OFP蛋白是植物特有的蛋白家族，参与植物生长发育的多个过程。在番茄中，OFP20通过和TRM蛋白互作来调控果实形状。本研究发现敲除StOFP20使二倍体马铃薯C151的薯形由圆形变为椭圆形，从而证实了StOFP20调控薯形的功能。StOFP20的表达在块茎起始期表达最高，随着薯块发育，其表达逐渐降低。为了揭示StOFP20的调控机制，我们在马铃薯中找到了23个TRM基因，其中23个基因在C151中成功扩增。酵母双杂交和荧光素酶互补实验结果表明StOFP20和3个TRM蛋白互作。缺失StOFP20中的OVATE结构域使蛋白间不能互作，缺失TRM蛋白中的M8结构域则对蛋白互作产生不同的影响。总之，StOFP20和SlOFP20均能和TRM蛋白互作，但是互作蛋白并不完全相同，暗示着它们的调控机制也可能不尽相同。

   Stripe rust, caused by Puccinia striiformis f. sp. tritici, is an important wheat disease in China, seriously threatening wheat production. Understanding the winter survival of the fungus is a key for predicting the spring epidemics of the disease, which determines the crop loss. Estimation of P. striiformis f. sp. tritici winter survival requires processing a large number of samples for sensitive detection of the pathogen in wheat leaf tissue using real-time quantitative reverse transcription PCR (qRT-PCR). A bottleneck for the analysis is the acquisition of a good yield of high quality RNA suitable for qRT-PCR to distinguish dead and alive fungal hyphae inside leaves. Although several methods have been described in the literatures and commercial kits are available for RNA extraction, these methods are mostly too complicated, expensive and inefficient. Thus, we modified three previously reported RNA extraction methods with common and low-cost reagents (LiCl, SDS and NaCl) to solve the problems and selected the best to obtain high quality and quantity RNA for use in qRT-PCR. In the three improved methods, the NaCl method was proven to be the best for extracting RNA from urediniospores of and wheat leaves infected by P. striiformis f. sp. tritici, although the modified LiCl and SDS methods also increased yield of RNA compared to the previous methods. The improved NaCl method has the following advantages: 1) Complete transfer of urediniospores of P. striiformis f. sp. tritici from the mortar and pestle can ensure the initial amount of RNA for the qRT-PCR analysis; 2) the use of low-cost NaCl to replace more expensive Trizol can reduce the cost; 3) the yield and quality of RNA can be increased; 4) the improved method is more suitable for a large number and high quantity of samples from fields. Using the improved NaCl method, the amount of RNA was increased three times from urediniospores of P. striiformis f. sp. tritici compared from the extraction kit. Approximately, 10.11 μg total RNA of high quality was obtained from 100 mg of infected leaves, which was 8.8, 6.5, 3.4 and 2.1 folds of the amounts obtained from the previous LiCl, SDS, NaCl and traditional Trizol methods, respectively. The method could be used to study the overwintering rates of P. striiformis f. sp. tritici over a large region of wheat production for predicting epidemic levels by determining pathogen survival levels after winter. The method can also be used in any studies which need a large number of high quality RNA samples.

   Use of saline water in irrigated agriculture has become an important means for alleviating water scarcity in arid and semi-arid regions. The objective of this field experiment was to evaluate the effects of irrigation water salinity and N fertilization on soil physicochemical and biological properties related to nitrification and denitrification. A 3×2 factorial design was used with three levels of irrigation water salinity (0.35, 4.61 and 8.04 dS m^–1) and two N rates (0 and 360 kg N ha–¹). The results indicated that irrigation water salinity and N fertilization had significant effects on many soil physicochemical properties including water content, salinity, pH, NH₄-N concentration, and NO₃-N concentration. The abundance (i.e., gene copy number) of ammonia-oxidizing archaea (AOA) was greater than that of ammonia-oxidizing bacteria (AOB) in all treatments. Irrigation water salinity had no significant effect on the abundance of AOA or AOB in unfertilized plots. However, saline irrigation water (i.e., the 4.61 and 8.04 dS m^–1 treatments) reduced AOA abundance, AOB abundance and potential nitrification rate in N fertilized plots. Regardless of N application rate, saline irrigation water increased urease activity but reduced the activities of both nitrate reductase and nitrite reductase. Irrigation with saline irrigation water significantly reduced cotton biomass, N uptake and yield. Nitrogen application exacerbated the negative effect of saline water. These results suggest that brackish water and saline water irrigation could significantly reduce both the abundance of ammonia oxidizers and potential nitrification rates. The AOA may play a more important role than AOB in nitrification in desert soil.

    The nuclear-encoded light-harvesting chlorophyll a/b-binding proteins (LHCPs) are specifically translocated from the stroma into the thylakoid membrane through the chloroplast signal recognition particle (cpSRP) pathway. The cpSRP is composed of a cpSRP43 protein and a cpSRP54 protein, and it forms a soluble transit complex with LHCP in the chloroplast stroma. Here, we identified the YGL9 gene that is predicted to encode the probable rice cpSRP43 protein from a rice yellow-green leaf mutant. A phylogenetic tree showed that an important conserved protein family, cpSRP43, is present in almost all green photosynthetic organisms such as higher plants and green algae. Sequence analysis showed that YGL9 comprises a chloroplast transit peptide, three chromodomains and four ankyrin repeats, and the chromodomains and ankyrin repeats are probably involved in protein-protein interactions. Subcellular localization showed that YGL9 is localized in the chloroplast. Expression pattern analysis indicated that YGL9 is mainly expressed in green leaf sheaths and leaves. Quantitative real-time PCR analysis showed that the expression levels of genes associated with pigment metabolism, chloroplast development and photosynthesis were distinctly affected in the ygl9 mutant. These results indicated that YGL9 is possibly involved in pigment metabolism, chloroplast development and photosynthesis in rice.

In order to generate an antibody against a small hapten molecule, the hapten is cross-linked with carrier protein to make it immunogenic. In this study, the hapten (ochratoxin A, OTA) was coupled to ovalbumin (OVA) by an active ester reaction. To develop a technique for detecting the conjugation, the hapten-protein conjugate (OTA-OVA) was characterized thoroughly by immunoarray technology, ultraviolet (UV) spectroscopy and matrix-assisted laser desorption ionization time-of-flight mass spectrometry (MALDI-TOF-MS), respectively. The molecular weight of OTA-OVA was 50 350.141 Da, and the molecular weight of OVA was 44 887.506 Da, which were determined by MALDI-TOF-MS, respectively. In OTA-OVA, the molecular coupling ratio was 13:1 by MALDI-TOF-MS while the molecular coupling ratio was 10:1 by UV. In this experiment, UV and MALDI-TOF-MS were selected as the efficient methods to evaluate the cross-linking effect and calculate the molecular coupling ratio.

Invasion of the oriental fruit fly, Bactrocera dorsalis, into new niches containing different food sources (a process referred to as host shift), may cause population genetic differentiation and sympatric speciation. To attempt to infer that experimentally, test populations were established by transferring a subset of the original populations, which had been grown on banana for many generations, onto navel orange, and then subculturing the navel orange population and banana population for at least 20 generations. Four pairs of SSR primers with high polymorphism on laboratory strains were used to detect population genetic differentiation. All six tested populations (the 5th, 10th and 15th generations of B. dorsalis fed on banana and navel orange, respectively) were found to have low genetic diversity. Furthermore, the genetic diversity of the navel orange populations was found to decline after being crossed for several generations. Populations initially were deviated from Hardy-Weinberg equilibrium, however, equilibrium was achieved with increasing numbers of generations in both of the host populations. Limited gene flows were found among the six populations. The Nei’s standard genetic distances between the two host populations of the same generation were initially low, but increased with generation number. Genetic distances between banana and navel orange populations of the same generation were lower than genetic distances between different generations grown on the same host plant. Analysis of molecular distance (AMOVA) results based on generation groups and host groups demonstrated that genetic variation among generations was greater than that between the two host populations. The results indicated that population genetic differentiation occurred after the host shift, albeit at low level. Biogeography and taxonomy of the B. dorsalis complex revealed that speciation of B. dorsalis might be tightly associated with host shift or host specialization of B. dorsalis following dispersal.

Although studies argue that invasive species can cause biotic differentiation, some cases show that biological invasions actually decrease biodiversity through biotic homogenization. The concept of biotic homogenization through the invasion of a certain serious invasive plant species merit more studies. Hence, we used field surveys to quantitatively compare invasive populations of Solidago canadensis (SC) in China with the control sites (adjacent sites to SC present sites yet without the species) and SC native populations in the USA. We found that plant communities in SC invaded habitats shared similarities with those in SC native ranges. Bray-Curtis similarity clearly showed that the composition of plant communities in SC invaded habitats were similar to those in SC native ranges. Both in the native and introduced range, plant communities with SC present were characterized by SC being dominant, significantly lower species richness, α-diversity and β-diversity, as well as a decrease in the correlation coefficient between geographic distance and floristic similarities. SC favors fertile and moist loam habitat, while it dominated in various habitats in China, where more than 20 different dominants should have occurred. In conclusion, serious invasive species can quickly remodel and homogenize diverse communities by dominating them.