Ocean University of China

About: Ocean University of China is a education organization based out in Qingdao, China. It is known for research contribution in the topics: Population & Sea surface temperature. The organization has 27604 authors who have published 27886 publications receiving 440181 citations. The organization is also known as: Zhōngguó Hǎiyáng Dàxué & OUC.

Duplication and diversification of the hypoxia-inducible IGFBP-1 gene in zebrafish.

Abstract: Background: Gene duplication is the primary force of new gene evolution. Deciphering whether a pair of duplicated genes has evolved divergent functions is often challenging. The zebrafish is uniquely positioned to provide insight into the process of functional gene evolution due to its amenability to genetic and experimental manipulation and because it possess a large number of duplicated genes. Methodology/Principal Findings: We report the identification and characterization of two hypoxia-inducible genes in zebrafish that are co-ortholgs of human IGF binding protein-1 (IGFBP-1). IGFBP-1 is a secreted protein that binds to IGF and modulates IGF actions in somatic growth, development, and aging. Like their human and mouse counterparts, in adult zebrafish igfbp-1a and igfbp-1b are exclusively expressed in the liver. During embryogenesis, the two genes are expressed in overlapping spatial domains but with distinct temporal patterns. While zebrafish IGFBP-1a mRNA was easily detected throughout embryogenesis, IGFBP-1b mRNA was detectable only in advanced stages. Hypoxia induces igfbp-1a expression in early embryogenesis, but induces the igfbp-1b expression later in embryogenesis. Both IGFBP-1a and -b are capable of IGF binding, but IGFBP-1b has much lower affinities for IGF-I and -II because of greater dissociation rates. Overexpression of IGFBP-1a and -1b in zebrafish embryos caused significant decreases in growth and developmental rates. When tested in cultured zebrafish embryonic cells, IGFBP-1a and -1b both inhibited IGF-1-induced cell proliferation but the activity of IGFBP-1b was significantly weaker. Conclusions/Significance: These results indicate subfunction partitioning of the duplicated IGFBP-1 genes at the levels of gene expression, physiological regulation, protein structure, and biological actions. The duplicated IGFBP-1 may provide additional flexibility in fine-tuning IGF signaling activities under hypoxia and other catabolic conditions.

Constraints on aerosol sources using GEOS-Chem adjoint and MODIS radiances, and evaluation with multisensor (OMI, MISR) data

Abstract: [1] We present a new top-down approach that spatially constrains the amount of aerosol emissions using satellite (Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer (MODIS)) observed radiances with the adjoint of a chemistry transport model (GEOS-Chem). This paper aims to demonstrate the approach through applying it to a case study that yields the following emission estimates over China for April 2008: 1.73 Tg for SO2, 0.72 Tg for NH3, 1.38 Tg for NOx, 0.10 Tg for black carbon, and 0.18 Tg for organic carbon from anthropogenic sources, which reflects, respectively, a reduction of 33.5%, 34.5%, 18.8%, 9.1%, and 15% in comparison to the prior bottom-up inventories of INTEX-B 2006. The mineral dust emission from the online dust entrainment and mobilization module is reduced by 56.4% of 19.02 to 8.30 Tg. Compared to the prior simulation, the posterior simulation shows a much better agreement with the following independent measurements: aerosol optical depth (AOD) measured by AERONET sun-spectrophotometers and retrieved from Multi-angle Imaging SpectroRadiometer (MISR), atmospheric NO2 and SO2 columnar amount retrieved from Ozone Monitoring Instrument (OMI), and in situ data of sulfate-nitrate-ammonium and PM10 (particular matter with aerodynamic diameter less than 10 µm) mass concentrations over both anthropogenic pollution and dust source regions. Assuming the bottom-up (prior) anthropogenic emissions are the best estimates for their base year of 2006, the overwhelming reduction in the posterior (top-down) estimate indicates less emission in April 2008 especially for the SO2 tracer in the central and eastern parts of China, and/or an overestimation in the prior emission. The former is supported by the AOD change detected by MODIS and MISR sensors, while the latter is likely the case for NOx and NH3 emissions because no evidence shows that their atmospheric concentration has declined over China. With the promising results shown in this study, continuous efforts are needed toward a holistic and comprehensive inversion of emission using multisensor remote sensing data (of trace gases and aerosols) for constraining aerosol primary and precursor emissions at various temporal and spatial scales.