Impact of earthworms on antibiotic resistance genes removal in ampicillin-contaminated soil through bacterial community alteration.

The emergence of antibiotic resistance genes (ARGs) as contaminants in soil poses a significant threat to public health. Earthworms (Eisenia foetida), which are common inhabitants of soil, have been extensively studied for their influence on ARGs. However, the specific impact of earthworms on penicillin-related ARGs remains unclear. In this study, we investigate the role of earthworms in mitigating ARGs, specifically penicillin-related ARGs, in ampicillin-contaminated soil. Utilizing high-throughput quantitative PCR (HT-qPCR), we quantified a significant reduction in the relative abundance of penicillin-related ARGs in soil treated with earthworms, showing a decrease with a p-value of <0.01. Furthermore, high-throughput 16S rRNA gene sequencing revealed that earthworm intervention markedly alters the microbial community structure, notably enhancing the prevalence of specific bacterial phyla such as Proteobacteria, Firmicutes, Chloroflexi, and Tenericutes. Our findings not only demonstrate the effectiveness of earthworms in reducing the environmental load of penicillin-related ARGs but also provide insight into the alteration of microbial communities as a potential mechanism. This research contributes to our understanding of the role of earthworms in mitigating the spread of antibiotic resistance and provides valuable insights for the development of strategies to combat this global health issue.

The proliferation of antibiotic resistance genes (ARGs) and microbial communities in industrial wastewater treatment plant treating N,N-dimethylformamide (DMF) by AAO process.

The excessive use of antibiotics has resulted in the contamination of the environment with antibiotic resistance genes (ARGs), posing a significant threat to public health. Wastewater treatment plants (WWTPs) are known to be reservoirs of ARGs and considered to be hotspots for horizontal gene transfer (HGT) between bacterial communities. However, most studies focused on the distribution and dissemination of ARGs in hospital and urban WWTPs, and little is known about their fate in industrial WWTPs. In this study, collected the 15 wastewater samples containing N,N-dimethylformamide (DMF) from five stages of the anaerobic anoxic aerobic (AAO) process in an industrial WWTPs. The findings revealed a stepwise decrease in DMF and chemical oxygen demand (COD) content with the progression of treatment. However, the number and abundances of ARGs increase in the effluents of biological treatments. Furthermore, the residues of DMF and the treatment process altered the structure of the bacterial community. The correlation analysis indicated that the shift in bacterial community structures might be the main driver for the dynamics change of ARGs. Interestingly, observed that the AAO process may acted as a microbial source and increased the total abundance of ARGs instead of attenuating it. Additionally, found that non-pathogenic bacteria had higher ARGs abundance than pathogenic bacteria in effluents. The study provides insights into the microbial community structure and the mechanisms that drive the variation in ARGs abundance in industrial WWTPs.

Autotrophic denitrification by sulfur-based immobilized electron donor for enhanced nitrogen removal: Denitrification performance, microbial interspecific interaction and functional traits.

Sulfur-driven autotrophic denitrification (SdAD) is a promising nitrogen removing process, but its applications were generally constrained by conventional electron donors (i.e., thiosulfate (Na2S2O3)) with high valence and limited bioavailability. Herein, an immobilized electron donor by loading elemental sulfur on the surface of polyurethane foam (PFSF) was developed, and its feasibility for SdAD was investigated. The denitrification efficiency of PFSF was 97.3%, higher than that of Na2S2O3 (91.1%). Functional microorganisms (i.e., Thiobacillus and Sulfurimonas) and their metabolic activities (i.e., nir and nor) were substantially enhanced by PFSF. PFSF resulted in the enrichment of sulfate-reducing bacteria, which can reduce sulfate (SO42-). It attenuated the inhibitory effect of SO42-, whereas the generated product (hydrogen sulfide) also served as an electron donor for SdAD. According to the economic evaluation, PFSF exhibited strong market potential. This study proposes an efficient and low-cost immobilized electron donor for SdAD and provides theoretical support to its practical applications.

Insights into the formation of environmentally persistent free radicals during photocatalytic degradation processes of ceftriaxone sodium by ZnO/ZnIn2S4.

At present, the researches on photocatalysis were mainly focused on the design, improvement and development of catalysts, and less attention was paid to the existing characteristics of environmentally persistent free radicals (EPFRs) during the process of photocatalytic oxidation. In this study, A flower-like Z-type heterojunction ZnO/ZnIn2S4 (ZnO/ZIS) and typical antibiotic ceftriaxone sodium (CS) were taken as study objects, concentrating on the generation characteristics of EPFRs during the degradation of CS by ZnO/ZIS, and clarifying the degradation mechanism of CS in which EPFRs participated. The results showed that the degradation efficiency of 10 mg/L CS by 0.40 g/L ZnO/ZIS reached 85.3% in 150 min under the irradiation of 500 W xenon lamp. It was clear that ·O2- and h+ play major roles in CS degradation by ZnO/ZIS under visible light, and ·OH plays an auxiliary role. Furthermore, the formation mechanism of EPFRs during photocatalytic degradation processes of CS by ZnO/ZIS were first investigated thoroughly via experimental analysis and density functional theory (DFT) calculations. The concentration level of EPFRs centered on oxygen atoms is 1011 spin/mm3, which were generated in the process of degradation of CS by ZnO/ZIS under visible light. The production of EPFRs chiefly includes two procedures: chemical adsorption and transfer of electrons. The adsorption energy of precursor P8 on ZnIn2S4 side is -1.91 eV, the electrons transferred from precursor P8 and P11 to ZnO/ZnIn2S4 heterojunction. Surprisingly, EPFRs have little negative effects on the degradation process of CS by ZnO/ZIS. The study was not only a key field in the development of photocatalysis technology, but also a new way to study the removal mechanism of antibiotics.

What is the best anthropometry index to evaluate the risk of metabolic abnormalities in Chinese adults?

AIMS: Obesity, defined by body mass index (BMI), is a heterogeneous condition with varying metabolic manifestations, and the best index for predicting metabolic abnormalities remains unclear. This study aimed to explore the most suitable anthropometry index for predicting metabolic abnormalities in Chinese adults. METHODS: A cross-sectional study was conducted using the data obtained from 9517 Chinese adults who underwent physical examination, bioelectrical impedance analysis, and laboratory examinations between March 2018 and March 2022. Participants were further divided into eight subgroups according to age, BMI, and sex. Descriptive statistics were calculated, and the area under the receiver operating characteristic curve and Youden index values were calculated to identify the best predictor of metabolic abnormalities in Chinese adults. RESULTS: The waist-to-height ratio (WHtR) had the largest area under the curve for predicting metabolic abnormalities in men of any age and women aged 18-49 years. However, BMI showed the highest accuracy in predicting metabolic abnormalities in women aged 50 years and older. Based on the highest Youden index, the optimal WHtR threshold was 0.51 in women and 0.53 in men. CONCLUSIONS: The WHtR was the most effective index for predicting metabolic abnormalities in most Chinese adults, whereas BMI showed a higher accuracy only in elderly women. This observation supports WHtR as a novel adiposity marker for screening metabolic abnormalities and shows value for public health practice.

Detecting COVID-19 patients via MLES-Net deep learning models from X-Ray images.

BACKGROUND: Corona Virus Disease 2019 (COVID-19) first appeared in December 2019, and spread rapidly around the world. COVID-19 is a pneumonia caused by novel coronavirus infection in 2019. COVID-19 is highly infectious and transmissible. By 7 May 2021, the total number of cumulative number of deaths is 3,259,033. In order to diagnose the infected person in time to prevent the spread of the virus, the diagnosis method for COVID-19 is extremely important. To solve the above problems, this paper introduces a Multi-Level Enhanced Sensation module (MLES), and proposes a new convolutional neural network model, MLES-Net, based on this module. METHODS: Attention has the ability to automatically focus on the key points in various information, and Attention can realize parallelism, which can replace some recurrent neural networks to a certain extent and improve the efficiency of the model. We used the correlation between global and local features to generate the attention mask. First, the feature map was divided into multiple groups, and the initial attention mask was obtained by the dot product of each feature group and the feature after the global pooling. Then the attention masks were normalized. At the same time, there were two scaling and translating parameters in each group so that the normalize operation could be restored. Then, the final attention mask was obtained through the sigmoid function, and the feature of each location in the original feature group was scaled. Meanwhile, we use different classifiers on the network models with different network layers. RESULTS: The network uses three classifiers, FC module (fully connected layer), GAP module (global average pooling layer) and GAPFC module (global average pooling layer and fully connected layer), to improve recognition efficiency. GAPFC as a classifier can obtain the best comprehensive effect by comparing the number of parameters, the amount of calculation and the detection accuracy. The experimental results show that the MLES-Net56-GAPFC achieves the best overall accuracy rate (95.27%) and the best recognition rate for COVID-19 category (100%). CONCLUSIONS: MLES-Net56-GAPFC has good classification ability for the characteristics of high similarity between categories of COVID-19 X-Ray images and low intra-category variability. Considering the factors such as accuracy rate, number of network model parameters and calculation amount, we believe that the MLES-Net56-GAPFC network model has better practicability.

Regulation of Nucleotide Metabolism with Nutrient-Sensing Nanodrugs for Cancer Therapy.

The continual growth of tumor cells requires considerable nutrient consumption. Methotrexate (MTX) is used to treat certain types of cancer by blocking the DNA and RNA productions through interfering one-carbon metabolism and de novo purine and pyrimidine synthesis. However, treatment of MTX may cause many serious adverse effects, which hamper its clinical application. Herein, the authors synthesize ferrous ions, histidine, and MTX assembled nanoparticles (FHM) to deliver MTX at tumor site and enhance the sensitivity of tumor cells to MTX with histidine catabolism. Furthermore, fasting-mimicking diet (FMD) is applied to intervene in the one-carbon metabolism and enhance the cytotoxicity of MTX. Meanwhile, FMD treatment can significantly augment the cellular uptake and tumor accumulation of FHM nanoparticles. Due to the triple inhibitions of the one-carbon metabolism, the proliferation of tumor cells is strongly disturbed, as which is highly replying on DNA and RNA production. Taken together, a 95% lower dose of MTX adopted in combined therapy significantly inhibits the growth of two types of murine tumors without evident systemic toxicity. This strategy may provide a promising nucleotide metabolism-based nanomedicine for cancer therapy.

[Laparoscopic Common Bile Duct Exploration for Treatment of Common Bile Duct Stones:Clinical Analysis of 158 Cases].

Objective To evaluate the safety and effectiveness of laparoscopic common bile duct exploration in the treatment of common bile duct stones. Methods A retrospective analysis was conducted for 158 patients with cholecystolithiasis and choledocholithiasis admitted to the Number One Hospital of Zhangjiakou from January 2015 to December 2019.The patients were assigned into three groups according to the diameters of cystic duct and common bile duct,degrees of abdominal infection and tissue edema,and operation method.Group A(16 cases):laparoscopic cholecystectomy,transcystic choledochoscopic exploration for stone removal;Group B(94 cases):laparoscopic cholecystectomy,common bile duct incision exploration combined with choledochoscopy for stone removal,T tube drainage;Group C(48 cases):laparoscopic cholecystectomy,common bile duct incision exploration combined with choledochoscopy for stone removal,primary closure of the common bile duct.The operation time,residual rate of stones,and complication(bleeding,bile leakage,and wound infection) rate were compared between groups. Results The operation time of groups A,B,and C was(95.1±14.7),(102.2±18.1),(110.1±16.4) minutes,respectively,which showed no statistical difference between each other(F=0.020,P=0.887).One case in group A had residual stones,while no residual stone appeared in groups B and C.The overall stone clearance rate was 99.4% and the overall complication rate was 1.9%.There was no perioperative death. Conclusion It is generally safe and effective to carry out laparoscopic cholecystectomy and common bile duct exploration for stone removal in suitable populations.

Quantifying the impacts of non-carbonic acid (NCA) stress on dissolved inorganic carbon (DIC) generation in the granitic-hosted watershed, Huangshan UNESCO Global Geopark, China.

To better understand the impacts of non-carbonic acid (NCAs, including sulfuric, nitric and organic acids) stress on DIC generation during chemical weathering, this study investigated the water chemistry and stable isotope composition (δ13CDIC) from a granitic-hosted watershed at Huangshan UNESCO Global Geopark, China. The results show that the dissolved loads of the watershed are dominated by both silicate and carbonate weathering. As a region with greatly distributed acid soil and high occurrence of acid rain, the evolution of the dissolved loads and δ13CDIC show that DIC generation in carbonate dissolution is promoted by H2SO4, reduced by HNO3 and little disturbed by organic acids. The reduction is due to CO2 release in carbonate weathering by strong nitric acid formed by nitrification in acid soil. New participating proportions of NCAs in rock weathering yielded by the multiple linear regressions between major ions, DIC and δ13CDIC are introduced into calculations of DIC yields. The overestimated DIC yields by silicate and carbonate weathering by NCAs account for about 34% of total DIC yields calculated with the assumption that all carbonates and silicates are dissolved by H2CO3 alone during a year. The results imply that the modifications of DIC generation by NCAs, especially HNO3 formed in acidic silicate soil, could consequently partly counterbalance the natural CO2 sink in the granitic-host region.

Gender-Specific Association between Serum Uric Acid and Incident Fundus Arteriosclerosis in Chinese Population: A Retrospective Cross-Sectional Study.

Elevated levels of serum uric acid (SUA) were considered to be risk factors for cardiovascular disease, it has been found to be associated with increased arteriosclerosis. The aim of this study was to explore the gender specific relationship between SUA and fundus arteriosclerosis in a healthy population. In a retrospective cross-sectional study, 23474 individuals without diabetes and hypertension were included in the present study. SUA levels were cut to four groups as Q1 to Q4, according to the quartiles. The odds ratio and 95% confidence interval of different SUA levels were estimated by a binomial logistic regression model. A restrictive cubic spline method was used to estimate the dose-response relationship between SUA and fundus arteriosclerosis. Subgroup analysis was performed to find the gender-specific association between SUA and incident fundus arteriosclerosis. In males, after adjusting for confounding factors, the highest SUA level was significantly associated with the risk of incident fundus arteriosclerosis. The OR with 95%CI for Q4 was 1.44(1.18, 1.76), Q1 as a reference. Specially, for females, SUA level was not associated with the incidence of fundus arteriosclerosis. In conclusion, elevated levels of SUA were associated with the incidence of fundus arteriosclerosis in males, but not in females.

Multi-isotope ((15)N, (18)O and (13)C) indicators of sources and fate of nitrate in the upper stream of Chaobai River, Beijing, China.

Dual isotopes of nitrate ((15)N and (18)O) and carbon isotopes of dissolved inorganic carbon ((13)C) together with water chemistry were used to identify the sources and fate of nitrate in the upper stream of Chaobai River, north China. The results show that NO3(-) concentrations ranges from 0.03 mmol L(-1) to 0.80 mmol L(-1). Sampling sites from watershed with dominant forest land had higher NO3(-) concentrations and lower δ(15)N-NO3(-) (<10‰) in the wet season than in the dry season, while those from watershed with more anthropogenic activities had lower NO3(-) concentrations and higher δ(15)N-NO3(-) (>10‰) in the wet season. Compositions of isotopes and chemistry indicated that NO3(-) originated mainly from soil N, sewage and livestock wastes and atmospheric nitrogen. Furthermore, the mixing model suggested that soil N was the major NO3(-) source in the wet season, while the sewage and livestock wastes contributed the most in the dry season. Compared to rivers, the Miyun Reservoir had a higher contribution of atmospheric N and the N input from the upper rivers exerted significant influence over the reservoir. Mineralization and nitrification played an important role in N biogeochemistry based on the isotopes ((15)N and (18)O and (13)C) and chemical data. There appeared to be no significant denitrification in the watershed according to the three isotopes and chemical ions. The combined use of (15)N, (18)O and (13)C proved to be useful for further identification of the sources and fate of nitrate in watersheds with dominant forest land in the wet season.