Molecular cloning and stress-dependent expression of a gene encoding Delta(12)-fatty acid desaturase in the Antarctic microalga Chlorella vulgaris NJ-7

The psychrotrophic Antarctic alga, Chlorella vulgaris NJ-7, grows under an extreme environment of low temperature and high salinity. In an effort to better understand the correlation between fatty acid metabolism and acclimation to Antarctic environment, we analyzed its fatty acid compositions. An extremely high amount of Delta(12) unsaturated fatty acids was identified which prompted us to speculate about the involvement of Delta(12) fatty acid desaturase in the process of acclimation. A full-length cDNA sequence, designated CvFAD2, was isolated from C. vulgaris NJ-7 via reverse transcription polymerase chain reaction (RT-PCR) and RACE methods. Sequence alignment and phylogenetic analysis showed that the gene was homologous to known microsomal Delta(12)-FADs with the conserved histidine motifs. Heterologous expression in yeast was used to confirm the regioselectivity and the function of CvFAD2. Linoleic acid (18:2), normally not present in wild-type yeast cells, was detected in transformants of CvFAD2. The induction of CvFAD2 at an mRNA level under cold stress and high salinity is detected by real-time PCR. The results showed that both temperature and salinity motivated the upregulation of CvFAD2 expression. The accumulation of CvFAD2 increased 2.2-fold at 15A degrees C and 3.9-fold at 4A degrees C compared to the alga at 25A degrees C. Meanwhile a 1.7- and 8.5-fold increase at 3 and 6% NaCl was detected. These data suggest that CvFAD2 is the enzyme responsible for the Delta(12) fatty acids desaturation involved in the adaption to cold and high salinity for Antarctic C. vugaris NJ-7.

Fatty acid biosynthesis in eukaryotic photosynthetic microalgae: Identification of a microsomal delta 12 desaturase in Chlamydomonas reinhardtii

Polyunsaturated fatty acids (PUFAs) are important components of infant and adult nutrition because they serve as structural elements of cell membranes. Fatty acid desaturases are responsible for the insertion of double bonds into pre-formed fatty acid chains in reactions that require oxygen and reducing equivalents. In this study, the genome-wide characterization of the fatty acid desaturases from seven eukaryotic photosynthetic microalgae was undertaken according to the conserved histidine-rich motifs and phylogenetic profiles. Analysis of these genomes provided insight into the origin and evolution of the pathway of fatty acid biosynthesis in eukaryotic plants. In addition, the candidate enzyme from Chlamydomonas reinhardtii with the highest similarity to the microsomal Delta 12 desaturase of Chlorella vulgaris was isolated, and its function was verified by heterologous expression in yeast (Saccharomyces cerevisiae).

Cys-92, Cys-95, and the C-terminal 12 residues of the Vibrio harveyi ferric uptake regulator (Fur) are functionally inessential

Ferric uptake regulator (Fur) is a global regulator involved in multiple aspects of bacterial life. The gene encoding the Vibrio harveyi Fur (Fur(vh)) was cloned from a pathogenic V. harveyi strain isolated from diseased fish. Furvh shares 77% overall sequence identity with the Escherichia coli Fur (Fur(Ec)) and could complement a mutant of Fur(Ec). Like Fur(Ec), Fur(Vh), possesses two cysteine residues at positions 92 and 95, yet unlike Fur(Ec), in which these cysteine residues constitute part of the metal ion coordination site and hence are vital to the repressor activity, C92 and C95 of Fur(Vh) proved to be functionally inessential. Further study identified a Vibrio Fur signature sequence, which is preserved in all the ten Vibrio Fur proteins that have been discovered to date but in none of the non-vibrio Fur proteins. Site-directed and random mutation analyses of the signature residues, the cysteine residues, and seven highly charged amino acid residues indicated that D9, H32, C137, and K138 of Fur(vh) are functionally important but D9, C137, and K138 can be replaced by more than one functional substitutes. Systematic deletion analysis demonstrated that the C-terminal 12 residues of Fur(Vh) are functionally inessential. These results (i) indicated that the activation mechanism, or certain aspects of which, of Fur(Vh) is possibly different from that of Fur(Ec); and (ii) suggested that it is not very likely that the C-terminal 12 residues play any significant role in the activation or stability of Fur(Vh); and (iii) provided insights into the potential function of the local structure involving C137 and K138.

Characterization of 12 single nucleotide polymorphisms (SNPs) in Pacific abalone, Haliotis discus hannai

We report here for the first time 12 polymorphic single nucleotide polymorphisms (SNPs) in a commercially important gastropod, Pacific abalone (Haliotis discus hannai) that were identified by searching expressed sequence tag database. These SNP loci (seven nuclear and five mitochondrial SNPs) were polymorphic among 37 wild abalone individuals, based on a four-primer allele-specific polymerase chain reaction analysis. All loci had two alleles and the minor allele frequency ranged from 0.027 to 0.473. For the seven nuclear SNPs, the expected and observed heterozygosities ranged from 0.053 to 0.499 and from 0.054 to 0.811, respectively.

SZJ-12机器人通用控制器系统

本文介绍了一种通用的机器人二级控制系统,该机器人控制器已成功地用于四种不同类型的机器人本体,完成了各种PTP和CP控制功能.

6-12岁儿童自发脑电频谱相干的发展及认知水平的脑诱发电位研究

发展心理学中关于儿童心理发展一直以来存在阶段论和连续论两种观点，阶段论和连续论都有各自的支持依据，但目前心理学家倾向于认为儿童心理发展是阶段性和连续性的统一，一些脑电生理的数据也支持这一观点，脑电发展对认知发展有很好的提示作用。但现有的脑电生理研究在探讨这一问题尚存在一些不足。由于童年中期是个体发育成熟前的最后一个关键期，大脑重量、额叶发育都非常显著，因此，本研究自童年中期大脑发育的特点入手，从自发脑电和诱发脑电两个角度考察童年中期儿童自发脑电基本频谱相干的发展特点及不同认知发展水平、不同年龄的儿童认知发展与脑电发展的关系。研究一主要考察童年中期自发脑电频谱相干发展特点；研究二考察重量守恒水平不同的儿童在完成重量守恒任务时的脑电活动的时间进程；研究三考察不同年龄儿童完成认知任务的脑诱发电位表现。所得结果如下： 1. 自发脑电频谱相干研究发现在童年中期大脑发育存在7-8岁的加速期，并在11岁存在转折，在9、12岁达到高峰。支持儿童发展是阶段性和连续性的统一的观点。 2. 不同守恒水平儿童在完成重量守恒任务时，主要表现为晚正成分的波幅差异，且波幅存在守恒水平与电极位置的交互作用，守恒组倾向于激活右侧额中央区，而不守恒组则倾向于激活中央额区。结果不能支持阶段论，但发展是否表现为连续性，有待于进一步探索。 3. 9-10-11岁三组儿童在完成同一任务时的大脑活动存在显著差异，在脑电水平上，主要表现为N2波幅和电位图的差异，11岁组明显不同于9、10岁组。进一步考察9岁组、10岁普通智力组、10岁高智力水平组、11岁组四组儿童的诱发电位特点（潜伏期、波幅和电位图），发现，9岁组与10岁普通智力组之间N2波幅和电位图差异不显著，而10岁高智力水平组与11岁组在N2波幅和电位图上差异不显著。本实验结果提示认知发展在不同年龄段表现为阶段性，而由于同一年龄段的不同水平与其他年龄组存在水平相当的现象，认知发展从整体上看来表现为一定的连续性。 综合EEG与ERP的研究结果，得出结论，童年中期认知发展和脑电发育是阶段性和连续性的统一。

8～12岁男孩的性激素与智力、人格的关系

Recently there emerged more and more researhes concerning about sex hormone-related cognitive ability and behaviours. Few were carried out in pre- to early adolescent children., and the objective of the current study is to investigate whether there are covariance between sex hormones, intelligence and personality in 232 pre- to early adolescent boys, including 62 gifted boys. Indexes of sex hormone levels were salivary testosterone and estradiol concentrations, the 2D:4D digit ratio ( a reliable pointer of prenatal sex hormone concentraions). The Cattell Culture Fair Intelligence Test and a Chinese version of Children’s Personality Questionaire was applied in the current study. The main findings are: 1) salivary sex hormone concentrations significantly positively correlated with intelligence performance in 10-year-old boys; 2) salivary testosterone negatively related to intelligence performance in 12-year-old boys; 3) gifted boys bears lower testosterone concentrations in both prenatal period and pre- to early adolescence; 4) for personality, higher salivary estradiol was related to extraversion and digit ratios correlated with several personality factors in 8-year-old boys. In conclusion, results in the current study suggested that for male early maturers, intelligence may be negatively influenced by early coming androgen surge. In contrast, male late matures may benefit from their lately and moderately increasing hormone. Besides, the results suggested that the relationship between 2D:4D digit ratio and personality may also be paid attention to.

7-12岁儿童执行功能与智力的关系

The nature of individual differences among children is an important issue in the study of human intelligence. There are close relation between intelligence and executive functions. Traditional theories, which are based mainly on the factor analysis, approach the problem only from the perspective of psychometrics. However, they do not study the relation of cognition and neurobiology. Some researchers try to explore the essential differences in intelligence from the basic cognitive level, by studying the relationship between executive function and intelligence. The aim of this study was to do the followings 1) to delineate and separate the executive function in children into measurable constructs; 2) to establish the relationship between executive function and intelligence in children; 3) to find out the difference and its neural mechanism between intellectually-gifted and normal children’s executive function. The participants were 188 children aged 7-12 year old. There were 6 executive function tasks. The results were follows: 1) The latent variables analyses showed that there was no stable construct of executive function in 7-10 year old children. The executive function construct of 11-12 year old children could be separated into updating, inhibition and shifting. And they had grown to be more or less the same as adults in the executive function. There were only moderate correlations between the three types of executive function, but they were largely independent of each other. 2) The correlations between the indices of updating, inhibition, shifting and intelligence were different in 7-12 year old children. The older the age, the more the indices were related to intelligence. The updating and shifting were related to intelligence in 7-10 year old children. There were significant correlations between the updating, inhibition, shifting and intelligence in 11-12 year old children. The correlation between updating and intelligence was higher than the correlation between shifting and intelligence. Furthermore, in structural equation models controlling for the three executive functions correlations, updating was highly related to intelligence, but the relations of inhibition and shifting to intelligence were not significant. 3) Intellectually-gifted children performed better than normal children in executive function tasks. The neural mechanism differences between intellectually gifted and average children were indicated by ERP component P3. The present study helps us to understand the relationship between intelligence and executive function; and throws light on the issue of individual differences in intelligence. The present results can provide theoretical support for the development a culture-free intelligence test and a method to promote the development of intelligence. Our present study lends support to the neural efficient hypothesis.