Seed-specific expression of phosphatidate phosphohydrolases increases soybean oil content and seed weight.

Background: Soybean is a major oil crop and a primary protein source for livestock, and soybean oil is the most common input for biodiesel. Identifying genes that enhance soybean yield and oil content is crucial for breeding programs. Phosphatidic acid (PA) phosphohydrolase (PAH), which dephosphorylates PA to diacylglycerol (DAG), plays a critical role in lipid synthesis, and yet their potential in improving agronomic traits of oil crops remains unexplored.

Phylogenomics of angiosperms based on mitochondrial genes: insights into deep node relationships.

Background: Angiosperms are the largest plant group and play an essential role in the biosphere. Phylogenetic relationships of many families and orders remain contentious, and, in an attempt to address these, we performed the most extensive sampling of mitochondrial genes to date.

Results: We reconstructed a seed plant phylogenetic framework based on 41 mitochondrial protein-coding sequences (mtCDSs), representing 335 families and 63 orders with 481 angiosperm species.

Complete Chloroplast Genomes and Phylogenetic Analysis of Woody Climbing Genus (Leguminosae).

Background: Lour., a genus in the subfamily Cercidoideae of the family Leguminosae, is characterized by woody liana habit, tendrils, and distinctive bilobate or bifoliolate leaves. The genus holds important medicinal value and constitutes a complex group characterized by morphological diversity and unstable taxonomic boundaries.

Non-specific Phospholipase C4 Improves Phosphorus Remobilization From Old to Young Leaves in Camelina.

Camelina sativa is regarded as a low-input oilseed crop for versatile food, biofuels and industrial applications with potential production on marginal lands, whereas phosphate (P) deficiency greatly reduces camelina seed production. To improve camelina resilience to low P conditions, here we overexpressed the P deficiency-induced non-specific phospholipase C4 (NPC4) to test its effect on camelina seed production under different levels of P availability. NPC4-overexpressing (OE) plants displayed increased seed yield and oil production, with a greater magnitude of increases under P-deficient than P-sufficient conditions.

Removing ring artifacts in CBCT images via Transformer with unidirectional vertical gradient loss.

Background: Cone-beam computed tomography (CBCT), an important medical modality for disease detection and diagnosis, is currently widely used in clinical practice. However, due to the inconsistent response of CBCT detectors, the lack of proper calibration often leads to the occurrence of ring artifacts in CBCT-reconstructed images. These artifacts may affect physicians' assessment and diagnosis.

Phylogenomics and biogeographical diversification of Collabieae (Orchidaceae) and its implication in the reconstruction of the dynamic history of Asian evergreen broadleaved forests.

The tribe Collabieae (Epidendroideae, Orchidaceae) comprises approximately 500 species. Generic delimitation within Collabieae are confusing and phylogenetic interrelationships within the Collabieae have not been well resolved. Plastid genomes and nuclear internal transcribed spacer (ITS) sequences were used to estimate the phylogenetic relationships, ancestral ranges, and diversification rates of Collabieae.

Lipid phosphorylation by a diacylglycerol kinase suppresses ABA biosynthesis to regulate plant stress responses.

Lipid phosphorylation by diacylglycerol kinase (DGK) that produces phosphatidic acid (PA) plays important roles in various biological processes, including stress responses, but the underlying mechanisms remain elusive. Here, we show that DGK5 and its lipid product PA suppress ABA biosynthesis by interacting with ABA-DEFICIENT 2 (ABA2), a key ABA biosynthesis enzyme, to negatively modulate plant response to abiotic stress tested in Arabidopsis thaliana. Loss of DGK5 function rendered plants less damaged, whereas overexpression (OE) of DGK5 enhanced plant damage to water and salt stress.

Phosphatidic acid signaling and function in nuclei.

Membrane lipidomes are dynamic and their changes generate lipid mediators affecting various biological processes. Phosphatidic acid (PA) has emerged as an important class of lipid mediators involved in a wide range of cellular and physiological responses in plants, animals, and microbes. The regulatory functions of PA have been studied primarily outside the nuclei, but an increasing number of recent studies indicates that some of the PA effects result from its action in nuclei.

The Sapria himalayana genome provides new insights into the lifestyle of endoparasitic plants.

Background: Sapria himalayana (Rafflesiaceae) is an endoparasitic plant characterized by a greatly reduced vegetative body and giant flowers; however, the mechanisms underlying its special lifestyle and greatly altered plant form remain unknown. To illustrate the evolution and adaptation of S. himalayasna, we report its de novo assembled genome and key insights into the molecular basis of its floral development, flowering time, fatty acid biosynthesis, and defense responses.

Effects of Tea Plant Varieties with High- and Low-Nutrient Efficiency on Nutrients in Degraded Soil.

Tea plants are widely planted in tropical and subtropical regions globally, especially in southern China. The high leaching and strong soil acidity in these areas, in addition to human factors (e.g.

Phosphate deficiency modifies lipid composition and seed oil production in camelina.

Camelina (Camelina sativa) is an emerging industrial oilseed crop because of its potential for double cropping, fallow year production, growth on marginal lands, and multiple uses of seed oils and meals. To realize the potential for sustainable production of camelina, a better understanding of how camelina seed oil production and composition respond to low input environments is desired. Phosphorus (P) is one of the least available essential macronutrients to plants with finite worldwide supply.

Modeling the impact of nickel recycling from batteries on nickel demand during vehicle electrification in China from 2010 to 2050.

China is promoting the production and use of electric vehicles (EVs) to achieve carbon neutrality. However, the shift will drive higher demand and tighter supply of nickel in China. We develop a stock-driven bottom-up dynamic substance flow analysis (SFA) model to simulate the demand trends of various EVs under 3 scenarios, the flow of nickel under 9 scenarios and the amount of recoverable nickel under 27 scenarios in China's EV industry from 2010 to 2050.

Volumetric memory network for interactive medical image segmentation.

Despite recent progress of automatic medical image segmentation techniques, fully automatic results usually fail to meet clinically acceptable accuracy, thus typically require further refinement. To this end, we propose a novel Volumetric Memory Network, dubbed as VMN, to enable segmentation of 3D medical images in an interactive manner. Provided by user hints on an arbitrary slice, a 2D interaction network is firstly employed to produce an initial 2D segmentation for the chosen slice.

The extremely reduced, diverged and reconfigured plastomes of the largest mycoheterotrophic orchid lineage.

Background: Plastomes of heterotrophic plants have been greatly altered in structure and gene content, owing to the relaxation of selection on photosynthesis-related genes. The orchid tribe Gastrodieae is the largest and probably the oldest mycoheterotrophic clade of the extant family Orchidaceae. To characterize plastome evolution across members of this key important mycoheterotrophic lineage, we sequenced and analyzed the plastomes of eleven Gastrodieae members, including representative species of two genera, as well as members of the sister group Nervilieae.

Root Foraging Strategy Improves the Adaptability of Tea Plants ( L.) to Soil Potassium Heterogeneity.

Root foraging enables plants to obtain more soil nutrients in a constantly changing nutrient environment. Little is known about the adaptation mechanism of adventitious roots of plants dominated by asexual reproduction (such as tea plants) to soil potassium heterogeneity. We investigated root foraging strategies for K by two tea plants (low-K tolerant genotype "1511" and low-K intolerant genotype "1601") using a multi-layer split-root system.

Comparative transcriptomic analysis of the super hybrid rice Chaoyouqianhao under salt stress.

Background: Soil salinization is a threat to food security. China is rich in saline land resources for potential and current utilization. The cultivation and promotion of salt-tolerant rice varieties can greatly improve the utilization of this saline land.

The Epidemiological, Clinical Features and Outcomes of Imported Chinese COVID-19 Patients Following Inactivated Vaccines Injection.

Background: Severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2) vaccination had been demonstrated as an effective way to reduce the risk of coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19), and only a few vaccines suffered from SARS-CoV-2 infection. However, limited data concerning the clinical features of these vaccines infected with SARS-CoV-2 can be identified.

Methods: We retrospectively collected and analyzed epidemiological and clinical characteristics data of the imported COVID-19 cases who received Chinese inactivated vaccines abroad.

The Gastrodia menghaiensis (Orchidaceae) genome provides new insights of orchid mycorrhizal interactions.

Background: To illustrate the molecular mechanism of mycoheterotrophic interactions between orchids and fungi, we assembled chromosome-level reference genome of Gastrodia menghaiensis (Orchidaceae) and analyzed the genomes of two species of Gastrodia.

Results: Our analyses indicated that the genomes of Gastrodia are globally diminished in comparison to autotrophic orchids, even compared to Cuscuta (a plant parasite). Genes involved in arbuscular mycorrhizae colonization were found in genomes of Gastrodia, and many of the genes involved biological interaction between Gatrodia and symbiotic microbionts are more numerous than in photosynthetic orchids.

Group-Wise Learning for Weakly Supervised Semantic Segmentation.

Acquiring sufficient ground-truth supervision to train deep visual models has been a bottleneck over the years due to the data-hungry nature of deep learning. This is exacerbated in some structured prediction tasks, such as semantic segmentation, which require pixel-level annotations. This work addresses weakly supervised semantic segmentation (WSSS), with the goal of bridging the gap between image-level annotations and pixel-level segmentation.

New taxa of tribe Gastrodieae (Epidendroideae, Orchidaceae) from Yunnan, China and its conservation implication.

, a new species of Orchidaceae from Yunnan Province, China, is described and illustrated. It is morphologically similar to , but can be easily distinguished from the latter by having a rhombic epichile, long column (6.0-7.

Taxonomy notes on Vandeae (Orchidaceae) from China: Five new species and two new records.

Five new species (, , , , ) and two newly recorded species (, ) of Vandeae (Orchidaceae) from China are described and illustrated. is similar to and , but differs from them by having an epichile not lobed, the apex of the hypochile not bilobed, and a tine on the apex of the leaf. is similar to , but can be distinguished from the latter by having a flabellate epichile that is densely hirsute on the adaxial surface and an inconspicuous central cushion; in addition, the hypochile of has a keel that extends to the apex of the epichile.