Enhanced Salt Tolerance of Transgenic Vegetable Soybeans Resulting from Overexpression of a Novel Δ1-Pyrroline-5-carboxylate Synthetase Gene from Solanum torvum Swartz

Gong-Chen Zhang,Wen-Li Zhu,Jun-Yi Gai,Yue-Lin Zhu,Li-Fei Yang 한국원예학회 2015 Horticulture, Environment, and Biotechnology Vol.56 No.1

Vegetable soybeans [Glycine max (L.) Merrill] are susceptible to salt stress and, thus, soil salinity can severely affect their growth and productivity. To enhance the salt tolerance of vegetable soybeans, a novel Solanum torvum Swartz Δ1-pyrroline-5-carboxylate synthetase gene (StP5CS, GenBank accession number: JN606861) that encodes a critical regulatory enzyme in proline biosynthesis was transformed into the cultivar NY-1001 using an Agrobacteriummediated transformation method. PCR and Southern blot analyses indicated that two independent T0 fertile transgenic plants were generated. The transgenic plants transmitted the transgenes into their T1 progeny in a 3:1 ratio. The T2 and T3 homozygous transgenic lines (HTLs) were examined for salt tolerance in pot and hydroponic cultures, respectively. The StP5CS overexpression conferred salt tolerance in T2 and T3 HTLs. Under NaCl stress conditions, the leaf scorch scores of T2 and T3 HTLs were significantly lower than those of wild-type (WT) plants. The plant height, leaf area, relative chlorophyll content, and number of fresh pods of T2 and T3 HTLs were significantly higher than those of WT plants. Compared with WT plants, T2 and T3 HTLs had significantly higher levels of proline and significantly lower levels of membrane lipid peroxidation. These results indicate that StP5CS overexpression in HTLs results in enhanced salt tolerance associated with higher levels of proline accumulation under salinity stress and that StP5CS can be utilized to improve salinity tolerance in vegetable crop genetic engineering.

Construction and Characterization of a Full-length cDNA Library and Identification of Genes Involved in Salinity Stress in Wild Eggplant (Solanum torvum Swartz)

Gang Chen,Hua Wang,Jun-Yi Gai,Yue-Lin Zhu,Li-Fei Yang,Qian-Qian Liu,Gong-Chen Zhang,Guo-Hu Chen 한국원예학회 2012 Horticulture, Environment, and Biotechnology Vol.53 No.2

The objectives of this paper were to construct a full-length cDNA library and to isolate genes that confer salt tolerance from the leaves of salinity-tolerant wild eggplant variety, ‘Torvum Vigor’ (Solanum torvum Swartz). A full-length cDNA library from the leaves was successfully constructed by a switching mechanism at 5’-end of RNA transcript (SMART) approach and a long-distance PCR (LD-PCR) technique. The titer of the primary cDNA library was 3.6 ×106 cfu・mL-1 and that of the amplified library was 1.2 × 1010 cfu・mL-1. Gel electrophoresis results showed that most of the cDNA inserts ranged from 0.40 to 2.5 kb, with a recombination rate of 99%. A total of 427 randomly selected positive clones were sequenced. After removing the unsuccessful reads, 364 datasets were obtained and have been submitted to the NCBI Nucleotide Sequence Database under GenBank accession numbers JK265131-JK265494. Among the 364 submitted sequences, 74.45% of them contained full-length coding regions. BLASTX analysis revealed that 62.36% of the ‘Torvum Vigor’ expressed sequence tags (ESTs) possessed homology to known or putative proteins of other organisms. Seven genes that might be responsible for the encoding of known proteins in other organisms were identified to confer salt tolerance. This evidence demonstrated that the cDNA library constructed was a full-length library of high quality. It could be a useful resource for further research in the cloning of stress-related genes, which could be utilized in the genetic improvement of vegetable crops using transgenic technology.

Research on the Inter-harmonics Equivalent Impedance of Series Hybrid Active Power Filter

Zhang Jian-gong,Liu Jian-ben,Dai Shao-jun,Chen Qiao-fu,He Jun-jia 대한전기학회 2015 Journal of Electrical Engineering & Technology Vol.10 No.5

In the series hybrid active power filter (SHAPF) with magnetic flux compensation (MFC), the system current oscillate in the experimental results when adding the same phase harmonic current command in current control block. This condition endangers the security of the SHAPF. Taking the digit period average arithmetic as example, this paper explains the inter-harmonics current oscillation in the experiment. The conclusion is that the SHAPF is unstable to the inter-harmonics current in theory. Limited by the capacity of the inverter, the system current and the inverter output current do not increase to infinite. At last, some methods are proposed to solve this problem. From the practical viewpoint, the voltage feed-forward control is easy to achieve. It can suppress the current oscillation problems, and also improve the filtering effect. The feasibility of the methods is validated by both the emulation and experiment results.

Diagnostic value of Contrast-Enhanced Ultrasound Parametric Imaging in Breast Tumors

Zhang Yuan,Jiang Quan,Zhang Yunxiao,Chen Jian,He Zhu,Gong Liping 한국유방암학회 2013 Journal of breast cancer Vol.16 No.2

Purpose: This study aimed to evaluate the diagnostic value of SonoLiver software for parametric imaging in breast tumors. Methods: Contrast-enhanced ultrasound (CEUS) was performed in 216 breast lesions (113 malignant, 103 benign). The CEUS parameters were compared between benign and malignant lesions. The rise time, the time to peak, the mean transit time and dynamic vessel pattern (DVP) were analyzed using SonoLiver software. Results: Quantitative analysis showed that the rise time was 16.52±4.15 seconds in the benign group vs. 13.86±3.36 seconds in the malignant group (p=0.007), and the time to peak was 19.86±4.87 seconds in the benign group vs. 16.52±4.85 seconds in the malignant group (p=0.009). The mean transit time was 80.55±18.65 seconds in the benign group vs. 65.16±20.28 seconds in the malignant group (p=0.006). The difference between the distribution of DVP in benign and malignant tumors was statistically significant. One hundred one malignant tumors (89.4%) performed an irregular red/yellow fill in the region of interest (ROI) and 85 benign tumors (82.5%) performed a single blue/green fill in the ROI. The sensitivity, specificity, and accuracy of parametric imaging in breast tumors were 84.1%, 85.4%, 84.7%, respectively. Conclusion: The CEUS parametric imaging can distinguish differences between malignant and benign breast tumors as well as provide diagnostic information on breast lesions.

Association of TERT rs2736098 Polymorphism with Cancer Risk: a Meta-analysis

Zhang, Xiao-Jing,Xu, Zhi,Gong, Yong-Ling,Tang, Cui-Ju,Chen, Jin-Fei Asian Pacific Journal of Cancer Prevention 2012 Asian Pacific journal of cancer prevention Vol.13 No.10

Studies have reported an association between the TERT rs2736098 single nucleotide polymorphism (SNP) and cancer susceptibility, but the results remain inconclusive. Toprovide a more precise estimation of the relationship, a meta-analysis of 8 published studies including 8,070 cases and 10,239 controls was performed. Stratification by sample size, genotyping method, source of controls and ethnicity were used to explore the source of heterogeneity. In the overall analysis, no significant association was found between the TERT rs2736098 polymorphism and cancer risk. However, the result showed the rs2736098 was significantly associated with an increased cancer risk and the heterogeneity was effectively decreased for homozygote comparison by removal of two studies: OR = 1.337 (95% CI = 1.183-1.511; Pheterogeneity = 0.087). In the subgroup analysis by ethnicity, a significantly increased risk of cancers was found among Asians (OR = 1.413, 95% CI = 1.187-1.683 for AA versus GG). Our meta-analysis did not show that the TERT rs2736098 plays an important role in cancer risk. More studies with larger sample size and well-matched controls are needed to confirm the findings.

A Fibrin Matrix Promotes the Differentiation of EMSCs Isolated from Nasal Respiratory Mucosa to Myelinating Phenotypical Schwann-Like Cells

Chen, Qian,Zhang, Zhijian,Liu, Jinbo,He, Qinghua,Zhou, Yuepeng,Shao, Genbao,Sun, Xianglan,Cao, Xudong,Gong, Aihua,Jiang, Ping Korean Society for Molecular and Cellular Biology 2015 Molecules and cells Vol.38 No.3

Because Schwann cells perform the triple tasks of myelination, axon guidance and neurotrophin synthesis, they are candidates for cell transplantation that might cure some types of nervous-system degenerative diseases or injuries. However, Schwann cells are difficult to obtain. As another option, ectomesenchymal stem cells (EMSCs) can be easily harvested from the nasal respiratory mucosa. Whether fibrin, an important transplantation vehicle, can improve the differentiation of EMSCs into Schwann-like cells (SLCs) deserves further research. EMSCs were isolated from rat nasal respiratory mucosa and were purified using anti-CD133 magnetic cell sorting. The purified cells strongly expressed HNK-1, nestin, $p75^{NTR}$, S-100, and vimentin. Using nuclear staining, the MTT assay and Western blotting analysis of the expression of cell-cycle markers, the proliferation rate of EMSCs on a fibrin matrix was found to be significantly higher than that of cells grown on a plastic surface but insignificantly lower than that of cells grown on fibronectin. Additionally, the EMSCs grown on the fibrin matrix expressed myelination-related molecules, including myelin basic protein (MBP), 2',3'-cyclic nucleotide 3'-phosphodiesterase (CNPase) and galactocerebrosides (GalCer), more strongly than did those grown on fibronectin or a plastic surface. Furthermore, the EMSCs grown on the fibrin matrix synthesized more neurotrophins compared with those grown on fibronectin or a plastic surface. The expression level of integrin in EMSCs grown on fibrin was similar to that of cells grown on fibronectin but was higher than that of cells grown on a plastic surface. These results demonstrated that fibrin not only promoted EMSC proliferation but also the differentiation of EMSCs into the SLCs. Our findings suggested that fibrin has great promise as a cell transplantation vehicle for the treatment of some types of nervous system diseases or injuries.

Transcriptional regulation of Glis2 in hepatic fibrosis

Gong Huan-Yu,Zhou Peng-Cheng,Zhang Hao-Ye,Chen Li-Min,Zhou Yang-Mei,Liu Zhen-Guo 생화학분자생물학회 2023 Experimental and molecular medicine Vol.55 No.-

The role of Gli-similar 2 (Glis2) in hepatic fibrosis (HF) is controversial. In this study, we focused on the functional and molecular mechanisms involved in the Glis2-mediated activation of hepatic stellate cells (HSCs)—a milestone event leading to HF. The expression levels of Glis2 mRNA and protein were significantly decreased in the liver tissues of patients with severe HF and in mouse fibrotic liver tissues as well as HSCs activated by TGFβ1. Functional studies indicated that upregulated Glis2 significantly inhibited HSC activation and alleviated BDL-induced HF in mice. Downregulation of Glis2 was found to correlate significantly with DNA methylation of the Glis2 promoter mediated by methyltransferase 1 (DNMT1), which restricted the binding of hepatic nuclear factor 1-α (HNF1-α), a liver-specific transcription factor, to Glis2 promoters. In addition, the enrichment of DNMT1 in the Glis2 promoter region was mediated by metastasis-associated lung adenocarcinoma transcriptor-1 (MALAT1) lncRNA, leading to transcriptional silencing of Glis2 and activation of HSCs. In conclusion, our findings reveal that the upregulation of Glis2 can maintain the resting state of HSCs. The decreased expression of Glis2 under pathological conditions may lead to the occurrence and development of HF with the expression silencing of DNA methylation mediated by MALAT1 and DNMT1.

Distributed Convex Optimization for Flocking of Nonlinear Multi-agent Systems

Qing Zhang,Zhikun Gong,Zhengquan Yang,Zengqiang Chen 제어·로봇·시스템학회 2019 International Journal of Control, Automation, and Vol.17 No.5

A distributed optimization problem with differentiable convex objective function is discussed forcontinuous-time multi-agent systems with flocking behavior of a nonlinear continuous function. The goal of thispaper is to design a controller by using only local interaction information, thus making velocities of all agents be thesame. Then the stability of the multi-agent systems is proved and the velocities converge to the value minimizingthe sum of local objective functions. Moreover, the paper got some sufficient conditions for the consensus and theoptimization. Finally, a numerical case is used to verify the analytical results.

Enhanced Thermal Conductivity of BN/SR Composites via Biomass‑Modifcation of BN

Yanting Zhang,Cheng Cai,Tao Chen,Chonggang Wu,Xinghou Gong,Jiang Hong,Tao Hu 대한금속·재료학회 2023 ELECTRONIC MATERIALS LETTERS Vol.19 No.2

As microelectronics technology advances and develops, issues such as heat management and reliability of electronic componentswill become more exposed. Here, this paper explored a green biomass modification method for preparing compositeswith both good thermal conductivity and dielectric properties. Namely, boron nitride (BN) was first surface coated with thecopolymerization product of tea polyphenols and theophylline, both of which can be extracted from tea leaves. Then, throughsolution blending the coated-BN (BN@TPP) with silicone rubber (SR), the BN@TPP/SR composites were obtained. Owingprobably to the coated layer, BN@TPP were more evenly dispersed within the SR matrix, which effectively reduced theinterfacial thermal resistance and improved the thermal conductivity of composites. The thermal diffusion coefficient andthermal conductivity of 40 wt% BN@TPP/SR composites reached 0.216 mm2/s and 0.462 W/mK, which are higher thanBN/SR composites (0.155 mm2/s, 0.349 W/mK), respectively. Meanwhile, the 40 wt% BN@TPP/SR composite maintaineddielectric constant (3.9 at 1 kHz) and low dielectric loss (0.005 at 1 kHz). In conclusion, this green biomass modificationmethod not only provides a simple and environmentally friendly modification method for BN, but also offers a novel ideathat can be applied to the practical preparation of thermally conductive materials for electronic devices.

Novel Compact Bandpass Filter Based on Folded Half Mode Substrate Integrated Waveguide Cavities

Ke Gong,Wei Hong,Jixin Chen,Hongjun Tang,Debin Hou,Yan Zhang 한국전자파학회JEES 2010 Journal of Electromagnetic Engineering and Science Vol.10 No.3

This paper proposed a novel compact bandpass filter with folded half mode substrate integrated waveguide (FHMSIW) cavities using two-layer printed circuit board(PCB) process. The area of the FHMSIW filter is reduced by nearly 50 % and 75 % compared with half mode substrate integrated waveguide(HMSIW) filter and substrate integrated waveguide(SIW) filter, respectively. A four-pole Chebyshev FHMSIW bandpass filter at C-band has been designed, simulated and fabricated. Measured results are presented and found to agree with the full-wave simulated results by using Ansoft HFSS. The filter shows good performance and compact size.