• Asian Pacific Journal of Cancer Prevention
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• v.14 no.3
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• pp.1585-1592
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• 2013

Functional food for prevention of chronic diseases is one of this century's key global challenges. Cancer is not only the first or second leading cause of death in China and other countries across the world, but also has diet as one of the most important modifiable risk factors. Major dietary factors now known to promote cancer development are polished grain foods and low intake of fresh vegetables, with general importance for an unhealthy lifestyle and obesity. The strategies of cancer prevention in human being are increased consumption of functional foods like whole grains (brown rice, barley, and buckwheat) and by-products, as well some vegetables (bitter melon, garlic, onions, broccoli, and cabbage) and mushrooms (boletes and Tricholoma matsutake). In addition some beverages (green tea and coffee) may be protective. Southwest China (especially Yunnan Province) is a geographical area where functional crop production is closely related to the origins of human evolution with implications for anticancer influence.

• Asian-Australasian Journal of Animal Sciences
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• v.32 no.8
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• pp.1069-1076
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• 2019

Objective: Yunnan is not only a frontier zone that connects China with South and Southeast Asia, but also represents an admixture zone between taurine (Bos taurus) and zebu (Bos indicus) cattle. The purpose of this study is to understand the level of genomic diversity and the extent of admixture in each Yunnan native cattle breed. Methods: All 120 individuals were genotyped using Illumina BovineHD BeadChip (777,962 single nucleotide polymorphisms [SNPs]). Quality control and genomic diversity indexes were calculated using PLINK software. The principal component analysis (PCA) was assessed using SMARTPCA program implemented in EIGENSOFT software. The ADMIXTURE software was used to reveal admixture patterns among breeds. Results: A total of 604,630 SNPs was obtained after quality control procedures. Among six breeds, the highest level of mean heterozygosity was found in Zhaotong cattle from Northeastern Yunnan, whereas the lowest level of heterozygosity was detected in Dehong humped cattle from Western Yunnan. The PCA based on a pruned dataset of 233,788 SNPs clearly separated Dehong humped cattle (supposed to be a pure zebu breed) from other five breeds. The admixture analysis further revealed two clusters (K = 2 with the lowest cross validation error), corresponding to taurine and zebu cattle lineages. All six breeds except for Dehong humped cattle showed different degrees of admixture between taurine and zebu cattle. As expected, Dehong humped cattle showed no signature of taurine cattle influence. Conclusion: Overall, considerable genomic diversity was found in six Yunnan native cattle breeds except for Dehong humped cattle from Western Yunnan. Dehong humped cattle is a pure zebu breed, while other five breeds had admixed origins with different extents of admixture between taurine and zebu cattle. Such admixture by crossbreeding between zebu and taurine cattle facilitated the spread of zebu cattle from tropical and subtropical regions to other highland regions in Yunnan.

• Current Applied Physics
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• v.18 no.12
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• pp.1571-1576
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• 2018

Recent study shows that the main reason for limiting CZTS device performance lies in the low open circuit voltage, and crucial factor that could affect the $V_{oc}$ is secondary phases like ZnS existing in absorber layer and its interfaces. In this work, the $Cu_2ZnSnS_4$ thin film solar cells were prepared by sputtering CuSn and CuZn alloy targets. Through tuning the Zn/Sn ratios of the CZTS thin films, the crystal structure, morphology, chemical composition and phase purity of CZTS thin films were characterized by X-Ray Diffraction (XRD), scanning electron microscopy (SEM) equipped with an energy dispersive spectrometer (EDS) and Raman spectroscopy. The statistics data show that the CZTS solar cell with a ratio of Zn/Sn = 1.2 have the best power convention efficiency of 5.07%. After HCl etching process, the CZTS thin film solar cell with the highest efficiency 5.41% was obtained, which demonstrated that CZTS film solar cells with high efficiency could be developed by sputtering CuSn and CuZn alloy targets.

• Journal of The Korean Astronomical Society
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• v.29 no.spc1
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• pp.307-308
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• 1996

• Journal of Ginseng Research
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• v.44 no.6
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• pp.770-774
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• 2020

Background: Fermentation has been shown to improve the biological properties of plants and herbs. Specifically, fermentation causes decomposition and/or biotransformation of active metabolites into high-value products. Polyacetylenes are a class of polyketides with a pleiotropic profile of bioactivity. Methods: Column chromatography was used to isolate compounds, and extensive NMR experiments were used to determine their structures. The transformation of polyacetylene in red ginseng (RG) and the production of cazaldehyde B induced by the extract of RG were identified by TLC and HPLC analyses. Results: A new metabolite was isolated from RG fermented by Chaetomium globosum, and this new metabolite can be obtained by the biotransformation of polyacetylene in RG. Panaxytriol was found to exhibit the highest antifungal activity against C. globosum compared with other major ingredients in RG. The fungus C. globosum cultured in RG extract can metabolize panaxytriol to Metabolite A to survive, with no antifungal activity against itself. Metabolites A and B showed obvious inhibition against NO production, with ratios of 42.75 ± 1.60 and 63.95 ± 1.45% at 50 µM, respectively. A higher inhibitory rate on NO production was observed for Metabolite B than for a positive drug. Conclusion: Metabolite A is a rare example of natural polyacetylene biotransformation by microbial fermentation. This biotransformation only occurred in fermented RG. The extract of RG also stimulated the production of a new natural product, cazaldehyde B, from C. globosum. The lactone in Metabolite A can decrease the cytotoxicity, which was deemed to be the intrinsic activity of polyacetylene in ginseng.

• Journal of Ginseng Research
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• v.44 no.4
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• pp.627-636
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• 2020

Background: Cultivation of medicinal crops, which synthesize hundreds of substances for curative functions, was focused on the synthesis of secondary metabolites rather than biomass accumulation. Nutrition is an important restrict factor for plant growth and secondary metabolites, but little attention has been given to the plasticity of nutrient uptake and secondary metabolites synthesis response to soil nitrogen (N) change. Methods: Two year-field experiments of Sanqi (Panax notoginseng), which can synthesize a high level of saponin in cells, were conducted to study the effects of N application on the temporal dynamics of biomass, nutrient absorption, root architecture and the relationships between these parameters and saponin synthesis. Results: Increasing N fertilizer rates could improve the dry matter yields and nutrient absorption ability through increasing the maximum daily growth (or nutrient uptake) rate. Under suitable N level (225 kg/ha N), Sanqi restricted the root length and surface and enhanced the root diameter and N uptake rate per root length (NURI) to promote nutrient absorption, but the opposite status of Sanqi root architecture and NURI was found when soil N was deficient. Furthermore, increasing N rates could promote the accumulation of saponin in roots through improving the NURI, which showed a significant positive relationship with the content of saponin in the taproots. Conclusion: Appropriate N fertilizer rates could optimize both root architecture and nutrient uptake efficiency, then promote both the accumulation of dry matter and the synthesis of saponins.

• Journal of Microbiology and Biotechnology
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• v.32 no.3
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• pp.294-301
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• 2022

In our greenhouse experiment, soil heat treatment groups (50, 80, and 121℃) significantly promoted growth and disease suppression of Panax notoginseng in consecutively cultivated soil (CCS) samples (p < 0.01), and 80℃ worked better than 50℃ and 121℃ (p < 0.01). Furthermore, we found that heat treatment at 80℃ changes the microbial diversity in CCS, and the inhibition ratios of culturable microorganisms, such as fungi and actinomycetes, were nearly 100%. However, the heat-tolerant bacterial community was preserved. The 16S rRNA gene and internal transcribed spacer (ITS) sequencing analyses indicated that the soil heat treatment had a greater effect on the Chao1 index and Shannon's diversity index of bacteria than fungi, and the relative abundances of Firmicutes and Proteobacteria were significantly higher than without heating (80 and 121℃, p < 0.05). Soil probiotic bacteria, such as Bacillus (67%), Sporosarcina (9%), Paenibacillus (6%), Paenisporosarcina (6%), and Cohnella (4%), remained in the soil after the 80℃ and 121℃ heat treatments. Although steam increased the relative abundances of most of the heat-tolerant microbes before sowing, richness and diversity gradually recovered to the level of CCS, regardless of fungi or bacteria, after replanting. Thus, we added heat-tolerant microbes (such as Bacillus) after steaming, which reduced the relative abundance of pathogens, recruited antagonistic bacteria, and provided a long-term protective effect compared to the steaming and Bacillus alone (p < 0.05). Taken together, the current study provides novel insight into sustainable agriculture in a consecutively cultivated system.

• Journal of Microbiology and Biotechnology
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• v.24 no.4
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• pp.447-452
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• 2014

To isolate novel and useful microbial enzymes from uncultured gastrointestinal microorganisms, a fecal microbial metagenomic library of the pygmy loris was constructed. The library was screened for amylolytic activity, and 8 of 50,000 recombinant clones showed amylolytic activity. Subcloning and sequence analysis of a positive clone led to the identification a novel gene (amyPL) coding for ${\alpha}$-amylase. AmyPL was expressed in Escherichia coli BL21 (DE3) and the purified AmyPL was enzymatically characterized. This study is the first to report the molecular and biochemical characterization of a novel ${\alpha}$-amylase from a gastrointestinal metagenomic library.

• The Plant Pathology Journal
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• v.38 no.3
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• pp.203-211
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• 2022

Bacterial wilt, which is a major soil-borne disease with widespread occurrence, poses a severe danger in the field of tobacco production. However, there is very limited knowledge on bacterial wilt-induced microecological changes in the tobacco root system and on the interaction between Ralstonia solanacearum and fungal communities in the rhizosphere soil. Thus, in this study, changes in fungal communities in the rhizosphere soil of tobaccos with bacterial wilt were studied by 18S rRNA gene sequencing. The community composition of fungi in bacterial wilt-infected soil and healthy soil in two tobacco areas (Gengma and Boshang, Lincang City, Yunnan Province, China) was studied through the paired comparison method in July 2019. The results showed that there were significant differences in fungal community composition between the rhizosphere soil of diseased plants and healthy plants. The changes in the composition and diversity of fungal communities in the rhizosphere soil of tobaccos are vital characteristics of tobaccos with bacterial wilt, and the imbalance in the rhizosphere microecosystem of tobacco plants may further aggravate the disease.

• Bulletin of the Korean Chemical Society
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• v.29 no.11
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• pp.2119-2124
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• 2008