Uptake, translocation, and risk assessment of PAHs in contaminated soil-air-vegetable systems based on a field simulation experiment.

Vegetable consumption is a potential toxin exposure pathway for humans. Studies have recognized that vegetables can uptake organic contaminants via roots and translocate pollutants to their aerial parts. However, the aerial parts might also directly uptake polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons (PAHs) from contaminated soils.

Template synthesis of two-dimensional ternary nickel-cobalt-nitrogen co-doped porous carbon film: Promoting the conductivity and more active sites for oxygen reduction.

Rational design of a stable, highly active non-precious metal-based electrocatalysts for oxygen reduction reaction (ORR) is vitally important for industrial application of fuel cells technology. As a potential alternative of Pt/C catalyst, two-dimensional (2D) porous carbon materials are widely investigated due to the highly accessible surface area and active sites, wherein carbon films doped with a plurality of metals and non-metal elements are rarely reported due to an uncontrollable synthesis process. Here, a bi-metallic (NiCo alloy nanoparticles) and nonmetallic (N) co-doped porous carbon film (Ni-Co-N@CF) is fabricated by a simple controllable and scalable strategy comprising the synthesis of NiCo alloy nanoparticles, modification of organic molecules, and high-temperature carbonization process.

Effective treatment and utilization of hazardous waste sulfuric acid generated from alkylation by lignocellulose ester-catalyzed oxidative degradation of organic pollutants.

Alkylation reaction catalyzed by concentrated HSO generates hazardous waste HSO containing a large amount of organic pollutants. This study focused on effective utilization and treatment of the waste HSO for simultaneous consumption of HSO and deep oxidative degradation of the organics. The waste HSO could completely react with magnesium oxide ore to prepare crude MgSO solution, and the organic pollutants in the solution were deeply degraded and mainly mineralized to HO and CO with HO as oxidant and sugarcane bagasse citrate (SBC), a kind of lignocellulose ester, as catalyst.

Corrigendum: Depletion of Myostatin b Promotes Somatic Growth and Lipid Metabolism in Zebrafish.

[This corrects the article DOI: 10.3389/fendo.2016.

Solid-Phase Synthesis of Cellulose Acetate Butyrate as Microsphere Wall Materials for Sustained Release of Emamectin Benzoate.

Emamectin benzoate (EB), a widely used pesticide, is prone to decomposition by ultraviolet light and suffers from the corresponding loss of efficacy. The timed release of EB based on microspheres is one of the effective methods to solve this issue. As a non-toxic cellulose ester, cellulose acetate butyrate (CAB) is regarded as one of the best wall-forming materials for microcapsules with a good controlled release performance.

State feedback impulsive therapy to SIS model of animal infectious diseases.

Controlling animal infectious diseases and its related infra microbes is of great significance to public health, since a lot of infectious diseases originate from animal epidemics and they often threaten human health. A state feedback impulsive model is constructed to depict the transmission and treatment of animal epidemics. Basing on the impulsive model, the existence of order-1 periodic solution and its stability are proved with a novel method.

Antibacterial and Antitumor Potential of Actinomycetes Isolated from Mangrove Soil in the Maowei Sea of the Southern Coast of China.

Mangroves are the tidal forest existing in the intertidal zone and usually considered as the special marine ecosystem. In the present study, 452 actinomycetes were recovered from nine diferent sites at Maowei Sea Mangrove Reserve in Qinzhou (Guangxi province, China). Among them, Seventy-four strains were purified for 16s RNA gene sequencing and further characterization.

Mineralization of organics in hazardous waste sulfuric acid by natural manganese oxide ore and a combined MnO/activated carbon treatment to produce qualified manganese sulfate.

To effectively dispose and utilize the hazardous waste HSO generated from alkylation, an environmentally friendly and feasible technology for the simultaneous oxidative degradation of organics and consumption of HSO was developed. Pyrolusite, a natural manganese oxide ore, was used for the oxidative degradation and mineralization of the organics, and reduction leaching of Mn from the pyrolusite occurred simultaneously. The total organic carbon (TOC) removal and Mn leaching efficiency were 46% and 16.

Genome-wide gene expression analysis reveals novel insights into the response to nitrite stress in gills of Branchiostoma belcheri.

Amphioxus has been widely used as a model for the comparative immunology of vertebrates. Studies have reported that gene expression changes in the amphioxus gill in response to biotic stress, such as microbial and their mimic challenge, but little is known about how gene expression is affected by abiotic stress in the marine environment, such as nitrite. A lack of information regarding gene expression response to abiotic stress hinders a comprehensive understanding of gill defense response in amphioxus.

Discovery of anti-inflammatory terpenoids from Mallotus conspurcatus croizat.

Ethnopharmacological Relevance: Mallotus conspurcatus croizat (Euphorbiaceae), a plant native to Jinxiu in Guangxi, is popularly used in folk medicine to treat pelvic inflammatory disease. The anti-inflammatory activities of the compounds obtained from M. conspurcatus root were evaluated in this study.

Complete mitochondrial genome of the spiny rock crab (rüppell, 1830) (Crustacea: Decapoda: Portunidae) from China coast and its phylogeny.

To understand the evolution of the swimming crab , the complete mitochondrial genome of from China was sequenced and analyzed. The circular mitogenome sequence was 15,787 bp in length, made up of 13 protein-coding genes, 22 transfer RNA genes, two ribosomal RNA genes and a control region. The overall mitogenome composition was 34.

Microbial Platform for Terpenoid Production: and Yeast.

Terpenoids, also called isoprenoids, are a large and highly diverse family of natural products with important medical and industrial properties. However, a limited production of terpenoids from natural resources constrains their use of either bulk commodity products or high valuable products. Microbial production of terpenoids from and yeasts provides a promising alternative owing to available genetic tools in pathway engineering and genome editing, and a comprehensive understanding of their metabolisms.

Machine-learning-based quantitative estimation of soil organic carbon content by VIS/NIR spectroscopy.

Soil organic carbon (SOC) is an important soil property that has profound impact on soil quality and plant growth. With 140 soil samples collected from Ebinur Lake Wetland National Nature Reserve, Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region of China, this research evaluated the feasibility of visible/near infrared (VIS/NIR) spectroscopy data (350-2,500 nm) and simulated EO-1 Hyperion data to estimate SOC in arid wetland regions. Three machine learning algorithms including Ant Colony Optimization-interval Partial Least Squares (ACO-iPLS), Recursive Feature Elimination-Support Vector Machine (RF-SVM), and Random Forest (RF) were employed to select spectral features and further estimate SOC.

Nitrous Oxide Emissions Increase Exponentially When Optimum Nitrogen Fertilizer Rates Are Exceeded in the North China Plain.

The IPCC assume a linear relationship between nitrogen (N) application rate and nitrous oxide (NO) emissions in inventory reporting, however, a growing number of studies show a nonlinear relationship under specific soil-climatic conditions. In the North China plain, a global hotspot of NO emissions, covering a land as large as Germany, the correlation between N rate and NO emissions remains unclear. We have therefore specifically investigated the NO response to N applications by conducting field experiments with five N rates, and high-frequency measurements of NO emissions across contrasting climatic years.

Inferring microRNA-Environmental Factor Interactions Based on Multiple Biological Information Fusion.

Accumulated studies have shown that environmental factors (EFs) can regulate the expression of microRNA (miRNA) which is closely associated with several diseases. Therefore, identifying miRNA-EF associations can facilitate the study of diseases. Recently, several computational methods have been proposed to explore miRNA-EF interactions.

Integrated assessment of heavy metal pollution using transplanted mussels in eastern Guangdong, China.

Heavy metal contamination has been widely studied in coastal areas around the world. However, integrative studies of heavy metals pollution by monitoring and characterizing sediments, organisms, and biomarkers as well as their holistic interactions are rare. Here, we selected a developed coastal area in eastern Guangdong, China as the study field.

Inconsistent responses of liver mitochondria metabolism and standard metabolism in Silurus meridionalis when exposed to waterborne cadmium.

We investigated the standard metabolic rate and liver mitochondria metabolism of the southern catfish when exposed to waterborne cadmium. Juvenile southern catfish were exposed to waterborne cadmium concentrations (0, 62.5, 125, 250 and 500 μg/L, respectively) for 8 weeks, and the final body mass, the standard metabolic rate, the state III respiration rate, the activity of cytochrome C oxidase (CCO) of liver mitochondria, and the hepatosomatic index (HSI) were determined.

Molecular footprints of inshore aquatic adaptation in Indo-Pacific humpback dolphin (Sousa chinensis).

The Indo-Pacific humpback dolphin, Sousa chinensis, being a member of cetaceans, had fully adapted to inshore waters. As a threatened marine mammal, little molecular information available for understanding the genetic basis of ecological adaptation. We firstly sequenced and obtained the draft genome map of S.

Spectral-Spatial Feature Extraction of Hyperspectral Images Based on Propagation Filter.

Recently, image-filtering based hyperspectral image (HSI) feature extraction has been widely studied. However, due to limited spatial resolution and feature distribution complexity, the problems of cross-region mixing after filtering and spectral discriminative reduction still remain. To address these issues, this paper proposes a spectral-spatial propagation filter (PF) based HSI feature extraction method that can effectively address the above problems.

Apoptosis in HepG2 cells induced by zinc pyrithione via mitochondrial dysfunction pathway: Involvement of zinc accumulation and oxidative stress.

Zinc pyrithione (ZPT) is widely used as a substitute booster biocide for tributyltin and is also an additive to antidandruff shampoos and medical cosmetic products. ZPT and pyrithione have been detected in different environmental matrices and biota, suggesting that it may pose health threats to aquatic organisms and even humans. The present study used HepG2 cells, a human hepatoma cell line, to study the hepatotoxicity of ZPT (0.

Dual-responsive IPN hydrogel based on sugarcane bagasse cellulose as drug carrier.

In this work, the stepwise synthesis of interpenetrating polymer network (IPN) strategy was developed in an attempt to fabricate novel hydrogels consisting of sugarcane bagasse cellulose (SBC), carboxymethylcellulose (CMC) and poly (N-isopropylacrylamide) (PNIPAm) as a dual-responsive drug carrier. The pretreated and dissolved SBC was pre-crosslinked using epichlorohydrin in the presence of CMC, followed by in-situ free-radical polymerization of NIPAm in the presence of N,N'-Methylene-bis(acrylamide) as a crosslinking agent. The carboxyl groups in CMC and PNIPAm chains rendered the resulting hydrogel pH and thermal responsive.

Comparative Study of Metal Accumulation in Three Fish Species (Silurus asotus, Cyprinus carpio, and Carassius auratus auratus) from the Jinsha and Tuo Rivers Located Upstream of the Yangtze River, China.

The concentrations of lead, chromium, cadmium, arsenic, and mercury were analyzed in the muscle and liver (hepatopancreas) of three fish species (Silurus asotus, Cyprinus carpio, and Carassius auratus auratus) from the Jinsha and Tuo Rivers. The above mentioned metal concentrations in the muscles of the three fish species were below the permissible limits, indicating that these fishes are safe for human consumption. The concentration of mercury in the carnivorous fishes was higher than that in the omnivorous fishes.

Population resequencing reveals candidate genes associated with salinity adaptation of the Pacific oyster Crassostrea gigas.

The Pacific oyster Crassostrea gigas is an important cultivated shellfish. As a euryhaline species, it has evolved adaptive mechanisms responding to the complex and changeable intertidal environment that it inhabits. To investigate the genetic basis of this salinity adaptation mechanism, we conducted a genome-wide association study using phenotypically differentiated populations (hyposalinity and hypersalinity adaptation populations, and control population), and confirmed our results using an independent population, high-resolution melting, and mRNA expression analysis.

Anti-inflammatory lignans and phenylethanoid glycosides from the root of Isodon ternifolius (D.Don) Kudô.

Five undescribed lignans, three undescribed phenylethanoid glycosides and eight known compounds were isolated from the root of Isodon ternifolius (D.Don) Kudô (Lamiaceae). The structures of all of the isolated constituents were characterized by physical data analyses including NMR, MS and ECD.

The role of pparγ in embryonic development of Xenopus tropicalis under triphenyltin-induced teratogenicity.

Evidence has shown that triphenyltin (TPT) triggers severe malformations in Xenopus tropicalis embryos, partly due to activation of PPARγ (peroxisome proliferator activated receptor γ) protein. In the present study, we investigated how abundance of pparγ and TPT exposure interact and affect X. tropicalis embryonic development.