Artemisinin is an effective anti-malarial drug isolated from Artemisia annua L. (Chinese wormwood), but the content of artemisinin in A. annua is low. In the present study we explored the possibility of using genetic engineering to increase the artemisinin content of A. annua by suppressing the expression of SQS (squalene synthase), a key enzyme of sterol pathway (a pathway competitive with that of artemisinin biosynthesis) by means of a hairpin-RNA-mediated RNAi (RNA interference) technique. A total of 23 independent transgenic A. annua plants were obtained through Agrobacterium tumefaciens-mediated transformation, which was confirmed by PCR and Southern-blot analyses. HPLC-evaporative light-scattering detection analysis showed that the artemisinin content of some transgenic plants was significantly increased, with the highest values reaching 31.4 mg/g dry weight, which is about 3.14-fold the content observed in untransformed control plants. Real-time reverse transcription-PCR analysis demonstrated that the expression of SQS was suppressed significantly, and GC-MS analysis showed that sterol was efficiently decreased in the transgenic plants. The present study demonstrated that genetic-engineering strategy of RNAi is an effective means of increasing artemisinin content in plants.

We report a continuously tunable resistive switching behavior in Pt/BiFeO 3 /Nb-doped SrTiO 3 heterostructure for ferroelectric memristor application. The resistance of this memristor can be tuned up to 5 Â 10 5 % by applying voltage pulses at room temperature, which exhibits excellent retention and anti-fatigue characteristics. The observed memristive behavior is attributed to the modulation effect of the ferroelectric polarization reversal on the width of depletion region and the height of potential barrier of the p-n junction formed at the BiFeO 3 /Nb-doped SrTiO 3 interface.

Pure, La3+ doped at A site, V5+ doped at B site, and La3+ and V5+ co-doped multiferroic BiFeO3 ceramics: BiFeO3 (BFO), Bi0.85La0.15FeO3 (BLF), BiFe0.97V0.03O3 (BFV), Bi0.85La0.15Fe0.97V0.03O3 (BLFV), etc were successfully prepared by a rapid liquid sintering technique. X-ray diffraction indicated that these ceramics were of polycrystalline perovskite structures, accompanied with a tiny residual Bi2O3 phase. It was found that, among these ceramics, BLFV ceramic exhibited the best electrical properties. The leakage current density of BLFV ceramic was only 2.1 × 10−6 A cm−2 at 10 kV cm−1, two and one orders of magnitude lower than those of the BLF and BFV ceramics, respectively. In the measuring frequency of 4 KHz–1 MHz, the dielectric constants and losses of this sample exhibited slight variation and the lowest loss tangent was 0.08. The sample had a relatively saturated ferroelectric hysteresis loop. These suggested that the co-doped BiFeO3 ceramic by La3+ and V5+ at A and B sites showed advantages in application over the pure BFO, doped BLF and BFV ceramics, respectively.

High-valence Pr-doped BiFeO3 (BPF) multiferroic thin film was prepared by pulsed laser deposition on a Pt∕TiO2∕SiO2∕Si substrate. X-ray diffraction analysis indicates that the BPF film is of pure phase with a polycrystalline perovskite structure. The BPF film exhibited enhanced multiferroic properties: (i) a rectangular-shaped electric hysteresis loop with a large Pr of 75μC∕cm2 and a low Ec of 250kV∕cm at Emax ∼620kV∕cm, (ii) a saturated magnetic hysteresis loop with a large Ms of 58emu∕cm3, and (iii) a fatigue-free behavior after being subjected to 1.2×109 switching cycles, which were superior to, in some aspects, those of La- or Nd-doped BiFeO3 films reported before.

Artemisinin, a sesquiterpene lactone endoperoxide derived from Artemisia annua L., is the most effective antimalarial drug. In an effort to increase the artemisinin production, abscisic acid (ABA) with different concentrations (1, 10 and 100 µM) was tested by treating A. annua plants. As a result, the artemisinin content in ABA-treated plants was significantly increased. Especially, artemisinin content in plants treated by 10 µM ABA was 65% higher than that in the control plants, up to an average of 1.84% dry weight. Gene expression analysis showed that in both the ABA-treated plants and cell suspension cultures, HMGR, FPS, CYP71AV1 and CPR, the important genes in the artemisinin biosynthetic pathway, were significantly induced. While only a slight increase of ADS expression was observed in ABA-treated plants, no expression of ADS was detected in cell suspension cultures. This study suggests that there is probably a crosstalk between the ABA signaling pathway and artemisinin biosynthetic pathway and that CYP71AV1, which was induced most significantly, may play a key regulatory role in the artemisinin biosynthetic pathway.