Browsing by Author "Liang, Liang"

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    Conservation tillage increases corn and soybean water productivity across the Ohio River Basin
    (Elsevier, 2021-08) Huang, Yawen; Tao, Bo; Xiaochen, Zhu; Yang, Yanjun; Liang, Liang; Wang, Lixin; Jacinthe, Pierre-Andre; Tian, Hanqin; Ren, Wei; Earth Sciences, School of Science
    Optimizing agricultural management practices is imperative for ensuring food security and building climate-resilient agriculture. The past several decades have witnessed the emergence of conservation tillage practices to combat soil erosion and degradation. However, the effects of conservation tillage on crop water productivity (CWP) remain uncertain, especially from a regional-scale perspective. Here, we used an improved process-based agroecosystem model (DLEM-Ag) to quantify the long-term effects of conservation tillage (e.g., no-tillage, NT; reduced tillage, RT) on CWP (defined as the ratio of crop productivity to evapotranspiration) of corn and soybean across the Ohio River Basin during 1979–2018. Our results revealed an average increase of 2.8% and 8.4% in CWP for corn and soybean, respectively, under the NT adoption scenario. Compared to the conventional tillage scenario, NT and RT would enhance CWP, primarily due to reductions in evapotranspiration, particularly evaporation. Further analysis suggested that, although NT and RT may decrease surface runoff, these practices could also increase subsurface drainage and nutrient loss from corn and soybean farmland via leaching. These results indicate that conservation tillage should be complemented with additional water and nutrient management practices to enhance soil water retention and optimize nutrient use in the region's cropland. Our findings also provide unique insights into optimizing management practices for other areas where conservation tillage is widely applied.
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    LncRNA-p21 alters the antiandrogen enzalutamide-induced prostate cancer neuroendocrine differentiation via modulating the EZH2/STAT3 signaling
    (Springer Nature, 2019-06-12) Luo, Jie; Wang, Keliang; Yeh, Shuyuan; Sun, Yin; Liang, Liang; Xiao, Yao; Xu, Wanhai; Niu, Yuanjie; Cheng, Liang; Maity, Sankar N.; Jiang, Runze; Chang, Chawnshang; Pathology and Laboratory Medicine, School of Medicine
    While the antiandrogen enzalutamide (Enz) extends the castration resistant prostate cancer (CRPC) patients' survival an extra 4.8 months, it might also result in some adverse effects via inducing the neuroendocrine differentiation (NED). Here we found that lncRNA-p21 is highly expressed in the NEPC patients derived xenograft tissues (NEPC-PDX). Results from cell lines and human clinical sample surveys also revealed that lncRNA-p21 expression is up-regulated in NEPC and Enz treatment could increase the lncRNA-p21 to induce the NED. Mechanism dissection revealed that Enz could promote the lncRNA-p21 transcription via altering the androgen receptor (AR) binding to different androgen-response-elements, which switch the EZH2 function from histone-methyltransferase to non-histone methyltransferase, consequently methylating the STAT3 to promote the NED. Preclinical studies using the PDX mouse model proved that EZH2 inhibitor could block the Enz-induced NED. Together, these results suggest targeting the Enz/AR/lncRNA-p21/EZH2/STAT3 signaling may help urologists to develop a treatment for better suppression of the human CRPC progression.