Interaction Between Tobacco Smoke Exposure and Zinc Intake and Its Effect on Periodontitis: Evidence From NHANES.

AIM: Tobacco smoke exposure, zinc intake, and periodontitis are closely related. This study intended to assess the relationship between tobacco smoke exposure and zinc intake and its effect on periodontitis. MATERIALS AND METHODS: This cross-sectional study included 9364 participants from the National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey (NHANES) of USA. A weighted multivariate logistic regression model was used to investigate the independent relationship and interaction effect among tobacco smoke exposure, zinc intake, and periodontitis. Odds ratio (OR) with 95% confidence interval (CI) was calculated. The additive interaction was evaluated using relative excess risk due to interaction (RERI), attributable proportion of interaction (AP), and synergy index (SI). RESULTS: In all, 56.57% participants had periodontitis. Compared with participants without tobacco smoke exposure, those with tobacco smoke exposure had increased odds of having periodontitis (OR, 1.96; 95% CI, 1.67-2.31). Similarly, patients with adequate zinc intake were found to have decreased odds of having periodontitis than those with inadequate zinc intake (OR, 0.86; 95% CI, 0.76-0.98). Importantly, there was antagonistic interaction effect between zinc intake and tobacco smoke exposure on periodontitis (RERI: OR, -0.432; 95% CI, -0.829 to -0.034; AP: OR, -0.242; 95% CI, -0.470 to -0.014; SI: OR, 0.645; 95% CI, 0.446 to 0.932). CONCLUSIONS: Tobacco smoke exposure and zinc intake were independently correlated with periodontitis risk. Decreasing tobacco smoke exposure and optimizing dietary zinc intake appear to be important measures that could be taken to control periodontitis.

A neonatal piglet model reveals interactions between nasal microbiota and influenza A virus pathogenesis.

While vaccination and therapeutics for prevention/treatment of influenza are available, new strategies are needed to combat influenza disease in susceptible populations, particularly young children and newborns. Host associated microbiota play an important role in modulating the virulence of numerous pathogens, including the influenza A virus. In this study, we examined microbiome-influenza interactions in a neonatal piglet model system. The nasal microbiome of newborn piglets was longitudinally sampled before and after intranasal infection with recombinant viruses expressing hemagglutinins (HAs) derived from distinct zoonotic H1 subtypes. We found that viruses expressing different parental HAs manifested unique patterns of pathogenicity, and varied impacts on microbial community diversity. Despite these virus specific differences, a consistent microbial signature of viral infection was detected. Our results indicate that influenza A virus infection associates with the restructuring of nasal microbiome and such shifts in microbial diversity may contribute to outcomes of viral infection in neonatal piglets.

Metabolites and novel compounds with anti-microbial or antiaging activities from Cordyceps fumosorosea.

High-resolution mass spectrometry (HRMS) and nuclear magnetic resonance (NMR) analysis revealed that there are 20 main components in spores and mycelia extract of Cordyceps fumosorosea strain RCEF 6672 including mannitol (1), uridine (2), adenine (3). N6-(2-hydroxyethyl)-adenosine (4). N6-(2-hydroxyethylacetate)-adenosine (5), fumosoroseanoside A (6) and B (7), ovalicin-4α-alcohol (8), 1-linoleoyl-sn-glycero-3-phosphocholine (9) and its isomer (10), fumosoroseain A (11) and its isomer (12), 5 non-ribosomal peptides (13 to 17) and 3 fatty acids (18 to 20). The compounds 5, 6, 7, 9 and 11 were prepared with preparative and semi-preparative HPLC and identified with 1D and 2D NMR. Compounds 4 and 5 were the first time identified from C. fumosorosea. Compounds 6, 7 and 11 are novel compounds. Compounds 6 and 7 showed antibacterial and antifungal activities, and 11 showed antiaging activity. All the secondary metabolites (4 to 8 and 11 to 17) have strong bioactivities indicating that the metabolites have pharmaceutical development potentiality.

Effects of interface adsorption of Rhodococcus ruber TH3 cells on the biocatalytic hydration of acrylonitrile to acrylamide.

In this work, the drastic change in the reaction rate throughout the acrylonitrile bio-hydration reaction, which was catalyzed by Rhodococcus ruber TH3 free cells in a two-liquid-phase system, was studied by changing the initial mass fraction of acrylonitrile and acrylamide. We found that the reaction rate was sensitively affected by the contact area between the acrylonitrile droplets and cells. With the acrylonitrile mass fraction of 3 wt%, the cell solution of 800 U/mL could make the superficial area of acrylonitrile droplets saturated. The sustained increase of the acrylamide concentration in the reaction process could reduce the reaction rate, and 25 wt% was the obvious inflection point. The interface adsorption of cells was visually observed with the method of fluorescence microscopy, and the uptake mechanism of substrate by direct contact was illustrated to play a main role by comparing the reaction rate of the heterogeneous system and that of the homogeneous system.