Research on the Antibacterial Properties of MXene-Based 2D-2D Composite Materials Membrane.

Novel MXene-based two-dimensional (2D) membranes are widely used for water purification due to their highly controllable structure and antibacterial properties. However, in the process of membrane separation, the problems of membrane fouling, especially biological fouling, limits the further application of MXene-based membranes. In this study, in order to improve the antibacterial and separation properties of membranes, three kinds of MXene-based 2D-2D composite membranes (M2~M4) were prepared using polyethersulfone (PES) as the substrate, which were GO@MXene, O-g-C3N4@MXene and BiOCl@MXene composite membranes respectively. The results showed that the antibacterial activity of M2~M4 against Escherichia coli and Staphylococcus aureus was further improved, especially the antibacterial ratio of M4 against Escherichia coli and Staphylococcus aureus was up to 50% and 82.4%, respectively. By comparing the surface morphology of MXene membrane and modified membrane treated bacteria through scanning electron microscopy (SEM), it was found that the cell density on modified membrane was significantly lower than that of pure MXene membrane.

Corrigendum: Exploring the interaction between T-cell antigen receptor-related genes and MAPT or ACHE using integrated bioinformatics analysis.

[This corrects the article DOI: 10.3389/fneur.2023.1129470.].

Exploring the interaction between T-cell antigen receptor-related genes and MAPT or ACHE using integrated bioinformatics analysis.

Alzheimer's disease (AD) is a neurodegenerative disease that primarily occurs in elderly individuals with cognitive impairment. Although extracellular ß-amyloid (Aß) accumulation and tau protein hyperphosphorylation are considered to be leading causes of AD, the molecular mechanism of AD remains unknown. Therefore, in this study, we aimed to explore potential biomarkers of AD. Next-generation sequencing (NGS) datasets, GSE173955 and GSE203206, were collected from the Gene Expression Omnibus (GEO) database. Analysis of differentially expressed genes (DEGs), gene ontology (GO) functional enrichment, Kyoto Encyclopedia of Genes and Genomes (KEGG) pathway enrichment, and protein-protein networks were performed to identify genes that are potentially associated with AD. Analysis of the DEG based protein-protein interaction (PPI) network using Cytoscape indicated that neuroinflammation and T-cell antigen receptor (TCR)-associated genes (LCK, ZAP70, and CD44) were the top three hub genes. Next, we validated these three hub genes in the AD database and utilized two machine learning models from different AD datasets (GSE15222) to observe their general relationship with AD. Analysis using the random forest classifier indicated that accuracy (78%) observed using the top three genes as inputs differed only slightly from that (84%) observed using all genes as inputs. Furthermore, another data set, GSE97760, which was analyzed using our novel eigenvalue decomposition method, indicated that the top three hub genes may be involved in tauopathies associated with AD, rather than Aß pathology. In addition, protein-protein docking simulation revealed that the top hub genes could form stable binding sites with acetylcholinesterase (ACHE). This suggests a potential interaction between hub genes and ACHE, which plays an essential role in the development of anti-AD drug design. Overall, the findings of this study, which systematically analyzed several AD datasets, illustrated that LCK, ZAP70, and CD44 may be used as AD biomarkers. We also established a robust prediction model for classifying patients with AD.

High molecular weight chitosan oligosaccharide exhibited antifungal activity by misleading cell wall organization via targeting PHR transglucosidases.

The fungal cell wall is an ideal target for the design of antifungal drugs. In this study we used an analog of cell wall polymer, a highly deacetylated high molecular-weight chitosan oligosaccharide (HCOS), to test its effect against pathogenic Candida strains. Results showed that HCOS was successfully incorporated into the dynamic cell wall organization process and exhibited an apparent antifungal activity against both plankton and mature fungal biofilm, by impairing the cell wall integrity. Unexpectedly, mechanistic studies suggested that HCOS exerts its activity by interfering with family members of PHR ß-(1,3)-glucanosyl transferases and affecting the connection and assembly of cell wall polysaccharides. Furthermore, HCOS showed great synergistic activity with different fungicides against Candida cells, especially those in biofilm. These findings indicated HCOS has a great potential as an antifungal drug or drug synergist and proposed a novel antifungal strategy with structure-specific oligosaccharides mimicking cell wall polysaccharide fragments.

Screening of Key Fungal Strains in the Fermentation Process of the Chinese Medicinal Preparation "Lianzhifan Solution" Based on Metabolic Profiling and High-Throughput Sequencing Technology.

"Lianzhifan solution" (LZF) is produced by the natural fermentation of coptis root and gardenia fruit, and it is a classic prescription for external use in anorectal department. During the fermentation process, the structural evolution of microbial communities led to significant changes in the chemical profile. In this study, we first analyzed the dynamic changes of chemical components as well as the composition and succession of microbial community during the whole fermentation process of LZF, and confirmed the changes of characteristics of nine compounds during the whole fermentation process by metabolic profile. Further analysis found that there was no significant change of alkaloids in all stages of fermentation of LZF, but there were significant changes of iridoids in the middle and late stage of fermentation by deglycosylation. Genipin gentiobioside and geniposide were converted to genipin by biotransformation, showing that deglycosylation was the main event occurring in the fermentation. The community composition and abundance of species in 10 and 19days LZF fermentation broth were analyzed with high-throughput sequencing technology, and 16 dominant bacterial genera and 15 dominant fungal genera involved in the fermentation process were identified. Correlation analysis revealed that Penicillium expansum and Aspergillus niger involved in the fermentation were the dominant genera closely related to the dynamic changes of the deglycosylation of the main chemical components, and P. expansum YY-46 and A. niger YY-9 strains were obtained by the further fractionation. Then the monoculture fermentation process was evaluated, whereby we found that the deglycoside conversion rate of iridoid glycosides was greatly improved and the fermentation cycle was shortened by 3-4 times. This finding combined with equivalence evaluation of chemical component and pharmacodynamics to confirm that P. expansum YY-46 and A. niger YY-9 strains were key strains for fermentation concoction. This study established an efficient and practical screening strategy "Microfauna communities-Chemical component-Pharmacodynamic" axis for key strain, to improve the production process and formulating good manufacturing practice (GMP) work, and it is also applicable to the whole fermentation drugs industry. Graphical AbstractThe figure highly summarizes the research content of this study and shows the screening process of key strains in LZF fermentation.

Phlorizin ameliorates obesity-associated endotoxemia and insulin resistance in high-fat diet-fed mice by targeting the gut microbiota and intestinal barrier integrity.

Phlorizin (PHZ) is one of phytonutrients in apples that contributes to the health-promoting effect implicated by the saying, 'an apple a day keeps the doctor away'. PHZ was firstly identified as a competitive inhibitor of sodium-glucose co-transporters-2 (SGLT2); however, its low bioavailability makes it hard to fully explain its pharmacological mechanisms. This study aimed to investigate the ameliorating effect of PHZ on high-fat diet (HFD)-induced obesity via modulating the "gut microbiota-barrier axis". Firstly, C57BL/6 J mice were fed a normal chow diet (NCD) or HFD coadministered with or without PHZ for 12 weeks. Our results showed that PHZ supplementation significantly reduced HFD-induced body weight gain (P < .001), alleviated metabolic disorders (MDs) like insulin resistance (P < .001) and elevation of serum lipopolysaccharides (LPS) (P < .001), attenuated HFD-induced gut microbiota alterations, enhanced short-chain fatty acids (SCFAs) production (P < .001), and inhibited fecal LPS production (P < .001). To investigate the role of the fecal microbiota in the observed beneficial effects, a fecal microbiota transplantation (FMT) experiment was performed by transplanting the feces of the four groups of mice (as donor mice) daily collected from the fourth week to a new batch of acclimatized HFD-fed mice. Our results confirmed that feeding the gut contents of the PHZ-modulated mice could attenuate HFD-induced MDs, accompanied by enhanced glucagon-like peptide 2 (GLP-2) secretion (P < .001) and restoration of HFD-induced damage in the gut epithelial barrier. This study has provided evidence that the "gut microbiota-barrier axis" was an alternative target for the anti-obesity effect of PHZ. This work has also provided an explanation for the high efficacy of PHZ despite the low bioavailability, and PHZ holds great potential to be developed as a functional food ingredient.

Long noncoding RNA PVT1 promotes hepatocellular carcinoma progression through regulating miR-214.

BACKGROUND: Long noncoding RNAs (lncRNA) have been verified to be involved in hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC) progression. However, the potential biologic function of PVT1 in HCC is not still fully known. METHODS: PVT1 and miR-214 were detected by qRT-PCR assays in HCC tissues and adjacent normal tissues. CCK8, cell colony and transwell invasion assays were performed to evaluate cell proliferation and invasion abilities. Western-blot assay was performed to detect the protein of E-cadherin and Vimentin. QRT-PCR, RNA immunoprecipitation (RIP) and chromatin immunoprecipitation (ChIP) assays demonstrated PVT1 regulated miR-214 expression. RESULTS: The results showed that PVT1 was increased in HCC tissues and higher PVT1 expression was associated with tumor size, histological differentiation grade and advanced TNM stage. Furthermore, we revealed that PVT1 promoted cell proliferation and invasion in HCC. RIP and ChIP assays demonstrated that PVT1 significantly inhibited miR-214 expression by interacting with enhancer of zeste homolog 2 (EZH2). CONCLUSIONS: Thus, these results demonstrated that PVT1/EZH2/miR-214 regulatory pathway might serve as new target for HCC treatment.