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Fusarium oxysporum is a devastating plant-pathogenic fungus that causes vascular wilt disease in many economically important crops, including watermelon, worldwide. F. oxysporum f. sp. nievum ( Fon ) causes serious yield loss in watermelon production. However, the molecular mechanism of Fusarium wilt development by Fon remains largely unknown.

Fusarium oxysporum f. sp. niveum ( Fon ), the causal agent of watermelon Fusarium wilt, is one of the most serious threats for the sustainable development of the watermelon industry worldwide. However, little is known about the underlying molecular mechanism of pathogenicity in Fon .

Gummy stem blight (GSB), which is caused by three related species of Stagonosporopsis, is a worldwide devastating disease of cucurbit crops including watermelon. Previously S. cucurbitacearum was reported to be the major fungal cause of watermelon GSB in Southern China, where it causes a significant decrease in watermelon yield. Here, we present the draft whole genome sequence, gene prediction and annotation of S. cucurbitacearum strain DBTL4, isolated from diseased watermelon plants. To our knowledge, this is the first publicly available genome sequence of this species, and knowledge of this genome sequence will help further understand the pathogenic mechanism of S. cucurbitacearum to cucurbit plants. [Formula: see text] Copyright © 2021 The Author(s). This is an open access article distributed under the CC BY-NC-ND 4.0 International license .

The rice NAC transcriptional factor family harbors 151 members, and some of them play important roles in rice immunity. Here, we report the function and molecular mechanism of a pathogen-inducible NAC transcription factor, ONAC096, in rice immunity against Magnaprothe oryzae and Xanthomonas oryzae pv. oryzae. Expression of ONAC096 was induced by M. oryzae and by abscisic acid and methyl jasmonate. ONAC096 had the DNA binding ability to NAC recognition sequence and was found to be a nucleus-localized transcriptional activator whose activity depended on its C-terminal. CRISPR/Cas9-mediated knockout of ONAC096 attenuated rice immunity against M. oryzae and X. oryzae pv. oryzae as well as suppressed chitin- and flg22-induced reactive oxygen species burst and expression of PTI marker genes OsWRKY45 and OsPAL4; by contrast, overexpression of ONAC096 enhanced rice immunity against these two pathogens and strengthened chitin- or flg22-induced PTI. RNA-seq transcriptomic profiling and qRT-PCR analysis identified a small set of defense and signaling genes that are putatively regulated by ONAC096, and further biochemical analysis validated that ONAC096 could directly bind to the promoters of OsRap2.6, OsWRKY62, and OsPAL1, three known defense and signaling genes that regulate rice immunity. ONAC096 interacts with ONAC066, which is a positive regulator of rice immunity. These results demonstrate that ONAC096 positively contributes to rice immunity against M. oryzae and X. oryzae pv. oryzae through direct binding to the promoters of downstream target genes including OsRap2.6, OsWRKY62, and OsPAL1.

Background Bronchoalveolar lavage fluid (BALF) exosomes possess different properties in different diseases, which are mediated through microRNAs (miRNAs) and long noncoding RNAs (lncRNAs), among others. By sequencing the differentially expressed lncRNAs in BALF exosomes, we seek potential targets for the diagnosis and treatment of acute lung injury (ALI). Methods Considering that human and rat genes are about 80% similar, ALI was induced using lipopolysaccharide in six male Wistar rats, with six rats as control (all weighing 200 ± 20 g and aged 6–8 weeks). BALF exosomes were obtained 24 h after ALI. The exosomes in BALF were extracted by ultracentrifugation. The differential expression of BALF exosomal lncRNAs in BALF was analyzed by RNA sequencing. Gene Ontology (GO) and Kyoto Encyclopedia of Genes and Genomes (KEGG) analyses were performed to predict the functions of differentially expressed lncRNAs, which were confirmed by reverse transcription–polymerase chain reaction. Results Compared with the control group, the ALI group displayed a higher wet/dry ratio, tumor necrosis factor-α levels, and interleukin-6 levels (all P < 0.001). The airway injection of exosomes in rats led to significant infiltration by neutrophils. A total of 2,958 differentially expressed exosomal lncRNAs were identified, including 2,524 upregulated and 434 downregulated ones. Five lncRNAs confirmed the reliability of the sequencing data. The top three GO functions were phagocytic vesicle membrane, regulation of receptor biosynthesis process, and I-SMAD binding. Salmonella infection, Toll-like receptor signaling pathway, and osteoclast differentiation were the most enriched KEGG pathways. The lncRNA–miRNA interaction network of the five confirmed lncRNAs could be predicted using miRDB. Conclusions BALF-derived exosomes play an important role in ALI development and help identify potential therapeutic targets related to ALI.

Stress-associated proteins (SAPs) are A20 and AN1 domain–containing proteins, some of which play important roles in plant stress signaling. Here, we report the involvement of tomato SlSAP family in immunity. SlSAPs responded with different expression patterns to Botrytis cinerea and defense signaling hormones. Virus-induced gene silencing of each of the SlSAP genes and disease assays revealed that SlSAP4 and SlSAP10 play roles in immunity against B. cinerea. Silencing of SlSAP4 resulted in attenuated immunity to B. cinerea, accompanying increased accumulation of reactive oxygen species and downregulated expression of jasmonate and ethylene (JA/ET) signaling-responsive defense genes. Transient expression of SlSAP4 in Nicotiana benthamiana led to enhanced resistance to B. cinerea. Exogenous application of methyl jasmonate partially restored the resistance of the SlSAP4-silenced plants against B. cinerea. SlSAP4 interacted with three of four SlRAD23 proteins. The A20 domain in SlSAP4 and the Ub-associated domains in SlRAD23d are critical for SlSAP4-SlRAD23d interaction. Silencing of SlRAD23d led to decreased resistance to B. cinerea, but silencing of each of other SlRAD23s did not affect immunity against B. cinerea. Furthermore, silencing of SlSAP4 and each of the SlRAD23s did not affect immunity to Pseudomonas syringae pv. tomato DC3000. These data suggest that SlSAP4 contributes positively to tomato immunity against B. cinereal through affecting JA/ET signaling and may be involved in the substrate ubiquitination process via interacting with SlRAD23d.

Gummy stem blight (GSB), which is caused by three related species of

In robotic bin-picking applications, the perception of texture-less, highly reflective parts is a valuable but challenging task. The high glossiness can introduce fake edges in RGB images and inaccurate depth measurements especially in heavily cluttered bin scenario. In this paper, we present the ROBI (Reflective Objects in BIns) dataset, a public dataset for 6D object pose estimation and multi-view depth fusion in robotic bin-picking scenarios. The ROBI dataset includes a total of 63 bin-picking scenes captured with two active stereo camera: a high-cost Ensenso sensor and a low-cost RealSense sensor. For each scene, the monochrome/RGB images and depth maps are captured from sampled view spheres around the scene, and are annotated with accurate 6D poses of visible objects and an associated visibility score. For evaluating the performance of depth fusion, we captured the ground truth depth maps by high-cost Ensenso camera with objects coated in anti-reflective scanning spray. To show the utility of the dataset, we evaluated the representative algorithms of 6D object pose estimation and multi-view depth fusion on the full dataset. Evaluation results demonstrate the difficulty of highly reflective objects, especially in difficult cases due to the degradation of depth data quality, severe occlusions and cluttered scene. The ROBI dataset is available online at https://www.trailab.utias.utoronto.ca/robi.

Resveratrol is a kind of iPolyphenols widely existing in herbal medicine. Here we aim to investigate whether resveratrol can reduce the degree of myocardial ischemia/reperfusion (IR) injury and inhibit the development of oxidative stress, and elucidate the molecular mechanism of resveratrol in protecting myocardial cells. The primary rat cardiomyocytes were used to establish an ischemia/reperfusion model in vitro, and a series of routine biochemical experiments were conducted to explore the antioxidant and anti-apoptotic effects of resveratrol in myocardial ischemia-reperfusion injury. Compared with that of the simulated ischemia-refusion (SIR) group, cell viability in the SIR and resveratrol co-treatment groups increased significantly (P < 0.001), the release of lactate dehydrogenase (LDH) and creatine kinase MB (CKMB) decreased, the positive rate of reactive oxygen species (ROS) in cardiomyocytes decreased, and the concentration of catalase and glutathione peroxidase increased significantly (P < 0.001). Besides, resveratrol can activate PI3K/AKT signaling pathway. PI3K siRNA can inhibit the PI3K/AKT signaling mediated by resveratrol. The addition of resveratrol can significantly increase the activity of mitochondrial superoxide dismutase (SOD) and reduce the malondialdehyde (MDA), which indicates that the oxidative damage of mitochondria induced by resveratrol was significantly weakened. The mitochondrial functional changes induced by resveratrol can be reversed by PI3K siRNA. In conclusion, our study shows that resveratrol can reduce ROS in cardiomyocytes by PI3K/AKT signaling pathway activation, and effectively inhibit the apoptosis of cardiomyocytes, thus having a direct protective effect on cardiomyocytes under SR.

The current standard of care for patients with severe large-area burns consists of autologous skin grafting or acellular dermal substitutes. While emerging options to accelerate wound healing involve treatment with allogeneic or autologous cells, delivering cells to clinically relevant wound topologies, orientations, and sizes remains a challenge. Here, we report the one-step in-situ formation of cell-containing biomaterial sheets using a handheld instrument that accommodates the topography of the wound. In an approach that maintained cell viability and proliferation, we demonstrated conformal delivery to surfaces that were inclined up to 45 degrees with respect to the horizontal. In porcine pre-clinical models of full-thickness burn, we delivered mesenchymal stem/stromal cell-containing fibrin sheets directly to the wound bed, improving re-epithelialization, dermal cell repopulation, and neovascularization, indicating that this device could be introduced in a clinical setting improving dermal and epidermal regeneration.

Summary Tomato stress‐associated proteins (SAPs) belong to A20/AN1 zinc finger protein family, some of which have been shown to play important roles in plant stress responses. However, little is known about the functions and underlying molecular mechanisms of SAPs in plant immune responses. In the present study, we reported the function of tomato SlSAP3 in immunity to Pseudomonas syringae pv. tomato (Pst) DC3000. Silencing of SlSAP3 attenuated while overexpression of SlSAP3 in transgenic tomato increased immunity to Pst DC3000, accompanied with reduced and increased Pst DC3000‐induced expression of SA signalling and defence genes, respectively. Flg22‐induced reactive oxygen species (ROS) burst and expression of PAMP‐triggered immunity (PTI) marker genes SlPTI5 and SlLRR22 were strengthened in SlSAP3‐OE plants but were weakened in SlSAP3‐silenced plants. SlSAP3 interacted with two SlBOBs and the A20 domain in SlSAP3 is critical for the SlSAP3‐SlBOB1 interaction. Silencing of SlBOB1 and co‐silencing of all three SlBOB genes conferred increased resistance to Pst DC3000, accompanied with increased Pst DC3000‐induced expression of SA signalling and defence genes. These data demonstrate that SlSAP3 acts as a positive regulator of immunity against Pst DC3000 in tomato through the SA signalling and that SlSAP3 may exert its function in immunity by interacting with other proteins such as SlBOBs, which act as negative regulators of immunity against Pst DC3000 in tomato.

Stress-associated proteins (SAPs) are A20 and AN1 domain-containing proteins, some of which play important roles in plant stress signaling. Here, we report the involvement of tomato