Photosynthesis and growth of Amaranthus tricolor under strontium stress.

Amaranthaceae are effective plants for cleaning soil contaminated by heavy metals and radionuclides. In this paper, Amaranthus tricolor was used to investigate the response of the plant photosynthesis to various concentration of strontium ions (0.2, 0.

Reactive Adsorption Performance and Behavior of Gaseous Cumene on MCM-41 Supported Sulfuric Acid.

Efficient removal of cumene from gaseous streams and recovery of its derivatives was accomplished using a MCM-41-supported sulfuric acid (SSA/MCM-41) adsorbent. The results indicated that the removal performance of the SSA/MCM-41 for cumene was significantly influenced by the process conditions such as bed temperature, inlet concentration, bed height, and flow rate. The dose-response model could perfectly describe the collected breakthrough adsorption data.

Cemiplimab plus chemotherapy versus chemotherapy alone in non-small cell lung cancer: a randomized, controlled, double-blind phase 3 trial.

First-line cemiplimab (anti-programmed cell death-1 (PD-1)) monotherapy has previously shown significant improvement in overall survival (OS) and progression-free survival (PFS) versus chemotherapy in patients with advanced non-small cell lung cancer (aNSCLC) and PD-ligand 1 (PD-L1) expression ≥50%. EMPOWER-Lung 3 ( NCT03409614 ), a double-blind, placebo-controlled, phase 3 study, examined cemiplimab plus platinum-doublet chemotherapy as first-line treatment for aNSCLC, irrespective of PD-L1 expression or histology. In this study, 466 patients with stage III/IV aNSCLC without EGFR, ALK or ROS1 genomic tumor aberrations were randomized (2:1) to receive cemiplimab 350 mg (n = 312) or placebo (n = 154) every 3 weeks for up to 108 weeks in combination with four cycles of platinum-doublet chemotherapy (followed by pemetrexed maintenance as indicated).

Conformational Changes and H-Bond Rearrangements during Quinone Release in Photosystem II.

In photosystem II (PSII) and photosynthetic reaction centers from purple bacteria (PbRC), the electron released from the electronically excited chlorophyll is transferred to the terminal electron acceptor quinone, Q. Q accepts two electrons and two protons before leaving the protein. We investigated the molecular mechanism of quinone exchange in PSII, conducting molecular dynamics (MD) simulations and quantum mechanical/molecular mechanical (QM/MM) calculations.

The Transcription Factor MYB37 Positively Regulates Photosynthetic Inhibition and Oxidative Damage in Arabidopsis Leaves Under Salt Stress.

MYB transcription factors (TFs) mediate plant responses and defenses to biotic and abiotic stresses. The effects of overexpression of , an R2R3 MYB subgroup 14 transcription factors in on chlorophyll content, chlorophyll fluorescence parameters, reactive oxygen species (ROS) metabolism, and the contents of osmotic regulatory substances were studied under 100 mM NaCl stress. Compared with the wild type (Col-0), overexpression significantly alleviated the salt stress symptoms in plants.

Rational development of a combined mRNA vaccine against COVID-19 and influenza.

As the world continues to experience the COVID-19 pandemic, seasonal influenza remain a cause of severe morbidity and mortality globally. Worse yet, coinfection with SARS-CoV-2 and influenza A virus (IAV) leads to more severe clinical outcomes. The development of a combined vaccine against both COVID-19 and influenza is thus of high priority.

A meta-analysis of salivary cortisol responses in the Trier Social Stress Test to evaluate the effects of speech topics, sex, and sample size.

Background: The Trier Social Stress Test (TSST) is one of the most widely used laboratory-based psychological stress paradigms. Previous studies have shown that males have a more robust cortisol response than females in the TSST. However, the effects of sample size, speech topic, and interaction between sex and speech topic on cortisol responses in TSST remain elusive.

Production of Coffee Cherry Spirits from Varieties.

Coffee pulp, obtained from wet coffee processing, is the major by-product accumulating in the coffee producing countries. One of the many approaches valorising this underestimated agricultural residue is the production of distillates. This research project deals with the production of spirits from coffee pulp using three different Coffea arabica varieties as a substrate.

Tyr244 of the D2 Protein Is Required for Correct Assembly and Operation of the Quinone-Iron-Bicarbonate Acceptor Complex of Photosystem II.

Two plastoquinone electron acceptors, Q and Q, are present in Photosystem II (PS II) with their binding sites formed by the D2 and D1 proteins, respectively. A hexacoordinate non-heme iron is bound between Q and Q by D2 and D1, each providing two histidine ligands, and a bicarbonate that is stabilized via hydrogen bonds with D2-Tyr244 and D1-Tyr246. Both tyrosines and bicarbonate are conserved in oxygenic photosynthetic organisms but absent from the corresponding quinone-iron electron acceptor complex of anoxygenic photosynthetic bacteria.

pH-Dependent Regulation of Electron Flow in Photosystem II by a Histidine Residue at the Stromal Surface.

In photosystem II (PSII), the secondary plastoquinone electron acceptor Q functions as a substrate that converts into plastoquinol upon its double reduction by electrons abstracted from water. It has been suggested that a histidine residue, D1-H252, which is located at the stromal surface near Q, is involved in the pH-dependent regulation of electron flow and proton transfer to Q. However, definitive evidence for the involvement of D1-H252 in the Q reactions has not been obtained yet.

Lipidic cubic phase serial femtosecond crystallography structure of a photosynthetic reaction centre.

Serial crystallography is a rapidly growing method that can yield structural insights from microcrystals that were previously considered to be too small to be useful in conventional X-ray crystallography. Here, conditions for growing microcrystals of the photosynthetic reaction centre of Blastochloris viridis within a lipidic cubic phase (LCP) crystallization matrix that employ a seeding protocol utilizing detergent-grown crystals with a different crystal packing are described. LCP microcrystals diffracted to 2.

Structural and functional analysis of an inter-Spike bivalent neutralizing antibody against SARS-CoV-2 variants.

The different variants of severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2) have attracted most public concern because they caused "wave and wave" COVID-19 pandemic. The initial step of viral infection is mediated by the SARS-CoV-2 Spike (S) protein, which mediates the receptor recognition and membrane fusion between virus and host cells. Neutralizing antibodies (nAbs) targeting the S protein of SARS-CoV-2 have become promising candidates for clinical intervention strategy, while multiple studies have shown that different variants have enhanced infectivity and antibody resistance.

Response Strategies of Root System Architecture to Soil Environment: A Case Study of Single-Species Plantations.

The root system architecture (RSA), being a key characteristic of the root economic spectrum, describes the spatial arrangement and positioning of roots that determines the plant's exploration of water and nutrients in the soil. Still, it remains poorly understood how the RSA of woody plants responds to the demand for water and nutrients in different soil environments and how the uptake of these resources is optimized. Here we selected single-species plantations of and determined their topological index (), revised topological index ( and ), root link length (), root branching rate ( and : ), and soil physicochemical properties to assess which root foraging strategies adopt in different soil environments among Guang'an City (GA), Suining City (SN), Mianyang City (MY), and Deyang City (DY) in China.

Loss of a single chlorophyll in CP29 triggers re-organization of the Photosystem II supramolecular assembly.

In land plants, both efficient light capture and photoprotective dissipation of chlorophyll excited states in excess require proper assembly of Photosystem II supercomplexes PSII-LHCs. These include a dimeric core moiety and a peripheral antenna system made of trimeric LHCII proteins connected to the core through monomeric LHC subunits. Regulation of light harvesting involves re-organization of the PSII supercomplex, including dissociation of its LHCII-CP24-CP29 domain under excess light.

Coiled Conformation Hollow Carbon Nanosphere Cathode and Anode for High Energy Density and Ultrafast Chargeable Hybrid Energy Storage.

Lithium-ion batteries and pseudocapacitors are nowadays popular electrochemical energy storage for many applications, but their cathodes and anodes are still limited to accommodate rich redox ions not only for high energy density but also sluggish ion diffusivity and poor electron conductivity, hindering fast recharge. Here, we report a strategy to realize high-capacity/high-rate cathode and anode as a solution to this challenge. Multiporous conductive hollow carbon (HC) nanospheres with microporous shells for high capacity and hollow cores/mesoporous shells for rapid ion transfer are synthesized as cathode materials using quinoid:benzenoid (Q:B) unit resins of coiled conformation, leading to ∼5-fold higher capacities than benzenoid:benzenoid resins of linear conformation.

Reading-Related Skills Associated With Acquisition of Chinese as a Second/Foreign Language: A Meta-Analysis.

Previous studies have found the effect of cognitive skills (e.g., phonological awareness, morphological awareness, orthographic awareness, and rapid automatized naming) on reading ability, but the role of different reading-related skills in acquisition of Chinese as a second/foreign language (CSL/CFL) remains unexplored.

Characterizing Protein Protonation Microstates Using Monte Carlo Sampling.

Proteins are polyelectrolytes with acidic and basic amino acids Asp, Glu, Arg, Lys, and His, making up ≈25% of the residues. The protonation state of residues, cofactors, and ligands defines a "protonation microstate". In an ensemble of proteins some residues will be ionized and others neutral, leading to a mixture of protonation microstates rather than in a single one as is often assumed.

Comparison of proton transfer paths to the Q and Q sites of the Rb. sphaeroides photosynthetic reaction centers.

The photosynthetic bacterial reaction centers from purple non-sulfur bacteria use light energy to drive the transfer of electrons from cytochrome c to ubiquinone. Ubiquinone bound in the Q site cycles between quinone, Q, and anionic semiquinone, Q, being reduced once and never binding protons. In the Q site, ubiquinone is reduced twice by Q, binds two protons and is released into the membrane as the quinol, QH.

Investigation of the Densification Behavior of Alumina during Spark Plasma Sintering.

The article presents the results of the investigation of the mechanism of the densification behavior of alumina-based ceramics during spark plasma sintering. The role of the heating rates and additives were investigated. The first (initial) stage of sintering was investigated by the Young-Cutler model.

Fixed-Bed Adsorption of Lead from Aqueous Solution Using Chitosan-Coated Bentonite.

In this study, fixed-bed adsorption of Pb(II) from an aqueous solution using chitosan-coated bentonite (CCB) was investigated. Characterization of CCB was performed using Fourier transform infrared spectroscopy (FT-IR) and scanning electron microscopy (SEM). The effects of varying bed height (1.

6-Ethoxy-4- N-(2-morpholin-4-ylethyl) -2-N-propan-2-yl-1,3, 5-triazine-2, 4-diamine endows herbicidal activity against Phalaris minor a weed of wheat crop field: An in -silico and experimental approaches of herbicide discovery.

Phalaris minor is a major weed of wheat crop which has evolved resistance against herbicides. Isoproturon is the most accepted herbicide developed resistance in 1992. Later, introduced herbicides also developed resistance and cross-resistance to their respective binding sites.

Assessment of photoacoustic tomography contrast for breast tissue imaging using 3D correlative virtual histology.

Current breast tumor margin detection methods are destructive, time-consuming, and result in significant reoperative rates. Dual-modality photoacoustic tomography (PAT) and ultrasound has the potential to enhance breast margin characterization by providing clinically relevant compositional information with high sensitivity and tissue penetration. However, quantitative methods that rigorously compare volumetric PAT and ultrasound images with gold-standard histology are lacking, thus limiting clinical validation and translation.

Characterization of the wave phenomenon of flash-induced chlorophyll fluorescence in Chlamydomonas reinhardtii.

Flash-induced chlorophyll fluorescence relaxation is a powerful tool to monitor the reoxidation reactions of the reduced primary quinone acceptor, Q by Q and the plastoquinone (PQ) pool, as well as the charge recombination reactions between the donor and acceptor side components of Photosystem II (PSII). Under certain conditions, when the PQ pool is highly reduced (e.g.

Glycinebetaine mitigates tomato chilling stress by maintaining high-cyclic electron flow rate of photosystem I and stability of photosystem II.

Glycinebetaine alleviates chilling stress by protecting photosystems I and II in BADH-transgenic and GB-treated tomato plants, which can be an effective strategy for improving crop chilling tolerance. Tomato (Solanum lycopersicum) is one of the most cultivated vegetables in the world, but is highly susceptible to chilling stress and does not naturally accumulate glycinebetaine (GB), one of the most effective stress protectants. The protective mechanisms of GB on photosystem I (PSI) and photosystem II (PSII) against chilling stress, however, remain poorly understood.

Sorafenib Plus Hepatic Arterial Infusion Chemotherapy versus Sorafenib for Hepatocellular Carcinoma with Major Portal Vein Tumor Thrombosis: A Randomized Trial.

Background The prognosis of hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC) with major portal vein tumor thrombosis (PVTT) is dismal after standard treatment with sorafenib. Hepatic arterial infusion chemotherapy (HAIC) has been suggested for patients with HCC and major PVTT. Purpose To compare the efficacy and safety of sorafenib plus 3cir-OFF HAIC versus sorafenib alone for advanced HCC with major PVTT.