Effects of fecal microbiota transplantation and fecal virome transplantation on LPS-induced intestinal injury in broilers.

The interesting roles and efficiencies of fecal microbiota transplantation (FMT) have attracted considerable attention and have been gradually evidenced in specific animal models. While the growing evidence that bacteriophages play roles in FMT efficacy has attracted considerable interest. In this study, we aimed to explore the effects of FMT and fecal virome transplantation (FVT) in improving inflammatory damage and ileal microbiota disorder in broilers. A total of 224 Arbor Acres broilers were selected at 1-day-old and randomly divided into the following 4 groups, with 56 broilers in each group: the CON group (the negative control group, sterile physiological saline injection + sterile phosphate-buffered saline (PBS) solution gavage), LPS group (the positive control group, lipopolysaccharide (LPS) injection + sterile PBS solution gavage), LPS + FMT group (LPS injection + FMT solution gavage), LPS + FVT group (LPS injection + FVT solution gavage). The results showed that: LPS injection significantly upregulated the mRNA expression levels of IFN-γ (P < 0.05) and IL-8 (P < 0.001) in ileal mucosa of broilers at 11th day of age (D11), while LPS + FMT and LPS + FVT did not; LPS injection significantly upregulated the mRNA expression of ZO-1 in ileal mucosa at D11 (P < 0.01), while LPS + FMT and LPS + FVT did not; at D11, compare to CON group, LPS injection and LPS + FMT significantly increased the relative abundance of virulence factor Rab2 interacting conserved protein A-related genes in broiler ileum contents (P < 0.05), while LPS + FVT had no significant difference with CON group (P > 0.05); at D11, LPS injection significantly downregulated the biosynthesis of antibiotics pathway (P < 0.05) in the ileal contents, while LPS + FVT did not. In conclusion, both FMT and FVT could promote the recovery of inflammation caused by LPS. Furthermore, FVT had shown less disadvantage stimulation on the broilers and could reduce the risk of transmission of pathogenic genes, compared to FMT.

Relationship between carbon stock and the structure of coniferous and broad-leaved mixed forest in Tianmu Mountains, China.

Taking the coniferous and broad-leaved mixed forest of Tianmu Mountain National Nature Reserve in Zhejiang Province as research object, we divided the tree species into three pairs, including evergreen and deci-duous species, broad-leaved and coniferous species, dominant and non-dominant species, to compare the difference of the individual tree carbon stock of each pair and analyze the diameter distribution pattern and tree height distribution pattern of carbon stocks. The relationship between spatial structure and individual tree carbon stock was analyzed by using spatial structure indicators including V_Hegyi competition index, complete mingling and aggregation index, to reveal the relationship between the structure of coniferous and broad-leaved forests and carbon stocks, and provide a theoretical basis for management of forest carbon sequestration. The results showed that the average individual carbon stock for evergreen and deciduous species, broad-leaved and coniferous species, dominant and non-dominant species were 57.7 and 87.4 kg, 54.6 and 74.7 kg, 67.4 and 48.1 kg, respectively. The individual tree carbon stock of evergreen species was significantly lower than that of deciduous species, the individual tree carbon stock of broad-leaved species was significantly lower than that of coniferous species, and the individual tree carbon stock of dominant tree species was significantly higher than that of non-dominant tree species. The diameter distribution and height distribution of carbon stock of each species group obeyed normal distribution. The V_Hegyi competition index was significantly negatively correlated with individual tree carbon stock, and it was consistent with the power function distribution. Both complete mingling and aggregation index were linearly and positively correlated with individual tree carbon stock. The direction of influence of different spatial structures on the individual tree carbon stock was consistent. The structure of coniferous and broad-leaved mixed forest had a significant impact on individual tree carbon stock. In the management of forest carbon sequestration and sink enhancement, it is necessary to regulate the unreasonable forest structure and promote its succession to the climax community in order to improve forest carbon stock.

Response surface methodology for the mixed fungal fermentation of Codonopsis pilosula straw using Trichoderma reesei and Coprinus comatus.

The objective of this study was to investigate the cellulose degradation rate (CDR) and lignin degradation rate (LDR) of Codonopsis pilosula straw (CPS) and the optimal fermentation parameters for mixed fungal fermentation. Single-factor tests were used to study the effects of the fungal ratio (Trichoderma reesei: Coprinus comatus), fungal inoculum, corn flour content, and fermentation time on the degradation rate of cellulose and lignin. Based on the results of this experiment, the optimal fermentation factors were identified, and the effects of various factors and their interactions on the degradation rates of cellulose and lignin were further evaluated using the response surface method. The quadratic polynomial mathematical model of degradation rates of the cellulose and lignin in CPS by mixed fungus fermentation was established using Design Expert software v8.0.6. Under the optimal parameters for fungal fermentation of CPS straw (fungal ratio 4:6, fungal inoculum 8%, corn flour content 10%, fermentation time of 15 d), the CDR and LDR reached 13.65% and 10.73%, respectively. Collectively, the mixed fungal fermentation of CPS resulted in decreased lignin and cellulose content, better retention of nutrients, and enhanced fermentation quality. The results of this study indicate that fermentation using Trichoderma reesei and Coprinus comatus is a productive method for straw degradation, providing a theoretical basis for the development of CPS as feed.

Beyond faecal microbiota transplantation, the non-negligible role of faecal virome or bacteriophage transplantation.

Intestinal microbiota, which contains bacteria, archaea, fungi, protists, and viruses including bacteriophages, is symbiotic and evolves together with humans. The balanced intestinal microbiota plays indispensable roles in maintaining and regulating host metabolism and health. Dysbiosis has been associated with not only intestinal diseases but other diseases such as neurology disorders and cancers. Faecal microbiota transplantation (FMT) or faecal virome or bacteriophage transplantation (FVT or FBT), transfers faecal bacteria or viruses, with a focus on bacteriophage, from one healthy individual to another individual (normally unhealthy condition), and aims to restore the balanced gut microbiota and assist in subduing diseases. In this review, we summarized the applications of FMT and FVT in clinical settings, discussed the advantages and challenges of FMT and FVT currently and proposed several considerations prospectively. We further provided our understanding of why FMT and FVT have their limitations and raised the possible future development strategy of FMT and FVT.

A Little Energy Goes a Long Way: Build an Energy-Efficient, Accurate Spiking Neural Network From Convolutional Neural Network.

This article conforms to a recent trend of developing an energy-efficient Spiking Neural Network (SNN), which takes advantage of the sophisticated training regime of Convolutional Neural Network (CNN) and converts a well-trained CNN to an SNN. We observe that the existing CNN-to-SNN conversion algorithms may keep a certain amount of residual current in the spiking neurons in SNN, and the residual current may cause significant accuracy loss when inference time is short. To deal with this, we propose a unified framework to equalize the output of the convolutional or dense layer in CNN and the accumulated current in SNN, and maximally align the spiking rate of a neuron with its corresponding charge. This framework enables us to design a novel explicit current control (ECC) method for the CNN-to-SNN conversion which considers multiple objectives at the same time during the conversion, including accuracy, latency, and energy efficiency. We conduct an extensive set of experiments on different neural network architectures, e.g., VGG, ResNet, and DenseNet, to evaluate the resulting SNNs. The benchmark datasets include not only the image datasets such as CIFAR-10/100 and ImageNet but also the Dynamic Vision Sensor (DVS) image datasets such as DVS-CIFAR-10. The experimental results show the superior performance of our ECC method over the state-of-the-art.

Epidemiology and evolution of novel deltacoronaviruses in birds in central China.

The variety and widespread of coronavirus in natural reservoir animals is likely to cause epidemics via interspecific transmission, which has attracted much attention due to frequent coronavirus epidemics in recent decades. Birds are natural reservoir of various viruses, but the existence of coronaviruses in wild birds in central China has been barely studied. Some bird coronaviruses belong to the genus of Deltacoronavirus. To explore the diversity of bird deltacoronaviruses in central China, we tested faecal samples from 415 wild birds in Hunan Province, China. By RT-PCR detection, we identified eight samples positive for deltacoronaviruses which were all from common magpies, and in four of them, we successfully amplified complete deltacoronavirus genomes distinct from currently known deltacoronavirus, indicating four novel deltacoronavirus stains (HNU1-1, HNU1-2, HNU2 and HNU3). Comparative analysis on the four genomic sequences showed that these novel magpie deltacoronaviruses shared three different S genes among which the S genes of HNU1-1 and HNU1-2 showed 93.8% amino acid (aa) identity to that of thrush coronavirus HKU12, HNU2 S showed 71.9% aa identity to that of White-eye coronavirus HKU16, and HNU3 S showed 72.4% aa identity to that of sparrow coronavirus HKU17. Recombination analysis showed that frequent recombination events of the S genes occurred among these deltacoronavirus strains. Two novel putative cleavage sites separating the non-structural proteins in the HNU coronaviruses were found. Bayesian phylogeographic analysis showed that the south coast of China might be a potential origin of bird deltacoronaviruses existing in inland China. In summary, these results suggest that common magpie in China carries diverse deltacoronaviruses with novel genomic features, indicating an important source of environmental coronaviruses closed to human communities, which may provide key information for prevention and control of future coronavirus epidemics.

Engineered polymer nanoparticles incorporating l-amino acid groups as affinity reagents for fibrinogen.

Synthetic polymer hydrogel nanoparticles (NPs) were developed to function as abiotic affinity reagents for fibrinogen. These NPs were made using both temperature-sensitive N-isopropyl acrylamide (NIPAm) and l-amino acid monomers. Five kinds of l-amino acids were acryloylated to obtain functional monomers: l-phenylalanine (Phe) and l-leucine (Leu) with hydrophobic side chains, l-glutamic acid (Glu) with negative charges, and l-lysine (Lys) and l-arginine (Arg) with positive charges. After incubating the NPs with fibrinogen, γ-globulin, and human serum albumin (HSA) respectively, the NPs that incorporated N-acryloyl-Arg monomers (AArg@NPs) showed the strongest and most specific binding affinity to fibrinogen, when compared with γ-globulin and HSA. Additionally, the fibrinogen-AArg binding model had the best docking scores, and this may be due to the interaction of positively charged AArg@NPs and the negatively charged fibrinogen D domain and the hydrophobic interaction between them. The specific adsorption of AArg@NPs to fibrinogen was also confirmed by the immunoprecipitation assay, as the AArg@NPs selectively trapped the fibrinogen from a human plasma protein mixture. AArg@NPs had a strong selectivity for, and specificity to, fibrinogen and may be developed as a potential human fibrinogen-specific affinity reagent.

Engineered polymer nanoparticles incorporating L-amino acid groups as affinity reagents for fibrinogen / 药物分析学报

Synthetic polymer hydrogel nanoparticles(NPs)were developed to function as abiotic affinity reagents for fibrinogen.These NPs were made using both temperature-sensitive N-isopropyl acrylamide(NIPAm)and L-amino acid monomers.Five kinds of L-amino acids were acryloylated to obtain functional mono-mers:L-phenylalanine(Phe)and L-leucine(Leu)with hydrophobic side chains,L-glutamic acid(Glu)with negative charges,and L-lysine(Lys)and L-arginine(Arg)with positive charges.After incubating the NPs with fibrinogen,y-globulin,and human serum albumin(HSA)respectively,the NPs that incorporated N-acryloyl-Arg monomers(AArg@NPs)showed the strongest and most specific binding affinity to fibrin-ogen,when compared with y-globulin and HSA.Additionally,the fibrinogen-AArg binding model had the best docking scores,and this may be due to the interaction of positively charged AArg@NPs and the negatively charged fibrinogen D domain and the hydrophobic interaction between them.The specific adsorption of AArg@NPs to fibrinogen was also confirmed by the immunoprecipitation assay,as the AArg@NPs selectively trapped the fibrinogen from a human plasma protein mixture.AArg@NPs had a strong selectivity for,and specificity to,fibrinogen and may be developed as a potential human fibrinogen-specific affinity reagent.

Methyl 2-{[3-(4,6-dimethoxy-pyrimidin-2-yl)ureido]sulfonyl-meth-yl}benzoate.

In the title compound, C(16)H(18)N(4)O(7)S, a synthetic sulfonyl-urea herbicide, there are intra-molecular N-H⋯N and C-H⋯O hydrogen bonds. Inter-molecular N-H⋯O and C-H⋯O hydrogen bonds form centrosymmetric dimers. The dihedral angle between the two rings is 50.00 (15)°.