Publications by authors named "Huawei Zhai"

Background: Retinoid metabolism is critical for maintaining liver homeostasis, and its dysregulation is closely associated with liver diseases. Retinol binding protein 7 (RBP7) involves in retinoids transport, particularly in liver, indicating its importance in hepatic functions. However, its specific role in hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC) tumorigenesis remains unclear and needs to further investigation.

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Constructing a trajectory index can efficiently improve the performances of trajectory data processing, provide basic supports for trajectory data mining. With the constantly growing of trajectory data scale and increasing demands for trajectory retrieval efficiency and accuracy, the indexing methods have become more and more crucial. The indexing method faces significant challenges in terms of spatiotemporal trajectory locality, imbalanced trajectory distribution and low trajectory data value density.

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Pattern recognition receptor (PRR)-mediated perception of damage-associated molecular patterns (DAMPs) triggers the first line of inducible defenses in both plants and animals. Compared with animals, plants are sessile and regularly encounter physical damage by biotic and abiotic factors. A longstanding problem concerns how plants achieve a balance between wound defense response and normal growth, avoiding overcommitment to catastrophic defense.

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Article Synopsis
  • Solanum pimpinellifolium is the closest wild relative of tomatoes and could be crucial for breeding programs aimed at enhancing multi-pathogen resistance and fruit quality.
  • Researchers created a detailed chromosome-level genome assembly for this species, measuring 833 Mb, with 98.80% of the genome anchored into 12 pseudo-chromosomes and a high percentage of repetitive sequences identified.
  • The high-quality genome assembly boasts impressive evaluation scores, revealing 41,449 predicted protein-coding genes, 89.17% of which are functionally annotated, making it a significant resource for advancing research and molecular breeding in tomatoes.
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Plants frequently encounter wounding and have evolved an extraordinary regenerative capacity to heal the wounds. However, the wound signal that triggers regenerative responses has not been identified. Here, through characterization of a tomato mutant defective in both wound-induced defense and regeneration, we demonstrate that in tomato, a plant elicitor peptide (Pep), REGENERATION FACTOR1 (REF1), acts as a systemin-independent local wound signal that primarily regulates local defense responses and regenerative responses in response to wounding.

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Saline-alkaline stress is a worldwide problem that threatens the growth and yield of crops. However, how crops adapt to saline-alkaline stress remains less studied. Here we show that saline-alkaline tolerance was compromised during tomato domestication and improvement, and a natural variation in the promoter of , an EF-hand Ca binding protein, contributed to the loss of saline-alkaline tolerance during tomato improvement.

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As the master regulators of the ET signaling pathway, EIL transcription factors directly activate the expression of CYP94C1 to inactivate bioactive JA-Ile, thereby attenuating JA-mediated defense during fruit ripening. Knockout of CYP94C1 improves tomato fruit resistance to necrotrophs without compromising fruit quality.

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Article Synopsis
  • Crop breeding for machine harvesting has transformed agriculture, particularly in the tomato industry, since the 1970s.
  • Fresh-market tomatoes face challenges in breeding for mechanical harvesting due to a loss of flavor and nutritional qualities.
  • The cloning of the fs8.1 gene, which helps produce elongated, crush-resistant fruits, offers a way to improve fresh-market tomatoes for mechanical harvesting without sacrificing quality.
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The plant hormone jasmonate (JA) regulates plant immunity and adaptive growth by orchestrating a genome-wide transcriptional program. Key regulators of JA-responsive gene expression include the master transcription factor MYC2, which is repressed by the conserved Groucho/Tup1-like corepressor TOPLESS (TPL) in the resting state. However, the mechanisms underlying TPL-mediated transcriptional repression of MYC2 activity and hormone-dependent switching between repression and de-repression remain enigmatic.

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  • Cryptochrome 1 (CRY1) is crucial for plant light sensing especially during seedling development, but its role in plant branching is not well understood.
  • Mutations in CRY1 lead to increased branching, as shown by elevated levels of specific mRNA in mutants.
  • The interaction between PIF4 proteins and the promoter region of certain genes, which is regulated by CRY1 under blue light, creates a feedback loop affecting both gene expression and shoot branching.
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Proper regulation of homeotic gene expression is critical for stem cell fate in both plants and animals. In Arabidopsis thaliana, the WUSCHEL (WUS)-RELATED HOMEOBOX 5 (WOX5) gene is specifically expressed in a group of root stem cell organizer cells called the quiescent center (QC) and plays a central role in QC specification. Here, we report that the SEUSS (SEU) protein, homologous to the animal LIM-domain binding (LDB) proteins, assembles a functional transcriptional complex that regulates WOX5 expression and QC specification.

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() is essential for stem cell maintenance and radial patterning in Arabidopsis () roots, but how its expression is regulated is unknown. Here, we report that the Elongator complex, which consists of six subunits (ELP1 to ELP6), regulates the transcription of Depletion of Elongator drastically reduced expression and led to defective root stem cell maintenance and radial patterning. The importance of the nuclear localization of Elongator for its functioning, together with the insensitivity of the mutant to the transcription elongation inhibitor 6-azauracil, and the direct interaction of the ELP4 subunit with the carboxyl-terminal domain of RNA polymerase II, support the notion that Elongator plays important roles in transcription elongation.

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