Root nodule symbiosis (RNS) is one of the most productive and economical systems for nitrogen fixation, and previous studies have shown that several nodule-specific C2H2-zinc finger proteins (ZFPs) play important roles in symbiosis establishment and nodule function. However, C2H2-ZFPs are the most widespread ZFPs in eukaryotes, and a great variation of structure and function exist among the family members. It remains largely unclear whether or not special types of C2H2-ZF genes participate in symbiosis, especially in soybean. In the present study, we performed a genome-wide survey of soybean C2H2-ZF genes, and 321 soybean C2H2-ZF genes were identified and classified into 11 clearly distinguishable subsets (Gm-t1-SF, Gm-t2-SF, Gm-1i-Q-SF, Gm-1i-M-SF, Gm-1i-Z-SF, Gm-1i-D-SF, Gm-2i-Q-SF, Gm-2i-M-SF, Gm-2i-Mix-SF, Gm-3i-SF, and Gm-4i-SF) based on the arrangements, numbers, and types of C2H2-ZF domains. Phylogenetic and gene ontology analyses were carried out to assess the conserved sequence and GO function among these subsets, and the results showed that the classification of soybean C2H2-ZFPs was reasonable. The expression profile of soybean C2H2-ZFPs in multiple tissues showed that nearly half of soybean C2H2-ZFPs within different subsets had expressions in nodules, including a clustering branch consisting of 11 Gm-1i-Q-SF genes specifically expressed in symbiotic-relative tissues. RNA-Seq was used to identify symbiosis-related soybean C2H2-ZFPs, and the expression pattern of the soybean C2H2-ZFPs in roots and nodules at different development stages showed that soybean C2H2-ZFPs mainly played roles in nodule development or nodule function rather than nodulation signal transduction, and nearly half of these genes had high expressions and/or different expression patterns during soybean nodule development, especially for the six clustering branches of genes consisting of different subsets of C2H2-ZFPs. Furthermore, the selected symbiosis-related soybean C2H2-ZFPs might function in legume-rhizobium symbiosis through regulating or interacting with other key proteins. Taken together, our findings provided useful information for the study on classification and conservative function of C2H2-ZFPs, and offered solid evidence for investigation of rhizobium symbiosis-related C2H2-ZFPs in soybean or other legumes.

A prototypical hybrid system formed by strong coupled gold hole arrays and J‐aggregate molecules is investigated by using both steady‐state spectroscopic method and ultrafast pump‐probe approach. In particular, the plasmonic response of the device has been tuned by modifying its periodicity thus to achieve the strongest possible coupling regime. It is found that in the transient absorption spectra, under upper band excitation, the bleaching signal from uncoupled J‐aggregate molecules completely disappears. Instead, two distinctive period dependent bleaching bands are formed, clearly fingerprint of the hybrid exciton‐plasmon state. The dynamics of these bands is also directly analyzed. A remarkable long lifetime is found especially for the upper band, corresponding to the presence of a trap state in its transient absorption spectra under resonance excitation. Such unique feature should provide a new approach to control quantum‐mechanical states under coherent coupling.

Skeletal muscle has a remarkable ability to regenerate owing to its resident stem cells (also called satellite cells, SCs). SCs are normally quiescent; when stimulated by damage, they activate and expand to form new fibers. The mechanisms underlying SC proliferative progression remain poorly understood. Here we show that DHX36, a helicase that unwinds RNA G-quadruplex (rG4) structures, is essential for muscle regeneration by regulating SC expansion. DHX36 (initially named RHAU) is barely expressed at quiescence but is highly induced during SC activation and proliferation. Inducible deletion of Dhx36 in adult SCs causes defective proliferation and muscle regeneration after damage. System-wide mapping in proliferating SCs reveals DHX36 binding predominantly to rG4 structures at various regions of mRNAs, while integrated polysome profiling shows that DHX36 promotes mRNA translation via 5′-untranslated region (UTR) rG4 binding. Furthermore, we demonstrate that DHX36 specifically regulates the translation of Gnai2 mRNA by unwinding its 5′ UTR rG4 structures and identify GNAI2 as a downstream effector of DHX36 for SC expansion. Altogether, our findings uncover DHX36 as an indispensable post-transcriptional regulator of SC function and muscle regeneration acting through binding and unwinding rG4 structures at 5′ UTR of target mRNAs.

We have investigated the influence of Rabi splitting tuning on the dynamics of strongly coupled J-aggregate/surface plasmon polariton systems. In particular, the Rabi splitting was tuned by modifying the J-aggregate molecule concentration while a polaritonic system was provided by a nanostructure formed by holes array in a golden layer. From the periodic and concentration changes we have identified, through numerical and experimental steady-state analyses, the best geometrical configuration for maximizing Rabi splitting, which was then used for transient absorption measurements. It was found that in transient absorption spectra, under upper band excitation, two bleaching peaks appear when a nanostructured polaritonic pattern is used. Importantly, their reciprocal distance increases upon increase of J-aggregate concentration, a result confirmed by steady-state analysis. In a similar manner it was also found that the lifetime of the upper band is intimately related to the coupling strength. In particular, we argue that with strong coupling strength, i.e. high J-aggregate concentration, a short lifetime of the upper band has to be expected due to the suppression of the bottleneck effect. This result supports the idea that the dynamics of hybrid systems is profoundly dependent on Rabi splitting.

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General actively tunable near-field plasmon-induced transparency (PIT) systems based on couplings between localized plasmon resonances of graphene nanostructures not only suffer from interantenna separations of smaller than 20 nm, but also lack switchable effect about the transparency window. Here, the performance of an active PIT system based on graphene grating-sheet with near-field coupling distance of more than 100 nm is investigated in mid-infrared. The transparency window in spectrum is analyzed objectively and proved to be more likely stemmed from Aulter-Townes splitting. The proposed system exhibits flexible tunability in slow-light and electro-optical switches, promising for practical active photonic devices.

Surface plasmon modes at terahertz-infrared waveband in subwavelength graphene wedge and groove waveguides are investigated, which can be categorized into perfect electric conductor and perfect magnetic conductor symmetric modes with different propagation characteristics. The electromagnetic near-fields are localized strongly in different regions for these two kinds of modes. Moreover, these modes can be interpreted by the folded graphene ribbon modes. The brim width of the waveguides and the Fermi energy of the graphene strongly influence the dispersion and propagation distances of the plasmon modes, which can be used for tuning the plasmon modes in graphene wedge and groove waveguides efficiently.

Histone modifications, such as methylation and demethylation, play an important role in regulating chromatin structure and gene expression. The JmjC domain-containing proteins, an important family of histone lysine demethylases (KDMs), play a key role in maintaining homeostasis of histone methylation in vivo. In this study, we performed a comprehensive analysis of the jumonji C (JmjC) gene family in the soybean genome and identified 48 JmjC genes (GmJMJs) distributed unevenly across 18 chromosomes. Phylogenetic analysis showed that these JmjC domain-containing genes can be divided into eight groups. GmJMJs within the same phylogenetic group share similar exon/intron organization and domain composition. In addition, 16 duplicated gene pairs were formed by a Glycine-specific whole-genome duplication (WGD) event approximately 13 million years ago (Mya). By investigating the expression profiles of these gene pairs in various tissues, we showed that the expression pattern is conserved in the polyploidy-derived JmjC duplicates, demonstrating that the majority of GmJMJs were preferentially retained after the most recent WGD event and suggesting important roles for demethylase duplications in soybean evolution. These results shed light on the evolutionary history of this family in soybean and provide insights into the JmjCs which will be helpful to reveal their functions in controlling soybean development.