Voltage-sensitive dyes (VSDs) are designed to monitor membrane potential by detecting fluorescence changes in response to neuronal or muscle electrical activity. However, fluorescence imaging is limited by depth of penetration and high scattering losses, which leads to low sensitivity in vivo systems for external detection. By contrast, photoacoustic (PA) imaging, an emerging modality, is capable of deep tissue, noninvasive imaging by combining near-infrared light excitation and ultrasound detection. Here, we show that voltage-dependent quenching of dye fluorescence leads to a reciprocal enhancement of PA intensity. We synthesized a near-infrared photoacoustic VSD (PA-VSD), whose PA intensity change is sensitive to membrane potential. In the polarized state, this cyanine-based probe enhances PA intensity while decreasing fluorescence output in a lipid vesicle membrane model. A theoretical model accounts for how the experimental PA intensity change depends on fluorescence and absorbance properties of the dye. These results not only demonstrate PA voltage sensing but also emphasize the interplay of both fluorescence and absorbance properties in the design of optimized PA probes. Together, our results demonstrate PA sensing as a potential new modality for recording and external imaging of electrophysiological and neurochemical events in the brain.
Large scale human genome projects have created tremendous human genome databases for some well‐studied populations. Vietnam has about 95 million people (the 14th largest country by population in the world) of which more than 86% are Kinh people. To date, genetic studies for Vietnamese people mostly rely on genetic information from other populations. Building a Vietnamese human genetic variation database is a must for properly interpreting Vietnamese genetic variants. To this end, we sequenced 105 whole genomes and 200 whole exomes of 305 unrelated Kinh Vietnamese (KHV) people. We also included 101 other previously published KHV genomes to build a Vietnamese human genetic variation database of 406 KHV people. The KHV database contains 24.81 million variants (22.47 million single nucleotide polymorphisms (SNPs) and 2.34 million indels) of which 0.71 million variants are novel. It includes more than 99.3% of variants with a frequency of >1% in the KHV population. Noticeably, the KHV database revealed 107 variants reported in the human genome mutation database as pathological mutations with a frequency above 1% in the KHV population. The KHV database (available at https://genomes.vn) would be beneficial for genetic studies and medical applications not only for the Vietnamese population but also for other closely related populations.
The availability of a system for direct transfer of anti-fungal candidate genes into American chestnut (Castanea dentata), devastated by a fungal blight in the last century, would offer an alternative or supplemental approach to conventional breeding for production of chestnut trees resistant to the blight fungus and other pathogens. By taking advantage of the strong ability of embryogenic American chestnut cultures to proliferate in suspension, a high-throughput Agrobacterium tumefaciens-mediated transformation protocol for stable integration of foreign genes into the tree was established. Proembryogenic masses (PEMs) were co-cultivated with A. tumefaciens strain AGL1 harboring the plasmid pCAMBIA 2301, followed by stringent selection with 50 or 100 mg/l Geneticin. A protocol employing size-fractionation to enrich for small PEMs to use as target material and selection in suspension culture was applied to rapidly produce transgenic events with an average efficiency of four independent transformation events per 50 mg of target tissue and minimal escapes. Mature somatic embryos, representing 18 transgenic events and derived from multiple American chestnut target genotypes, were germinated and over 100 transgenic somatic seedlings were produced and acclimatized to greenhouse conditions. Multiple vigorous transgenic somatic seedlings produced functional staminate flowers within 3 years following regeneration.
The sensitivity to surface profile of non-contact optical imaging, such as spatial frequency domain imaging, may lead to incorrect measurements of optical properties and consequently erroneous extrapolation of physiological parameters of interest. Previous correction methods have focused on calibration-based, model-based, and computation-based approached. We propose an experimental method to correct the effect of surface profile on spectral images. Three-dimensional (3D) phantoms were built with acrylonitrile butadiene styrene (ABS) plastic using an accurate 3D imaging and an emergent 3D printing technique. In this study, our method was utilized for the correction of optical properties (absorption coefficient μa and reduced scattering coefficient μs′) of objects obtained with a spatial frequency domain imaging system. The correction method was verified on three objects with simple to complex shapes. Incorrect optical properties due to surface with minimum 4 mm variation in height and 80 degree in slope were detected and improved, particularly for the absorption coefficients. The 3D phantom-based correction method is applicable for a wide range of purposes. The advantages and drawbacks of the 3D phantom-based correction methods are discussed in details.
We investigated the antagonistic activities of endophytic and rhizosphere fungi, isolated from three different rice cropping areas in Vietnam, against the rice root-knot nematode Meloidogyne graminicola. Amongst the three types of soils (alluvial, acid sulphate and gleyic acrisol), the alluvial soils contained the highest number of fungal strains that were able endophytically to colonise rice roots, and also showed a high biological control potential against the rice root-knot nematode. The gleyic acrisol contained fewer fungi with intermediate biological control levels while the acid sulphate soil hosted the lowest number of endophytic fungi. By inoculating roots of rice seedlings with conidia of endophytic and rhizosphere Fusarium isolates, root-galling severity was reduced by 29-42% and root weight was increased by up to 33%. Trichoderma species, which were recovered only from the rhizosphere of the rice plants grown in the three sampled soils, showed similar biological control effects on nematode galling and on plant growth by reducing galling severity by up to 38%. We conclude that Fusarium and Trichoderma isolates are potential biological control agents against M. graminicola in rice in that fungal treatments reduced root-knot levels significantly and that depending on initial nematode density in the soil, these reductions would have an economic impact on rice production.
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