Genetic variations in the bitter taste receptor gene TAS2R38 are related to cigarette smoking behavior in Han Chinese smokers

Qi Fei-Yan,Zhu Zhou-Hai,Li Meng,Guan Ying,Peng Qi-Yuan,Lu She-Ming,Liu Zhi-Hua,Wang Ming-Feng,Miao Ming-Ming,Chen Zhang-Yu,Li Xue-Mei,Bai Jie,Yao Jian-Hua 한국유전학회 2022 Genes & Genomics Vol.44 No.11

Background: Smoking behavior is influenced by multiple genes, including the bitter taste gene TAS2R38. It has been reported that the correlation between TAS2R38 and smoking behavior has ethnicity-based differences. However, the TAS2R38 status in Chinese smokers is still unclear. Objective: This study aims to investigate the possible relationship between genetic variations in TAS2R38 (A49P, V262A and I296V) and smoking behaviors in the Han Chinese population. Methods: The haplotype analyses were performed and smoking behavior questionnaire was completed by 1271 individuals. Genetic association analyses for smoking behavior were analyzed using chi-square test. Further, for investigating the molecular mechanism of TAS2R38 variants effect on smoking behavior, we conducted TAS2R38-PAV and TAS2R38-AVI expression plasmids and tested the cellular calcium assay by cigarette smoke compounds stimulus in HEK293. Results: Significant associations of genetic variants within TAS2R38 were identified with smoking behavior. We found a higher PAV/PAV frequency than AVI/AVI in moderate and high nicotine dependence (FTND ≥ 4; X2 = 4.611, 1 df, p = 0.032) and strong cigarette smoke flavor intensity preference (X2 = 4.5383, 1 df, p = 0.033) in participants. Furthermore, in the in vitro cellular calcium assay, total particle matter (TPM), N-formylnornicotine and cotinine, existing in cigarette smoke, activated TAS2R38-PAV but not TAS2R38-AVI-transfected cells. Conclusion: Our data highlights that genetic variations in TAS2R38 are related to smoking behavior, especially nicotine dependence and cigarette smoke flavor intensity preference. Our findings may encourage further consideration of the taste process to identify individuals susceptible to nicotine dependence, particularly Han Chinese smokers.

Function of Global Regulator CodY in Bacillus thuringiensis BMB171 by Comparative Proteomic Analysis

( Ming Xia Qi ),( Fei Mei ),( Hui Wang ),( Ming Sun ),( Ge Jiao Wang ),( Ziniu Yu ),( Yeon Ho Je ),( Ming Shun Li ) 한국미생물 · 생명공학회 2015 Journal of microbiology and biotechnology Vol.25 No.2

CodY is a highly conserved protein in low G+C gram-positive bacteria that regulates genes involved in sporulation and stationary-phase adaptation. Bacillus thuringiensis is a grampositive bacterium that forms spores and parasporal crystals during the stationary phase. To our knowledge, the regulatory mechanism of CodY in B. thuringiensis is unknown. To study the function of CodY protein in B. thuringiensis, BMB171codY- was constructed in a BMB171 strain. A shuttle vector containing the ORF of cry1Ac10 was transformed into BMB171 and BMB171codY-, named BMB171cry1Ac and BMB171codY-cry1Ac, respectively. Some morphological and physiological changes of codY mutant BMB171codY-cry1Ac were observed. A comparative proteomic analysis was conducted for both BMB171codY-cry1Ac and BMB171cry1Ac through two-dimensional gel electrophoresis and MALDI-TOF-MS/MS analysis. The results showed that the proteins regulated by CodY are involved in microbial metabolism, including branched-chain amino acid metabolism, carbohydrate metabolism, fatty acid metabolism, and energy metabolism. Furthermore, we found CodY to be involved in sporulation, biosynthesis of poly-β-hydroxybutyrate, growth, genetic competence, and translation. According to the analysis of differentially expressed proteins, and physiological characterization of the codY mutant, we performed bacterial one-hybrid and electrophoretic mobility shift assay experiments and confirmed the direct regulation of genes by CodY, specifically those involved in metabolism of branched-chain amino acids, ribosomal recycling factor FRR, and the late competence protein ComER. Our data establish the foundation for in-depth study of the regulation of CodY in B. thuringiensis, and also offer a potential biocatalyst for functions of CodY in other bacteria.

Exploration on Obstacle Avoidance and Study of Balance

WANG Qi-ming,Liu Jian-fen,Shi He-sheng 보안공학연구지원센터 2016 International Journal of Grid and Distributed Comp Vol.9 No.3

This paper studies ε-greedy algorithm and softmax algorithm in obstacle avoidance and balance study. In the experiment, Sarsa algorithm and Q-Learning algorithm were used to appropriately simplify and build the model of obstacle avoidance; softmax algorithm was used to address how to balance exploration and utilisation; and two classical algorithms of reinforcement learning were adopted to deal with obstacle avoidance. The results generated by simulation prove that Sarsa algorithm and Q-Learning algorithm can handle obstacle avoidance and balance study in limited time step, which makes the intelligent agent improve the non-maximum estimated value of the value function of the state so as to choose the best action that has been carried out. In addition, Sarsa algorithm and Q-Learning algorithm can also enable the intelligent agent to try new actions and find out the optimal one.

Mineralogy and isotope geochemical characteristics for Xiaozhen copper deposit, Langao County, Shaanxi Province and their constraint on genesis of the deposit

Gang Wang,Zong-qi Wang,Rui Shi,Ying-li Zhang,Kun-ming Wang 한국지질과학협의회 2015 Geosciences Journal Vol.19 No.2

The Xiaozhen copper deposit is a typical deposit in the North Daba Mountain area polymetallic metallogenic belt. With the exception of geological prospecting research, however, few studies have been reported on the genesis of the deposit. This paper focuses on the mineralogical and isotope geochemical characteristics for the Xiaozhen copper deposit. Detailed field-work and microscope observations suggest that the ore’s structural fabric and mineral assemblages feature a medium–low-temperature hydrothermal pattern of metallogeny. The results of electron microprobe analysis indicate that chalcopyrite atomic ratio ΣMe/S = ~0.95–1.03, which suggests that they may not be of sedimentary origin. In addition, the S content of the pyrite is from 50.57 wt% to 53.16 wt% that is less than standard the value of 53.45 wt%, the Fe/S value is from 0.878 to 0.955, and the Ni content in pyrite is high even up to 0.38 wt%. These results, combined with Ni-Co graphic projection, indicate that the pyrite is of magmatic hydrothermal origin. Moreover, most of the sphalerites contain Se, and their calculated w(FeS) content ranging from 4.60 wt% to 10.37 wt% suggest magmatic origin and a formation temperature of approximately 300 °C. Further, the content of χ(Fe) is from 46.55 wt% to 46.97 wt% for pyrrhotites, suggesting they are clino-pyrrhotites. This result, combined with mineral assemblages and the Fe-S system diagram, indicates a mineralization temperature of approximately 310 °C. The δ34S values of the sulfide range from 2.6‰ to 11.5‰, indicating multisource properties. The 208Pb/204Pb has wider ratios (~38.897–39.918), reflecting that they contain abundant radiogenic lead. The Pb isotope tectonic setting and genetic classification plot show that the ore lead was provided mainly by the upper crust in addition to a few magma materials. The analytical results of fluid inclusions in the chalcopyrite show that the 3He/4He ratios are ~0.268–0.326 R/Ra, which is higher than the crustal ratios but grossly lower than that of the mantle fluid and that the 40Ar/36Ar ratios are higher than the argon isotopic composition of the atmosphere. Moreover, the He-Ar isotope system suggests that the source of the ore-forming fluids is predominantly meteoric low-temperature underground water, with a small amount of mantle fluid. In summary, this study has determined that the Xiaozhen copper deposit is a medium-temperature magmatic hydrothermal deposit. This finding is combined with metallogenic age to briefly describe the mineralization process.

Mining and Verification of Cold Stress-responsive Genes Correlated with the Cryogenic Autolysis of Volvariella volvacea

Ming Gong,Hong Wang,Mingjie Chen,Dapeng Bao,Qiuming Zhu,Qi Tan 한국버섯학회 2017 버섯 Vol.21 No.2

In Volvariella volvacea, a species of edible mushroom, cryogenic autolysis is a typical part of abnormal metabolism. Previous functional annotation cluster analyses of cold-induced gene expression profiles have shown that the ubiquitin-conjugating enzyme E2 (UBE2) and the cyclin-like F-box domain (FBDC) form the functional clusters. Among them, a specific FBDC gene has been found to be in response to cold stress and correlated with the cryogenic autolysis of V. volvacea. In this study, analysis of gene expression profiling showed that only one type of UBE2 in V. volvacea (UBEV2) was significantly up-regulated. Further quantitative real-time PCR analysis confirmed that the expression of UBEV2 was significantly up-regulated (P < 0.05) after cold-treatment lasting 4, 6, and 8 h. Western-bolt analyses confirmed that the protein expression of UBEV2 was in response to cold stress. This provided evidence that UBEV2 was a cold stress-responsive gene and closely correlated with cryogenic autolysis. The specific distribution of UBEV2 in recently diverged herb decay fungi indicated that UBEV2 was not evolutionarily correlated with early diverging fungi. Phylogenetic analysis indicated that UBEV2 was generated by horizontal gene transfer (HGT) from the ancestry of Selaginella moellendorffii UBE2. Further relative time estimation and detection of natural selection showed that there has been recent positive selection after HGT in UBEV2. Molecular modeling and logo analysis showed that the cysteine-cysteine motif is the characteristic of the UBEV2 family. These observations indicate that UBEV2 and FBDV1 are the newly discovered cold stress-responsive genes correlated with the cryogenic autolysis of V. volvacea.

Cloning and Characterization of Squalene Synthase (SQS) Gene from Ganoderma Lucidum

( Ming Wen Zhao ),( Wan Qi Liang ),( Da Bing Zhang ),( Wang Nan ),( Chen Guang Wang ),( Ying Jie Pan ) 한국미생물생명공학회 2007 Journal of microbiology and biotechnology Vol.17 No.7

Evaluate Dry Deposition Velocity of the Nitrogen Oxides Using Noah-MP Physics Ensemble Simulations for the Dinghushan Forest, Southern China

Qi Zhang,Ming Chang,Shengzhen Zhou,Weihua Chen,Xuemei Wang,Wenhui Liao,Jianing Dai,ZhiYong Wu 한국기상학회 2017 Asia-Pacific Journal of Atmospheric Sciences Vol.53 No.4

There has been a rapid growth of reactive nitrogen (Nr) deposition over the world in the past decades. The Pearl River Delta region is one of the areas with high loading of nitrogen deposition. But there are still large uncertainties in the study of dry deposition because of its complex processes of physical chemistry and vegetation physiology. At present, the forest canopy parameterization scheme used in WRF-Chem model is a single-layer “big leaf” model, and the simulation of radiation transmission and energy balance in forest canopy is not detailed and accurate. Noah-MP land surface model (Noah-MP) is based on the Noah land surface model (Noah LSM) and has multiple parametric options to simulate the energy, momentum, and material interactions of the vegetation-soil-atmosphere system. Therefore, to investigate the improvement of the simulation results of WRF-Chem on the nitrogen deposition in forest area after coupled with Noah-MP model and to reduce the influence of meteorological simulation biases on the dry deposition velocity simulation, a dry deposition single-point model coupled by Noah- MP and the WRF-Chem dry deposition module (WDDM) was used to simulate the deposition velocity (Vd). The model was driven by the micro-meteorological observation of the Dinghushan Forest Ecosystem Location Station. And a series of numerical experiments were carried out to identify the key processes influencing the calculation of dry deposition velocity, and the effects of various surface physical and plant physiological processes on dry deposition were discussed. The model captured the observed Vd well, but still underestimated the Vd. The self-defect of Wesely scheme applied by WDDM, and the inaccuracy of built-in parameters in WDDM and input data for Noah-MP (e.g. LAI) were the key factors that cause the underestimation of Vd. Therefore, future work is needed to improve model mechanisms and parameterization.

Impact of Refined Land Surface Properties on the Simulation of a Heavy Convective Rainfall Process in the Pearl River Delta Region, China

Ming Chang,Shaofen Fan,Qi Fan,Weihua Chen,Yiqiang Zhang,Yu Wang,Xuemei Wang 한국기상학회 2014 Asia-Pacific Journal of Atmospheric Sciences Vol.50 No.5

The location and occurrence time of convective rainfallshave attracted great public concern as they can lead to terribledisasters. However, the simulation results of convective rainfalls inthe Pearl River Delta region often show significant discrepanciesfrom the observations. One of the major causes lies in the inaccurategeographic distribution of land surface properties used in the modelsimulation of the heavy precipitation. In this study, we replaced thedefault soil and vegetation datasets of Weather Research andForecasting (WRF) model with two refined datasets, i.e. theGlobCover 2009 (GLC2009) land cover map and the HarmonizedWorld Soil Database (HWSD) soil texture, to investigate the impactof vegetation and soil on the rainfall patterns. The result showed thatthe simulation patterns of convective rainfalls obtained from thecoupled refined datasets are more consistent with the observationsthan those obtained from the default ones. By using the coupledrefined land surface datasets, the overlap ratio of high precipitationdistricts reached 36.3% with a variance of 28.5 km from theobserved maximum rainfall position, while those of the defaultUnited States Geological Survey (USGS) dataset and ModerateResolution Imaging Spectroradiometer (MODIS) dataset are 17.0%/32.8 km and 24.9%/49.0 km, respectively. The simulated totalrainfall amount and occurrence time using the coupled refineddatasets are the closest to the observed peak values. In addition, theHWSD soil data has improved the accuracy of the simulatedprecipitation amount, and the GLC2009 land cover data also didbetter in catching the early peak time.

Interleukin-18 Synergism with Interleukin-2 in Cytotoxicity and NKG2D Expression of Human Natural Killer Cells

Qi, Yuan-Ying,Lu, Chao,Ju, Ying,Wang, Zi-E,Li, Yuan-Tang,Shen, Ya-Juan,Lu, Zhi-Ming Asian Pacific Journal of Cancer Prevention 2014 Asian Pacific journal of cancer prevention Vol.15 No.18

Natural killer (NK) cells play an important role in anti-tumor immunity. Interleukin (IL)-18 is an immunoregulatory cytokine that induces potent NK cell-dependent anti-tumor responses when administrated with other cytokines. In this study, we explored the effects of combining IL-18 and IL-2 on NK cytotoxicity as well as expression levels of the NK cell receptor NKG2D in vitro. Freshly isolated PBMCs were incubated for 48 h with IL-18 and IL-2, then CD107a expression on $CD3^-CD56^+$ NK cells was determined by three-colour flow cytometry to evaluate the cytotoxicity of NK cells against human erythroleukemia K562 cells and human colon carcinoma HT29 cells. Flow cytometric analysis was also employed to determine NKG2D expression on NK cells. The combined use of IL-18 and IL-2 significantly increased CD107a expression on NK cells compared with using IL-18 or IL-2 alone, suggesting that the combination of these two cytokines exerted synergistic enhancement of NK cytotoxicity. IL-18 also enhanced NKG2D expression on NK cells when administered with IL-2. In addition, blockade of NKG2D signaling with NKG2D-blocking antibody attenuated the up-regulatory effect of combining IL-18 and IL-2 on NK cytolysis. Our data revealed that IL-18 synergized with IL-2 to dramatically enhance the cytolytic activity of human NK cells in a NKG2D-dependent manner. The results appear encouraging for the use of combined IL-18 and IL-2 in tumor immunotherapy.

Characterization of a Novel cry1-Type Gene from Bacillus thuringiensis subsp. alesti Strain LY-99

Qi, Xu Feng,Li, Ming Shun,Choi, Jae-Young,Roh, Jong-Yul,Song, Ji Zhen,Wang, Yong,Jin, Byung-Rae,Je, Yeon-Ho,Li, Jian Hong Korean Society of Sericultural Science 2009 International Journal of Industrial Entomology Vol.18 No.1

B. thuringiensis strain LY-99 belonging to subsp. alesti (H3a3c), was isolated from Chinese tobacco warehouse and showed significantly high toxicity to Plutella xylostella. For the identification of the cry1-type genes from B. thuringiensis LY-99, an extended multiplex PCRrestriction fragment length polymorphism (PCRRFLP) method was established by using two pairs of universal primers based on the conserved regions of the cry1-type genes to amplify around 2.4 kb cry1-type gene fragments. Then the DNA fragment was cloned into pGEM-T Easy vector and digested with EcoRI and EcoRV enzymes. Through this method, a known cry1-type gene was successfully identified from the reference strain, B. thuringiensis subsp. alesti. In addition, the RFLP patterns revealed that B. thuringiensis LY-99 included a novel cry1A-type gene in addition to cry1Aa, cry1Ac, cry1Be and cry1Ea genes. The novel cry1A-type gene was designated cry1Ah2 (Genbank accession No DQ269474). An inverse PCR method was used to amplify the flank regions of cry1Ah2 gene. Finally, 3143 bp HindIII fragment from B. thuringiensis LY-99 plasmid DNA including 5' region and partial ORF was amplified, and sequence analysis revealed that cry1Ah2 gene from LY-99 showed 89.31% of maximum sequence similarity with cry1Ac1 crystal protein gene. In addition, the deduced amino acid sequence of Cry1Ah2 protein shared 87.80% of maximum identity with that of Cry1Ac2. This protein therefore belongs to a new class of B. thuringiensis crystal proteins.