Publications by authors named "Lele Xu"

Bovine viral diarrhea virus (BVDV) causes one of the significant devastating diseases for the cattle industry worldwide. The virus can cross the placenta and result in the persistent infection of the fetus, which has hampered the efficacy and the development of vaccines. Hence, efficient antiviral strategies are urgently needed.

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Cancer cells metastatic to the leptomeninges encounter a metabolically-challenging extreme microenvironment. To understand adaptations to this space, we subjected leptomeningeal-metastatic (LeptoM) mouse breast and lung cancers isolated from either the leptomeninges or orthotopic primary sites to ATAC-and RNA-sequencing. When inhabiting the leptomeninges, the LeptoM cells demonstrated transcription downstream of retinoid-X-receptors (RXRs).

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  • This study evaluated high variability phonetic training (HVPT) for children with cochlear implants (CIs), specifically focusing on improving their ability to produce lexical tones.
  • Sixteen children underwent a five-session HVPT, while another sixteen received no training; their tone production was assessed before, immediately after, and ten weeks post-training.
  • Results showed significant improvements in Mandarin tone production among the trained group, including lasting changes in tone characteristics, highlighting the potential of HVPT in clinical practices for pediatric CI users.
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  • Porcine reproductive and respiratory syndrome (PRRS) is a major viral disease affecting pigs worldwide, with vaccination being crucial for its control.
  • In China, the NADC30-like PRRSV strain has become the dominant strain, and existing vaccines mainly protect against the older HP-PRRSV strain but are ineffective against NADC30-like.
  • This study developed a chimeric PRRSV vaccine strain (rGD-SX-5U2) that combines genes from both HP-PRRSV and NADC30-like PRRSV, showing promising results in protecting against both strains and improving swine health outcomes.
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  • PARP inhibitors are a new type of medicine that show promise for treating a difficult form of prostate cancer called castration-resistant prostate cancer (CRPC).
  • We found that a special molecule called N6-methyladenosine (mA) and a protein called FTO are linked to how cancer grows and responds to treatments.
  • By boosting FTO levels, we can make PARP inhibitors work better, which suggests new ways to treat this type of cancer.
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The transforming growth factor-β (TGF-β) signaling pathway is pivotal in inducing epithelial-mesenchymal transition (EMT) and promoting cancer metastasis. Long non-coding RNAs (lncRNAs) have emerged as significant players in these processes, yet their precise mechanisms remain elusive. Here, we demonstrate that TGF-β-upregulated lncRNA 1 (TBUR1) is significantly activated by TGF-β via Smad3/4 signaling in lung adenocarcinoma (LUAD) cells.

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Echolalia, a prevalent feature of Autism Spectrum Disorders (ASD), has been extensively debated among behaviourists and developmental researchers for decades, long segmenting clinical work within the context of autism. This qualitative study aimed to explore the interactive underpinnings of immediate echolalia naturally occurring in dyadic conversation between autistic individuals and clinicians, employing turn-by-turn and sequence-by-sequence analysis within the framework of Conversation Analysis (CA). The results revealed that varying the complete-incomplete-transformed format, echolalia helped participants a) express their emotions, b) automatically associate conversation, c) organise their response, d) maintain conversational reciprocity, and e) assist with request initiation.

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  • Researchers developed a new type of ceramic laser gain medium, Ce,Nd:YAG, that outperforms existing materials in converting light for solar-powered lasers.
  • The new material demonstrated 3.98 times higher visible light absorption and 1.34 times enhanced light conversion efficiency compared to Cr,Nd:YAG ceramics.
  • The study concluded that optimizing the concentrations of Ce and Nd ions boosts energy transfer efficiency, reaching 64.31% at elevated temperatures, which can improve solid-state laser performance.
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  • Porcine circovirus type 2 (PCV2) is a widespread issue in pig farming, and vaccines are crucial for its prevention and control.* -
  • The study developed a double antibody sandwich ELISA using a monoclonal antibody to accurately detect PCV2 Cap protein, improving vaccine quality control and efficiency.* -
  • This new method is sensitive, specific, and cost-effective, allowing for quicker testing of PCV2 vaccine efficacy compared to traditional animal testing.*
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Vision-and-language navigation requires an agent to navigate in a photo-realistic environment by following natural language instructions. Mainstream methods employ imitation learning (IL) to let the agent imitate the behavior of the teacher. The trained model will overfit the teacher's biased behavior, resulting in poor model generalization.

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Real-time DOA (direction of arrival) estimation of surface or underwater targets is of great significance to the research of marine environment and national security protection. When conducting real-time DOA estimation of underwater targets, it can be difficult to extract the prior characteristics of noise due to the complexity and variability of the marine environment. Therefore, the accuracy of target orientation in the absence of a known noise is significantly reduced, thereby presenting an additional challenge for the DOA estimation of the marine targets in real-time.

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Glia derived secretory factors play diverse roles in supporting the development, physiology, and stress responses of the central nervous system (CNS). Through transcriptomics and imaging analyses, we have identified Obp44a as one of the most abundantly produced secretory proteins from CNS glia. Protein structure homology modeling and Nuclear Magnetic Resonance (NMR) experiments reveal Obp44a as a fatty acid binding protein (FABP) with a high affinity towards long-chain fatty acids in both native and oxidized forms.

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Natural speech plays a pivotal role in communication and interactions between human beings. The prosody of natural speech, due to its high ecological validity and sensitivity, has been acoustically analyzed and more recently utilized in machine learning to identify individuals with autism spectrum disorders (ASDs). In this meta-analysis, we evaluated the findings of empirical studies on acoustic analysis and machine learning techniques to provide statistically supporting evidence for adopting natural speech prosody for ASD detection.

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  • - Mitochondria change shape through fission and fusion, which is vital for cells to function properly, but the details of this process in the rice blast fungus are not well understood.
  • - Researchers identified a protein, MoTom20, that is essential for the growth and pathogenicity of the fungus; deleting this gene slows down growth, reduces conidial production, and alters infective capabilities compared to normal strains.
  • - MoTom20 helps regulate mitochondrial shape and is involved in using fatty acids for energy; its yeast counterpart can compensate for some of the defects seen in the mutant fungi.
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Porcine reproductive and respiratory syndrome (PRRS) is a serious infectious disease and one of the major causes of death in the global pig industry. PRRS virus (PRRSV) strains have complex and diverse genetic characteristics and cross-protection between strains is low, which complicates vaccine selection; thus, the current vaccination strategy has been greatly compromised. Therefore, it is necessary to identify effective natural compounds for the clinical treatment of PRRS.

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  • Paralytic shellfish poisoning from toxic algae is a major public health concern, making it crucial to monitor shellfish safety to prevent contaminated mussels from entering the market.!* -
  • This study introduces a rapid detection technique for paralytic shellfish toxins (PST) in mussels using near-infrared spectroscopy (NIRS) and an advanced classification model called unequal misclassification costs near-Bayesian support vector machines (u-NBSVM).
  • The u-NBSVM model showed superior detection performance compared to traditional methods, achieving high accuracy rates even with reduced sample sizes, indicating its effectiveness for quick and non-invasive PST detection in mussels.!*
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Lightweight carbon nanotube fibers (CNTFs) with high electrical conductivity and high tensile strength are considered to be an ideal wiring medium for a wide range of applications. However, connecting CNTFs with metals by soldering is extremely difficult due to the nonreactive nature and poor wettability of CNTs. Here we report a strong connection between single-wall CNTFs (SWCNTFs) and a Cu matrix by introducing an intermediate Ni layer, which enables the formation of mechanically strong and electrically conductive joints between SWCNTFs and a eutectic Sn-37Pb alloy.

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Porcine epidemic diarrhea virus (PEDV) leads to enormous economic losses for the pork industry. However, the commercial vaccines failed to fully protect against the epidemic strains. Previously, the rCH/SX/2016-S strain with the entire E protein and the rCH/SX/2015 strain with the deletion of 7-amino-acid (7-aa) at positions 23-29 in E protein were constructed and rescued.

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  • PRRS (Porcine reproductive and respiratory syndrome) is a major global issue for the pig industry, primarily due to the high mutation rate of PRRSV, which complicates vaccine effectiveness.
  • A study discovered a new wild-type strain, SX-YL1806, that showed immunity issues with commercial modified live virus (MLV) vaccines, which worked well against another strain but not this one.
  • Genomic analysis revealed low similarity between the MLV vaccine and the new strain, and tests indicated that the vaccine-induced antibodies might be enhancing the replication of the new strain, hinting at a phenomenon called antibody-dependent enhancement (ADE) that could reduce vaccine protection.
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Cell-generated contraction force is the primary physical drive for fibrotic densification of biological tissues. Previous studies using two-dimensional culture models have shown that epithelial cells inhibit the myofibroblast-derived contraction force via the regulation of the fibroblast/myofibroblast transition (FMT). However, it remains unclear how epithelial cells interact with fibroblasts and myofibroblasts to determine the mechanical consequences and spatiotemporal regulation of fibrosis development.

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Carbon nanotube (CNT)/Cu core-shell fibers are a promising material for lightweight conductors due to their higher conductivity than pure CNT fibers and lower density than traditional Cu wires. However, the electrical properties of the hybrid fiber have been unsatisfactory, mainly because of the weak CNT-Cu interfacial interaction. Here we report the fabrication of a single-walled CNT (SWCNT)/Cu core-shell fiber that outperforms commercial Cu wires in terms of specific electrical conductivity and current carrying capacity.

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Diarrhetic shellfish poisoning (DSP) toxins are one of the most widespread marine biotoxins that affect aquaculture and human health, and their detection has become crucial. In this study, near-infrared reflectance spectroscopy (NIRS) with non-destructive characteristics was used to identify DSP toxins in Perna viridis. The spectral data of the DSP toxin-contaminated and non-contaminated Perna viridis samples were acquired in the 950-1700 nm range.

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Fatty acid β-oxidation is critical for fatty acid degradation and cellular development. In the rice blast fungus Magnaporthe oryzae, fatty acid β-oxidation is reported to be important mainly for turgor generation in the appressorium. However, the role of fatty acid β-oxidation during invasive hyphal growth is rarely documented.

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High-purity and well-graphitized single-walled carbon nanotubes (SWCNTs) with excellent physiochemical properties are ideal building blocks for the assembly of various CNT macrostructures for a wide range of applications. We report the preparation of high-quality SWCNTs on a large scale using a floating catalyst chemical vapor deposition (FCCVD) method. Under the optimum conditions, the conversion rate of the carbon source to SWCNTs reached 28.

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In the context of global warming, although the coordinated development of tourism has led to regional economic growth, the high energy consumption-driven effects of such development have also led to environmental degradation. This research combines the undesired output of the Super-SBM model and social network analysis methods to determine the eco-efficiency of provincial tourism in China from 2010-2019 and analyzes its spatial correlation characteristics as well as its influencing factors. The aim of the project is to improve China's regional tourism eco-efficiency and promote cross-regional tourism correlation.

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