Analysis of Associated Factors, Construction, and Application of a Predictive Model for Lymph Node Metastasis in Colorectal Cancer.

Background: In colorectal cancer (CRC) , understanding lymph node metastasis (LNM) is critical for effective treatment. Better approaches are required for identifying and assessing the risk contributions of factors influencing lymph node metastasis in colorectal cancer. Objective: This study aims to analyze factors associated with LNM in CRC and develop a risk prediction model. Methods: A retrospective cohort study was conducted and a total of 181 CRC patients admitted between March 2020 and April 2023 were selected as research participants. Among them, 47 patients developed LNM, while the remaining 134 did not. Clinical data, including age, sex, pathological stages, were collected. Logistic regression was employed to identify factors influencing LNM in CRC, forming the basis for constructing a risk model. The diagnostic efficiency of this model was assessed through receiver operating characteristic (ROC) curves. Results: Tumor nodules and histological types showed no correlation with LNM in CRC (P > .05). However, pathological staging, vascular and neural invasion, use of VEGF inhibitors, and preoperative CEA were identified as independent risk factors for LNM in CRC (P < .05). The established model demonstrated a good fit with the observations. ROC curve analysis indicated an area under the curve (AUC) of 0.884 for predicting LNM in CRC, signifying excellent predictive performance. Conclusions: The risk model, formulated on factors associated with LNM in CRC, serves as a efficient tool in assessing the probability of LNM. It provides invaluable insights that can significantly enhance clinical approaches to the diagnosis and treatment of CRC in the future.

High resolution and large measurement range voltage sensing based on an optoelectronic oscillator utilizing an unbalanced Mach-Zehnder interferometer.

A voltage sensor with high resolution and large measurement range based on an optoelectronic oscillator (OEO) is proposed and experimentally demonstrated. The key component in the cavity to select the oscillating signal is a finite impulse response (FIR)-microwave photonic filter (MPF) which consists of a sinusoidal broadband optical signal, an unbalanced Mach-Zehnder interferometer (MZI), a section of dispersion compensating fiber, and a photodetector. The center frequency of the FIR-MPF is mainly determined by the free spectral range (FSR) of the FIR-MPF. In the lower arm of the MZI, a cylindrical piezoelectric ceramic (PZT) wrapped with a section of optical fiber acts as voltage sensing head. Due to the inverse piezoelectric effect of PZT, the variation of the voltage will cause radial deformation of the cylindrical PZT and then lead to the change of the FSR of the MZI, determining the shift of center frequency of FIR-MPF as well as the frequency of the oscillating signal of the OEO. Thus, by monitoring the shift of the oscillation frequency of the OEO using an electric spectrum analyzer or a digital signal processor, a high-speed interrogation and high-resolution voltage measurement can be realized. Additionally, in the proposed scheme, an infinite impulse response (IIR)-MPF consisting of a fiber ring resonator is cascaded with the FIR-MPF to ensure the single-mode oscillation of the OEO. The experimental results show that a total range of 1700 V voltage sensing from - 200 V to 1500 V is accomplished with the voltage sensitivity of 0.25 GHz/100 V and the resolution of 0.3 V. By adjusting the proportion of the length of single mode fiber between two branches of MZI, the impact of temperature can be greatly reduced. The proposed sensor offers advantages such as a large measurement range, high resolution, high-speed interrogation, and stability to temperature disturbances, making it highly suitable for sensing applications in smart grids.

Simultaneous magnetic field and temperature measurement with high resolution based on cascaded microwave photonic filters.

A simultaneous magnetic field and temperature sensing scheme based on cascaded microwave photonic filters (MPFs) with high resolution is proposed and experimentally demonstrated. A polarization maintaining fiber bonded with a giant magnetostrictive material acts both as a magnetic field sensing probe and an important unit of a dispersion-induced MPF. A 500 m single mode fiber in a two-tap MPF is used to perform temperature compensation. The power fading frequency of the dispersion-induced MPF and the dip frequency of the two-tap MPF are selected to monitor the magnetic field and temperature changes. When temperature changes, both power fading frequency and dip frequency will change. While only power fading frequency shifts as magnetic field changes. Consequently, dual parameter sensing can be achieved by monitoring the characteristic microwave frequencies of the two MPFs. The temperature cross-sensitivity is well resolved in this way. In the experiment, the microwave frequency changes 5.84 MHz as external magnetic field increases by 1 mT. The corresponded theoretical resolution can reach 0.17 nT, which is only limited by the minimum resolution of vector network analyzer.

An Outstandingly Rare Occurrence of Mycoviruses in Soil Strains of the Plant-Beneficial Fungi from the Genus Trichoderma and a Novel Polymycoviridae Isolate.

In fungi, viral infections frequently remain cryptic causing little or no phenotypic changes. It can indicate either a long history of coevolution or a strong immune system of the host. Some fungi are outstandingly ubiquitous and can be recovered from a great diversity of habitats. However, the role of viral infection in the emergence of environmental opportunistic species is not known. The genus of filamentous and mycoparasitic fungi Trichoderma (Hypocreales, Ascomycota) consists of more than 400 species, which mainly occur on dead wood, other fungi, or as endo- and epiphytes. However, some species are environmental opportunists because they are cosmopolitan, can establish in a diversity of habitats, and can also become pests on mushroom farms and infect immunocompromised humans. In this study, we investigated the library of 163 Trichoderma strains isolated from grassland soils in Inner Mongolia, China, and found only four strains with signs of the mycoviral nucleic acids, including a strain of T. barbatum infected with a novel strain of the Polymycoviridae and named and characterized here as Trichoderma barbatum polymycovirus 1 (TbPMV1). Phylogenetic analysis suggested that TbPMV1 was evolutionarily distinct from the Polymycoviridae isolated either from Eurotialean fungi or from the order Magnaportales. Although the Polymycoviridae viruses were also known from Hypocrealean Beauveria bassiana, the phylogeny of TbPMV1 did not reflect the phylogeny of the host. Our analysis lays the groundwork for further in-depth characterization of TbPMV1 and the role of mycoviruses in the emergence of environmental opportunism in Trichoderma. IMPORTANCE Although viruses infect all organisms, our knowledge of some groups of eukaryotes remains limited. For instance, the diversity of viruses infecting fungi-mycoviruses-is largely unknown. However, the knowledge of viruses associated with industrially relevant and plant-beneficial fungi, such as Trichoderma spp. (Hypocreales, Ascomycota), may shed light on the stability of their phenotypes and the expression of beneficial traits. In this study, we screened the library of soilborne Trichoderma strains because these isolates may be developed into bioeffectors for plant protection and sustainable agriculture. Notably, the diversity of endophytic viruses in soil Trichoderma was outstandingly low. Only 2% of 163 strains contained traces of dsRNA viruses, including the new Trichoderma barbatum polymycovirus 1 (TbPMV1) characterized in this study. TbPMV1 is the first mycovirus found in Trichoderma. Our results indicate that the limited data prevent the in-depth study of the evolutionary relationship between soilborne fungi and is worth further investigation.

Flexible demodulation for rotation-induced phase difference based on a phase-controlled microwave photonic filter.

High-performance demodulation of Sagnac effect is of great importance for rotation rate measurement in inertial navigation system. In this paper, we propose a flexible measurement of rotation rate based on a phase-controlled microwave photonic filter (MPF), which incorporates an orthogonal double-sideband (ODSB) modulator, a Sagnac loop, a linearly chirped fiber Bragg grating (LCFBG), a polarizer, and a photodetector. The ODSB modulator is used to generate optical carrier (OC) and first-order sidebands with mutually orthogonal polarizations. For the MPF, its central frequency can be tuned through changing the phase difference between the OC and first-order sidebands thanks to the dispersion of the LCFBG. Therefore, if the OC and first-order sidebands are separated by a polarization beam splitter and then travel along the Sagnac loop in opposite directions, the rotation-induced phase difference between them will lead to a shift on the frequency response of the MPF. Thus, two ways can be adopted to detect the rotation rate of the Sagnac loop for different applications: monitoring the frequency response shift of the MPF and measuring the power variation at a certain frequency. Besides, the measurement sensitivity can be easily adjusted to satisfy specific requirements by tuning a polarization controller or choosing a different operating frequency. An experiment is performed to validate the proposed scheme. The results show that the maximum frequency shift of the MPF can reach 1.7 GHz at a rotation rate of 1 rad/s, and a scale factor of 0.016 mW/(rad/s) is obtained at 4 GHz.

Deep learning algorithm reveals two prognostic subtypes in patients with gliomas.

BACKGROUND: Gliomas are highly complex and heterogeneous tumors, rendering prognosis prediction challenging. The advent of deep learning algorithms and the accessibility of multi-omic data represent a new approach for the identification of survival-sensitive subtypes. Herein, an autoencoder-based approach was used to identify two survival-sensitive subtypes using RNA sequencing (RNA-seq) and DNA methylation (DNAm) data from The Cancer Genome Atlas (TCGA) dataset. The subtypes were used as labels to build a support vector machine model with cross-validation. We validated the robustness of the model on Chinese Glioma Genome Atlas (CGGA) dataset. DNAm-driven genes were identified by integrating DNAm and gene expression profiling analyses using the R MethylMix package and carried out for further enrichment analysis. RESULTS: For TCGA dataset, the model produced a high C-index (0.92 ± 0.02), low brier score (0.16 ± 0.02), and significant log-rank p value (p < 0.0001). The model also had a decent performance for CGGA dataset (CGGA DNAm: C-index of 0.70, brier score of 0.21; CGGA RNA-seq: C-index of 0.79, brier score of 0.18). Moreover, we identified 389 DNAm-driven genes of survival-sensitive subtypes, which were significantly enriched in the glutathione metabolism pathway. CONCLUSIONS: Our study identified two survival-sensitive subtypes of glioma and provided insights into the molecular mechanisms underlying glioma development; thus, potentially providing a new target for the prognostic prediction of gliomas and supporting personalized treatment strategies.

Defects in plant immunity modulate the rates and patterns of RNA virus evolution.

It is assumed that host genetic variability for susceptibility to infection conditions virus evolution. Differences in host susceptibility can drive a virus to diversify into strains that track different defense alleles (e.g. antigenic diversity) or to infect only the most susceptible genotypes. Here, we have studied how variability in host defenses determines the evolutionary fate of a plant RNA virus. We performed evolution experiments with Turnip mosaic potyvirus in Arabidopsis thaliana mutants that had disruptions in infection-response signaling pathways or in genes whose products are essential for potyvirus infection. Plant genotypes were classified into five phenogroups according to their response to infection. We found that evolution proceeded faster in more restrictive hosts than in more permissive ones. Most of the phenotypic differences shown by the ancestral virus across host genotypes were removed after evolution, suggesting the combined action of selection and chance. When all evolved viral lineages were tested in all plant genotypes used in the experiments, we found compelling evidences that the most restrictive plant genotypes selected for more generalist viruses, while more permissive genotypes selected for more specialist viruses. Sequencing the genomes of the evolved viral lineages, we found that selection targeted the multifunctional genome-linked protein VPg in most host genotypes. Overall, this work illustrates how different host defenses modulate the rates and extent of virus evolution.

The Newly Identified Trichoderma harzianum Partitivirus (ThPV2) Does Not Diminish Spore Production and Biocontrol Activity of Its Host.

A new partititvirus isolated from a Trichoderma harzianum strain (T673), collected in China, was characterized and annotated as Trichoderma harzianum partitivirus 2 (ThPV2). The genome of ThPV2 consists of a 1693 bp dsRNA1 encoding a putative RNA-dependent RNA polymerase (RdRp) and a 1458 bp dsRNA2 encoding a hypothetical protein. In comparative studies employing the ThPV2-infected strain (T673) and a strain cured by ribavirin treatment (virus-free strain T673-F), we investigated biological effects of ThPV2 infection. While the growth rate of the virus-infected fungus differed little from that of the cured variant, higher mycelial density, conidiospore, and chlamydospore production were observed in the virus-infected strain T673. Furthermore, both the ThPV2-infected and the cured strain showed growth- and development-promoting activities in cucumber plants. In vitro confrontation tests showed that strains T673 and T673-F inhibited several important fungal pathogens and an oomycete pathogen in a comparable manner. Interestingly, in experiments with cucumber seeds inoculated with Fusarium oxysporum f. sp. cucumerinum, the ThPV2-infected strain T673 showed moderately but statistically significantly improved biocontrol activity when compared with strain T673-F. Our data broaden the spectrum of known mycoviruses and provide relevant information for the development of mycoviruses for agronomic applications.

Enhanced performance of a reservoir computing system based on a dual-loop optoelectronic oscillator.

Time-delayed reservoir computing (RC) is a brain inspired paradigm for processing temporal information, with simplification in the network's architecture using virtual nodes embedded in a temporal delay line. In this work, a novel, to the best of our knowledge, RC system based on a dual-loop optoelectronic oscillator is proposed to enhance the prediction and classification. The hardware is compact and easy to implement, and only a section of fiber compared to the traditional optoelectronic oscillator reservoir is added to conform the dual-loop scheme. Compared with the traditional reservoir, a remarkable performance of the proposed RC system is demonstrated by simulation on three well-known tasks, namely the nonlinear auto regressive moving average (NARMA10) task, signal waveform recognized task, and handwritten numeral recognition. The parameter optimization in the NARMA10 task is presented with influenced factors. The novel RC system finally obtains a normalized mean square error at 0.0493±0.007 in NARMA10 task, 6.172×10-6 in signal waveform recognized task, and a word error rate at 9% in handwritten numeral recognition with suitable parameters.

Filter-free photonics-assisted frequency translator with a tunable phase shift and amplitude based on an integrated DP-QPSK modulator.

In this paper, we propose and demonstrate a novel, to the best of knowledge, filter-free photonics-assisted microwave frequency translator with a tunable phase shift and amplitude. The pivotal component of the proposed scheme is an integrated dual-polarization quadrature phase shift keying (DP-QPSK) modulator, which is applied to generate a polarization orthogonal carrier-suppressed single sideband modulation signal and frequency shifted optical carrier signal. The polarization-multiplexed optical signal outputs from the DP-QPSK modulator is then sent to a photodetector (PD) via a polarization controller (PC) and a polarizer to implement photoelectric conversion. The electrical signal output from the PD is the desired frequency translated microwave signal, and the amount of frequency shift is determined by the frequency of the sawtooth wave applied to the DP-QPSK modulator. In addition, since the PC can be used to adjust the polarization angle and introduce a phase difference between the two orthogonally polarized optical signals, the phase shift and amplitude of the obtained translated signal can also be easily tuned. A theoretical analysis and simulation experiment are carried out to verify the feasibility of the proposed scheme. The simulation results show that the novel scheme can realize frequency translation with a 360° continuously tunable phase shift and adjustable amplitude for both a single-tone signal and linearly frequency modulated signal with a 50 MHz bandwidth. The spurious suppression ratios of the single-tone signal and LFM signal after frequency translation are larger than 48 and 30 dB, respectively.

Population genetics and phylogeography of alfalfa mosaic virus in China and a comparison with other regional epidemics based on the cp gene.

Alfalfa mosaic virus (AMV) is the most pervasive epidemic virus affecting alfalfa production. However, detailed investigations on the molecular population genetics and evolutionary dynamics of AMV are scarce. This study aimed to report on a large-scale long-term survey of genetic variability in AMV populations from China and perform a comparative analysis of AMV population genetics in the three most thoroughly studied countries to date: China, Iran, and Spain. The study was based on the analysis of the coat protein gene (cp) using two analytical approaches: an analysis of molecular variance (AMOVA) and a Bayesian Markov Chain Monte Carlo approach that investigates the association between geographical origin and phylogeny. Both analytical approaches found significant genetic differentiation within localities, but not among localities nor among provinces. This observation might result from inappropriate agronomical practices involving extensive exchange of plant materials followed by rapid viral diversification within localities. In the Chinese population, both methods found that genetic diversification in AMV was strongly associated with different bioclimatic zones. Rates of molecular evolution were similar in the three countries. The estimated epidemic exponential population size and growth rate suggest that the epidemics grew faster and with higher incidence in Iran, followed by Spain and China. Estimates of the time to the most recent common ancestors suggest that AMV was first seen in Spain by the beginning of the twentieth century and later on in eastern and central Eurasia. After ruling out the existence of recombination breakpoints within the cp gene, a codon-based selection analysis per population was performed and identified many codons under significant negative selection and a few under significant positive selection; the latter varied among countries, suggesting regional differences in selective pressures.

Sensitivity-improved fiber optic current sensor based on an optoelectronic oscillator utilizing a dispersion induced microwave photonic filter.

An optoelectronic oscillator (OEO)-based fiber optic current sensor (FOCS) with greatly improved sensitivity is proposed and experimentally demonstrated. A microwave photonic filter (MPF) induced by the dispersion effect of a linearly chirped fiber Bragg grating (LCFBG) is used to select the frequency of the OEO oscillating signal. A two-tap MPF formed by a polarization multiplexed composite cavity is cascaded to achieve a stable single mode oscillation. When the current changes, the magneto-optic phase shift induced by Faraday effect will be introduced between the left and right circularly polarized lights transmitted in the reflective sensing unit. The magneto-optic phase shift is converted to the phase difference between the optical carrier and sidebands through a LiNbO3 Mach-Zehnder modulator. This phase difference is the decisive factor for the center frequency of the cascaded MPF as well as the oscillating frequency. Therefore, the current can be measured in the microwave frequency domain, which can improve the interrogation speed and accuracy to a large extent. The experimental results show that the oscillating frequency shifts up to 407.9 MHz as the current increases by 1 A.

Multiband radio-over-fiber system for a 5G mobile fronthaul network.

A multiband radio-over-fiber system for a fifth-generation (5G) mobile communication technology mobile fronthaul network is proposed, which can transmit radio frequency (RF) signals in four different frequency bands of 700 MHz, 1.8 GHz, 3.5 GHz, and 26 GHz with different data rates simultaneously. The proposed system can satisfy the multiscenario demand of 5G and realize 4G/5G coexistence. A dual-polarization binary phase-shift keying modulator is utilized to alleviate the interference between multiple-frequency bands. The system is analyzed theoretically and verified through simulation. The variations of error vector magnitudes (EVMs) of four transmitted RF signals in function of the received optical power (ROP) are investigated. The simulation results show that the system has good performance after 10 km standard single-mode fiber (SMMF) transmission. When the ROP is above -3.3dBm, the EVM of the system conforms to the 3GPP specification. The power penalty of the system is within 1.9 dB at the 3GPP EVM performance specification after transmitting over a 10 km SSMF.

Linearity improvement of analog photonic link based on a phase-coherent orthogonal light wave generator.

This Letter presents a novel, to the best of our knowledge, linearized analog photonic link (APL) based on a phase-coherent orthogonal light wave generator that consists of a polarization-dependent Mach-Zehnder modulator (MZM) and a polarization controller (PC). By adjusting the PC and bias voltage of MZM, the third-order intermodulation (IMD3) terms can be suppressed while retaining a high gain for the fundamental terms, which indicates that the spurious free dynamic range (SFDR) of the proposed APL can be much improved. To further verify the feasibility of the proposed APL, a proof-of-concept experiment is performed, and the performances are compared with conventional APL. The experimental results demonstrate that a 14 dB improvement in the fundamental to IMD3 power ratio and an SFDR of 100.2dB⋅Hz2/3 or 119.1dB⋅Hz2/3 for a noise floor of -139dBm/Hz or -163.9dBm/Hz are achieved. In addition, an orthogonal frequency division multiplexing signal with 30 MHz bandwidth centered at 2.5 GHz is delivered by our proposed APL, whose signal-to-noise ratio is increased by 10 dB, compared to conventional APL.

Transcriptome Dynamics Underlying Chlamydospore Formation in Trichoderma virens GV29-8.

Trichoderma spp. are widely used biocontrol agents which are antagonistic to a variety of plant pathogens. Chlamydospores are a type of propagules produced by many fungi that have thick walls and are highly resistant to adverse environmental conditions. Chlamydospore preparations of Trichoderma spp. can withstand various storage conditions, have a longer shelf life than conidial preparations and have better application potential. However, large-scale production of chlamydospores has proven difficult. To understand the molecular mechanisms governing chlamydospore formation (CF) in Trichoderma fungi, we performed a comprehensive analysis of transcriptome dynamics during CF across 8 different developmental time points, which were divided into 4 stages according to PCA analysis: the mycelium growth stage (S1), early and middle stage of CF (S2), flourishing stage of CF (S3), and late stage of CF and mycelia initial autolysis (S4). 2864, 3206, and 3630 DEGs were screened from S2 vs S1, S3 vs S2, and S4 vs S3, respectively. We then identified the pathways and genes that play important roles in each stage of CF by GO, KEGG, STC and WGCNA analysis. The results showed that DEGs in the S2 vs S1 were mainly enriched in organonitrogen compound metabolism, those in S3 vs S2 were mainly involved in secondary metabolite, cell cycle, and N-glycan biosynthesis, and DEGs in S4 vs S3 were mainly involved in lipid, glycogen, and chitin metabolic processes. We speculated that mycelial assimilation and absorption of exogenous nitrogen in the early growth stage (S1), resulted in subsequent nitrogen deficiency (S2). At the same time, secondary metabolites and active oxygen free radicals released during mycelial growth produced an adverse growth environment. The resulting nitrogen-deficient and toxin enriched medium may stimulate cell differentiation by initiating cell cycle regulation to induce morphological transformation of mycelia into chlamydospores. High expression of genes relating to glycogen, lipid, mannan, and chitin synthetic metabolic pathways during the flourishing (S3) and late stages (S4) of CF may be conducive to energy storage and cell wall construction in chlamydospores. For further verifying the functions of the amino sugar and nucleotide sugar metabolism (tre00520) pathway in the CF of T. virens GV29-8 strain, the chitin synthase gene (TRIVIDRAFT_90152), one key gene of the pathway, was deleted and resulted in the dysplasia of mycelia and an incapability to form normal chlamydospores, which illustrated the pathway affecting the CF of T. virens GV29-8 strain. Our results provide a new perspective for understanding the genetics of biochemical pathways involved in CF of Trichoderma spp.

Development of an Immune Infiltration-Related Eight-Gene Prognostic Signature in Colorectal Cancer Microenvironment.

OBJECTIVE: Stromal cells and immune cells have important clinical significance in the microenvironment of colorectal cancer (CRC). This study is aimed at developing a CRC gene signature on the basis of stromal and immune scores. METHODS: A cohort of CRC patients (n = 433) were adopted from The Cancer Genome Atlas (TCGA) database. Stromal/immune scores were calculated by the ESTIMATE algorithm. Correlation between prognosis/clinical characteristics and stromal/immune scores was assessed. Differentially expressed stromal and immune genes were identified. Their potential functions were annotated by functional enrichment analysis. Cox regression analysis was used to develop an eight-gene risk score model. Its predictive efficacies for 3 years, 5 years, overall survival (OS), and progression-free survival interval (PFI) were evaluated using time-dependent receiver operating characteristic (ROC) curves. The correlation between the risk score and the infiltering levels of six immune cells was analyzed using TIMER. The risk score was validated using an independent dataset. RESULTS: Immune score was in a significant association with prognosis and clinical characteristics of CRC. 736 upregulated and two downregulated stromal and immune genes were identified, which were mainly enriched into immune-related biological processes and pathways. An-eight gene prognostic risk score model was conducted, consisting of CCL22, CD36, CPA3, CPT1C, KCNE4, NFATC1, RASGRP2, and SLC2A3. High risk score indicated a poor prognosis of patients. The area under the ROC curves (AUC) s of the model for 3 years, 5 years, OS, and PFI were 0.71, 0.70, 0.73, and 0.66, respectively. Thus, the model possessed well performance for prediction of patients' prognosis, which was confirmed by an external dataset. Moreover, the risk score was significantly correlated with immune cell infiltration. CONCLUSION: Our study conducted an immune-related prognostic risk score model, which could provide novel targets for immunotherapy of CRC.

Biodiversity of Trichoderma from grassland and forest ecosystems in Northern Xinjiang, China.

Trichoderma spp., a cosmopolitan fungal genus, has remarkable economic value in industry and agriculture. The resources of Trichoderma spp. in the grassland and forest ecosystems of northern Xinjiang were explored in this study. A total of 634 soil samples was collected, and 312 strains assigned to 23 species of Trichoderma spp. were identified. T. harzianum was the dominant species with 28.2% from all isolates. The principal components analysis indicated that ecosystem was the most dominant impact factor among longitude, latitude, altitude and ecosystems for the species diversities of Trichoderma spp. with the decreasing trend from the north to the south of northern Xinjiang (e.g., from Altay, followed by Yili, Changji, Bayingolin and finally Urumqi). Overall, Trichoderma spp. were more frequently encountered in forest ecosystems (coniferous forest and coniferous and broadleaf mixed forest) than in grassland ecosystems (desert steppe and temperate steppe). Frequency of Trichoderma spp. was significantly decreased along with increased altitude and only a few strains were isolated from altitudes above 3000 m. The results provided essential information on Trichoderma occurrence and distribution, which should benefit the application of Trichoderma in agriculture.

Precise engineering of neutrophil membrane coated with polymeric nanoparticles concurrently absorbing of proinflammatory cytokines and endotoxins for management of sepsis.

Sepsis, ensuing from unrestrained inflammatory replies to bacterial infections, endures with high injury and mortality worldwide. Presently, active sepsis management is missing in the hospitals during the surgery, and maintenance remnants mainly helpful. Now, we have constructed the macrophage bio-mimic nanoparticles for the treatment of sepsis and its management. Biomimetic macrophage nanoparticles containing a recyclable polymeric nanoparticle covered with cellular membrane resulting from macrophages (represented PEG-Mac@NPs) have an antigenic external similar to the cells. The PEG-Mac@NPs, Isorhamnetin (Iso) on the free LPS encouraged endotoxin in BALB/c mice through evaluating the nitric acid, TNF-α, and IL-6. Further, the COX-2 and iNOS expression ratio was examined to recognize the connection of several trails to find the exact mode of action PEG-Mac@NPs and Iso. The outcome reveals that the PEG-Mac@NPs inhibited and LPS triggered the NO production though the macrophages peritoneal. Furthermore, the anti-inflammatory possessions were additionally categorized through the reduction of COX-2 and iNOS protein expressions. Engaging PEG-Mac@NPs as a biomimetic decontamination approach displays potential for refining sepsis patient consequences, possibly in the use of sepsis management.

A novel double-stranded RNA mycovirus isolated from Trichoderma harzianum.

BACKGROUND: Trichoderma spp. are used extensively in agriculture as biological control agents to prevent soil-borne plant diseases. In recent years, mycoviruses from fungi have attracted increasing attention due to their effects on their hosts, but Trichoderma mycoviruses have not been the subject of extensive study. We sought to discover novel mycoviruses from Trichoderma spp. and to determine the effects of the biocontrol function of Trichoderma spp. METHODS: Mycoviruses were screened by dsRNA extraction and metagenomic analysis. RT-PCR, 5' RACE, and 3' RACE were used to obtain the genome sequence. MEGA software was used to classify the new mycovirus. The effects of the identified mycovirus on the biological properties of the host strain 525 were evaluated using cucumber plants and Fusarium oxysporum f. sp. cucumerinum. RESULTS: A novel mycovirus, Trichoderma harzianum mycovirus 1 (ThMV1) (accession number MH155602), was discovered in Trichoderma harzianum strain 525, a soil-borne fungus collected from Inner Mongolia, China. The mycovirus exhibited a double-stranded RNA (dsRNA) genome with a complete genome sequence of 3160 base pairs and two open reading frames (ORFs) on the negative strand. Phylogenetic analysis indicated that it belongs to an unclassified family of dsRNA mycoviruses. The removal of ThMV1 from the host 525 strain reduced host biomass production and improved the biocontrol capability of the host for Fusarium oxysporum f. sp. cucumerinum. At same time, the presence of ThMV1 improved the growth of cucumber. CONCLUSION: ThMV1 is a new unclassified mycovirus found in T. harzianum. It not only affects the phenotype of the host strain but also reduces its biocontrol function, which sheds light on the interaction between the mycovirus and Trichoderma spp.