Double-layered microneedle patch loaded with bioinspired nano-vaccine for melanoma treatment and wound healing.

Malignant melanoma is a challenging problem worldwide, because the remaining tumor cells and extensive skin defects following surgical resection are difficult to treat. Biomaterial-mediated immunotherapy has emerged as a superior strategy for anti-tumor applications in recent years. Herein, a unique double-layer MNP was developed to address the problem of malignant melanoma. Hydroxyapatite (HAP) and short-chain peptides from tumor cells were self-assembled to prepare the bioinspired nano-vaccine, and then they were loaded onto the microneedle tips of methacrylated gelatin (GelMA)-based MNP. The products (dubbed HVMN) demonstrated relatively good biocompatibility and immune activity, inhibiting the proliferation and inducing apoptosis of malignant melanoma in a B16 cell-bearing model of C57BL/6 mice, and promoting skin tissue regeneration in a full thickness skin defect model of SD rats in 15 days. The putative molecular pathways were examined preliminarily. In conclusion, this research will develop a competitive microneedle patch with dual anti-tumor and pro-regenerative properties for the postoperative treatment of malignant melanoma.

Scaling effects on arsenic release from excavated hydrothermally altered rocks in column experiments.

The excavation of hydrothermally altered rocks from construction sites in Japan has raised concerns over environmental pollution due to the arsenic (As) release beyond the regulatory limit. An accurate assessment of As leaching from these rocks is imperative to understanding potential environmental implications and formulating efficient containment measures. However, the conduction of column leaching experiments to evaluate As leaching from these rocks encounters a lack of well-established protocols primarily due to the ambiguity surrounding scaling effects resulting from alterations in particle sizes and the corresponding column dimensions. Our study aimed to address this critical issue by conducting column percolation experiments on hydrothermally altered rocks of two distinct particle size ranges and rock layer thicknesses. The pH value was found to be proportional to the specific surface area (SSA) of rocks and the rock layer thickness in terms of H+ concentrations. Furthermore, the concentration and leachability of As showed a similar proportionality with the SSA. In contrast, the concentration of As remained relatively unaffected by the increased rock layer thickness, while the leachability of As was noticeably diminished in the column with a thicker rock layer. The absence of elevated As concentration and the decrease in leachability can be attributed to the enhanced As onto Fe/Al oxyhydroxides/oxides within the half-bottom part of the column with a thicker rock layer. Our findings underscore the importance of considering the SSA of rocks and rock layer thickness in the column experiments and help in the design of effective strategies to mitigate environmental contamination.

[Metabarcoding Profiling of Phytoplankton Communities Associated with Algal Blooms and Determining Related Drivers in Baiyangdian Lake].

Phytoplankton are the main cause of algal blooms. To identify bloom algae and assess the risks of the algal blooms in Baiyangdian Lake, a survey on 373 sites was conducted in August 2020. The phytoplankton were studied via both morphological-based density counting and metabarcoding profiling. Then, the bloom degree was classed according to algae density, and the relationship between the community of bloom algae and environmental variables were modeled to determine key factors constraining spatial variation in bloom algae communities. The results showed that more than 95% of the sampling sites were free from the risk of algal blooms(phytoplankton density<2×106 cells·L-1), and only five sites had a slight risk of algal blooms. A total of 90 species with potential of algal blooming were detected, including 20 dominant species, which were mainly affiliated with Chlorophyta, Cyanophyta, and Euglenophyta. Communities of bloom algae significantly varied among different regions(P<0.05). Total phosphorus(TP), total nitrogen(TN), and ammonia nitrogen(NH4+-N) were the key factors significantly affecting the spatial variation in algal bloom communities. At the phylum level, these key factors were significantly positively correlated with Chlorophyta, whereas at the species level, species in Bacillariophyta and Chlorophyta responded significantly to these key factors. Thus, our findings suggested that nutrient levels were significantly related to bloom algae communities, and we proposed that controlling the input of nutrients such as nitrogen and phosphorus and regulating the hydrological process of the lake would be effective management techniques to prevent algal blooms in Baiyangdian Lake.

Learning temporal difference embeddings for biomedical hypothesis generation.

MOTIVATION: Hypothesis generation (HG) refers to the discovery of meaningful implicit connections between disjoint scientific terms, which is of great significance for drug discovery, prediction of drug side effects and precision treatment. More recently, a few initial studies attempt to model the dynamic meaning of the terms or term pairs for HG. However, most existing methods still fail to accurately capture and utilize the dynamic evolution of scientific term relations. RESULTS: This article proposes a novel temporal difference embedding (TDE) learning framework to model the temporal difference information evolution of term-pair relations for predicting future interactions. Specifically, the HG problem is formulated as a future connectivity prediction task on a temporal sequence of a dynamic attributed graph. Our approach models both the local neighbor changes of the term-pairs and the changes of the global graph structure over time, learning local and global TDE of node-pairs, respectively. Future term-pair relations can be inferred in a recurrent network based on the local and global TDE. Experiments on three real-world biomedical term relationship datasets show the effectiveness and superiority of the proposed approach. AVAILABILITY AND IMPLEMENTATION: The data and source codes related to TDE are publicly available at https://github.com/Huiweizhou/TDE. SUPPLEMENTARY INFORMATION: Supplementary data are available at Bioinformatics online.

Treatment efficacy of Lianhua Qingwen capsules for eraly-stage COVID-19.

OBJECTIVE: To systematically determine the effect of Lianhua Qingwen Capsules on the early antiviral and anti-inflammatory action against COVID-19 (Coronavirus 2019) and its applicational value in the treatment of COVID-19. METHODS: The clinical data of 66 early-mid-stage COVID-19 patients admitted to hospitals in Guangzhou between January 2020 and April 2020 were retrospectively analyzed. The patients receiving Lianhua Qingwen Capsule treatment were assigned to the observation group (n=33) and those given conventional therapy were included in the control group (n=33). The two groups were compared in terms of clinical effects and main symptom (fever, cough and fatigue) disappearance rate. RESULTS: In comparison with the control group, 1) the total effective rate was significantly higher in the observation group (P<0.05); 2) the disappearance rates of fever, cough and fatigue were statistically higher in the observation group; 3) the treatment time was significantly shorter and patient recovery was significantly better in the observation group; 4) the laboratory index levels [white blood cell (WBC), interleukin-6 (IL-6), serum amyloid A (SAA)] were better in the observation group. CONCLUSION: Lianhua Qingwen Capsules can significantly improve the total effective rate for COVID-19 patients, as well as shorten the hospital stay and treatment time, which is worth of promotion in the clinic.

Genetic structure of Octopus minor around Chinese waters as indicated by nuclear DNA variations (Mollusca, Cephalopoda).

Octopus minor is an economically important resource commonly found in Chinese coastal waters. The nuclear gene (RD and ODH) approach of investigation has not reported in this species. Rhodopsin (RD) and octopine dehydrogenase (ODH) genes were used to elaborate the genetic structure collected from eight localities ranging from the northern to the southern coast of China. In total, 118 individuals for the RD gene and 108 for the ODH were sequenced. Overall (RD and ODH) genes resulted in high (0.741±0.032; 0.805±0.038) haplotype and low nucleotide (0.01261±0.00165; 0.00747±0.00086) diversity. Molecular variance displayed higher values among the populations and lower values within the population where the fixation index FST denoted 0.880 and 0.584 in RD and ODH genes respectively. The Dongshan population clustered separately in a phylogenetic tree as in the haplotype networking assessment. The current data suggests that the Dongshan population needs separate management.

The complete mitochondrial genome of Epinephelus Chlorostigma (Serranidae; Epinephelus) with phylogenetic consideration of Epinephelus.

The complete mitochondrial genome of Epinephelus chlorostigma has been determined. It contains a typically conserved structure including 13 protein-coding genes, 22 tRNA genes, two rRNA genes and one control region, and the whole sequence was 16,894 bp in length. The overall base composition is A 28.70%, C 27.99%, G 16.28%, T 27.03%. Except ND6 and eight tRNA genes, all other mitochondrial genes are encoded on the heavy strand. Phylogenetic tree was constructed based on 12 protein-coding genes sequences of 18 Epinephelus species, four species belong to Cephalopholis as outgroup, the result showed that E. chlorostigma is most closely related to Epinephelus areolatus. We sequenced the complete mitochondrial genome of E. chlorostigma to enrich the resource of molecular markers for examination of phylogenetic relationships in Epinephelus.

The complete mitochondrial genome of Thryssa setirostris (Engraulinae, Engranlidae, Clupeoidei) and phylogenetic studies of Clupeoidei.

The complete mitochondrial genome of Thryssa setirostris has been determined. The whole sequence was 16,926 bp in length and included 13 protein-coding genes, 22 transfer RNA genes, 2 ribosomal RNA genes, and 1 control region (D-loop). The overall base composition is A 29.88%, C 29.23%, G 16.77%, T 24.02%, with a slightly A + T bias of 54%. With the exception of ND6 and eight tRNA genes, all other mitochondrial genes are encoded on the heavy strand. Phylogenetic tree was constructed based on 13 protein-coding genes sequences of 21 clupeoidei species, and the result showed that T. setirostris is most closely related to T. dussumieri. These mitogenome sequence data will be useful for population genetics and phylogenetic analysis of the Clupeoidei.

The complete mitochondrial genome characterization of Tridentiger obscurus (Gobiiformes: Gobiidae) and phylogenetic analyses of Gobionellinae.

The dusky tripletooth goby, Tridentiger obscurus, is a good model organism for the small in size and reaching maturity within a single year. Previous studies mainly focused on the annual reproductive cycle, social behavior and life history, but little information is available of the mitochondrial genome and phylogenetic evolution of this gobioid fish. In this article, we described the complete mitogenome of T. obscurus and reconstructed the phylogenetic relationship of the relative species of Gobionellinae. The genome is 16,501 bp in length including 13 protein-coding, two ribosomal RNA, 22 transfer RNA genes, as well as a putative control region and an L-strand replication origin. The overall base composition is 28.1%, 27.0%, 28.0% and 16.9% for A, T, C and G, respectively. This result is expected for better understanding the systematic evolution of the genus Tridentiger and further phylogenetic study of Gobiiformes.

Enzymatic hydrolysis of 7-xylosyltaxanes by an extracellular xylosidase from Cellulosimicrobium cellulans.

OBJECTIVES: To find extracellular biocatalysts that can specifically and efficiently remove the C-7 xylosyl group from 7-xylosyltaxanes. RESULTS: A Cellulosimicrobium cellulans strain F16 that can remove the C-7 xylosyl group from 7-xylosyltaxanes was isolated from the root soil of an old Taxus yunnanensis tree. Using corn cob as sole carbon source, the maximum 7-xylosyl-10-deacetylpaclitaxel ß-xylosidase activity of 9.6 U l(-1) was achieved. The ß-xylosidase could be trapped by a ceramic tubular membrane (pore size 50 nm), and exhibited an apparent molecular weight much greater than 500 kDa. Under optimized conditions, 3.75 l cell-free culture medium transformed 2 grams 7-xylosyltaxane mixtures to their corresponding aglycones within 3 h, with a conversion >98%. CONCLUSION: This is the first report that C. cellulans can produce extracellular ß-xylosidases capable of removing the C-7 xylosyl group from 7-xylosyltaxanes.

Pseudomonas linyingensis sp. nov.: a novel bacterium isolated from wheat soil subjected to long-term herbicides application.

A strain of genus Pseudomonas, LYBRD3-7(T) was isolated from long-term sulfonylurea herbicides applied wheat-field soil in Linying located in Henan province of China. This strain is a strictly aerobic and Gram-negative short rod-shaped bacterium with single flagellum. Phylogenetic evaluation based on 16S rRNA gene sequence analysis placed this isolate as a member of Pseudomonas, and most closely to Pseudomonas tuomuerensis CGMCC 1.1365(T) (97.1 %) and P. alcaligenes IAM12411(T) (97.1 %). Morphological characters and chemotaxonomic data confirmed the affiliation of strain LYBRD3-7(T) to the genus Pseudomonas. The results of phylogenetic analysis, physiological and biochemical studies, and DNA-DNA hybridization allowed the differentiation of genotype and phenotype between strain LYBRD3-7(T) and the phylogenetic closest species with valid names. The name proposed for the new species is Pseudomonas linyingensis sp. nov. The type strain is LYBRD3-7(T) (=CGMCC 1.10701(T ) =LMG 25967(T)).

Pseudomonas nitritireducens sp. nov., a nitrite reduction bacterium isolated from wheat soil.

A Gram-negative, non-mobile, polar single flagellum, rod-shaped bacterium WZBFD3-5A2(T) was isolated from a wheat soil subjected to herbicides for several years. Cells of strain WZBFD3-5A2(T) grow optimally on Luria-Bertani agar medium at 30 °C in the presence of 0-4.0 % (w/v) NaCl and pH 8.0. 16S rRNA gene sequence analysis revealed that strain WZBFD3-5A2(T) belongs to the genus Pseudomonas. Physiological and biochemical tests supported the phylogenetic affiliation. Strain WZBFD3-5A2(T) is closely related to Pseudomonas nitroreducens IAM1439(T), sharing 99.7 % sequence similarity. DNA-DNA hybridization experiments between the two strains showed only moderate reassociation similarity (33.92 ± 1.0 %). The DNA G+C content is 62.0 mol%. The predominant respiratory quinine is Q-9. The major cellular fatty acids present are C(16:0) (28.55 %), C(16:1ω6c) or C(16:1ω7c) (20.94 %), C(18:1ω7c) (17.21 %) and C(18:0) (13.73 %). The isolate is distinguishable from other related members of the genus Pseudomonas on the basis of phenotypic and biochemical characteristics. From the genotypic, chemotaxonomic and phenotypic data, it is evident that strain WZBFD3-5A2(T) represents a novel species of the genus Pseudomonas, for which the name Pseudomonas nitritereducens sp. nov. is proposed. The type strain is WZBFD3-5A2(T) (=CGMCC 1.10702(T) = LMG 25966(T)).

[Correlation of bacterial diversity in rot Chinese cabbage with the habitat].

OBJECTIVE: To investigate the diversity of bacteria in soft rot Chinese cabbage and analyze their correlation with rhizosphere bacteria, we analyzed the bacterial population structures of soft rot Chinese cabbage and the rhizosphere in different habitat. METHODS: Based on the initial medium and artificial Chinese cabbage medium, we isolated the bacteria from soft rot tissues and rhizospheric soils from two typical habitats. According to the analysis of 16S rRNA gene sequence homology, we identified the isolated strains and analyzed the strains population structure. RESULTS: The total bacteria in soft rot tissues were 4.0 x 10(8) cell g(-1) and 1.2 x 10(11) cell g(-1), the number of pure strains were 56 and 85, the dominant strains were Curtobacterium flaccumfaciens pv. flaccumfaciens and Pseudomonas spp. (P. hibiscicola, P. taiwanensis, P. tuomuerensis, P. mosselii). The total bacteria in rhizospheric soils were 2.7 x 10(5) cell g(-1) and 6.2 x 10(7) cell g(-1), the number of pure strains were 36 and 70, the dominant strains were Bacillus megatherium and Pseudomonas spp. (P. plecoglossicida, P. hibiscicola, P. parafulva, P. monteilii, P. geniculata). CONCLUSION: The methods used in this study were effective in analyzing bacterial diversity in soft rot Chinese cabbage and the results correlated well with the soil bacteria analysis, suggesting that soft rot Chinese cabbage may be induced by various environmental bacteria. Our results infer that soft rot of Chinese cabbage might be pathogen-complex, and provide the clues for the mechanism study and protection.

Stakelama pacifica gen. nov., sp. nov., a new member of the family Sphingomonadaceae isolated from the Pacific Ocean.

A Gram reaction-negative, weakly motile, non-spore-forming, rod-shaped, aerobic bacterium designated strain JLT832(T) was isolated from surface water of the central Pacific Ocean and formed yellow colonies on rich organic (RO) medium. The strain was oxidase-negative and catalase-positive. Acid was produced from mannitol, glucose, sucrose, lactose, sorbitol, maltose, (+)-trehalose and d-fructose. No acid was produced from d-(+)-xylose. The major cellular fatty acids of strain JLT832(T) were C(18 : 1)ω7c, C(14 : 0) 2-OH and C(16 : 0). The major polar lipids were sphingoglycolipid, diphosphatidylglycerol, phosphatidylglycerol and phosphatidylethanolamine. Ubiquinone-10 and spermidine were present as the major quinone and polyamine, respectively. The genomic DNA G+C content of strain JLT832(T) was 66.0±0.5mol%. Phylogenetic analysis based on 16S rRNA gene sequences indicated that the new isolate formed a tight branch within the family Sphingomonadaceae but was clearly separate from established genera in this family. The sequence similarities between the new isolate and type strains of established genera ranged from 90.5 to 94.9 %. Based on these data, strain JLT832(T) constitutes a novel genus and species, for which the name Stakelama pacifica gen. nov., sp. nov. is proposed. The type strain of Stakelama pacifica is JLT832(T) (=CGMCC 1.7294(T) =LMG 24686(T)).

Amycolicicoccus subflavus gen. nov., sp. nov., an actinomycete isolated from a saline soil contaminated by crude oil.

Two novel actinomycetes, designated DQS3-9A1(T) and DQS3-9A2, were isolated from a saline soil contaminated with crude oil in the Shengli Oilfield in China. On the basis of 16S rRNA gene sequence analysis, the two strains were most closely related to Mycobacterium species (92.7-94.9 % similarities), and formed a distinct lineage in the suborder Corynebacterineae . In addition, the major sugars in the cell wall, arabinose and galactose, supported the affiliation of strain DQS3-9A1(T) with members of the family Mycobacteriaceae. However, strain DQS3-9A1(T) did not contain mycolic acids and MK-8 (85.5 %) was the major menaquinone for both isolates. The major cellular fatty acids for strain DQS3-9A1(T) were C(16 : 0) (20.5 %), 10-methyl C(17 : 0) (19.3 %), 10-methyl C(18 : 0) (16.1 %), summed feature 3 (11.4 %), C(15 : 0) (11.3 %), C(17 : 0) (5.0 %) and C(17 : 1)omega8c (5.0 %). The polar lipids of strain DQS3-9A1(T) consisted of diphosphatidylglycerol, phosphatidylethanolamine, phosphatidylglycerol, phosphatidylcholine, phosphatidylinositol and an unknown glucosamine-containing phospholipid. These chemotaxonomic data indicated that strain DQS3-9A1(T) differs from the present members of the suborder Corynebacterineae. Therefore, the creation of Amycolicicoccus subflavus gen. nov., sp. nov. is proposed, with DQS3-9A1(T) (=DSM 45089(T)=CGMCC 4.3532(T)) as the type strain.

Preferential enhancement of working memory in mice lacking adenosine A(2A) receptors.

There is evidence that adenosine acting at A(2A) receptors (A(2A)R) can influence striatal plasticity and cognitive functions. We examined spatial working memory in wild-type (WT) and A(2A) receptor knock-out (KO) mice using two assessments: the eight arm radial maze and a repeated trial Morris water maze (MWM) paradigm. Compared to WT littermates, A(2A)R KO mice displayed enhanced working memory as evidenced by a decrease in escape latency in trial 2 compared to trial 1 in the repeated trial MWM, and by a reduction in working memory errors in the radial arm maze. Both MWM and radial maze results indicated that this enhancement of working memory in A(2A)R KO mice was selective for this specific short-term memory. The decrease in escape latency in MWM was detected with an inter-trial interval of 15 s but not with intervals of 10 or 60 min. In the radial maze, spatial reference memory and memory retention after prolonged training (15 days but not 6 days) were not affected by the A(2A)R KO. These results demonstrate preferential improvement in spatial working memory by genetic inactivation of the A(2A)R and support a modulatory role of the A(2A)R in spatial working memory in mice.