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Publications (179)
Although multiple neural networks have been proposed for detecting secondary structures from medium-resolution (5–10 Å) cryo-electron microscopy (cryo-EM) maps, the loss functions used in the existing deep learning networks are primarily based on cross-entropy loss, which is known to be sensitive to class imbalances. We investigated five loss funct...
Abstract
Motivation: This study investigates the flexible refinement of AlphaFold2 models against corresponding
cryo-electron microscopy (cryo-EM) maps using normal modes derived from elastic network models
(ENMs) as basis functions for displacement. AlphaFold2 generally predicts highly accurate structures,
but 18 of the 137 models of isolated chai...
Background
Chromosome 18p deletion syndrome is caused by total or partial deletion of the short arm of chromosome 18 and associated with cognitive impairment, growth retardation and mild facial dysmorphism. However, most studies on the genotype-phenotype correlations in the 18p region are diagnosed postnatally. Prenatal reports involving 18p deleti...
Objective:
To carry out preimplantation genetic testing (PGT) for a Chinese pedigree affected with Rett syndrome (RTT).
Methods:
A pedigree affected with RTT who had presented at the First Hospital of Jilin University on June 4, 2021 was selected as the study subject. Variant of the MECP2 gene was analyzed by next generation sequencing (NGS) and...
In this work, we established, validated, and optimized a novel computational framework for tracing arbitrarily oriented actin filaments in cryo-electron tomography maps. Our approach was designed for highly complex intracellular architectures in which a long-range cytoskeleton network extends throughout the cell bodies and protrusions. The irregula...
The objective of this study was to evaluate the effect of ultrasound pre-treatment on the characterization from Bactrian camel skin. It was possible to produce and characterize collagen extracted from Bactrian camel skin. The results showed that the yield of collagen was higher in ultrasound pre-treatment (UPSC) (41.99%) than the pepsin-soluble col...
Bactrian camel (Camelus bactrianus) meat, as a product of national geographical indication, is mainly produced in the northwest regions of China. This study systematically evaluated the edible quality, nutritional quality, and carcinogenic substances of Bactrian camel meat using different heating times in four thermal processing methods (steaming,...
Recent breakthroughs in deep learning-based protein structure prediction show that it is possible to obtain highly accurate models for a wide range of difficult protein targets for which only the amino acid sequence is known. The availability of accurately predicted models from sequences can potentially revolutionise many modelling approaches in st...
Within cells, cytoskeletal filaments are often arranged into loosely aligned bundles. These fibrous bundles are dense enough to exhibit a certain regularity and mean direction, however, their packing is not sufficient to impose a symmetry between—or specific shape on—individual filaments. This intermediate regularity is computationally difficult to...
Changes in physicochemical parameters and composition of Bactrian camel milk were evaluated at 1, 7, 21, 35, and 90 days postpartum. Bactrian camel milk contained 14.82% total solids (TS), 10.89% solid non-fat (SNF), 5.96% lactose, 4.73% protein, 3.88% fat, and 0.88% ash on average in an apparent negative trend. Density and refractive index (RI) vo...
As automated filament tracing algorithms in cryo-electron tomography (cryo-ET) continue to improve, the validation of these approaches has become more incumbent. Having a known ground truth on which to base predictions is crucial to reliably test predicted cytoskeletal filaments because the detailed structure of the filaments in experimental tomogr...
We propose a fast, dynamic programming-based framework for tracing actin filaments in 3D maps of subcellular components in cryo-electron tomography. The approach can identify high-density filament segments in various orientations, but it takes advantage of the arrangement of actin filaments within cells into more or less tightly aligned bundles. As...
Although atomic structures have been determined directly from cryo-EM density maps with high resolutions, current structure determination methods for medium resolution (5 to 10 Å) cryo-EM maps are limited by the availability of structure templates. Secondary structure traces are lines detected from a cryo-EM density map for α-helices and β-strands...
Although cryo-electron microscopy (cryo-EM) has been successfully used to derive atomic structures for many proteins, it is still challenging to derive atomic structures when the resolution of cryo-EM density maps is in the medium resolution range, such as 5–10 Å. Detection of protein secondary structures, such as helices and β-sheets, from cryo-EM...
Objective
We present prenatal diagnosis and molecular cytogenetic characterization of a chromosome 1q42.3q44 deletion and 8q24.3 duplication in a fetus with single umbilical artery and ventricular septal defects, and we discuss the genotype–phenotype correlation.
Case report
Here, we describe a fetus with abnormal sonography findings showing a sin...
Camels have hunger tolerance and can adapt to the severe environment of the desert. Through the comparison of insulin signalling pathway genes in different tissues in different eating periods (feeding, fasting and recovery feeding), it was found that IRS1, PIK3CB, PIK3R1 and SLC2A4 expression was significantly downregulated in the fore hump and hin...
In the present study, label-free quantification was used to study the protein changes in camel milk during homogenization. In the control and homogenization groups, we quantified 280 and 264 proteins, respectively between two groups. For the homogenization group, camel milk protein particles were smaller and more evenly distributed, and the ratio o...
Background
Trisomy 19q is a recognizable syndrome and associated with a wide spectrum of clinical phenotypes in clinic. The purpose of this study was to explore the prenatal phenotypes of 19q13.42 duplication, which was rarely reported in clinic.
Case presentation
Three pregnant women presenting diverse indications for prenatal diagnosis accepted...
Fagui Yue Shu Deng Qi Xi- [...]
Ruizhi Liu
Rationale:
Chromosomal 3q deletion is a recurrent genomic alternation, which is rarely reported in clinic.
Patient concerns:
A 27-year-old woman underwent amniocentesis for cytogenetic analysis and single nucleotide polymorphism (SNP) array analysis at 27 weeks of gestation, due to ventricular septum defect in prenatal ultrasound findings.
Diag...
Rationale:
1q21.1 duplication is an uncommon chromosomal submicroscopic imbalance which is associated with growth/mental retardation, dysmorphic features, autism, multiple congenital and neuropsychiatric disorders.
Patient concerns:
Two pregnant women underwent amniocentesis for cytogenetic analysis and chromosomal microarray analysis (CMA) foll...
Heat treatment is the most common method used to make milk safe; however, it leads to changes in the organoleptic and nutritional properties of milk. This study aimed to investigate the effects of different heat treatments on nutrients and microbiota of camel milk. The results showed that the nutrient composition of camel milk could be influenced b...
Background
Trisomy 19q is a recognizable syndrome and associated with a wide spectrum of clinical phenotypes in clinic. The purpose of this study was to explore the prenatal phenotypes of 19q13.42 duplication, which was rarely reported in clinic.
Case presentation
Three pregnant women presenting diverse indications for prenatal diagnosis accepted a...
Cryo-electron microscopy is a major structure determination technique for large molecular machines and membrane-associated complexes. Although atomic structures have been determined directly from cryo-EM density maps with high resolutions, current structure determination methods for medium resolution (5 to 10 Å) cryo-EM maps are limited by the avai...
Although Cryo-electron microscopy (cryo-EM) has been successfully used to derive atomic structures for many proteins, it is still challenging to derive atomic structure when the resolution of cryo-EM density maps is in the medium range, e.g., 5-10 Å. Studies have attempted to utilize machine learning methods, especially deep neural networks to buil...
Objective:
Old World camels are a valuable genetic resource for many countries around the world due to their adaptation to the desert environment. At present, Old World camels have encountered the challenge of unprecedented loss of genetic resources. Through our research, we would reveal the population structure and genetic variation in Old World...
Professional phagocytes such as dendritic cells and macrophages can ingest particles larger than 0.5 μm in diameter. Epithelial cells are nonprofessional phagocytes that cannot ingest pathogenic microorganisms, but they can ingest apoptotic cells. Inhibition of the engulfment of apoptotic cells by the airway epithelium can cause severe airway infla...
To maintain alveolar gas exchange, the alveolar surface has to limit unnecessary inflammatory responses. This involves crosstalk between alveolar epithelial cells (AECs) and alveolar macrophages (AMs) in response to damaging factors. We recently showed that insulin-like growth factor (IGF)-1 regulates the phagocytosis of AECs. AMs secrete IGF-1 int...
Introduction:
As one of the most common causes of male infertility, asthenozoospermia mainly shows low sperm motility, accounting for 81.84% of male infertility patients. Recently, there has been a notable increase for relationship between genetic testing and asthenozoospermia. In this report, we design to provide clues to prove relationship betwe...
Cells engulf particles larger than 0.5 μm in diameter by phagocytosis, which is driven by cytoskeletal rearrangements. Phagocytosis by alveolar epithelial cells (AECs) helps to maintain the alveolar homeostasis. Yes-associated protein (YAP), a transcriptional coactivator of the Hippo pathway, affects proliferation, differentiation, and cytoskeletal...
Background: Genetic etiology is the main cause of non-obstructive azoospermia, but little is known about the landscape of the disease causative genes.
Objective: To identify the association of non-obstructive azoospermia and the putative causative genetic factors.
Design, setting, and participants: A single-center perspective case-control study of...
Objective:
To investigate the changes in phagocytic function of alveolar macrophages (AMs) in mice with lipopolysaccharide (LPS)-induced acute lung injury (ALI) and explore the possible mechanism.
Methods:
Kunming mice were randomly divided into normal control group and ALI (induced by LPS instillation in the airway) model group. AMs were obtain...
Background: As more protein atomic structures are determined from cryo-electron microscopy (cryo-EM) density maps, validation of such structures is an important task. Methods: We applied a histogram-based outlier score (HBOS) to six sets of cryo-EM atomic structures and five sets of X-ray atomic structures, including one derived from X-ray data wit...
Cryo-electron microscopy (cryo-EM) density maps at medium resolution (5-10 Å) reveal secondary structural features such as α-helices and β-sheets, but they lack the side chains details that would enable a direct structure determination. Among the more than 800 entries in the Electron Microscopy Data Bank (EMDB) of medium-resolution density maps tha...
Morbidity and mortality as a result of liver disease are major problems around the world, especially from alcoholic liver disease (ALD), which is characterized by hepatic inflammation and intestinal microbial imbalance. In this study, we investigated the hepatoprotective effects of camel milk (CM) in a mouse model of acute ALD and the underlying me...
Small supernumerary marker chromosomes (sSMCs) are defined as structurally abnormal chromosomes that may be detected pre- or postnataly in patients with developmental and/or mental retardation or infertility. sSMC on chromosome 15 accounts for the highest proportion of all sSMCs and may be detected in subfertile individuals. The present study repor...
Antibacterial peptides were isolated and purified from whey proteins of camel milk (CaW) and cow milk (CoW) and their antimicrobial activities were studied. The whey proteins were hydrolyzed using trypsin, and the degree of hydrolysis was identified by gel electrophoresis. The whey hydrolysate (WH) was purified using ultrafiltration and Dextran gel...
Cryo-electron tomography maps often exhibit considerable noise and anisotropic resolution, due to the low-dose requirements and the missing wedge in Fourier space. These spurious features are visually unappealing and, more importantly, prevent an automated segmentation of geometric shapes, requiring a subjective and labor-intensive manual tracing....
Liang Ming Zhen Wang Li Yi- [...]
Jirimutu
Camelids are characterized by their unique adaptive immune system that exhibits the generation of homodimeric heavy-chain immunoglobulins, somatic hypermutation of T-cell receptors, and low genetic diversity of major histocompatibility complex (MHC) genes. However, short-read assemblies are typically highly fragmented in these gene loci owing to th...
Background: Recent surveys report one in seven couples with infertility worldwide of which male infertility accounts for 30-50%. Azoospermia is one of the most serious forms of male infertility in men, the reason is that no sperm in the semen and genetic basis remains largely unknown. However, the cause of the disease and the genetic mechanism are...
Electron cryo-tomography allows for high-resolution imaging of stereocilia in their native state. Because their actin filaments have a higher degree of order, we imaged stereocilia from mice lacking the actin crosslinker plastin 1 (PLS1). We found that while stereocilia actin filaments run 13nm apart in parallel for long distances, there were gaps...
The domestic Bactrian camels were treated as one of the principal means of locomotion between the eastern and western cultures in history. However, whether they originated from East Asia or Central Asia remains elusive. To address this question, we perform whole-genome sequencing of 128 camels across Asia. The extant wild and domestic Bactrian came...
The original version of this chapter contained an error in the fourth author’s name. The spelling of Julio Kovacs’s name was incorrect in the header of the paper. The author name was corrected.
Camel milk is considered as an essential source of nutrition for desert people. However, few studies have investigated how geography affects Bactrian camel milk in Mongolia. In this study, we evaluated the differences in gross composition, fatty acid composition, and amino acid composition among Bactrian camel milk samples collected from 102 Bactri...
Cryo-electron tomography maps often exhibit considerable noise and anisotropic resolution, due to the low-dose requirements and the missing wedge in Fourier space. These spurious features are visually unappealing and, more importantly, prevent an automated segmentation of geometric shapes, requiring a highly subjective, labor-intensive manual traci...
Electron cryo-tomography allows for high-resolution imaging of stereocilia in their native state. Because their actin filaments have a higher degree of order, we imaged stereocilia from mice lacking the actin crosslinker plastin 1 (PLS1). We found that while stereocilia actin filaments run in parallel for long distances, 13 nm apart, there were gap...
As more atomic structures are determined from cryo-electron microscopy (cryo-EM) density maps, validation of such structures is an important task. We report findings after analyzing the change of cryo-EM structures in a comparison between those released by December 2016 and those released between 2017 and 2019. The cryo-EM models created from densi...
The unique hump structure of the Bactrian camel has helped it adapt to the harsh desert environment, and the adipose tissue contained in the hump is believed to play important roles in its survival. We used RNA sequencing to examine the transcriptome profiles of 7 adipose tissues of the fore hump, hind hump, subcutaneous, intermuscular, perihepatic...
Mast cells serve a key role in the occurrence and development of allergy. As an important growth factor of mast cells, stem cell factor (SCF) has an effect on the apoptosis, chemotaxis, adhesion, degranulation and other biological characteristics of mast cells. However, there are few studies regarding the effect of SCF signal on the production of c...
The phagocytosis of apoptotic cells by alveolar epithelial cells helps to eliminate airway inflammation. Insulin‑like growth factor 1 (IGF‑1) regulates cell metabolism and proliferation, and promotes cell survival, while it may also promote the proliferation and differentiation of alveolar epithelial cells during the repair of lung injury. The pres...
The complex gut microbiota plays a key role in host metabolism and health. However, the core microbial communities in the different aged Bactrian camels remain totally unclear. We used high-throughput 16S rRNA gene sequencing to examine the temporal variability of the fecal microbiota in Bactrian camels. At 2 months of age, the fecal microbiota was...
Background
Genetic defects are commonly observed in infertile males, although the majority of cases remain idiopathic. In recent years, the relationship between single-nucleotide polymorphisms (SNPs) and male infertility has received increasing attention. The objective of this study was to explore the relationship between non-obstructive azoospermi...
The domestic Bactrian camels were treated as the principal means of locomotion between the eastern and western cultures in history. To address the question of their origin, we performed whole-genome sequencing of 128 camels across Asia, including representative populations of domestic Bactrian camels from the Mongolian Plateau to the Caspian Sea, a...
Background
Genetic mechanisms are associated with male infertility, but the association with non-obstructive azoospermia (NOA) remains unclear. Mutations in the chloride channel accessory 4 (CLCA4) gene have been shown to have a role in male infertility. The aim of this study was to investigate the associations between single nucleotide polymorphis...
MicroRNAs (miRNAs/miRs) are small, noncoding RNA molecules that are closely associated with the occurrence and development of tumors. miR-20b is overexpressed in hepatocellular carcinoma cell lines and tissues. However, it is not clear whether miR-20b can promote the proliferation of hepatocellular carcinoma cells. In the present study, the prolife...
Airway inflammation can be mitigated when apoptotic cells are engulfed by pulmonary epithelial cells. Insulin-like growth factor 1 (IGF-1), a single chain polypeptide growth factor, is the main mediator of growth hormone activity in vivo. IGF-1 has many biological activities, such as the regulation of cell survival, proliferation, differentiation a...
Asthma is characterized by inflammation and remodeling of the airways. Insulin-like growth factor-1 (IGF-1) serves an important role in the repair of lung tissue injury and airway remodeling by elevating collagen and elastin content, increasing the thickness of smooth muscle and promoting the proliferation of lung epithelial and interstitial cells,...
Wuhan, a megacity in central China, suffers from frequent aerosol pollution and is accompanied by meteorological factors at both synoptic and local scales. Partly due to the lack of appropriate observations of planetary boundary layer (PBL), the associations between synoptic conditions, PBL, and pollution there are not yet fully understood. Thus, s...
Our knowledge is still poor regarding the response of the precipitation vertical structure to aerosols, partly due to the ignorance of precipitation occurring at different spatial scales. A total of 6 years of collocated ground-based PM10 and satellite-based (Tropical Rainfall Measuring Mission, TRMM) radar data, along with ERA-Interim reanalysis,...