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Toxic organic pollutants in the environment cause potential threats to ecosystem and human health. Microbial consortia demonstrate efficient degradation of organic pollutants and bioremediation. Here, we summarize the main sources of microbial consortia, and discuss the biodegradation efficiencies, pathways and mechanism of different organic pollutants. Current enriched microbial consortia including bacteria and fungi are derived mainly from sediment, contaminated soil, and sewage sludge. The enriched or synthetic microbial consortia generally exhibit high degradation efficiencies (∼100%) for polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons, total petroleum hydrocarbons and phthalates, while relatively low degradation efficiencies (∼85%) for polychlorinated biphenyls. Microbial consortia display more proficient degradation of organic pollutants than the individual strains (or co-culture than monoculture). These organic pollutants can be degraded by microbial consortia through different pathways as confirmed by the identified intermediates. Interestingly, these pollutants share the similar downstream degradation pathways via phthalic acid, benzoic acid (or benzoate), catechol, and ring-cleavage pathways in spite of their differentiation in upper degradation pathways. The degradation mechanisms of organic pollutants by consortia are reviewed and their biochemical pathways are reconstructed based on crucial pollutant-degraders and functional genes annotated by high-throughput sequencing and/or metagenomics. Here, it is the first time to summarize the common biodegradation pathways for multiple classes of organic pollutants by microbial consortia. Notably, some key species of microbial consortia play important roles in biodegradation and transformation of organic pollutants, and can remove pollutants via co-metabolism and bacterial-fungal interaction. Furthermore, microbial consortia significantly promote pollutant removals from wastewater, the contaminated sediment and soil, suggesting their potential broad applications. Finally, we highlight knowledge gaps and prospects for researches, such as achieving more versatile microbial consortia, exploring biodegradation efficiencies and mechanism for recalcitrant persistent/emerging organic pollutants and the interaction of bacterial-fungal consortia. [Display omitted] • Degradation efficiency, pathway, mechanism of pollutants by consortia are summarized. • Microbial consortia exhibit high degradation efficiencies for PAHs, PCBs, PAEs, TPHs. • Biochemical pathways of pollutant based on intermediates and microbial genes are supplied. • PAHs, PCBs and PAEs share the similar downstream biodegradation pathways. • Consortia greatly promote bioremediation of wastewater, contaminated soil and sediments. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Objective: In this study, we examined the value of chest CT signs combined with peripheral blood eosinophil percentage in differentiating between pulmonary paragonimiasis and tuberculous pleurisy in children. Methods: Patients with pulmonary paragonimiasis and tuberculous pleurisy were retrospectively enrolled from January 2019 to April 2023 at the Kunming Third People's Hospital and Lincang People's Hospital. There were 69 patients with pulmonary paragonimiasis (paragonimiasis group) and 89 patients with tuberculous pleurisy (tuberculosis group). Clinical symptoms, chest CT imaging findings, and laboratory test results were analyzed. Using binary logistic regression, an imaging model of CT signs and a combined model of CT signs and eosinophils were developed to calculate and compare the differential diagnostic performance of the two models. Results: CT signs were used to establish the imaging model, and the receiver operating characteristic (ROC) curve was plotted. The area under the curve (AUC) was 0.856 (95% CI: 0.799–0.913), the sensitivity was 66.7%, and the specificity was 88.9%. The combined model was established using the CT signs and eosinophil percentage, and the ROC was plotted. The AUC curve was 0.950 (95% CI: 0.919–0.980), the sensitivity was 89.9%, and the specificity was 90.1%. The differential diagnostic efficiency of the combined model was higher than that of the imaging model, and the difference in AUC was statistically significant. Conclusion: The combined model has a higher differential diagnosis efficiency than the imaging model in the differentiation of pulmonary paragonimiasis and tuberculous pleurisy in children. The presence of a tunnel sign on chest CT, the absence of pulmonary nodules, and an elevated percentage of peripheral blood eosinophils are indicative of pulmonary paragonimiasis in children. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Multiple nanos genes have been characterized in several fishes, but the functional implications of their various expression patterns remain unclear. In this study, we identified and characterized four nanos genes from a hermaphroditic fish orange-spotted grouper, Epinephelus coioides. Ecnanos1a and Ecnanos1b show divergent expression patterns, and the dynamic expression change of Ecnanos1a in pituitaries during sex change is associated with testis differentiation and spermatogenesis. Ecnanos2 and Ecnanos3 might be germline stem cells (GSCs) and primordial germ cells (PGCs)-specific markers, respectively. Significantly, Ecnanos3 3′-untranslated region (UTR) is necessary for PGC specific expression, where a non-canonical “GCACGTTT” sequence is required for miR-430-mediated repression of Ecnanos3 RNA. Furthermore, grouper Dead end (Dnd) can relieve miR-430 repression in PGCs by associating with a 23 bp U-rich region (URR) in Ecnanos3 3′-UTR. The current study revealed the functional association of multiple nanos genes with PGC formation and germ cell development in orange-spotted grouper, and opened up new possibilities for developing biotechnologies through utilizing the associations between Ecnanos3 and PGCs or between Ecnanos2 and GSCs in the hermaphroditic fish. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]