Effects of combined microplastic and cadmium pollution on sorghum growth, Cd accumulation, and rhizosphere microbial functions.

The interaction between microplastics (MPs) and cadmium (Cd) poses a threat to agricultural soil environments, and their effects on plant growth and rhizosphere microbial community functions are not yet clear. In this study, energy sorghum was used as a test plant to investigate the effects of two types of MPs, polystyrene (PS) and polyethylene (PE), at different particle sizes (13 µm, 550 µm) and concentrations (0.1%, 1% w/w), and Cd, as well as their interactions, on the growth of sorghum in a soil-cultivation pot experiment. The results showed that the combined effects of MP and Cd pollution on the dry weight and Cd accumulation rate in sorghum varied depending on the type, concentration, and particle size of the MPs, with an overall trend of increasing stress from combined pollution with increasing Cd content and accumulation. High-throughput sequencing analysis revealed that combined MP and Cd pollution increased bacterial diversity, and the most significant increase was observed in the abundance-based coverage estimator (ACE), Shannon, and Sobs indices in the 13 µm 1% PS+Cd treatment group. Metagenomic analysis based on the Kyoto Encyclopedia of Genes and Genomes (KEGG) metabolic pathways revealed that 19 groups of metabolic pathways, including microbial metabolism and methane metabolism, differed significantly under combined MP and Cd pollution. Hierarchical clustering results indicated that Cd treatment and combined MP and Cd treatment affected the abundances of sorghum rhizosphere soil nitrogen (N) and phosphorus (P) cycling genes and that the type of MP present was an important factor affecting N and P cycling genes. The results of this study provide a basis for exploring the toxic effects of combined MP and Cd pollution and for conducting soil environmental risk assessments.

Plant growth-promoting bacteria improve the Cd phytoremediation efficiency of soils contaminated with PE-Cd complex pollution by influencing the rhizosphere microbiome of sorghum.

Composite pollution by microplastics and heavy metals poses a potential threat to the soilplant system and has received increasing attention. Plant growth-promoting bacteria (PGPB) have good application potential for the remediation of combined microplastic and heavy metal pollution, but few related studies exist. The present study employed a pot experiment to investigate the effects of inoculation with the PGPB Bacillus sp. SL-413 and Enterobacter sp. VY-1 on sorghum growth and Cd accumulation under conditions of combined cadmium (Cd) and polyethylene (PE) pollution. Cd+PE composite contamination led to a significant reduction in sorghum length and biomass due to increased toxicity. Inoculation with Bacillus sp. SL-413 and Enterobacter sp. VY-1 alleviated the stress caused by Cd+PE complex pollution, and the dry weight of sorghum increased by 25.7% to 46.1% aboveground and by 12.3% to 45.3% belowground. Bacillus sp. SL-413 and Enterobacter sp. VY-1 inoculation increased the Cd content and accumulation in sorghum and improved the phytoremediation efficiency of Cd. The inoculation treatment effectively alleviated the nutrient stress caused by the reduction in soil mineral nutrients due to Cd+PE composite pollution. The composition of the soil bacterial communities was also affected by the Cd, Cd+PE and bacterial inoculation treatments, which affected the diversity of the soil bacterial communities. Network analyses indicated that bacterial inoculation regulated the interaction of rhizospheric microorganisms and increased the stability of soil bacterial communities. The Mantel test showed that the changes in the soil bacterial community and function due to inoculation with Bacillus sp. SL-413 and Enterobacter sp. VY-1 were important factors influencing sorghum growth and Cd remediation efficiency. The results of this study will provide new evidence for the research on joint plantmicrobe remediation of heavy metal and microplastic composite pollution.

Illumina MiSeq sequencing and network analysis the distribution and co-occurrence of bacterioplankton in Danjiangkou Reservoir, China.

Network analysis has contributed to studies of the interactions of microorganisms and the identification of key populations. However, such analysis has rarely been conducted in the study of reservoir bacterioplankton communities. This study investigated the bacterioplankton community composition in the surface water of the Danjiangkou Reservoir using the Illumina MiSeq sequencing platform. We observed that the bacterioplankton community primarily consisted of 27 phyla and 336 genera, including Actinobacteria, Proteobacteria, and Bacteroidetes, demonstrating the richness of the community composition. Redundancy analysis of the bacterioplankton communities and environmental variables showed that the total nitrogen (TN), pH, chemical oxygen demand (COD), and permanganate index (CODMn) were important factors affecting the bacterioplankton distribution. Network analysis was performed using the relative abundances of bacterioplankton based on the phylogenetic molecular ecological network (pMEN) method. The connectivity of node i within modules (Zi), the connectivity of node i among modules (Pi), and the number of key bacteria were high at the Taizishan and Heijizui sites, which were associated with higher TN contents than at the other sites. Among the physicochemical properties of water, TN, ammonia nitrogen (NH4-N), pH, COD, and dissolved oxygen (DO) might have great influences on the functional units of the bacterial communities in bacterioplankton molecular networks. This study improves the understanding of the structure and function of bacterioplankton communities in the Danjiangkou Reservoir.

[Community Structure and Predictive Functional Analysis of Surface Water Bacterioplankton in the Danjiangkou Reservoir].

Bacterioplankton are important components of aquatic ecosystems, and play a crucial role in the global biogeochemical cycle of nitrogen. In this study, surface-water samples were collected from Kuxin (the center of Danjiangkou Reservoir) and Qushou (the Middle Route of the South-to-North Water Diversion Project's canal head) in the Danjiangkou Reservoir in May 2016. Total DNA was isolated, and high-throughput sequencing was performed to analyze the community structure and diversity of bacteria. Phylogenetic analyses of 16S rDNA sequences showed that bacterial communities included species from 12 major phylogenetic groups. The predominant phylogenetic groups included Proteobacteria, Bacteroidetes, Firmicutes, Cyanobacteria, and Verrucomicrobia. The microbial biodiversity of Danjiangkou Reservoir bacterioplankton was greater in water samples from Qushou than in those from Kuxin. PICRUSt (phylogenetic investigation of communities by reconstruction of unobserved states) was used to determine the metabolic and functional abilities of the observed bacterial communities. Our results revealed a wide genetic diversity of organisms involved in various essential processes, such as Amino acid transport and metabolism, Transcription, Energy production and conversion, and Carbohydrate transport and metabolism. Thirty-five metabolic pathways involving nitrogen were detected. Key genes impacting the nitrogen cycle were detected in both the Kuxin and Qushou samples, and these encoded enzymes involved in nitrogen fixation (nifH), nitrification (hao), denitrification (narG、nirK、norB、nosZ), and assimilatory and dissimilatory nitrogen reduction to ammonia (nasA、narB、napA、nirA、nirB、nrfA). Copy numbers of 16S rRNA genes of each detected phylotype of Danjiangkou Reservoir bacterioplankton were uniformly higher in water samples from Kuxin than in water samples from Qushou. Our analyses of differences in nitrogen abatement potential between water samples, based on bacterial community composition and function, provide a foundation for setting water environmental protection policies in the Danjiangkou Reservoir.

[Expression and functional analyses of the Arabidopsis QUA1 gene in light signal transduction].

Plants not only use light as an energy source for photosynthesis, but also have to monitor the light quality and quantity input to execute appropriate physiological and developmental responses, such as cell differentiation, structural and functional changes, as well as the formation of tissues and organs. The process is referred to as photomorphogenesis. Arabidopsis QUA1 (QUASIMODO1), which functions in pectin synthesis, is identified as a member of glycosyltransferases. Previously, the hypocotyl elongation of the qua1-1 mutant was shown to be inhibited under dark conditions. In this study, we used the qua1-1/cry1 and qua1-1/phyB double mutants as the materials to study the function of the QUA1 gene in light signal transduction. The results showed that QUA1 not only participated in hypocotyl elongation under dark conditions, but also in blue light, red light and far red light conditions. In qua1-1 mutant seedlings, both the cell length of hypocotyl and the light-regulated gene expression were affected. Compared with cry1 and phyB mutants, qua1-1/cry1 and qua1-1/phyB double mutants had the shorter hypocotyl. Light-regulated gene expression was also affected in the double mutants. These data indicated that QUA1 might participate in the light signal transduction regulated by CRY1 and PHYB. Hence, the QUA1 gene may play multiple roles in light signal transduction by regulating the cell elongation and light-regulated gene expression.