Hand grip strength is a widely used proxy of muscular fitness, a marker of frailty, and predictor of a range of morbidities and all-cause mortality. To investigate the genetic determinants of variation in grip strength, we perform a large-scale genetic discovery analysis in a combined sample of 195,180 individuals and identify 16 loci associated with grip strength (P<5 × 10−8) in combined analyses. A number of these loci contain genes implicated in structure and function of skeletal muscle fibres (ACTG1), neuronal maintenance and signal transduction (PEX14, TGFA, SYT1), or monogenic syndromes with involvement of psychomotor impairment (PEX14, LRPPRC and KANSL1). Mendelian randomization analyses are consistent with a causal effect of higher genetically predicted grip strength on lower fracture risk. In conclusion, our findings provide new biological insight into the mechanistic underpinnings of grip strength and the causal role of muscular strength in age-related morbidities and mortality.

Among the metal-based nanoparticles, silver nanoparticles catalysis has been of great interest in organic synthesis and has expanded rapidly in the past ten years because of nanosilver catalysts' unique reactivity and selectivity, stability, as well as recyclability in catalytic reactions. As can be seen from the research results reported in this critical review, the application of heterogeneous silver-based nanoparticles to general organic reactions has proved to be an effective strategy in the development of highly efficient organic transformations in term of efficiency and selectivity. In particular, this review revealed the powerful potential of nanosilver catalysis in total synthesis of natural products and pharmaceutical molecules.

Raman characterization of aligned carbon nanotubes of average diameter 10–15 nm, produced by chemical vapor deposition on a mesoporous substrate, has been carried out. The resonance behavior and higher-order Raman bands up to fourth order have been observed and compared with those of carbon nanotubes produced by arc discharge and highly oriented pyrolytic graphite, as well as pyrolytic graphite. The phonon properties have been analyzed with the help of high-resolution transmission electron microscope studies.

SummaryAlthough hundreds of genetic male sterility (GMS) mutants have been identified in maize, few are commercially used due to a lack of effective methods to produce large quantities of pure male‐sterile seeds. Here, we develop a multicontrol sterility (MCS) system based on the maize male sterility 7 (ms7) mutant and its wild‐type Zea mays Male sterility 7 (ZmMs7) gene via a transgenic strategy, leading to the utilization of GMS in hybrid seed production. ZmMs7 is isolated by a map‐based cloning approach and encodes a PHD‐finger transcription factor orthologous to rice PTC1 and Arabidopsis MS1. The MCS transgenic maintainer lines are developed based on the ms7‐6007 mutant transformed with MCS constructs containing the (i) ZmMs7 gene to restore fertility, (ii) α‐amylase gene ZmAA and/or (iii) DNA adenine methylase gene Dam to devitalize transgenic pollen, (iv) red fluorescence protein gene DsRed2 or mCherry to mark transgenic seeds and (v) herbicide‐resistant gene Bar for transgenic seed selection. Self‐pollination of the MCS transgenic maintainer line produces transgenic red fluorescent seeds and nontransgenic normal colour seeds at a 1:1 ratio. Among them, all the fluorescent seeds are male fertile, but the seeds with a normal colour are male sterile. Cross‐pollination of the transgenic plants to male‐sterile plants propagates male‐sterile seeds with high purity. Moreover, the transgene transmission rate through pollen of transgenic plants harbouring two pollen‐disrupted genes is lower than that containing one pollen‐disrupted gene. The MCS system has great potential to enhance the efficiency of maize male‐sterile line propagation and commercial hybrid seed production.

In the past few years, primary amine catalysts derived from natural amino acids, Cinchona alkaloids and other chiral amines have emerged as readily available, highly versatile and extremely powerful catalysts in asymmetric synthesis. They have been demonstrated to be effective catalysts in a wide range of enantioselective organic reactions. In comparison with secondary amine-mediated transformations, the use of primary amine organocatalysts has often been shown to be complementary or superior.

New modular chiral phosphines effective for two distinct Cu(I)-catalyzed asymmetric tetrasubstituted-carbon-forming reactions, namely, allylation and propargylation of ketones, were identified. The optimized phosphine 8 was readily synthesized on a gram scale in high yield via three facile transformations (O-alkylation, bisaminal formation, and phosphination) from commercially available materials. In both reactions, excellent enantioselectivity (up to 98% ee) was produced from a range of substrates, including aromatic and aliphatic ketones, using 0.1-5 mol % catalyst loading. Specifically, catalytic enantioselective propargylation was the first example, affording synthetically useful chiral building blocks that have not been easily accessed to date. In addition to the enantioselectivity, the high catalytic activity of the CuOAc-8 complex is noteworthy. Preliminary studies to elucidate the structure-catalyst activity relationship suggested that the high catalytic activity of the Cu-8 complex is due to the extraordinarily wide bite angle ( angleP-Cu-P = 137.8 degrees ), leading to the stabilization of the active monomeric catalytically active species. Furthermore, mechanistically intriguing nonconventional hydrogen bonds existed between the acetate ligand of Cu and the bisaminal hydrogen atoms, stabilizing the distorted tetrahedral coordination state of the Cu atom.

The seeds of plants are carriers of a variety of beneficial bacteria and pathogens. Using the non-culture methods of building 16S rDNA libraries, we investigated the endophytic bacterial communities of seeds of four hybrid maize offspring and their respective parents. The results of this study show that the hybrid offspring Yuyu 23, Zhengdan958, Jingdan 28 and Jingyu 11 had 3, 33, 38 and 2 OTUs of bacteria, respectively. The parents Ye 478, Chang 7-2, Zheng 58, Jing 24 and Jing 89 had 12, 36, 6, 12 and 2 OTUs, respectively. In the hybrid Yuyu 23, the dominant bacterium Pantoea (73.38 %) was detected in its female parent Ye 478, and the second dominant bacterium of Sphingomonas (26.62 %) was detected in both its female (Ye 478) and male (Chang 7-2) parent. In the hybrid Zhengdan 958, the first dominant bacterium Stenotrophomonas (41.67 %) was detected in both the female (Zheng 58) and male (Chang 7-2) parent. The second dominant bacterium Acinetobacter (9.26 %) was also the second dominant bacterium of its male parent. In the hybrid Jingdan 28, the second dominant bacterium Pseudomonas (12.78 %) was also the second dominant bacterium of its female parent, and its third dominant bacterium Sphingomonas (9.90 %) was the second dominant bacterium of its male parent and detected in its female parent. In the hybrid Jingyu 11, the first dominant bacterium Leclercia (73.85 %) was the third dominant bacterium of its male parent, and the second dominant bacterium Enterobacter (26.15 %) was detected in its male parent. As far as we know, this was the first research reported in China on the diversity of the endophytic bacterial communities of the seeds of various maize hybrids with different genotypes.

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