Rice (Oryza sativa L.) is an important food crop. The appearance of lesion mimics in rice leads to phytohormone disorders, which affects rice adaptation to environmental stresses and ultimately reduces the yield and quality. To explore whether the changes in the adaptability of rice lesion-mimic mutants to stressful environments are caused by the disorder of phytohormone metabolism in plants. In this study, we screened an ethyl methane sulfonate-treated population of the japonica cultivar 'Taipei 309' for a mutant with rust-like spots on leaves at the early tillering stage and brown-red spots at maturity and named it rsl1 (rust spotted leaf 1). Compared with the wild type, rsl1 showed decreases in plant height, panicle length, primary branch number, secondary branch number, filled grains per panicle, seed-setting rate, and 1 000-grain weight, and an increase in number of effective panicles. Genetic analysis indicated that rsl1 was controlled by a single recessive nuclear gene. RSL1 was localized between two molecular markers, B7-7 and B7-9, on rice chromosome 7 by map-based cloning. PCR sequencing of the annotated genes in this interval revealed a mutation of C1683A on the eighth exon of SPL5 (LOC_Os07g10390) in rsl1, which resulted in premature termination of protein translation. Exogenous phytohormone treatments showed that rsl1 was less sensitive to salicylic acid (SA), abscisic acid (ABA), and indo-3-acetic acid (IAA) and more sensitive to methyl jasmonate (MeJA) and gibberellin acid (GA) than the wild type. In addition, the survival rate of rsl1 was lower than that of the wild type under salt, alkali, drought, and high temperature stresses, and it was higher than that of the wild type under cold stress. Quantitative real-time polymerase chain reaction (qRT-PCR) results showed that RSL1 was involved in the regulation of ABA, SA, MeJA, IAA, and GA-related genes under abiotic stresses. The present study showed that the RSL1 mutation led to the appearance of lesion mimics and affected the growth, development, and stress resistance of rsl1 under abiotic stresses. The study of the functional mechanism of this gene can provide theoretical guidance for the research on rice stress resistance.
Oryza/microbiology* ; Stress, Physiological/genetics* ; Plant Diseases/genetics* ; Cloning, Molecular ; Chromosome Mapping ; Plant Growth Regulators/metabolism* ; Plant Proteins/genetics* ; Mutation ; Cyclopentanes ; Genes, Plant ; Plant Leaves/genetics* ; Oxylipins

Dendrimers, a special class of synthetic polymers known for their well-defined ramified structures and unique multivalent cooperativity, hold great promise for various biomedical applications. However, preparation of defect-free dendrimers of high-generation on a large scale remains challenging because of the tedious and time-consuming synthesis as well as difficult purification. To overcome these limitations, an alternative strategy based on self-assembling approach has been developed to construct supramolecular dendrimers using small amphiphilic dendrimer-building units. By virtue of the amphiphilic nature, these small dendrimer-building units self-assemble and form large non-covalent supramolecular dendritic structures that mimic high-generation covalent dendrimers. Here, we present a brief overview of the supramolecular dendrimers developed in our group for the delivery of nucleic acid therapeutics, anticancer drug and imaging agents.

OBJECTIVES: The effects of hormone replacement therapy on the survival rate of female lung cancer patients are still controversial. The Meta-analysis aims to systematically evaluate the effect of hormone replacement therapy on the survival rate of female lung cancer patients. METHODS: Retrospective studies regarding the effect of hormone replacement therapy on female lung cancer patients' survival rate were searched from the database of Embase, Cochrane, Pubmed, CNKI, Wanfang, and Weipu. The Meta-analysis was conducted with Stata 12.0 software. test was used to analyze the heterogeneity among included studies. The analysis was conducted by randomized model. Egger's test and Begg's test were used to assess the publication bias. RESULTS: Five retrospective studies were included, involving 2 582 female patients with lung cancer. There were 1 054 cases of female lung cancer with hormone replacement therapy and 1 528 cases of female lung cancer without hormone replacement therapy. No publication bias was observed among these studies. The sensitivity analysis result showed that the overall results were stable. Meta-analysis showed that compared with patients without hormone replacement therapy, patients with hormone replacement therapy had an increased survival time for 5 years (ES=0.346; 95% CI 0.216 to 0.476; <0.001). CONCLUSIONS Hormone replacement therapy improves 5-year survival in female lung cancer patients. Female lung cancer patients with menopausal syndrome can use hormone replacement therapy properly under their doctors' suggestion.
Female ; Hormone Replacement Therapy ; Humans ; Lung Neoplasms ; drug therapy ; Retrospective Studies ; Survival Rate