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Microglia, as the resident immune cells of the central nervous system (CNS), maintain neural homeostasis by orchestrating the clearance of necrotic neurons, cellular debris, and pathogens through phagocytosis. This intracellular process involves a dynamic cascade of protein-mediated events, including cargo recognition and phagosome formation, phagosome maturation, and lysosomal degradation. Phagosome maturation critically relies on V-ATPase-driven acidification, with proton transport efficiency predominantly determined by its a subunit. In mammals, the V-ATPase a subunit has four isoforms (a1, a2, a3 and a4), whereas zebrafish (Danio rerio) possess only the three isoforms (a1, a2 and a3), with marked differences observed in their targeted cell types and suborganellar localization patterns. Notably, the V-ATPase a3 subunit is primarily localized on osteoclast lysosomes, facilitating bone resorption by acidification. The preliminary studies have revealed its conserved lysosomal localization in zebrafish microglia; however, its functional role in microglial development and regulatory mechanisms underlying phagosome maturation remain elusive. To address this knowledge gap, we employed a V-ATPase a3 subunit-deficient (tcirg1b^-/-) zebrafish model, integrating whole-mount in situ hybridization, immunofluorescence, co-immunoprecipitation (Co-IP), and apoptosis assays. Key findings include: The a3 subunit is expressed during early zebrafish development; a3 subunit deficiency caused abnormal phagosome accumulation, microglial swelling and decreased activity, showing an "indigestion-like" phenotype; By exogenous labeling of late phagosomes and immunofluorescence staining, it was confirmed that the defect of V-ATPase a3 subunit impaired late phagosome-lysosome fusion in microglia; Co-IP demonstrated direct binding between the a3 subunit and Rab7. Rab7 knockdown phenocopied the "indigestion" morphology, suggesting a cooperative role in phagosome degradation. These results demonstrate that the V-ATPase a3 subunit regulates microglial phagosome maturation by mediating Rab7-dependent phagolysosomal fusion. In conclusion, this study not only elucidates the molecular mechanism underlying microglial phagocytic capacity but also provides novel insights into the evolutionarily conserved roles of V-ATPase isoforms in cellular clearance pathways.

Nitrogen is an indispensable macronutrient for plant growth, and nitrate is the main source of nitrogen for plants. The relationship between supply and demand of nitrate has a decisive impact on plant development. The NRT1/PTR family (nitrate transporter 1/peptide transporter family, NPF) is a major nitrate transporter family, playing a key role in nitrate uptake. In plant research, this type of protein can regulate its function through post-translational modification, thereby regulating nitrate sense, uptake, and plant development. NRT1.1 (NPF6.3/CHL1), a key member of the NPF family, functions both as a nitrate transporter and a nitrate sensor. In this review, we elucidate the role of NPF nitrate transporter proteins in regulating nitrate uptake and utilization in Arabidopsis thaliana, Oryza sativa, and Zea mays, and summarize the effects of post-translational modification on nitrate transport and plant development. Finally, the prospect of related research in trees is discussed, in order to provide scientific basis and technical support for improving nitrogen fertilizer utilization efficiency, enhancing plant resistance to adverse conditions, and protecting ecological environment.

Genetic related technologies are increasingly influencing human health and life. From theory to practice, teaching through typical cases of disciplinary applications has become a popular new model in the field of genetics education. This experiment takes the phenotype case of "alcohol flush" as an example, organically integrating genetic knowledge from multiple perspectives and levels such as phenotypic analysis, population genetic analysis and pedigree analysis with experimental cases. In teaching practice, the "alcohol flush" case study can greatly stimulate students' interest in active learning, cultivate students' ability to connect theory with practice, discover and solve problems from practice, and further expand their learning of genetic testing related bioethics, genetic information protection, genetic resource protection, and other knowledge through personal practical teaching, thus cultivate students' scientific thinking ability and scientific literacy.

Extracellular vesicles are membrane-enclosed structures released by cells into the extracellular space, containing various biomolecules such as proteins, nucleic acids, and lipids. Extracellular vesicles exhibit broad cellular origins, diverse types, and high heterogeneity. They are involved in intercellular material transport, mediate intercellular communication, and play important roles in various cellular biological processes, including cell proliferation, apoptosis, and migration. This review summarizes recent advances in research on the isolation and identification, biogenesis mechanisms, and fate of extracellular vesicles, aiming to provide a reference for advancing research in this field.

To investigate the microbial composition and diversity across distinct anatomical regions of the porcine stomach, this study took adult "Landrace×Yorkshire" hybrid pigs as the research subjects. Mucosal samples were collected from eight regions, including gastroesophageal groove, gastric fundus, lesser curvature of the gastric body, greater curvature of the gastric body, middle antrum of the gastric antrum, gastric diverticulum, round pillow of the pylorus, and pylorus, and subjected by high-throughput sequencing targeting the microbial 16S rRNA V3-V4 hypervariable regions. The results showed obvious difference in microbial diversity among the eight stomach regions. The gastric fundus and gastric body greater curvature exhibited higher microbial diversity and richness, while the esophageal groove, gastric body lesser curvature, gastric antrum middle section, gastric diverticulum, pyloric bulge, and pylorus showed lower diversity and richness. Firmicutes and Proteobacteria constituted the predominant phyla across all eight regions of the pig stomach. A` relatively high abundance of Cyanobacteria was also detected in the esophageal groove and gastric antrum middle section. However, the dominant genera varied substantially across regions. Lactobacillus predominated in the esophageal groove, fundus, lesser curvature, and greater curvature. Delftia and Chryseobacterium were dominant in the mid-antrum. Bacteroides dominated in the gastric diverticulum and pylorus. Proteus was the dominant genus in the pyloric torus. Further functional analysis of stomach microbiome indicated the regions with the most active metabolic processes and cellular activity within the stomach were the esophageal groove and lesser curvature of the gastric body. These findings provide valuable reference data for future research on the physiological structure and function of the stomach.

Postdoctoral researchers in life sciences confront distinct challenges, including extended training duration resulting from the inherently lengthy research cycles associated with their specialized research subjects and experimental materials. Based on national postdoctoral policies and comparison of funding policies between China and the United States, we focus on postdoctoral researchers in life sciences at the School of Life Sciences, Shandong University. Our analysis reveals how current university funding policies constrain the training process of postdoctoral researchers in this field. To address these limitations, we propose a coordinated reform strategy, including reinforcing ideological and political guidance, extending funding durations, establishing cost-sharing mechanisms, and implementing incentives for major achievements. These reforms aim to improve the quality of postdoctoral training and provide policy insights for optimizing the research talent development system in "Double First-Class" universities.

Breast cancer stem cells (BCSCs) represent a distinctive subpopulation within breast cancer that exhibit stem cell-like characteristics, including self-renewal capability and multipotent differentiation. They are recognized as the central drivers of tumor initiation, progression, metastasis, and drug resistance. In-depth investigation of BCSCs represents a crucial avenue for overcoming the current therapeutic limitations in breast cancer. This review comprehensively summarizes recent advances in BCSCs-related research, focusing on key areas such as surface marker identification, mechanisms underlying tumor recurrence and metastasis, core regulatory signaling networks, and therapy resistance. Furthermore, it discusses potential clinical strategies targeting BCSCs, and explores future directions for precision medicine based on hetogeneity and dynamic regulation of BCSCs. These insights provide important theoretical foundations for the development of targeted therapies against breast cancer.

Postnatal cardiac function in mammals is closely associated with cardiomyocyte proliferation and hypertrophy. However, the molecular mechanisms regulating cardiomyocyte proliferation and hypertrophy have not yet been fully elucidated. Therefore, phenotypic measurements and transcriptomic sequencing were performed on myocardial tissues from 7-day-old (P7) and 3-month-old (3m) female C57BL/6 mice to investigate changes in cardiomyocytes during growth and development and to identify key genes regulating myocardial growth and development. In comparison to 7-day-old mice, 3-month-old mice exhibited a significant increase in heart weight (P<0.001) and the cross-sectional area of cardiomyocytes (P<0.001). Transcriptome sequencing identified 3,858 differentially expressed genes (DEGs), including 2,021 up-regulated and 1,837 down-regulated genes. Gene Ontology (GO) functional annotation analysis demonstrated that the differentially expressed genes were significantly enriched in biological processes including cell cycle, cell division, cardiac morphogenesis and cellular proliferation. Significantly enriched KEGG pathways were identified, including those for DNA replication, ECM-receptor interaction, the cell cycle, metabolic pathways, and other signaling pathways. Furthermore, key candidate genes associated with myocardial tissue growth and development in mice, including Hey2, Foxm1, Igf1, Xirp2, Sfrp2, Egf, Fgfr2, Tbx20, Fgf1 and Igf2 were identified through screening. qRT-PCR validation results demonstrated that the expression trends of the 10 candidate genes related to myocardial growth and development were consistent with the RNA-seq results, confirming the reliability of the sequencing data. The findings of this study provide new insights into the molecular mechanisms underlying the growth and development of mouse myocardial tissue.

Microbial profiles in dust are closely correlated with geographical locations and provide valuable clues for criminal investigation, demonstrating significant potential in forensic use. However, the feasibility of using microbial profiles from metagenomics datasets to infer the geographical locations remains underexplored. In this study, we collect 170 dust samples from resident communities in four cities across northern, eastern, southwestern, and northwestern China. All samples are subjected to shotgun metagenomic sequencing to reveal variations in microbial composition. In total, 41,029 species are annotated, including 93.39% bacteria, 6.37% eukaryotes, 0.21% viruses, and 0.03% archaea. Clear clustering patterns are observed among the four cities (R²=0.870, P<0.001). Further filtering of species with detection rates below 10% across all samples strengthens city-level clustering (R²=0.948, P<0.001). Additionally, 127 biomarkers are identified using linear discriminant analysis effect size (LEfSe) to distinguish between the cities. Each city harbors a distinct microbial community, with unique species and relatively abundant taxa that contribute to its differentiated microbial profile. All samples are randomly split into training and testing sets in a 7:3 ratio. Five machine learning models including SourceTracker, FEAST, LightGBM, Random Forest and Support Vector Machine are applied to 51 randomly sample data and achieve average accuracies of 88.89%, 92.16%, 98.04%, 99.35% and 69.28%, respectively. These results constitute a microbial genetic map of four cities in China that highlights distinct microbial taxonomic signatures and provides an approach for city-scale source tracking of dust samples.

To develop perennial rice varieties and realize one planting (year) more harvest planting pattern of increasing yield and farmer's income is one of the most cost-effective strategy involved in safeguarding China's grain supply. In this study, construction and analysis of molecular maps of perennial rice was performed to elucidate the genetic laws of microsatellite loci in perennial Chinese rice, two half-sib F₂ populations derived from two perennial Chinese japonica rice (HN2^# and CB7^#) crossed to the annual indica rice XieqingzaoB (XQZB) were developed to construct two half-sib linkage maps. We established linkage map lengths of 2,036.10 cM and 1,878.23 cM with average genetic distance of 18.85 cM and 17.23 cM by using 108 and 109 SSR markers in both HN2^# and CB7^# map, respectively. Chi-square value (χ²) for genotypes in the F₂ populations of both HN2^# and CB7^# were 134.85 and 291.02, respectively, and exhibited extreme significant bias towards XQZB. χ² value for genotype on each linkage group of both HN2^# and CB7^# map ranged from 2.23 to 175.67, from 4.53 to 191.52, respectively. Genotypes on linkage groups of both the 1^st, 2^nd, 3^rd, 4^th, 6^th, 8^th, 9^th, 10^th, and 12^th in HN2^# map and 1^st, 2^nd, 3^rd, 5^th, 6^th, 7^th, 9^th, 11^th, and 12^th in CB7^# map deviated from the Mendelian ratio. There 38 F₂ individual in HN2^# and 47 F₂ individual in CB7^# population deviated from the Mendelian ratio, respectively. Altogether 32 markers showed segregation distortion (29.63%) and clustered on the 3^rd, 4^th and 6^th of linkage in HN2^# map, there 44 markers showed segregation distortion (40.37%) and clustered on the 3^rd, 5^th, 6^th, 7^th, 9^th, and 12^th of linkage in CB7^# map. Overall, this study lays a good foundation for the mining of beneficial genes and the innovation and utilization of perennial Chinese rice genetic resources.