Comparative proteomics of three Chinese potato cultivars to improve understanding of potato molecular response to late blight disease.

BACKGROUND: Late blight disease (LBD) caused by the pathogen Phytophthora infestans (PI), is the most devastating disease limiting potato (Solanum tuberosum) production globally. Currently, this disease pathogen is re-emerging and appearing in new areas at a very high intensity. A better understanding of the natural defense mechanisms against PI in different potato cultivars especially at the protein level is still lacking. Therefore, to elucidate potato proteome response to PI, we investigated changes in the proteome and leaf morphology of three potato cultivars, namely; Favorita (FA), Mira (MA), and E-malingshu N0.14 (E14) infected with PI by using the iTRAQ-based quantitative proteomics analysis. RESULTS: A total of 3306 proteins were found in the three potato genotypes, and 2044 proteins were quantified. Cluster analysis revealed MA and E14 clustered together separately from FA. The protein profile and related functions revealed that the cultivars shared a typical hypersensitive response to PI, including induction of elicitors, oxidative burst, and suppression of photosynthesis in the potato leaves. Meanwhile, MA and E14 deployed additional specific response mechanism different from FA, involving high induction of protease inhibitors, serine/threonine kinases, terpenoid, hormone signaling, and transport, which contributed to MA tolerance of LBD. Furthermore, inductions of pathogenesis-related proteins, LRR receptor-like kinases, mitogen-activated protein kinase, WRKY transcription factors, jasmonic acid, and phenolic compounds mediate E14 resistance against LBD. These proteins were confirmed at the transcription level by a quantitative polymerase chain reaction and at the translation level by western-blot. CONCLUSIONS: We found several proteins that were differentially abundant among the cultivars, that includes common and cultivar specific proteins which highlighted similarities and significant differences between FA, MA, and E14 in terms of their defense response to PI. Here the specific accumulation of mitogen-activated protein kinase, Serine/threonine kinases, WRKY transcription played a positive role in E14 immunity against PI. The candidate proteins identified reported in this study will form the basis of future studies and may improve our understanding of the molecular mechanisms of late blight disease resistance in potato.

First-in-human liver-tumour surgery guided by multispectral fluorescence imaging in the visible and near-infrared-I/II windows.

The second near-infrared wavelength window (NIR-II, 1,000-1,700 nm) enables fluorescence imaging of tissue with enhanced contrast at depths of millimetres and at micrometre-scale resolution. However, the lack of clinically viable NIR-II equipment has hindered the clinical translation of NIR-II imaging. Here, we describe an optical-imaging instrument that integrates a visible multispectral imaging system with the detection of NIR-II and NIR-I (700-900 nm in wavelength) fluorescence (by using the dye indocyanine green) for aiding the fluorescence-guided surgical resection of primary and metastatic liver tumours in 23 patients. We found that, compared with NIR-I imaging, intraoperative NIR-II imaging provided a higher tumour-detection sensitivity (100% versus 90.6%; with 95% confidence intervals of 89.1%-100% and 75.0%-98.0%, respectively), a higher tumour-to-normal-liver-tissue signal ratio (5.33 versus 1.45) and an enhanced tumour-detection rate (56.41% versus 46.15%). We infer that combining the NIR-I/II spectral windows and suitable fluorescence probes might improve image-guided surgery in the clinic.

Quantitative Proteomics of Potato Leaves Infected with Phytophthora infestans Provides Insights into Coordinated and Altered Protein Expression during Early and Late Disease Stages.

In order to get a better understanding of protein association during Solanum tuberosum (cv. Sarpo Mira)⁻Phytophthora infestans incompatible interaction, we investigated the proteome dynamics of cv. Sarpo Mira, after foliar application of zoospore suspension from P. infestans isolate, at three key time-points: zero hours post inoculation (hpi) (Control), 48 hpi (EI), and 120 hpi (LI); divided into early and late disease stages by the tandem mass tagging (TMT) method. A total of 1229 differentially-expressed proteins (DEPs) were identified in cv. Sarpo Mira in a pairwise comparison of the two disease stages, including commonly shared DEPs, specific DEPs in early and late disease stages, respectively. Over 80% of the changes in protein abundance were up-regulated in the early stages of infection, whereas more DEPs (61%) were down-regulated in the later disease stage. Expression patterns, functional category, and enrichment tests highlighted significant coordination and enrichment of cell wall-associated defense response proteins during the early stage of infection. The late stage was characterized by a cellular protein modification process, membrane protein complex formation, and cell death induction. These results, together with phenotypic observations, provide further insight into the molecular mechanism of P. infestans resistance in potatos.

HPV-16, HPV-58, and HPV-33 are the most carcinogenic HPV genotypes in Southwestern China and their viral loads are associated with severity of premalignant lesions in the cervix.

BACKGROUND: Currently, the role of human papillomavirus (HPV)-58 in southwestern China has been unexplored. Although there is some controversy, it is proposed that the viral load of HPV correlates with the severity of intraepithelial lesions. METHODS: We identified 7747 patients from south Sichuan and adjacent regions who were diagnosed with HPV between 2013 and 2017. The HR-HPV subtype distribution was analyzed and the patient's viral loads were quantified using real-time RT-PCR. RESULTS: Among all 7747 patients screened for HPV genotypes, 1728 patients (22.31%) were identified as having HR-HPV subtypes. In patients without intraepithelial lesions (12.41%), HPV-52, HPV-16, and HPV-58 were the three most prevalent HR-HPV subtypes. Moreover, HPV-16, HPV-58, and HPV-33 were the most prevalent subtypes in patients with cervical intraepithelial neoplasia grade II (CINII) (42.86%) and grade III (CINIII) (59.81%), and accounted for the majority of invasive cervical cancer (ICC) (69.34%). Thus, viral loads of HPV-58, HPV-16, and HPV-33 positively correlated with the severity of cervical lesions (P < 0.001, P = 0.016, P = 0.026, respectively). Using receiver operating characteristic (ROC) curve analysis, the optimum thresholds for predicting severe intraepithelial lesions of cases (CINI, CINIII and ICC) with HPV-16, HPV-58, and HPV-33, respectively, were obtained, which were 1, 0.93, and 0.25, respectively. CONCLUSION: In our study, we showed that HPV-16 was the most common carcinogenic HPV subtype in southwestern China followed by HPV-58 and HPV-33. Viral loads of these subtypes are associated with the severity of premalignant lesions in the cervix.