Jing Li

As a member of the only two species in the Nelumbonaceae family, lotus ( Nelumbo nucifera) accumulates abundant benzylisoquinoline alkaloids (BIAs) in almost all of its tissues. Evidence from both traditional and modern medicine suggest great potential of the lotus BIAs in developing novel drugs for the prevention and treatment of diverse life-threatening diseases. This review provides a comprehensive summary on the up-to-date advances in the chemical profiling, extraction methods, pharmacological activities, and biosynthesis of lotus BIAs. Currently, a total of 59 BIAs structurally belonging to the 1-benzylisoquinoline, aporphine, and bis-BIA categories have been identified in various lotus tissues, with their predominant accumulation in the leaf and plumule. In contrast to the common S-conformers in Ranunculales, most lotus BIAs are R-conformers. Solvent extraction is still the most widely used BIA extraction method in lotus at the industrial level, however, numerous greener and highly advanced extraction techniques have also been developed. High-performance liquid chromatography (HPLC) followed by electrospray ionization (ESI) and tandem mass spectrometry (MS/MS) techniques are currently the most commonly used methods for separation, quantification, and characterization of lotus BIAs. Moreover, the pharmacological activities of major BIAs isolated from lotus leaves and plumules are discussed, and their biosynthetic pathways proposed based on recent functional characterization studies of lotus BIA biosynthetic genes. Finally, a summary discussion is provided on the future research trajectories in elucidating lotus BIA biosynthesis, storage, and transportation, as well as their potential application in clinical drug development.

The lotus (Nelumbo nucifera) is one of the most popular aquatic plants in Asia, and has emerged as a novel model for studying flower and rhizome development, and primary and secondary metabolite accumulation. Here, we developed a highly efficient callus induction system for the lotus by optimizing a series of key factors that affect callus formation. The highest efficient callus production was induced on immature cotyledon and embryo explants grown on Murashige and Skoog (MS) basal medium containing an optimized combination of 3 mg/L 2,4-dichlorophenoxyacetic acid (2,4-D) and 0.5 mg/L 6-benzylaminopurine (6-BA). In addition, lotus callus induction was proven to be influenced by lotus genotypes, light conditions, the developmental stages of explants and the time of explant sampling. Collecting immature cotyledons from seeds of the genotype “Shilihe 1”, at 9 days post pollination, and to culture the explants in darkness, are proposed as the optimum conditions for lotus callus induction. Interestingly, highly efficient callus induction was also observed in explants of immature embryo derived aseptic seedlings; and a small amount of lotus benzylisoquinoline alkaloid (BIA) and obvious expression of BIA biosynthetic genes were detected in lotus callus.

At present, many production companies have problems such as long non-processing time of production lines, difficulty in scheduling of each station, and low utilization of production resources. This article takes the production data of auto parts after-sales company as an example, puts forward the production resource scheduling problem of the flexible parts workshop of auto parts, and uses and improves the genetic algorithm to solve the problem. The two coding methods two-dimensional matrix-based machine coding and the machine process segmented coding are compared. The evolution reversal operation was added to improve the local search ability of the genetic algorithm, so that each generation of the algorithm can inherit more genes from the parent. This paper uses MATLAB to process the data and simulate the scheduling results, which proves the feasibility and effectiveness of the algorithm.

The crystal types of nanoparticles (NPs) are governed by many factors, such as temperature, pH, solvents, surface ligands, etc. In this work, β-HgS and α-HgS NPs coated with captopril (Cap) have been synthesized conveniently in the same raw materials and similar methods just with different temperature at 4 °C and 50 °C, respectively. More interestingly, phase transition of HgS NPs from β-crystal (cubic crystal) to α-crystal (hexagonal crystal) via rising temperature from 4 to 50 °C was confirmed by X-ray powder diffraction (XRD) and transmission electron microscopy (TEM). The size of α-HgS NPs grew to 6.7±1.3 nm in the process of phase transition, which was about twice of β-HgS NPs (3.5±1.0 nm). Furthermore, compared with the obvious absorption peak of β-HgS NPs at 688 nm, the absorption peak of α-HgS NPs had a giant blue-shifted to 470 nm in Ultraviolet and visible (UV-vis) spectra. In addition, the β-HgS NPs had a fluorescence emission at 900 nm differing from α-HgS NPs without emission. The α-HgS NPs had three peaks at 215 nm, 251 nm and 318 nm, while the β-HgS NPs had only a distinct peak at 215 nm in circular dichroism (CD) spectra. These results provide a novel insight for the controlling preparation of different crystal types of nanoparticles.

The WRKY family is one of the largest transcription factor (TF) families in plants and plays central roles in modulating plant stress responses and developmental processes, as well as secondary metabolic regulations. Lotus (Nelumbo nucifera) is an aquatic crop that has significant food, ornamental and pharmacological values. Here, we performed an overview analysis of WRKY TF family members in lotus, and studied their functions in environmental adaptation and regulation of lotus benzylisoquinoline alkaloid (BIA) biosynthesis. A total of 65 WRKY genes were identified in the lotus genome and they were well clustered in a similar pattern with their Arabidopsis homologs in seven groups (designated I, IIa-IIe, and III), although no lotus WRKY was clustered in the group IIIa. Most lotus WRKYs were functionally paired, which was attributed to the recently occurred whole genome duplication in lotus. In addition, lotus WRKYs were regulated dramatically by salicilic acid (SA), jasmonic acid (JA), and submergence treatments, and two lotus WRKYs, NnWRKY40a and NnWRKY40b, were significantly induced by JA and promoted lotus BIA biosynthesis through activating BIA biosynthetic genes. The investigation of WRKY TFs for this basal eudicot reveals new insights into the evolution of the WRKY family, and provides fundamental information for their functional studies and lotus breeding.