Biology subjects

Pang, T.

Publications and source records attributed to Pang, T..

7 recordsLinked to original sources

bioRxiv2026

A Beneficial Endornavirus Enhances the Fitness of Phytopathogenic Fungus Rhizotonia solani

Although viruses are primarily characterized as pathogenic agents, certain viruses confer advantages to their hosts. The extent to which a virus can improve host biological performance, however, remains a fascinating topic in virology. An endornavirus, Rhizoctonia solani endornavirus IM (RsEV-IM), was identified as prevalent in Rhizoctonia solani isolates obtained from potato plants. Comparative analysis with a virus-free isogenic strain demonstrated that RsEV-IM infection enhances mycelial growth, sclerotium formation, stress tolerance, and fungal virulence across multiple plant species. Inoculation tests involving numerous R. solani strains confirmed that only RsEV-IM-infected strains exhibited high pathogenicity, independent of other mycovirus infections. Additionally, its secreted protein fraction of RsEV-IM-infected fungus contained elevated levels of various proteins, including those involved in cell wall degradation. This fraction not only facilitated R. solani infection but also suppressed the growth of other fungi and bacteria. These findings position RsEV-IM as a beneficial virus that widely enhances its hosts biological fitness. From both pathological and ecological perspectives, these observations are significant, as they reveal that a mycovirus can serve as a key virulence determinant in fungal populations and potentially shape microbial community dynamics in natural environments. ImportanceFungal pathogenicity and ecological traits have long been thought to be primarily governed by endogenous genetic factors. However, this study reveals a mutualistic relationship between an endornavirus (RsEV-IM) and Rhizoctonia solani, demonstrating that viral infection enhances fungal virulence and ecological fitness. RsEV-IM stimulates fungal growth and the secretion of cell wall-degrading enzymes, resulting in a severe disease phenotype. Ecologically, RsEV-IM-infected fungi potentially gain a competitive advantage over soil microbiota. These findings present a key example of a virus acting as an essential extrachromosomal determinant of fungal pathogenicity and ecosystem interactions. Our results advance the understanding of fungal virulence mechanisms and underscore the broader significance of beneficial virus-fungus associations in agriculture and microbial ecology.

microbiology↗

bioRxiv2024

Vibrio alginolyticus is the pathogen of 'Baotou disease causing serious damage to Gracilariopsis lemaneiformis cultivation in China

Gracilariopsis lemaneiformis and Saccharina japonica, the two very important cultivated economic seaweeds, are often co-cultured in China due to their growth periods overlapped for about 3 months. These two seaweeds are often plagued with bleaching diseases during their high-density commercial cultivation. In recent years, a disease called Baotou has been causing large-scale yield reductions of G. lemaneiformis in China. Interestingly, Vibrio alginolyticus once reported to be beneficial to S. japonica by reducing the bleaching disease risk, was strongly proved to be the pathogen causing Baotou disease in this study. Analysis of 16S rRNA gene profiling revealed that V. alginolyticus was the most abundant and dominant bacterium on the algal thalli suffering from Baotou disease, whereas its presence was scarcely detected on healthy thalli. Scanning electron microscope (SEM) analysis revealed that a large number of V. alginolyticus cells were found to be attached to the algal thalli with Baotou disease and the rotten thalli acquired by the lab infection treatment. V. alginolyticus could cause the rotten symptoms which were consistent with those of Baotou disease. According to Kochs postulates, V. alginolyticus was identified as the pathogen causing Baotou disease. IMPORTANCEA highly contagious disease known as Baotou disease has persistently triggered significant yield reductions in G. lemaneiformis throughout China. The pathogen of Baotou disease was isolated and identified as V. alginolyticus which was once reported to be beneficial to S. japonica by reducing the bleaching disease risk. The study indicates that V. alginolyticus is closely involved in the competition or co-existence between G. lemaneiformis and S. japonica co-cultured in China, and provides a novel perspective and evidence that bacteria are closely involved in the competition or co-existence among different species of seaweeds that grow together.

microbiology↗

bioRxiv2021

The Nicotiana tabacum Mediator subunit MED25 regulates nicotine biosynthesis through interacting with the basic helix-loop-helix (bHLH) transcription factor NtMYC2s

Nicotine is one of the most important secondary metabolites in tobacco, and its biosynthesis can be induced by topping and jasmonic acid treatment. NtMYC2s play pivotal roles in the regulation of nicotine. The mediator server as a bridge betwen the transcription factors and RNA polymerase in order to facilitates transcription and functions in plants. However, the role of mediator in the regulation of nicotine biosynthesis remains unknown. In this study, we firstly identify the NtMED25 through homologous analysis. NtMED25 interacts with NtMYC2s through the MD region. Interestingly, the nicotine content is decreased in the the knock-down transgenic lines of NtMED25, and the expression levels of two nicotine biosynthesis genes, NtQPT2 and NtPMT2, are also reduced when compared with that in the wild-type plants. Furthermore, NtMED25 enhances the binding of NtMYC2a/ NtMYC2b to the promoter of NtPMT2 and NtQPT2, and then facilitates the nicotine biosynthesis. Therefore, our study revealed the function of mediator in the regulation of nicotine, and provide the insight role on the transcriptional regulation of plant secondary metabolites.

plant biology↗

bioRxiv2020

Data-driven analysis of facial thermal responses to an emotional movie reveals consistent stimulus-locked physiological changes

Facial infra-red imaging (IRI) is a contact-free technique complimenting the traditional psychophysiological measures to characterize physiological profile. However, its full potential in affective research is arguably unmet due to the analytical challenges it poses. Here we acquired facial IRI data, facial expressions and traditional physiological recordings (heart rate and skin conductance) from healthy human subjects whilst they viewed a 20-minute-long unedited emotional movie. We present a novel application of motion correction and the results of spatial independent component analysis of the thermal data. Three distinct spatial components are recovered associated with the nose, the cheeks and a respiratory component. We first benchmark this methodology against a traditional region-of-interest based technique. We then show significant correlation of all the physiological responses across subjects, including the thermal signals, suggesting common dynamic shifts in emotional state induced by the movie. Finally, we show that thermal responses were significantly anti-correlated with the positive emotional content of the movie thus an index of emotionally-driven physiological response. In sum, this study introduces an innovative approach to analyse facial IRI data and highlights the potential of thermal imaging to robustly capture emotion-related changes in ecological contexts.

neuroscience↗

bioRxiv2020

A novel biparatopic antibody-ACE2 fusion that blocks SARS-CoV-2 infection: implications for therapy

In the absence of a proven effective vaccine preventing infection by SARS-CoV-2, or a proven drug to treat COVID-19, the positive results of passive immune therapy using convalescent serum provides a strong lead. We have developed a new class of tetravalent, biparatopic therapy, 89C8-ACE2. It combines the specificity of a monoclonal antibody (89C8) that recognizes the relatively conserved N-terminal domain (NTD) of the viral S glycoprotein, and the ectodomain of ACE2, which binds to the receptor-binding domain (RBD) of S. This molecule shows exceptional performance in vitro, inhibiting the interaction of recombinant S1 to ACE2 and transduction of ACE2-overexpressing cells by S-pseudotyped lentivirus with IC50s substantially below 100 pM, and with potency approximately 100-fold greater than ACE2-Fc itself. Moreover, 89C8-ACE2 was able to neutralize authentic virus infection in a standard assay at low nanomolar concentrations, making this class of molecule a promising lead for therapeutic applications.

immunology↗

bioRxiv2019

Transcriptome Analysis of juvenile Pacific White Shrimp (Litopenaeus vannamei) with symptom of stunted growth

In search for viruses associated with Litopenaeus vannamei with symptom of stunted growth, we have undertaken a comparative transcriptome analysis of total RNA sequences using Illumina based high-throughput sequencing (HTS). We obtain 89000242 and 95126160 high-quality clean reads from cDNA libraries of L.vannamei with stunted growth symptom (sick group) and health shrimp (health group control), respectively. Totally, 108221 unigenes with an average length of 716 bp were obtained from RNA-seq data. The unigenes were annotated against NR, NT, KO, KOG, SwissProt, PFAM and GO databases. 3975 (3.67%) showed significant matches in all the above databases and 39812 (36.78%) unigenes were annotated in at least one database. Comparative transcriptomic analysis revealed that 807 significantly differentially expressed unigenes were identified, including 282 down-regulated genes and 525 up-regulated genes. Thirteen up-regulated virus-related genes were only discovered in the sick shrimp groups, but not in health ones. Five of them were closely related to virus family Picornaviridae. From phylogenetic tree, we could find five viral genes were closely related to genus Ampvirus, Falcovirus, Aquamavirus (Seal picornavirus). Some up-regulated genes in the Sick groups mainly included genes involved in virus infecting processes concerning antigen processing and presenting, apoptosis, lysosome, phagosome and inflammation. While, many down-regulated genes in the Sick groups mainly involved in the process of starch and sucrose metabolism, and protein digestion and absorption. Our research provided some useful information about pathogenic factor and mechanism on the stunted growth symptom of L.vannamei, and was significant for the control and prevention of this disease.

pathology↗

bioRxiv2017

Paternally inherited noncoding structural variants contribute to autism

The genetic architecture of autism spectrum disorder (ASD) is known to consist of contributions from gene-disrupting de novo mutations and common variants of modest effect. We hypothesize that the unexplained heritability of ASD also includes rare inherited variants with intermediate effects. We investigated the genome-wide distribution and functional impact of structural variants (SVs) through whole genome analysis ([≥]30X coverage) of 3,169 subjects from 829 families affected by ASD. Genes that are intolerant to inactivating variants in the exome aggregation consortium (ExAC) were depleted for SVs in parents, specifically within fetal-brain promoters, UTRs and exons. Rare paternally-inherited SVs that disrupt promoters or UTRs were over-transmitted to probands (P = 0.0013) and not to their typically-developing siblings. Recurrent functional noncoding deletions implicate the gene LEO1 in ASD. Protein-coding SVs were also associated with ASD (P = 0.0025). Our results establish that rare inherited SVs predispose children to ASD, with differing contributions from each parent.

genomics↗