Research Progress

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  Population size and time since island isolation determine genetic diversity loss in insular frog populations

  Feb 17, 2014
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  New circulating small RNAs (tsRNAs) found associating with active infection

  Discovery of an ancient class of tRNA-derived small RNAs (tsRNAs) abundantly and conservatively existed in the sera of a wide range of vertebrate species along the evolution tree. The serum tsRNAs showed sensitive response to active infection in mouse, monkey and human being.

  Jan 22, 2014
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  CIP2A inhibitor shows promise in preclinical study for lung cancer

  Lung cancer is the leading cause of cancer deaths worldwide, killing 1.4 million people annually. Therefore, there is an urgent need to develop new targeted therapies for this deadly disease.Cancerous inhibitor of protein phosphatase 2A (CIP2A) is a newly discovered endogenous cancerous inhibitor of protein phosphatase PP2A, and functions as an oncoprotein to modulate Akt and stabilize c-Myc, and is required for cell proliferation and malignant transformation.

  Dec 19, 2013
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  Solving the pitfalls of pitfall trapping: a two-circle method for density estimation of ground-dwelling arthropods

  Nov 08, 2013
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  miR-142-3p regulating the formation and differentiation of hematopoietic stem cells in vertebrates

  Oct 30, 2013
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  Linking climate change to population cycles of hares and lynx

  The 10-year population cycles of snowshoe hares and Canada lynx are the classic example of race between prey and predator in the ecological textbooks. By the use of historic fur harvest data, we find predation is necessary but not sufficient in causing the observed 10-yr cycles; while extrinsic climate factors are important in producing and modifying the sustained cycles. We find recent climate warming likely contributes to the recent decline of lynx population and disappearance of cycles by increasing rainfall but reducing snow in Canada.

  Oct 22, 2013
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  The origin and state evolution of body scales in Collembola (Arthropoda)

  Oct 09, 2013
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  Further research published on New Phytologist found that elevated CO2 increased the abundance of the pea aphid by decreasing the ethylene signaling pathway in legume plants

  Elevated CO2 modifies the performance of herbivorous insects mainly by altering host plant nutritional quality and resistance. We previously reported that elevated CO2 enhanced biological nitrogen fixation (BNF) of Medicago truncatula , which resulted in an increased supply of amino acids to the pea aphids ( Global Change Biology 2013, 19: 3210-3223 ). Current study examined the N nutritional quality and aphid resistance of sickle, an ethylene-insensitive mutant of M. truncatula with super-nodulation, and its wild-type control A17 under elevated CO2 in open-top field chambers.

  Sep 29, 2013
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  Prof. Qi Zhou’s team made progress on rat gene knockout

  Aug 29, 2013
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  A recent research concerning the effect of elevated CO2 on the interaction between legume plant and aphid were published on Global Change Biology

  Global atmospheric CO2 concentration has been increasing at an accelerating rate, and is anticipated to reach at least 750 ppm by the year 2100 (IPCC, 2007). Rising atmospheric CO2 levels can dilute the nitrogen (N) resource in plant tissue, which is disadvantageous to many herbivorous insects. Aphid, a phloem sucker insect, appear to be an exception that warrants the further study. The current study used an N-fixing-deficient mutant (dnf1) of Medicago truncatula and its wild-type control to determine how elevated CO2 (750 ppm vs. 390 ppm) affects the nutritional interactions among host plant, pea aphid and its endosymbiont Buchnera.

  Aug 27, 2013