Quantifying herbicide dose-response and resistance in <i>Echinochloa</i> spp. by measuring root length in growth pouches

Zhang, C. J.,Lim, S. H.,Kim, J. W.,Song, J. S.,Yook, M. J.,Nah, G.,Valverde, B. E.,Kim, D. S. Canadian Science Publishing 2015 Canadian journal of plant science. Revue canadienn Vol.95 No.6

<P> Zhang, C. J., Lim, S. H., Kim, J. W., Song, J. S., Yook, M. J., Nah, G., Valverde, N. E. and Kim, D. S. 2015. Quantifying herbicide dose-response and resistance in Echinochloa spp. by measuring root length in growth pouches. Can. J. Plant Sci. 95: 1181-1192. The aim of the presented study was to develop a bioassay for rapid diagnosis of herbicide dose-response and resistance in Echinochloa. Pre-germinated seeds of Echinochloa spp. were incubated in growth pouches (18 cm×16.5 cm) containing herbicide solutions in a range of concentrations. Shoot and root lengths were measured after 6 d of incubation. Dose-responses estimated by measuring root lengths in the growth pouches were well-described by the log-logistic dose-response model and similar to those estimated by a whole-plant assay. Accurate dose-response curves were successfully generated for several herbicides with different modes of action, suggesting that the growth pouch method can be used for herbicide bioassays. The suitability of the growth pouch method for rapid diagnosis of acetyl coenzyme-A carboxylase (ACCase) and acetolactate synthase (ALS) inhibitor resistance in Echinochloa spp. was also tested. For cyhalofop-butyl, resistant and susceptible biotypes were discriminated at 180-300 mg a.i. L<SUP>−1</SUP> and 80-120 mg a.i. L<SUP>−1</SUP> for barnyardgrass (E. crus-galli) and late watergrass (E. oryzicola), respectively. For penoxsulam, the discriminatory dosage was 350-500 mg a.i. L<SUP>−1</SUP> for barnyardgrass and 650-1000 mg a.i. L<SUP>−1</SUP> for late watergrass. The method was further used to identify late watergrass biotypes resistant and susceptible to two other ALS inhibitors, azimsulfuron and bispyribac-sodium. Our results show that the growth pouch method can be reliably used in herbicide dose-response studies and to diagnose herbicide resistance in Echinochloa spp., with significant time and cost savings compared with conventional whole-plant assays. </P>

α-Cyperone Alleviates Lung Cell Injury Caused by Staphylococcus aureus via Attenuation of α-Hemolysin Expression

( Luo M ),( J Qiu ),( Y Zhang ),( J Dong ),( H Li ),( B Leng ),( Q Zhang ),( X Dai ),( X Niu ),( S Zhao ),( X Deng ) 한국미생물 · 생명공학회 2012 Journal of microbiology and biotechnology Vol.22 No.8

In this study, we aimed to evaluate the effect of a-cyperone on S. aureus. We used a hemolysin test to examine the hemolytic activity in supernatants of S. aureus cultured with increasing concentrations of a-cyperone. In addition, we evaluated the production of a-hemolysin (Hla) by Western blotting. Real-time RT-PCR was performed to test the expression of hla (the gene encoding Hla) and agr (accessory gene regulator). Furthermore, we investigated the protective effect of a-cyperone on Hla-induced injury of A549 lung cells by live/dead and cytotoxicity assays. We showed that in the presence of subinhibitory concentrations of a-cyperone, Hla production was markedly inhibited. Moreover, a-cyperone protected lung cells from Hla-induced injury. These findings indicate that a-cyperone is a promising inhibitor of Hla production by S. aureus and protects lung cells from this bacterium. Thus, a-cyperone may provide the basis for a new strategy to combat S. aureus pneumonia.

Sensitivity of surface characteristics on the simulation of wind-blown-dust source in North America

Park, S.H.,Gong, S.L.,Gong, W.,Makar, P.A.,Moran, M.D.,Stroud, C.A.,Zhang, J. Pergamon Press ; Elsevier [distribution] 2009 Atmospheric environment Vol.43 No.19

Recently, a wind-blown-dust-emission module has been built based on a state-of-the-art wind erosion theory and evaluated in a regional air-quality model to simulate a North American dust storm episode in April 2001 (see Park, S.H., Gong, S.L., Zhao, T.L., Vet, R.J., Bouchet, V.S., Gong, W., Makar, P.A., Moran, M.D., Stroud, C., Zhang, J. 2007. Simulation of entrainment and transport of dust particles within North America in April 2001 (''Red Dust episode''). J. Geophys. Res. 112, D20209, doi:10.1029/2007JD008443). A satisfactorily detailed assessment of that module, however, was not possible because of a lack of information on some module inputs, especially soil moisture content. In this paper, the wind-blown-dust emission was evaluated for two additional dust storms using improved soil moisture inputs. The surface characteristics of the wind-blown-dust source areas in southwestern North America were also investigated, focusing on their implications for wind-blown-dust emissions. The improved soil moisture inputs enabled the sensitivity of other important surface characteristics, the soil grain size distribution and the land-cover, to dust emission to be investigated with more confidence. Simulations of the two 2003 dust storm episodes suggested that wind-blown-dust emissions from the desert areas in southwestern North America are dominated by emissions from dry playas covered with accumulated alluvial deposits whose particle size is much smaller than usual desert sands. As well, the source areas in the northwestern Texas region were indicated to be not desert but rather agricultural lands that were ''activated'' as a wind-blown-dust sources after harvest. This finding calls for revisions to the current wind-blown-dust-emission module, in which ''desert'' is designated to be the only land-cover category that can emit wind-blown dust.

Optical spectroscopy of PPV-based block copolymers of nanostructured supramolecular organic semiconductor.

Yang, Q,Battle, R,Zhang, C,Ma, S M,Seo, J T,Tabibi, B,Temple, D,Sun, S,Jung, S S,Namkung, M American Scientific Publishers 2009 Journal of nanoscience and nanotechnology Vol.9 No.2

<P>The third-order nonlinearity of a PPV-based nanostructured supramolecular organic semiconductor (DBAB), with an electron donor (D) connected to an electron acceptor (A) via nonconjugated and flexible bridge (B) units, was investigated in this work at both near-resonant (532 nm) and nonresonant (1064 nm) wavelength by using degenerate four-wave mixing. The second hyperpolarizabilities of D, A, and DBAB at 532 nm were found to be approximately 2.42 x 10(-43) m2/V2, 7.75 x 10(-44) m2/V2, and 1.80 x 10(-43) m2/V2 in copolarization geometry, and approximately 1.59 x 10(-43) m2/V2, 2.59 x 10(-44) m2/V2, and 1.18 x 10(-43) m2/V2 in orthogonal polarization geometry, respectively. The second hyperpolarizabilities of DBAB at 1064 nm were approximately 1.66 x 10(-46) m2/V2 and approximately 8.77 x 10(-47) m2/V2 for parallel and orthogonal polarization cases.</P>

Infall Signatures in a Prestellar Core Embedded in the High-mass 70 <i>μ</i>m Dark IRDC G331.372-00.116

Contreras, Yanett,Sanhueza, Patricio,Jackson, James M.,Guzmá,n, André,s E.,Longmore, Steven,Garay, Guido,Zhang, Qizhou,Nguyê,̃,n-Lu’o’, Quang,Tatematsu, Ken’ichi,Nakamura, Fumita American Astronomical Society 2018 The Astrophysical journal Vol.861 No.1

<P>Using Galactic Plane surveys, we have selected a massive (1200M circle dot), cold (14 K) 3.6-70 mu m dark IRDC, G331.372-00.116. This infrared dark cloud (IRDC) has the potential to form high-mass stars, and given the absence of current star formation signatures, it seems to represent the earliest stages of high-mass star formation. We have mapped the whole IRDC with the Atacama Large Millimeter/submillimeter Array (ALMA) at 1.1 and 1.3 mm in dust continuum and line emission. The dust continuum reveals 22 cores distributed across the IRDC. In this work, we analyze the physical properties of the most massive core, ALMA1, which has no molecular outflows detected in the CO (2-1), SiO (5-4), and H2CO (3-2) lines. This core is relatively massive (M = 17.6M circle dot), subvirialized (virial parameter alpha(vir) = M-vir/M = 0.14), and is barely affected by turbulence (transonic Mach number of 1.2). Using the HCO+ (3-2) line, we find the first detection of infall signatures in a relatively massive, prestellar core (ALMA1) with the potential to form a high-mass star. We estimate an infall speed of 1.54 km s(-1) and a high accretion rate of 1.96. x. 10(-3) M circle dot yr(-1). ALMA1 is rapidly collapsing, out of virial equilibrium, which is more consistent with competitive accretion scenarios rather than the turbulent core accretion model. On the other hand, ALMA1 has a mass similar to 6 times larger than the clumps Jeans mass, as it is in an intermediate mass regime (M-J = 2.7 < M less than or similar to 30 M circle dot), contrary to what both the competitive accretion and turbulent core accretion theories predict.</P>

Interfacial fabrication and property of hydroxyapatite/polylactideresorbable bone fixation composites

S.M. Zhang,J. Liu,W. Zhou,L. Cheng,X.D. Guo 한국물리학회 2005 Current Applied Physics Vol.5 No.5

Based on surface modication of hydroxyapatite with silane derivatives, interfacial fabrications of hydroxyapatite (HAP)/poly-lactide (PLA) resorbable bone xation composites are realized. The results indicate that interfacial adhesion, swelling property, andultimate mechanical properties of the HAP/PLA composites are signicantly improved. As a result, the maximum bending strengthenhances 27.8%. Scanning electron microscopy (SEM) observation suggests that the modied HA particles are homogeneously dis-persed in the composites, their size ranges are about 215l m. The modied HA/PLA composites are of toughened rupture. Thisconclusion is consistent with bending property of the composites. Finally, a possible mechanism for the interfacial adhesion is alsodiscussed..

Genome Wide Proteomics of ERBB2 and EGFR and Other Oncogenic Pathways in Inflammatory Breast Cancer

Zhang, Emma Yue,Cristofanilli, Massimo,Robertson, Fredika,Reuben, James M.,Mu, Zhaomei,Beavis, Ronald C.,Im, Hogune,Snyder, Michael,Hofree, Matan,Ideker, Trey,Omenn, Gilbert S.,Fanayan, Susan,Jeong, S American Chemical Society 2013 Journal of proteome research Vol.12 No.6

<P>In this study we selected three breast cancer cell lines (SKBR3, SUM149 and SUM190) with different oncogene expression levels involved in ERBB2 and EGFR signaling pathways as a model system for the evaluation of selective integration of subsets of transcriptomic and proteomic data. We assessed the oncogene status with reads per kilobase per million mapped reads (RPKM) values for ERBB2 (14.4, 400, and 300 for SUM149, SUM190, and SKBR3, respectively) and for EGFR (60.1, not detected, and 1.4 for the same 3 cell lines). We then used RNA-Seq data to identify those oncogenes with significant transcript levels in these cell lines (total 31) and interrogated the corresponding proteomics data sets for proteins with significant interaction values with these oncogenes. The number of observed interactors for each oncogene showed a significant range, e.g., 4.2% (JAK1) to 27.3% (MYC). The percentage is measured as a fraction of the total protein interactions in a given data set vs total interactors for that oncogene in STRING (Search Tool for the Retrieval of Interacting Genes/Proteins, version 9.0) and I2D (Interologous Interaction Database, version 1.95). This approach allowed us to focus on 4 main oncogenes, ERBB2, EGFR, MYC, and GRB2, for pathway analysis. We used bioinformatics sites GeneGo, PathwayCommons and NCI receptor signaling networks to identify pathways that contained the four main oncogenes and had good coverage in the transcriptomic and proteomic data sets as well as a significant number of oncogene interactors. The four pathways identified were ERBB signaling, EGFR1 signaling, integrin outside-in signaling, and validated targets of C-MYC transcriptional activation. The greater dynamic range of the RNA-Seq values allowed the use of transcript ratios to correlate observed protein values with the relative levels of the ERBB2 and EGFR transcripts in each of the four pathways. This provided us with potential proteomic signatures for the SUM149 and 190 cell lines, growth factor receptor-bound protein 7 (GRB7), Crk-like protein (CRKL) and Catenin delta-1 (CTNND1) for ERBB signaling; caveolin 1 (CAV1), plectin (PLEC) for EGFR signaling; filamin A (FLNA) and actinin alpha1 (ACTN1) (associated with high levels of EGFR transcript) for integrin signalings; branched chain amino-acid transaminase 1 (BCAT1), carbamoyl-phosphate synthetase (CAD), nucleolin (NCL) (high levels of EGFR transcript); transferrin receptor (TFRC), metadherin (MTDH) (high levels of ERBB2 transcript) for MYC signaling; S100-A2 protein (S100A2), caveolin 1 (CAV1), Serpin B5 (SERPINB5), stratifin (SFN), PYD and CARD domain containing (PYCARD), and EPH receptor A2 (EPHA2) for PI3K signaling, p53 subpathway. Future studies of inflammatory breast cancer (IBC), from which the cell lines were derived, will be used to explore the significance of these observations.</P><P><B>Graphic Abstract</B> <IMG SRC='http://pubs.acs.org/appl/literatum/publisher/achs/journals/content/jprobs/2013/jprobs.2013.12.issue-6/pr4001527/production/images/medium/pr-2013-001527_0010.gif'></P><P><A href='http://pubs.acs.org/doi/suppl/10.1021/pr4001527'>ACS Electronic Supporting Info</A></P>

Evaluation of VIIRS, GOCI, and MODIS Collection 6 AOD retrievals against ground sunphotometer observations over East Asia

Xiao, Q.,Zhang, H.,Choi, M.,Li, S.,Kondragunta, S.,Kim, J.,Holben, B.,Levy, R. C.,Liu, Y. Copernicus GmbH 2016 Atmospheric Chemistry and Physics Vol.16 No.3

<P>Abstract. Persistent high aerosol loadings together with extremely high population densities have raised serious air quality and public health concerns in many urban centers in East Asia. However, ground-based air quality monitoring is relatively limited in this area. Recently, satellite-retrieved Aerosol Optical Depth (AOD) at high resolution has become a powerful tool to characterize aerosol patterns in space and time. Using ground AOD observations from the Aerosol Robotic Network (AERONET) and the Distributed Regional Aerosol Gridded Observation Networks (DRAGON)-Asia Campaign, as well as from handheld sunphotometers, we evaluated emerging aerosol products from the Visible Infrared Imaging Radiometer Suite (VIIRS) aboard the Suomi National Polar-orbiting Partnership (S-NPP), the Geostationary Ocean Color Imager (GOCI) aboard the Communication, Ocean, and Meteorology Satellite (COMS), and Terra and Aqua Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer (MODIS) (Collection 6) in East Asia in 2012 and 2013. In the case study in Beijing, when compared with AOD observations from handheld sunphotometers, 51 % of VIIRS Environmental Data Record (EDR) AOD, 37 % of GOCI AOD, 33 % of VIIRS Intermediate Product (IP) AOD, 26 % of Terra MODIS C6 3 km AOD, and 16 % of Aqua MODIS C6 3 km AOD fell within the reference expected error (EE) envelope (±0.05 ± 0.15 AOD). Comparing against AERONET AOD over the Japan-South Korea region, 64 % of EDR, 37 % of IP, 61 % of GOCI, 39 % of Terra MODIS, and 56 % of Aqua MODIS C6 3 km AOD fell within the EE. In general, satellite aerosol products performed better in tracking the day-to-day variability than tracking the spatial variability at high resolutions. The VIIRS EDR and GOCI products provided the most accurate AOD retrievals, while VIIRS IP and MODIS C6 3 km products had positive biases. </P>

Maximization of ICRF power by SOL density tailoring with local gas injection

Jacquet, P.,Goniche, M.,Bobkov, V.,Lerche, E.,Pinsker, R.I.,Pitts, R.A.,Zhang, W.,Colas, L.,Hosea, J.,Moriyama, S.,Wang, S.-J.,Wukitch, S.,Zhang, X.,Bilato, R.,Bufferand, H.,Guimarais, L.,Faugel, H.,H IOP 2016 Nuclear fusion Vol.56 No.4

<P>Experiments have been performed under the coordination of the International Tokamak Physics Activity (ITPA) on several tokamaks, including ASDEX Upgrade (AUG), JET and DIII-D, to characterize the increased Ion cyclotron range of frequency (ICRF) antenna loading achieved by optimizing the position of gas injection relative to the RF antennas. On DIII-D, AUG and JET (with the ITER-Like Wall) a 50% increase in the antenna loading was observed when injecting deuterium in ELMy H-mode plasmas using mid-plane inlets close to the powered antennas instead of divertor injection and, with smaller improvement when using gas inlets located at the top of the machine. The gas injection rate required for such improvements (~0.7  ×  10<SUP>22</SUP> el s<SUP>−1</SUP> in AUG, ~1.0  ×  10<SUP>22</SUP> el s<SUP>−1</SUP> in JET) is compatible with the use of this technique to optimize ICRF heating during the development of plasma scenarios and no degradation of confinement was observed when using the mid-plane or top inlets compared with divertor valves. An increase in the scrape-off layer (SOL) density was measured when switching gas injection from divertor to outer mid-plane or top. On JET and DIII-D, the measured SOL density increase when using main chamber puffing is consistent with the antenna coupling resistance increase provided that the distance between the measurement lines of sight and the injection location is taken into account. Optimized gas injection was also found to be beneficial for reducing tungsten (W) sputtering at the AUG antenna limiters, and also to reduce slightly the W and nickel (Ni) content in JET plasmas. Modeling the specific effects of divertor/top/mid-plane injection on the outer mid-plane density was carried out using both the EDGE2D-EIRENE and EMC3-EIRENE plasma boundary code packages; simulations indeed indicate that outer mid-plane gas injection maximizes the density in the mid-plane close to the injection point with qualitative agreement with the AUG SOL density measurements for EMC3-EIRENE. Field line tracing for ITER in the 15 MA <I>Q</I> <SUB>DT</SUB>  =  10 reference scenario indicates that the planned gas injection system could be used to tailor the density in front the antennas. Benchmarking of EMC3-EIRENE against AUG and JET data is planned as a first step towards the ITER SOL modelling required to quantify the effect of gas injection on the SOL density in front of the antennas.</P>

Growth and Electronic Structure Studies of Metal Intercalated Transition Metal Dichalcogenides M_xNbSe₂ (M: Fe and Cu) (4 pages)

Koh, Y.,Cho, S.,Lee, J.,Yang, L.-X.,Zhang, Y.,He, C.,Chen, F.,Feng, D.-L.,Arita, M.,Shimada, K. JAPAN SOCIETY OF APPLIED PHYSICS 2013 Japanese journal of applied physics Vol.52 No.10