A PRA-Rab trafficking machinery modulates NLR immune receptor plasma membrane microdomain anchoring and blast resistance in rice

Nucleotide-binding leucine-rich repeat (NLR) receptors mediate pathogen effector-triggered immunity (ETI) in plants, and a subclass of NLRs are hypothesized to function at the plasma membrane (PM). However, how NLR traffic and PM delivery are regulated during immune responses remains largely unknown. The rice NLR PigmR confers broad-spectrum resistance to the blast fungus Magnaporthe oryzae. Here, we report that a PRA (Prenylated Rab acceptor) protein, PIBP4 (PigmR-INTERACTING and BLAST RESISTANCE PROTEIN 4), interacts with both PigmR and the active form of the Rab GTPase, OsRab5a, thereby loads a portion of PigmR on trafficking vesicles that target to PM microdomains. Microdomain-localized PigmR interacts with and activates the small GTPase OsRac1, which triggers reactive oxygen species signaling and hypersensitive response, leading to immune responses against blast infection. Thus, our study discovers a previously unknown mechanism that deploys a PRA-Rab protein delivering hub to ensure ETI, linking the membrane trafficking machinery with NLR function and immune activation in plants

The Effect of Temozolomide/Poly(lactide-co-glycolide) (PLGA)/Nano-Hydroxyapatite Microspheres on Glioma U87 Cells Behavior

In this study, we investigated the effects of temozolomide (TMZ)/Poly (lactide-co-glycolide)(PLGA)/nano-hydroxyapatite microspheres on the behavior of U87 glioma cells. The microspheres were fabricated by the “Solid/Water/Oil” method, and they were characterized by using X-Ray diffraction, scanning electron microscopy and differential scanning calorimetry. The proliferation, apoptosis and invasion of glioma cells were evaluated by MTT, flow cytometry assay and Transwell assay. The presence of the key invasive gene, αVβ3 integrin, was detected by the RT-PCR and Western blot method. It was found that the temozolomide/PLGA/nano-hydroxyapatite microspheres have a significantly diminished initial burst of drug release, compared to the TMZ laden PLGA microspheres. Our results suggest they can significantly inhibit the proliferation and invasion of glioma cells, and induce their apoptosis. Additionally, αVβ3 integrin was also reduced by the microspheres. These data suggest that by inhibiting the biological behavior of glioma cells in vitro, the newly designed temozolomide/PLGA/nano-hydroxyapatite microspheres, as controlled drug release carriers, have promising potential in treating glioma

Numerical Simulation of Coupled Water and Salt Transfer in Soil and a Case Study of the Expansion of Subgrade composed by Saline Soil

AbstractSalt expansion is one of the major problems of subgrade involving saline soils. Salt expansion is induced by the crystallization of salt when the soil water content or temperature decreases. A case of salt expansion in subgrade composed by saline soil is introduced. It is located in G314 Road, which is one of the national highways in China, from Urumqi to Khunjerab. There is 3.40 ∼5.91% salt within 1.0 depth in the ground surface of the G314 (K587 + 035), which belongs to strong sulphate salty soil. The maximum salt expansion is up to 20cm in G314 Road, which has a serious impact on the road. Salt expansion is majorly controlled by the salt crystallization and the transmission of water and salt. Based on the solute transport theory in porous media, the water flow theory and thermal conduction theory, the govern differential equations of coupled salt crystallization, salt transmission and water flow are established in this paper. The coupled water and salt transfer problem of saline soil is solved by a software named as COMSOL with the use of a secondary development module. To verify the method for simulating the coupled water and salt transmission process, the water and salt transfer process in a 1D soil column is simulated and the results are compared with the theoretical solution. The results show that coupled model of water and salt established in this paper can accurately predict salt migration and crystallization of saline soil

Dynamic Garment Simulation based on Hybrid Bounding Volume Hierarchy

In order to solve the computing speed and efficiency problem of existing dynamic clothing simulation, this paper presents a dynamic garment simulation based on a hybrid bounding volume hierarchy. It firstly uses MCASG graph theory to do the primary segmentation for a given three-dimensional human body model. And then it applies K-means cluster to do the secondary segmentation to collect the human body’s upper arms, lower arms, upper legs, lower legs, trunk, hip and woman’s chest as the elementary units of dynamic clothing simulation. According to different shapes of these elementary units, it chooses the closest and most efficient hybrid bounding box to specify these units, such as cylinder bounding box and elliptic cylinder bounding box. During the process of constructing these bounding boxes, it uses the least squares method and slices of the human body to get the related parameters. This approach makes it possible to use the least amount of bounding boxes to create close collision detection regions for the appearance of the human body. A spring-mass model based on a triangular mesh of the clothing model is finally constructed for dynamic simulation. The simulation result shows the feasibility and superiority of the method described