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| 2. |
- Chen, Jian, et al.
(author)
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Zika virus infects renal proximal tubular epithelial cells with prolonged persistency and cytopathic effects
- 2017
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In: Emerging Microbes & Infections. - : NATURE PUBLISHING GROUP. - 2222-1751. ; 6
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Journal article (peer-reviewed)abstract
- Zika virus (ZIKV) infection can cause fetal developmental abnormalities and Guillain-Barre syndrome in adults. Although progress has been made in understanding the link between ZIKV infection and microcephaly, the pathology of ZIKV, particularly the viral reservoirs in human, remains poorly understood. Several studies have shown that compared to serum samples, patients' urine samples often have a longer duration of ZIKV persistency and higher viral load. This finding suggests that an independent viral reservoir may exist in the human urinary system. Despite the clinical observations, the host cells of ZIKV in the human urinary system are poorly characterized. In this study, we demonstrate that ZIKV can infect renal proximal tubular epithelial cells (RPTEpiCs) in immunodeficient mice in vivo and in both immortalized and primary human renal proximal tubular epithelial cells (hRPTEpiCs) in vitro. Importantly, ZIKV infection in mouse kidneys caused caspase-3-mediated apoptosis of renal cells. Similarly, in vitro infection of immortalized and primary hRPTEpiCs resulted in notable cytopathic effects. Consistent with the clinical observations, we found that ZIKV infection can persist with prolonged duration in hRPTEpiCs. RNA-Seq analyses of infected hRPTEpiCs revealed a large number of transcriptional changes in response to ZIKV infection, including type I interferon signaling genes and anti-viral response genes. Our results suggest that hRPTEpiCs are a potential reservoir of ZIKV in the human urinary system, providing a possible explanation for the prolonged persistency of ZIKV in patients' urine.
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| 3. |
- Chen, Jian, et al.
(author)
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AXL promotes Zika virus infection in astrocytes by antagonizing type I interferon signalling
- 2018
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In: Nature Microbiology. - : NATURE PUBLISHING GROUP. - 2058-5276. ; 3:3, s. 302-309
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Journal article (peer-reviewed)abstract
- Zika virus (ZIKV) is associated with neonatal microcephaly and Guillain-Barre syndrome(1,2). While progress has been made in understanding the causal link between ZIKV infection and microcephaly(3-9), the life cycle and pathogenesis of ZIKV are less well understood. In particular, there are conflicting reports on the role of AXL, a TAM family kinase receptor that was initially described as the entry receptor for ZIKV(10-22). Here, we show that while genetic ablation of AXL protected primary human astrocytes and astrocytoma cell lines from ZIKV infection, AXL knockout did not block the entry of ZIKV. We found, instead, that the presence of AXL attenuated the ZIKV-induced activation of type I interferon (IFN) signalling genes, including several type I IFNs and IFN-stimulating genes. Knocking out type I IFN receptor alpha chain (IFNAR1) restored the vulnerability of AXL knockout astrocytes to ZIKV infection. Further experiments suggested that AXL regulates the expression of SOCS1, a known type I IFN signalling suppressor, in a STAT1/STAT2-dependent manner. Collectively, our results demonstrate that AXL is unlikely to function as an entry receptor for ZIKV and may instead promote ZIKV infection in human astrocytes by antagonizing type I IFN signalling.
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| 4. |
- Chen, Gang, et al.
(author)
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EDF-VD Scheduling of Flexible Mixed-Criticality System With Multiple-Shot Transitions
- 2018
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In: IEEE Transactions on Computer-Aided Design of Integrated Circuits and Systems. - 0278-0070 .- 1937-4151. ; 37:11, s. 2393-2403
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Journal article (peer-reviewed)abstract
- The existing mixed-criticality (MC) real-time task models assume that once any high-criticality task overruns, all high-criticality jobs execute up to their most pessimistic WCET estimations simultaneously in a one-shot manner. This is very pessimistic in the sense of unnecessary resource overbooking. In this paper, we propose a more generalized mixed-critical real-time task model, called flexible MC model with multiple-shot transitions (FMC-MST), to address this problem. In FMC-MST, high-criticality tasks can transit multiple intermediate levels to handle less pessimistic overruns independently and to nonuni-formly scale the deadline on each level. We develop a run-time schedulability analysis for FMC-MST under EDF-VD scheduling, in which a better tradeoff between the penalties of low-criticality tasks and the overruns of high-criticality tasks is achieved to improve the service quality of low-criticality tasks. We also develop a resource optimization technique to find resource-efficient level-insertion configurations for FMC-MST task systems under MC timing constraints. Experiments demonstrate the effectiveness of FMC-MST compared with the state-of-the-art techniques.
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| 6. |
- Li, Biao, et al.
(author)
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Thermodynamic study on carbon dioxide absorption in aqueous solutions of choline-based amino acid ionic liquids
- 2019
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In: Separation and Purification Technology. - : Elsevier. - 1383-5866 .- 1873-3794. ; 214, s. 128-138
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Journal article (peer-reviewed)abstract
- Five choline-based amino acid ionic liquids ([Cho][AA]s) are prepared by neutralization between choline hydroxide and amino acids with different molecular weight and alkalinity. Solubility of CO2 in 30 wt% aqueous solutions of these five [Cho][AA]s has been measured at temperatures from 303.15 to 333.15 K and pressures up to 7 bar. Based on the zwitterion mechanism, the solubility of CO2 in aqueous [Cho][AA]s solutions is correlated with a reaction equilibrium thermodynamic model (RETM). The corresponding thermodynamic parameters, such as Henry’s law constants, reaction equilibrium constants, and enthalpy of physical dissolution and chemical reaction are all calculated and compared to evaluate the CO2 absorption performance in aqueous solutions of five [Cho][AA]s. Meanwhile, the recyclability of the aqueous solution with 30 wt% [Cho][Lys] has been also investigated.
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| 7. |
- Liu, Yang, et al.
(author)
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Genome Assembly of the Common Pheasant Phasianus colchicus : A Model for Speciation and Ecological Genomics
- 2019
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In: Genome Biology and Evolution. - : Oxford University Press (OUP). - 1759-6653. ; 11:12, s. 3326-3331
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Journal article (peer-reviewed)abstract
- The commonpheasant (Phasianus colchicus) in the order Galliformes and the family Phasianidae, has 30 subspecies distributed across its native range in the Palearctic realm and has been introduced to Europe, NorthAmerica, and Australia. It is an important game bird often subjected to wildlife management as well as a model species to study speciation, biogeography, and local adaptation. However, the genomic resources for the commonpheasant are generally lacking. We sequenced a male individual of the subspecies torquatus of the common pheasant with the Illumina HiSeq platform. We obtained 94.88Gb of usable sequences by filtering out low-quality reads of the raw data generated. This resulted in a 1.02Gb final assembly, which equals the estimated genome size. BUSCO analysis using chicken as a model showed that 93.3% of genes were complete. The contig N50 and scaffold N50 sizes were 178 kb and 10.2 Mb, respectively. All these indicate that we obtained a high-quality genome assembly. We annotated 16,485 protein-coding genes and 123.3 Mb (12.05% of the genome) of repetitive sequences by ab initio and homology-based prediction. Furthermore, we applied a RAD-sequencing approach for another 45 individuals of seven representative subspecies in China and identified 4,376,351 novel single nucleotide polymorphism (SNPs) markers. Using this unprecedented data set, we uncovered the geographic population structure and genetic introgression among common pheasants in China. Our results provide the first high-quality reference genome for the common pheasant and a valuable genome-wide SNP database for studying population genomics and demographic history.
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