A Noninvasive Approach to Evaluate Tumor Immune Microenvironment and Predict Outcomes in Hepatocellular Carcinoma.

It is widely recognized that tumor immune microenvironment (TIME) plays a crucial role in tumor progression, metastasis, and therapeutic response. Despite several noninvasive strategies have emerged for cancer diagnosis and prognosis, there are still lack of effective radiomic-based model to evaluate TIME status, let alone predict clinical outcome and immune checkpoint inhibitor (ICIs) response for hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC). In this study, we developed a radiomic model to evaluate TIME status within the tumor and predict prognosis and immunotherapy response. A total of 301 patients who underwent magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) examinations were enrolled in our study. The intra-tumoral expression of 17 immune-related molecules were evaluated using co-detection by indexing (CODEX) technology, and we construct Immunoscore (IS) with the least absolute shrinkage and selection operator (LASSO) algorithm and Cox regression method to evaluate TIME. Of 6115 features extracted from MRI, five core features were filtered out, and the Radiomic Immunoscore (RIS) showed high accuracy in predicting TIME status in testing cohort (area under the curve = 0.753). More importantly, RIS model showed the capability of predicting therapeutic response to anti-programmed cell death 1 (PD-1) immunotherapy in an independent cohort with advanced HCC patients (area under the curve = 0.731). In comparison with previously radiomic-based models, our integrated RIS model exhibits not only higher accuracy in predicting prognosis but also the potential guiding significance to HCC immunotherapy. Supplementary Information: The online version contains supplementary material available at 10.1007/s43657-023-00136-8.

Predicting Groundwater Indicator Concentration Based on Long Short-Term Memory Neural Network: A Case Study.

Prediction of groundwater quality is an essential step for sustainable utilization of water resources. Most of the related research in the study area focuses on water distribution and rational utilization of resources but lacks results on groundwater quality prediction. Therefore, this paper introduces a prediction model of groundwater quality based on a long short-term memory (LSTM) neural network. Based on groundwater monitoring data from October 2000 to October 2014, five indicators were screened as research objects: TDS, fluoride, nitrate, phosphate, and metasilicate. Considering the seasonality of water quality time series data, the LSTM neural network model was used to predict the groundwater index concentrations in the dry and rainy periods. The results suggest the model has high accuracy and can be used to predict groundwater quality. The mean absolute errors (MAEs) of these parameters are, respectively, 0.21, 0.20, 0.17, 0.17, and 0.20. The root mean square errors (RMSEs) are 0.31, 0.29, 0.28, 0.27, and 0.31, respectively. People can be given early warnings and take measures according to the forecast situation. It provides a reference for groundwater management and sustainable utilization in the study area in the future and also provides a new idea for coastal cities with similar hydrogeological conditions.

Characterization of WRKY transcription factors in Solanum lycopersicum reveals collinearity and their expression patterns under cold treatment.

WRKY transcription factors play an important role in cold defense of plants. However, little information is available about the cold-responsive WRKYs in tomato (Solanum lycopersicum). In the present study, a complete characterization of this gene family was described. Eighty WRKY genes in the tomato genome were identified. Almost all WRKY genes contain putative stress-responsive cis-elements in their promoter regions. Segmental duplications contributed significantly to the expansion of the SlWRKY gene family. Transcriptional analysis revealed notable differential expression in tomato tissues and expression patterns under cold stress, which indicated wide functional divergence in this family. Ten WRKYs in tomato were strongly induced more than 2-fold during cold stress. These genes represented candidate genes for future functional analysis of WRKYs involved in the cold-related signal pathways. Our data provide valuable information about tomato WRKY proteins and form a foundation for future studies of these proteins, especially for those that play an important role in response to cold stress.

Biocontrol Activity of Bacillus subtilis Isolated from Agaricus bisporus Mushroom Compost Against Pathogenic Fungi.

Bacillus subtilis strain B154, isolated from Agaricus bisporus mushroom compost infected by red bread mold, exhibited antagonistic activities against Neurospora sitophila. Antifungal activity against phytopathogenic fungi was also observed. The maximum antifungal activity was reached during the stationary phase. This antifungal activity was stable over a wide pH and temperature range and was not affected by proteases. Assay of antifungal activity in vitro indicated that a purified antifungal substance could strongly inhibit mycelia growth and spore germination of N. sitophila. In addition, treatment with strain B154 in A. bisporus mushroom compost infected with N. sitophila significantly increased the yield of bisporus mushrooms. Ultraviolet scan spectroscopy, tricine sodium dodecyl sulfate-polyacrylamide gel electrophoresis, matrix-associated laser desorption ionization time-of-flight mass spectrometry, and electrospray ionization tandem mass spectrometry analyses revealed a molecular weight consistent with 1498.7633 Da. The antifungal compound might belong to a new type of lipopeptide fengycin.

Bacterial community compositions of tomato (Lycopersicum esculentum Mill.) seeds and plant growth promoting activity of ACC deaminase producing Bacillus subtilis (HYT-12-1) on tomato seedlings.

Study of endophytic bacteria within plant seeds is very essential and meaningful on account of their heritability and versatility. This study investigated Bacillus bacterial communities within the seeds of four commercial tomato varieties, by 16S rRNA gene PCR-RFLP (restriction fragment length polymorphism). Phylogenetic analysis of 16S rRNA gene sequences indicated that the 22 representative isolates belonged to five species of genus Bacillus and the bacterial compositions showed remarkable differences among tomato varieties. Isolates exhibited multiple plant growth promoting (PGP) traits: 37 % of indole-3-acetic acid production; 37 % of phosphate solubilization; 24 % of siderophores production; 85 % of potential nitrogen fixation and 6 % of 1-aminocyclopropane-1-carboxylate (ACC) deaminase activity. Isolate HYT-12-1 was shown to have highest ACC deaminase activity (112.02 nmol α-ketobutyrate mg⁻¹ protein h⁻¹) among the five ACC deamiase producing strains. 16S rRNA gene sequencing indicated that the isolate HYT-12-1 shared the highest sequence similarity (100 %) with B. subtilis. PGP experiments under gnotobiotic and greenhouse conditions revealed the ability of strain HYT-12-1 to enhance the growth of tomato seedlings. This is the first study to describe endophytic Bacillus communities within tomato seeds, and the results suggest that B. subtilis strain HYT-12-1 would have a great potential for industrial application as biofertilizer in the future.

Flavobacterium sinopsychrotolerans sp. nov., isolated from a glacier.

An aerobic, Gram-negative, yellow-pigmented bacterial strain, designated 0533(T), was isolated from frozen soil from the China No. 1 glacier. Phylogenetic analysis of the 16S rRNA gene sequence demonstrated that strain 0533(T) was a member of the genus Flavobacterium and exhibited 97.1-98.7 % 16S rRNA sequence similarity with its nearest phylogenetic neighbours. Strain 0533(T) exhibited phenotypic and chemotaxonomic characteristics common to the genus Flavobacterium: menaquinone-6 (MK-6) was the predominant quinone and iso-C(15 : 0), C(17 : 1)ω6c, anteiso-C(15 : 0), iso-C(15 : 0) 3-OH, C(15 : 1)ω6c, iso-C(16 : 0) 3-OH, summed feature 3 (comprising C(16 : 1)ω7c and/or C(16 : 1)ω6c), iso-C(15 : 1) G and iso-C(17 : 0) 3-OH were the major fatty acids (>5 %). The DNA G+C content was 32.5 mol%. On the basis of phenotypic and genotypic data, a novel species, Flavobacterium sinopsychrotolerans sp. nov., is proposed. The type strain is 0533(T) (=CGMCC 1.8704(T) =JCM 16398(T)).

Erythrobacter nanhaisediminis sp. nov., isolated from marine sediment of the South China Sea.

A novel Gram-negative, orange-pigmented, slightly halophilic, rod-shaped bacterium, strain T30(T), was isolated from sediment from the South China Sea. Phylogenetic analysis showed that strain T30(T) was a member of the genus Erythrobacter, sharing highest 16S rRNA gene sequence similarities with Erythrobacter aquimaris JCM 12189(T) (99.5 %) and Erythrobacter vulgaris DSM 17792(T) (99.0 %). Levels of DNA-DNA relatedness between strain T30(T) and closely related strains of Erythrobacter species ranged from 14.5 to 56.9 %.The isolate lacked bacteriochlorophyll a and contained ubiquinone-10 as the predominant respiratory lipoquinone. The major fatty acids of this strain were C(18 : 1) ω(38.2 %) and C(16 : 1) ω 7c /C(16 : 1) ω 6c (17.4 %). The major polar lipids were phosphatidylethanolamine, diphosphatidylglycerol, phosphatidylcholine and phosphatidylglycerol. The DNA G+C content of strain T30(T) was 59.5 mol%. On the basis of phenotypic and phylogenetic data, a novel species, Erythrobacter nanhaisediminis sp. nov., is proposed; the type strain is T30(T) (=CGMCC 1.7715(T)=JCM 16125(T)).

Flavobacterium tiangeerense sp. nov., a cold-living bacterium isolated from a glacier.

A novel cold-living, Gram-stain-negative, yellow-pigmented and obligately aerobic bacterium designated strain 0563(T) was isolated from the China No. 1 glacier. Phylogenetic analysis showed that strain 0563(T) was a member of the genus Flavobacterium, sharing the highest 16S rRNA gene sequence similarities with Flavobacterium limicola JCM 11473(T) (98.5 %) and Flavobacterium psychrolimnae NBRC 102679(T) (98.2 %). The genomic DNA G+C content was 34.8 mol%. Strain 0563(T) displayed the common phenotypic and chemotaxonomic features of the genus Flavobacterium, containing menaquinone-6 (MK-6) as the major quinone and iso-C(15 : 0), iso-C(15 : 0) 3-OH, summed feature 3 (comprising C(16 : 1)omega7c and/or C(16 : 1)omega6c), C(15 : 1)omega6c, iso-C(15 : 1) G and iso-C(16 : 0) 3-OH as the major fatty acids. On the basis of phenotypic characteristics, phylogenetic analysis and DNA-DNA relatedness data, the novel species Flavobacterium tiangeerense sp. nov. is proposed; the type strain is 0563(T) (=CGMCC 1.6847(T) =JCM 15087(T)).