Melatonin attenuates microbiota dysbiosis of jejunum in short-term sleep deprived mice.

Our study demonstrated that sleep deprivation resulted in homeostasis disorder of colon. Our study goes deeper into the positive effects of melatonin on small intestinal microbiota disorder caused by sleep deprivation. We successfully established a multiplatform 72 h sleep deprivation mouse model with or without melatonin supplementation, and analyzed the change of small intestinal microbiota using high-throughput sequencing of the 16S rRNA. We found melatonin supplementation suppressed the decrease of plasma melatonin level in sleep deprivation mice. Meanwhile, melatonin supplementation improved significantly the reduction in OTU numbers and the diversity and richness of jejunal microbiota and the abundance of Bacteroidaeae and Prevotellaceae, as well as an increase in the Firmicutes-to-Bacteroidetes ratio and the content of Moraxellaceae and Aeromonadaceae in the jejunum of sleep deprived-mice. Moreover, melatonin supplementation reversed the change of metabolic pathway in sleep deprived-mice, including metabolism, signal transduction mechanisms and transcription etc, which were related to intestinal health. Furthermore, melatonin supplementation inverted the sleep deprivation-induced a decline of anti-inflammatory cytokines (IL-22) and an increase of the ROS and proinflammatory cytokines (IL-17) in jejunum. These findings suggested that melatonin, similar to a probiotics agent, can reverse sleep deprivation-induced small intestinal microbiota disorder by suppressing oxidative stress and inflammation response.

A new electrochemically active bacterium phylogenetically related to Tolumonas osonensis and power performance in MFCs.

A facultative anaerobic bacterium (designated as P2-A-1) was isolated from microbial fuel cells (MFCs) inoculated with sludge from a sewage treatment plant. Based on 16S rDNA sequence analysis, the strain was identified as Tolumonas osonensis OCF 7(T) according to its biochemical, physiological and morphological characteristics. Through parameters optimization, the P2-A-1 MFC reached the maximum power density of 424 mW/m(2) in the substrate of 2g/L sodium acetate. Further, a facile bacteria treatment approach by chemically "perforating" pores and channels on bacterial membrane was developed to significantly improve the power density. And 1mM of EDTA-treated cell yielded the highest power density of 509.1 mW/m(2) because the membrane permeability of cell was enhanced by verification of coenzyme Q and fatty acid composition tests. It offers a novel facultative anaerobic Gram-positive bacterium that can utilize a wide variety of substrates for power production, making it highly valuable for application in MFCs.

Complete genome sequence of Oceanimonas sp. GK1, a halotolerant bacterium from Gavkhouni Wetland in Iran.

Oceanimonas sp. GK1 (IBRC-M 10197) is a marine halotolerant gammaproteobacterium which was characterized as producing large amounts of poly-ß-hydroxybutyrate. Here we present the whole-genome sequence of Oceanimonas sp. GK1, which consists of a single circular chromosome of 3,514,537 bp and two plasmids 8,462 and 4,245 bp in length.