Recognition of the inducible, secretory small protein OsSSP1 by the membrane receptor OsSSR1 and the co-receptor OsBAK1 confers rice resistance to the blast fungus.

The plant apoplast, which serves as the frontline battleground for long-term host-pathogen interactions, harbors a wealth of disease resistance resources. However, the identification of the disease resistance proteins in the apoplast is relatively lacking. In this study, we identified and characterized the rice secretory protein OsSSP1 (Oryza sativa secretory small protein 1). OsSSP1 can be secreted into the plant apoplast, and either in vitro treatment of recombinant OsSSP1 or overexpression of OsSSP1 in rice could trigger plant immune response. The expression of OsSSP1 is suppressed significantly during Magnaporthe oryzae infection in the susceptible rice variety Taibei 309, and OsSSP1-overexpressing lines all show strong resistance to M. oryzae. Combining the knockout and overexpression results, we found that OsSSP1 positively regulates plant immunity in response to fungal infection. Moreover, the recognition and immune response triggered by OsSSP1 depend on an uncharacterized transmembrane OsSSR1 (secretory small protein receptor 1) and the key co-receptor OsBAK1, since most of the induced immune response and resistance are lost in the absence of OsSSR1 or OsBAK1. Intriguingly, the OsSSP1 protein is relatively stable and can still induce plant resistance after 1 week of storage in the open environment, and exogenous OsSSP1 treatment for a 2-week period did not affect rice yield. Collectively, our study reveals that OsSSP1 can be secreted into the apoplast and percepted by OsSSR1 and OsBAK1 during fungal infection, thereby triggering the immune response to enhance plant resistance to M. oryzae. These findings provide novel resources and potential strategies for crop breeding and disease control.

The MYB transcription factor OsMYBxoc1 regulates resistance to Xoc by directly repressing transcription of the iron transport gene OsNRAMP5 in rice.

Bacterial leaf streak caused by Xanthomonas oryzae pv. oryzicola (Xoc) is a continuous threat to rice cultivation, leading to substantial yield losses with socioeconomic implications. Iron ions are essential mineral nutrients for plant growth, but little information is available on how they influence mechanisms of rice immunity against Xoc. Here, we investigated the role of the myeloblastosis-related (MYB) transcriptional repressor OsMYBxoc1 in modulation of rice resistance through control of iron ion transport. Overexpression of OsMYBxoc1 significantly increased rice resistance, whereas OsMYBxoc1 RNA-interference lines and knockout mutants showed the opposite result. Suppression of OsMYBxoc1 expression dampened the immune response induced by pathogen-associated molecular patterns. We demonstrated that OsMYBxoc1 binds specifically to the OsNRAMP5 promoter and represses transcription of OsNRAMP5. OsNRAMP5, a negative regulator of rice resistance to bacterial leaf streak, possesses metal ion transport activity, and inhibition of OsMYBxoc1 expression increased the iron ion content in rice. Activity of the ion-dependent H2O2 scavenging enzyme catalase was increased in plants with suppressed expression of OsMYBxoc1 or overexpression of OsNRAMP5. We found that iron ions promoted Xoc infection and interfered with the production of reactive oxygen species induced by Xoc. The type III effector XopAK directly inhibited OsMYBxoc1 transcription, indicating that the pathogen may promote its own proliferation by relieving restriction of iron ion transport in plants. In addition, iron complemented the pathogenicity defects of the RS105_ΔXopAK mutant strain, further confirming that iron utilization by Xoc may be dependent upon XopAK. In conclusion, our study reveals a novel mechanism by which OsMYBxoc1 modulates rice resistance by regulating iron accumulation and demonstrates that Xoc can accumulate iron ions by secreting the effector XopAK to promote its own infection.

A study on the improvement in the ability of endoscopists to diagnose gastric neoplasms using an artificial intelligence system.

Background: Artificial intelligence-assisted gastroscopy (AIAG) based on deep learning has been validated in various scenarios, but there is a lack of studies regarding diagnosing neoplasms under white light endoscopy. This study explored the potential role of AIAG systems in enhancing the ability of endoscopists to diagnose gastric tumor lesions under white light. Methods: A total of 251 patients with complete pathological information regarding electronic gastroscopy, biopsy, or ESD surgery in Xi'an Gaoxin Hospital were retrospectively collected and comprised 64 patients with neoplasm lesions (excluding advanced cancer) and 187 patients with non-neoplasm lesions. The diagnosis competence of endoscopists with intermediate experience and experts was compared for gastric neoplasms with or without the assistance of AIAG, which was developed based on ResNet-50. Results: For the 251 patients with difficult clinical diagnoses included in the study, compared with endoscopists with intermediate experience, AIAG's diagnostic competence was much higher, with a sensitivity of 79.69% (79.69% vs. 72.50%, p = 0.012) and a specificity of 73.26% (73.26% vs. 52.62%, p < 0.001). With the help of AIAG, the endoscopists with intermediate experience (<8 years) demonstrated a relatively higher specificity (59.79% vs. 52.62%, p < 0.001). Experts (≥8 years) had similar results with or without AI assistance (with AI vs. without AI; sensitivities, 70.31% vs. 67.81%, p = 0.358; specificities, 83.85% vs. 85.88%, p = 0.116). Conclusion: With the assistance of artificial intelligence (AI) systems, the ability of endoscopists with intermediate experience to diagnose gastric neoplasms is significantly improved, but AI systems have little effect on experts.

NIT24 and NIT29-mediated IAA synthesis of Xanthomonas oryzae pv. oryzicola suppresses immunity and boosts growth in rice.

Auxin plays a pivotal role in the co-evolution of plants and microorganisms. Xanthomonas oryzae pv. oryzicola (Xoc) stands as a significant factor that affects rice yield and quality. However, the current understanding of Xoc's capability for indole 3-acetic acid (IAA) synthesis and its mechanistic implications remains elusive. In this study, we performed a comprehensive genomic analysis of Xoc strain RS105, leading to the identification of two nitrilase enzyme family (NIT) genes, designated as AKO15524.1 and AKO15829.1, subsequently named NIT24 and NIT29, respectively. Our investigation unveiled that the deletion of NIT24 and NIT29 resulted in a notable reduction in IAA synthesis capacity within RS105, thereby impacting extracellular polysaccharide production. This deficiency was partially ameliorated through exogenous IAA supplementation. The study further substantiated that NIT24 and NIT29 have nitrilase activity and the ability to catalyse IAA production in vitro. The lesion length and bacterial population statistics experiments confirmed that NIT24 and NIT29 positively regulated the pathogenicity of RS105, suggesting that NIT24 and NIT29 may regulate Xoc invasion by affecting IAA synthesis. Furthermore, our analysis corroborated mutant strains, RS105_ΔNIT24 and RS105_ΔNIT29, which elicited the outbreak of reactive oxygen species, the deposition of callose and the upregulation of defence-related gene expression in rice. IAA exerted a significant dampening effect on the immune responses incited by these mutant strains in rice. In addition, the absence of NIT24 and NIT29 affected the growth-promoting effect of Xoc on rice. This implies that Xoc may promote rice growth by secreting IAA, thus providing a more suitable microenvironment for its own colonization. In summary, our study provides compelling evidence for the existence of a nitrilase-dependent IAA biosynthesis pathway in Xoc. IAA synthesis-related genes promote Xoc colonization by inhibiting rice immune defence response and affecting rice growth by increasing IAA content in Xoc.

Silicon flower structures by maskless plasma etching.

Silicon nano/microstructures are widely utilized in the semiconductor industry, and plasma etching is the most prominent method for fabricating silicon nano/microstructures. Among the variety of silicon nano/microstructures, black silicon with light-trapping properties has garnered broad interest from both the scientific and industrial communities. However, the fabrication mechanism of black silicon remains unclear, and the light absorption of black silicon only focuses on the near-infrared region thus far. Herein, we demonstrate that black silicon can be fabricated from individual flower-like silicon microstructures. Using fluorocarbon gases as etchants, silicon flower microstructures have been formed via maskless plasma etching. Black silicon forming from silicon flower microstructures exhibits strong absorption with wavelength from 0.25 µm to 20 µm. The result provides novel insight into the understanding of the plasma etching mechanism in addition to offering further significant practical applications for device manufacturing.

Plant immune inducer ZNC promotes rutin accumulation and enhances resistance to Botrytis cinerea in tomato.

Gray mold is a destructive disease caused by Botrytis cinerea, a pervasive plant pathogen, which poses a threat to both tomato growth and postharvest storage. The utilization of induced resistance presents a potential strategy for combating plant pathogenic attacks. ZNC (zhinengcong), an extract derived from the endophytic fungus Paecilomyces variotii, has been discovered to play a vital role in preventing diverse forms of bacterial infections. Nevertheless, the precise mechanism behind its ability to enhance tomato resistance to fungi remains unclear. In this study, we found that the exogenous spraying of ZNC could significantly improve the resistance of tomato plants to B. cinerea. The results of both the metabolomic analysis and high-performance liquid chromatography (HPLC) demonstrated that tomato plants responded to ZNC treatment by accumulating high levels of rutin. Additional transcriptome analysis uncovered that rutin enhances tomato resistance possible by initiating the generation of reactive oxygen species (ROS) and phosphorylation of mitogen-activated protein kinases (MPKs) related genes expression during the initial phase of invasion by B. cinerea. In addition, we also found that rutin might activate plant immunity by eliciting ethylene (ET) and jasmonic acid (JA)-mediated pathways. Therefore, plant immune inducer ZNC and rutin has bright application prospects and high utilization value to control gray mold.

Effects of different psychological interventions on quality of life and remission rate in patients with acute leukemia receiving chemotherapy: A randomized controlled trial.

Aims: This study aimed to examine and compare different psychological intervention effects on the quality of life (QoL) and remission rates of patients with acute leukemia receiving chemotherapy. Methods: A total of 180 participants were randomly divided into a cognitive intervention group, a progressive muscle relaxation (PMR) group, a cognitive intervention plus PMR group, and a usual care control group. QoL via the Chinese version of the European Organization for Research and Treatment of Cancer Quality of Life Questionnaire Core-30 and remission rate were assessed at baseline and immediate post-intervention. A Generalized Linear Mixed Model was used for statistical analysis. Cost-effectiveness analysis with the value of the Incremental Cost-effectiveness Ratio was conducted to realize the economic evaluation of psychological interventions. Results: The total score of QoL and its most dimensions were significantly improved for participants in the intervention groups compared with the control group. The cognitive intervention plus PMR intervention was the most effective concerning QoL with cost-effectiveness. No significant improvements were indicated in participants' remission rates among the groups. Conclusion: The cognitive intervention plus PMR intervention is the most effective in improving QoL with cost-effectiveness among patients with acute leukemia receiving chemotherapy. More rigorous randomized controlled trials with multiple follow-up points are suggested to clarify the psychological interventions on remission rates in this population.

InDuDoNet+: A deep unfolding dual domain network for metal artifact reduction in CT images.

During the computed tomography (CT) imaging process, metallic implants within patients often cause harmful artifacts, which adversely degrade the visual quality of reconstructed CT images and negatively affect the subsequent clinical diagnosis. For the metal artifact reduction (MAR) task, current deep learning based methods have achieved promising performance. However, most of them share two main common limitations: (1) the CT physical imaging geometry constraint is not comprehensively incorporated into deep network structures; (2) the entire framework has weak interpretability for the specific MAR task; hence, the role of each network module is difficult to be evaluated. To alleviate these issues, in the paper, we construct a novel deep unfolding dual domain network, termed InDuDoNet+, into which CT imaging process is finely embedded. Concretely, we derive a joint spatial and Radon domain reconstruction model and propose an optimization algorithm with only simple operators for solving it. By unfolding the iterative steps involved in the proposed algorithm into the corresponding network modules, we easily build the InDuDoNet+ with clear interpretability. Furthermore, we analyze the CT values among different tissues, and merge the prior observations into a prior network for our InDuDoNet+, which significantly improve its generalization performance. Comprehensive experiments on synthesized data and clinical data substantiate the superiority of the proposed methods as well as the superior generalization performance beyond the current state-of-the-art (SOTA) MAR methods. Code is available at https://github.com/hongwang01/InDuDoNet_plus.

Novel fabrication of bi-metal oxide hybrid nanocomposites for synergetic enhancement of in vivo healing and wound care after caesarean section surgery.

In the current study, bi-metal oxide hybrid nanocomposites prepared by cerium oxide (CeO2 ) nanoparticles are included into chitosan-ZnO composites for developing the potential materials of dressing the wound. The wound healing effect of prepared hybrid nanocomposites was evaluated regarding the surface morphology, functional groups, thermal degradation and composite size. The antimicrobial activity of chitosan-ZnO/CeO2 hybrid nano composites was tested against the pathogens of Staphylococcus aureus and Escherichia coli. The hybrid nanocomposites containing CeO2 -based chitosan and ZnO nanoparticles were taken for optimum dressing included in the vivo studies on the excisional wounds in wistar rats. After 2 weeks, it is seen that the wound treated with CS-ZnO/CeO2 hybrid nano composites consists of the significant dressing of nearly 100% compared with control which showed nearly 65% of wound closure. Finally, our reported results gave the proof in supporting the availability of CS-ZnO/CeO2 hybrid nanocomposites contains the dressing of the wounds for the treatment.

Tal2b targets and activates the expression of OsF3H03g to hijack OsUGT74H4 and synergistically interfere with rice immunity.

Transcription activator-like (TAL) effectors are major virulence factors secreted by the type III secretion systems of Xanthomonas oryzae pv. oryzicola (Xoc) and X. oryzae pv. oryzae (Xoo), causing bacterial leaf streak and bacterial blight, respectively, in rice. However, the knowledge of Xoc TAL effector function in promoting bacterial virulence remains limited. Here, we isolated the highly virulent Xoc strain HGA4 from the outbreak region of Huanggang (Hubei, China), which contains four TAL effectors not found in the Chinese model strain RS105. Among these, Tal2b was selected for introduction into RS105, which resulted in a longer lesion length than that in the control. Tal2b directly binds to the promoter region of the gene and activates the expression of OsF3H03g , which encodes 2-oxoglutarate-dependent dioxygenase in rice. OsF3H03g negatively regulates salicylic acid (SA)-related defense by directly reducing SA, and it plays a positive role in susceptibility to both Xoc and Xoo in rice. OsF3H03g interacts with a uridine diphosphate-glycosyltransferase protein (OsUGT74H4), which positively regulates bacterial leaf streak susceptibility and may inactivate SA via glycosylation modification.

Tal2c Activates the Expression of OsF3H04g to Promote Infection as a Redundant TALE of Tal2b in Xanthomonas oryzae pv. oryzicola.

Xanthomonas oryzae delivers transcription activator-like effectors (TALEs) into plant cells to facilitate infection. Following economic principles, the redundant TALEs are rarely identified in Xanthomonas. Previously, we identified the Tal2b, which activates the expression of the rice 2-oxoglutarate-dependent dioxygenase gene OsF3H03g to promote infection in the highly virulent strain of X. oryzae pv. oryzicola HGA4. Here, we reveal that another clustered TALE, Tal2c, also functioned as a virulence factor to target rice OsF3H04g, a homologue of OsF3H03g. Transferring Tal2c into RS105 induced expression of OsF3H04g to coincide with increased susceptibility in rice. Overexpressing OsF3H04g caused higher susceptibility and less salicylic acid (SA) production compared to wild-type plants. Moreover, CRISPR-Cas9 system-mediated editing of the effector-binding element in the promoters of OsF3H03g or OsF3H04g was found to specifically enhance resistance to Tal2b- or Tal2c-transferring strains, but had no effect on resistance to either RS105 or HGA4. Furthermore, transcriptome analysis revealed that several reported SA-related and defense-related genes commonly altered expression in OsF3H04g overexpression line compared with those identified in OsF3H03g overexpression line. Overall, our results reveal a functional redundancy mechanism of pathogenic virulence in Xoc in which tandem Tal2b and Tal2c specifically target homologues of host genes to interfere with rice immunity by reducing SA.

MetaInv-Net: Meta Inversion Network for Sparse View CT Image Reconstruction.

X-ray Computed Tomography (CT) is widely used in clinical applications such as diagnosis and image-guided interventions. In this paper, we propose a new deep learning based model for CT image reconstruction with the backbone network architecture built by unrolling an iterative algorithm. However, unlike the existing strategy to include as many data-adaptive components in the unrolled dynamics model as possible, we find that it is enough to only learn the parts where traditional designs mostly rely on intuitions and experience. More specifically, we propose to learn an initializer for the conjugate gradient (CG) algorithm that involved in one of the subproblems of the backbone model. Other components, such as image priors and hyperparameters, are kept as the original design. Since a hypernetwork is introduced to inference on the initialization of the CG module, it makes the proposed model a certain meta-learning model. Therefore, we shall call the proposed model the meta-inversion network (MetaInv-Net). The proposed MetaInv-Net can be designed with much less trainable parameters while still preserves its superior image reconstruction performance than some state-of-the-art deep models in CT imaging. In simulated and real data experiments, MetaInv-Net performs very well and can be generalized beyond the training setting, i.e., to other scanning settings, noise levels, and data sets.

The application of the scallop nanostructure in deep silicon etching.

Micro/nanostructures with high aspect ratios in silicon wafers obtained by plasma etching are of great significance in device fabrication. In most cases, the scallop nanostructure in deep silicon etching should be suppressed. However, the scallop nanostructure could be applied in electronic device fabrication as characteristic information, which indicates the balance between deposition and etching. In this work, the applications of scallop nanostructures in etching process optimization and environmental protection are demonstrated. In addition, the minimum effect of the cycle time on the scallop size is reported for the first time. These results could bring new thoughts to the electronic devices related fields, such as micro-electro-mechanical systems (MEMS), silicon capacitors and advanced packaging.

Decreased expression of CD200 and CD200R1 by human decidual tissues in spontaneous early abortion.

Objective: To examine the cellular distribution and the expression of CD200 and its receptor 1 (CD200R1) in human deciduas in first-trimester pregnant women with spontaneous early abortion (SEA) and normal pregnancy, and to explore their role in the etiology of SEA.Subjects and methods: Thirty-five women at 6-10-week gestation with SA and 30 women of similar gestational age with a healthy pregnancy were recruited. Expression of CD200 and CD200R1 in the deciduas was determined using immunohistochemistry, confocal laser scanning microscope, Western blot, and real-time PCR (RT-PCR).Results: The decidual stromal cells, glandular epithelial cells, and vessel endothelial cells during the first trimester of pregnancy express both CD200 and CD200R1 proteins. During this period, the expression of CD200 in glandular epithelial cells and vessel endothelial cells is significantly higher in normal pregnancy than that in women with SEA (0.3079 ± 0.0674 versus 0.2735 ± 0.0515; 0.4077 ± 0.1366 versus 0.3249 ± 0.0993); the expression of CD200R1 in stromal cells, decidual stromal cells, glandular epithelial cells is significantly higher during normal pregnancy than SEA (0.2574 ± 0.0588 versus 0.2292 ± 0.0415; 0.3617 ± 0.1046 versus 0.2804 ± 0.0640). Western blot analysis showed an approximately 44% decrease in CD200R1expression in decidua in the SEA versus the controls. Finally, in decidua, the expression of both CD200 protein and CD200R1 transcript are significantly higher in healthy first-trimester pregnancy than in SEA (CD200: 2.2089 ± 1.2754 versus 0.7241 ± 0.2143; CD200R1: 15.7843 ± 10.7085 versus 7.3381 ± 5.8529).Conclusions: Women with SEA have a lower level of CD200 and CD200R1 expression in deciduas compared with normal pregnant women suggesting that under physiological conditions, CD200 and CD200R1 expression by deciduas is important to prevent fetal loss ensure a successful pregnancy.