Xingyi Wei

• Lanzhou University

The recombinase polymerase amplification (RPA)-CRISPR-Cas12a-FQ system enables sensitive detection of environmental DNA (eDNA) in rare fish species. Here, we present a protocol for eDNA amplification and Cas12a for target recognition using RPA. We describe steps for identifying a target site, synthesis and purification of CRISPR RNA (crRNA), and RP...

During extensive evolution, higher eukaryotes have acquired numerous prokaryotic genes, some of which have experienced adaptive copy number variations (CNVs) in response to changing environments. The specific contribution of ancient prokaryotic genes to the evolutionary dynamics of marine fish remains unclear. In this study, we investigated ancient...

Increasing amounts of amino-functionalized polystyrene nanoplastics (PS-NH2) are entering aquatic ecosystems, raising concerns. Hence, this study investigated 96-h acute toxicity of PS-NH2 and its combination with the pesticide atrazine (ATZ) in the absence/presence of humic acid (HA) on the microalgae Chlorella vulgaris (C. vulgaris). Results show...

The integration of recombinase polymerase amplification (RPA) with CRISPR/Cas technology has revolutionized molecular diagnostics and pathogen detection due to its unparalleled sensitivity and trans-cleavage ability. However, its potential in the ecological and environmental monitoring scenarios for aquatic ecosystems remains largely unexplored, pa...

Poly(3,4-ethylenedioxythiophene):poly(styrenesulfonate) (PEDOT:PSS) is a conductive polymer commonly used in various technological applications. However, its impact on aquatic ecosystems remains largely unexplored. In this study, we investigated the toxicity effects of PEDOT:PSS on zebrafish. We first determined the lethal concentration (LC50) of P...

Although the Three Gorges Dam (TGD) is the world’s largest hydroelectric dam, little is known about the spatial–temporal patterns and community assembly mechanisms of meio- and micro-eukaryotes and its two subtaxa (zooplankton and zoobenthos). This knowledge gap is particularly evident across various habitats and during different water-level period...

This study represents the first report comparing the acute toxicity of three types of nanoplastics (Polystyrene (PS), Polypropylene (PP), and Polyethylene (PE)) on multiple biological endpoints of Artemia franciscana nauplii, a commonly used model organism in ecotoxicology. The nauplii were exposed to four concentrations (0.05, 0.5, 5, and 50 mg/L)...

Effective and standardized monitoring methodologies are vital for successful reservoir restoration and management. Environmental DNA (eDNA) metabarcoding sequencing offers a promising alternative for biomonitoring and can overcome many limitations of traditional morphological bioassessment. Recent attempts have even shown that supervised machine le...

The Three Gorges Dam is the largest water conservancy project in the world, and the Three Gorges Reservoir Area (TGRA) possesses precious fish resources. Currently, due to the lack of efficient biodiversity monitoring tools, the precise evaluation of fish community composition in a riverine reservoir has been restricted. Here, we investigated fish...

Chronic kidney disease of unknown etiology (CKDu) is an endemic disease in the dry zone of farming communities, Sri Lanka. The drinking water in a CKDu prevalent area contains a high concentration of F- and hardness, and other environmental pollutants, including heavy metals and microcystin, which are considered possible etiology of CKDu in these a...

Environmental DNA (eDNA) research holds great promise for improving biodiversity science and conservation efforts by enabling worldwide species censuses in near real-time. Current eDNA methods face challenges in detecting low-abundance ecologically important species. In this study, we used isothermal recombinase polymerase amplification (RPA)-CRISP...

Gold nanoparticles (GNPs) are commonly utilized in biomedical science, but the potential application of green synthesized herb-based GNPs is elusive. Here, aqueous extracts of Ammannia baccifera were used to synthesize GNPs, and the properties of green synthesized GNPs were analyzed. Our results showed that these GNPs possessed larvicidal activity...

Chronic kidney disease with uncertain etiology (CKDu) in Sri Lanka has attracted much attention as a global health issue. However, how environmental factors in local drinking water induce kidney damage in organisms is still elusive. We investigated multiple environmental factors including water hardness and fluoride (HF), heavy metals (HM), microcy...

Staphylococcus aureus (S. aureus) is an important opportunistic human and animal pathogen that can cause a wide diversity of infections. Due to its environmental health risks, it is crucial to establish a time-saving, high-throughput, and highly sensitive technique for water quality surveillance. In this study, we developed a novel method to detect...

Common vetch (Vicia sativa subsp. sativa) is one of the most economically important forage legumes, with high nutritional value and multiple uses. Although microsatellite markers have been developed and applied on a large scale for evaluation of common vetch germplasm, intron-length polymorphic (ILP) markers have not been systematically investigate...

Long terminal repeat retrotransposons (LTR-RTs) contribute a large fraction of many sequenced plant genomes and play important roles in genomic diversity and phenotypic variations. LTR-RTs are abundantly distributed in plant genomes, facilitating the development of markers based on LTR-RTs for a variety of genotyping purposes. Whole-genome analysis...

Common vetch ( Vicia sativa subsp . sativa ) is one of the most economically important forage legumes with rich nutritional value and multiple uses. Though the large-scale development and application of microsatellite markers have been conducted in common vetch germplasm evaluation, the investigation and exploitation of intron-length polymorphic (I...

The toxicity of Cr(VI) was widely investigated, but the defense mechanism against Cr(III) in bacteria are seldom reported. Here, we found that Cr(III) inhibited bacterial growth and induced reactive oxygen species (ROS). After exposure to Cr(III), loss of sodA not only led to the excessive generation of ROS, but also enhanced the level of lipid per...

Plant-specific NAC (NAM, ATAF, and CUC2) transcription factors (TFs) are a large gene family in plants that have been shown to play important roles in regulating many developmental processes and abiotic stress resistance. Here, a total of 113 Medicago sativa NAC (MsNAC) TFs, known as MsNAC001 to MsNAC113, were identified and divided into 15 distinc...

Aquaporins (AQPs), or major intrinsic proteins (MIPs), constitute a large and diverse family of protein channel transporter in plants. However, the information about AQPs family is still poorly understood in the model legume species Medicago truncatula. Here, 46 AQPs were identified and characterized. Based on the phylogenetic analysis, these genes...

Transcription factors (TFs) are critical adaptor molecules that regulate many plant processes by controlling gene expression. The investigation of the availability of genomics data has proved a valuable resource for TF-SSR markers development. Through the analysis, we developed 208 SSR markers using published transcriptome sequence of Vicia sativa,...

Aquaporins (AQPs) are transmembrane channels that are essential for the movement of water and other small molecules between biofilms in various physiological processes in plants. In this study, based on transcriptome-wide data, we identified and described a total of 21 AQP genes in common vetch (Vicia sativa subsp. sativa), which is an economically...

Multidrug and toxic compound extrusion (MATE) transporters contribute to multidrug resistance and play major determinants of aluminum (Al) tolerance in plants. Alfalfa ( Medicago sativa L.) is the most extensively cultivated forage crop in the world, yet most alfalfa cultivars are not Al tolerant. The basic knowledge of the MATE transcripts family...

Fatty acid desaturases (FADs) are of great importance and play critical roles in regulating plant fatty acid (FA) compositions. But to date, no reports about characterization of the FAD genes have been reported in the model dicotyledonous grass species Medicago truncatula. In this study, using database searches, 20 full-length FAD genes were identi...

Due to cross-pollinating characteristic and the excessive use of backbone materials during the alfalfa breeding, the genetic diversity of alfalfa varieties is declining, and the discrimination of different varieties through phenotypical characteristics is becoming more difficult. The construction of a DNA fingerprint database of standard alfalfa va...

Microsatellite (simple sequence repeats, SSRs) marker is one of the most widely used markers in marker-assisted breeding. As one type of functional markers, MicroRNA-based SSR (miRNA-SSR) markers have been exploited mainly in animals, but the development and characterization of miRNA-SSR markers in plants are still limited. In the present study, mi...