Transcriptional identification of differentially expressed genes associated with division of labor in Apis cerana cerana

Workers of Apis cerana cerana undergo an in-hive nursing to outdoor foraging transition,but the genes underlying this age-related transition remain largely unknown.Here,we sequenced the head transcriptomes of its 7-day-old normal nurses,18-and 22-day-old normal foragers,7-day-old precocious foragers and 22-day-old over-aged nurses to unravel the genes associated with this transition.Mapping of the sequence reads to Apis mellifera genome showed that the three types of foragers had a greater percentage of reads from annotated exons and intergenic regions,whereas the two types of nurses had a greater percentage of reads from introns.Pair-and group-wise comparisons of the five transcriptomes revealed 59 uniquely expressed genes(18 in nurses and 41 in foragers)and 14 nurse-and 15 forager-upregulated genes.The uniquely expressed genes are usually low-abundance long noncoding RNAs,transcription factors,transcription coactivators,RNA-binding proteins,kinases or phosphatases that are involved in signaling and/or regulation,whereas the nurse-or forager-upregulated genes are often high-abundance downstream genes that directly perform the tasks of nurses or foragers.Taken together,these results suggest that the nurse-forager transition is coordinated by a social signal-triggered epigenetic shift from introns to exons/intergenic regions and the resulting transcriptional shift between the nurse-and forager-associated genes.

Adjuvant effects mediated by the carbohydrate recognition domain ofAgrocybe aegerita lectin interacting with avian influenza H9N2 viral surface glycosylated proteins

Objective： To evaluate the potential adjuvant effect of Agrocybe aegerita lectin （AAL）, which was isolatedfrom mushroom, against a virulent H9N2 strain in vivo and in vitro. Methods： In trial 1, 50 BALB/c male mice （8 weeksold） were divided into five groups （n=10 each group） which received a subcutaneous injection of inactivated HgN2（control）, inactivated HgN2＋0.2% （w/w） alum, inactivated HgN2＋0.5 mg recombinant AAL/kg body weight （BW）, inac-tivated HgN2＋1.0 mg AAl_/kg BW, and inactivated H9N2＋2.5 mg AAL/kg BW, respectively, four times at 7-d intervals. Intrial 2, 30 BALB/c male mice （8 weeks old） were divided into three groups （n=10 each group） which received a sub-cutaneous injection of inactivated HgN2 （control）, inactivated HmN2＋2.5 mg recombinant wild-type AAL （AAL-wt）/kg BWand inactivated H9N2＋2.5 mg carbohydrate recognition domain （CRD） mutant AAL （AAL-mutR63H）/kg BW,respectively, four times at 7-d intervals. Seven days after the final immunization, serum samples were collectedfrom each group for analysis. Hemagglutination assay, immunogold electron microscope, lectin blotting, and co-immunoprecipitation were used to study the interaction between hAL and HgN2 in vitro. Results： IgG, IgG1, and IgG2aantibody levels were significantly increased in the sera of mice co-immunized with inactivated HgN2 and AAL whencompared to mice immunized with inactivated H^N2 alone. No significant increase of the IgG antibody level was de-tected in the sera of the mice co-immunized with inactivated HgN2 and AAL-mutR63H. Moreover, AAL-wt, but notmutant AAL-mutR63H, adhered to the surface of H9N2 virus. The interaction between AAL and the H9N2 virus wasfurther demonstrated to be associated with the CRD of AAL binding to the surface glycosylated proteins, hemagglutininand neuraminidase. Conclusions： Our findings indicated that AAL could be a safe and effective adjuvant capable ofboosting humoral immunity against HgN2 viruses in mice through its interaction with the viral surface glycosylatedproteins, hemagglutinin and neuraminidase.

Atmospheric pressure gas chromatography-tandem mass spectrometry analysis of fourteen emerging polycyclic aromatic sulfur heterocycles in PM_(2.5)

Research on pollution characteristics and toxicities of emerging polycyclic aromatic sulfur heterocycles(PASHs) in PM_(2.5) has not been reported due to the lack of analytical method with the needed performance.In the present study,a novel method for the determination of 14 PASHs in PM_(2.5) was developed using atmospheric pressure gas chro matography-tandem mass spectrometry(APGC-MS/MS).Atmospheric pressure chemical ionization was operated with multiple reaction monitoring in positive ionization mode.High sensitivity(method detection limit <1.673 pg/m^(3)),acceptable re coveries(67.6%-120.8%) and precisions(RSD of 2.2%-15.4%) were obtained.The method was successfully applied for analyzing PASHs in 10 PM_(2.5) samples collected from Taiyuan,a typical industrial city in China,in 2016,The total concentrations were from 929 pg/m^(3) to 14,593 pg/m^(3).The determined levels indicated that further investigations on environmental fate and toxicities of PM_(2.5)-bound PASHs may be needed.