Molecular characterization of chemosensory protein genes in Bactrocera minax (Diptera: Tephritidae)

Wang Zhao‐Xiang,Qi Zhen‐hua,Chen Jian,Wang Fu‐Lian,Gui Lian‐You,Zhang Guo‐Hui 한국곤충학회 2021 Entomological Research Vol.51 No.7

Chemoreception is of great importance for survival of insects. Chemosensory proteins (CSPs) are believed to be involved in the perireceptor events of chemosensory system in many insect species, but this has not been clarified in the citrus fruit fly, Bactrocera minax, a serious dipteran pest of citrus crops. Previous studies indicated that four CSP genes were identified in many fly speices in Diptera. In the present study, we also identified four CSP genes in B. minax,namely BminCSP1–4, from a transcriptome database. All CSP proteins encoded by these genes bear the typical hallmarks of the CSP family: an N-terminal signal peptide and the four highly conserved cysteine residues. Phylogenetic analysis comparing with other dipteran CSPs indicated that dipteran CSPs may evolved from three ancestral CSP genes, and revealed the sequence diversities of BminCSPs and showed that BminCSP1–4 are clustered in separate groups, indicating the possibility of their contrasting function in B. minax. Furthermore, the tissue distribution of the four CSP genes in adult B. minax was analyzed by real-time quantitiative PCR. The results demonstrated that BminCSP3 are significantly transcriptionally enriched in antennae; BminCSP4 expressed primarily in heads; BminCSP1 and BminCSP2 showed high expressions in different tissues, such as antennae, abdomens and wings. Based on these findings, the different implications for the functions of BminCSPs are discussed. This study will offer a significant indication for further functional studies of the CSPs in B. minax

Risk Factors for Cervical Cancer in Rural Areas of Wuhan China: a Matched Case-control Study

Zhang, Bin,Zhou, Ai-Fen,Zhu, Chang-Cai,Zhang, Ling,Xiang, Bing,Chen, Zhong,Hu, Rong-Hua,Zhang, Ya-Qi,Qiu, Lin,Zhang, Yi-Ming,Xiong, Chao-Du,Du, Yu-Kai,Shi, Yu-Qin Asian Pacific Journal of Cancer Prevention 2013 Asian Pacific journal of cancer prevention Vol.14 No.12

Cervical cancer is a serious public health problem in developing countries. We investigated possible risk factors for cervical cancer in rural areas of Wuhan China using a matched case-control study with 33 women diagnosed with cervical cancer and 132 healthy women selected from the same area as matched controls. A questionnaire, which included questions about general demography conditions, environmental and genetic factors, the first sexual intercourse, first marriage age, age at first pregnancy, pregnancy first child's age, female personal health history, social psychological factors, dietary habits, smoking and alcohol status and other living habits was presented to all participants. At the same time, HPV infection of every participant was examined in laboratory testing. Results showed HPV infection (P<0.000, OR=23.4) and pregnancy first child's age (P<0.000, OR=13.1) to be risk factors for cervical cancer. Menopause (P=0.003, OR=0.073) was a protective factor against cervical cancer. However, there was no indication of associations of environmental (drinking water, insecticide, disinfectant) genetic (cancer family history), or life-style factors (smoking status, alcohol status, physical training, sleep quality), including dietary habits (intake of fruit and vegetable, meat, fried food, bean products and pickled food) or social psychological factors with cervical cancer. The results suggest that the risk of cervical cancer in Chinese rural women may be associated with HPV infection, menopause and the pregnancy first child's age.

Attenuation of Peripheral Regulatory T-Cell Suppression of Skin-Homing CD8+T Cells in Atopic Dermatitis

Bao-Xiang Zhang,Gang Ding,Jun-Cheng Lyu,Hai-Bo Liu,Dian-Cai Zhang,Dian-Cai Zhang,Xing-Jie Bi,Zhi-Wu Duan 연세대학교의과대학 2015 Yonsei medical journal Vol.56 No.1

Purpose: Cutaneous lymphocyte-associated antigen (CLA)-expressing CD8+T cells have been known to play an important role in the pathogenesis of atopic dermatitis(AD). However, the mechanisms underlying the loss of self-tolerance remainunclear. Regulatory T cells (Tregs) play a key role in the development of homeostasisin the immune system. We, therefore, hypothesized that a reduced ability of Tregs to inhibit autologous CD8+CLA+T cells might be underlying mechanism in AD. Materials and Methods: CD8+CLA+T cells and Tregs were obtained from the peripheral blood of AD patients and control volunteers. The frequenciesof CD8+CLA+T cells were evaluated. The proliferative responses of CD8+CLA+T cells were assessed by flow cytometry, and the levels of transforming growth factor-β1 (TGF-β1) and interleukin-10 (IL-10) in culture supernatants were detected by enzyme-linked immunosorbent assay. Results: Our results revealed higher frequency and increased expression of perforin and granzyme-B in peripheralCD8+CLA+T cells in AD, and lower inhibitory ability of Tregs on proliferation of CD8+CLA+T cells in AD. Meanwhile, the levels of TGF-β1 produced by Tregs were significantly lower in AD, and anti-TGF-β1 abolished such suppression. Conclusion: The attenuated inhibitory ability of Tregs on hyper-activated autologousCD8+CLA+T cells, mediated by TGF-β1, plays an important role in the pathogenesis of AD.

Design, Synthesis and Antifungal Activities of Novel Strobilurin Derivatives Containing Pyrimidine Moieties

Xiang Zhang,Yong-Xin Gao,Hui-Jun Liu,Bao-Yuan Guo,Hui-Li Wang 대한화학회 2012 Bulletin of the Korean Chemical Society Vol.33 No.8

Strobilurins are one of the most important classes of agricultural fungicides. To discover new strobilurin derivatives with high activity against resistant pathogens, a series of novel β-methoxyacrylate analogues were designed and synthesized by integrating substituted pyrimidine with a strobilurin pharmacophore. The compounds were confirmed and characterized by infrared, 1H nuclear magnetic resonance, elemental analysis and mass spectroscopy. The bioassays indicated that most of the compounds (1a-1h) exhibited potent antifungal activities against Colletotrichum orbiculare, Botrytis cinerea Pers and Phytophthora capsici Leonian at the concentration of 50 μg/mL. Exhilaratingly, compound 1d (R=3-trifluoromethylphenyl) showed better antifungal activity against all the tested fungi than the commercial strobilurin fungicide azoxystrobin.

Chinese Word Sense Disambiguation Based on Hidden Markov Model

Zhang Chun-Xiang,Sun Yan-Chen,Gao Xue-Yao,Lu Zhi-Mao 보안공학연구지원센터 2015 International Journal of Database Theory and Appli Vol.8 No.6

Word sense disambiguation (WSD) is important for natural language processing. It plays important roles in information retrieval, machine translation, text categorization and topic tracking. In this paper, the transition among senses of words is considered. For an ambiguous word, its semantic codes and its left word’s semantic codes are taken as disambiguation features. At the same time, a new method based on hidden Markov model (HMM) is proposed for Chinese word sense disambiguation. Chinese Tongyici Cilin is used to determine semantic codes of words. HMM is optimized in training corpus. The WSD classifiers based on HMM is tested. Experimental results show that the accuracy of word sense disambiguation is improved.

Novel AgCl/Ag2SO3 Hybrids as a Visible-Light-driven Photocatalyst: Preparation, Characterization, and Degradation of Rhodamine-B and Methyl Orange

Xiang-Feng Wu,Yi-Jin Wang,Zuo-Lin Cao,Yan-Mei Feng,Hui Li,Chen-Xu Zhang,Jun-Zhang Su,Jia-Rui Zhang,Yi-Wei Wang,Kai-Yuan Wang,Guo-Wen Sun 대한화학회 2018 Bulletin of the Korean Chemical Society Vol.39 No.7

The novel AgCl/Ag2SO3 hybrids as an efficient photocatalyst had been fabricated by an in situ synthetic method. The correlations between the structure and the photocatalytic properties of the as-fabricated hybrids were analyzed. Experimental results exhibited that with increasing the amount of Ag2SO3, the degradation rate of the as-obtained samples was firstly increased and then decreased under the visible light irradiation. When the mass ratio of AgCl to Ag2SO3 was 1:2, in 30?min, it displayed the highest degradation rate of 99.2% for rhodamine-B, which was obviously higher than 46.1, 60.5, and 14.6% of pure AgCl, Ag2SO3, and TiO2 (P25), respectively. Similar results could be found in degradation of methyl orange. It had the maximum of 97.4% in 90?min, which was higher than 55.2, 48.7, and 12.7% of pure AgCl, Ag2SO3, and P25, respectively. Moreover, the as-prepared hybrids possessed the enhanced separation and transfer of photo-generated electron?hole pairs compared to the pure samples. In addition, the holes and superoxide radicals played the dominant role and the hydroxyl radicals played the secondary role during the process of photocatalytic degradation.

Hand Gesture Segmentation Method Based on YCbCr Color Space and K-Means Clustering

Zhang Qiu-yu,Lu Jun-chi,Zhang Mo-yi,Duan Hong-xiang,Lv Lu 보안공학연구지원센터 2015 International Journal of Signal Processing, Image Vol.8 No.5

Aiming at the problems that current skin-color detection segmentation technologies have unsatisfied segmentation results under conditions of complex illumination or backgrounds, we present a new method based on YCbCr color space and K-means clustering algorithm for segmentation hand gesture. Firstly, image in RGB color space is converted to YCbCr color space; and then YCbCr color space of image is divided into luminance Y and chrominance Cb and Cr. Lastly, the binary image is achieved by clustering values of chrominance using k-means clustering algorithm, and hand gesture segmentation is completed by conducting morphological process of binary image obtained. The experimental results illustrate that the proposed method can segment hand gestures from complex backgrounds and obtain segmentation results. The phenomena of similar skin color interference and skin color overlapping are solved with this method effectively. In addition, it is robust to illumination condition.

Microwave-assisted Solvent-free Synthesis of Some Dimethine Cyanine Dyes, Spectral Properties and TD-DFT/PCM Calculations

Xiang-Han Zhang,Lan-Ying Wang*,Gao-Hong Zhai,Zhen-Yi Wen,Zu-Xun Zhang 대한화학회 2007 Bulletin of the Korean Chemical Society Vol.28 No.12

A series of dimethine cyanine dyes were synthesized in a fast, efficient and high yield by the condensation of quaternary salts with 1H-indole-3-carbaldehyde in the presence of piperidine under solvent-free microwave irradiation. The products were identified by 1H NMR, IR, UV-Vis spectra and elemental analysis. The absorption and fluorescence properties of these dyes were investigated both experimentally and theoretically. Calculations performed at a combination of time-dependent density functional theory (TD-DFT) and the polarizable continuum model (PCM) reproduced the p-p* type absorption bands of the dyes. Regression analysis was used for studying theoretical results of the absorption maxima in different solvents. Compared with experimental counterparts, estimated overall uncertainties in the absorption maxima were about ?2%.

A multivariate adaptive regression splines model for estimation of maximum wall deflections induced by braced excavation

Xiang, Yuzhou,Goh, Anthony Teck Chee,Zhang, Wengang,Zhang, Runhong Techno-Press 2018 Geomechanics & engineering Vol.14 No.4

With rapid economic growth, numerous deep excavation projects for high-rise buildings and subway transportation networks have been constructed in the past two decades. Deep excavations particularly in thick deposits of soft clay may cause excessive ground movements and thus result in potential damage to adjacent buildings and supporting utilities. Extensive plane strain finite element analyses considering small strain effect have been carried out to examine the wall deflections for excavations in soft clay deposits supported by diaphragm walls and bracings. The excavation geometrical parameters, soil strength and stiffness properties, soil unit weight, the strut stiffness and wall stiffness were varied to study the wall deflection behaviour. Based on these results, a multivariate adaptive regression splines model was developed for estimating the maximum wall deflection. Parametric analyses were also performed to investigate the influence of the various design variables on wall deflections.

Design, Synthesis and Antifungal Activities of Novel Strobilurin Derivatives Containing Pyrimidine Moieties

Zhang, Xiang,Gao, Yong-Xin,Liu, Hui-Jun,Guo, Bao-Yuan,Wang, Hui-Li Korean Chemical Society 2012 Bulletin of the Korean Chemical Society Vol.33 No.8

Strobilurins are one of the most important classes of agricultural fungicides. To discover new strobilurin derivatives with high activity against resistant pathogens, a series of novel ${\beta}$-methoxyacrylate analogues were designed and synthesized by integrating substituted pyrimidine with a strobilurin pharmacophore. The compounds were confirmed and characterized by infrared, $^1H$ nuclear magnetic resonance, elemental analysis and mass spectroscopy. The bioassays indicated that most of the compounds (1a-1h) exhibited potent antifungal activities against Colletotrichum orbiculare, Botrytis cinerea Pers and Phytophthora capsici Leonian at the concentration of 50 ${\mu}g/mL$. Exhilaratingly, compound 1d (R=3-trifluoromethylphenyl) showed better antifungal activity against all the tested fungi than the commercial strobilurin fungicide azoxystrobin.