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Epimedium is a Chinese herb known as "yin and yang fire," first mentioned in the Compendium of Materia Medica. Many of the proprietary Chinese medicines used in clinical practice contain Epimedium as an ingredient, and its main active constituents include icariin, icaritin, and icariside II, among others. In addition to its traditional use in treating fatigue and sexual problems, modern research has confirmed that the main bioactive compounds in Epimedium have pharmacological effects such as antidepressant, antibacterial, antiviral, antioxidant, and anti-inflammatory properties, as well as inhibiting bone destruction, promoting bone growth, improving immune regulation and protecting the cardio-cerebral vascular system. With the continuous development of extraction and purification techniques, the development and use of bioactive compounds in Epimedium have significantly progressed, and the anticancer effect has received widespread attention. Since natural herbs have few side effects on the human body and do not easily develop drug resistance, they have long been the direction of research in cancer treatment. This review summarizes the latest research on the anticancer effects of Epimedium and its extracts, describes the bioactive compounds, pharmacological efficacy, and antitumor mechanism of Epimedium , and gives a new view on the administration and development of Epimedium .

Acute kidney injury (AKI) is a common, multicause clinical condition that, if ignored, often progresses to chronic kidney disease (CKD) and end-stage kidney disease, with a mortality rate of 40-50%. However, there is a lack of universal treatment for AKI. Inflammation is the basic pathological change of early kidney injury, and inflammation can exacerbate AKI. Macrophages are the primary immune cells involved in the inflammatory microenvironment of kidney disease. Therefore, regulating the function of macrophages is a crucial breakthrough for the AKI intervention. Our team chemically modified pyxinol, an ocotillol-type ginsenoside, to prepare PJ16 with higher solubility and bioavailability. In vitro, using a model of macrophages stimulated by LPS, it was found that PJ16 could regulate macrophage function, including inhibiting the secretion of inflammatory factors, promoting phagocytosis, inhibiting M1 macrophages, and promoting M1 transition to the M2c macrophage. Further investigation revealed that PJ16 may shield renal tubular epithelial cells (HK-2) damaged by LPS in vitro. Based on this, PJ16 was validated in the animal model of unilateral ureteral obstruction, which showed that it improves renal function and inhibits renal tissue fibrosis by decreasing inflammatory responses, reducing macrophage inflammatory infiltration, and preferentially upregulating M2c macrophages. In conclusion, our study is the first to show that PJ16 resists AKI and fibrosis by mechanistically regulating macrophage function by modulating the phenotypic transition from M1 to M2 macrophages, mainly M2c macrophages.

Consumer acceptance of Keitt mangoes ( Mangifera indica L.) is significantly affected by their slow postharvest ripening. This work used gaseous chlorine dioxide (ClO 2 (g)) to prepare the ready-to-eat Keitt mango and explored the potential mechanisms for the mango ripening. Harvested mangoes were treated with 20 mg·L -1 of ClO 2 (g) or ethephon for 3 h (25 °C) and left in a climatic chamber with a temperature of 25 ± 1 °C and a relative humidity of 85 ± 5% for 4 d. The results showed that ClO 2 (g) treatment significantly promoted the orange coloration of mango flesh compared to the untreated control group. Moreover, ClO 2 (g) treatment significantly elevated the total soluble solids, total soluble sugar, and total carotenoids content of mangoes, whereas the firmness and titratable acidity were reduced. ClO 2 (g)-treated mangoes reached the edible window on day 2, as did mangoes treated with ethephon at the same concentration, except that the sweetness was prominent. The residual ClO 2 level of the mangoes was <0.3 mg/kg during the whole storage time, which is a safe level for fruit. In addition, ClO 2 (g) significantly advanced the onset of ethylene peaks by 0.5 days and increased its production between days 0.5 and 2 compared to the control group. Consistently, the genes involved in ethylene biosynthesis including miACS6 , miACO1 , and miACO were upregulated. In sum, ClO 2 (g) can be a potential technique to reduce the time for harvested mango to reach the edible window, and it functions in modulating postharvest ripening by inducing ethylene biosynthesis.

We demonstrate a robust single-photon Ramsey interferometer based on a single Rydberg excitation, where the photon is stored as a Rydberg polariton in an ensemble of atoms. This coherent conversion of the photon to Rydberg polariton enables to split an incoming photon into a superposition state of two Rydberg states by applying microwave fields, which constructs two paths of interferometer. Ramsey interference fringes are demonstrated when we scan either the detuning of the microwave or the free evolution time, from which we can obtain the resonant transition frequency of two Rydberg states. We use the Ramsey-like sequence to demonstrate coherent manipulation of the stored single-photon to construct different interference patterns. In addition, the robustness of the Ramsey interferometer to the fluctuation of incoming photon numbers and optical depth (OD) of the atomic ensemble is tested, showing that the coherent of Ramsey interferometer is preserved for input photon number in a range of R in  < 15 and for OD varying from 1.0 to 4.0. The robust interferometer will find its applications in quantum precision measurement.

The study explored the biofilm (BF) formation capacity, BF-related gene profiles, and the trends in antimicrobial resistance (AMR) of Salmonella pullorum (SP) strains over several years. A total of 627 SP strains were isolated from 4,540 samples collected from chicken farms in Guangxi, China during 2018-2022. The BF-forming capacity of these isolates was assessed using crystal violet staining, and the presence of eight BF-related genes ( csgA, csgB, csgD, ompR, bapA, pfs, luxS , and rpoS ) in BF formation-positive strains was determined through Polymerase Chain Reaction (PCR) analysis. Antimicrobial susceptibility test was conducted to investigate the AMR of the isolates. Minimum Inhibitory Concentration (MIC) and Minimal Biofilm Eradication Concentration (MBEC) of nine SP-BF strains were determined using the broth microdilution method to assess the impact of BF formation on AMR. Additionally, the Optimal Biofilm Formation Conditions (OBFC) were investigated. The results indicated that 36.8% (231/627) of the strains exhibited a positive BF-formation capacity. Among these, 24.7% (57/231) were strong BF producers, 23.4% (54/231) were moderate BF producers, and 51.9% (120/231) were weak BF producers. Analysis of the eight BF-related genes in SP-BF strains revealed that over 90% of them were positive for all the genes. Antimicrobial susceptibility test conducted on the isolates showed that 100% (231/231) of them exhibited resistance to at least one antibiotic, with 98.3% (227/231) demonstrating multidrug resistance (MDR). Both MIC and MBEC measurements indicated varying degrees of increased AMR after BF formation of the bacteria. The optimal conditions for BF formation were observed at 37°C after 48 h of incubation, with an initial bacterial concentration of 1.2 × 10 6 CFU/mL. Notably, NaCl had a significant inhibitory effect on BF formation, while glucose and Trypticase Soy Broth (TSB) positively influenced BF formation. The results of the study emphasized the need for effective preventive and control strategies to address the challenges posed by the BF formation and MDR of SP in the field., Competing Interests: The authors declare that the research was conducted in the absence of any commercial or financial relationships that could be construed as a potential conflict of interest., (Copyright © 2023 Chen, Xu, Li, Wang, Wang, Liang and Wei.)

The critical role of the G protein-coupled receptor 1 (GPER1), a member of the seven-transmembrane G protein-coupled receptor family, in the functional regulation of oocytes accumulated abundant theories in the early research on model animals. However, the full-length cDNA encoding GPER1 and its role in the folliculogenesis has not been illustrated in crocodilians. 0.5, 3, and 12 months old Alligator sinensis cDNA samples were used to clone the full-length cDNA encoding GPER1. Immunolocalization and quantitative analysis were performed using Immunofluorescence technique, RT-PCR and Western blot. Simultaneously, studies on GPER1's promoter deletion and cis-acting transcriptional regulation mechanism were conducted. Immunolocalization staining for the germline marker DDX4 and GPER1 demonstrated that DDX4-positive oocytes were clustered tightly together within the nests, whereas scarcely any detectable GPER1 was present in the oocytes nest in Stage I. After that, occasionally GPER1-positive immunosignal was observed in oocytes and somatic cells additional with the primordial follicles, and it was mainly located at the granulosa cells or thecal cells within the early PFs in the Stage III. The single mutation of the putative SP1 motif, double mutating of Ets/SP1 and SP1/CRE binding sites all depressed promoter activities. This result will help to investigate the role of GPER1 in the early folliculogenesis of A. sinensis., Competing Interests: Declaration of Competing Interest We declare that we have no financial and personal relationships with other people or organizations that can inappropriately influence our work, there is no professional or other personal interest of any nature or kind in any product, service and/or company that could be construed as influencing the position presented in, or the review of, the manuscript entitled, “G-protein couple receptor (GPER1) plays an important role during ovarian folliculogenesis and early development of the Chinese Alligator”., (Copyright © 2023 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.)

We demonstrate a coherent microwave manipulation of a single optical photon based on a single Rydberg excitation in an atomic ensemble. Due to the strong nonlinearities in a Rydberg blockade region, a single photon can be stored in the formation of Rydberg polariton using electromagnetically induced transparency (EIT). The manipulation of the stored single photon is performed by applying a microwave field that resonantly couples the nS 1/2 and nP 3/2 , while the coherent readout is performed by mapping the excitation into a single photon. We achieve a single photon source with g (2) (0) = 0.29 ± 0.08 at 80S 1/2 without applying microwave fields. By implementing the microwave field during the storage time and retrieval process, we show the Rabi oscillation and modulation of stored photons that can be controlled to retrieve early or late. Rapid modulation frequencies up to 50 MHz can be obtained. Our experimental observations can be well explained via numerical simulations based on an improved superatom model accounting for the dipole-dipole interactions in a Rydberg EIT medium. Our work provides a way to manipulate the stored photons by employing the microwave field, which is significant for developing quantum technologies.

Staphylococcus aureus is a food-borne pathogen that quickly forms biofilm on meat contact surfaces and thus poses a serious threat to the safety of the meat industry. This study evaluated the attachment, survival, and growth of S. aureus biofilm with exposure to environmental factors in the meat industry by simulated ready-to-eat (RTE) cooked beef product contamination scenarios. The results indicated that the meat-borne S. aureus biofilm formation dynamic could be divided into four different phases: initial adhesion (4-12 h), exponential (12-24 h), slow growth (1-3 days), and stationary (3-7 days). Meat-borne S. aureus has strong adhesion and biofilm formation ability, and its biofilm exhibits persistence, high-intensity metabolic activity, aerotaxis, and strain heterogeneity. This study has also demonstrated that in the long-term existence of meat-borne S. aureus biofilm on stainless steel and plexiglass surfaces (>7 days, 7.2-8.8 log CFU/cm 2 ), expose to RTE cooked beef products, may cause it to become high-risk contaminated food. Meat-borne S. aureus that forms a dense and rough concave-convex in the shape of biofilm architecture was observed by scanning electron microscopy, consisting of complex components and adhesion of living and dead cells. This was further confirmed by the meat-borne S. aureus biofilm on the stainless steel surface by attenuated total reflectance Fourier transformed infrared spectroscopy, and the dominant peaks in biofilm spectra were mainly associated with proteins, polysaccharides, amino acid residues, and phospholipids (>50%). These findings may help in the identification of the main sources of contamination within the meat industry and the subsequent establishment of strategies for biofilm prevention and removal. PRACTICAL APPLICATION: This study revealed the meat-borne S. aureus biofilm formation mechanism and found that it exhibited strong colonization and biofilm-forming ability, which can persist on the contact surfaces of ready-to-eat beef products. These initial findings could provide information on the behavior of meat-borne S. aureus biofilm attached to meat contact surfaces under conditions commonly encountered in meat environments, which help to support the determination of the main sources of contamination within the meat industry and the subsequent establishment of strategies for biofilm prevention and removal. It was also helpful in controlling biofilm contamination and improving meat safety to minimize it., (© 2023 Institute of Food Technologists.)

This study aimed to investigate the growth kinetics of S. aureus and different concentrations of background microbiota in Chinese-style braised beef (CBB). A one-step analysis method was applied to develop predictive model to describe the simultaneous growth and interaction of S. aureus with different concentrations of background microbiota in CBB. The results show that a one-step method successfully models the growth of S. aureus and background microbiota in CBB and the competing interactions between the two. In sterile CBB, the estimated minimum growth temperatures (T min,S ) and the maximum growth concentrations (Y max,S ) were 8.76 °C and 9.58 log CFU/g for S. aureus. Under competition, the growth of background microbiota was not affected by S. aureus, the estimated T min,B and Y max,B was 4.46 °C and 9.94 log CFU/g. The background microbiota in CBB did not affect the growth rate of S. aureus (α 1  = 1.04), but had an inhibitory effect on the number of S. aureus (α 2  = 0.69) at the later growth stage. The Root Mean Square Error (RMSE) of the modeling data was 0.34 log CFU/g, with 85.5% of the residual errors within ±0.5 log CFU/g of experimental observations. The one-step analysis and dynamic temperatures (8 °C-32 °C) verification indicated that the RMSE of prediction was <0.5 log CFU/g for both S. aureus and background microbiota. This study demonstrates that microbial interaction models are a useful and promising tool for predicting and evaluating the spatiotemporal population dynamics of S. aureus and background microbiota in CBB products., Competing Interests: Declaration of Competing Interest The authors declare that the research was conducted in the absence of any commercial or financial relationships that could be construed as a potential conflict of interest., (Copyright © 2023. Published by Elsevier Ltd.)

Accurate HIV incidence estimation based on individual recent infection status (recent vs long-term infection) is important for monitoring the epidemic, targeting interventions to those at greatest risk of new infection, and evaluating existing programs of prevention and treatment. Starting from 2015, the Population-based HIV Impact Assessment (PHIA) individual-level surveys are implemented in the most-affected countries in sub-Saharan Africa. PHIA is a nationally-representative HIV-focused survey that combines household visits with key questions and cutting-edge technologies such as biomarker tests for HIV antibody and HIV viral load which offer the unique opportunity of distinguishing between recent infection and long-term infection, and providing relevant HIV information by age, gender, and location. In this article, we propose a semi-supervised logistic regression model for estimating individual level HIV recency status. It incorporates information from multiple data sources - the PHIA survey where the true HIV recency status is unknown, and the cohort studies provided in the literature where the relationship between HIV recency status and the covariates are presented in the form of a contingency table. It also utilizes the national level HIV incidence estimates from the epidemiology model. Applying the proposed model to Malawi PHIA data, we demonstrate that our approach is more accurate for the individual level estimation and more appropriate for estimating HIV recency rates at aggregated levels than the current practice - the binary classification tree (BCT).

Aldo-keto reductase family 1 member C3 (AKR1C3) plays an important role in prostate cancer (PCa) progression, particularly in castration-resistant prostate cancer (CRPC). It is necessary to establish a genetic signature associated with AKR1C3 that can be used to predict the prognosis of PCa patients and provide important information for clinical treatment decisions. AKR1C3-related genes were identified via label-free quantitative proteomics of the AKR1C3-overexpressing LNCaP cell line. A risk model was constructed through the analysis of clinical data, PPI, and Cox-selected risk genes. Cox regression analysis, Kaplan-Meier (K-M) curves, and receiver operating characteristic (ROC) curves were used to verify the accuracy of the model, and two external datasets were used to verify the reliability of the results. Subsequently, the tumor microenvironment and drug sensitivity were explored. Moreover, the roles of AKR1C3 in the progression of PCa were verified in LNCaP cells. MTT, colony formation, and EdU assays were conducted to explore cell proliferation and drug sensitivity to enzalutamide. Migration and invasion abilities were measured using wound-healing and transwell assays, and qPCR was used to assess the expression levels of AR target genes and EMT genes. CDC20, SRSF3, UQCRH, INCENP, TIMM10, TIMM13, POLR2L, and NDUFAB1 were identified as AKR1C3-associated risk genes. These risk genes, established using the prognostic model, can effectively predict the recurrence status, immune microenvironment, and drug sensitivity of PCa. Tumor-infiltrating lymphocytes and several immune checkpoints that promote cancer progression were higher in high-risk groups. Furthermore, there was a close correlation between the sensitivity of PCa patients to bicalutamide and docetaxel and the expression levels of the eight risk genes. Moreover, through in vitro experiments, Western blotting confirmed that AKR1C3 enhanced SRSF3, CDC20, and INCENP expression. We found that PCa cells with a high expression of AKR1C3 have high proliferation ability and high migration ability and were insensitive to enzalutamide. AKR1C3-associated genes had a significant role in the process of PCa, immune responses, and drug sensitivity and offer the potential for a novel model for prognostic prediction in PCa.

In order to prevent pullorum disease and fowl typhoid in breeders, the use of oregano essential oil (OEO) was tested for the prevention and treatment of infections of multidrug-resistant Salmonella pullorum (SP) and Salmonella gallinarum (SG) in commercial Yellow-chicken breeders. In the challenge-protection experiment, commercial Hongguang-Black 1-day-old breeder chicks were randomly divided into four groups, including A (challenged, preventive dose), B (challenged, treatment dose), C (challenged, untreated), and D (unchallenged, untreated). Group A was supplemented with 200 μL/L OEO in the drinking water during the whole trial (1-35 days of age) and group B was supplemented with 400 μL/L OEO during 8-12 days of age, while groups C and D were kept as untreated controls. At 7 days of age, birds of groups A, B, and C were divided into two subgroups with equal number of birds (A 1 -A 2 , B 1 -B 2 , and C 1 -C 2 ), and then subgroups A 1 , B 1 , and C 1 were challenged with SP, while subgroups A 2 , B 2 , and C 2 were challenged with SG. Clinical symptoms and death were observed and recorded daily. Every week during the experiment, serum antibodies against SP and SG of all the groups were detected by the plate agglutinate test (PAT). At the age of 35 days, all birds were weighed and necropsied, lesions were recorded and the challenging pathogens were isolated. The results showed that the positive rates of SP and SG isolation in groups A 1 , A 2 and B 1 , B 2 were significantly lower ( P < 0.05) than those of groups C 1 and C 2 , respectively, while groups A 1 and A 2 were slightly lower ( P > 0.05) than those of groups B 1 and B 2 . The average body weight (BW) of groups A 1 and A 2 were significantly higher ( P < 0.05) than those of groups B 1 , B 2 and C 1 , C 2 , respectively, but there was no significant difference ( P > 0.05) with that of group D. The r -value between PAT positive and the recovery rates of Salmonella was 0.99, which means they are highly positively correlated. The results of this study demonstrated that the prevention dose (200μL/L) and the treatment dose (400 μL/L) of OEO supplemented in the drinking water could all effectively decrease infections of SP and SG and that the effect of the prevention was greater than that of the treatment and finally that the prevention could also significantly reduce the BW decline of birds challenged with SP and SG., Competing Interests: The authors declare that the research was conducted in the absence of any commercial or financial relationships that could be construed as a potential conflict of interest., (Copyright © 2022 Xu, Wang, Li, Wang, Chen, Zhou and Wei.)

Salmonella is capable of harming human and animal health, and its multidrug resistance (MDR) has always been a public health problem. In addition, antibiotic-free or antibiotic-reduced policies have been implemented in poultry production. Therefore, the search for antibiotic alternatives is more urgent than ever before. The aim of this study was to assess the antibacterial activity of star anise-cinnamon essential oil (SCEO) in vitro and its prophylactic effect against the infections of Salmonella pullorum , Salmonella give , and Salmonella kentucky in vivo. The results demonstrated that SCEO is effective against Salmonella pullorum , Salmonella give , and Salmonella kentucky in vitro. Supplementation with SCEO could significantly decrease the infections of Salmonella pullorum and Salmonella give , whereas it could slightly but not significantly decrease the infection of Salmonella kentucky , while also significantly alleviating the body weight (BW) loss caused by the infections of Salmonella pullorum , Salmonella give , and Salmonella kentucky in Yellow chickens. The SCEO had the best prophylactic effect against the infection of Salmonella give in Yellow chickens, followed by the infection of Salmonella pullorum and the infection of Salmonella kentucky . The SCEO, used as an antibiotic alternative, could be an effective prevention strategy against the infections of Salmonella pullorum , Salmonella give , and Salmonella kentucky in Yellow chickens.

In this work, a novel total non-ionic polystyrene-polyurethane (PS-PU) composite latex was synthesized with polymerizable polyethylene glycol ether. Contrary to traditional styrene-butyl acrylate latex (St-BA), PS-PU has a smaller size and superior dispersion stability, and it is stable in saturated Ca(OH) 2 even after 72 h. In fresh-mixed mortars, PS-PU showed a little adverse effect on workability and insignificant air entrainment, with little defoamer consumption. The retardation effect of PS-PU is also much milder than traditional St-BA. As for strength, PS-PU showed a less adverse effect on early and late age compressive strength, but its effect on flexural strength is not as pronounced as St-BA at high dosages (4% and 6%). The different behavior in cementitious materials between PS-PU and St-BA can be reasoned from their different adsorption behavior and surface charge properties, as the results from characterizations suggest. The non-ionic nature of PS-PU made it less prone to destabilization and adsorption, which turned out as the aforementioned behavior in cementitious systems. The difference can further be ascribed to the difference in their polymeric structure and properties.

Cronobacter sakazakii is a common foodborne pathogen, and the mortality rate of its infection is as high as 40-80%. SdiA acts as a quorum sensing regulator in many foodborne pathogens, but its role in C. sakazakii remains unclear. Here, we further determined the effect of the sdiA gene in C. sakazakii pathogenicity. The SdiA gene in C. sakazakii was knocked out by gene editing technology, and the biological characteristics of the Δ sdiA mutant of C. sakazakii were studied, followed by transcriptome analysis to elucidate its effects. The results suggested that SdiA gene enhanced the drug resistance of C. sakazakii but diminished its motility, adhesion and biofilm formation ability and had no effect on its growth. Transcriptome analysis showed that the Δ sdiA upregulated the expression levels of D-galactose operon genes (including dgoR , dgoK , dgoA , dgoD and dgoT ) and flagella-related genes ( FliA and FliC ) in C. sakazakii and downregulated the expression levels of related genes in the type VI secretion system ( VasK gene was downregulated by 1.53-fold) and ABC transport system (downregulated by 1.5-fold), indicating that SdiA gene was related to the physiological metabolism of C. sakazakii . The results were useful for clarifying the pathogenic mechanism of C. sakazakii and provide a theoretical basis for controlling bacterial infection., Competing Interests: The authors declare that the research was conducted in the absence of any commercial or financial relationships that could be construed as a potential conflict of interest., (Copyright © 2022 Cheng, Yan, Liu, Jiang, Zhou, Guo, Zhang, Li and Fang.)

In the research on energy-efficient networking methods for precision agriculture, a hot topic is the energy issue of sensing nodes for individual wireless sensor networks. The sensing nodes of the wireless sensor network should be enabled to provide better services with limited energy to support wide-range and multi-scenario acquisition and transmission of three-dimensional crop information. Further, the life cycle of the sensing nodes should be maximized under limited energy. The transmission direction and node power consumption are considered, and the forward and high-energy nodes are selected as the preferred cluster heads or data-forwarding nodes. Taking the cropland cultivation of ginseng as the background, we put forward a particle swarm optimization-based networking algorithm for wireless sensor networks with excellent performance. This algorithm can be used for precision agriculture and achieve optimal equipment configuration in a network under limited energy, while ensuring reliable communication in the network. The node scale is configured as 50 to 300 nodes in the range of 500 × 500 m2, and simulated testing is conducted with the LEACH, BCDCP, and ECHERP routing protocols. Compared with the existing LEACH, BCDCP, and ECHERP routing protocols, the proposed networking method can achieve the network lifetime prolongation and mitigate the decreased degree and decreasing trend of the distance between the sensing nodes and center nodes of the sensor network, which results in a longer network life cycle and stronger environment suitability. It is an effective method that improves the sensing node lifetime for a wireless sensor network applied to cropland cultivation of ginseng., Competing Interests: The authors have declared that no competing interests exist.

Objective: ARID1A has been discovered as a potential cancer biomarker. But its role in hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC) is subject to considerable dispute., Methods: The relationship between ARID1A and clinical factors was investigated. Clinicopathological variables related to overall survival in HCC subjects were identified using Cox and Kaplan-Meier studies. The connection between immune infiltrating cells and ARID1A expression was investigated using the tumor Genome Atlas (TCGA) dataset for gene set enrichment analysis (GSEA). Finally, a cell experiment was used to confirm it., Results: The gender and cancer topography (T) categorization of HCC were linked to increased ARID1A expression. Participants with advanced levels of ARID1A expression had a worse prognosis than someone with lower levels. ARID1A was shown to be a risk indicator of overall survival on its own. ARID1A expression is inversely proportional to immune cell infiltration. In vitro, decreasing ARID1A expression substantially slowed the cell cycle and decreased HCC cell proliferation, migration, and invasion., Conclusion: The expression of ARID1A could be used to predict the outcome of HCC. It is closely related to tumor immune cell infiltration., Competing Interests: The authors declare that there are no conflicts of interest., (Copyright © 2022 Yuanyuan Feng et al.)

In this paper, we propose a new projection test for linear hypotheses on regression coefficient matrices in linear models with high dimensional responses. We systematically study the theoretical properties of the proposed test. We first derive the optimal projection matrix for any given projection dimension to achieve the best power and provide an upper bound for the optimal dimension of projection matrix. We further provide insights into how to construct the optimal projection matrix. One- and two-sample mean problems can be formulated as special cases of linear hypotheses studied in this paper. We both theoretically and empirically demonstrate that the proposed test can outperform the existing ones for one- and two-sample mean problems. We conduct Monte Carlo simulation to examine the finite sample performance and illustrate the proposed test by a real data example.

The Population-based HIV Impact Assessment (PHIA) is an ongoing project that conducts nationally representative HIV-focused surveys for measuring national and regional progress toward UNAIDS' 90-90-90 targets, the primary strategy to end the HIV epidemic. We believe the PHIA survey offers a unique opportunity to better understand the key factors that drive the HIV epidemics in the most affected countries in sub-Saharan Africa. In this article, we propose a novel causal structural learning algorithm to discover important covariates and potential causal pathways for 90-90-90 targets. Existing constrained-based causal structural learning algorithms are quite aggressive in edge removal. The proposed algorithm preserves more information about important features and potential causal pathways. It is applied to the Malawi PHIA (MPHIA) data set and leads to interesting results. For example, it discovers age and condom usage to be important for female HIV awareness; the number of sexual partners to be important for male HIV awareness; and knowing the travel time to HIV care facilities leads to a higher chance of being treated for both females and males. We further compare and validate the proposed algorithm using BIC and using Monte Carlo simulations, and show that the proposed algorithm achieves improvement in true positive rates in important feature discovery over existing algorithms.

Bacterial type II toxin-antitoxin (TA) systems are abundant genetic elements and are involved in a diverse array of physiological processes. These systems encode an antitoxin protein that directly binds and effectively neutralizes the protein toxin. Recent studies have highlighted the key roles of type II TA modules in bacterial virulence and pathogenesis, but the underlying mechanisms remain unclear. Here, we investigated the antitoxin HigA in Pseudomonas aeruginosa infection. Proteomic analysis of the higA deletion strain revealed an enhanced expression of pathogenic proteins. We further verified that HigA negatively controlled T3SS and T6SS expression by directly interacting with the promoter regions of the regulators amrZ and exsA , respectively. In other words, the reversal of HigA-mediated transcriptional inhibition on stress stimulation could induce virulence genes. These findings confirm the crucial roles of the type II antitoxin in bacterial infection, which highlights the potential of the HigBA TA system as an antibacterial treatment target.

Background: Brain MRI is a promising technique for Parkinson's disease (PD) biomarker development. Its analysis, however, is hindered by the high-dimensional nature of the data, particularly when the sample size is relatively small., New Method: This study introduces a folded concave penalized machine learning scheme with spatial coupling fused penalty (fused FCP) to build biomarkers for PD directly from whole-brain voxel-wise MRI data. The penalized maximum likelihood estimation problem of the model is solved by local linear approximation., Results: The proposed approach is evaluated on synthetic and Parkinson's Progression Marker Initiative (PPMI) data. It achieves good AUC scores, accuracy in classification, and biomarker identification with a relatively small sample size, and the results are robust for different tuning parameter choices. On the PPMI data, the proposed method discovers over 80 % of large regions of interest (ROIs) identified by the voxel-wise method, as well as potential new ROIs., Comparison With Existing Methods: The fused FCP approach is compared with L1, fused-L1, and FCP method using three popular machine learning algorithms, logistic regression, support vector machine, and linear discriminant analysis, as well as the voxel-wise method, on both synthetic and PPMI datasets. The fused FCP method demonstrated better accuracy in separating PD from controls than L1 and fused-L1 methods, and similar performance when compared with FCP method. In addition, the fused FCP method showed better ROI identification., Conclusions: The fused FCP method can be an effective approach for MRI biomarker discovery in PD and other studies using high dimensionality data/low sample sizes., (Copyright © 2021 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.)

Bacterial Mip-like FK506-binding proteins (FKBPs) mostly exhibit peptidyl-prolyl-cis/ trans -isomerase (PPIase) and chaperone activities. These activities are associated with various intracellular functions with diverse molecular mechanisms. Herein, we report the PA3262 gene-encoded crystal structure of the Pseudomonas aeruginosa PAO1's Mip-like protein PaFkbA. Biochemical characterization of PaFkbA demonstrated PaFkbA's chaperone activity for periplasmic protein MucD, a negative regulator of alginate biosynthesis. Furthermore, structural analysis of PaFkbA was used to describe the key features of PaFkbA chaperone activity. The outcomes of this analysis showed that the hinge region in the connecting helix of PaFbkA leads to the crucial conformational state transition for PaFkbA activity. Besides, the N-terminal domains participated in dimerization, and revealed its potential connection with FKBP domain and substrate binding. Mutagenesis and chaperone activity assay supported the theory that inter-domain motions are essential for PaFkbA function. These results provide biochemical and structural insights into the mechanism for FKBP's chaperone activity and establish a plausible correlation between PaFkbA and P. aeruginosa MucD., Competing Interests: The authors declare that they have no known competing financial interests or personal relationships that could have appeared to influence the work reported in this paper., (© 2021 The Authors.)

Type II toxin-antitoxin (TA) systems modulate many essential cellular processes in prokaryotic organisms. Recent studies indicate certain type II antitoxins also transcriptionally regulate other genes, besides neutralizing toxin activity. Herein, we investigated the diverse transcriptional repression properties of type II TA antitoxin PaHigA from Pseudomonas aeruginosa. Biochemical and functional analyses showed that PaHigA recognized variable pseudopalindromic DNA sequences and repressed expression of multiple genes. Furthermore, we presented high resolution structures of apo-PaHigA, PaHigA-P higBA and PaHigA-P pa2440 complex, describing how the rearrangements of the HTH domain accounted for the different DNA-binding patterns among HigA homologues. Moreover, we demonstrated that the N-terminal loop motion of PaHigA was associated with its apo and DNA-bound states, reflecting a switch mechanism regulating HigA antitoxin function. Collectively, this work extends our understanding of how the PaHigB/HigA system regulates multiple metabolic pathways to balance the growth and stress response in P. aeruginosa and could guide further development of anti-TA oriented strategies for pathogen treatment., (© 2020 Society for Applied Microbiology and John Wiley & Sons Ltd.)

The objective of this study was to develop a dynamic model for predicting the growth of Listeria monocytogenes in pasteurized cow milk under fluctuating temperature conditions during storage and temperature abuse. Six dynamic temperature profiles that simulated random fluctuation patterns were designed to change arbitrarily between 4 and 30°C. The growth data collected from 3 independent temperature profiles were used to determine the kinetic parameters and construct a growth model combining the primary and secondary models using a 1-step dynamic analysis method. The results showed that the estimated minimum growth temperature and maximum cell concentration were 0.6 ± 0.2°C and 7.8 ± 0.1 log cfu/mL (mean ± standard error), with the root mean square error (RMSE) only 0.3 log cfu/mL for model development. The model and the associated kinetic parameters were validated using the data collected under both dynamic and isothermal conditions, which were not used for model development, to verify the accuracy of prediction. The RMSE of prediction was approximately 0.3 log cfu/mL for fluctuating temperature profiles, and it was between 0.2 and 1.1 log cfu/mL under certain isothermal temperatures (2-30°C). The resulting model and kinetic parameters were further validated using 3 growth curves at 4, 7, and 10°C arbitrarily selected from ComBase (www.combase.cc). The RMSE of prediction was 0.8, 0.4, and 0.5 log cfu/mL, respectively, for these curves. The validation results indicated the predictive model was reasonably accurate, with relatively small RMSE. The model was then used to simulate the growth of L. monocytogenes under a variety of continuous and square-wave temperature profiles to demonstrate its potential application. The results of this study showed that the model developed in this study can be used to predict the growth of L. monocytogenes in contaminated milk during storage., (Copyright © 2021 American Dairy Science Association. Published by Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.)

AlgW, a membrane-bound periplasmic serine protease belonging to the HtrA protein family, is a key regulator of the regulated intramembrane proteolysis (RIP) pathway and is responsible for transmitting the envelope stress signals in Pseudomonas aeruginosa The AlgW PDZ domain senses and binds the C-terminal of mis-localized outer membrane proteins (OMPs) or periplasmic protein MucE, leading to catalytic activation of the protease domain. While AlgW is functionally well studied, its exact activation mechanism remains to be elucidated. Here, we show that AlgW is a novel HtrA protease that can be biochemically activated by both peptide and lipid signals. Compared with the corresponding homologue DegS in Escherichia coli , AlgW exhibits a distinct substrate specificity and regulation mechanism. Structural, biochemical, and mutagenic analyses revealed that, by specifically binding to the C-terminal decapeptide of MucE, AlgW could adopt more relaxed conformation and obtain higher activity than with tripeptide activation. We also investigated the regulatory mechanism of the L A loop in AlgW and proved that the unique structural feature of this region was responsible for the distinct enzymatic property of AlgW. These results demonstrate the unique and diverse activation mechanism of AlgW, which P. aeruginosa may utilize to enhance its adaptability to environmental stress. IMPORTANCE HtrA-family proteases are commonly employed to sense the protein folding stress and activate the regulated intramembrane proteolysis (RIP) cascade in Gram-negative bacteria. Here, we reveal the unique dual-signal activation and dynamic regulation properties of AlgW, an HtrA-type protease triggering the AlgU stress-response pathway, which controls alginate production and mucoid conversion in Pseudomonas aeruginosa The structural and functional data offer insights into the molecular basis underlying the transition of different activation states of AlgW in response to different effectors. Probing these unique features provides an opportunity to correlate the diverse regulation mechanism of AlgW with the high adaptability of P. aeruginosa to environmental changes during infection., (Copyright © 2021 Li et al.)

Staphylococcus aureus is a common foodborne pathogen that is ubiquitous in nature. Consumption of contaminated foods, such as dairy products, can lead to food poisoning caused by heat-stable staphylococcal toxins that are not easily destroyed during pasteurization. The objective of this study was to investigate the growth kinetics of S. aureus and background microorganisms in camel milk stored at different temperatures between 8 and 43°C using one-step kinetic analysis to estimate the kinetic parameters from the observed growth curves. The growth of S. aureus showed apparent lag, exponential, and stationary phases, whereas no or negligible lag phase was observed for background microorganisms. Data analysis showed that the estimated minimum, optimum, and maximum growth temperatures were 5.9, 42.0, and 49.2°C for S. aureus, and 3.0, 38.6, and 49.2°C for the background microorganisms, respectively. The estimated optimum specific growth rate was higher for S. aureus (1.24 h -1 ) than for background microorganisms (0.995 h -1 ). This study found that camel milk may inhibit the growth of S. aureus, as it exhibits a lower specific growth rate than that in cow milk or cooked potato. It also has a longer lag phase than that in cow milk at comparable temperature ranges. This unique property is probably related to the presence of some antimicrobial compounds naturally occurring in camel milk. Validation of kinetic parameters and models showed that the root mean square error of prediction was only 0.5 log cfu/mL for S. aureus and background microorganisms, suggesting that the models are reasonably accurate. These models can be used for conducting risk assessments of S. aureus and predicting the general microbiological shelf life of camel milk to prevent foodborne staphylococcal poisoning., (Copyright © 2020 American Dairy Science Association. Published by Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.)

MucA and MucB are critical negative modulators of sigma factor AlgU and regulate the mucoid conversion of Pseudomonas aeruginosa. Previous studies have revealed that lipid signals antagonize MucA-MucB binding. Here we report the crystal structure of MucB in complex with the periplasmic domain of MucA and polyethylene glycol (PEG), which unveiled an intermediate state preceding the MucA-MucB dissociation. Based on the biochemical experiments, the aliphatic side chain with a polar group was found to be of primary importance for inducing MucA cleavage. These results provide evidence that the hydrophobic cavity of MucB is a primary site for sensing lipid molecules and illustrates the detailed control of conformational switching within MucA-MucB in response to lipophilic effectors.

Foodborne Staphylococcus aureus , including methicillin-resistant S. aureus (MRSA), is increasingly threatening human health. Pooled prevalence rates of S. aureus contamination have been extensively studied in retail food products in mainland China, but data regarding antibiotic resistance rates of S. aureus remain scattered. This study was designed to collect researches published between 2007 and 2017 in mainland China and to evaluate the antibiotic resistance of S. aureus from retail foods using a meta-analytic approach. We systematically searched the China National Knowledge Infrastructure (CNKI) and Web of Science databases to identify peer-reviewed literature. A number of multilevel random-effects models were fitted to estimate mean occurrence rates of antibiotic-resistant S. aureus , and subgroup analyses were performed to compare antibiotic resistance rates of S. aureus throughout the years and among the methods to determine the antimicrobial susceptibility. Among the considered antibiotics, S. aureus showed the highest resistance rate to penicillin G (87%, 95% confidence interval [CI] 83-90%), followed by ampicillin (72%, 95% CI 62-81%) and erythromycin (41%, 95% CI 36-46%). MRSA showed the highest resistance rate to ampicillin (98%, 95% CI 89-100%), followed by oxacillin (97%, 95% CI 80-100%) and penicillin G (96%, 95% CI 89-99%). Multidrug resistance (MDR) of S. aureus was most frequently observed to three antibiotics (17%, 95% CI 12-22%), and MRSA showed the highest resistance rate to four antibiotics (24%, 95% CI 5-67%). Subgroup analyses results proved that sources of heterogeneity among studies were neither publication year nor detection method. In conclusion, the meta-analysis showed that β-lactam antibiotics resistance of S. aureus and MRSA strains isolated from retail foods remained the most serious, and MDR of S. aureus and MRSA were also observed. Therefore, it is important to monitor the antibiotic resistance of S. aureus and MRSA in food chain, and food safety measures should be taken to reduce the transmission of this bacterium from foods to human beings.

This study was performed to evaluate the hypolipidemic and anti-atherogenic activities of the crude polysaccharides extracted from abalone viscera (AVCP). The major functional groups of purified polysaccharides were analyzed by infrared spectroscopy (IR). Male Kunming mice (SPF) were divided into six groups and were treated with normal diet or high-fat diet with AVCP or Xuezhikang (hypotensive drug) for 5 weeks. Physicochemnical analysis of AVCP showed the presence of 60.4% polysaccharides, 17.9% protein, 6.0% fat and 10.9% moisture. The IR analysis of AVP showed the presence of functional groups of sugar moiety and sulfate groups. The results demonstrated that AVCP not only led to significant reduction of total cholesterol (TC), triglycerides (TG), low-density lipoprotein cholesterol (LDL-C), and increase of high-density lipoprotein cholesterol (HDL-C) in plasma, but also to significant increments of malondialdehyde (MDA) and superoxide dismutase (SOD) activities. However, AVCP played no role in mice weight. Furthermore, the results of the photomicrograph of liver tissue showed that AVCP reduced lipid droplets and prevented the disordered structure of the liver. The results suggested that AVCP exhibited significantly hypolipidemic and anti-atherogenic activities., Competing Interests: Authors declare that they have no conflict of interest., (© 2020 The Authors. Food Science & Nutrition published by Wiley Periodicals, Inc.)

The objective of this study was to determine the kinetic parameters and apply Markov Chain Monte Carlo (MCMC) simulation to predict the growth of Clostridium perfringens from spores in cooked ground chicken meat during dynamic cooling. Inoculated samples were exposed to various cooling conditions to observe dynamic growth. A combination of 4 cooling profiles was used in one-step inverse analysis with the Baranyi model as the primary model and the cardinal parameters model as the secondary model. Six kinetic parameters of the Baranyi model and the cardinal parameters model, including Q 0 , Y max , μ opt , T min , T opt , and T max , were estimated. The estimated T min , T opt , and T max were 14.8, 42.9, and 50.5 °C, respectively, with a μ opt of 5.25 h -1 and maximum cell density of 8.4 log CFU/g. Correlation analysis showed that both Q 0 and Y max are weakly correlated to other parameters, while the remaining parameters are mostly mildly to strongly correlated with each other. Although it may be difficult to estimate highly correlated parameters using a single temperature profile, one-step analysis with multiple different temperature profiles helped estimate them successfully. The estimated parameters were used as the prior information to construct the posterior distribution for Bayesian analysis. MCMC simulation was used to predict the bacterial growth using different dynamic temperature profiles for validation of the accuracy of the predictive models. The MCMC simulation results showed that the Bayesian analysis produced more accurate predictions of bacterial growth during cooling than the deterministic method. With Bayesian analysis, the root-mean-square-error (RMSE) of prediction was only 0.1 log CFU/g with all residual errors within ±0.25 log CFU/g. Therefore, Bayesian analysis is recommended for predicting the growth of C. perfringens in cooked meat during cooling., (Published by Elsevier Ltd.)

Fusarium head blight (FHB) is a destructive disease of wheat that reduces yield and grain quality. High-throughput proteomic techniques have been used to identify a wide range of candidate proteins involved in host resistance. The majority of the published works on the proteomics of the wheat response to Fusarium graminearum infection are case specific. In the current study, a high-throughput quantitative label-free strategy was employed on bulked rachides of F. graminearum-infected wheat collected from multiple genotypes. Differentially accumulated proteins among the following four pools were identified: mock-inoculated FHB-resistant accessions (RM), mock-inoculated FHB-susceptible accessions (SM), F. graminearum-inoculated FHB-resistant accessions (RFg), and F. graminearum-inoculated FHB-susceptible accessions (SFg). Four pairs of comparisons were made: RFg versus RM, SFg versus SM, RM versus SM, and RFg versus SFg. Proteins were projected onto the consensus intervals of previously reported quantitative trait loci in the FHB-resistant pool by blasting against the Chinese Spring reference sequences. In addition to proteins previously reported in the host response to Fusarium spp., new candidates have emerged in association with resistance or susceptibility, including a group 3 late embryogenesis abundant as a resistance-related protein and a purple acid phosphatase as a susceptibility protein. The protein atlas presented here provides new perspectives on the interaction between F. graminearum and wheat.

This study aimed to evaluate the effect of ε-polylysine hydrochloride (ε-PLH) on the growth and thermal inactivation kinetics of Listeria monocytogenes in fish balls. Samples, supplemented with ε-PLH (0, 150, or 300 ppm, w/w), were inoculated with a three-strain cocktail of L. monocytogenes and incubated at constant temperatures of 3.4, 8, 12, or 16 °C for growth studies, or heated at 60, 62.5, 65, or 67.5 °C for thermal inactivation tests. The growth curves were fitted to the Huang primary model, and the Huang and Ratkowsky square-root models (SRM) were used as the secondary models to evaluate the effect of temperature on bacterial growth. The survival during heating was analyzed with a log-linear model. The results showed that, while the lag time of L. monocytogenes was affected by both ε-PLH concentration and temperature, the specific growth rate was unaffected by ε-PLH. Under the same temperature, a 10-time in increase of the lag time would be expected for every 565 ppm in the increase of ε-PLH concentration. Using the Ratkowsky SRM, the estimated nominal minimum growth temperature was -2.04 °C, while the minimum growth temperature was 0.29 °C when estimated with the Huang SRM. Validation at 10 °C showed that the Huang primary model, in combination with either the Huang or Ratkowsky SRM, could accurately predict the growth of L. monocytogenes. On the other hand, the thermal resistance of the pathogen was significantly reduced by increase in temperature or ε-PLH. The thermal z value of L. monocytogenes was 5.78 °C, and the ε-PLH z value was 1642 ppm. The results of this study showed that the combined application of ε-PLH and temperature can be used to control L. monocytogenes in fish balls and to improve food safety and reduce risks to public health., (© 2018 Institute of Food Technologists®.)

Unlike traditional recycling strategies, biodegradation is a sustainable solution for disposing of poly(ethylene terephthalate) (PET) waste. PETase, a newly identified enzyme from Ideonella sakaiensis, has high efficiency and specificity towards PET and is, thus, a prominent candidate for PET degradation. On the basis of biochemical analysis, we propose that a wide substrate-binding pocket is critical for its excellent ability to hydrolyze crystallized PET. Structure-guided site-directed mutagenesis revealed an improvement in PETase catalytic efficiency, providing valuable insight into how the molecular engineering of PETase can optimize its application in biocatalysis., (© 2018 Wiley-VCH Verlag GmbH & Co. KGaA, Weinheim.)

Clostridium perfringens is a major foodborne health hazard that can cause acute gastroenteritis in consumers, and is often associated with cooked meat and poultry products. Improper cooling after cooking may allow this pathogen to grow in a product, producing an enterotoxin that causes food poisoning. This study was conducted to evaluate the effect of common ingredients, including sodium tripolyphosphate (STPP), sodium lactate (NaL), and sodium chloride (NaCl), on the germination and outgrowth of C. perfringens spores in meat products. The growth/no growth test was conducted in Shahidi Ferguson Perfringens agar mixed with STPP (0-2500ppm), NaL (0-4%), and NaCl (0-4%) in microplates. Turbidity measurements at 600nm were compared before and after anaerobic incubation at 46°C to evaluate growth and no growth conditions. The dichotomous responses were analyzed by logistic regression to develop a model for estimating the growth probability of C. perfringens. The probability model was used to define the threshold of growth (probability >0.1 or 0.2) of C. perfringens and validated using inoculated ground beef under optimum temperature. Inoculated ground beef was mixed with different combinations of STPP, NaL, and NaCl to observe growth or no growth of C. perfringens, and the probability was calculated from the formulation. If the threshold of growth was set to 0.2, the accuracy of the growth and no growth predictions was 95.7%, with 4.3% over-prediction of growth events (fail-safe). The results from this study suggested that proper combinations of STPP, NaL, and NaCl could be used to control the growth of C. perfringens in cooked beef under the optimum temperature. The results may also suggest that proper combinations of STPP, NaL, and NaCl in cooked meat and poultry products could be used to prevent the growth of C. perfringens during cooling., (Published by Elsevier B.V.)

Background: In order to better understand the possible role of fungi in giant panda reproduction and overall health, it is important to provide a baseline for the normal fungal composition in the reproductive system. Using morphology and internal transcribed spacer (ITS) sequence analysis, we systematically isolated and identified fungal species from the vagina, foreskin, and semen of 21 (11 males and 10 females) healthy giant pandas to understand the normal fungal flora of the genital tracts., Results: A total of 76 fungal strains were obtained, representing 42 genera and 60 species. Among them 47 fungal strains were obtained from vaginal samples, 24 from foreskins, and 5 from semen samples. Several fungal strains were isolated from more than one sample. More fungal species were isolated from females from males. The predominant genera were Aspergillus, Trichosporon, and Penicillium, followed by Candida, Cladosporium, Sordariomycetes, and Diaporthe. The average number of strains in the female vagina was significantly higher than in the foreskin and semen of male., Conclusions: A total of 60 fungal species (belonging to 42 genera) were identified in the giant panda's genital tract. Some of the species were commonly shared in both males and females. These findings provide novel information on the fungal community in the reproductive tracts of giant pandas.

Evidence shows that many tree species can take up organic nitrogen (N) in the form of free amino acids from soils, but few studies have been conducted to compare organic and inorganic N uptake patterns in temperate and tropical tree species in relation to mycorrhizal status and successional state. We labeled intact tree roots by brief 15N exposures using field hydroponic experiments in a temperate forest and a tropical forest in China. A total of 21 dominant tree species were investigated, 8 in the temperate forest and 13 in the tropical forest. All investigated tree species showed highest uptake rates for NH4+ (ammonium), followed by glycine and NO3- (nitrate). Uptake of NH4+ by temperate trees averaged 12.8 μg N g-1 dry weight (d.w.) root h-1, while those by tropical trees averaged 6.8 μg N g-1 d.w. root h-1. Glycine uptake rates averaged 3.1 μg N g-1 d.w. root h-1 for temperate trees and 2.4 μg N g-1 d.w. root h-1 for tropical trees. NO3- uptake was the lowest (averaging 0.8 μg N g-1 d.w. root h-1 for temperate trees and 1.2 μg N g-1 d.w. root h-1 for tropical trees). Uptake of NH4+ accounted for 76% of the total uptake of all three N forms in the temperate forest and 64% in the tropical forest. Temperate tree species had similar glycine uptake rates as tropical trees, with the contribution being slightly lower (20% in the temperate forest and 23% in the tropical forest). All tree species investigated in the temperate forest were ectomycorrhizal and all species but one in the tropical forest were arbuscular mycorrhizal (AM). Ectomycorrhizal trees showed significantly higher NH4+ and lower NO3- uptake rates than AM trees. Mycorrhizal colonization rates significantly affected uptake rates and contributions of NO3- or NH4+, but depended on forest types. We conclude that tree species in both temperate and tropical forests preferred to take up NH4+, with organic N as the second most important N source. These findings suggest that temperate and tropical forests demonstrate similar N uptake patterns although they differ in physiology of trees and soil biogeochemical processes., (© The Author 2017. Published by Oxford University Press. All rights reserved. For Permissions, please email: journals.permissions@oup.com.)

Thermal properties are necessary for the design and control of processes and storage facilities of food materials. This study proposes the measurement of thermal properties using easily constructed probes with specific heat capacity calculated, as opposed to the use of Differential Scanning Calorimeter (DSC) or other. These probes were constructed and used to measure thermal properties of white radish in the temperature range of 80-20°C and moisture content of 91-6.1% wb. Results showed thermal properties were within the range of 0.71-0.111 Wm-1 C-1 for thermal conductivity, 1.869×10-7-0.72×10-8 m2s-1 for thermal diffusivity and 4.316-1.977 kJ kg-1C-1for specific heat capacity. These results agree with reports for similar products studied using DSC and commercially available line heat source probes. Empirical models were developed for each property through linear multiple regressions. The data generated would be useful in modeling and control of its processing and equipment design.

Key Message: Using bulk segregant analysis (BSA) coupling with RNA-seq and DNA markers identified a potentially novel nitrogen-dependent lesion mimic gene Ndhrl1 on 2BS in wheat. Lesion mimic (LM) refers to hypersensitive reaction-like (HRL) traits that appear on leaf tissue in the absence of plant pathogens. In a wheat line P7001, LM showed up on the leaves under the 0 g nitrogen (N) treatment, but disappeared when sufficient N was supplied, suggesting that LM is N-responsive and N dosage dependent. Using BSA strategy together with RNA-seq and DNA markers, we identified an N-dependent LM gene (Ndhrl1) and mapped it to the short arm of chromosome 2B using an F 5 recombinant inbred population developed from the cross of P7001 × P216. The putative gene was delimited into an interval of 8.1 cM flanked by the CAPS/dCAPS markers 7hrC9 and 7hr2dc14, and co-segregated with the dCAPS marker 7hrdc2. This gene is most likely a novel gene for LM in wheat based on its chromosomal location. Further analysis of RNA-seq data showed that plant-pathogen interaction, nitrogen metabolism, zeatin biosynthesis and plant hormone signal transduction pathways were significantly differentially expressed between LM and non-LM lines.

Aim: To analyze the expression and distribution of Small Integrin-Binding LIgand N-linked Glycoproteins (SIBLINGs) in reparative dentin (RepD)., Methodology: Cavities on the mesial surfaces of rat molars were prepared to expose the pulp, and a calcium hydroxide agent was applied to cap the exposed pulp. The molars with pulp capping were extracted at postoperative 1, 2, and 4 weeks. The immunolocalization of four SIBLINGs, dentin matrix protein 1 (DMP1), dentin sialoprotein (DSP), bone sialoprotein (BSP), and osteopontin (OPN) in RepD, was analyzed in comparison with reactionary dentin (ReaD) and primary dentin (PD)., Results: At two weeks after operation, the region of the exposed pulp formed a layer of reparative dentin bridge sealing the communication between the cavity and pulp chamber. Dentinal tubules in RepD were more irregular in shape and fewer in number than PD. At postoperative 2 and 4 weeks, RepD had lower levels of DMP1 and DSP than PD. BSP and OPN were present in RepD, but not in PD. RepD showed certain similarities to ReaD in the expression of SIBLINGs., Conclusions: The reduced levels of DMP1 and DSP may be associated with the decreased number of dentinal tubules in RepD. The expression of BSP and OPN in RepD indicates that the odontoblast-like cells were attempting to produce a hard tissue at a very rapid pace. These findings suggest that in response to the surgical injury, the newly differentiated odontoblast-like cells altered their synthesis of the dentinogenesis-related proteins and produced a hard tissue that is an intermediate between dentin and bone., (© 2014 John Wiley & Sons A/S. Published by John Wiley & Sons Ltd.)

We report here a clinical case of phaeohyphomycosis in an 18-year-old male giant panda (Ailuropoda melanoleuca). Skin lesions on the giant panda disappeared following 2 months of treatment with ketoconazole. Three months after discontinuing the treatment, there was a clinical and mycological relapse. The disease progression was no longer responsive to ketoconazole. Microscopy and polymerase chain reaction (PCR) analysis revealed that the infection was caused by Cladosporium cladosporioides. A 4-month treatment regime with Itraconazole oral solution (700 mg per day) successfully terminated the infection.

Evidence has been accumulating for the role of Sclerostin and Dickkopf-1 as the antagonists of Wnt/β-Catenin signaling pathway, which suppresses bone formation through inhibiting osteoblastic function. To get deep-inside information about the expression of the antagonists in patients with fluorine bone injury, a case-control study was conducted in two counties in Hubei Province. Urinary and serum fluoride were significantly higher in patients with fluorine bone injury than in healthy controls. Additionally, patients with fluorine bone injury had significantly lower serum Sclerostin and Dickkopf-1 levels compared with healthy controls (P<0.001). Serum Sclerostin and Dickkopf-1 levels were significantly correlated with serum fluoride in all studied subjects (n=186). Low Sclerostin and Dickkopf-1 levels were associated with a significantly increased risk of fluorine bone injury. In conclusion, serum Sclerostin and Dickkopf-1 might be used as important markers of bone metabolism change and potential therapeutic targets to treat fluorine bone injury., (Copyright © 2013 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.)

It has been demonstrated that dentin matrix protein 1 (DMP1) is an essential regulator in the formation of bone and tooth. In addition to the mineralized tissues, DMP1 is also expressed in the non-mineralized tissues such as kidney, brain and salivary glands. Some studies have shown that the expression of DMP1 is significantly elevated in cancerous glands, while details about the expression and localization patterns of DMP1 in these glandular tissues still remain largely unknown. In this study, with multiple approaches, we systematically analyzed the expression and localization of DMP1 in mouse submandibular glands (SMGs). The results showed that although DMP1 was expressed in both female and male mouse SMGs, the mRNA levels of DMP1 in male mice were higher than those in female mice after the appearance of granular convoluted tubule (GCT). In mouse SMGs, DMP1 was primarily present as the 46 kDa C-terminal fragment and the 37 kDa N-terminal fragment. The C-terminal fragment was mainly localized in the nuclei of acinar and ductal cells, while the N-terminal fragment was restricted to the cytoplasm of ductal cells. This study showed the expression of DMP1 in the GCT of male mice, a novel finding different from the result of previous reports. Collectively, the differential localization patterns of DMP1 fragments indicate that different forms of DMP1 may play distinct roles in the SMGs.

Family with sequence similarity 20,-member C (FAM20C) is highly expressed in the mineralized tissues of mammals. Genetic studies showed that the loss-of-function mutations in FAM20C were associated with human lethal osteosclerotic bone dysplasia (Raine Syndrome), implying an inhibitory role of this molecule in bone formation. However, in vitro gain- and loss-of-function studies suggested that FAM20C promotes the differentiation and mineralization of mouse mesenchymal cells and odontoblasts. Recently, we generated Fam20c conditional knockout (cKO) mice in which Fam20c was globally inactivated (by crossbreeding with Sox2-Cre mice) or inactivated specifically in the mineralized tissues (by crossbreeding with 3.6 kb Col 1a1-Cre mice). Fam20c transgenic mice were also generated and crossbred with Fam20c cKO mice to introduce the transgene in the knockout background. In vitro gain- and loss-of-function were examined by adding recombinant FAM20C to MC3T3-E1 cells and by lentiviral shRNA-mediated knockdown of FAM20C in human and mouse osteogenic cell lines. Surprisingly, both the global and mineralized tissue-specific cKO mice developed hypophosphatemic rickets (but not osteosclerosis), along with a significant downregulation of osteoblast differentiation markers and a dramatic elevation of fibroblast growth factor 23 (FGF23) in the serum and bone. The mice expressing the Fam20c transgene in the wild-type background showed no abnormalities, while the expression of the Fam20c transgene fully rescued the skeletal defects in the cKO mice. Recombinant FAM20C promoted the differentiation and mineralization of MC3T3-E1 cells. Knockdown of FAM20C led to a remarkable downregulation of DMP1, along with a significant upregulation of FGF23 in both human and mouse osteogenic cell lines. These results indicate that FAM20C is a bone formation "promoter" but not an "inhibitor" in mouse osteogenesis. We conclude that FAM20C may regulate osteogenesis through its direct role in facilitating osteoblast differentiation and its systemic regulation of phosphate homeostasis via the mediation of FGF23., Competing Interests: The authors have declared that no competing interests exist.