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Background: Biological invasions pose an increasing risk to nature, social security and the economy, being ranked amongst the top five threats to biodiversity. Managing alien and invasive species is a priority for the European Union, as outlined in the EU Biodiversity Strategy for 2030 and the Kunming-Montreal Global Biodiversity Framework. Alien plant species are acknowledged to impact the economy and biodiversity; thus, analysing the distribution of such species provides valuable inputs for the management and decision-making processes. The database presented in the current study is the first consolidated checklist of alien plant species that are present in Romania, both of European Union concern and of national interest. This database complements a prior published distribution, based only on records from literature, bringing new information regarding the occurrence of alien plants in Romania, as revealed by a nationwide field survey. We consider this database a valuable instrument for managing biological invasions at both national and regional levels, as it can be utilised in further research studies and in drafting management and action plans, assisting stakeholders in making informed decisions and implementing management actions., New Information: We present the results of the first nationwide survey of alien plant species in Romania, conducted between 2019 and 2022, in the framework of a national project coordinated by the Ministry of Environment, Waters and Forests and the University of Bucharest. The present database complements and updates the database published by Sirbu et. al (2022), which included occurrence records published until 2019. The new database includes 98323 occurrence records for 396 alien plant species in 77 families, with most species belonging to the Asteraceae family. One alien plant species in our database, the black locust Robiniapseudoacacia L., had more than 10,000 occurrence records. The distribution database also includes information on newly-reported invasive alien plant species of European Union concern in Romania (i.e. the floating primrose-willow Ludwigiapeploides (Kunth) P.H.Raven) and documents the presence of plants in 44 additional families compared to Sirbu et al. (2022). Each entry includes information on species taxonomy, location, year, person who recorded and identified the alien plant, geographical coordinates and taxon rank., (Paulina Anastasiu, Iulia V Miu, Athanasios A Gavrilidis, Cristina Preda, Laurentiu Rozylowicz, Culita Sirbu, Adrian Oprea, Mihaela Urziceanu, Petronela Camen-Comanescu, Eugenia Nagoda, Daniyar Memedemin, Marius Barbos, Violeta Boruz, Alina Cislariu, Ioan Don, Marius Fagaras, Jozsef Pal Frink, Ioana Mihaela Georgescu, Ovidiu Ioan Haruta, Bogdan-Iuliu Hurdu, Attila Matis, Sretco Milanovici, Sorana Muncaciu, Alina Georgeta Neacsu, Monica Neblea, Alma Lioara Nicolin, Mariana Niculescu, Silvia Oroian, Oliviu Grigore Pop, Daniel I Radutoiu, Mihaela Samarghitan, Ioana Simion, Liliana Cristina Soare, Corina Steiu, Emilia Stoianov, Daniela Strat, Anna Szabo, Paul Marian Szatmari, Corneliu Tanase, Marian D Mirea, Nicolae Manta, Ioana M Sirbu.)

In many fields of life science, visualization of spatial proximity, as an indicator of protein interactions in living cells, is of outstanding interest. A method to accomplish this is the measurement of Förster resonant energy transfer (FRET) by means of spectrally resolved fluorescence lifetime imaging microscopy. The fluorescence lifetime is calculated using a multiple-wavelength fitting routine. The donor profile is assumed first to have a monoexponential time-dependent behavior, and the acceptor decay profile is solved analytically. Later, the donor profile is assumed to have a two-exponential time-dependent behavior and the acceptor decay profile is derived analytically. We develop and apply a multispectral fluorescence lifetime imaging microscopy analysis system for FRET global analysis with time-resolved and spectrally resolved techniques, including information from donor and acceptor channels in contrast to using just a limited spectral data set from one detector only and a model accounting only for the donor signal. This analysis is used to demonstrate close vicinity of β-secretase (BACE) and GGA1, two proteins involved in Alzheimer's disease pathology. We attempt to verify if an improvement in calculating the donor lifetimes could be achieved when time-resolved and spectrally resolved techniques are simultaneously incorporated.

Traditional analysis of drug-binding data relies upon the Scatchard formalism. These methods rely upon the fitting of a linear equation providing intercept and gradient data that relate to physical properties, such as the binding constant, cooperativity coefficients and number of binding sites. However, the existence of different binding modes with different binding constants makes the implementation of these models difficult. This article describes a novel approach to the binding model of host-ligand interactions by using a derived analytical function describing the observed signal. The benefit of this method is that physically significant parameters, that is, binding constants and number of binding sites, are automatically derived by the use of a minimisation routine. This methodology was utilised to analyse the interactions between a novel antitumour agent and DNA. An optical spectroscopy study confirms that the pentacyclic acridine derivative (DH208) binds to nucleic acids. Two binding modes can be identified: a stronger one that involves intercalation and a weaker one that involves oriented outer-sphere binding. In both cases the plane of the bound acridine ring is parallel to the nucleic acid bases, orthogonal to the phosphate backbone. Ultraviolet (UV) and circular dichroism (CD) data were fitted using the proposed model. The binding constants and the number of binding sites derived from the model remained consistent across the different techniques used. The different wavelengths at which the measurements were made maintained the coherence of the results.