bluuebunny/crossref_metadata_2025_split huggingface dataset:
bHLH transcription factors LP1 and LP2 regulate longitudinal cell elongation
Authors: Lu Rui , Zhang Jiao , Wu Yu-Wei , Wang Yao , Zhang Jie , Zheng Yong , Li Yang , Li Xue-Bao 
Published: August 2021

Abstract
Basic helix–loop–helix/helix–loop–helix (bHLH/HLH) transcription factors play substantial roles in plant cell elongation. In this study, two bHLH/HLH homologous proteins leaf related protein 1 and leaf-related protein 2 (AtLP1 and AtLP2) were identified in Arabidopsis thaliana. LP1 and LP2 play similar positive roles in longitudinal cell elongation. Both LP1 and LP2 overexpression plants exhibited long hypocotyls, elongated cotyledons, and particularly long leaf blades. The elongated leaves resulted from increased longitudinal cell elongation. lp1 and lp2 loss-of-function single mutants did not display distinct phenotypes, but the lp1lp2 double mutant showed decreased leaf length associated with less longitudinal polar cell elongation. Furthermore, the phenotype of lp1lp2 could be rescued by the expression of LP1 or LP2. Expression of genes related to cell elongation was upregulated in LP1 and LP2 overexpression plants but downregulated in lp1lp2 double mutant plants compared with that of wild type. LP1 and LP2 proteins could directly bind to the promoters of Longifolia1 (LNG1) and LNG2 to activate the expression of these cell elongation related genes. Both LP1 and LP2 could interact with two other bHLH/HLH proteins, IBH1 (ILI1 binding BHLH Protein1) and IBL1 (IBH1-like1), thereby suppressing the transcriptional activation of LP1 and LP2 to the target genes LNG1 and LNG2. Thus, our data suggested that LP1 and LP2 act as positive regulators to promote longitudinal cell elongation by activating the expression of LNG1 and LNG2 genes in Arabidopsis. Moreover, homodimerization of LP1 and LP2 may be essential for their function, and interaction between LP1/LP2 and other bHLH/HLH proteins may obstruct transcriptional regulation of target genes by LP1 and LP2.
Cortical thinning and sleep slow wave activity reductions mediate age-related improvements in cognition during mid-late adolescence
Authors: Ong Ju Lynn , Jamaluddin S Azrin , Tandi Jesisca , Chee Nicholas I Y N , Leong Ruth L F , Huber Reto , Lo June C , Chee Michael W L 
Published: August 2021

Abstract

Study Objectives
Gains in cognitive test performance that occur during adolescence are associated with brain maturation. Cortical thinning and reduced sleep slow wave activity (SWA) are markers of such developmental changes. Here we investigate whether they mediate age-related improvements in cognition.

Methods
109 adolescents aged 15–19 years (49 males) underwent magnetic resonance imaging, polysomnography (PSG), and a battery of cognitive tasks within a 2-month time window. Cognitive tasks assessed nonverbal intelligence, sustained attention, speed of processing and working memory and executive function. To minimize the effect of sleep history on SWA and cognitive performance, PSG and test batteries were administered only after at least 8 nights of 9-h time-in-bed (TIB) sleep opportunity.

Results
Age-related improvements in speed of processing (r = 0.33, p = 0.001) and nonverbal intelligence (r = 0.24, p = 0.01) domains were observed. These cognitive changes were associated with reduced cortical thickness, particularly in bilateral temporoparietal regions (rs = −0.21 to −0.45, ps &lt; 0.05), as well as SWA (r = −0.35, p &lt; 0.001). Serial mediation models found that ROIs in the middle/superior temporal cortices, together with SWA mediated the age-related improvement observed on cognition.

Conclusions
During adolescence, age-related improvements in cognition are mediated by reductions in cortical thickness and sleep SWA.
Aberrant expression of SNHG12 contributes to N, N-dimethylformamide-induced hepatic apoptosis both in short-term and long-term DMF exposure
Authors: Liu Ye , Wen Cuiju , Zhang Yangchun , Liu Ziqi , He Qianmei , Cui Mengxing , Peng Honghao , Wang Yuqing , Zhang Xueying , Li Xudong , Wang Qing 
Published: August 2021

Abstract
N, N-Dimethylformamide (DMF) can cause liver damage in occupationally exposed workers, but the molecular mechanism of DMF-induced liver damage has not been fully elucidated. Researches have proved that lncRNA plays a major function in chemical-induced liver toxicity and can be used as a biomarker and therapeutic target for liver injury. In order to verify that lncRNA also participates in DMF-induced liver damage, we treated HL-7702 cells with 75 or 150 mM DMF, and obtained lncRNA expression profiles through high-throughput sequencing. Among the differentially expressed lncRNAs, lncRNA SNHG12 was proved to be significantly downregulated in DMF-treated HL-7702 cells and participate in DMF-mediated apoptosis, even under long-term low-dose DMF exposure (5–10 mM, 8 weeks). In addition, according to bioinformatics analysis, miR-218-5p is expected to be a potential target of SNHG12, which was verified by the dual luciferase reporter assay in HEK293FT cells. MiR-218-5p mimic can induce apoptosis in HL-7702 cells. Among the predicted targets of miR-218-5p, protein kinase C epsilon (PRKCE) was reported to be involved in apoptosis, and was indeed downregulated by miR-218-5p mimic in our study. Further experiments showed that changes of the expression of SNHG12 can affect the expression of PRKCE. In the epidemiological study of occupational population, we also found that SNHG12 was downregulated in the serum exosomes of workers exposed to DMF. These results indicated that SNHG12 can mediate DMF-induced apoptosis of HL-7702 cells through miR-218-5p/PRKCE pathway.
A novel epidemiological scoring system for the prediction of mortality in COVID-19 patients
Authors: Mishra Prabhaker , Singh Ratender Kumar , Nath Alok , Pande Shantanu , Agarwal Anil , Sanjeev Om Prakash , Gupta Devendra , Singh Prateek , Ghatak Tanmoy , Hashim Zia , Khare Vansh , Khuba Sandeep , Rastogi Amit , Dhiman Radha K 
Published: August 2021

Abstract

Background
Most of the reported risk score models for coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) mortality are based on the levels of inflammatory markers, comorbidities or various treatment modalities, and there is a paucity of risk score models based on clinical symptoms and comorbidities.

Methods
To address this need, age, clinical symptoms and comorbidities were used to develop a COVID-19 scoring system (CSS) for early prediction of mortality in severe COVID-19 patients. The CSS was developed with scores ranging from 0 to 9. A higher score indicates higher risk with good discrimination quality presented by Mann Whitney U test and area under receiver operating characteristic curve (AUROC).

Results
Patient age of ≥60 y, cough, breathlessness, diabetes and any other comorbidity (with or without diabetes) are significant and independent risk factors for non-survival among COVID-19 patients. The CSS showed good sensitivity and specificity (i.e. 74.1% and 78.5% at CSS≥5, respectively), with an overall diagnostic accuracy of 82.8%, which was close to the diagnostic accuracy detected in the validation cohort (81.9%). In the validation cohort, high (8–9), medium (5–7) and low (0–4) CSS groups had 54.80%, 28.60% and 6.5% observed mortality, respectively, which was very close to the predicted mortality (62.40%, 27.60% and 5.2%, respectively, by scoring cohort).

Conclusions
The CSS shows a positive relationship between a higher score and proportion of mortality and, as its validation showed, it is useful for the prediction of risk of mortality in COVID-19 patients at an early stage, so that referral for triage and admission can be predetermined even before admission to hospital.
The role of soils on pollination and seed dispersal
Authors: Carvalheiro Luísa G. , Bartomeus Ignasi , Rollin Orianne , Timóteo Sérgio , Tinoco Carla Faleiro 
Published: August 2021

Ongoing environmental changes are affecting physical, chemical and biological soil components. Evidence of impacts of soil changes on pollinators' and seed dispersers' behaviour, fitness and density is scarce, but growing. Here, we reviewed information on such impacts and on a number of mechanisms that may explain its propagation, taking into account the full range of resources required by the large and diverse number of species of these two important functional groups. We show that while there is substantial evidence on the effects of soil nitrogen enrichment and changes in soil water content on the quality and quantity of floral and fruit resources, little is known on the effects of changes of other soil properties (e.g. soil pH, soil structure, other nutrients). Also, the few studies showing correlations between soil changes and pollinator and seed disperser foraging behaviour or fitness do not clearly identify the mechanisms that explain such correlation. Finally, most studies (including those with nitrogen and water) are local and limited to a small number of species, and it remains unclear how variable such effects are across time and geographical regions, and the strength of interactive effects between soil properties. Increasing research on this topic, taking into consideration how impacts propagate through species interaction networks, will provide essential information to predict impacts of ongoing environmental changes and help guide conservation plans that aim to minimize impacts on ecosystem functioning.This article is part of the theme issue ‘The role of soils in delivering Nature's Contributions to People’.
The role of soils in the regulation of ocean acidification
Authors: Renforth P. , Campbell J. S. 
Published: August 2021

Soils play an important role in mediating chemical weathering reactions and carbon transfer from the land to the ocean. Proposals to increase the contribution of alkalinity to the oceans through ‘enhanced weathering’ as a means to help prevent climate change are gaining increasing attention. This would augment the existing connection between the biogeochemical function of soils and alkalinity levels in the ocean. The feasibility of enhanced weathering depends on the combined influence of what minerals are added to soils, the formation of secondary minerals in soils and the drainage regime, and the partial pressure of respired CO2around the dissolving mineral. Increasing the alkalinity levels in the ocean through enhanced weathering could help to ameliorate the effects of ocean acidification in two ways. First, enhanced weathering would slightly elevate the pH of drainage waters, and the receiving coastal waters. The elevated pH would result in an increase in carbonate mineral saturation states, and a partial reversal in the effects of elevated CO2. Second, the increase in alkalinity would help to replenish the ocean's buffering capacity by maintaining the ‘Revelle Factor’, making the oceans more resilient to further CO2emissions. However, there is limited research on the downstream and oceanic impacts of enhanced weathering on which to base deployment decisions.This article is part of the theme issue ‘The role of soils in delivering Nature's Contributions to People’.
The role of soils in the regulation of hazards and extreme events
Authors: Saco P. M. , McDonough K. R. , Rodriguez J. F. , Rivera-Zayas J. , Sandi S. G. 
Published: August 2021

The frequency and intensity of natural hazards and extreme events has increased throughout the last century, resulting in adverse socioeconomic and ecological impacts worldwide. Key factors driving this increase include climate change, the growing world population, anthropogenic activities and ecosystem degradation. One ecologically focused approach that has shown potential towards the mitigation of these hazard events is the concept of nature's contributions to people (or NCP), which focuses on enhancing the material and non-material benefits of an ecosystem to reduce hazard vulnerability and enhance overall human well-being. Soils, in particular, have been identified as a key ecosystem component that may offer critical hazard regulating functionality. Thus, this review investigates the modulating role of soils in the regulation of natural hazards and extreme events, with a focus on floods, droughts, landslides and sand/dust storms, within the context of NCP.This article is part of the theme issue ‘The role of soils in delivering Nature's Contributions to People’.
Identification of a developmental switch in information transfer between whisker S1 and S2 cortex in mice
Authors: Cai Linbi , Yang Jenq-Wei , Chou Shen-Ju , Wang Chia-Fang , Luhmann Heiko , Karayannis Theofanis 
Published: August 2021

AbstractThe whiskers of rodents are a key sensory organ that provides critical tactile information for animal navigation and object exploration throughout life. Previous work has explored the developmental sensory-driven activation of the primary sensory cortex processing whisker information (wS1), also called barrel cortex. This body of work has shown that the barrel cortex is already activated by sensory stimuli during the first post-natal week. However, it is currently unknown when over the course of development these stimuli begin being processed by higher order cortical areas, such as secondary whisker somatosensory area (wS2). Here we investigate for the first time the developmental engagement of wS2 by sensory stimuli and the emergence of cortico-cortical communication from wS1 to wS2. Using in vivo wide-field imaging and electrophysiological recordings in control and conditional knock-out mice we find that wS1 and wS2 are able to process bottom-up information coming from the thalamus already right after birth. We identify that it is only at the end of the first post-natal week that wS1 begins to provide excitation into wS2, a connection which begins to acquire feed-forward inhibition characteristics after the second post-natal week. Therefore, we have uncovered a developmental window during which excitatory versus inhibitory functional connectivity between wS1 and wS2 takes place.
Task space exploration improves adaptation after incompatible virtual surgeries
Authors: Berger Denise J. , Borzelli Daniele , d’Avella Andrea 
Published: August 2021

ABSTRACTHumans have a remarkable capacity to learn new motor skills, a process that requires novel muscle activity patterns. Muscle synergies may simplify the generation of muscle patterns through the selection of a small number of synergy combinations. Learning new motor skills may then be achieved by acquiring novel muscle synergies. In a previous study, we used myoelectric control to construct virtual surgeries that altered the mapping from muscle activity to cursor movements. After compatible virtual surgeries, which could be compensated by recombining subject-specific muscle synergies, participants adapted quickly. In contrast, after incompatible virtual surgeries, which could not be compensated by recombining existing synergies, participants explored new muscle patterns, but failed to adapt. Here, we tested whether task space exploration can promote learning of novel muscle synergies, required to overcome an incompatible surgery. Participants performed the same reaching task as in our previous study, but with more time to complete each trial, thus allowing for exploration. We found an improvement in trial success after incompatible virtual surgeries. Remarkably, improvements in movement direction accuracy after incompatible surgeries occurred faster for corrective movements than for the initial movement, suggesting that learning of new synergies is more effective when used for feedback control. Moreover, reaction time was significantly higher after incompatible than after compatible virtual surgeries, suggesting an increased use of an explicit adaptive strategy to overcome incompatible surgeries. Taken together, these results indicate that exploration is important for skill learning and suggest that human participants, with sufficient time can learn new muscle synergies.NEW & NOTEWORTHYMotor skill learning requires the acquisition of novel muscle patterns, a slow adaptive process. Here we show that learning to control a cursor after an incompatible virtual surgery, a complex skill requiring new muscle synergies, is possible when enough time for task space exploration is provided. Our results suggest that learning new synergies is related to the exceptional human capacity to acquire a wide variety of novel motor skills with practice.
Columnar processing of border ownership in primate visual cortex
Authors: Franken Tom P. , Reynolds John H. 
Published: August 2021

AbstractTo understand a visual scene, the brain segregates figures from background by assigning borders to foreground objects. Neurons in primate visual cortex encode which object owns a border (border ownership), but the underlying circuitry is not understood. Here we used multielectrode probes to record from border ownership selective units in different layers in macaque visual area V4 to study the laminar organization and timing of border ownership selectivity.We find that border ownership selectivity occurs first in deep layer units, in contrast to spike latency for small stimuli in the classical receptive field. Units on the same penetration typically share the preferred side of border ownership, also across layers, similar to orientation preference. Units are often border ownership selective for a range of border orientations, where the preferred sides of border ownership are systematically organized in visual space.Together our data reveal a columnar organization of border ownership in V4 where the earliest border ownership signals are not simply inherited from upstream areas, but computed by neurons in deep layers, and may thus be part of signals fed back to upstream cortical areas or the oculomotor system early after stimulus onset. The finding that preferred border ownership is clustered and can cover a wide range of spatially contiguous locations, suggests that the asymmetric context integrated by these neurons is provided in a systematically clustered manner, possibly through corticocortical feedback and horizontal connections.
Ladostigil attenuates the oxidative and ER stress in human neuroblast-like SH-SY5Y cells
Authors: Zohar Keren , Lezmi Elyad , Eliyahu Tsiona , Linial Michal 
Published: August 2021

AbstractA hallmark of the aging brain is the robust inflammation mediated by microglial activation. Neuroinflammation resulting from the induction of oxidative stress in neurodegenerative diseases and following brain injury. Chronic treatment of aging rats by ladostigil, a compound with antioxidant and anti-inflammatory function, prevented microglial activation and learning deficits. In this study, we investigate the effect of ladostigil on neuronal-like SH-SY5Y cells. We show that SH-SY5Y cells exposed to acute (by H2O2) or chronic oxidative stress (by Sin1, 3-morpholinosydnonimine) induced apoptotic cell death. However, in the presence of ladostigil, the decline in cell viability and the oxidative levels were partially reversed. RNA-seq analysis showed that chronic oxidation by Sin1 resulted in coordinated suppression of endoplasmic reticulum (ER) quality control and ER stress response gene sets. Chronic oxidative stress impacted ER proteostasis and induced the expression of numerous lncRNAs. Pre-incubation with ladostigil before exposing SH-SY5Y cells to Sin1 induced Clk1 (Cdc2-like kinase 1) which was implicated in psychophysiological stress in mice and Alzheimer disease. Ladostigil also suppressed the expression of Ccpg1 (Cell cycle progression 1) and Synj1 (Synaptojanin 1) that function in ER-autophagy and endocytic pathways. We postulate that ladostigil alleviated cell damage by oxidation and ER stress. Therefore, it may attenuate neurotoxicity and cell death that accompany chronic stress conditions in the aging brain.
Emigration Effects on Estimates of Age- and Sex-specific Survival of Small Mammals
Authors: Weldy Matthew J. , Lesmeister Damon B. , Epps Clinton W. 
Published: August 2021

AbstractAge- and sex-specific survival estimates are crucial to understanding important life-history characteristics and variation in these estimates can be a key driver of population dynamics. When estimating survival using Cormack–Jolly–Seber (CJS) models and capture–recapture data, emigration is typically assumed to have a negligible effect on estimates such that apparent survival is indistinguishable from true survival. Consequently, especially for populations or age classes with high dispersal rates, apparent survival estimates are often biased low and temporal patterns in survival might be masked when site fidelity varies temporally.We used 9 years of annual mark-recapture data to estimate age-, sex-, and time-specific apparent survival of Humboldt’s flying squirrels (Glaucomys oregonensis) and Townsend’s chipmunks (Neotamias townsendii). For Humboldt’s flying squirrels, these estimates support a small body of research investigating potential variation of survival among age and sex classes, but age- and sex-specific survival has not been evaluated for Townsend’s chipmunks. We also quantified the effects of age- and sex-specific emigration on confounded estimates of apparent survival.Our estimates of juvenile flying squirrel survival were high relative to other small mammal species and estimates for both species were variable among years. We found survival differed moderately among age and sex classes for Humboldt’s flying squirrels, but little among age and sex classes for Townsend’s chipmunks, and that the degree to which emigration confounded apparent survival estimates varied substantially among years. Without correcting for emigration, apparent survival estimates were lower and temporal variation was obscured, particularly for male Humboldt’s flying squirrels and female Townsend’s chipmunks.Our results demonstrate that emigration can influence commonly used estimates of apparent survival. Unadjusted estimates confounded the interpretation of differences in survival between age and sex classes and masked potential temporal patterns in survival because the magnitude of adjustment varied among years. We conclude that apparent survival estimators are robust during some time periods; however, when emigration rates vary in time the effects of emigration should be carefully considered and accounted for, especially in comparative studies and those with policy and conservation implications.