Biology-Basel最新文献

The morphological peculiarities of receptor neurons and support cells in the olfactory epithelium of male yellowfin sculpin (Cottocomephorus grewingkii; Dybowski, 1874) were studied during the pre-spawning, spawning (when males do not feed and have a higher sensitivity to female pheromones), and guarding (the fertilized eggs) periods. This study was performed using electron transmission and laser confocal microscopy. Structural changes in the fish olfactory epithelium are associated with the shift in olfactory signals from alimentary to pheromonal. These results expand our knowledge of the odorant-dependent plasticity of the periphery of the fish olfactory system.

The heading date is one of the important traits in rice, which greatly affects grain yield and regional adaptability. Although the flowering pathways in rice have been extensively investigated, the genes involved in flowering remain largely unknown. Here, we report a rice lhd mutant, which showed late flowering under both long-day (LD) and short-day (SD) conditions. Through MutMap+ and linkage analysis, a deletion mutation in OsMetAP10 was inferred as the most likely candidate for lhd late flowering. OsMetAP10 encodes a methionine aminopeptidase that belongs to the peptidase_M24 subfamily III. The OsMetAP10 gene is constitutively expressed in rice and is induced by light, with a rhythmic expression pattern. OsMetAP10 knockout lines displayed late heading as the lhd mutation, while no alternations in morphology and heading were observed on OsMetAP10 overexpression lines, further confirming the mutation of OsMetAP10 as responsible for the late heading of lhd. Through RT-qPCR and transcriptome analysis, we revealed that the upregulated expression of the FT-like gene OsFLT4, a negatively flowering regulator, and the downregulation of flower development-related genes, OsMADS14, OsMADS15, and OsMADS34, played critical roles in determining the late flowering of the OsMetAP10 mutation. This study reports a new gene affecting flowering and provides a new insight into the role of OsMetAP10 in regulating rice heading.

Caffeine contamination in water sources raises concerns about its transfer to agricultural products and potential risks to human health through the food chain. Despite these concerns, limited research has focused on the accumulation and distribution of exogenous caffeine in tea plants. This study explored the uptake, translocation, targeted accumulation, subcellular distribution, and preliminary metabolism of ¹⁴C-labeled caffeine in a hydroponic tea seedling system. After 192 h of cultivation, more than 83.8% of the caffeine had been removed from the nutrient solution. Within the plants, ¹⁴C-caffeine and its metabolites predominantly accumulated in the roots. Subcellular analysis indicates that in root cells, ¹⁴C was mainly distributed in the soluble fraction, cell walls, and plastids, while in shoot cells, it was concentrated in the soluble fraction and cell walls. Metabolic profiling reveals distinct varietal differences: in Longjing 43 tea seedlings, ¹⁴C was predominantly present as the caffeine parent compound, whereas in Jiaming No. 1 tea seedlings, ¹⁴C was found both as the parent compound and as its metabolite, xanthine. This study revealed differences in the uptake, translocation, and metabolism of exogenous caffeine among different tea plant varieties, providing broader insights into the impact of caffeine pollution on agricultural ecosystems.

This study took Xiangshan Bay as an example to illustrate the variation characteristics of the physicochemical environments (temperature, salinity, light, nutrients, and currents) during one kelp cultivation cycle. The study was conducted from November 2020 to May 2021 through tracking down observations. Furthermore, the environmental factors were evaluated using suitability functions of kelp growth, aiming to provide references for promoting kelp cultivation in South China. We discussed the self-limiting effect of nutrients in the culture zone. The results showed that the average temperature, salinity, and light intensity during the cruises in Xiangshan Bay kelp farm were characterized by seasonal variations. Temperature was found to be the most critical environmental factor in determining the kelp cultivation window and hence the yield in Xiangshan Bay. The dissolved inorganic nitrogen (DIN) concentrations initially decreased and then increased, while the dissolved inorganic phosphorus (DIP) concentrations remained decreasing along with the kelp cultivation. The surface tide currents were dramatically attenuated by the suspended kelp cultivation, while the quasi-steady circulations which played a key role in nutrient supplementation for kelp cultivation were not weakened by the kelp cultivation. Among the cruises, the suitability indices' ranges for temperature, salinity, light, and nutrients were 0.02-0.94, 0.96-0.99, 0.97-1, 0.96-0.97 (DIN), and 0.92-0.95 (DIP), respectively. The results of the suitability functions demonstrated that the salinity and light conditions in Xiangshan Bay were very suitable for kelp cultivation and would not cause significant cultivation risks. Although the cultivated kelp could greatly absorb nutrients, the suitability index of nutrients remained adequate even during the late stage of cultivation, indicating the present kelp cultivation scale has not reached the carrying capacity of Xiangshan Bay and there is still much potential for development. To this end, further selective breeding of the thermal tolerance variety has become the key to improving the kelp cultivation performance in Xiangshan Bay. Meanwhile, the self-limiting effects in relation to nutrients are not significant in the Xiangshan Bay kelp farm, but it might be more significant in other kelp farms.

The global significance of Colocasia esculenta, a tuber crop rich in nutritional value and starch, prompts further investigation into its corm development.

Background: Previous studies have focused on starch accumulation within the tubers, yet the genetic and proteomic basis of corm expansion remains largely unexplored. This study aims to elucidate the key genes and proteins involved in this process.

Methods: We selected 'Lipu Taro No.1' and conducted a longitudinal starch content analysis, full-length transcriptome sequencing, and a proteomic analysis during three distinct stages of corm development.

Results: Our findings reveal a significant increase in both amylose and amylopectin contents as the corm develops, indicating the temporal regulation of starch biosynthesis. The integration of transcriptome and proteomic data identified differentially expressed genes and proteins associated with starch and sucrose metabolism, as well as plant hormone signal transduction.

Conclusions: This study delineates a temporal gene expression pattern that is crucial for starch synthesis and provides insights into the regulatory mechanisms controlling corm expansion and starch deposition, offering valuable references for future molecular breeding strategies to enhance taro yield and quality.

Breast cancer (BC) remains a significant global health challenge, highlighting the need for continued research into novel risk factors, diagnostic approaches, and personalized treatments. Among emerging risk factors, viral infections have been implicated as potential contributors to breast carcinogenesis and BC progression. Recent evidence suggests that specific oncogenic strains of human cytomegalovirus (HCMV) may have the capacity to transform human mammary epithelial cells. This review assesses clinical data regarding HCMV presence in both tumor and non-tumor breast tissues, examining the role of HCMV oncoproteins in BC development and progression. Current findings indicate a higher prevalence of HCMV infection in breast carcinomas compared to non-tumor tissues, associated with an elevated risk of BC. Additionally, the HCMV-driven breast carcinogenesis model proposed here suggests that HCMV oncoproteins may activate multiple oncogenic pathways, fostering cell proliferation, survival, and tumor development. A deeper understanding of the role of HCMV in BC could enhance risk stratification and support the creation of targeted therapeutic strategies.

The study discloses the application of transformer-based deep learning models for the task of super-enhancers prediction in human tumor cell lines with a specific focus on sequence-only features within studied entities of super-enhancer and enhancer elements in the human genome. The proposed SE-prediction method included the GENA-LM application at handling long DNA sequences with the classification task, distinguishing super-enhancers from enhancers using H3K36me, H3K4me1, H3K4me3 and H3K27ac landscape datasets from HeLa, HEK293, H2171, Jurkat, K562, MM1S and U87 cell lines. The model was fine-tuned on relevant sequence data, allowing for the analysis of extended genomic sequences without the need for epigenetic markers as proposed in early approaches. The study achieved balanced accuracy metrics, surpassing previous models like SENet, particularly in HEK293 and K562 cell lines. Also, it was shown that super-enhancers frequently co-localize with epigenetic marks such as H3K4me3 and H3K27ac. Therefore, the attention mechanism of the model provided insights into the sequence features contributing to SE classification, indicating a correlation between sequence-only features and mentioned epigenetic landscapes. These findings support the potential transformer models use in further genomic sequence analysis for bioinformatics applications in enhancer/super-enhancer characterization and gene regulation studies.

There are no reports of cancer in sponges, despite them having somatic cell turnover, long lifespans, and no specialized adaptive immune cells. In order to investigate whether sponges are cancer resistant, we exposed a species of sponge, Tethya wilhelma, to X-rays. We found that T. wilhelma can withstand 518 Gy of X-ray radiation. That is approximately 100 times the lethal dose for humans. A single high dose of X-rays did not induce cancer in T. wilhelma, providing the first experimental evidence of cancer resistance in the phylum Porifera. Following X-ray exposure, we found an overexpression of genes involved in DNA repair, signaling transduction pathways, and epithelial-to-mesenchymal transition. T. wilhelma has the highest level of radiation resistance that has yet been observed in animals that have sustained somatic cell turnover. This may make them an excellent model system for studying cancer resistance and developing new approaches for cancer prevention and treatment.

Right ventricular (RV) failure is a common complication in multiple congenital heart disease (CHD), significantly increasing morbidity and mortality. Despite its impact, no therapies specifically target the failing RV. The growing population of CHD patients underscores the need to understand the pathophysiology of RV failure through preclinical research. This study aimed to develop an ovine model of RV failure induced by pressure and volume overload. A total of 14 juvenile sheep randomly underwent pulmonary artery banding (n = 6), pulmonary leaflet perforation (n = 4), and pulmonary annulotomy with transannular patching (TAP) (n = 4). Detailed anesthetic and surgical protocols were described, and intraoperative and early postoperative complications were evaluated. Acute RV pressure overload resulted in a 120% increase in RV pressure (p = 0.0312). The stroke volume index and cardiac index significantly declined (p = 0.0312), and there was a significant decrease in ScvO₂ (p = 0.0312). Both TAP and leaflet perforation achieved moderate-to-severe pulmonary regurgitation. Both procedures led to an incremental trend in RV pressures and resulted in a 24% increase in the stroke volume index. All techniques demonstrated safety and feasibility, with low mortality. This comprehensive model could be reproducible in other large animal models, offering a robust platform for preclinical research into CHD-RV failure models.

Climate change is a major challenge affecting marine environments, making it essential to understand species distribution responses in both time and space for effective conservation strategies. Meanwhile, varying responses of species to climate change may lead to changes in interspecific relationships and future spatial distributions. This study assessed spatial and temporal distributions of four trophically dependent species of economic importance in the China seas, including largehead hairtail (Trichiurus lepturus), Spanish mackerel (Scomberomorus niphonius), chub mackerel (Scomber japonicus), and anchovy (Engraulis japonicus). By incorporating fishery-dependent survey data and environmental variables, we developed a spatio-temporal mixed-effects model to analyze the distributional correlations among these species and predicted their distributions by the end of the century under different climate change scenarios. The results showed that the selected environmental factors influenced encounter probability and catch rates differently. Predictions for the end of the century under representative concentration pathways (RCPs) 2.6 and RCP8.5 suggested significant shifts in population densities, with species like T. lepturus and S. niphonius experiencing reduced densities and altered spatial patterns, while E. japonicus may benefit from climate change. The center of gravity for most species was projected to shift northward by the year 2050, with notable variations under RCP8.5. Additionally, spatial overlap among species was expected to decrease significantly by the year 2100, indicating increasing divergence in their distributions. This study underscores the effects of climate change on species habitat distribution and offers a scientific basis for future habitat protection.