Predicting the Number of Reported Pulmonary Tuberculosis in Guiyang, China, Based on Time Series Analysis Techniques.

Tuberculosis (TB) is one of the world's deadliest infectious disease killers today, and despite China's increasing efforts to prevent and control TB, the TB epidemic is still very serious. In the context of the COVID-19 pandemic, if reliable forecasts of TB epidemic trends can be made, they can help policymakers with early warning and contribute to the prevention and control of TB. In this study, we collected monthly reports of pulmonary tuberculosis (PTB) in Guiyang, China, from January 1, 2010 to December 31, 2020, and monthly meteorological data for the same period, and used LASSO regression to screen four meteorological factors that had an influence on the monthly reports of PTB in Guiyang, including sunshine hours, relative humidity, average atmospheric pressure, and annual highest temperature, of which relative humidity (6-month lag) and average atmospheric pressure (7-month lag) have a lagging effect with the number of TB reports in Guiyang. Based on these data, we constructed ARIMA, Holt-Winters (additive and multiplicative), ARIMAX (with meteorological factors), LSTM, and multivariable LSTM (with meteorological factors). We found that the addition of meteorological factors significantly improved the performance of the time series prediction model, which, after comprehensive consideration, included the ARIMAX (1,1,1) (0,1,2)12 model with a lag of 7 months at the average atmospheric pressure, outperforms the other models in terms of both fit (RMSE = 37.570, MAPE = 10.164%, MAE = 28.511) and forecast sensitivity (RMSE = 20.724, MAPE = 6.901%, MAE = 17.306), so the ARIMAX (1,1,1) (0,1,2)12 model with a lag of 7 months can be used as a predictor tool for predicting the number of monthly reports of PTB in Guiyang, China.

[Selection of q RT-PCR reference genes for Amomum tsaoko seeds during dormancy release].

Freshly collected seeds of Amomum tsaoko demonstrate obvious dormancy. Therefore, the selection of stable reference genes during seed dormancy release is very important for the subsequent functional research of related genes. In this study, ten commonly used reference genes(GAPDH, 40S, actin, tubulin, EIF4A-9, EIF2α, UBC, UBCE2, 60S, and UBQ) were selected as candidates for quantitative Real-time polymerase chain reaction(qRT-PCR) of the embryo samples of A. tsaoko at different dormancy release stages. Three kinds of software(BestKeeper, geNorm, and Normfinder) and the Delta CT method were used to evaluate the expression stability of the candidate reference genes, and the RefFinder online tool was employed to integrate the results and generate a comprehensive ranking. The results showed that the expression levels of the ten candidate reference genes differed greatly in different embryo samples. GAPDH and UBC had high expression levels, as manifested by the small Ct values. GeNorm identified 40S and UBCE2 as the most stable genes. NormFinder ranked EIF2α as the most stable gene and UBC as the least stable gene. UBCE2 was found to be the most stable gene and actin the least stable one by BestKeeper. Delta CT analysis suggested that the expression of 40S was most stable. UBCE2 was recommended as the most stably expressed gene by RefFinder. Thus, UBCE2 is the ideal reference gene for qRT-PCR analysis of A. tsaoko seeds at different dormancy release stages. The results may lay a foundation for analyzing the expression of related genes during seed dormancy release of A. tsaoko.

Nitric Oxide Inhibits Al-Induced Programmed Cell Death in Root Tips of Peanut (Arachis hypogaea L.) by Affecting Physiological Properties of Antioxidants Systems and Cell Wall.

It has been reported that nitric oxide (NO) is a negative regulator of aluminum (Al)-induced programmed cell death (PCD) in peanut root tips. However, the inhibiting mechanism of NO on Al-induced PCD is unclear. In order to investigate the mechanism by which NO inhibits Al-induced PCD, the effects of co-treatment Al with the exogenous NO donor or the NO-specific scavenger on peanut root tips, the physiological properties of antioxidants systems and cell wall (CW) in root tip cells of NO inhibiting Al-induced PCD were studied with two peanut cultivars. The results showed that Al exposure induced endogenous NO accumulation, and endogenous NO burst increased antioxidant enzyme activity in response to Al stress. The addition of NO donor sodium nitroprusside (SNP) relieved Al-induced root elongation inhibition, cell death and Al adsorption in CW, as well as oxidative damage and ROS accumulation. Furthermore, co-treatment with the exogenous NO donor decreased MDA content, LOX activity and pectin methylesterase (PME) activity, increased xyloglucan endotransglucosylase (XET) activity and relative expression of the xyloglucan endotransglucosylase/hydrolase (XTH-32) gene. Taken together, exogenous NO alleviated Al-induced PCD by inhibiting Al adsorption in CW, enhancing antioxidant defense and reducing peroxidation of membrane lipids, alleviating the inhibition of Al on root elongation by maintaining the extensibility of CW, decreasing PME activity, and increasing XET activity and relative XTH-32 expression of CW.