Endophyte-mediated enhancement of salt resistance in Arachis hypogaea L. by regulation of osmotic stress and plant defense-related genes.

Introduction: Soil salinization poses a significant environmental challenge affecting plant growth and agricultural sustainability. This study explores the potential of salt-tolerant endophytes to mitigate the adverse effects of soil salinization, emphasizing their impact on the development and resistance of Arachis hypogaea L. (peanuts). Methods: The diversity of culturable plant endophytic bacteria associated with Miscanthus lutarioriparius was investigated. The study focused on the effects of Bacillus tequilensis, Staphylococcus epidermidis, and Bacillus siamensis on the development and germination of A. hypogaea seeds in pots subjected to high NaCl concentrations (200 mM L-1). Results: Under elevated NaCl concentrations, the inoculation of endophytes significantly (p < 0.05) enhanced seedling germination and increased the activities of enzymes such as Superoxide dismutase, catalase, and polyphenol oxidase, while reducing malondialdehyde and peroxidase levels. Additionally, endophyte inoculation resulted in increased root surface area, plant height, biomass contents, and leaf surface area of peanuts under NaCl stress. Transcriptome data revealed an augmented defense and resistance response induced by the applied endophyte (B. tequilensis, S. epidermidis, and B. siamensis) strain, including upregulation of abiotic stress related mechanisms such as fat metabolism, hormones, and glycosyl inositol phosphorylceramide (Na+ receptor). Na+ receptor under salt stress gate Ca2+ influx channels in plants. Notably, the synthesis of secondary metabolites, especially genes related to terpene and phenylpropanoid pathways, was highly regulated. Conclusion: The inoculated endophytes played a possible role in enhancing salt tolerance in peanuts. Future investigations should explore protein-protein interactions between plants and endophytes to unravel the mechanisms underlying endophyte-mediated salt resistance in plants.

scCancer2: data-driven in-depth annotations of the tumor microenvironment at single-level resolution.

SUMMARY: Single-cell RNA-seq (scRNA-seq) is a powerful technique for decoding the complex cellular compositions in the tumor microenvironment (TME). As previous studies have defined many meaningful cell subtypes in several tumor types, there is a great need to computationally transfer these labels to new datasets. Also, different studies used different approaches or criteria to define the cell subtypes for the same major cell lineages. The relationships between the cell subtypes defined in different studies should be carefully evaluated. In this updated package scCancer2, designed for integrative tumor scRNA-seq data analysis, we developed a supervised machine learning framework to annotate TME cells with annotated cell subtypes from 15 scRNA-seq datasets with 594 samples in total. Based on the trained classifiers, we quantitatively constructed the similarity maps between the cell subtypes defined in different references by testing on all the 15 datasets. Secondly, to improve the identification of malignant cells, we designed a classifier by integrating large-scale pan-cancer TCGA bulk gene expression datasets and scRNA-seq datasets (10 cancer types, 175 samples, 663 857 cells). This classifier shows robust performances when no internal confidential reference cells are available. Thirdly, scCancer2 integrated a module to process the spatial transcriptomic data and analyze the spatial features of TME. AVAILABILITY AND IMPLEMENTATION: The package and user documentation are available at http://lifeome.net/software/sccancer2/ and https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.10477296.

MedOptNet: Meta-Learning Framework for Few-shot Medical Image Classification.

In the medical research domain, limited data and high annotation costs have made efficient classification under few-shot conditions a popular research area. This paper proposes a meta-learning framework, termed MedOptNet, for few-shot medical image classification. The framework enables the use of various high-performance convex optimization models as classifiers, such as multi-class kernel support vector machines, ridge regression, and other models. End-to-end training is then implemented using dual problems and differentiation in the paper. Additionally, various regularization techniques are employed to enhance the model's generalization capabilities. Experiments on the BreakHis, ISIC2018, and Pap smear medical few-shot datasets demonstrate that the MedOptNet framework outperforms benchmark models. Moreover, the model training time is also compared to prove its effectiveness in the paper, and an ablation study is conducted to validate the effectiveness of each module.

Revealing the promoting effect of multiple Mn valences on the catalytic activity of CeO2 nanorods toward soot oxidation.

Mn-modified CeO2 nanomaterials have attracted extensive attention as efficient and promising catalysts for soot combustion due to their low cost and high catalytic activity. However, a detailed mechanism of how Mn promotes soot oxidation over CeO2 is still not clearly elucidated, which is crucial to further optimize the catalyst for achieving its practical applications. We here report a Mn-doped CeO2 catalyst with tunable surface Mn chemical valence states to study the Mn-promoting mechanism for improving CeO2 catalyst activity in soot oxidation. Experimental results show that Mn-doped CeO2 nanorods with surface Mn chemical valence states being optimized (Mn0.19Ce0.81O2) can lower the eliminating temperature of soot to 410 °C (T90) when in a loose contact and exhibit a strong resistance towards water molecules. The catalytic performances of Mn0.19Ce0.81O2 nanorods are comparable with those of other reported oxide catalysts both in the mimetic realistic and ideal reaction environments. Detailed characterization and theoretical calculation results demonstrate that balanced multiple Mn valences can dramatically enhance the catalysts' redox properties and their ability to activate O2 molecules, as well as improve the dynamic contact efficiency during the oxidation, which synergistically result in superior catalytic performances. This work might provide insight for the future design and preparation of catalysts to efficiently eliminate soot particles.

Effects of Pharmacist-Led Clinical Pathway/Order Sets on Cancer Patients: A Systematic Review.

Background: Pharmacist-led clinical pathways/order sets (PLCOs) were first applied for designated diseases and surgical operations, such as cancer. They were not used in pharmacotherapy until recently. After screening a large number of publications, we found that PLCOs were rarely accessible. Objective: To evaluate the effects and the changes of relevant medical outcomes of PLCOs. Methods: Articles from PubMed, Embase, Cochrane Library, China National Knowledge Infrastructure, Wanfang database, and China Biology Medicine disc (CBM) were systematically retrieved. Clinical research comparing cancer patients' clinical effects with or without clinical pathway/order sets was performed. Two reviewers performed quality assessment, and the data were abstracted independently. A narrative synthesis of the extracted data was performed due to heterogeneity. Results: Nine studies were identified, including six uncontrolled before-after studies and three case-series studies. The scopes of PLCOs of included research can be divided into two types, one focusing on chemotherapy agents and the other on the managements of chemotherapy-induced complications. The PLCOs shortened hospital length of stay, decreased initial antibiotic time intervals in patients with febrile neutropenia, reduced medication error incidence, and increased physicians' adherence rate to clinical pathway/order sets. Moreover, three articles included economic effects showing positive savings on medication costs through PLCOs. Conclusion: PLCOs can have beneficial effects on medication effectiveness, safety, and economic outcomes. Nevertheless, clinical pathway/order sets need to be further optimized and expanded to other clinical areas.

Severe toxic effects of low-dose methotrexate treatment for placenta accreta in a patient with methylenetetrahydrofolate reductase mutations.

WHAT IS KNOWN AND OBJECTIVE: Low-dose methotrexate (LDMTX) has been widely used for many decades in clinical settings, with good safety profiles compared with those of high-dose methotrexate. LDMTX is also used as one of the off-label conservative therapies in treating placenta accreta (PA). Until now, only a few mild adverse drug reactions (ADRs) have been published after short-term use of LDMTX, and no severe cases have been reported. CASE SUMMARY: We present a case of a 30-year-old female who developed acute severe oral ulcerative mucositis with degree IV myelosuppression and degree III hepatic injury, after three doses of LDMTX to treat placenta accrete. The symptoms gradually improved after leucovorin rescue and supportive treatments. WHAT IS NEW AND CONCLUSION: The present case provides the first severe ADR report for the short-term use of LDMTX for treating PA, indicating that potentially life-threatening complications can also occur when using LDMTX. Early recognition and immediate leucovorin rescue could result in a favourable outcome.

Deminuibacter soli gen. nov., sp. nov., isolated from forest soil, and reclassification of Filimonas aurantiibacter as Arvibacter aurantiibacter comb. nov.

A novel strain, designated K23C18032701T, was isolated from a sample of forest soil collected from Dinghushan Biosphere Reserve, Guangdong Province, PR China. The strain was Gram-stain-negative, aerobic, motile and showed a shape change from a filamentous cell to coccobacilli. Phylogenetic analysis based on 16S rRNA gene sequences revealed that the novel strain belongs to the family Chitinophagaceae, and showed the highest similarities to Arvibacter flaviflagrans JCM 31293T (95.0 %) and Filimonas aurantiibacter LMG 29039T (94.4 %). The major cellular fatty acids included iso-C15 : 0, iso-C17 : 0 3-OH and iso-C15 : 1 G. The predominant polar lipid was phosphatidylethanolamine (PE). The predominant respiratory quinone was menaquinone-7. The major polyamine was sym-homospermidine. The draft genome size of strain K23C18032701T was 5.84 Mb with a DNA G+C content of 47.2 mol%. Based on phenotypic, genotypic and phylogenetic analysis, strain K23C18032701T represents a novel species of a new genus in the family Chitinophagaceae, for which the name Deminuibacter soli is proposed. The type strain is K23C18032701T (=GDMCC 1.1403T=KCTC 62913T). We also propose the reclassification of Filimonas aurantiibacter as Arvibacter aurantiibacter comb. nov. (type strain 1458T=NRRL B-65305T=LMG 29039T).

In vitro and in vivo chemo-phototherapy of magnetic TiO2 drug delivery system formed by pH-sensitive coordination bond.

To achieve tumor-specific delivery of doxorubicin, TiO2@Fe3O4/PEI/delivery of doxorubicin conjugates were designed and synthesized. Fe3O4 could act as magnetically responsive carriers and enhance the visible light photodynamic activities of TiO2 Delivery of doxorubicin was conjugated via coordination bond. The drug release rate at pH 5.2 was much faster than that at pH 7.4, due to pH-sensitive coordination bond. Besides, TiO2@Fe3O4/PEI/delivery of doxorubicin showed high antitumor efficacy combining with phototherapy, good bio-safety, higher cellular uptake with an external magnetic field, and less toxicity in vitro and in vivo. These results suggested that TiO2@Fe3O4/PEI/delivery of doxorubicin may be promising for high tumor treatment efficacy with minimal side effects in future.

[Isolation and identification of cultivable myxobacteria in the rhizosphere soils of medicinal plants].

OBJECTIVE: We isolated myxobacteria and explored their diversity from the rhizosphere soils of some medicinal plants. METHODS: We used the helper bacteria baiting technique to isolate myxobacteria from the rhizosphere soils collected in South China Botanical Garden and Nanling National Forest Park. The myxobacteria were identified by morphological characteristics and 16S rDNA gene sequences analysis. RESULTS: A total of 50 strains were isolated from 22 soil samples, which were identified into 7 genera, Myxococcus (18), Corallococcus (11), Cystobacter (7), Archangium (8), Stigmatella (1), Chondromyces (4) and Pyxidicoccus (1). The dominant genera were Myxococcus and Corallococcus. CONCLUSION: Environmental factors were associated with the diversity of myxobactria. Myxobacteria better adapt in high organic matter content and neutral pH environments. The strains of Myxococcus and Corallococcus had a good adaptability for different pH. Meanwhile, the dependence of the strains of Myxococcus and Cystobacter on organic carbon content was not too obvious, and they can also be found in the poor soils. Our findings provided an important scientific base for the development and utilization of myxobacteria resources.

[Isolation and identification of myxobacteria in the saline-alkaline soils of Akesu in Xinjiang].

OBJECTIVE: To isolate myxobacteria and investigate their diversity in saline-alkaline soils from Akesu in Xinjiang. METHODS: Conventional culture-dependent methods, e. g. baiting technique, water agar, soil extract agar and mineral agar, were used to isolate myxobacteria from 25 soil samples collected from Akesu areas of Xinjiang. Combining with physicochemical properties (acidity/alkalinity, salt concentration, vegetation and geographical locations) of the soil samples, myxobacterial diversity was studied. RESULTS: In total 58 strains were isolated, and identified as belonging to 6 different genera, i.e. Myxococcus, Cystobacter, Corallococcus, Sorangium, Nannocystis and Polyangium of Myxococcales. The most frequent genus isolated was Myxococcus which may better adapt in harsh environments. Different myxobacterial diversity was detected in different habitat. CONCLUSION: Myxobacteria diversity was low in saline-alkaline soils of Akesu in Xinjiang.

Dechlorosoma suillum Achenbach et al. 2001 is a later subjective synonym of Azospira oryzae Reinhold-Hurek and Hurek 2000.

In order to clarify the taxonomic position of Dechlorosoma suillum, which shares 99.9% 16S rDNA sequence identity (1433 of 1435 bp) with Azospira oryzae, we compared the two species in a polyphasic taxonomic approach. Results of 122 physiological and biochemical tests for D. suillum DSM 13638T and Azospira oryzae 6a3T were identical, except for the lack of growth of Azospira oryzae 6a3T with perchlorate as the terminal electron acceptor. Presence of a nifH gene and nitrogenase activity, a key feature of Azospira, were also detected in D. suillum by Southern hybridization and by the acetylene reduction assay, respectively. Whole-cell SDS-PAGE profiles of SDS-soluble proteins of strains DSM 13638T and 6a3T were almost identical. DNA-DNA hybridization studies showed more than 90% binding between D. suillum and two strains of Azospira oryzae. These data provide evidence that the two bacteria belong to the same species and that D. suillum is a later subjective synonym of Azospira oryzae.