BackgroundSheepgrass [Leymus chinensis (Trin.) Tzvel.] is an important perennial forage grass across the Eurasian Steppe and is known for its adaptability to various environmental conditions. However, insufficient data resources in public databases for sheepgrass limited our understanding of the mechanism of environmental adaptations, gene discovery and molecular marker development.ResultsThe transcriptome of sheepgrass was sequenced using Roche 454 pyrosequencing technology. We assembled 952,328 high-quality reads into 87,214 unigenes, including 32,416 contigs and 54,798 singletons. There were 15,450 contigs over 500 bp in length. BLAST searches of our database against Swiss-Prot and NCBI non-redundant protein sequences (nr) databases resulted in the annotation of 54,584 (62.6%) of the unigenes. Gene Ontology (GO) analysis assigned 89,129 GO term annotations for 17,463 unigenes. We identified 11,675 core Poaceae-specific and 12,811 putative sheepgrass-specific unigenes by BLAST searches against all plant genome and transcriptome databases. A total of 2,979 specific freezing-responsive unigenes were found from this RNAseq dataset. We identified 3,818 EST-SSRs in 3,597 unigenes, and some SSRs contained unigenes that were also candidates for freezing-response genes. Characterizations of nucleotide repeats and dominant motifs of SSRs in sheepgrass were also performed. Similarity and phylogenetic analysis indicated that sheepgrass is closely related to barley and wheat.ConclusionsThis research has greatly enriched sheepgrass transcriptome resources. The identified stress-related genes will help us to decipher the genetic basis of the environmental and ecological adaptations of this species and will be used to improve wheat and barley crops through hybridization or genetic transformation. The EST-SSRs reported here will be a valuable resource for future gene-phenotype studies and for the molecular breeding of sheepgrass and other Poaceae species.
New
hierarchical bioinspired nanocomposite materials of poly(vinyl
alcohol)/poly(acrylic acid)/carboxylate graphene oxide nanosheet@polydopamine
(PVA/PAA/GO-COOH@PDA) were successfully prepared by electrospinning
technique, thermal treatment, and polydopamine modification. The obtained
composite membranes are composed of polymeric nanofibers with carboxylate
graphene oxide nanosheets, which are anchored on the fibers by heat-induced
cross-linking reaction. The preparation process demonstrate eco-friendly
and controllable manner. These as-formed nanocomposites were characterized
by various morphological methods and spectral techniques. Due to the
unique polydopamine and graphene oxide containing structures in composites,
the as-obtained composite demonstrate well efficient adsorption capacity
toward dye removal, which is primarily due to the specific surface
area of electrospun membranes and the active polydopamine/graphene
oxide components. In addition, the composite membranes reported here
are easy to regenerate. In comparison with other composite adsorbents,
the preparation process of present new composite materials is highly
eco-friendly and facile to operate and regulate, which demonstrates
potential large-scale applications in wastewater treatment and dye
removal.
MXene
as a kind of two-dimensional nanomaterial has aroused people’s
strong research interest because of its excellent properties. In the
present study, we introduced a new poly(vinyl alcohol)/poly(acrylic
acid)/Fe
3
O
4
/MXene@Ag nanoparticle composite
film fabricated by electrospinning and heat treatment as well as self-reduction
reaction process. The obtained composite films showed high self-reduction
ability because of the incorporation of MXene flakes. The intercalated
MXene flakes in the composite nanofibers were evenly distributed,
which not only solved the aggregation problem from MXene dispersion
but also could self-reduce Ag nanoparticles in situ in composite materials.
In addition, the composite nanofiber films exhibited good fiber structure,
thermal stability, and magnetic properties. Moreover, the composite
nanofiber films demonstrated excellent catalytic ability and cycle
stability to 4-nitrophenol and 2-nitroaniline.
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