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Many insects selectively associate with specific microbes in long-term, symbiotic relationships. Maintaining these associations can be vital for the insect hosts’ development, but insects must also contend with potential coinfections from other microbes in the environment. Fending off microbial threats while maintaining mutualistic microbes has resulted in many insects developing specialized symbiotic organs to house beneficial microbes. Though locally concentrated in these organs, symbiont establishment can have global consequences for the insect, including influence over the success of coinfecting microbes in colonizing the insect host. We use a transcriptomic approach to examine how the mutualistic symbiosis between the agricultural pest Anasa tristis and bacteria in the genus Caballeronia affects insect gene expression locally within the symbiotic organs and in the insect host at large. We simultaneously determine whether Caballeronia colonization impacts insect host responses to infection with the plant pathogen Serratia marcescens, which it vectors to plants. We found that no significant differential gene expression was elicited by infection with S. marcescens. This was a surprising finding given previous work indicating that symbiotic A. tristis clear S. marcescens infection rapidly compared to aposymbiotic individuals. Our results indicate that symbiotic and nonsymbiotic tissues in A. tristis differ greatly in their gene expression, particularly following successful symbiont colonization. We found evidence for local downregulation of host immunity and upregulation of cell communication within the symbiotic organs, functions which can facilitate the success of the A. tristis-Caballeronia symbiosis.

BackgroundThere are different types of transcatheter mitral valve repair (TMVr) currently in clinical use, including leaflet approximation, annular cinching, and restoration of the chordal apparatus of the mitral valve (MV). While the concomitant combination (COMBO) therapy of mitral transcatheter edge-to-edge repair (M-TEER) with another TMVr concept has been proven feasible, potentially offering patient-tailored treatment for severe mitral regurgitation (MR), a comparison with M-TEER alone has not been made.AimsTo evaluate the procedural and clinical outcome of COMBO therapies compared with M-TEER alone.MethodsWe included consecutive patients undergoing COMBO and M-TEER between March 2015 and April 2018 at our Heart Valve Center, while excluding patients presenting a case of redo or with previous MV surgery. Procedural outcomes and all-cause mortality were compared between COMBO therapy vs. M-TEER alone.ResultsA total of 357 patients (mean age 78.9 ± 7.0 years, 53.2% male, M-TEER n = 322, COMBO n = 35; COMBO: MitraClip and the Carillon mitral contour system n = 26, MitraClip and Cardioband n = 5, and MitraClip and NeoChord n = 4) were analyzed. Patients with COMBO therapy had larger left chamber sizes, a lower left ventricular systolic ejection fraction (LVEF; COMBO: 37.4 ± 13.8%, M-TEER: 47.9 ± 14.3%, p

Several factors, including breed, lead to divergent performance of pigs for production and reproduction traits in different environments. A recent genomics study showed that Modern European (ME) pig breeds contribute to the ancestry of smallholder pigs in the Hoima and Kamuli districts, Uganda. These pigs were also involved in a longitudinal study with several traits recorded, including 540 body weights (WT) of 374 growing pigs, 195 records of total number of piglets born alive (TBA) of 157 sows, and 110 total number weaned (TNW) records of 94 sows. Linear mixed-effects models were used to test for the significance of environmental effects, including housing system, geographic location, and the season when the events occurred as well as animal-specific effects like age, sex, parity, and farrow-to-weaning interval. Stepwise model reduction starting from models with all main effects and pairwise interactions was applied. The final models were then expanded to include proportions of Modern European (ME) ancestry for the subset of animals genotyped, following genomic ancestry analysis based on a Porcine 50K SNP Chip. ME ancestry proportions ranged from 0.02 to 0.50 and were categorized into three classes (low/medium/high ME) based on 33.3% quantiles. The effects of ME classes on WT and TBA were not significant. ME showed a significant effect on TNW. Sows with a high proportion of ME weaned 2.4 piglets more than the low group, the medium ME group being intermediate. This study used genomic data to investigate the effects of genetic ancestry on the performance of smallholder pigs in Uganda. The proportion of Modern European ancestry did not exceed 0.50, therefore not allowing for the comparison of local versus pure “exotic” types of pigs. For the range of ancestries observed, which is the relevant one for current smallholder systems in Uganda, differences were small for the body weight of growing pigs and the number of piglets born alive, while higher proportions of ME ancestry resulted in significantly more piglets weaned. The availability of genotypes of a higher number of growing pigs would have been beneficial for drawing conclusions on the effect of ME ancestry on the growth rates of smallholder pigs in Uganda.

Alfalfa (Medicago sativa L.), an important perennial legume forage crop with high nutritional value and forage yield, is widely used in animal husbandry. However, it is very sensitive to aluminum, which severely limits its growth in acidic soils. In this study, we analyzed the genotype variation of each agronomic trait in 44 alfalfa varieties in two acidic soil environments. Then, analysis of variance (ANOVA) of the variance components was performed using the Residual Maximum Likelihood (REML). The best linear unbiased predictor analysis was used to obtain the mean trait of each variety, and the mean values were used to construct the mean matrix of varieties × traits and interaction analysis of varieties × years. The results showed that there was significant (P < 0.05) genotypic variation for each trait of the 44 varieties and the genetic diversity was abundant. The average repeatability (R value) of interannual plant height (PH), stem thickness (ST), number of branches (NS), fresh weight (FW), total fresh weight (TFW), and total dry weight (TDW) was high (0.21–0.34), whereas the genetics were relatively stable. PH, NS, FW, TFW, and dry weight (DW) were positively correlated (P < 0.01) with TDW. Six alfalfa varieties (Algonquin, Xinjiang daye, Trifecta, Vernal, WL354HQ, and Boja) with excellent TDW and TFW were identified in different years, environmental regions, and climatic altitudes. Our research results can provide suggestions and critical information regarding the future improvement and development of new alfalfa strains and varieties that are resistant to acidic soil conditions.

The COVID-19 outbreak triggered a massive spread of unverified news on social media and has become a source of rumors. This paper studies the impact of a virtual rumor control center (RCC) on Weibo user behavior. The collected COVID-19 breaking news stories were divided into positive, negative, and neutral categories, while the moderating effect model was used to analyze the influence of anti-rumor on user behavior (forwarding, liking, and commenting). Our research found that rumor refuting does not directly affect user behavior but does have an indirect moderating effect. Rumor refuting has a profound impact on user forwarding behavior in cases of positive and negative news. Specifically, when the epidemic becomes more serious, the role of rumor refuting becomes critical, and vice versa. Refuting rumors reduces user willingness to forward positive or negative news, with more impact on negative news. Time lag analysis shows a significant moderation of unverified news within 72 h of refuting rumors but indicated an apparent weakening trend over time. Furthermore, we discovered non-linear feature and counter-cyclical phenomena in the moderating effect of rumor refutation.

Background: Viruses cause various human diseases, some of which become pandemic outbreaks. This study synthesized evidence on antiviral medicinal plants in Africa which could potentially be further studied for viral infections including Coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) treatment.Methods: PUBMED, CINAHIL, Scopus, Google Scholar, and Google databases were searched through keywords; antiviral, plant, herb, and Africa were combined using “AND” and “OR”. In-vitro studies, in-vivo studies, or clinical trials on botanical medicine used for the treatment of viruses in Africa were included.Results: Thirty-six studies were included in the evidence synthesis. Three hundred and twenty-eight plants were screened for antiviral activities of which 127 showed noteworthy activities against 25 viral species. These, were Poliovirus (42 plants), HSV (34 plants), Coxsackievirus (16 plants), Rhinovirus (14plants), Influenza (12 plants), Astrovirus (11 plants), SARS-CoV-2 (10 plants), HIV (10 plants), Echovirus (8 plants), Parvovirus (6 plants), Semiliki forest virus (5 plants), Measles virus (5 plants), Hepatitis virus (3 plants), Canine distemper virus (3 plants), Zika virus (2 plants), Vesicular stomatitis virus T2 (2 plants). Feline herpesvirus (FHV-1), Enterovirus, Dengue virus, Ebola virus, Chikungunya virus, Yellow fever virus, Respiratory syncytial virus, Rift Valley fever virus, Human cytomegalovirus each showed sensitivities to one plant.Conclusion: The current study provided a list of African medicinal plants which demonstrated antiviral activities and could potentially be candidates for COVID-19 treatment. However, all studies were preliminary and in vitro screening. Further in vivo studies are required for plant-based management of viral diseases.

High-mobility group box-1 (HMGB1), a ubiquitous nuclear protein, acts as a late mediator of lethality when released extracellularly during sepsis. The major source of circulating HMGB1 in sepsis is hepatocytes. However, the mechanism of HMGB1 release of hepatocytes during sepsis is not very clear. We have previously shown that bacterial endotoxin [lipopolysaccharide (LPS)] sensing pathways, including Toll-like receptor (TLR)4 and caspase-11, regulate hepatocyte HMGB1 release in response to LPS. Here, we report the novel function of caspase-11 and gasdermin D (GsdmD) in LPS-induced active HMGB1 released from hepatocytes. HMGB1 release during endotoxemia was caspase-11/GsdmD dependent via an active way in vivo and in vitro. Caspase-11/GsdmD was responsible for HMGB1 translocation from nucleus to the cytoplasm via calcium changing-induced phosphorylation of calcium-calmodulin kinase kinase (camkk)β during endotoxemia. Cleaved GsdmD accumulated on the endoplasmic reticulum, suggesting this may lead to calcium leak and intracellular calcium increase. Furthermore, we investigated that exosome was an important pathway for HMGB1 release from hepatocytes; this process was dependent on TLR4, independent of caspase-11 and GsdmD in vivo and in vitro. These findings provide a novel mechanism that TLR4 signaling results in an increase in caspase-11 expression, as well as increased exosome release, while caspase-11/GsdmD activation/cleavage leads to accumulation of HMGB1 in the cytoplasm through a process associated with the release of calcium from the endoplasmic reticulum and camkkβ activation.