Impact of structurally diverse polysaccharides on colonic mucin O-glycosylation and gut microbiota.

Understanding how dietary polysaccharides affect mucin O-glycosylation and gut microbiota could provide various nutrition-based treatments. Here, the O-glycan profile of the colonic mucosa and gut microbiome were investigated in C57BL/6J mice fed six structurally diverse dietary polysaccharides and a mixture of six fibers. Dietary polysaccharides increased total O-glycans, mainly by stimulating neutral glycans. Highly branched arabinogalactan promoted terminally fucosylated core 1 O-glycans; whereas linear polysaccharides, including pectin, konjac glucomannan, inulin, and the fiber mixture, favored terminally di-fucosylated O-glycans. The last three polysaccharides also lowered the level of sulfated O-glycans and sialylated mono-fucosylated O-glycans. Varied monosaccharide composition in mixed polysaccharides had a synergistic beneficial effect, boosting fucosylated neutral glycans, decreasing acidic glycans, and stimulating microbial richness and diversity. Dietary polysaccharides containing arabinose and sulfate groups enhanced the relative abundances of Akkermansia and Muribaculaceae, respectively. The present comparison reveals the relationship between dietary polysaccharide structure, mucin O-glycan composition, and intestinal microorganisms.

Robust and recyclable magnetic nanobiocatalysts for extraction of anthocyanin from black rice.

Anthocyanins, which are natural pigments and nutraceuticals, can be extracted from plant materials using enzyme-assisted methods. However, the enzymes used are often expensive, fragile, and hard to recover/reuse. In this study, cellulase and α-amylase were immobilized on amino-functionalized magnetic nanoparticles to prepare a magnetic nanobiocatalyst. The enzymes in this nanobiocatalyst exhibited higher stability and greater catalytic activity than free enzymes, including good thermal stability (50 to 70℃) and pH stability (pH 4.5-7.5). Nanobiocatalyst efficacy was demonstrated by extracting anthocyanins from black rice, with a maximum yield of 266 mg anthocyanin/100 g black rice obtained. After six reuse cycles, cellulase and α-amylase retained around 70% and 64% of their activity, respectively. Immobilization also increased their reusability. In summary, a novel magnetic nanobiocatalyst was developed for extracting anthocyanins from black rice, which may also have other applications within the food industry.

Understanding the complex environmental management through a len of food-water-ecosystem nexus: Insights from an ecosystem restoration hotspot in dryland.

The Ecosystem Restoration Project (ERP) is a critical and urgent practice to achieve the land degradation neutrality (LDN) targets. However, an insufficient understanding of the balance between contrasting sectors of the food-water-ecosystem nexus results in ineffectiveness in supporting complex environmental management (CEM), leading to undesirable ERP failures. The Ordos Plateau case identified the nexus evolution and the non-linear interactions between sectors, which were expected to support adaptive strategy formulations for CEM and achieve win-win outcomes. Revegetation in drylands substantially boosted ecosystem restoration, alleviating soil erosion. However, the excessive reliance on returning cropland to woodland and grassland has caused a significant loss of arable and grazing land. During the initial period of ERPs, this exacerbated decline in grain and meat productivity. In addition, aggressive revegetation activities have also reduced runoff yield and depleted soil water resources. Water scarcity is recognized as the most challenging issue in dryland ecosystem restoration, heavily influencing the interactions between sectors and threatening the long-term sustainability of ERPs. To accommodate for regional water carrying capacity, ERPs should adopt and properly allocate the use of suitable plant species with a proven anti-drought capability and high survival ratios without additional human interventions. In addition, the evolution regimes, driving factors, critical thresholds, and complex feedbacks between the nexus sectors should be fully understood to address the water resources constraints and reconcile trade-offs. This would enable the prevention of ecosystem shifts to undesirable failures and inform timely and cost-effective CEM to achieve the LDN targets.

Win-win-win pathway for ecological restoration by balancing hydrological, ecological, and agricultural dimensions: Contrasting lessons from highly eroded agroforestry.

Ecological restoration projects (ERP) can effectively reverse ecosystem degradation. However, some ERPs have failed to restore ecosystems under environmental constraints, and they were unable to achieve the desired ecological and economic benefits. To achieve a win-win-win target that balances the hydrological, ecological, and agricultural dimensions, we introduced the contrasting lessons from hotspots of ecosystem restoration in the arid Loess Plateau (LP) and the humid Karst Plateau (KP) in China, and discussed a novel strategy for coordinating ecosystem restoration, water and food security, and residents' livelihoods. The biophysical models and related statistical records showed that aggressive ERPs and soil and water conservation projects (SWCPs) significantly promoted vegetation restoration and reduced soil erosion and sediment yield in both areas. However, excessive afforestation in the arid LP exhausted water resources and threatened ecosystem sustainability. The accelerated replacement of cropland since 1999 in the LP aggravated cropland shortage which led to carbon sequestration and grain productivity declines in the initial years. However, the construction of terrace and check-dam fields and improvements in the conditions of agricultural production reconciled the cropland shortage and stabilized food security. The positive involvement of stakeholders in ERPs effectively minimized land degradation through economic development and the improved livelihoods of local residents. Therefore, based on the evidence from the KP and LP, the proposed win-win-win strategy is potentially applicable in other global regions that suffer from land degradation. This strategy can achieve considerable success if the planners have a good understanding of local environmental conditions as well as the social and economic needs of residents affected by ERPs.

Integrating Triangle and Jaccard similarities for recommendation.

This paper proposes a new measure for recommendation through integrating Triangle and Jaccard similarities. The Triangle similarity considers both the length and the angle of rating vectors between them, while the Jaccard similarity considers non co-rating users. We compare the new similarity measure with eight state-of-the-art ones on four popular datasets under the leave-one-out scenario. Results show that the new measure outperforms all the counterparts in terms of the mean absolute error and the root mean square error.