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Efforts to curtail the escalating health threat posed by methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus (MRSA), a formidable superbug, necessitate the development of innovative treatment strategies. Leveraging potential compounds from natural sources in tandem with antibiotics has emerged as a promising approach against MRSA. These strategies should enhance the antibiotic efficacy, reduce dosage and toxicity, and bypass MRSA resistance. In this study, we used a checkerboard assay to illustrate the significant synergistic anti-MRSA effect of shikimic acid (SA), a naturally occurring compound, and ceftiofur (CF). Time-kill curves further revealed that a combination of 1/4 of the minimum inhibitory concentration (MIC) of SA and 1/8 MIC of the sodium CF eradicated MRSA within 2 h, with no noticeable toxicity observed with these concentrations. In vivo experiments confirmed that this combination therapy demonstrated robust antimicrobial activity against MRSA-induced bacteremia in mice, significantly reducing bacterial loads in the kidneys, liver, and spleen, attenuating inflammatory cell infiltration, and alleviating pathological damage. This study not only offers a compelling strategy, capitalizing on the synergistic potential of SA and CF, to rapidly address antibiotic resistance but also contributes significantly to the refinement of antimicrobial therapeutic strategies. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Previous studies have demonstrated the rejuvenating and restorative actions of mesenchymal stem cells (MSCs) in multiple diseases, but their role in reversing chronic atrophic gastritis (CAG) is not well understood owing to their low efficiency in homing to the stomach. In this work, we investigated the therapeutic effect of umbilical cord-derived MSCs (UC-MSCs) on CAG by endoscopic submucosal injection and preliminarily explored possible mechanisms in vitro. MSCs and normal saline (NS) were injected into the submucosa of the stomach in randomly grouped CAG rabbits. Therapeutic effects on serum indices and histopathology of the gastric mucosa were analyzed in vivo at 30 and 60 days after MSCs injection. GES-1 cells were co-cultured with MSCs in vitro using a Transwell system and cell viability, proliferation, and migration ability were detected. Additionally, in view of the potential mechanisms, the relative protein expression levels of apoptosis, autophagy and inflammation in vitro were explored by Western Blotting. We found that submucosal injection of MSCs up-regulated serum indices (G-17, PGI and PGI/PGII) and alleviated histopathological damage to the gastric mucosa in CAG rabbits. Co-culture of GES-1 cells with MSCs improved cell viability, proliferation, and migration ability, while suppressing apoptosis. We also observed a reduction in the expression of apoptosis indicators, including Bax and cleaved caspase-3, in GES-1 cells after co-culture with MSCs in vitro. Our findings suggest that submucosal injection of MSCs is a promising approach for reversing CAG, and attenuating apoptosis plays a potential role in this process. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Developing the catalytic activity and selectivity of palladium (Pd) catalysts for acetylene hydrogenation is key importance in the chemical industry and remains a challenge to this day. Here, the catalytic performance of Pd catalysts are influenced by the Pd electronic structure, in turn, controlled by different heteroatom doped support. Different catalysts are prepared by ionic liquids (ILs) with different precursors, and catalytic activity of selective hydrogenation of acetylene was investigated. The Pd/NC catalyst exhibits extraordinary conversion, selectivity and stable for the hydrogenation of acetylene (94.6% acetylene conversion with 91.3% selectivity to ethylene). This remarkable catalytic performance of Pd/NC is mainly linked to nitrogen-doped (N-doped) changes the electronic structure of Pd nanoparticles, ensures the rapid desorption of ethylene and prevents the formation of unnecessary ethane by over hydrogenation (demonstrated by XPS and DFT). Our strategy of controlling the electronic structure of Pd can be widely used in the reactions that change the micro electrochemical properties of active metals. The selective hydrogenation of acetylene to ethylene over Pd/NC with excellent conversion and selectivity is investigated. The doping of nitrogen leads to the unique electronic structure of Pd on the Pd/NC catalyst, which influences the adsorption of ethylene and acetylene, thus promoting its catalytic activity. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Nowadays, how to effectively evaluate visual properties has become a popular topic for fine-grained visual comprehension. In this paper we study the problem of how to estimate such visual properties from a ranking perspective with the help of the annotators from online crowdsourcing platforms. The main challenges of our task are two-fold. On one hand, the annotations often contain contaminated information, where a small fraction of label flips might ruin the global ranking of the whole dataset. On the other hand, considering the large data capacity, the annotations are often far from being complete. What is worse, there might even exist imbalanced annotations where a small subset of samples are frequently annotated. Facing such challenges, we propose a robust ranking framework based on the principle of Hodge decomposition of imbalanced and incomplete ranking data. According to the HodgeRank theory, we find that the major source of the contamination comes from the cyclic ranking component of the Hodge decomposition. This leads us to an outlier detection formulation as sparse approximations of the cyclic ranking projection. Taking a step further, it facilitates a novel outlier detection model as Huber's LASSO in robust statistics. Moreover, simple yet scalable algorithms are developed based on Linearized Bregman Iteration to achieve an even less biased estimator. Statistical consistency of outlier detection is established in both cases under nearly the same conditions. Our studies are supported by experiments with both simulated examples and real-world data. The proposed framework provides us a promising tool for robust ranking with large scale crowdsourcing data arising from computer vision. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Background: Acute pancreatitis (AP) is one of the most common acute abdominal disorders; due to the lack of specific treatment, the treatment of acute pancreatitis, especially serious acute pancreatitis (SAP), is difficult and challenging. We will observe the changes of Interleukin -22 levels in acute pancreatitis animal models, and explore the mechanism of Interleukin -22 in acute pancreatitis. Objective: This study aims to assess the potential protective effect of Interleukin -22 on caerulein-induced acute pancreatitis and to explore its mechanism. Methods: Blood levels of amylase and lipase and Interleukin -22 were assessed in mice with acute pancreatitis. In animal model and cell model of caerulein-induced acute pancreatitis, the mRNA levels of P62 and Beclin-1 were determined using PCR, and the protein expression of P62, LC3-II, mTOR, AKT, p-mTOR, and p-AKT were evaluated through Western blot analysis. Results: Interleukin -22 administration reduced blood amylase and lipase levels and mitigated tissue damage in acute pancreatitis mice model. Interleukin -22 inhibited the relative mRNA levels of P62 and Beclin-1, and the Interleukin -22 group showed a decreased protein expression of LC3-II and P62 and the phosphorylation of the AKT/mTOR pathway. Furthermore, we obtained similar results in the cell model of acute pancreatitis. Conclusion: This study suggests that Interleukin -22 administration could alleviate pancreatic damage in caerulein-induced acute pancreatitis. This effect may result from the activation of the AKT/mTOR pathway, leading to the inhibition of autophagy. Consequently, Interleukin -22 shows potential as a treatment. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this work, by doping the lanthanide(iii)–hexafluoroacetylacetone complex into LAPONITE®, we obtained a lanthanide-based organic–inorganic hybrid material. The resulting hybrid materials were fully characterized with elementary analysis, scanning electron microscopy (SEM) and powder X-ray diffraction (PXRD) techniques. The Ln3+ and HFA loadings were experimentally determined to be roughly 0.3 per u.c. and 0.72 per u.c. by analyzing the supernatant (titration against EDTA) and elemental analysis, respectively. XRD patterns suggest that at least partial complexes are intercalated within the interlayers of the LAPONITE®. The in situ formation of luminescent Ln3+ complexes is confirmed by the luminescence data. Furthermore, the emission intensity ratio of the 5D4→7F5 transition (Tb3+) to the 5D0→7F2 transition (Eu3+) of the hybrid material containing both Eu3+ and Tb3+ can be linearly related to temperature in the range from 197 K to 287 K (temperature sensitivity: 1.107% per K), which will be an appealing alternative for in situ and real time detection of temperature in many special areas. This strategy presents new opportunities for the development of highly sensitive and stable thermo sensors. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

A promising bacterial strain for biodegrading dibutyl phthalate (DBP) was successfully isolated from activated sludge and characterized as a potential novel Microbacterium sp. USTB-Y based on 16S rRNA sequence analysis and whole genome average nucleotide identity (ANI). Initial DBP of 50 mg/L could be completely biodegraded by USTB-Y both in mineral salt medium and in DBP artificially contaminated soil within 12 h at the optimal culture conditions of pH 7.5 and 30 ℃, which indicates that USTB-Y has a strong ability in DBP biodegradation. Phthalic acid (PA) was identified as the end-product of DBP biodegraded by USTB-Y using GC/MS. The draft genome of USTB-Y was sequenced by Illumina NovaSeq and 29 and 188 genes encoding for putative esterase/carboxylesterase and hydrolase/alpha/beta hydrolase were annotated based on NR (non redundant protein sequence database) analysis, respectively. Gene3781 and gene3780 from strain USTB-Y showed 100% identity with dpeH and mpeH from Microbacterium sp. PAE-1. But no phthalate catabolic gene (pht) cluster was found in the genome of strain USTB-Y. The results in the present study are valuable for obtaining a more holistic understanding on diverse genetic mechanisms of PAEs biodegrading Microbacterium sp. strains. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Coumarin is widely used in personal care products and pharmaceutical industry, which leads to the release of this compound into environment as an emerging contaminant. Here, a promising strain USTB-Z for biodegrading coumarin was successfully isolated from botanical soil and characterized as a potential novel Pseudomonas sp. based on 16S rDNA sequence analysis and orthologous average nucleotide identity tool. Initial coumarin up to 800 mg/L could be completely removed by USTB-Z within 48 h at the optimal culture conditions of pH 7.3 and 30 °C, which indicates that USTB-Z has a strong capacity in coumarin biodegradation. The biodegradation products of coumarin were further investigated using HPLC and Q-TOF LC/MS, and melilotic acid and 2,3-dihydroxyphenylpropionic acid were identified. The draft genome of strain USTB-Z was sequenced by Illumina NovaSeq, and 21 CDSs for NAD (P)-dependent oxidoreductase, 43 CDSs for hydrolase, 1 CDS for FAD-depend monooxygenase, 1 CDS for 3-hydroxycinnamic acid hydroxylase, 21 CDSs for dioxygenase, and 5 CDSs for fumarylacetoacetate (FAA) hydrolase were annotated and correlated to coumarin biodegradation. The present study provides a theoretical basis and microbial resource for further research on the coumarin biodegradation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Extensive use of phthalic acid esters (PAEs) as plasticizer causes diffusion into the environment, which posed a great threat to mankind. It was reported that Comamonas sp. was a potentially robust aromatic biodegrader. Although the biodegradation of several PAEs by Comamonas sp. was studies, the comprehensive genomic analysis of Comamonas sp. was few reported. In the present study, one promising bacterial strain for biodegrading diethyl phthalate (DEP) was successfully isolated from activated sludge and characterized as Comamonas sp. USTBZA1 based on the 16S rRNA sequence analysis. The results showed that pH 7.5, 30 °C and inoculum volume ratio of 6% were optimal for biodegradation. Initial DEP of 50 mg/L could be completely biodegrade by strain USTBZA1 within 24 h which conformed to the Gompertz model. Based on the Q-TOF LC/MS analysis, monoethyl phthalate (MEP) and phthalic acid (PA) were identified as the metabolic products of DEP biodegradation by USTBZA1. Furthermore, the whole genome of Comamonas sp. USTBZA1 was analyzed to clarify the molecular mechanism for PAEs biodegradation by USTBZA1. There were 3 and 41 genes encoding esterase/arylesterase and hydrolase, respectively, and two genes regions (pht34512 and pht4253) were responsible for the conversion of PA to protocatechuate (PCA), and two genes regions (ligCBAIKJ) were involved in PCA metabolism in USTBZA1. These results substantiated that Comamonas sp. USTBZA1 has potential application in the DEP bioremediation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Chinese spell checking is a task to detect and correct Chinese spelling errors, which is very important for natural language understanding. Generally, studies on Chinese spell checking are mainly based on n-gram language model and neural network models. However, the validity of the n-gram model needs to balance the value n and the storage resources, and most neural networks cannot efficiently handle the cases with severely uneven distribution of the correct and incorrect characters. This makes spell checking be limited in text application scenarios that contain many oral expressions. To solve the issues, a confusionset-guided decision network for spoken Chinese spell checking is proposed. By using confusionset to generate candidate set, the model can reasonably locate the wrong characters with decision network which ensures bidirectional long short-term memory pay more attention to the characteristics of the wrong characters. To verify the correctness and effectiveness of our model, extensive experiments were carried out on a logistics question and answer corpus and SIGHAN Bake-off dataset. Experimental results show that the model is efficient. It is much effective in spell checking for spoken Chinese, and it outperforms all competitor models. Besides, it can efficiently correct the wrong characters in real scenarios. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The host innate immune response either clears invading viruses or allows the adaptive immune system to establish an effective antiviral response. In this study, both pathogenic (passage 3, P3) and attenuated (P110) infectious bronchitis virus (IBV) strains were used to study the immune responses of chicken to IBV infection. Expression of avian β-defensins (AvBDs) and Toll-like receptors (TLRs) in 16 tissues of chicken were compared at 7 days PI. The results showed that P3 infection upregulated the expression of AvBDs, including AvBD2, 4, 5, 6, 9, and 12, while P110 infection downregulated the expression of AvBDs, including AvBD3, 4, 5, 6, and 9 in most tissues. Meanwhile, the expression level of several TLRs showed a general trend of upregulation in the tissues of P3-infected chickens, while they were downregulated in the tissues of P110-infected chickens. The result suggested that compared with the P110 strain, the P3 strain induced a more pronounced host innate immune response. Furthermore, we observed that recombinant AvBDs (including 2, 6, and 12) demonstrated obvious anti-viral activity against IBV in vitro. Our findings contribute to the proposal that IBV infection induces an increase in the messenger RNA (mRNA) expression of some AvBDs and TLRs, which suggests that AvBDs may play significant roles in the resistance of chickens to IBV replication. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

A virulent phage, named vB_EcoS_XY3, was isolated from hospital wastewater in Xiangyang, China. Its morphological characteristics, growth parameters, adsorption rate, and pH and temperature stability were determined. Phage vB_EcoS_XY3 was found to be able to infect Escherichia coli laboratory strains and also some multidrug-resistant E. coli strains. Its complete genome consists of 51,345 base pairs of double-stranded DNA with an average GC content of 55.24% and 85 putative protein-coding genes. Forty-four genes were annotated with known functions. These results will not only provide further insights into E. coli phages but also have implications for the development of potential biocontrol agents. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Background: Regenerating islet-derived 3 (Reg3) is abnormally expressed in several human digestive system diseases, including chronic pancreatitis (CP) and pancreatic cancer (PC).Aim: The purpose of this study was to clarify the mechanism of the enhanced expression of Reg3 in inflammation-induced PC.Methods: C57BL/6 mice were treated with caerulein for 6 weeks to induce CP and then injected with pReg3g--a lentivirus system encoding for murine Reg3g--accompanied by dimethylbenzanthracene to induce PC. We detected pancreatic histopathological characteristics, tumor-related gene expression, inflammation-associated pathway activation, serum biochemical indicators, and immunological cell activities.Results: The mice that developed CP after caerulein treatment were marked by pronounced histologic lesions, elevated serum amylase levels, and activation of inflammation-related pathways. Mice given a high dose of pReg3g developed PC by 16 weeks, with recognizable tumors in the pancreas. While, both the low and high doses of pReg3g produced higher transcription of c-fos, k-ras, cytokeratin-19, and proliferating cell nuclear antigen, and a lower expression of caspase-3 compared to pNEG controls. Additionally, the higher dose of pReg3g increased the expressions of pSTAT3, NFκB (p65), and SOCS3 methylation during PC development. In addition, mice treated with pReg3g displayed higher levels of serum IL10 and TGFβ and suppressed T lymphocyte proliferation and DC function.Conclusion: The comprehensive analysis suggests enhanced Reg3g expression exacerbates PC in inflammation-associated cancer progression. Reg3g appears to promote CP-related PC in mice through multiple mechanisms, involving enhanced transcription of pancreatic tumor markers, repression of anti-tumor immunity, and activation of STAT3/p65 signal transduction pathways. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

MADS-box family proteins play an important role in grain formation and flower development; however, the molecular mechanisms by which transcription factors regulate the starch metabolism pathway are unclear in maize. Here, we report a transcription factor, ZmMADS1a, that controls starch biosynthesis in maize (Zea mays L.). We demonstrate the expression of ZmMADS1a in tassel, silk, and endosperm, and show that the protein is localized to the cell nucleus. Compared with the control, seeds of overexpressing ZmMADS1a increased starch content (especially amylose content), had smaller starch granules and altered chemical structure. Meanwhile, overexpression of ZmMADS1a resulted in increases in the contents of soluble sugars and reducing sugars in maize. ZmMADS1a plays a positive regulatory role in the starch biosynthesis pathway by up-regulating several starch biosynthesis related genes. We also show that ZmMADS1a has a similar adjustment mechanism of starch biosynthesis in rice. Collectively, our study suggests that ZmMADS1a functions as a positive regulator of starch biosynthesis by regulating the expression of key starch metabolism genes during seed development. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Co-culture of Bacillus coagulans and Candida utilis was firstly investigated in the efficient treatment of Lactobacillus fermentation wastewater (LFW) containing total organic carbon (TOC) of 22.0 g/L and total nitrogen (TN) of 2.4 g/L. The utilization of lactic acid by C. utilis was responsible for the relief of feedback inhibition to promote the growth of B. coagulans. The removal ratio of TOC by B. coagulans and C. utilis was only 9.1% and 22.7%, respectively, which was improved to 49.0% by co-culture. The removal ratio of TN by B. coagulans and C. utilis was merely 6.3% and 12.5%, respectively, which was also promoted to 44.6% by co-culture. Both the high growth of B. coagulans and the efficient removal of TOC and TN from LFW was achieved with the co-culture, which is not previously reported and very important in the production of probiotics with the resource utilization of LFW. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]