Seamless Prediction in China: A Review

Seamless prediction is a weather-climate integrated prediction covering multiple time scales that include days,weeks,months,seasons,years,and decades.Seamless prediction can provide different industries with information such as weather conditions and climate variations from the next few days to years,which have important impacts on economic and social development and important reference value for short-,medium-and long-term decision-making and planning of the country.Therefore,seamless prediction has received widespread attention from the international scientific community recently.As Chinese scientists have also carried out relevant research,this paper reviews the research in China on developments and applications of seamless prediction methods and prediction systems in recent years.Among them,the main progress of seamless prediction methods studies is reviewed from four aspects:short-and medium-range weather forecasting,subseasonal-to-seasonal,seasonal-to-interannual,and decadal climate prediction.In terms of development and application of seamless prediction systems,the main achievements made by meteorological operational departments,scientific institutes,and universities in China in recent years are reviewed.Finally,some of the issues in seamless prediction that need further study are discussed.

Woody plant cell walls:Fundamentals and utilization

Cell walls in plants,particularly forest trees,are the major carbon sink of the terrestrial ecosystem.Chemical and biosynthetic features of plant cell walls were revealed early on,focusing mostly on herbaceous model species.Recent developments in genomics,transcriptomics,epigenomics,transgenesis,and associated analytical techniques are enabling novel insights into formation of woody cell walls.Here,we review multilevel regulation of cell wall biosynthesis in forest tree species.We highlight current approaches to engineering cell walls as potential feedstock for materials and energy and survey reported field tests of such engineered transgenic trees.We outline opportunities and challenges in future research to better understand cell type biogenesis for more efficient wood cell wall modification and utilization for biomaterials or for enhanced carbon capture and storage.

Ultrasensitive Detection and Binding Mechanism of Cocaine in an Aptamer-based Single-molecule Device

Aptamer serves as a potential candidate for the micro-detection of cocaine due to its high specificity,high affinity and good stability.Although cocaine aptasensors have been extensively studied,the binding mechanism of cocaine-aptamer interactions is still unknown,which limits the structural refinement in the design of an aptamer to improve the performance of cocaine aptasensors.Herein,we report a label-free,ultrasensitive detection of single-molecule cocaine-aptamer interaction by using an electrical nanocircuit based on graphene-moleculegraphene single-molecule junctions (GMG-SMJs).Real-time recordings of cocaine-aptamer interactions have exhibited distinct current oscillations before and after cocaine treatment,revealing the dynamic mechanism of the conformational changes of aptamer upon binding with cocaine.Further concentration-dependent experiments have proved that these devices can act as a single-molecule biosensor with at least a limit of detection as low as 1 nmol·L^-1.The method demonstrated in this work provides a novel strategy for shedding light on the interaction mechanism of biomolecules as well as constructing new types of aptasensors toward practical applications.

A PtrLBD39-mediated transcriptional network regulates tension wood formation in Populus trichocarpa

Tension wood(TW)is a specialized xylem tissue formed in angiosperm trees under gravitational stimulus or mechanical stresses(e.g.,bending).The genetic regulation that underlies this important mechanism remains poorly understood.Here,we used laser capture microdissection of stem xylem cells coupled with full transcriptome RNA-sequencing to analyze TW formation in Populus trichocarpa.After tree bending,PtrLBD39 was the most significantly induced transcription factor gene;it has a phylogenetically paired homolog,PtrLBD22.CRISPR-based knockout of PtrLBD39/22 severely inhibited TW formation,reducing cellulose and increasing lignin content.Transcriptomic analyses of CRISPR-based PtrLBD39/22 double mutants showed that these two genes regulate a set of TW-related genes.Chromatin immunoprecipitation sequencing(ChIP-seq)was used to identify direct targets of PtrLBD39.We integrated transcriptomic analyses and ChIP-seq assays to construct a transcriptional regulatory network(TRN)mediated by PtrLBD39.In this TRN,PtrLBD39 directly regulates 26 novel TW-responsive transcription factor genes.Our work suggests that PtrLBD39 and PtrLBD22 specifically control TW formation by mediating a TW-specific TRN in Populus.