Abstract: In order to explore the effect of type Ⅱ transmembrane serine protease (TMPRSS2) recombinant protein on blocking severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2) infection, a pseudovirus infected cell system was constructed in vitro, and vesicular stomatitis virus (ΔG-VSV/luciferase) pseudovirus carrying SARS-CoV-2 spike glycoprotein (S protein) was used for evaluating cell infection efficiency. The re-combinant TMPRSS2-Fc protein with enzyme activity and self-shearing site mutation was purified from 293F cells in vitro. It was found that the purified TMPRSS2-Fc recombinant protein with two mutations of shearing site R255Q and enzyme activity site S441A could effectively reduce the binding of S protein to TMPRSS2 on the surface of host cells, and block the infection of Calu3 lung cancer cell line with pseu-dovirus. These results indicated that the recombinant TMPRSS2-Fc protein could compete with the host co-receptor TMPRSS2 to bind to the S protein, blocking the cleavage and activation of S protein and inhibiting the membrane fusion between the virus and host cells, therefore stopping virus invasion. Overall, this study provides a new clue for preventing SARS-CoV-2 infection.

MicroRNAs (miRNAs) are a class of small RNA molecules that are involved in numerous cellular processes and play a key role in the growth and development of living organisms. Given the importance and structural specificity of miRNAs, they have profound implications for the prediction and assessment of di-seases. In the rapid development of miRNA detection methods, catalytic hairpin assembly (CHA) is a novel thermostatic nucleic acid amplification technology, with high sensitivity, high specificity, simple and conve-nient operation, and no enzyme catalysis in the reaction process. Therefore, it has great potential in miRNA detection. Herein, the principle of CHA technology, and the CHA-based miRNA detection strategy in target identification, signal amplification and signal output were introduced, and the current challenges and pros-pects of this technology were also discussed, aiming to provide some ideas and reference for related research.

Abstract: Epigenetic regulation is a key research field in the post-genomic era. There is a lot of evidence that epigenetic regulation controls the process of heart development and is involved in the occurrence of a variety of heart diseases. This review summarizes the roles of DNA methylation, histone modification and chromatin remodeling complex and microRNAs in the heart development, and the epigenetic mechanisms re-lated to heart diseases such as atherosclerosis, heart failure, myocardial ischemia, and myocardial fibrosis. The article also gives an overview of important roles of biologically active food compounds in cardiac protec-tion, providing a new perspective for the research on the molecular mechanism of heart development and the prevention and treatment of heart diseases.

Catalase (CAT) is a hydrogen peroxide (H2O2) scavenging enzyme and plays a central role in plant growth, development and stress response. Its function is strictly regulated to keep an appropriate concentra-tion of H2O2 as a signal molecule under normal conditions to ensure plant growth and development, and to maintain H2O2 homeostasis under stress conditions to enhance plant stress tolerance. This review summarized the recent research progress of CAT in plant growth, development and stress response, especially the regula-tion of CAT function by post-translational modification and subcellular localization. It also made suggestions for future research on the regulatory mechanism of CAT in plants.

Abstract: Bacillus cereus is a ubiquitous foodborne pathogen that can cause two types of food poisoning (the diarrhoeal type and the emetic type) and other illnesses. According to the symptoms of food poisoning, its toxins can be divided into diarrheal enterotoxin and emetic enterotoxin. Hemolysin BL, non-haemolytic en-terotoxin and cytotoxin K are the three main diarrheal enterotoxins, and cereulide is an emetic enterotoxin. At present, food poisoning caused by B. cereus contamination occurs frequently and seriously endangers hu-man health. Therefore, food safety problems caused by B. cereus have attracted extensive attention. Under-standing the role of B. cereus and its toxins at the cellular level would be conducive to preventing the bacte-rial infection. Meanwhile, rapid and accurate detection of B. cereus is extremely important for effective con-trol of food contamination and post-infection treatment. Herein, the research progress of major toxins and detection methods of B. cereus was reviewed. It may provide useful reference for researchers to carry out re-lated work.

Abstract: Parvoviruses are the smallest and simplest single-stranded linear DNA viruses among animal viruses. They have a wide host range in nature, causing a long-lasting and inapparent infection and having a big impact on livestock farming. The current commercial vaccines, including inactivated vaccines and attenua-ted live vaccines, exhibit some defects. The former is costly, and the latter may have a risk of reversion to virulence. Thus, novel vaccines that are safer, more efficient and easier to prepare should be developed in future research. Herein, an overview of novel vaccines and the recent progress in parvovirus vaccine are provided, which would be helpful to further research and application of vaccines against parvoviruses.

Abstract: Cellular senescence is an irreversible state of cell cycle arrest, and is an important part of aging mechanism, anti-aging and anti-cancer research. However, the senescence models and detection indicators applied in related studies are different, and there is no unified standard. Herein, some methods for establishing cellular senescence models are discussed, some general and specific markers for senescence identification are listed, and their selection strategies are summarized, which may provide help to the related research.

Abstract: To explore the potential relationship of osteogenic differentiation and adipogenic differentiation of mesenchymal stem cells, the differentially expressed genes related to osteogenic and adipogenic differentia-tion of mesenchymal stem cells in this study were based on the publication statistics, and functional annota-tion and pathway enrichment analysis of these genes were analyzed by DAVID online software. The analysis revealed 281 GO classifications and 13 KEGG pathways for osteogenic differentiation (P<0.01); 317 GO clas-sifications and 47 KEGG pathways for adipogenic differentiation (P<0.01). Then, the protein-protein interac-tion network was analyzed using STRING database, and the network data from STRING database was analyzed by Cytoscape software, the topological characteristics of each node of the network were calculated according to the network data, and 14 key nodes of osteogenic differentiation and 20 key nodes of adipogenic differen-tiation were selected. After that, comparing the key genes in osteogenic differentiation and adipogenic diffe-rentiation using the Venny online tool, and found that 7 genes (including JUNB, SMAD2, SMAD3, MAPK13, BMP4, SRC, RUNX2) were jointly involved in regulating osteogenic and adipogenic differentiation of me-senchymal stem cells. The key genes for osteogenic differentiation and adipogenic differentiation of mesen-chymal stem cells selected above, which can be used to suggest possible mechanisms of abnormal osteogenic and adipogenic differentiation of mesenchymal stem cells, it also provides possible therapeutic targets and new ideas for the pathogenesis and treatment of clinical diseases related to the balance of bone and fat pro-duction such as osteoporosis.

Abstract: Atorvastatin and tanshinone ⅡA have been clinically used in the treatment of atherosclerosis, but the synergistic effect of the two is still unclear. To explore whether their combination can enhance the pre-ventive and therapeutic effects of atorvastatin on atherosclerosis in rats, the rats were randomly divided into control group, model group, low (7 mg/kg)-, middle (21 mg/kg)-, and high (63 mg/kg)-dose tanshinone ⅡA groups, atorvastatin group (7 mg/kg), low-dose tanshinone ⅡA (7 mg/kg) + atorvastatin (7 mg/kg) group, and middle-dose tanshinone ⅡA (21 mg/kg) + atorvastatin (7 mg/kg) group. Except for the control group, rats in other groups were intraperitoneal injected with 300 000 IU/(kg·d) vitamin D3 for 4 days and fed with high-fat diet to establish an atherosclerosis model. After 16 weeks, the concentrations of serum total cholesterol (TC), triacylglycerol (TG), high-density lipoprotein cholesterol (HDL-C), and low-density lipoprotein choles-terol (LDL-C) in rats were determined. In addition, the pathological changes of abdominal aorta were obser-ved by hematoxylin-eosin staining. The results showed that the concentrations of TC, TG, and LDL-C in sera of atherosclerotic rats were significantly decreased in the combination treatment groups (P<0.01). High-dose tanshinone ⅡA and atorvastatin significantly inhibited intimal thickening of the abdominal aorta, and middle-dose tanshinone ⅡA combined with atorvastatin had the strongest inhibition effect (P<0.01). In con-clusion, the combination of tanshinone ⅡA with atorvastatin exhibits a better treatment effect on atheroscle-rosis in rats.

Abstract: In order to explore the evaluation method of aerobic exercise capacity in zebrafish and lay a foun-dation for the research of zebrafish in the fields of sports medicine, environmental monitoring, genetics, pharmacology and so on, a swimming respirometer was used. The maximum oxygen consumption and relative critical swimming speed of wildtype zebrafish of different ages were determined based on the detection scheme designed. Meanwhile, a microblood lactic acid tester was used to detect the lactic acid level in ze-brafish blood under progressively increasing swimming speed. The results showed that the maximum oxygen consumption and relative critical swimming speed of 3-, 8- and 14-month-old zebrafish decreased with age, and the blood lactate thresholds of 3-, 8- and 14-month-old zebrafish were (2.98±0.86) mmol/L, (2.47±0.29) mmol/L and (3.83±0.25) mmol/L, respectively, which appeared at 60%, 80% and 80% of the critical swimming speed, respectively. The measurement techniques of maximum oxygen consumption and blood lactate threshold of zebrafish established in this study can be used to accurately evaluate the aerobic exercise capacity in ze-brafish.

Abstract: Floral formula is a widely used method to describe flowers succinctly, presenting some informa-tion on floral morphology, structures and organ numbers in a taxon, especially a family of angiosperm. How-ever, there is a lot of confusion about floral formulae in botanical textbooks. For example, some of the sym-bols were not used consistently and appropriately, some important information was omitted or wrongly recorded, and modified organs were recorded in floral formulae of a few families but neglected in those of others. Herein, some suggestions are provided to promote the normative use of floral formulae in the teaching process. In addition, some methods are given to help students design floral formulae in botanical experiments.

Abstract: To investigate the mechanisms of luteolin on improving hyperuricemic nephropathy (HN), 14C uric acid (UA) uptake assay was conducted to test the effect of luteolin on uric acid transporter 1 (URAT1). MTT assay was carried out to evaluate the protective effect of luteolin on renal tubular epithelial cell injury in-duced by high UA levels. Based on the established HN mouse model, the changes of serum biochemical in-dexes in mice, including UA, serum creatinine (CR), urea nitrogen (BUN), malondialdehyde (MDA), supero-xide dismutase (SOD) and glutathione (GSH), were detected before and after luteolin treatment. H&E staining and Masson’s trichrome staining were employed to detect the pathological changes and renal fibrosis in mice. The mRNA expression levels of URAT1, transforming growth factor-β (TGF-β), α-smooth muscle actin (α-SMA), E-cadherin, nuclear factor erythroid 2-related factor 2 (Nrf2) and heme oxygenase-1 (HO-1), and the protein expression levels of URAT1, Nrf2 and HO-1 were separately detected by qRT-PCR and Western-blot. The results showed that luteolin inhibited URAT1-mediated transport of 14C UA in a dose-dependent manner, with an IC50 value of 23.42 μmol/L. MTT assay showed that luteolin significantly improved the cell damage induced by high UA levels. Compared with the HN group, luteolin reduced the serum UA, CR and BUN levels, down-regulated the mRNA and protein expression levels of renal URAT1, improved renal fibro-sis and affected the mRNA levels of TGF-β, α-SMA and E-cadherin. Besides, oxidative stress in kidney was alleviated by up-regulating Nrf2/HO-1 pathway. In conclusion, luteolin can reduce serum UA by inhi-biting URAT1, and significantly ameliorate renal injury and fibrosis due to Nrf2/HO-1 pathway-dependent antioxidant stress response.

Abstract: Circular RNAs (circRNAs) are a kind of circular non-coding RNAs, formed by non-classical reverse splicing. They are expressed abundantly in organisms, highly conservative, specific in tissues and develop-mental stages, and more stable than linear RNA. They play a variety of biological functions, such as gene epigenetic regulation, cell communication, protein translation, etc. Recent studies have shown that, in animal models of depression, circRNAs can affect the activation and function of astrocytes and microglia, and are even related to neuronal development, synaptic growth and expression of nerve growth factors. This article re-views the biological characteristics and functions of circRNAs and their research progress in depression.

Abstract: The frequently occurring parasitic diseases, with the rapidly increasing ricefield eel (Monopterus albus) industry have caused huge economic losses. The study of the population biology of parasites in M. albus is of great significance for the development of parasitic disease control and prevention. Based on the previous studies, the population biology of parasites in M. albus, including species, life history, parasitism, time-space distribution characteristics, disease symptoms and hazards, were discussed. Meanwhile, existing problems and the future research direction were also described to provide a comprehensive understanding of the popu-lation biology of parasites in M. albus and basic information for the development of parasitic disease control and prevention.

Abstract: In order to effectively control Plutella xylostella in Yinchuan area, the indoor toxicities of 14 in-secticides were determined by impregnation method, and 5 of them were screened out for field efficacy evalua-tion. The results showed that emamectin benzoate 5% EC had the highest toxicity to P. xylostella, and tebufenozide 20% SC had the lowest toxicity. Their LC50 values were 1.53 mg/L and 1 693.72 mg/L at 48 h, respectively. The 14 pesticides with their toxicities from high to low, in order, were emamectin benzoate, chlorfenapyr, abamectin, cyantraniliprole, Bacillus thuringiensis, tetrachlorantraniliprol, pyridalyl, gamma-cyhalothrin, chlorantraniliprole, tolfenpyrad, indoxacarb, spinetoram, chlorfluazuron, and tebufenozide. The results of field control effect test showed that, among them, 5 pesticides reached the highest control effect 3 days after application, and pyridalyl 10.5% EC had the longest duration and the best comprehensive control effect in the field test. When the field control effects of pesticides and their dosages are synthetically conside-red, it is recommended that pyridalyl 10.5% EC would be widely used, with a recommended dose of 900 mL/hm2, to control diamondback moth in local broccoli fields.

Helicobacter pylori is a Gram-negative, microaerobic bacterium that colonizes the human gastric mucosa and is significantly associated with the development of chronic gastritis, peptic ulcer, gastric mu-cosa-associated lymphoma, gastric tumors, and gastric polyps. Infection of gastric mucosal cells with H. py-lori can activate nuclear factor-κB signaling pathway, induce interleukin-8 (IL-8) release, recruit antigen-presenting cells (APCs), and stimulate the host to produce innate and adaptive immune responses, resulting in anti-H. pylori effects in the host. However, the bacterium has the ability to manipulate and disrupt the host immune system, not only by modifying its own structure to avoid recognition by the host immune sys-tem, but also by inhibiting the proliferation and maturation of T and B lymphocytes, promoting T cell apop-tosis, affecting the balance of Th17/Treg differentiation, and inducing the formation of immune tolerance. Furthermore, H. pylori can inhibit Th1 cell-mediated immune responses and promote immune escape by taking up cholesterol, disrupting the cholesterol-rich microdomains of gastric mucosal epithelial cells, and blocking the assembly of interferon-γ (IFN-γ), IL-22 and IL-6 receptors. This paper summarized the H. py-lori-related immune response and immune escape in humans, in hopes of providing reference materials for clinical control and immunotherapy of H. pylori infection.

Abstract: Pei′ai 64S is one of the sterile lines derived from PGMS Nongken 58S, with the largest applica-tion area and the lowest critical temperature to induce sterility. However, its critical temperature is higher than that of thermo-sensitive genic male-sterile line 1S, and is not as safe as 1S for hybrid seed production. To probe into the mechanisms underlying the fertility thermo-sensitivity of Pei′ai 64S and to breed the sterile lines with even lower critical temperature and higher hybrid seed production safety, the near-isogenic lines were developed by crossing Pei′ai 64S as female parent with Fengyuan B, followed by backcrossing the sterile plants of hybrid progeny with Fengyuan B twice. The sterile lines among the obtained near-isogenic lines were used for fertility thermo-sensitivity study. The results showed that, under natural high temperature (daily mean temperature≥28 ℃) conditions, the pollens of 40 Pei′ai 64S-derived near-isogenic sterile lines were completely sterile; however, when treated with 23.5 ℃ for 6 days, the lowest pollen fertility was 0 (p5-1S, p28-1S, p12S), the highest was 87.9% (p1S), and the pollen fertility of Pei′ai 64S was 6.6%. These results in-dicated that, under high temperature conditions, the 40 sterile lines are homozygous sterile lines, but the cri-tical sterility-inducing temperatures between different lines were remarkably different. Therefore, it is possi-ble to breed from them the sterile lines with more stable sterility and safer hybrid seed production than Pei′ai 64S. The whole genomes of Pei′ai 64S and its near-isogenic lines were sequenced, and two sites were found to be associated with pollen sterility. They were preliminarily localized between 19 830.36~20 025 kb (length 194.64 kb) on chromosome 7 and between 22 453.62~22 902.05 kb (length 448.43 kb) on chromosome 9, re-spectively.

Abstract: Parkinson’s disease (PD) is a neurodegenerative disease characterized by dopaminergic neuronal loss in the substantia nigra. At present, motor symptoms can be alleviated clinically, but there is no effective way to prevent and reverse the progression of PD. Neural stem cells are a group of pluripotent cells capable of self-renewal, proliferation and differentiation in animal brains. In recent years, there has been much evi-dence proving that there are neural stem cells in PD patients and animal models, which can generate new dopaminergic neurons in a particular condition. Therefore, promoting the regeneration of neural stem cells has a great potential for rescuing the loss of dopaminergic neurons and relieving motor symptoms, which maybe a powerful weapon in PD treatment. This review summarized the proliferation and differentiation of neural stem cells in PD patients and animal models. It may provide novel ideas for the neurogenic therapy of PD.

Abstract: Acute lung injury is a common clinical health problem with high morbidity and mortality. It is very important to identify the key points of disease deterioration and biomarkers for effective treatment. Molecular biomarkers of diseases are generally obtained according to differences in molecular expression levels, by which normal and disease states are distinguished. They therefore can only be used for disease diagnosis rather than for prediction. Herein, based on the biological data of acute lung injury in mice exposed to phosgene and air, an early warning signal index of acute lung injury was constructed by using the method of single-sample dynamic network biomarkers to determine the critical point of the disease and related single-sample specific dynamic network biomarkers. Gene function and PPI network analyses of the critical state showed that the obtained biomarkers are related to cell senescence, apoptosis, inflammation, etc. The MCC algorithm was used to screen the top 10 key genes with the largest cluster centrality and their heat map dis-tributions were shown. It was found that they play a positive role in the disease process and are related to cell proliferation, stress response, cancer progression and pulmonary fibrosis, which further verifies the effec-tiveness of this method.

Abstract: Islet cells are a type of islet β cells, which belong to endocrine cells. Their main physiological function is to secrete insulin to cope with an increase in glucose levels, and therefore, they play an impor-tant role in maintaining glucose homeostasis. Studies have shown that insulin secretion is regulated by a va-riety of mechanisms, including multiple ion channels. In recent years, scholars have paid more and more at-tention to the process of regulating insulin secretion by ion channels. Herein, the regulation of insulin secre-tion by sodium, potassium and calcium ion channels and the interaction among the three ion channels are discussed. Meanwhile, the use of ion channel inhibitors and the prospect of ion channel research in diabetes treatment are briefly described.

Abstract: Autophagy is a kind of degradation mechanism widely existing in eukaryotic cells. In plants, au-tophagy helps maintain homeostasis by degrading and recovering intracellular substances through strict regu-latory pathways, thus making plants respond to a variety of developmental and environmental signals. More and more studies have shown that autophagy plays a role in various processes such as development, aging, biological and abiotic stresses. This paper reviews the related research progress of autophagy in plants, in-cluding the regulation mechanism and biological functions of autophagy. The purpose of this review is to provide reference for related research on autophagy.

Abstract: Understanding the effect and the molecular mechanism of rapamycin-induced autophagy on mi-gration of cervical cancer SiHa cells will provide an experimental basis for finding new targets and new methods for cervical cancer therapy. The autophagy induced by rapamycin in SiHa cells was observed by de-tecting the changes of microtubule-associated protein light chain 3Ⅱ (LC3Ⅱ)/LC3Ⅰ after the cells were treated with the maximum concentration of rapamycin which did not affect the viability of the cells, and then the migration ability of SiHa cells was observed by wound healing assay. The levels of matrix metallopro-teinase 2 (MMP2) in SiHa cells were detected by Western-blot. The results showed that, after SiHa cells were treated with 20 nmol/L rapamycin, the ratio of LC3Ⅱ/LC3Ⅰ in cells was 291.282%±28.463% as much as that in the control cells (P<0.05), indicating that autophagy was induced successfully in SiHa cells. The mi-gration rate was 29.886%±1.807% in SiHa cells treated with rapamycin, significantly lower than that (38.914%±1.422%) in the control cells (P<0.05), and the relative level of MMP2 in SiHa cells treated with rapamycin was significantly decreased, which was 61.310%±17.843% as much as that in the control cells (P<0.05). The results suggest that rapamycin-induced autophagy may inhibit the migration of SiHa cells through the MMP2 pathway.

Abstract: Inflorescences, the branching structures or systems that bear flowers, are usually important fea-tures of angiosperm families and closely related with pollination. Troubles in the process of inflorescence teaching may partially come from the inflorescence definitions and classification in various botany textbooks. This paper redefined some inflorescences, such as determined and indetermined inflorescences, corymb and verticillaster, and cleared up some confusion in classification of umbel, catkin, capitulum and hypanthodium. Secondly, the paper suggests that both a cluster of flowers and a single flower degenerated from an inflores-cence should be regarded as types of inflorescence. Finally, a new classification of inflorescence is proposed, in which some new groups are added.

Abstract: The immunotherapy targeting programmed death-1 (PD-1) has achieved remarkable success in breast cancer. However, not all patients can benefit from the antibody therapy. In order to identify the ex-pression of genes related to the PD-1 signaling pathway and their potential as prognostic markers in breast cancer, the PD-1 signaling pathway-related genes, their expression characteristics and prognostic effects were explored based on Oncomine, GTEx and The Cancer Genome Atlas (TCGA) databases. STRING data-base was used to predict the protein-protein interaction (PPI) network. The results showed that the expres-sion of genes related to the PD-1 signaling pathway exhibited significant differences in different cancers. In breast cancer, the expression level of PD-1 signaling pathway-related genes is significantly higher than that in normal tissues. Moreover, their expression has nothing to do with the stage and age of breast cancer pa-tients. When the patients were classified into high and low expression groups according to the median value of the expression levels of PD-1 and programmed death ligand-1 (PD-L1), the high expression group was found to have better overall survival rates. In addition, the prediction results of the PPI network showed that PD-1 is positively correlated with the expression of the protein tyrosine phosphatase non-receptor (PTPN) family. In summary, this study provides theoretical support for development of new PD-1 based immunotherapy.

Abstract: The fruits of Ficus tikoua are edible, and its old leaves are rich in flavonoid compounds and have edible and medicinal uses. Different cultivation methods affect the yield and quality of F. tikoua, but the physiological mechanisms are not clear. Herein, the contents of some organic materials, such as chlorophyll, flavonoid and so on, were compared in leaves of F. tikoua between stereo-cultivation and creeping growth patterns. The results showed that, compared with creeping F. tikoua, the stereoscopic cultivated plants had 1.812 1 mg/g chlorophyll, 186.166 7 mg/g flavonoid, 701.666 7 mg/g protein, 0.455 0 mg/g starch, 2.353 7 mg/g soluble sugar, and 0.672 5 mg/g reducing sugar, increased by 0.69%, 31.19%, 0.33%, 4.50%, -3.41% and -35.56%, respectively. It is demonstrated that stereo cultivation could effectively reduce the shading rate be-tween leaves of F. tikoua, facilitating photosynthesis and promoting the synthesis and accumulation of organic matters such as flavonoid in leaves. Therefore, stereoscopic cultivated F. tikoua would have a higher yield and medicinal value.

Abstract: The cytoophidium is one of the most popular research topics in cell biology. It has guiding significance for clinical diagnosis or treatment because of its biological functions in cell proliferation, metabolism and development. The cytoophidium is a membrane-free organelle polymerized by cytidine triphosphate syn-thetase (CTPS), and its formation process and functions are not the same in different types of cells. It can pro-mote the cancer cell proliferation and lead to disease deterioration. In neural stem cells, cytoophidium over-expression can inhibit the cell proliferation and affect the development of cerebral cortex. And in ovarian follicular cells, the cytoophidium acts as a CTPS repository to increase the cell proliferation and metabolism during oogenesis. Herein, novel findings on the formation process and functions of cytoophidium in different types of cells are summarized for further exploring its potential mechanisms and application value.

Quorum sensing (QS) is an important way of interaction between microbial populations and between microbial communities and plants. The signaling molecules that regulate the quorum sensing process are called autoinducers (AIs), which play important regulatory roles in bioluminescence, virulence factor secretion, spore formation, secondary metabolite synthesis, and biofilm formation. Autoinducing peptides (AIPs) are one kind of the quorum sensing signaling molecules that specifically communicate between bacterial communi-ties. This article reviewed the research progress in the source, structure, function and mechanisms of AIPs, and discussed their application potentials in plant growth promotion and biocontrol. It would be beneficial for better understanding the ecological function of microbial community and the molecular mechanism of in-teraction with plants, and may provide some help for the application of quorum sensing signaling molecules in ecological agriculture.

To investigate the role of the prkd1 gene, a typical member of the protein kinase D (PRKD) family, in early heart development, zebrafish was used as an animal model in this study. Through prkd1 knockdown with morpholino antisense oligo (MO), it was found that knockdown of prkd1 resulted in abnormal cardiac de-velopment, such as pericardial edema, cyclization disorder, cardiac tube linearization. Zebrafish heart rate analysis indicated that, compared with the wild type, prkd1 knockdown zebrafish exhibited early arrhythmia. High-throughput transcriptome sequencing was performed for zebrafish embryos at 3 days post fertilization (dpf) in control and prkd1 knockdown groups. Differential gene enrichment analysis revealed that prkd1 knockdown was significantly associated with heart-related signaling pathways, such as the adrenergic signaling pathway in cardiomyocytes. Additionally, the results of high-throughput sequencing were confirmed by qRT-PCR, which showed that some genes associated with the cardiovascular system were markedly down-regulated. Meanwhile, identification of the essential factors in early heart development revealed that key cardiac regu-latory genes like tbx5a and gata4 were significantly down-regulated. These findings suggest that the prkd1 gene may affect early cardiac development by regulating cardiac development-related signal pathways and key genes, and play an important role at the early stage of heart development.

Heat shock protein 20 (Hsp20) family contains a kind of functional proteins that are widely syn-thesized in plants in response to abiotic stresses. Herein, the Hsp20 gene family was analyzed by bioinfor-matics using Arabidopsis thaliana genome database. HMMER search and protein physicochemical property analysis showed that there are at least 30 Hsp20 genes in A. thaliana, encoding 14.6~41.4 kD molecular weight proteins, all of which contain an α-crystallin domain (ACD). Phylogenetic analysis showed that 22 of the 30 A. thaliana Hsp20 members belong to 12 different subfamilies, and the remaining 8 belong to un-known taxa, which may be Hsp20-like proteins. Collinearity analysis showed that fragment replication and tandem replication are the main amplification events of Hsp20 members, and most Hsp20 members contain no or only one intron. Analysis using MEME showed that motifs 1, 2, and 9 are common conserved motifs in Hsp20 family. Transcriptome analysis indicated that the expression levels of 15 Hsp20 genes were up-regu-lated after drought and (or) salt stress, which was verified by qRT-PCR assay. These results provide theoreti-cal basis for further investigation of the biological functions of Hsp20 genes.

Abstract: The cGAS-STING pathway is an innate immune mechanism that has been received extensive at-tention in recent years. Cytoplasmic DNA is recognized by cyclic GMP-AMP synthase (cGAS) and then cGAS catalyzes ATP and GTP to synthesize cyclic GMP-AMP (cGAMP). Subsequently, cGAMP binds to and acti-vates stimulator of interferon genes (STING), which induces a series of innate immune responses including production of typeⅠinterferons. More and more studies have shown that cGAS-STING pathway plays an im-portant role in infectious diseases, autoimmune diseases and tumor immunology. This review summarizes ac-tivation of cGAS-STING pathway and its immune response and mechanism in the defense against viruses, bacteria and parasites, hoping to find new targets for treatment of infectious diseases.

NKX proteins are the most important type of NKL homeobox transcription factor subclass and have been found to be widely involved in regulating cell fate and body pattern formation during embryonic development, especially embryonic development of nervous system, and involved in the occurrence of thyroid cancer, lung cancer, prostate cancer and other tumors. In view of the important roles of NKX proteins in embryonic development and tumorigenesis, the research progress of the structural properties, physiological mechanisms, and disease correlation of 17 proteins in the 7 NKX homeobox protein families were systemati-cally summarized, which would provide helpful information on gene targeted therapy of related diseases. In addition, the lack of genomics research and animal model construction of diseases related to some NKX genes were also discussed, which should be directions for future research.

To investigate the expression, clinical significance and functional mechanism of tektin 2 (TEKT2) in ovarian cancer (OV), and provide new ideas in early diagnosis and treatment of OV, multiple databases were combined to explore the functions of TEKT2 in OV. Firstly, the expression of TEKT2 in the OV tissue was analyzed using GEPIA2 database. The prognostic value of TEKT2 in patients with OV was explored by GEPIA2 and TIMER databases and Kaplan-Meier plotter. Secondly, the correlation between TEKT2 and tumor protein 53 (TP53) in OV was explored by Pearson correlation analysis, and the relation between TEKT2 prognostic value and TP53 mutation type was analyzed using Kaplan-Meier plotter. Thirdly, the correlation between TEKT2 and immune cells was analyzed by TIMER database. Finally, the expression of TEKT2 in OV cells was verified by real time-PCR, and the effect of TEKT2 on the proliferation of OV cells was evalua-ted using Cell Counting Kit-8 (CCK-8). The results showed that TEKT2 was highly expressed in OV tissue, which was related to a good prognosis of OV patients, and TEKT2 was an independent prognostic factor. In OV patients, TEKT2 was positively correlated with the expression of TP53, and in wild-type TP53 patients, TEKT2 had prognostic value. High expression of TEKT2 was closely related to macrophages and neutrophils, in which obvious correlation existed between arm-level deletion of TEKT2 and neutrophil infiltration. More importantly, CCK-8 assay showed that TEKT2 could inhibit the proliferation of OV cells. In conclusion, this study found that TEKT2 may affect the prognosis of OV patients by regulating immune cell infiltration and inhibiting OV cell proliferation.

Abstract: Brain-specific angiogenesis inhibitor 1-associated protein 2-like 2 (BAIAP2L2) is an epithelial-specific BAR domain protein. It was recently reported that BAIAP2L2 was overexpressed in multiple cancer tissues, but its roles in liver cancer are still poorly understood. To provide theoretical basis for BAIAP2L2 as a new liver cancer biomarker, this study explored the expression level of BAIAP2L2 in liver cancer and its biological significance and potential clinical application value through bioinformatics methods. Firstly, mRNA-seq, miRNA-seq, DNA methylation data and corresponding clinicopathologic information of liver cancer pa-tients were downloaded from the TCGA and ICGC databases, and protein expression data were obtained from the HPA database. The expression levels of BAIAP2L2 in cancer and adjacent tissues were compared, and the relationship between the expression of BAIAP2L2 and the clinicopathological characteristics of liver cancer was analyzed. Subsequently, the receiver operating characteristic (ROC) curve was used to evaluate the performance of BAIAP2L2 expression in the diagnosis of liver cancer. The survival curves were drawn to compare the differences in groups of patients with different expression levels of BAIAP2L2, and Cox regres-sion analysis was used to calculate the hazard ratio (HR). Finally, the potential regulatory factors for BAIAP2L2 were predicted in the miRWalk database. The TIMER database was used to explore the correlation between BAIAP2L2 expression and infiltrated immune cells in liver cancer tissues. Gene set enrichment analysis (GSEA) was performed to identify BAIAP2L2 involved functional pathways. The results showed that the expres-sion level of BAIAP2L2 in liver cancer tissues was significantly higher than that in adjacent tissues (P<0.001), and BAIAP2L2 had a good diagnostic value for liver cancer (AUC=0.891, P<0.001). Its expression level was significantly correlated with the gender, T stage, alpha fetoprotein (AFP), clinical stage and survival status in liver cancer patients (P<0.05). Patients with high expression of BAIAP2L2 showed a worse prognosis outcome (P<0.05), and BAIAP2L2 was an independent risk factor for prognosis of patients with liver cancer (HR: 1.522, 95% CI: 1.044~2.219, P<0.05). There was a significant negative correlation between BAIAP2L2 methylation and BAIAP2L2 expression (P<0.001), and patients with hypomethylation had a worse prognosis (P<0.05). hsa-miR-99a-3p was identified as one of the factors that can regulate the expression of BAIAP2L2. The expression of BAIAP2L2 was significantly correlated with the infiltration levels of B cells, CD4+ T cells, CD8+ T cells, macrophages, neutrophils and dendritic cells in liver cancer tissues (P<0.05). GSEA showed that BAIAP2L2 was involved in the following pathways: regulation of cell cycle, p53 signaling pathway, homologous recombi-nation, etc. In conclusion, BAIAP2L2 is highly expressed in liver cancer due to a variety of complex mecha-nisms and can be used as a potential biomarker for diagnosis and prognosis of liver cancer.

Exosomes are nano-sized lipid bilayer vesicles that are fused by the cell membrane and multi-vesicles and released into the extracellular space by exocytosis. Exosomes play an important role in intercel-lular communication. MicroRNAs (miRNAs) are a class of endogenous non-coding RNAs consisting of 18~24 nucleotides. miRNAs play an important role in the regulation of post-transcriptional gene expression. Pul-monary fibrosis is an irreversible and progressive chronic lung disease. Many studies have shown that abnor-mal expression of exosomal miRNAs is closely related to the development of pulmonary fibrosis. This review focuses on the biological characteristics of exosomes and miRNAs, and discusses the important roles of exo-somal miRNAs in pulmonary fibrosis and their potential as a novel biomarker in this disease.

Cocoons are a key life-history stage of leeches, so it is of great ecobiological significance to clarify their morphological features and chemical composition. Wuling cave leeches (Sinospelaeobdella wulingensis) are the type species of the newly-described genus Sinospelaeobdella, which breed on the roof wall of karstic caves, and differ from water and land leeches ecobiologically. In view of the particularity of Wuling cave leeches and the key role of cocoons in the adaptive evolution of leeches, morphology and chemical composi-tion of the cocoons were preliminarily studied. The results showed that: 1) Cocoons of Wuling cave leeches were roughly ellipsoidal, with a long diameter of (10.80±1.71) mm and a short one of (8.32±1.60) mm, and a weight of (135.3±76.8) mg; 2) From outside to inside, each cocoon had the outer layer (honeycomb) and in-ner layer of cocoon-wall, protein fluid and fertilized egg; 3) There were 17 kinds of hydrolyzed amino acids and 11 kinds of free amino acids in the cocoon, among which the relative contents of glutamic acid and ala-nine were the highest; 4) There were 68 kinds of trusted proteins identified in the cocoon, of which 27 were unidentified, and the remaining 41 could be divided into 6 categories, namely 5 antioxidant proteins, 12 en-zyme proteins, 6 cytoskeletal proteins, 12 binding proteins, 2 heat shock proteins and 4 other proteins. The morphological characteristics and chemical composition of the cocoons reflect long-term adaptation of leeches to cave ecological environments. The crucial role of the cocoon in the species evolution and population sur-vival of the leeches deserves further systematic investigation.

Abstract: Seven species are reported as new records in Hunan Province, including Ulmus davidiana var. japonica (Rehd.) Nakai, Ficus ischnopoda Miq., Schisandra incarnata Stapf, Yinshania furcatopilosa (K. C. Kuan) Y. H. Zhang, Viburnum punctatum Buch.-Ham. ex D. Don, Berberis veitchii Schneid., Mahonia polyo-donta Fedde. These discoveries not only enrich the seed plant resources, but also broaden the distribution range in Hunan Province. All the specimens examined are preserved in Jishou University (JIU).

In order to explore the hub genes for the difference of adipogenesis and lipid metabolism in dif-ferent tissues of Laiwu pigs, Laiwu pigs with similar body weight at 180 days of age were used to identify the mRNA expression profiles of intramuscular fat (IMF) and subcutaneous fat (SCF). The functions of diffe-rentially expressed mRNAs were analyzed through Gene Ontology (GO) and Kyoto Encyclopedia of Genes and Genomes (KEGG). A protein-protein interaction (PPI) network of the top 300 mRNAs with a high average ex-pression level was constructed, key regulatory mRNAs were screened, and sequence features and protein structures of the key mRNAs were analyzed. Meantime, the reliability of the sequencing data was verified by real-time fluorescence quantitative PCR (qRT-PCR) for 6 randomly selected mRNAs. A total of 1 665 differen-tially expressed mRNAs were identified from IMF and SCF mRNA expression profiles, of which 888 were up-regulated and 777 were down-regulated. The GO results showed that the differentially expressed mRNAs were mainly involved in regulating signal pathways in biological process (BP); composing biological membranes in cellular component (CC); affecting the enzyme activity in the cell metabolism process in molecular function (MF). The KEGG enrichment results showed that the differentially expressed mRNAs were mainly involved in adipocyte production, lipid metabolism, inflammation and cancer-related signaling pathways. Through analysis of the PPI network, gene sequence and protein structure characteristics, it was found that C-X-C motif chemokine receptor 4 (CXCR4), platelet and endothelial cell adhesion molecule 1 (PECAM1), urokinase-type plasminogen activator (PLAU), angiotensinogen (AGT), AKT serine/threonine kinase 2 (AKT2), heat shock cognate 70-kD protein, tandem duplicate 2 (HSP70.2), galectin 3 (LGALS3), and periostin (POSTN) were in the center of the regulatory network. The qRT-PCR verification results were consistent with the sequencing results, proving the reliability of sequencing results. By comparing the difference between IMF and SCF tran-scriptomes, it was found that AGT, CXCR4, HSP70.2 and PLAU genes play critical roles in the lipid me-tabolism process of IMF deposition and can be used as candidate genes in IMF regulation.

In order to explore the distribution characteristics of major histocompatibility complex (MHC) classⅠchain-related (MIC) genes MICA and MICB in the Miao population of Guizhou to establish a genetic database that can be used to study the genetic characteristics and evolutionary history of certain diseases, PCR-sequence-specific primer (PCR-SSP) and PCR-sequence-based typing (PCR-SBT) methods were used to analyse the distribution of MICA and MICB genes from 150 Miao people in Guizhou Province by detecting their peripheral blood DNA samples. The differences in the distribution frequencies of MICA and MICB genes were analyzed and evaluated by the chi-square test. The genotyping results showed that the frequencies of MICA*019, MICA*045, MICA*008:04, MICA*002:01, MICA-A9, MICA-A4, MICB*005:02 and MICB*002 alleles were significantly higher than those of other alleles in the Miao population. Analysis of MICA-MICB gene sequence haplotypes revealed that the distribution frequency of MICA*019-MICB*005:02 and MI-CA*008:04-MICB*005:02 was higher, which were 17.40% and 16.30%, respectively, but only MICA*010-MICB*005:02, MICA*002:01-MICB*005:02 and MICA*009:01-MICB*005:02 were the MICA-MICB hap-lotypes with significant linkage disequilibrium (P<0.01). These results indicate that the MICA and MICB genes of Miao people in Guizhou are polymorphic and have significant linkage disequilibrium. The study provides experimental data for improving the MIC gene sequence database of ethnic minorities in China. These results could serve as the basis for future studies on the potential role of MICA and MICB in allogeneic organ transplantation and disease susceptibility in related ethnic groups.

Abstract: Low temperature is an important environmental factor limiting plant growth and distribution. Plants can acquire cold acclimation mechanism in the process of long-term adaptation to the environment. To date, the CBF/DREB1 dependent signaling pathway is the most thoroughly studied signal pathway for the cold responsive mechanism. The plant CBF/DREB1 signaling pathway, potential cold receptors, cold response signal molecules, signal transduction pathways and cross-talks between low temperature and plant hormones are herein reviewed. These previous studies on the molecular mechanism of plant responses to low temperature have theoretical guidance and practical value for crop molecular breeding.

Abstract: To explore the clinical significance of KCTD10 in hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC), the protein and mRNA levels of KCTD10 in normal and HCC tissues, as well as different HCC cell lines, were analyzed by UALCAN database and with methods of immunohistochemistry (IHC), quantitative real-time PCR and Wes-tern-blot. 3,5-Diethoxycarbonyl-1,4-dihydrocollidine (DDC) diet was used to induce a mouse model of liver injury, and the expression of KCTD10 in the liver was detected by IHC. The results showed that KCTD10 expression was significantly up-regulated in HCC tissues compared with paracancerous tissues. Moreover, its expression was positively correlated with the malignant grades of HCC, and was found to increase in the cy-toplasm but relatively decrease in the nucleus of HCC tissues. In Hep3B, Huh7, and MHCC97H cell lines, both mRNA and protein levels of KCTD10 were increased, and the highest expression level of KCTD10 was detected in the cytoplasm of MHCC97H cells. The protein level of KCTD10 was also decreased in the nu-cleus of injured mouse liver tissues. Together, KCTD10 expression has a positive correlation with the occur-rence and development of HCC. The expression level and location change of KCTD10 in HCC cells may provide support for early clinical diagnosis of liver cancer.