资源环境科技发展态势分析平台

Water lilies belong to the angiosperm order Nymphaeales. Amborellales, Nymphaeales and Austrobaileyales together form the so-called ANA-grade of angiosperms, which are extant representatives of lineages that diverged the earliest from the lineage leading to the extant mesangiosperms(1-3). Here we report the 409-megabase genome sequence of the blue-petal water lily (Nymphaea colorata). Our phylogenomic analyses support Amborellales and Nymphaeales as successive sister lineages to all other extant angiosperms. The N. colorata genome and 19 other water lily transcriptomes reveal a Nymphaealean whole-genome duplication event, which is shared by Nymphaeaceae and possibly Cabombaceae. Among the genes retained from this whole-genome duplication are homologues of genes that regulate flowering transition and flower development. The broad expression of homologues of floral ABCE genes in N. colorata might support a similarly broadly active ancestral ABCE model of floral organ determination in early angiosperms. Water lilies have evolved attractive floral scents and colours, which are features shared with mesangiosperms, and we identified their putative biosynthetic genes in N. colorata. The chemical compounds and biosynthetic genes behind floral scents suggest that they have evolved in parallel to those in mesangiosperms. Because of its unique phylogenetic position, the N. colorata genome sheds light on the early evolution of angiosperms.

The structure of human diacylglycerol O-acyltransferase 1, a membrane protein that synthesizes triacylglycerides, is solved with cryo-electron microscopy, providing insight into its function and mechanism of enzymatic activity.

Diacylglycerol O-acyltransferase 1 (DGAT1) synthesizes triacylglycerides and is required for dietary fat absorption and fat storage in humans(1). DGAT1 belongs to the membrane-bound O-acyltransferase (MBOAT) superfamily, members of which are found in all kingdoms of life and are involved in the acylation of lipids and proteins(2,3). How human DGAT1 and other mammalian members of the MBOAT family recognize their substrates and catalyse their reactions is unknown. The absence of three-dimensional structures also hampers rational targeting of DGAT1 for therapeutic purposes. Here we present the cryo-electron microscopy structure of human DGAT1 in complex with an oleoyl-CoA substrate. Each DGAT1 protomer has nine transmembrane helices, eight of which form a conserved structural fold that we name the MBOAT fold. The MBOAT fold in DGAT1 forms a hollow chamber in the membrane that encloses highly conserved catalytic residues. The chamber has separate entrances for each of the two substrates, fatty acyl-CoA and diacylglycerol. DGAT1 can exist as either a homodimer or a homotetramer and the two forms have similar enzymatic activity. The N terminus of DGAT1 interacts with the neighbouring protomer and these interactions are required for enzymatic activity.

The measurement sensitivity of quantum probes using N uncorrelated particles is restricted by the standard quantum limit(1), which is proportional to 1/root N. This limit, however, can be overcome by exploiting quantum entangled states, such as spin-squeezed states(2). Here we report the measurement-based generation of a quantum state that exceeds the standard quantum limit for probing the collective spin of 10(11) rubidium atoms contained in a macroscopic vapour cell. The state is prepared and verified by sequences of stroboscopic quantum non-demolition (QND) measurements. We then apply the theory of past quantum states(3,4) to obtain spin state information from the outcomes of both earlier and later QND measurements. Rather than establishing a physically squeezed state in the laboratory, the past quantum state represents the combined system information from these prediction and retrodiction measurements. This information is equivalent to a noise reduction of 5.6 decibels and a metrologically relevant squeezing of 4.5 decibels relative to the coherent spin state. The past quantum state yields tighter constraints on the spin component than those obtained by conventional QND measurements. Our measurement uses 1,000 times more atoms than previous squeezing experiments(5-10), with a corresponding angular variance of the squeezed collective spin of 4.6 x 10(-13) radians squared. Although this work is rooted in the foundational theory of quantum measurements, it may find practical use in quantum metrology and quantum parameter estimation, as we demonstrate by applying our protocol to quantum enhanced atomic magnetometry.

The hippocampus is an important part of the limbic system in the human brain that has essential roles in spatial navigation and the consolidation of information from short-term memory to long-term memory(1,2). Here we use single-cell RNA sequencing and assay for transposase-accessible chromatin using sequencing (ATAC-seq) analysis to illustrate the cell types, cell linage, molecular features and transcriptional regulation of the developing human hippocampus. Using the transcriptomes of 30,416 cells from the human hippocampus at gestational weeks 16-27, we identify 47 cell subtypes and their developmental trajectories. We also identify the migrating paths and cell lineages of PAX6(+) and HOPX+ hippocampal progenitors, and regional markers of CA1, CA3 and dentate gyrus neurons. Multiomic data have uncovered transcriptional regulatory networks of the dentate gyrus marker PROX1. We also illustrate spatially specific gene expression in the developing human prefrontal cortex and hippocampus. The molecular features of the human hippocampus at gestational weeks 16-20 are similar to those of the mouse at postnatal days 0-5 and reveal gene expression differences between the two species. Transient expression of the primate-specific gene NBPF1 leads to a marked increase in PROX1(+) cells in the mouse hippocampus. These data provides a blueprint for understanding human hippocampal development and a tool for investigating related diseases.

Single-cell RNA sequencing is used to catalogue and explore the developmental trajectories of more than 30,000 cells in the developing human hippocampus.

A key mutational process in cancer is structural variation, in which rearrangements delete, amplify or reorder genomic segments that range in size from kilobases to whole chromosomes(1-7). Here we develop methods to group, classify and describe somatic structural variants, using data from the Pan-Cancer Analysis of Whole Genomes (PCAWG) Consortium of the International Cancer Genome Consortium (ICGC) and The Cancer Genome Atlas (TCGA), which aggregated whole-genome sequencing data from 2,658 cancers across 38 tumour types(8). Sixteen signatures of structural variation emerged. Deletions have a multimodal size distribution, assort unevenly across tumour types and patients, are enriched in late-replicating regions and correlate with inversions. Tandem duplications also have a multimodal size distribution, but are enriched in early-replicating regions-as are unbalanced translocations. Replication-based mechanisms of rearrangement generate varied chromosomal structures with low-level copy-number gains and frequent inverted rearrangements. One prominent structure consists of 2-7 templates copied from distinct regions of the genome strung together within one locus. Such cycles of templated insertions correlate with tandem duplications, and-in liver cancerfrequently activate the telomerase gene TERT. A wide variety of rearrangement processes are active in cancer, which generate complex configurations of the genome upon which selection can act.