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Property management companies and owners’ organisations which have successfully applied for an anti-epidemic support scheme were reminded today to disburse the hardship allowance to frontline workers as soon as practicable upon receiving the subsidies.

The Home Affairs Department said the workers concerned shall acknowledge receipt of the allowance using the prescribed forms.

The property management companies or owners’ organisations shall submit a report on the allowance’s overall payment to the Property Management Services Authority within three months of receiving the subsidies.

The department and/or the authority will conduct a random review and check to ensure that the frontline property management workers have received the allowance.

As of today, more than 8,160 applications have been received for the Anti-epidemic Support Scheme for Property Management Sector under the Anti-epidemic Fund.

About 2,850 applications have been approved, involving more than $100 million in subsidies and benefitting more than 17,500 building blocks and about 25,500 frontline workers.

Call 3696 1156 or 3696 1166 for enquiries.

All the details on Uber's biggest announcements as well as updates on the controversial company's trials and tribulations

Education secretary, Damian Hinds, wants schools across the UK to “take advantage of all of the opportunities available through Edtech” in the government's new strategy

The Treasury has announced a new set of financial measures aimed at helping startups during the coronavirus pandemic, including a £250 Future Fund for startups with at least £250,000 in funding

The Immigration Department announced today that the operation of all nine Smart Identity Card Replacement Centres will be fully resumed on May 11 in light of the more stabilised epidemic situation.

The department earlier suspended the replacement of Hong Kong identity cards at the centres to avoid the increased risk of spreading COVID-19.

To arrange for people affected by the service suspension to replace their identity cards in an orderly manner, the Secretary for Security has made an amendment order to revise the replacement period for people born in 1957 to 1963 and 1970 to 1976 and the arrangement for members of the sixth term of District Councils.

Click here for the arrangements.

If the replacement of identity cards needs to be suspended again in the future to cope with a sudden turn of the epidemic situation, the amendment order also provides that if all the centres are not in service for a period of 21 working days or more from May 11 to July 27 for public health reasons, the specified period for the above people will be further extended or amended.

The amendment order will be tabled at the Legislative Council on May 13 for negative vetting.

To reduce crowd gatherings, applicants who have not made appointments previously should do so via the Internet, the department’s mobile application or the 24-hour hotline at 2121 1234.

The department also appealed to applicants to pre-fill the application form when making appointments through the Internet or mobile application.

For details click here or call 2824 6111.

Hong Kong Exchanges & Clearing Limited (HKEx) today announced that Charles Li will not seek reappointment as Chief Executive at the end of his current contract in October 2021.

The Government said it respected Mr Li's decision and expressed deep appreciation for his exemplary contribution to the development of the financial market during his tenure as HKEx Chief Executive in the past decade.

Since taking the helm in January 2010, he has led HKEx and Hong Kong’s capital market in achieving important breakthroughs one after another.

The vibrancy and growth that Mr Li has brought to Hong Kong in the capital market helps reinforce the status of Hong Kong as a leading international financial centre.

Financial Secretary Paul Chan said: "Thanks to his vision and leadership, Mr Li has laid a solid and strong foundation for our stock market, rendering Hong Kong the largest IPO market in the world for seven times in the past 11 years.

"He has been instrumental in the successful launch of mutual market access programmes between Hong Kong and the Mainland, notably the Shanghai-Hong Kong Stock Connect in 2014, which was expanded to include Shenzhen-Hong Kong Stock Connect in 2016 and Bond Connect in 2017.

"He also played a pivotal role in the launch of new listing regime in Hong Kong, the enhanced internationalisation of HKEx and its international visibility. These are all important achievements of HKEx in the past few years under Mr Li’s able leadership."

Mr Chan added that the Government is confident the HKEx board will continue to ensure the success of HKEx in the years to come.

Telomeres are specific nucleoprotein structures that are located at the ends of linear eukaryotic chromosomes and play crucial roles in genomic stability. Telomere DNA consists of simple repeats of a short G-rich sequence: TTAGGG in mammals and TTTAGGG in most plants. In recent years, the mammalian telomeric G-rich repeats have been shown to form G-quadruplex (G4) structures, which are crucial for modulating telomere functions. Surprisingly, even though plant telomeres are essential for plant growth, development, and environmental adaptions, only few reports exist on plant telomeric G4 DNA (pTG4). Here, using bulk and single-molecule assays, including CD spectroscopy, and single-molecule FRET approaches, we comprehensively characterized the structure and dynamics of a typical plant telomeric sequence, d[GGG(TTTAGGG)3]. We found that this sequence can fold into mixed G4s in potassium, including parallel and antiparallel structures. We also directly detected intermediate dynamic transitions, including G-hairpin, parallel G-triplex, and antiparallel G-triplex structures. Moreover, we observed that pTG4 is unfolded by the AtRecQ2 helicase but not by AtRecQ3. The results of our work shed light on our understanding about the existence, topological structures, stability, intermediates, unwinding, and functions of pTG4.

β-1,3-d-Glucan is a ubiquitous glucose polymer produced by plants, bacteria, and most fungi. It has been used as a diagnostic tool in patients with invasive mycoses via a highly-sensitive reagent consisting of the blood coagulation system of horseshoe crab. However, no method is currently available for measuring β-1,6-glucan, another primary β-glucan structure of fungal polysaccharides. Herein, we describe the development of an economical and highly-sensitive and specific assay for β-1,6-glucan using a modified recombinant endo-β-1,6-glucanase having diminished glucan hydrolase activity. The purified β-1,6-glucanase derivative bound to the β-1,6-glucan pustulan with a KD of 16.4 nm. We validated the specificity of this β-1,6-glucan probe by demonstrating its ability to detect cell wall β-1,6-glucan from both yeast and hyphal forms of the opportunistic fungal pathogen Candida albicans, without any detectable binding to glucan lacking the long β-1,6-glucan branch. We developed a sandwich ELISA-like assay with a low limit of quantification for pustulan (1.5 pg/ml), and we successfully employed this assay in the quantification of extracellular β-1,6-glucan released by >250 patient-derived strains of different Candida species (including Candida auris) in culture supernatant in vitro. We also used this assay to measure β-1,6-glucan in vivo in the serum and in several organs in a mouse model of systemic candidiasis. Our work describes a reliable method for β-1,6-glucan detection, which may prove useful for the diagnosis of invasive fungal infections.

VOLUME 295 (2020) PAGES 3285–3300An incorrect graph was used in Fig. 5C. This error has now been corrected. Additionally, some of the statistics reported in the legend and text referring to Fig. 5C were incorrect. The F statistics for Fig. 5C should state Fken(3,16) = 7.454, p < 0.01; FCCCP(1,16) = 102.9, p < 0.0001; Finteraction(3,16) = 7.480, p < 0.01. This correction does not affect the results or conclusions of this work.jbc;295/17/5835/F5F1F5Figure 5C.

Type 2 diabetes mellitus (T2DM) is characterized by impaired glucose-stimulated insulin secretion and increased peripheral insulin resistance. Unremitting endoplasmic reticulum (ER) stress can lead to beta-cell apoptosis and has been linked to type 2 diabetes. Although many studies have attempted to link ER stress and T2DM, the specific effects of ER stress on beta-cell function remain incompletely understood. To determine the interrelationship between ER stress and beta-cell function, here we treated insulin-secreting INS-1(832/13) cells or isolated mouse islets with the ER stress–inducer tunicamycin (TM). TM induced ER stress as expected, as evidenced by activation of the unfolded protein response. Beta cells treated with TM also exhibited concomitant alterations in their electrical activity and cytosolic free Ca2+ oscillations. As ER stress is known to reduce ER Ca2+ levels, we tested the hypothesis that the observed increase in Ca2+ oscillations occurred because of reduced ER Ca2+ levels and, in turn, increased store-operated Ca2+ entry. TM-induced cytosolic Ca2+ and membrane electrical oscillations were acutely inhibited by YM58483, which blocks store-operated Ca2+ channels. Significantly, TM-treated cells secreted increased insulin under conditions normally associated with only minimal release, e.g. 5 mm glucose, and YM58483 blocked this secretion. Taken together, these results support a critical role for ER Ca2+ depletion–activated Ca2+ current in mediating Ca2+-induced insulin secretion in response to ER stress.

VOLUME 295 (2020) PAGES 1898–1914Yichen Zhong's name was misspelled. The correct spelling is shown above.

The developing nervous system is remarkably sensitive to environmental signals, including disruptive toxins, such as polybrominated diphenyl ethers (PBDEs). PBDEs are an environmentally pervasive class of brominated flame retardants whose neurodevelopmental toxicity mechanisms remain largely unclear. Using dissociated cortical neurons from embryonic Rattus norvegicus, we found here that chronic exposure to 6-OH–BDE-47, one of the most prevalent hydroxylated PBDE metabolites, suppresses both spontaneous and evoked neuronal electrical activity. On the basis of our previous work on mitogen-activated protein kinase (MAPK)/extracellular signal-related kinase (ERK) (MEK) biology and our observation that 6-OH–BDE-47 is structurally similar to kinase inhibitors, we hypothesized that certain hydroxylated PBDEs mediate neurotoxicity, at least in part, by impairing the MEK–ERK axis of MAPK signal transduction. We tested this hypothesis on three experimental platforms: 1) in silico, where modeling ligand–protein docking suggested that 6-OH–BDE-47 is a promiscuous ATP-competitive kinase inhibitor; 2) in vitro in dissociated neurons, where 6-OH–BDE-47 and another specific hydroxylated BDE metabolite similarly impaired phosphorylation of MEK/ERK1/2 and activity-induced transcription of a neuronal immediate early gene; and 3) in vivo in Drosophila melanogaster, where developmental exposures to 6-OH–BDE-47 and a MAPK inhibitor resulted in offspring displaying similarly increased frequency of mushroom-body β–lobe midline crossing, a metric of axonal guidance. Taken together, our results support that certain ortho-hydroxylated PBDE metabolites are promiscuous kinase inhibitors and can cause disruptions of critical neurodevelopmental processes, including neuronal electrical activity, pre-synaptic functions, MEK–ERK signaling, and axonal guidance.