Activation of stress signalling pathways enhances tolerance of fungi to chemical fungicides and antifungal proteins

Fungal disease is an increasing problem in both agriculture and human health. Treatment of human fungal disease involves the use of chemical fungicides, which generally target the integrity of the fungal plasma membrane or cell wall. Chemical fungicides used for the treatment of plant disease, have more diverse mechanisms of action including inhibition of sterol biosynthesis, microtubule assembly and the mitochondrial respiratory chain. However, these treatments have limitations, including toxicity and the emergence of resistance. This has led to increased interest in the use of antimicrobial peptides for the treatment of fungal disease in both plants and humans. Antimicrobial peptides are a diverse group of molecules with differing mechanisms of action, many of which remain poorly understood. Furthermore, it is becoming increasingly apparent that stress response pathways are involved in the tolerance of fungi to both chemical fungicides and antimicrobial peptides. These signalling pathways such as the cell wall integrity and high-osmolarity glycerol pathway are triggered by stimuli, such as cell wall instability, changes in osmolarity and production of reactive oxygen species. Here we review stress signalling induced by treatment of fungi with chemical fungicides and antifungal peptides. Study of these pathways gives insight into how these molecules exert their antifungal effect and also into the mechanisms used by fungi to tolerate sub-lethal treatment by these molecules. Inactivation of stress response pathways represents a potential method of increasing the efficacy of antifungal molecules.     

域外影响下的于赓虞诗学理论

于赓虞是20世纪二三十年代一位重要的诗人和诗论家,学界对其关注不多。他的诗学理论更是鲜有学者涉及,谈及所受的域外影响也总是拘泥于浪漫主义和象征主义,尤其是指向象征主义诗人波德莱尔。实际对于赓虞诗学理论形成产生了重要影响的域外因素还有《鲁拜集》、文论家厨川白村和诗人华兹华斯,即一部诗集、一位文论家和一位诗人。     

基于Mobile-C移动代理的移动机器人的控制

本文提出一种使用Mobile-C移动代理控制移动机器人的方法,详细介绍了Mobile-C的结构和报文格式,以及与Ch结合的优势.机器人通过Mobile-C移动代理的控制,可以在运行中动态地切换成新的算法,来处理意料之外的情况.文章最后用一个分布式应用的实验说明了Mobile-C移动代理控制机器人的方法.     

一种参数自调整风电功率预测模型

为了提高风电功率预测精度,提出一种参数自调整风电功率预测模型.通过加权递推最小二乘(SWWRLS)方法建立预测模型,侧重当前数据对预测结果的影响,排除了历史数据对预测结果的干扰.模型通过加权递推的方法节省了存储空间,并且提高了模型对外界环境数据变化的自适应性.最后,分别采用支持向量机(SVM)方法、卡尔曼滤波(KF)方法和本文SWWRLS方法,以辽宁省某风电场的真实历史数据进行风电功率预测对比实验,实验结果表明,本文方法建立的模型具有较高的预测精度.     

基于曲波变换的视网膜血管图像增强算法

视网膜血管图像存在像素对比度低等特点,干扰正常的视网膜图像分割.针对视网膜血管的图像特性,提出了一种改进的基于曲波变换的视网膜血管图像增强算法.首先选取视网膜图像的绿色通道分量进行预处理,然后通过对变换系数的自适应增强完成图像的增强处理,并结合改进的形态学变换,实现图像细节的增强和背景噪声的抑制,使得图像对比度得到增强,细节信息更加明显.通过与其他增强算法的比较表明,该算法在增强对比度、降低噪声干扰等方面优于其他算法.     

二维铜(Ⅱ)配位聚合物{[Cu(1,3-bip)(1,3-bdc)]·H_2O}_n的合成、晶体结构及热稳定性研究

以1,3-bip(1,3-二咪唑丙烷)、1,3-bdc(间苯二甲酸)和Cu(NO3)2·3H2O为原料,在水热条件下合成了二维铜(Ⅱ)配位聚合物{[Cu(1,3-bip)(1,3-bdc)]·H2O}n,并用元素分析、红外光谱、X-射线单晶衍射对配合物进行了表征.测定结果表明,晶体属三斜晶系,P-1空间群,晶胞参数:a=0.910 50(5)nm,b=1.004 65(7)nm,c=1.154 67(6)nm,α=84.924(5)°,β=89.444(4)°,γ=76.505(5)°.标题配合物中每个Cu(Ⅱ)离子作为一个四连接的节点,通过1,3-bdc和1,3-bip桥联连接形成了二维(4,4)网格结构.此外,通过热重分析研究该配合物的热稳定性.     

TiO2纳米管阵列电极的制备及电输运性能

利用电化学阳极氧化方法制备了二氧化钛(TiO_2)纳米管阵列样品,并对其结构、形貌和电输运性能进行了研究.扫描电子显微镜(SEM)和透射电子显微镜(TEM)揭示了其具有规则和完整的纳米管结构,X射线衍射(XRD)研究说明退火后的样品具有锐钛矿的结构.电输运性能研究表明,相对于纳米颗粒,纳米管阵列结构具有更低的内部传输阻抗和更高的界面复合电阻.     

Expanding the diversity of chemical protein modification allows post-translational mimicry

One of the most important current scientific paradoxes is the economy with which nature uses genes. In all higher animals studied, we have found many fewer genes than we would have previously expected. The functional outputs of the eventual products of genes seem to be far more complex than the more restricted blueprint. In higher organisms, the functions of many proteins are modulated by post-translational modifications (PTMs). These alterations of amino-acid side chains lead to higher structural and functional protein diversity and are, therefore, a leading contender for an explanation for this seeming incongruity. Natural protein production methods typically produce PTM mixtures within which function is difficult to dissect or control. Until now it has not been possible to access pure mimics of complex PTMs. Here we report a chemical tagging approach that enables the attachment of multiple modifications to bacterially expressed (bare) protein scaffolds: this approach allows reconstitution of functionally effective mimics of higher organism PTMs. By attaching appropriate modifications at suitable distances in the widely-used LacZ reporter enzyme scaffold, we created protein probes that included sensitive systems for detection of mammalian brain inflammation and disease. Through target synthesis of the desired modification, chemistry provides a structural precision and an ability to retool with a chosen PTM in a manner not available to other approaches. In this way, combining chemical control of PTM with readily available protein scaffolds provides a systematic platform for creating probes of protein-PTM interactions. We therefore anticipate that this ability to build model systems will allow some of this gene product complexity to be dissected, with the aim of eventually being able to completely duplicate the patterns of a particular protein's PTMs from an in vivo assay into an in vitro system.     

p15Ink4b is a critical tumour suppressor in the absence of p16Ink4a

The CDKN2b-CDKN2a locus on chromosome 9p21 in human (chromosome 4 in mouse) is frequently lost in cancer. The locus encodes three cell cycle inhibitory proteins: p15INK4b encoded by CDKN2b, p16INK4a encoded by CDKN2a and p14ARF (p19Arf in mice) encoded by an alternative reading frame of CDKN2a (ref. 1). Whereas the tumour suppressor functions for p16INK4a and p14ARF have been firmly established, the role of p15INK4b remains ambiguous. However, many 9p21 deletions also remove CDKN2b, so we hypothesized a synergistic effect of the combined deficiency for p15INK4b, p14ARF and p16INK4a. Here we report that mice deficient for all three open reading frames (Cdkn2ab-/-) are more tumour-prone and develop a wider spectrum of tumours than Cdkn2a mutant mice, with a preponderance of skin tumours and soft tissue sarcomas (for example, mesothelioma) frequently composed of mixed cell types and often showing biphasic differentiation. Cdkn2ab-/- mouse embryonic fibroblasts (MEFs) are substantially more sensitive to oncogenic transformation than Cdkn2a mutant MEFs. Under conditions of stress, p15Ink4b protein levels are significantly elevated in MEFs deficient for p16Ink4a. Our data indicate that p15Ink4b can fulfil a critical backup function for p16Ink4a and provide an explanation for the frequent loss of the complete CDKN2b-CDKN2a locus in human tumours.