Heilongjiang Academy of Forestry

Objective To analyze the relationships among the surface antigens of lymphocytes in patients with sepsis, the level of thrombospondin-1 (THBS1), and myocardial injury. Methods 360 sepsis patients who were hospitalized to our hospital between January 2023 and January 2025 were chosen. 170 patients with myocardial injury and 190 patients without myocardial injury were selected from the patient group based on whether or not they had myocardial injury. Serum THBS1 levels, immune function (CD4+, CD8+, and CD4+/CD8+), myocardial injury markers (creatine kinase MB (CK-MB), heart-type fatty acid binding protein (H-FABP), N-terminal pro-B-type natriuretic peptide (NT-proBNP), and cardiac troponin I (cTnI)), and echocardiographic markers (left ventricular ejection fraction (LVEF), early diastolic velocity to atrial contraction velocity ratio (E/A), and cardiac output (CO)) were compared. Correlations between immune function, THBS1 levels, myocardial injury indicators, and echocardiographic markers in individuals with myocardial damage and infection were examined. To predict sepsis with myocardial infarction, the serum THBS1 value was evaluated using the receiver operating characteristic (ROC) curve and the area under the curve (AUC). Results While the myocardial injury group had significantly lower levels of CD8+ T cells in peripheral blood, LVEF, E/A, and CO, the nonmyocardial injury group had significantly higher levels of CD4+, CD4+/CD8+, serum THBS1, CK-MB, H-FABP, NT-proBNP, and cTnI (P<0.05). Patients with sepsis and myocardial injury had considerably higher peripheral blood CD8+ T cell counts with LVEF, E/A, and CO (P<0.05) and significantly lower counts with CK-MB, H-FABP, NT-proBNP, and cTnI (P<0.05). CK-MB, H-FABP, NT-proBNP, and cTnI were strongly positively correlated (P<0.05) with peripheral blood CD4+ and CD4+/CD8+ T cell counts, while LVEF, E/A, and CO were significantly correlated negatively (P<0.05). Serum THBS1 levels had a substantial negative correlation (P<0.05) with LVEF, E/A, and CO and a strong positive correlation (P<0.05) with CK-MB, H-FABP, NT-proBNP, and cTnI. With a sensitivity of 80.03% and specificity of 87.43%, the serum THBS1 concentration demonstrated an AUC of 0.892 (95% CI: 0.857–0.947) for predicting both sepsis and myocardial damage. Conclusion Sepsis patients' levels of THBS1 and lymphocyte surface antigens are somewhat linked to myocardial damage, and THBS1 is anticipated to function as a biomarker for anticipating myocardial damage in sepsis patients.

Pinus sylvestris var. mongolica is one of the main afforestation tree species in North China, with significant ecological and economic value (Zhang et al. 2025). In June 2025, we observed irregularly distributed red bands on the needles of P. sylvestris var. mongolica in Toudaoqiao Forest Farm (48.275750°N, 120.000670°E), Inner Mongolia, China, which seriously restricted the local ecological construction. Initially, red bands appear on the needles, followed by gradual chlorosis, eventually leading to extensive wilting. Almost 55% of the trees in the planting area were symptomatic. Randomly collected 30 symptomatic needles from different plants. These samples were cut into 3 mm pieces, surface-sterilized in 75% alcohol for 30 s. After rinsing thrice in sterile distilled water and drying, the pieces were transferred onto potato dextrose agar (PDA) and incubated at 25 ℃ for 5 days. A total of 16 morphologically similar isolates were obtained. Initially, the colonies of the fungi appeared white, after 10 days of cultivation, the mycelium gradually turned orange from the center of the colony, white conidia were evenly distributed outward. Under the microscope, the spores appeared transparent, oval to oblong, without septa. These morphological features align with the typical features of Thyronectria pinicola (Carnegie et al. 2015; Zapata. 2017). The genomic DNA of two representative isolates (NEFU-ZQY-1 and NEFU-ZQY-2) were extracted using the Fungal DNA Extraction Kit (D3390-01, OMEGA, Norcross, GA). The internal transcribed spacer (ITS) , large subunit (LSU) regions of nuclear ribosomal DNA and β-tubulin (TUB2) gene were amplified with ITS1/ITS4, NL1/NL4 (Carnegie et al. 2015) and Bt2a/Bt2b (Wang et al. 2023), respectively BLAST search results showed a homology of over 99% with T. pinicola, with a maximum homology of 100% (KY514388.1, 501/503; KP751377.1, 521/521; JF832863.1, 486/486). The sequences of ITS, LSU and tub2 were deposited in GenBank (NEFU-ZQY-1: PX589408, PX589416 and PX609846; NEFU-ZQY-2: PX589411, PX589417 and PX609847). Moreover, a phylogenetic tree based on the three genes revealed that all two isolates were closest to T. pinicola. Based on these results, the two isolates were identified as T. pinicola. To confirm pathogenicity, healthy trees of 3-year-old P. sylvestris var. mongolica were surface sterilized, healthy needles were punctured with sterile needles, and the spore suspensions (10 7 conidia/ml) of NEFU-ZQY-1 was sprayed onto the damaged needles (n=5). A control group was also established, where sterile water was sprayed instead of the conidial suspension (n=5). The seedlings were then placed in a greenhouse at 25°C. After thirty days, the inoculated plants showed symptoms similar to those of the original infected plant, whereas the control showed no symptoms. The fungus reisolated was morphologically identical to the original isolate, satisfying Koch's hypothesis. There have been reports indicating that a canker disease caused by T. pinicola on Pinus bungeana (He. et al. 2016). To our knowledge, this is the first report of needle blight on P. sylvestris var. mongolica caused by T. pinicola in Inner Mongolia, China. The voucher specimens were deposited in the Heilongjiang Province Key Laboratory of Forest Protection. Honghua'erji Scots Pine Forest is the largest sandy land Scots pine forest in Asia. Those studies could help develop effective measures to prevent and control this disease.

To ensure food security and reduce harvest losses, improving the monitoring accuracy of grain combine harvester operation loss is of great importance. This paper systematically analyzes the technical progress of piezoelectric sensing applications in this field. In terms of materials, piezoelectric thin films (PVDF) exhibit faster response speeds (signal attenuation shortened by 30%), but are prone to short circuits in high-humidity environments. Piezoelectric ceramics (PZT), when combined with a double-layer vibration isolation structure, can effectively reduce vibration interference errors to below 5%, providing better stability. Regarding sensor structure, the array layout enhances multi-target recognition, while the innovative double-layer cross structure enables analytical positioning of the spatial distribution of grain collisions, offering a new approach for accurately calculating loss rates. In signal processing algorithms, support vector machines (SVM) and decision trees perform well with small sample sizes; however, combining them with discrete element simulation (EDEM) is necessary to optimize feature extraction. Among these methods, the WOA-BP algorithm can control monitoring error within 6.23% through adaptive parameter adjustment. Nevertheless, current technologies still face challenges such as insufficient adaptability to varying material environments and limited algorithm generalization under complex working conditions. In the future, multidisciplinary collaborative innovation is required to develop hybrid algorithm models that integrate weather-resistant composite materials, intelligent adaptive sensor structures, and physical mechanisms, thereby establishing a high-precision, low-cost monitoring system and providing theoretical support for the research and development of grain loss detection equipment.

Leaf stomatal density directly regulates the rates of gas exchange and water loss and is a core indicator of plants’ water-retention capacity and drought adaptability. Because detecting leaves over a macroscopic range requires large-stroke motion, whereas accurate identification of stomata demands high-precision positioning, the operational platform for stomatal-density detection faces the dual challenge of large strokes and high resolution. This paper proposes a novel two-degree-of-freedom (2-DOF) cross-scale piezoelectric platform that employs a new three-degree-of-freedom (3-DOF) piezoelectric stator to address the backlash issue in inertial drive and combines it with finite-element simulation for verification. The prototype of the 2-DOF cross-scale piezoelectric positioning platform is developed, and a series of experiments are conducted to evaluate its performance. The experimental results show a motion range of 15 mm × 15 mm; the displacement backlash rates in the X and Y directions range from 0% to 9.84% and 0% to 28.42%, respectively; and the displacement resolutions reach 11.39 nm and 13.61 nm, respectively. In addition, an application experiment on leaf stomatal-density detection is carried out on the developed 2-DOF platform, demonstrating its potential for botanical micro-detection.

WRKY transcription factors (TFs) play a crucial role in mediating plant responses to various environmental stresses, including salt, drought, and heavy metal stresses. In this study, PdbWRKY31 was further identified and characterized from Shanxin poplar (Populus davidiana × P. bolleana). The results of subcellular localization showed that PdbWRKY31 is a nuclear-localized protein. PdbWRKY31 expression in Shanxin poplar under salt stress was obviously induced. To further investigate its function in salt tolerance, an overexpression vector (35S::PdbWRKY31-GFP) was transiently transformed into Shanxin poplar. Physiological indicators showed that overexpression of PdbWRKY31 enhanced peroxidase (POD) and catalase (CAT) activities, reduced hydrogen peroxide (H2O2) accumulation, and cell damage induced by salt stress. Y1H and EMSA results demonstrate that PdbWRKY31 specifically bound with the W-box (TTGAC) element. ChIP-PCR and qRT-PCR assays showed that PdbWRKY31 increased PdbCAT1 and PdbCAT3 expression by binding to the W-box element on their promoters. Based on our findings, we proposed a novel regulatory model in which PdbWRKY31 enhanced salt tolerance in Shanxin poplar by binding to the W-box element on the promoter of the target genes (PdbCAT1 and 3) and promoting their expression. This study provided a theoretical foundation for a deeper understanding of the role of WRKY31 TFs and offered insights into breeding highly salt-tolerant plants.