Engineering Artificial Factors to Specifically Manipulate Alternative Splicing in Human Cells

The processing of most eukaryotic RNAs is mediated by RNA Binding Proteins (RBPs) with modular configurations, including an RNA recognition module, which ...

Shanghai Institutes for Biological Sciences (SIBS)

The purpose of this study was to examine the current research performance patterns of occupational therapy faculty, identify factors that influence individual faculty members productivity, and compare current faculty research performance with earlier studies in occupational therapy. Survey questionnaires from 158 faculty members were analyzed. Compared to earlier data, the results showed that today's occupational therapy faculty members have obtained higher degrees, published more refereed articles, acquired larger external grants, stayed in academia longer, and developed clinical specialty areas. Tenured senior faculty members spent more time on research-related tasks, produced more publications and grants, and perceived institutional factors as more favorable for research than did untenured faculty in lower ranks. The overall enhancement in productivity among occupational therapy faculty members in the 1990s suggests an increase in academic scholarly activities.

Research productivity among occupational therapy faculty members in the United States.

This study surveyed junior and senior occupational therapy faculty in order to further understand the role that mentoring plays in research productivity. Junior faculty with and without mentors were compared in terms of their overall research productivity, and the senior faculty who served as mentors were compared with senior faculty who were not mentors. The role of institutional support factors on research productivity was also examined. The results of this survey suggest that mentoring plays an important role in increasing research productivity in junior faculty in the field of occupational therapy. Also, senior faculty mentors perceived their mentoring experience to enhance their research productivity. A general profile of an occupational therapy mentor and mentee has emerged from the results. Analyses showed a low to moderate positive correlation between faculty research productivity and a number of institutional support factors. Availability of intramural funds, release time, chair and dean support for research, grant writing seminars, and availability of statistical and computing help correlated with research productivity. The authors recommend the need for mentoring in occupational therapy academia. New faculty should have a mentor or mentors to help them succeed in research, teaching and service goals. Developing short-term and long-term goals with the mentor and periodic evaluation of goals will help new faculty to keep pace with the demands and requirements of their academic positions.

The role of mentoring on research productivity among occupational therapy faculty.

The purposes of this study were to investigate the validity of the simple ratio and three alternative deflation models and examine how the variation of the numerator and denominator variables affects the reliability of a ratio variable. A simple ratio and three alternative deflation models were fitted to four empirical data sets, and common criteria were applied to determine the best model for deflation. Intraclass correlation was used to examine the component effect on the reliability of a ratio variable. The results indicate that the validity, of a deflation model depends on the statistical characteristics of the particular component variables used, and an optimal deflation model for all ratio variables may not exist. Therefore, it is recommended that different models be fitted to each empirical data set to determine the best deflation model. It was found that the reliability of a simple ratio is affected by the coefficients of variation and the within- and between-trial correlations between the numerator and denominator variables. It was recommended that researchers should compute the reliability of the derived ratio scores and not assume that strong reliabilities in the numerator and denominator measures automatically lead to high reliability in the ratio measures.

Statistical validity of using ratio variables in human kinetics research.

This study examined achievement goal orientation patterns and their impact on student motivation in physical education running programs. Participants included 533 fifth graders. They completed questionnaires assessing their achievement goal orientations, expectancy beliefs, task values, and intentions for future participation in running. They also completed a timed, 1-mile run. Data revealed 4 goal orientation patterns: low task/low ego, low task/high ego, high task/low ego, and high task/high ego. Students in the high-task/low-ego and high-task/high-ego groups demonstrated higher levels of motivation in running than those in the low-task/low-ego and low-task/high-ego groups.

Achievement goal orientation patterns and fifth graders' motivation in physical education running programs.

Heaven-human-earth Pattern (HHE) regarded as a crucial conception of traditional Chinese medicine (TCM) has been applied extensively in TCM diagnostics, etiology, acupuncture therapeutics, materia medica and herbal formula, etc. It associates closely with Chinese classic cosmology. Since ancient time of China, many cosmic phenomena have been introduced to prove or illustrate TCM theories. Moreover, the five-element theory has been proven to be in keeping with some modern approaches of life provenance and life evolution. As a result, Chinese materia medica develops in a way of a pure natural medicine. It is of great significance that by realizing the natural features, the public nowadays can understand TCM better in its scientific connotations.

On the natural medical features of traditional Chinese medicine.

Red-flesh fruit is absent from common sweet orange varieties, but is more preferred by consumers due to its visual attraction and nutritional properties. Our previous researches on a spontaneous red-flesh mutant revealed that the trait is caused by lycopene accumulation and is regulated by both transcriptional and post-transcriptional mechanisms. However, the knowledge on post-transcriptional regulation of lycopene accumulation in fruits is rather limited so far.

Discovery and comparative profiling of microRNAs in a sweet orange red-flesh mutant and its wild type.

In plants, microRNAs (miRNAs) regulate gene expression mainly at the post-transcriptional level. Previous studies have demonstrated that miRNA-mediated gene silencing pathways play vital roles in plant development. Here, we used a high-throughput sequencing approach to characterize the miRNAs and their targeted transcripts in the leaf, flower and fruit of sweet orange.

Genome-wide comparison of microRNAs and their targeted transcripts among leaf, flower and fruit of sweet orange.

In eukaryotes, histone acetylation and methylation have been known to be involved in regulating diverse developmental processes and plant defense. These histone modification events are controlled by a series of histone modification gene families. To date, there is no study regarding genome-wide characterization of histone modification related genes in citrus species. Based on the two recent sequenced sweet orange genome databases, a total of 136 CsHMs (Citrus sinensis histone modification genes), including 47 CsHMTs (histone methyltransferase genes), 23 CsHDMs (histone demethylase genes), 50 CsHATs (histone acetyltransferase genes), and 16 CsHDACs (histone deacetylase genes) were identified. These genes were categorized to 11 gene families. A comprehensive analysis of these 11 gene families was performed with chromosome locations, phylogenetic comparison, gene structures, and conserved domain compositions of proteins. In order to gain an insight into the potential roles of these genes in citrus fruit development, 42 CsHMs with high mRNA abundance in fruit tissues were selected to further analyze their expression profiles at six stages of fruit development. Interestingly, a numbers of genes were expressed highly in flesh of ripening fruit and some of them showed the increasing expression levels along with the fruit development. Furthermore, we analyzed the expression patterns of all 136 CsHMs response to the infection of blue mold (Penicillium digitatum), which is the most devastating pathogen in citrus post-harvest process. The results indicated that 20 of them showed the strong alterations of their expression levels during the fruit-pathogen infection. In conclusion, this study presents a comprehensive analysis of the histone modification gene families in sweet orange and further elucidates their behaviors during the fruit development and the blue mold infection responses.

Genome-wide identification of sweet orange (Citrus sinensis) histone modification gene families and their expression analysis during the fruit development and fruit-blue mold infection process.

Apart from single marker-based tests classically used in genome-wide association studies (GWAS), network-assisted analysis has become a promising approach to identify a set of genes associated with disease. To date, most network-assisted methods aim at finding genes connected in a background network, whatever the density or strength of their connections. This can hamper the findings as sparse connections are non-robust against noise from either the GWAS results or the network resource.

SigMod: an exact and efficient method to identify a strongly interconnected disease-associated module in a gene network.

Little information exists on emission factors (EFs, quantities of pollutants emitted per unit of fuel consumed) for brick kilns in China, although brick kilns are important emission sources of many air pollutants, and 45% of the world's bricks are produced in China. In this study, EFs of carbon dioxide (CO2), carbon monoxide (CO), sulfur dioxide (SO2), nitrogen oxides (NOx), particulate matters (PMs), black carbon (BC), organic carbon (OC), and polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons (PAHs) for brick kilns were derived based on field measurements of a total of 18 brick kilns of major types in China. This was the first study to quantify EFs of both stack and fugitive sources based on a modified carbon balance method that was developed for this study. The EFs of most pollutants, especially the incomplete combustion products in fugitive emissions, were much higher than those for stack emissions, indicating a substantial underestimation of total emissions when leakage is not taken into consideration. This novel method can be applied to quantify emissions from other similar sources with both stack and fugitive emissions.

Yuanlong Liu

Key Laboratory of Computational Biology,
CAS-MPG Partner Institute for Computational Biology,
Key Laboratory of Computational Biology, CAS-MPG Partner Institute for Computational Biology

Shanghai Institutes for Biological Sciences (SIBS)

Engineering Artificial Factors to Specifically Manipulate Alternative Splicing in Human Cells

Yuanlong Liu

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Shanghai Institutes for Biological Sciences (SIBS)

Engineering Artificial Factors to Specifically Manipulate Alternative Splicing in Human Cells

Key Laboratory of Computational Biology,
CAS-MPG Partner Institute for Computational Biology,
Key Laboratory of Computational Biology, CAS-MPG Partner Institute for Computational Biology