Publications by authors named "Xiaojun Nie"

Tiger nut ( L.) is recognized for its high oil and oleic acid content in underground tubers. However, the molecular mechanisms governing growth, development, and fatty acid accumulation in these tubers are not well understood.

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  • Researchers explored the role of m6A-related genes in wild emmer wheat, identifying 64 candidates responsible for RNA modification, including writers, erasers, and readers.
  • The study revealed that gene duplication and polyploidization significantly contributed to the expansion of these genes, with promoter analysis showing links to stress and hormonal response elements.
  • A specific focus on the gene TdFIP37 highlighted its crucial role in regulating salt tolerance, with loss-function mutants demonstrating increased sensitivity to salt stress, linking it to the MAPK signaling pathway.
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  • The study examines how m6A methylation in wheat is affected by drought stress, finding that TaETC9 may help regulate drought tolerance through RNA methylation.
  • Researchers identified 4221 m6A peaks in 3733 genes, with 373 peaks showing different expressions under drought conditions compared to control conditions.
  • The results indicate that higher levels of m6A are linked to increased mRNA abundance, and the deletion of TaETC9 increased drought sensitivity, suggesting its essential role in drought resistance in wheat.
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Objective: Phenylethanolamine N-methyltransferase (PNMT)-expressing neurons in the nucleus tractus solitarii (NTS) contribute to the regulation of autonomic functions. However, the neural circuits linking these neurons to other brain regions remain unclear. This study aims to investigate the connectivity mechanisms of the PNMT-expressing neurons in the NTS (NTS neurons).

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Drought is one of the major environmental constraints for wheat production world-wide. As the progenitor and genetic reservoir of common wheat, emmer wheat is considered as an invaluable gene pool for breeding drought-tolerant wheat. Combining GWAS and eGWAS analysis of 107 accessions, we identified 86 QTLs, 105 462 eQTLs as well as 68 eQTL hotspots associating with drought tolerance (DT) in emmer wheat.

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  • Recent advancements in the design and testing of a 2nd harmonic cavity for the China Spallation Neutron Source Phase II have been reported.* -
  • A high-performance magnetic alloy core was created to enable a strong electric gradient of 40 kV/m for enhanced efficiency.* -
  • Enhancements in water-cooling systems were validated through simulations and experiments, ensuring the cavity's stability and waterproofness during high power operation.*
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Plants exposed to a variety of abiotic and biotic stressors including environmental pollution and global warming pose significant threats to biodiversity and ecosystem services. Despite substantial literature documenting how plants adapt to distinct stressors, there still is a lack of knowledge regarding responses to multiple stressors and how these affects growth and development. Exposure of plants to concurrent biotic and abiotic stressors such as cadmium and drought, leads to pronounced inhibition in above ground biomass, imbalance in oxidative homeostasis, nutrient assimilation and stunted root growth, elucidating the synergistic interactions of multiple stressors culminating in adverse physiological outcomes.

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N6-methyladenosine modifications (m6A) is one of the most abundant and prevalent post-transcriptional RNA modifications in plants, playing the crucial role in plant growth and development and stress adaptation. However, the m6A regulatory machinery in , the D genome progenitor of common wheat, is not well understood at present. Here, we systematically identified the m6A-related genes in with a genome-wide search approach.

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Background: RNA-sequencing (RNA-seq) has been widely used to study the dynamic expression patterns of transcribed genes, which can lead to new biological insights. However, processing and analyzing these huge amounts of histological data remains a great challenge for wet labs and field researchers who lack bioinformatics experience and computational resources.

Results: We present BarleyExpDB, an easy-to-operate, free, and web-accessible database that integrates transcriptional profiles of barley at different growth and developmental stages, tissues, and stress conditions, as well as differential expression of mutants and populations to build a platform for barley expression and visualization.

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Introduction: Under current global warming, the relationship between season changes of plants and environmental factors is focused on high-elevation and latitude regions. Due to the desynchronized growth of above- and below-ground and the buffering of soil, the driving factors in leaf and root show seasonal dynamics.

Methods: We measured above- and below-ground intensity in the alpine steppe over the non-growing season (October-April) and growing season (May-September).

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The NAC transcription factor (TF) family is one of the largest plant-specific gene families, playing the vital roles in plant growth and development as well as stress response. Although it has been extensively characterized in many plants, the significance of NAC family in wild emmer wheat is not well understood up to now. Here, a total of 200 NAC transcription factors were identified in wild emmer (TdNACs) through a genome-search method, which were classified into 12 subfamilies based on phylogenetic relationship.

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The nucleus tractus solitarii (NTS) is one of the morphologically and functionally defined centers that engage in the autonomic regulation of cardiovascular activity. Phenotypically-characterized NTS neurons have been implicated in the differential regulation of blood pressure (BP). Here, we investigated whether phenylethanolamine N-methyltransferase (PNMT)-expressing NTS (NTS) neurons contribute to the control of BP.

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Background: Salt stress is one of the most destructive environmental factors limiting crop growth and development. MicroRNAs (miRNAs) are a class of conserved endogenous small non-coding RNAs, playing the crucial role in regulating salt response and tolerance in plants. However, the miRNAs in wild emmer wheat, especially the key and specific salt-responsive miRNAs are not well studied.

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Background: A gene family comprises a group of genes with similar functional domains that play various roles in plant growth, development, and responses to environmental stimuli. Barley (Hordeum vulgare L.) is the fourth most cultivated cereal crop worldwide, and it is an important model species for genetic studies.

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Background: Long noncoding RNAs (lncRNAs) are emerging as the important regulators involving in growth and development as well as stress response in plants. However, current lncRNA studies were mainly performed at the individual level and the significance of it is not well understood in wheat.

Results: In this study, the lncRNA landscape of wheat spike was characterized through analysing a total of 186 spike RNA-seq datasets from 93 wheat genotypes.

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RNA/DNA difference (RDD) is a post-transcriptional modification playing a crucial role in regulating diverse biological processes in eukaryotes. Although it has been extensively studied in plant chloroplast and mitochondria genomes, RDDs in plant nuclear genomes are not well studied at present. Here, we investigated the RDDs associated with fusarium head blight (FHB) through a novel method by comparing the RNA-seq data between Fusarium-infected and control samples of four wheat genotypes.

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Transcription factor (TF) is a class of the sequence-specific DNA-binding proteins that modulate the transcription of target genes, and thus regulate their expressions. Variations in TF are the crucial determinants for phenotypic traits. Although much progress has been made in the functions of TF genes in wheat, one of the most important staple crops globally, the diversity of TF genes in wheat and its progenitors are not well understood, especially the agronomically promising haplotypes have not yet been characterized.

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Drought has gradually become one of the most severe abiotic stresses on plants. Plants that experience stress training can exhibit enhanced stress tolerance. According to MicroRNA (miRNA) sequencing data, this study identified 195 candidate drought memory-related miRNAs in wheat, and targets of 64 (32.

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RNA/DNA difference (RDD) is a post-transcriptional RNA modification to enrich genetic information, widely involved in regulating diverse biological processes in eukaryotes. RDDs in the wheat nuclear genome, especially those associated with drought response or tolerance, were not well studied up to now. In this study, we investigated the RDDs related to drought response based on the RNA-seq data of drought-stressed and control samples in wheat.

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Understanding the spatiotemporal characteristics of PM concentrations and identifying their associated meteorological factors can provide useful insight for implementing air pollution interventions. In this study, we used daily air quality monitoring data for 28 air pollution transmission channel cities in the Beijing-Tianjin-Hebei region during 2014-2019 to quantify the relative contributions of meteorological factors on spatiotemporal variation in PM concentration by combining time series and spatial perspectives. The results show that annual mean PM concentration significantly decreased in 24 of the channel cities from 2014 to 2019, but they all still exceeded the Grade II Chinese Ambient Air Quality Standards (35 μg m) in 2019.

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The ZIP (Zn-regulated, iron-regulated transporter-like protein) transporter plays an important role in regulating the uptake, transport, and accumulation of microelements in plants. Although some studies have identified ZIP genes in wheat, the significance of this family is not well understood, particularly its involvement under Fe and Zn stresses. In this study, we comprehensively characterized the wheat ZIP family at the genomic level and performed functional verification of three TaZIP genes by yeast complementary analysis and of by transgenic .

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The lateral organ boundaries domain (LBD) genes, as the plant-specific transcription factor family, play a crucial role in controlling plant architecture and stress tolerance. Although it has been thoroughly characterized in many species, the LBD family was not well studied in wheat. Here, the wheat LBD family was systematically investigated through an genome-wide search method.

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In this study, 82 U-box genes were identified in wild emmer wheat (TdPUBs) through a genome-search method. Phylogenetic analysis classified them into seven groups and the genes belonging to the same group shared the similar exon-intron structure, motif organization and cis-element compositions. Synteny analysis of the U-box genes between different species revealed that segmental duplication and polyploidization mainly contributed to the expansion of TdPUBs.

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