Phylogeographic and genetic insights into Sinonychia martensi: an endemic cave-dwelling harvestman in Beijing.

Caves are one of the most exciting environments on earth, often considered an evolutionary laboratory due to the suite of convergent adaptive traits (troglomorphisms) of organisms inhabiting them. Sinonychia martensi Zhang & Derkarabetian, 2021, is the first and only Travunioidea species recorded in China and is endemic to Beijing, being known from multiple caves. However, nothing is known regarding its phylogeographic or evolutionary history.

Unveiling Diversity and Function: Venom-Associated Microbes in Two Spiders, Heteropoda venatoria and Chilobrachys guangxiensis.

Spiders are natural predators of agricultural pests, primarily due to the potent venom in their venom glands. Spider venom is compositionally complex and holds research value. This study analyzes the diversity of symbiotic bacteria in spider venom glands and venom, as well as the biological activity of culturable symbiotic bacteria.

Inhibitor binding and disruption of coupled motions in MmpL3 protein: Unraveling the mechanism of trehalose monomycolate transport.

Mycobacterial membrane protein Large 3 (MmpL3) of Mycobacterium tuberculosis (Mtb) is crucial for the translocation of trehalose monomycolate (TMM) across the inner bacterial cell membrane, making it a promising target for anti-tuberculosis (TB) drug development. While several structural, microbiological, and in vitro studies have provided significant insights, the precise mechanisms underlying TMM transport by MmpL3 and its inhibition remain incompletely understood at the atomic level. In this study, molecular dynamic (MD) simulations for the apo form and seven inhibitor-bound forms of Mtb MmpL3 were carried out to obtain a thorough comprehension of the protein's dynamics and function.

Environmental specificity of karst cave habitats evidenced by diverse symbiotic bacteria in Opiliones.

Background: Karst caves serve as natural laboratories, providing organisms with extreme and constant conditions that promote isolation, resulting in a genetic relationship and living environment that is significantly different from those outside the cave. However, research on cave creatures, especially Opiliones, remains scarce, with most studies focused on water, soil, and cave sediments.

Results: The structure of symbiotic bacteria in different caves were compared, revealing significant differences.

Diversity and Functionality of Bacteria Associated with Different Tissues of Spider Heteropoda venatoria Revealed through Integration of High-Throughput Sequencing and Culturomics Approaches.

Spiders host a diverse range of bacteria in their guts and other tissues, which have been found to play a significant role in their fitness. This study aimed to investigate the community diversity and functional characteristics of spider-associated bacteria in four tissues of Heteropoda venatoria using HTS of the 16S rRNA gene and culturomics technologies, as well as the functional verification of the isolated strains. The results of HTS showed that the spider-associated bacteria in different tissues belonged to 34 phyla, 72 classes, 170 orders, 277 families, and 458 genera.

Research on complex network modeling of building materials supply and demand and characteristics of communities.

Currently, China's building materials market is large and the supply and demand transactions are very frequent, which requires us to have a comprehensive understanding of the supply and demand transactions of building materials. Based on complex network theory, this paper constructs a complex network model of supply and demand of building materials. And the Louvain algorithm is also improved to identify and characterize the network community relations based on the characteristics of this network.

Excess Mortality for Femoral Intertrochanteric Fracture Patients Aged 50 Years and Older Treated Surgically and Conservatively in Tianjin, China: A Cohort Study.

Objective: Intertrochanteric fracture is one type of hip fracture, which is the most serious consequence of osteoporosis. Along with the growing elderly population, intertrochanteric fracture is expected to rise increasingly. The aim of this study was to assess excess mortality after intertrochanteric fractures and to identify the predictors of long-term mortality by therapy among patients aged 50 years and older in Tianjin.

Coffee-Associated Endophytes: Plant Growth Promotion and Crop Protection.

Endophytic microbes are a ubiquitous group of plant-associated communities that colonize the intercellular or intracellular host tissues while providing numerous beneficial effects to the plants. All the plant species are thought to be associated with endophytes, majorly constituted with bacteria and fungi. During the last two decades, there has been a considerable movement toward the study of endophytes associated with coffee plants.

Propylene glycol-mixed steam enhanced extraction for an efficient and sustainable remediation of PAHs-contaminated soil.

An innovative thermal desorption method, propylene glycol (PG)-mixed steam enhanced extraction, is proposed for a highly efficient remediation of polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons (PAHs)-contaminated soil. It is found that injecting PG-mixed steam into soil column could obtain > 99% removal efficiencies of PAHs either for the pyrene-spiked soil, or for the contaminated field soil with high-molecular-weight PAHs. PG is a safe and low-cost dihydric alcohol with a boiling point higher than water.

Echolocation clicks of free-ranging Indo-Pacific finless porpoises (Neophocaena phocaenoides) in Hainan waters.

The echolocation clicks of free-ranging Indo-Pacific finless porpoises (IPFPs, Neophocaena phocaenoides) have been rarely studied in the wild. This paper aims at describing the echolocation-click characteristics of IPFPs and examining whether IPFPs adapt their sonar system to the habitats in Hainan waters, China. The echolocation clicks were recorded using a 13 elements star-shaped array of hydrophones.

Bispecific antibody targeting TROP2xCD3 suppresses tumor growth of triple negative breast cancer.

Background: Triple negative breast cancer (TNBC) is a subtype of breast cancers with poor prognosis and targeted drug therapies are limited. To develop novel and efficacious therapies for TNBC, we developed a bispecific antibody F7AK3 that recognizes both trophoblast cell surface antigen 2 (TROP2) and CD3 and evaluated its antitumor activities both in vitro and in vivo.

Methods: The binding affinities of F7AK3 to the two targets, TROP2 and CD3, were evaluated by surface plasmon resonance.

Temporal variation of the underwater soundscape in Jiaotou Bay, an Indo-Pacific humpback dolphin (Sousa chinensis) habitat off Hainan Island, China.

The underwater soundscape is an important ecological element affecting numerous aquatic animals, in particular dolphins, which must identify salient cues from ambient ocean noise. In this study, temporal variations in the soundscape of Jiaotou Bay were monitored from February 2016 to January 2017, where a population of Indo-Pacific humpback dolphins (Sousa chinensis) has recently been a regular sighting. An autonomous acoustic recorder was deployed in shallow waters, and 1/3-octave band sound pressure levels (SPLs) were calculated with central frequencies ranging from 25 Hz to 40 kHz, then were grouped into 3 subdivided bands via cluster analysis.

Blood biomarkers related to osteonecrosis of femoral head by internal fixation after Garden I femoral neck fracture: a cohort study.

Background: Internal fixation is currently considered the gold standard in treatment for femoral neck fractures in adults. However, osteonecrosis of the femoral head (ONFH) after internal fixation would occur in quite proportion of patients with femoral neck fracture, even in Garden I femoral neck fracture. The purpose of this study was to determine the association between the blood biomarkers (serum albumin, pre-albumin, total protein and total lymphocyte count) and ONFH following internal fixation of Garden I femoral neck fracture in adults.

Spatiotemporal evolution law and output prediction of construction waste in the People's Republic of China.

Based on the relevant data of construction waste (CW) in the People's Republic of China (PRC) from 2010 to 2018, this study applied K-means clustering algorithm and grey prediction methods to systematically investigate the spatiotemporal characteristic distribution and provincial clustering of CW in the PRC, and predicted the annual output of CW in the next five years from the scientific perspective. Results showed that the annual output of CW in the PRC displayed an overall trend of "rising first and then falling" and "being high in the middle east and low in the northwest," and the areas with obvious agglomeration gradually spread from the west to the middle and eastern regions. The law of development was consistent with the goals of the Chinese government to promulgate urban agglomeration development policies, prefabricated building encouragement policies, and CW management regulations.

How calcium ion binding induces the conformational transition of the calmodulin N-terminal domain-an atomic level characterization.

Allostery plays important roles in the regulation of many biological processes, such as signal transduction and transcriptional regulation. Although great advances have been achieved in understanding the allosteric mechanism through experimental and theoretical investigations, the details of the allosteric process are still not clear. Here, using the N-terminal domain of calmodulin (nCaM) as the model protein, we reported the atomic level characterization of the allosteric process induced by Ca2+ binding through extensive and unbiased molecular dynamics simulations.

Modulation of p53 N-terminal transactivation domain 2 conformation ensemble and kinetics by phosphorylation.

Phosphorylation of protein is critical for various cell processes, which preferentially happens in intrinsically disordered proteins (IDPs). How phosphorylation modulates structural ensemble of disordered peptide remains largely unexplored. Here, using replica exchange molecular dynamics (REMD) and Markov state model (MSM), the conformational distribution and kinetics of p53 N-terminal transactivation domain (TAD) 2 as well as its dual-site phosphorylated form (pSer46, pThr55) were simulated.

Integration of T7 exonuclease-triggered amplification and cationic conjugated polymer biosensing for highly sensitive detection of microRNA.

A novel and highly sensitive method for detection of microRNA (miRNA) was developed by integration of T7 exonuclease-triggered amplification and cationic conjugated polymer (CCP) biosensing. First, a fluorescein-labeled probe was designed with the complementary sequence to the target miRNA. When target miRNA was absent in the solution, the fluorescence probe interacted with CCP through the strong electrostatic interactions, leading to the highly efficient fluorescence resonance energy transfer (FRET) from CCP to fluorescein.

Using Naive Bayes Classifier to predict osteonecrosis of the femoral head with cannulated screw fixation.

Predictive models permitting personalized prognostication for patients with cannulated screw fixation for the femoral neck fracture before operation are lacking. The objective of this study was to train, test, and cross-validate a Naive Bayes Classifier to predict the occurrence of postoperative osteonecrosis of cannulated screw fixation before the patient underwent the operation. The data for the classifier model were obtained from a ambispective cohort of 120 patients who had undergone closed reduction and cannulated screw fixation from January 2011 to June 2013.

, a new species of the genus Suzuki, 1963 from China (Opiliones, Nemastomatidae, Ortholasmatinae).

The fourth species of the Asian genus , is described from specimens collected in Yunnan Province, China. The new species is distinct from Suzuki, 1963 and (Schwendinger & Gruber, 1992) in lacking enlarged, dorsally-directed tubercles on the abdominal scutum; and from Zhang & Zhang, 2013 in having keels around the eyes and in the position of the eyes. Differences in male genital structures between the Chinese species are small, while there are more differences with the Japanese species.

Characterization of the structural ensembles of p53 TAD2 by molecular dynamics simulations with different force fields.

Intrinsically disordered regions (IDRs) or proteins (IDPs), which play crucial biological functions in essential biological processes of life, do not have well-defined secondary or tertiary structures when isolated in solution. The highly dynamic properties and conformational heterogeneity of IDPs make them challenging to study with traditional experimental techniques. As a powerful complementary tool for experiments, all-atom molecular dynamics simulation can obtain detailed conformational information on IDPs, but the limitation of force field accuracy is a challenge for reproducing IDP conformers.

Agrobacterium tumefaciens-mediated transformation as an efficient tool for insertional mutagenesis of Cercospora zeae-maydis.

An efficient Agrobacterium tumefaciens-mediated transformation (ATMT) approach was developed for the plant pathogenic fungus, Cercospora zeae-maydis, which is the causative agent of gray leaf spot in maize. The transformation was evaluated with five parameters to test the efficiencies of transformation. Results showed that spore germination time, co-cultivation temperature and time were the significant influencing factors in all parameters.

Conjugated Polymers/DNA Hybrid Materials for Protein Inactivation.

Chromophore-assisted light inactivation (CALI) is a powerful tool for analyzing protein functions due to the high degree of spatial and temporal resolution. In this work, we demonstrate a CALI approach based on conjugated polymers (CPs)/DNA hybrid material for protein inactivation. The target protein is conjugated with single-stranded DNA in advance.

Visual Detection of Multiplex MicroRNAs Using Cationic Conjugated Polymer Materials.

A simple, visual, and specific method for simultaneous detection of multiplex microRNAs (miRNAs) has been developed by integrating duplex-specific nuclease (DSN)-induced amplification with cationic conjugated polymer (CCP) materials. The probe DNA with a complementary sequence to target miRNA is labeled with fluorescein dye (FAM). Without target miRNA, the single-strand DNA probe cannot be digested by DSN.

A simple molecular beacon with duplex-specific nuclease amplification for detection of microRNA.

MicroRNAs (miRNAs) are small non-coding RNAs that regulate gene activity, promoting or inhibiting cell proliferation, migration and apoptosis. Abnormal expression of miRNAs is associated with many diseases. Therefore, it is essential to establish a simple, rapid and sensitive miRNA detection method.