Publications by authors named "Ji-wei Zhang"

Plants mount induced resistance and adult-plant resistance against different pathogens throughout the whole growth period. Rice production faces threats from multiple major diseases, including rice blast, sheath blight, and bacterial leaf blight. Here, we report that the miR172a-SNB-MYB30 module regulates both induced and adult-plant resistance to these three major diseases via lignification in rice.

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Introduction: Alzheimer's disease (AD) is a neurodegenerative disease characterized by Amyloid plaques and neurofibrillary tangles. We explored the potential mechanism by which Danggui Shaoyao San (DSS) modulates central glucose metabolism via the insulin receptor substrate 1 (IRS1)/glycogen synthase kinase-3β (GSK3β)/Wnt3a-β-catenin pathway, thereby exerting protective effects on cognitive functions.

Methods: In vitro, HT22 cells were induced with streptozotocin (STZ) to investigate the impact of GSK3β on pathway transduction.

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Despite recent advancements in the catalytic generation of axial chirality, reports on non-biaryl atropisomers remain limited because of the stringent steric requirements necessary to establish effective rotational brakes. Herein, we present a novel class of monoaryl atropisomers, indolyl ketosulfoxonium ylides, and describe an organocatalytic protocol for their synthesis. We discovered that a chiral phosphoric acid (CPA) serves as an effective catalyst for the highly enantioselective iodination of ortho-aminophenylethynyl sulfoxonium ylides.

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The flower-infecting fungus Ustilaginoidea virens causes rice false smut, which is a severe emerging disease threatening rice (Oryza sativa) production worldwide. False smut not only reduces yield, but more importantly produces toxins on grains, posing a great threat to food safety. U.

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Reactive oxygen species (ROS) act as a group of signaling molecules in rice functioning in regulation of development and stress responses. Respiratory burst oxidase homologues (Rbohs) are key enzymes in generation of ROS. However, the role of the nine Rboh family members was not fully understood in rice multiple disease resistance and yield traits.

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Inflammation and immunity play important roles in the pathogenesis of ischemic stroke. This study aimed to explore key regulatory genes in acute ischemic stroke (AIS) and their underlying mechanisms to provide new research targets for the diagnosis and treatment of ischemic stroke. We searched for differentially expressed mRNAs and miRNAs in patients with AIS and healthy populations in GEO databases, constructed a miRNA-mRNA network, and screened key miRNAs using least absolute shrinkage and selection operator regression and the support vector machine-recursive feature elimination model.

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Article Synopsis
  • * The protein WRKY51 is induced by both RPW8.1 and pathogens, and it suppresses RPW8.1 expression through a feedback loop, balancing disease resistance with plant health.
  • * Other WRKY proteins (WRKY6, WRKY28, WRKY41) can also suppress RPW8.1, but WRKY51 is specifically important for regulating disease resistance without affecting normal growth in plants lacking RPW8.1.
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The quality and composition of strong-flavor Baijiu (SFB), a type of Chinese liquor, depends on the variety of sorghum used in fermentation. However, comprehensive in situ studies measuring the effects sorghum varieties on the fermentation are lacking and the underlying microbial mechanisms remains poorly understood. We studied the in situ fermentation of SFB by using metagenomic, metaproteomic, and metabolomic techniques across four sorghum varieties.

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Crops with broad-spectrum resistance loci are highly desirable in agricultural production because these loci often confer resistance to most races of a pathogen or multiple pathogen species. Here we discover a natural allele of proteasome maturation factor in rice, UMP1, that confers broad-spectrum resistance to Magnaporthe oryzae, Rhizoctonia solani, Ustilaginoidea virens and Xanthomonas oryzae pv. oryzae.

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Arabidopsis RESISTANCE TO POWDERY MILDEW 8.2 (RPW8.2) is specifically induced by the powdery mildew (PM) fungus (Golovinomyces cichoracearum) in the infected epidermal cells to activate immunity.

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  • Eutrophication in China’s coastal waters is a significant environmental issue that needs effective assessment methods for pollution control and protection.
  • Recent "phase II" assessment methods have been successfully implemented to evaluate eutrophication in these regions, but they risk overestimating eutrophication due to small, impacted water bodies.
  • The study applied an area ratio method to the ASSETS framework in assessing Xiamen Bay's eutrophication in 2016, finding a moderate status influenced by pollution from the Jiulong River, emphasizing the need for pollution management during flood seasons.
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Grain formation is fundamental for crop yield but is vulnerable to abiotic and biotic stresses. Rice grain production is threatened by the false smut fungus Ustilaginoidea virens, which specifically infects rice floral organs, disrupting fertilization and seed formation. However, little is known about the molecular mechanisms of the U.

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  • Gastric cancer (GC) is a major health issue in China, prompting research into biomarkers for its detection and evaluation of disease severity.
  • The study analyzed 180 gastric tissue specimens, finding that interleukins IL-31, IL-32, and IL-33 were expressed at lower levels in GC tissues compared to non-cancerous tissues and showed varying correlations with survival and clinical parameters.
  • Results suggest that IL-32, in particular, may serve as an independent prognostic factor for GC, highlighting the potential of these interleukins as biomarkers and indicating the need for further research into their mechanisms.
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  • miR160a plays a key role in enhancing broad-spectrum disease resistance in rice against various pathogens, including blast, leaf blight, and sheath blight.
  • Mutations in targets of miR160a, specifically Auxin Response Factors (ARFs), reveal distinct impacts on resistance, highlighting ARF8 as a critical factor in this process.
  • The study uncovers a regulatory pathway involving miR160a and ARF8, which ultimately influences the expression of WRKY45, a gene essential for rice immunity, suggesting new strategies for improving disease resistance through breeding.
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Flower opening and stigma exertion are two critical traits for cross-pollination during seed production of hybrid rice (Oryza sativa L.). In this study, we demonstrate that the miR167d-ARFs module regulates stigma size and flower opening that is associated with the elongation of stamen filaments and the cell arrangement of lodicules.

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The SiS rods exhibit a significant anisotropy property applied in a special field such as in the one of all-solid-state lithium-ion batteries and so on. In this work, the orthorhombic SiS rods with high chemical/phase purity were prepared by an elemental method, either through a boiling or a steaming process, at 1023-1073 K for 3 h and under the saturated S-vapor pressure (2.57-3.

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is the causative agent of rice blast, a devastating disease in rice worldwide. Based on the gene-for-gene paradigm, resistance (R) proteins can recognize their cognate avirulence (AVR) effectors to activate effector-triggered immunity. genes have been demonstrated to evolve rapidly, leading to breakdown of the cognate resistance genes.

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Article Synopsis
  • Many rice microRNAs, particularly Osa-miR535, play critical roles in regulating traits and immunity, with Osa-miR535 specifically targeting SPL genes like OsSPL14 and OsSPL4.
  • Overexpression of Osa-miR535 decreases the protein levels of OsSPL4, leading to reduced immunity against the rice blast fungus Magnaporthe oryzae.
  • Transgenic rice lines with overexpressed OsSPL4 show increased resistance to blast disease and elevated immune responses, indicating a potential parallel pathway with OsSPL14 in rice's defense mechanisms.
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MicroRNAs (miRNAs) play vital roles in plant development and defence responses against various stresses. Here, we show that blocking miR1871 improves rice resistance against Magnaporthe oryzae and enhances grain yield simultaneously. The transgenic lines overexpressing miR1871 (OX1871) exhibit compromised resistance, suppressed defence responses and reduced panicle number resulting in slightly decreased yield.

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microRNAs act as fine-tuners in the regulation of plant growth and resistance against biotic and abiotic stress. Here we demonstrate that rice miR1432 fine-tunes yield and blast disease resistance via different modules. Overexpression of miR1432 leads to compromised resistance and decreased yield, whereas blocking miR1432 using a target mimic of miR1432 results in enhanced resistance and yield.

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MicroRNAs fine-tune plant growth and resistance against multiple biotic and abiotic stresses. The trade-off between biomass and resistance can penalize crop yield. In this study, we have shown that rice miR530 regulates blast disease resistance, yield, and growth period.

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is a biotrophic fungal pathogen specifically colonizing rice floral organ and causes false smut disease of rice. This disease has emerged as a serious problem that hinders the application of high-yield rice cultivars, by reducing grain yield and quality as well as introducing mycotoxins. However, the pathogenic mechanisms of are still enigmatic.

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The previously elusive catalytic enantioselective construction of axially chiral B-aryl-1,2-azaborines with a C-B stereogenic axis has been realized through a chiral phosphoric acid-catalyzed desymmetrization strategy reported herein. The electrophilic aromatic substitution reaction of 3,5-disubsituted phenols with diazodicarboxamides could afford these axially chiral structures in good efficiency with excellent enantiocontrol. The efficient long-range stereochemical control is achieved by multiple well-defined H-bonding interactions between chiral phosphoric acid and both substrates.

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NOBIN and BINAM derivatives harboring biaryl frameworks are recognized as a class of important atropisomers with versatile applications. Here, we present an efficient synthetic route to access such compounds through copper-catalyzed domino arylation of -arylhydroxylamines or -arylhydrazines with diaryliodonium salts and [3,3]-sigmatropic rearrangement. This reaction features mild conditions, good substrate compatibility, and excellent efficiency.

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