Cloning, Expression and Purification of Wheat Acetyl-CoA Carboxylases CT Domain in E.coil

The entire gene of carboxyltransferase(CT) domain of acetyl-CoA carboxylase(ACCase) from Chinese Spring wheat(CSW) plastid was cloned firstly,and the 2.3 kb gene was inserted into PET28a+ vector and expressed in E.coil in a soluble state.The (His)6 fusion protein was identified by SDS-PAGE and Western blot.The recombinant protein was purified by affinity chromatography,and the calculated molecular mass(Mr) was 88000.The results of the sequence analysis indicate that the cloned gene(GeneBank accession No.EU124675) was a supplement and revision of the reported ACCase CT partial cDNA from Chinese Spring wheat plastid.The recombinant protein will be significant for us to investigate the recognizing mechanism between ACCase and herbicides,and further to screen new herbicides.     

An Improvement to Conformer-Based Model for High-Accuracy Speech Feature Extraction and Learning

Owing to the loss of effective information and incomplete feature extraction caused by the convolution and pooling operations in a convolution subsampling network, the accuracy and speed of current speech processing architectures based on the conformer model are influenced because the shallow features of speech signals are not completely extracted. To solve these problems, in this study, we researched a method that used a capsule network to improve the accuracy of feature extraction in a conformer-based model, and then, we proposed a new end-to-end model architecture for speech recognition. First, to improve the accuracy of speech feature extraction, a capsule network with a dynamic routing mechanism was introduced into the conformer model; thus, the structural information in speech was preserved, and it was input to the conformer blocks via sequestered vectors; the learning ability of the conformed-based model was significantly enhanced using dynamic weight updating. Second, a residual network was added to the capsule blocks, thus, the mapping ability of our model was improved and the training difficulty was reduced. Furthermore, the bi-transformer model was adopted in the decoding network to promote the consistency of the hypotheses in different directions through bidirectional modeling. Finally, the effectiveness and robustness of the proposed model were verified against different types of recognition models by performing multiple sets of experiments. The experimental results demonstrated that our speech recognition model achieved a lower word error rate without a language model because of the higher accuracy of speech feature extraction and learning using our model architecture with a capsule network. Furthermore, our model architecture benefited from the advantage of the capsule network and the conformer encoder, and also has potential for other speech-related applications.     

Scattering of Tollmien-Schlichting waves by localized roughness in transonic boundary layers

The laminar-turbulent transition in boundary-layer flows is often affected by wall imperfections, because the latter may interact with either the freestream perturbations or the oncoming boundary-layer instability modes, leading to a modification of the accumulation of the normal modes. The present paper particularly focuses on the latter mechanism in a transonic boundary layer, namely, the effect of a two-dimensional(2 D) roughness element on the oncoming Tollmien-Schlichting(T-S) modes when th...     

An Uzawa-type algorithm for the coupled Stokes equations

An Uzawa-type algorithm is designed for the coupled Stokes equations discretized by the mixed finite element method. The velocity solved by the presented algorithm is weakly divergence-free, which is different from the one solved by the common Uzawa method. Besides, an optimal relaxation parameter of the presented algorithm is provided.     

血液-血管耦合特性与脉搏波传播特性的关系

脉搏波既不可简单地理解为可压缩血液流体中的压力纵波,也不可简单地理解为沿固体血管传播的涨缩位移横波,而是超乎普通想象的流-固耦合和纵波-横波耦合的复杂波。从分析耦合本构关系的新途径出发,本文中提出了一个流-固耦合/纵波-横波耦合的串联模型,可为解读“位数形势”中医脉诊提供更丰富的信息。结果表明,脉搏波耦合系统的等效体积压缩模量K_s以及相应的耦合系统脉搏波传播速度c_s主要依赖于两个无量纲参数：血液-血管模量比K_b(p)/E(p)和薄壁血管径厚比D(p)/h₀,它们因人而异、因人的不同脉搏位置而异。文中定量分析了它们对c_s的影响,显示人体的K_b/E值在10³数量级,从而c_s值在10⁰～10¹ m/s数量级,以适应人体生理生化反应。由临床有创测量,证实脉搏体积横波与脉搏压力纵波是相耦合地以相同速度传播;还显示脉搏波是在其波阵面上具有氧合生化反应的“生物波”。此外,还讨论了“脉压放大”现象与非线性本构关系和与血管分叉处加载增强反射之间的关系,并讨论了Lewis关于重搏波形成的假设。

     

Origanum syriacum Phytochemistry and Pharmacological Properties: A Comprehensive Review

Herbal medicine has been gaining special interest as an alternative choice of treatment for several diseases, being generally accessible, cost-effective and safe, with fewer side-effects compared to chemically synthesized medicines. Over 25% of drugs worldwide are derived from plants, and surveys have shown that, when available, herbal medicine is the preferred choice of treatment. Origanum syriacum (Lamiaceae) is a widely used medicinal plant in the Middle East, both as a home and a folk remedy, and in the food and beverage industry. Origanum syriacum contains numerous phytochemical compounds, including flavonoids, phenols, essential oils, and many others. Because of its bioactive compounds, O. syriacum possesses antioxidant, antimicrobial, and antiparasitic capacities. In addition, it can be beneficial in the treatment of various diseases such as cancer, neurodegenerative disorders, and peptic ulcers. In this review, the chemical compositions of different types of extracts and essential oils from this herb will first be specified. Then, the pharmacological uses of these extracts and essential oils in various contexts and diseases will be discussed, putting emphasis on their efficacy and safety. Finally, the cellular and molecular mechanisms of O. syriacum phytochemicals in disease treatment will be described as a basis for further investigation into the plant’s pharmacological role.     

荧光淬灭和加强理论公式合理性的热力学分析

通过荧光法在不同温度下研究了3种第三代头孢新药: 盐酸头孢吡肟、头孢匹胺和头孢唑肟钠与人血清白蛋白(HSA)和牛血清白蛋白(BSA)的作用, 分别应用荧光淬灭和荧光加强理论公式计算了它们的结合常数等, 进而分别计算了它们的热力学函数. 因对应于不同的理论公式得出的K_A值并不完全相同, 由此得到它们相应的热力学参数也有所不同. 本文对这些热力学数据的差异进行了分析比较, 结果表明: 基于荧光加强理论公式(4)获得的热力学数据显示更为合理. 因而我们建议, 即使在研究受体-底物的荧光淬灭反应时, 采用荧光加强理论公式(4)可以获得更符合实际的结果.     

The Extracts of Polygonum cuspidatum Root and Rhizome Block the Entry of SARS-CoV-2 Wild-Type and Omicron Pseudotyped Viruses via Inhibition of the S-Protein and 3CL Protease

COVID-19, resulting from infection by the SARS-CoV-2 virus, caused a contagious pandemic. Even with the current vaccines, there is still an urgent need to develop effective pharmacological treatments against this deadly disease. Here, we show that the water and ethanol extracts of the root and rhizome of Polygonum cuspidatum (Polygoni Cuspidati Rhizoma et Radix), a common Chinese herbal medicine, blocked the entry of wild-type and the omicron variant of the SARS-CoV-2 pseudotyped virus into fibroblasts or zebrafish larvae, with IC₅₀ values ranging from 0.015 to 0.04 mg/mL. The extracts were shown to inhibit various aspects of the pseudovirus entry, including the interaction between the spike protein (S-protein) and the angiotensin-converting enzyme II (ACE2) receptor, and the 3CL protease activity. Out of the chemical compounds tested in this report, gallic acid, a phytochemical in P. cuspidatum, was shown to have a significant anti-viral effect. Therefore, this might be responsible, at least in part, for the anti-viral efficacy of the herbal extract. Together, our data suggest that the extracts of P. cuspidatum inhibit the entry of wild-type and the omicron variant of SARS-CoV-2, and so they could be considered as potent treatments against COVID-19.     

Ultrastructural Damages to H1N1 Influenza Virus Caused by Vapor Essential Oils

Influenza viruses are transmitted from human to human via airborne droplets and can be transferred through contaminated environmental surfaces. Some works have demonstrated the efficacy of essential oils (EOs) as antimicrobial and antiviral agents, but most of them examined the liquid phases, which are generally toxic for oral applications. In our study, we describe the antiviral activity of Citrus bergamia, Melaleuca alternifolia, Illicium verum and Eucalyptus globulus vapor EOs against influenza virus type A. In the vapor phase, C. bergamia and M. alternifolia strongly reduced viral cytopathic effect without exerting any cytotoxicity. The E. globulus vapor EO reduced viral infection by 78% with no cytotoxicity, while I. verum was not effective. Furthermore, we characterized the EOs and their vapor phase by the head-space gas chromatography–mass spectrometry technique, observing that the major component found in each liquid EO is the same one of the corresponding vapor phases, with the exception of M. alternifolia. To deepen the mechanism of action, the morphological integrity of virus particles was checked by negative staining transmission electron microscopy, showing that they interfere with the lipid bilayer of the viral envelope, leading to the decomposition of membranes. We speculated that the most abundant components of the vapor EOs might directly interfere with influenza virus envelope structures or mask viral structures important for early steps of viral infection.     

Chemical Profiles and Pharmacological Properties with in Silico Studies on Elatostema papillosum Wedd

The current study attempted, for the first time, to qualitatively and quantitatively determine the phytochemical components of Elatostema papillosum methanol extract and their biological activities. The present study represents an effort to correlate our previously reported biological activities with a computational study, including molecular docking, and ADME/T (absorption, distribution, metabolism, and excretion/toxicity) analyses, to identify the phytochemicals that are potentially responsible for the antioxidant, antidepressant, anxiolytic, analgesic, and anti-inflammatory activities of this plant. In the gas chromatography-mass spectroscopy analysis, a total of 24 compounds were identified, seven of which were documented as being bioactive based on their binding affinities. These seven were subjected to molecular docking studies that were correlated with the pharmacological outcomes. Additionally, the ADME/T properties of these compounds were evaluated to determine their drug-like properties and toxicity levels. The seven selected, isolated compounds displayed favorable binding affinities to potassium channels, human serotonin receptor, cyclooxygenase-1 (COX-1), COX-2, nuclear factor (NF)-κB, and human peroxiredoxin 5 receptor proteins. Phytol acetate, and terpene compounds identified in E. papillosum displayed strong predictive binding affinities towards the human serotonin receptor. Furthermore, 3-trifluoroacetoxypentadecane showed a significant binding affinity for the KcsA potassium channel. Eicosanal showed the highest predicted binding affinity towards the human peroxiredoxin 5 receptor. All of these findings support the observed in vivo antidepressant and anxiolytic effects and the in vitro antioxidant effects observed for this extract. The identified compounds from E. papillosum showed the lowest binding affinities towards COX-1, COX-2, and NF-κB receptors, which indicated the inconsequential impacts of this extract against the activities of these three proteins. Overall, E. papillosum appears to be bioactive and could represent a potential source for the development of alternative medicines; however, further analytical experiments remain necessary.