A novel hybrid resist for UV nanoimprint lithography (UV‐NIL) based on the thiol–ene photopolymerization is presented. Our system comprises mercaptopropyl polyhedral oligomeric silsesquioxane and benzyl methacrylate, with trimethylolpropane trimethacrylate as the crosslinker. The obtained hybrid resists possess a variety of characteristics desirable for UV‐NIL, such as low viscosity (6.1–25 cP), low bulk‐volumetric shrinkage (5.3%), high Young's modulus (0.9–5.2 GPa), high thermal stability, and excellent dry‐etch resistance. Based on these performances, the optimized components are evaluated as UV‐NIL resists. The result is a high‐resolution pattern with feature sizes in the range of 100 nm to several microns. The double‐layer resist approach is used for pattern transfer into silicon substrates. The excellent oxygen‐etch resistance of the barrier material enables a final transfer pattern that is about three times higher than that of the original NIL mold.

Several databases have been published to predict alternative splicing of mRNAs by analysing the exon linkage relationship by alignment of expressed sequence tags (ESTs) to the genome sequence; however, little effort has been made to investigate the relationship between cancers and alternative splicing. We developed a program, Alternative Splicing Assembler (ASA), to look for splicing variants of human gene transcripts by genome-wide ESTs alignment. Using ASA, we constructed the biosino alternative splicing database (BASD), which predicted splicing variants for reference sequences from the reference sequence database (RefSeq) and presented them in both graph and text formats. EST clusters that differ from the reference sequences in at least one splicing site were counted as splicing variants. Of 4322 genes screened, 3490 (81%) were observed with at least one alternative splicing variants. To discover the variants associated with cancers, tissue sources of EST sequences were extracted from the UniLib database and ESTs from the same tissue type were counted. These were regarded as the indicators for gene expression level. Using Fisher's exact test, alternative splicing variants, of which EST counts were significantly different between cancer tissues and their counterpart normal tissues, were identified. It was predicted that 2149 variants, or 383 variants after Bonferroni correction, of 26 812 variants were likely tumor-associated. By reverse transcription-PCR, 11 of 13 novel alternative splicing variants and eight of nine variants' tissue specificity were confirmed in hepatocelluar carcinoma and in lung cancer. The possible involvement of alternative splicing in cancer is discussed.

Background Salinity is a major abiotic stress seriously hindering crop yield. Development and utilization of tolerant varieties is the most economical way to address soil salinity. Upland cotton is a major fiber crop and pioneer plant on saline soil and thus its genetic architecture underlying salt tolerance should be extensively explored. Results In this study, genome-wide association analysis and RNA sequencing were employed to detect salt-tolerant qualitative-trait loci (QTLs) and candidate genes in 196 upland cotton genotypes at the germination stage. Using comprehensive evaluation values of salt tolerance in four environments, we identified 33 significant single-nucleotide polymorphisms (SNPs), including 17 and 7 SNPs under at least two and four environments, respectively. The 17 stable SNPs were located within or near 98 candidate genes in 13 QTLs, including 35 genes that were functionally annotated to be involved in salt stress responses. RNA-seq analysis indicated that among the 98 candidate genes, 13 were stably differentially expressed. Furthermore, 12 of the 13 candidate genes were verified by qRT-PCR. RNA-seq analysis detected 6640, 3878, and 6462 differentially expressed genes at three sampling time points, of which 869 were shared. Conclusions These results, including the elite cotton accessions with accurate salt tolerance evaluation, the significant SNP markers, the candidate genes, and the salt-tolerant pathways, could improve our understanding of the molecular regulatory mechanisms under salt stress tolerance and genetic manipulation for cotton improvement.

Functional polyhedral oligomeric silsesquioxane (POSS)-based materials have been developed as an ideal material with high performance for nanoimprint lithography (NIL). A novel fluorinated hybrid resist as a soft mold for NIL, based on thiol-ene photopolymerization, was precisely designed and synthesized and is comprised of fluorinated mercaptopropyl polyhedral oligomeric silsesquioxane (POSS-F-SH) and a diluted crosslinker (2,2,3,3,4,4,5, DCFA 4 ). The obtained fluorinated hybrid resists possess a variety of characteristics desirable for UV-NIL, including low viscosity (16-239 cP), a low bulk volumetric shrinkage (4.8-7.5%) and a good resistance to oxygen inhibition. The cross-linked hybrid resins exhibited high transparency to UV light and resistance to organic solvents. As a soft mold, the excellent mechanical property (Young's modulus: 0.31-1.56 GPa) and low surface energy (14-20.4 mJ m À2 ) of the fluorinated polymers provide a clean mold release without fracture or deformation of the embossed structures. The thermally stability (T d > 300 C) render them capable of being used for both UV and thermal NIL duplication processes. The resultant soft mold exhibited a high resolution patterning capacity with feature sizes in the range of 200 nm to several microns. The economic efficiency of the mold fabrication, as well as the high durability and excellent releasing properties, could be quite valuable in NIL for the high-throughput fabrication of nano-devices.