differences among groups. The peak latency of beta power was shorter in the Short Group than in the Long Group in the fixed-duration experiments, while no consistent modulation pattern was found in the random-duration experiments. These results indicate that beta oscillations can modulate with temporal interval in their power mode. The synchronization period of beta power could reflect the cognitive set maintaining working memory of the temporal structure and attention.

Cell-derived extracellular matrix-coated silk fibroin scaffold for cardiogenesis of brown adipose stem cells through modulation of TGF-β pathway

The cell-derived extracellular matrix(ECM)-modified scaffolds have advantages of mimic tissue specificity and been thought to better mimic the native cellular microenvironment in vitro.ECM derived from cardiac fibroblasts(CFs)are considered as key elements that provide a natural cell growth microenvironment and change the fate of cardiomyocytes(CMs).Here,a new hybrid scaffold is designed based on silk fibroin(SF)scaffold and CFs-derived ECM.CFs were seeded on the SF scaffold for 10days culturing and decellularized to produce CFs-derived ECM-coated SF scaffold.The results showed that the cell-derived ECM-modified silk fibroin scaffold material contained collagen,laminin,fibronectin and other ECM components with myocardial-like properties.Further to explore its effects on brown adipose stem cells(BASCs)differentiation into CMs.We found that the CFderived ECM-coated scaffold also increased the expression of CM-specific proteins(e.g.cardiac troponin T and α-actinin)of BASCs.Notably,the b1-integrin-dependent transforming growth factor-β1 signaling pathway was also involved in the regulation of CF-derived ECM by promoting the differentiation of BASCs into CMs.Overall,these findings provide insights into the bionic manufacturing of engineered cardiac tissues(ECTs)and establish a theoretical basis for the construction of ECTs.

Conductive nanomaterials for cardiac tissues engineering

Myocardial infarction(MI)is a worldwide disease with high incidence and high fatality rate.In the past decade,a lot of research work based on the method of cardiac tissues engineering has received wide attention from re-searchers and has been demonstrated to have important application prospects in the treatment of MI.To make engineered cardiac tissue(ECTs)simulate the characteristics of the natural myocardial microenvironment better,the unique electrophysiological characteristics of myocardial tissue should be considered.Therefore,conductive nanomaterials are adopted to construct ECTs to make up for the lack of traditional scaffold materials.In this arti-cle,the research progresses of conductive nanomaterials application in the field of cardiac tissue engineering are summarized,and two treatment strategies of cardiac patch construction and injectable materials for MI treatment are discussed respectively.Related research work provided reference for the study of cardiac tissue engineering based conductive nanomaterials.