Publications by authors named "Jilian Li"

Limited research investigating the impact of pesticides on antibiotic resistance genes (ARGs) and viral community in the gut of wild animals. In this study, we employed metagenomic to investigate the effects of glyphosate and spinetoram on the gut viral communities, ARGs, and their interactions in a key wild pollinator, bumblebees. The results showed that both 2.

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Unlabelled: Gut microbiota of the bumblebee is critical as it modulates the health and fitness of the host. However, the mechanisms underlying the formation and maintenance of the diversity of bumblebee gut bacteria over a long period of evolution have yet to be elucidated. In particular, the gut bacterial diversity and community assembly processes of across the Chinese border remain unclear.

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The silencing of GhGASA14 and the identification of superior allelic variation in its coding region indicate that GhGASA14 may positively regulate flowering and the response to GA. Gibberellic acid-stimulated Arabidopsis (GASA), a member of the gibberellin-regulated short amino acid family, has been extensively investigated in several plant species and found to be critical for plant growth and development. However, research on this topic in cotton has been limited.

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Bees play a crucial role as pollinators, contributing significantly to ecosystems. However, the honeybee population faces challenges such as global warming, pesticide use, and pathogenic microorganisms. Promoting bee growth using several approaches is therefore crucial for maintaining their roles.

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Wild bumble bees (Hymenoptera: Apidae) play a vital role in agro-ecosystems as important pollinators. However, they are threatened by virus pathogens that are widespread in honey bees. Previous studies have reported that viruses were able to be transmitted across bee genera and caused potential danger to wild bumble bees.

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Article Synopsis
  • S. dendroides, a salt-tolerant plant from northern Xinjiang, can thrive in saline environments, and this study aims to uncover its molecular responses to high salt levels.
  • 27 sequencing libraries were created from plants exposed to different salt concentrations (200 mM and 800 mM NaCl), resulting in 133,107 unigenes and identifying 4,758 differentially expressed genes (DEGs).
  • Analysis of DEGs revealed significant expression of genes involved in processes like cell wall biosynthesis, hormone signaling, ion balance, osmolyte accumulation, and detoxification of reactive oxygen species, highlighting key mechanisms for coping with high salinity.
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Plants lack behavioral responses to avoid dramatic environmental changes associated with the annual seasons. For survival, they have evolved complex sensory systems to sense fluctuations in light and optimize their architecture in response to changes in these cues. Phytochrome A (phyA) was initially identified as a photoreceptor that senses far-red light signals.

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The fat body has important functions in energy, fertility, and immunity. In female insects, mating stimulates physiological, behavioral, and gene expression changes. However, it remains unclear whether the metabolites in the fat body are affected after the bumblebee () queen mates.

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The emergence of caste-differentiated colonies, which have been defined as 'superorganisms', in ants, bees, and wasps represents a major transition in evolution. Lifetime mating commitment by queens, pre-imaginal caste determination and lifetime unmatedness of workers are key features of these animal societies. Workers in superorganismal species like honey bees and many ants have consequently lost, or retain only vestigial spermathecal structures.

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The gut microbiota affects the health and overall fitness of bumblebees. It can enhance the host's ecological range by leveraging their metabolic capacities. However, the diversity of the gut microbiota and adaptive functional evolution in high-altitude regions remain unclear.

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Pollination services provided by wild insect pollinators are critical to natural ecosystems and crops around the world. There is an increasing appreciation that the gut microbiota of these insects influences their health and consequently their services. However, pollinator gut microbiota studies have focused on well-described social bees, but rarely include other, more phylogenetically divergent insect pollinators.

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Article Synopsis
  • Sublethal exposure to spinetoram and glyphosate negatively affects bumblebee foraging and learning, which has raised concerns about their health.
  • The study conducted tests over 10 days, measuring various physiological enzymes and gut microbes in bumblebees exposed to these pesticides.
  • Results showed that while the detoxification system remained largely unaffected, glyphosate altered the gut fungal community and hampered energy acquisition, potentially impacting bumblebee health.
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Genome-wide association studies (GWAS) of fiber quality traits of upland cotton were conducted to identify the single-nucleotide polymorphic (SNP) loci associated with cotton fiber quality, which lays the foundation for the mining of elite] cotton fiber gene resources and its application in molecular breeding. A total of 612 upland cotton accessions were genotyped using the ZJU Cotton Chip No. 1 40K chip array the liquid-phase probe hybridization-based genotyping-by-target-sequencing (GBTS) technology.

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and , members of core gut microbiota in corbiculate bees, have high species diversity and adaptability to a wide range of hosts. In this study, we performed species taxonomy and phylogenetic analysis for and strains that we isolated in our laboratory, in combination with published whole-genome. Functional effects of accessory and unique genes were investigated by KEGG category and pathway annotation in pan-genome analysis.

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Sacbrood virus (SBV) infects larvae of honey bees, resulting in infected larvae becoming fluid-filled sacs. Our previous studies showed that the extract of herbal medicine, Radix Isatidis, could inhibit Chinese SBV (CSBV) infection in Asian honey bees (Apis cerana). Here, two compounds, adenosine and L-proline, which were previously reported to be associated with immune modulation, were identified in R.

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Bumblebee queens have remarkable spermathecae that store sperm for year-round reproduction. The spermathecal gland is regarded as a secretory organ that could benefit sperm storage. Queen mating provokes substantial physiological, behavioral, and gene expression changes.

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Background: Both healthcare provider-patient communication and self-care efficacy affect psychological distress, which is prevalent among patients with gastrointestinal (GI) cancers. It is essential to explore the underlying mechanism among them to relieve psychological distress.

Objective: The aim of this study was to examine whether self-care efficacy mediated the association between healthcare provider-patient communication and psychological distress among patients with GI cancers.

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Article Synopsis
  • The honey bee is crucial for agriculture, pollinating a third of our food, but is threatened by the Sacbrood virus (SBV), especially the Chinese strain (CSBV) causing mass bee deaths in China.
  • Researchers used high-throughput next-generation sequencing to explore how honey bee larvae respond to CSBV, finding 2,534 differentially expressed genes related to immunity, particularly in pathways like Toll, IMD, and RNA interference.
  • The study revealed significant changes in the expression of genes related to antimicrobial peptides and Sirtuin proteins, marking the first evidence of Sirtuin's role in insect immune responses to viral infections, which could aid in developing treatments for honey bee diseases.
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Honeybee drones are male bees that mate with virgin queens during the mating flight, consequently transferring their genes to offspring. Therefore, the health of drones affects the overall fitness of the offspring and ultimately the survivability of the colony. Honeybee viruses are considered to be a major threat to the health of honeybees.

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Bumble bees are vital to our agro-ecological system, with approximately 250 species reported around the world in the single genus . However, the health of bumble bees is threatened by multiple factors: habitat loss, climate change, pesticide use, and disease caused by pathogens and parasites. It is therefore vitally important to have a fully developed phylogeny for bumble bee species as part of our conservation efforts.

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Gut microbes play an important role in host disease and health. The Asian honey bee Apis cerana is an important pollinator of agricultural crops in China. However, there are still few studies on the structure and composition of the microbiota in the intestine of A.

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The vitellogenin receptor (VgR) belongs to the low-density lipoprotein receptor (LDLR) family, responsible for mediating the endocytosis of vitellogenin (Vg) into the ovaries to promote ovarian growth and oviposition. Here, we cloned and measured gene expression characteristics in the bumblebee . RNA interference was used to validate VgR function.

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Bumble bees are important pollinators in natural and agricultural ecosystems. Their social colonies are founded by individual queens, which, as the predominant reproductive females of colonies, contribute to colony function through worker production and fitness through male and new queen production. Therefore, queen health is paramount, but even though there has been an increasing emphasis on the role of gut microbiota for animal health, there is limited information on the gut microbial dynamics of bumble bee queens.

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The role of the gut microbiome in animal health has become increasingly evident. Although the structure of the gut microbiome of A. mellifera is well known, little is known about the dynamic change across different developmental stages.

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Upland cotton ( L.) is the most important source of natural fiber in the world. Early-maturity upland cotton varieties are commonly planted in China.

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