EGFR-rich extracellular vesicles derived from highly metastatic nasopharyngeal carcinoma cells accelerate tumour metastasis through PI3K/AKT pathway-suppressed ROS.

Nasopharyngeal carcinoma (NPC) is the most common cancer with high metastatic potential that occurs in the epithelial cells of the nasopharynx. Distant metastases are the primary cause for treatment failure and mortality of NPC patients. However, the underlying mechanism responsible for the initiation of tumour cell dissemination and tumour metastasis in NPC is not well understood.

Fast and furious: Early differences in growth rate drive short-term plant dominance and exclusion under eutrophication.

The reduction of plant diversity following eutrophication threatens many ecosystems worldwide. Yet, the mechanisms by which species are lost following nutrient enrichment are still not completely understood, nor are the details of when such mechanisms act during the growing season, which hampers understanding and the development of mitigation strategies.Using a common garden competition experiment, we found that early-season differences in growth rates among five perennial grass species measured in monoculture predicted short-term competitive dominance in pairwise combinations and that the proportion of variance explained was particularly greater under a fertilization treatment.

Genetic evidence for the mating system and reproductive success of black sea bream ().

Understanding the mating system and reproductive success of a species provides evidence for sexual selection. We examined the mating system and the reproductive success of captive adult black sea bream (), using parentage assignment based on two microsatellites multiplex PCR systems, with 91.5% accuracy in a mixed family (29 sires, 25 dams, and 200 offspring).

Chloroplast population genetics reveals low levels of genetic variation and conformation to the central-marginal hypothesis in var. , an endangered conifer endemic to China.

The central-marginal hypothesis predicts that geographically peripheral populations should exhibit reduced genetic diversity and increased genetic differentiation than central populations due to smaller effective population size and stronger geographical isolation. We evaluated these predictions in the endangered conifer var. Eight plastid simple sequence repeats (cpSSRs) were used to investigate plastid genetic variation in 22 populations of var.

The effect of allometric partitioning on herbivory tolerance in four species in South China.

Herbivory tolerance can offset the negative effects of herbivory on plants and plays an important role in both immigration and population establishment. Biomass reallocation is an important potential mechanism of herbivory tolerance. To understand how biomass allocation affects plant herbivory tolerance, it is necessary to distinguish the biomass allocations resulting from environmental gradients or plant growth.

Salt-tolerant native plants have greater responses to other environments when compared to salt-tolerant invasive plants.

Unlabelled: The strong expansion potential of invasive plants is often attributed to fast adaptive responses to stress. However, the evolution of tolerance to one stressor may affect the responses to other stressors. Currently, it remains unclear what effect the evolution to one stressor might have on the responses to other single or combined stressors.

Genome-wide occupancy of histone H3K27 methyltransferases CURLY LEAF and SWINGER in seedlings.

The Polycomb Group (PcG) proteins form two protein complexes, PcG Repressive Complex 1 (PRC1) and PRC2, which are key epigenetic regulators in eukaryotes. PRC2 represses gene expression by catalyzing the trimethylation of histone H3 lysine 27 (H3K27me3). In (), CURLY LEAF (CLF) and SWINGER (SWN) are two major H3K27 methyltransferases and core components of PRC2, playing essential roles in plant growth and development.

Evidence of stress imprinting with population-level differences in two moss species.

Plants are often repeatedly exposed to stresses during their lives and have a mechanism called stress imprinting that provides "memories" of stresses they experience and increases their ability to cope with later stresses. To test hypotheses that primed bryophytes can preserve their stress imprinting after 6 days of recovery and induce higher levels of osmolytes and ROS-scavenging activities upon later stress exposure, and there exist population-level differentiation in their desiccation defenses, we transplanted samples of two populations of each of two moss species, and , in a nature reserve in southern China. After 16 months of acclimation, sets of each population were subjected to control, one-time desiccation stress, duplicated desiccation stress and cross-stress (low temperature stress followed by desiccation stress) treatments.

Sequence capture using AFLP-generated baits: A cost-effective method for high-throughput phylogenetic and phylogeographic analysis.

Target sequence capture is an efficient technique to enrich specific genomic regions for high-throughput sequencing in ecological and evolutionary studies. In recent years, many sequence capture approaches have been proposed, but most of them rely on commercial synthetic baits which make the experiment expensive. Here, we present a novel sequence capture approach called AFLP-based genome sequence capture (AFLP Capture).

Molecular identification of natural hybridization between and in Sarawak, Malaysia.

Hybridization is very common in flowering plants and it plays a significant role in plant evolution and adaptation. L. (Melastomataceae) comprises about 80-90 species in tropical Asia and Oceania, among which 41 species occur in Borneo.

Seeing is believing? Comparing plant-herbivore networks constructed by field co-occurrence and DNA barcoding methods for gaining insights into network structures.

Plant-herbivore interaction networks provide information about community organization. Two methods are currently used to document pairwise interactions among plants and insect herbivores. One is the traditional method that collects plant-herbivore interaction data by field observation of insect occurrence on host plants.

Habitat effects on intra-species variation in functional morphology: Evidence from freshwater fish.

Biotic-environment interactions have long been considered an important factor in functional phenotype differentiation in organisms. The differentiation processes determining functional phenotypes can reveal important mechanisms yielding differences in specific functions of animal traits in the ecosystem. In the present study, we examined functional morphological variations in relation to increasing geographic altitude.

Breath rate of passerines across an urbanization gradient supports the pace-of-life hypothesis and suggests diet-mediated responses to handling stress.

The pace-of-life hypothesis predicts no impact of urbanization on stress responses. Accordingly, several studies have been inconsistent in showing differences in breath rate (BR), a proxy of acute stress responses to handling in passerines, between rural and urban areas. However, this evidence is limited to a single bird species and a limited geographic region (SW Europe).

Temporal effects of disturbance on community composition in simulated stage-structured plant communities.

In an era of global environmental change, understanding how disturbance affects the dynamics of ecological communities is crucial. However, few studies have theoretically explored the potential influence of disturbance including both intensity and frequency on compositional change over time in communities with stage structure. A spatially explicit, individual-based model was constructed incorporating the various demographic responses to disturbance of plants at two different growth stages: seedlings and adults.

A workflow of massive identification and application of intron markers using snakes as a model.

Relative to the commonly used mitochondrial and nuclear protein-coding genes, the noncoding intron sequences are a promising source of informative markers that have the potential to resolve difficult phylogenetic nodes such as rapid radiations and recent divergences. Yet many issues exist in the use of intron markers, which prevent their extensive application as conventional markers. We used the diverse group of snakes as an example to try paving the way for massive identification and application of intron markers.

Ecological effects of dams, alien fish, and physiochemical environmental factors on homogeneity/heterogeneity of fish community in four tributaries of the Pearl River in China.

In this study, we aimed to characterize the fish community structure and identify the drivers contributing to homogenization/differentiation processes in four tributaries to the Pearl River, Guangxi Province, China, over the past few decades. We sampled 22 sites seasonally from 2013 through 2015, and these sites were selected based on archived records of previous sampling conducted in the 1980s. Jaccard's faunal similarity index, cluster analysis, and canonical correspondence analysis (CCA) were applied to describe the homogenization/differentiation of fish community and illustrate the potential effectors.

Different categories of biodiversity explain productivity variation after fertilization in a Tibetan alpine meadow community.

The relationship between productivity and biodiversity has long been an important issue in ecological research. However, in recent decades, most ecologists have primarily focused on species diversity while paying little attention to functional diversity and phylogenetic diversity (PD), especially in alpine meadow communities following fertilization. In this study, a fertilization experiment involving the addition of nitrogen, phosphorus, and a mixture of both was implemented in an alpine meadow on the Tibetan Plateau.

Physiological responses of two moss species to the combined stress of water deficit and elevated N deposition (II): Carbon and nitrogen metabolism.

Nitrogen (N) deposition levels and frequencies of extreme drought events are increasing globally. In efforts to improve understanding of plants' responses to associated stresses, we have investigated responses of mosses to drought under elevated nitrogen conditions. More specifically, we exposed subsp.