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1,2-Dichloroethane (1,2-DCA), a widely utilized chemical intermediate and organic solvent in industry, frequently enters the environment due to accidental leaks and mishandling during application processes. Thus, the in-situ remediation of contaminated sites has become increasingly urgent. However, traditional remediation methods are inefficient and costly, while bioremediation presents a green, efficient, and non-secondary polluting alternative. In this study, an engineered strain capable of completely degrading 1,2-DCA was constructed. We introduced six exogenous genes of the 1,2-DCA degradation pathway into E. coli and confirmed their normal transcription and efficient expression in this engineered strain through qRT-PCR and proteomics. The degradation experiments showed that the strain completely degraded 2 mM 1,2-DCA within 12 h. Furthermore, the results of isotope tracing verified that the final degradation product, malic acid, entered the tricarboxylic acid cycle (TCA) of E. coli and was ultimately fully metabolized. Also, morphological changes in the engineered strain and control strain exposed to 1,2-DCA were observed under SEM, and the results revealed that the engineered strain is more tolerant to 1,2-DCA than the control strain. In conclusion, this study paved a new way for humanity to deal with the increasingly complex environmental challenges., Competing Interests: Declaration of Competing Interest The authors declare that they have no known competing financial interests or personal relationships that could have appeared to influence the work reported in this paper., (Copyright © 2024 The Authors. Published by Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.)

Ethylene is a hormone for fruit ripening control, and for the purpose of maintaining plant quality, ethylene monitoring is crucial. Due to the simple structure and limited functionality, the technical realization of ethylene detection by an artificial sensor remains a challenge. In this paper, we present a metal-organic frameworks (MOFs) array based electronic nose (e-nose) for rapid and accurate determination of ethylene. Six zirconium-based MOFs with systematically modified pore sizes and π-π binding sites have been prepared and fabricated into a sensor array using quartz crystal microbalance (QCM) technology. By virtue of the synergistic features of six MOF sensors, selectivity detection of ethylene has been achieved. The detection limit reaches to 0.27 ± 0.02 ppm, and high selectivity and stability (98.29 % ± 0.88 %) could also be confirmed. By submitting data to machine learning algorithm, an e-nose system could be established for discriminating ethylene from mixtures with a qualitative accuracy of 90.30 % and quantitative accuracy of 98.89 %. Practical evaluation suggests that the e-nose could index the fruit quality based on the accurate detection of ethylene released during fruit ripeness. This work demonstrates the promising potential of fabricating MOFs based e-nose systems for practical monitoring applications by selectively detecting challengeable target molecules., Competing Interests: Declaration of competing interest The authors declare that they have no known competing financial interests or personal relationships that could have appeared to influence the work reported in this paper., (Copyright © 2023 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.)

Objectives: This study aimed to investigate the prevalence and risk factors for carbapenem-resistant Enterobacterales colonisation/infection at admission and acquisition among patients admitted to the intensive care unit., Research Methodology/design: A prospective and multicentre study., Setting: This study was conducted in 24 intensive care units in Anhui, China., Main Outcome Measures: Demographic and clinical data were collected, and rectal carbapenem-resistant Enterobacterales colonisation was detected by active screening. Multivariate logistic regression models were used to analyse factors associated with colonisation/infection with carbapenem-resistant Enterobacterales at admission and acquisition during the intensive care unit stay., Results: There were 1133 intensive care unit patients included in this study. In total, 5.9% of patients with carbapenem-resistant Enterobacterales colonisation/infection at admission, and of which 56.7% were colonisations. Besides, 8.5% of patients acquired carbapenem-resistant Enterobacterales colonisation/infection during the intensive care stay, and of which 67.6% were colonisations. At admission, transfer from another hospital, admission to an intensive care unit within one year, colonisation/infection/epidemiological link with carbapenem-resistant Enterobacterales within one year, and exposure to any antibiotics within three months were risk factors for colonisation/infection with carbapenem-resistant Enterobacterales. During the intensive care stay, renal disease, an epidemiological link with carbapenem-resistant Enterobacterales, exposure to carbapenems and beta-lactams/beta-lactamase inhibitors, and intensive care stay of three weeks or longer were associated with acquisition., Conclusion: The prevalence of colonisation/infection with carbapenem-resistant Enterobacterales in intensive care units is of great concern and should be monitored systematically. Particularly for the 8.5% prevalence of carbapenem-resistant Enterobacterales acquisition during the intensive care stay needs enhanced infection prevention and control measures in these setting. Surveillance of colonisation/infection with carbapenem-resistant Enterobacterales at admission and during the patient's stay represents an early identification tool to prevent further transmission of carbapenem-resistant Enterobacterales., Implications for Clinical Practice: Carbapenem-resistant Enterobacterales colonization screening at admission and during the patient's stay is an important tool to control carbapenem-resistant Enterobacterales spread in intensive care units., Competing Interests: Declaration of Competing Interest The authors declare that they have no known competing financial interests or personal relationships that could have appeared to influence the work reported in this paper., (Copyright © 2023 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.)

2,4-Dinitrotoluene (2,4-DNT) as a common industrial waste has been massively discharged into the environment with industrial wastewater. Due to its refractory degradation, high toxicity, and bioaccumulation, 2,4-DNT pollution has become increasingly serious. Compared with the currently available physical and chemical methods, in situ bioremediation is considered as an economical and environmentally friendly approach to remove toxic compounds from contaminated environment. In this study, we relocated a complete degradation pathway of 2,4-DNT into Escherichia coli to degrade 2,4-DNT completely. Eight genes from Burkholderia sp. strain were re-synthesized by PCR-based two-step DNA synthesis method and introduced into E. coli. Degradation experiments revealed that the transformant was able to degrade 2,4-DNT completely in 12 h when the 2,4-DNT concentration reached 3 mM. The organic acids in the tricarboxylic acid cycle were detected to prove the degradation of 2,4-DNT through the artificial degradation pathway. The results proved that 2,4-DNT could be completely degraded by the engineered bacteria. In this study, the complete degradation pathway of 2,4-DNT was constructed in E. coli for the first time using synthetic biology techniques. This research provides theoretical and experimental bases for the actual treatment of 2,4-DNT, and lays a technical foundation for the bioremediation of organic pollutants., Competing Interests: Declaration of Competing Interest The authors declare that they have no known competing financial interests or personal relationships that could have appeared to influence the work reported in this paper., (Copyright © 2023 The Authors. Published by Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.)

After nearly 80 years of extensive application, the oldest organic herbicide 2,4-dichlorophenoxyacetic acid (2,4-D) has caused many problems of environmental pollution and ecological deterioration. Bioremediation is an ideal method for pollutant treatment. However, difficult screening and preparation of efficient degradation bacteria have largely hindered its application in 2,4-D remediation. We have created a novel engineering Escherichia coli with a reconstructed complete degradation pathway of 2,4-D to solve the problem of screening highly efficient degradation bacteria in this study. The results of fluorescence quantitative PCR demonstrated that all nine genes in the degradation pathway were successfully expressed in the engineered strain. The engineered strains can quickly and completely degrade 0.5 mM 2, 4-D within 6 h. Inspiring, the engineered strains grew with 2,4-D as the sole carbon source. By using the isotope tracing method, the metabolites of 2,4-D were found incorporated into the tricarboxylic acid cycle in the engineering strain. Scanning electron microscopy showed that 2,4-D had less damage on the engineered bacteria than the wild-type strain. Engineered strain can also rapidly and completely remedy 2,4-D pollution in natural water and soil. Assembling the metabolic pathways of pollutants through synthetic biology was an effective method to create pollutant-degrading bacteria for bioremediation., Competing Interests: Declaration of Competing Interest The authors declare that they have no known competing financial interests or personal relationships that could have appeared to influence the work reported in this paper., (Copyright © 2023 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.)

Background: Hyperlipidemia is a common complication after liver transplantation (LT) and develops mostly in the early posttransplant period. Recently, some studies have reported a positive correlation between hyperlipidemia and favorable prognosis in patients with hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC) undergoing hepatectomy. This study aimed to evaluate the possibility of predicting prognosis in HCC patients receiving LT by early posttransplant dyslipidemia., Methods: From January 2015 to December 2017, a total of 806 HCC patients from China Liver Transplant Registry database were retrospectively enrolled. The prognostic relevance of early posttransplant hypertriglyceridemia or hypercholesterolemia was examined using survival analysis, and subgroup analysis was implemented based on LT criteria., Results: Early posttransplant hypercholesterolemia (EPHC) was independently inversely associated with the risk of recurrence [hazard ratio (HR) = 0.630; P = 0.022], but was not significantly correlated with the mortality. However, early posttransplant hypertriglyceridemia was not related to prognosis. Intriguingly, with further classification, we found that borderline EPHC (B-EPHC), instead of significant EPHC, was a predictor of lower risk for both recurrence (HR = 0.504; P = 0.006) and mortality (HR = 0.511; P = 0.023). Compared with non-EPHC patients, B-EPHC patients achieved significantly superior 1-year and 3-year tumor-free survival (89.6% and 83.7% vs. 83.8% and 72.7% respectively; P = 0.023), and 1-year and 3-year overall survival (95.8% and 84.8% vs. 94.6% and 77.6% respectively; P = 0.039). In the subgroup analysis, B-EPHC remained an independent predictor of better prognosis in patients beyond Milan criteria and those within Hangzhou criteria; whereas there was no significant relationship between B-EPHC and prognosis in patients within Milan criteria and those beyond Hangzhou criteria. More interestingly, patients beyond Milan criteria but within Hangzhou criteria were identified as the crucial subpopulation who benefited from B-EPHC (recurrence HR = 0.306, P = 0.011; mortality HR = 0.325, P = 0.031)., Conclusions: B-EPHC could assist transplant teams in dynamically evaluating prognosis after LT for HCC as a postoperative non-oncological biomarker, especially in patients beyond Milan criteria but within Hangzhou criteria., (Copyright © 2022. Published by Elsevier B.V.)

Nitrobenzene is widely present in industrial wastewater and soil. Biodegradation has become an ideal method to remediate organic pollutants due to its low cost, high efficiency, and absence of secondary pollution. In the present study, 10 exogenous genes that can completely degrade nitrobenzene were introduced into Escherichia coli, and their successful expression in the strain was verified by fluorescence quantitative polymerase chain reaction and proteomic analysis. The results of the degradation experiment showed that the engineered strain could completely degrade 4 mM nitrobenzene within 8 h. The formation of intermediate metabolites was detected, and the final metabolites entered the E. coli tricarboxylic acid cycle smoothly. This process was discovered by isotope tracing method. Results indicated the integrality of the degradation pathway and the complete degradation of nitrobenzene. Finally, further experiments were conducted in soil to verify its degradation ability and showed that the engineered strain could also degrade 1 mM nitrobenzene within 10 h. In this study, engineered bacteria that can completely degrade nitrobenzene have been constructed successfully. The construction of remediation-engineered bacteria by synthetic biology laid the foundation for the industrial application of biological degradation of organic pollutants., Competing Interests: Declaration of Competing Interest The authors declare that they have no known competing financial interests or personal relationships that could have appeared to influence the work reported in this paper., (Copyright © 2022 The Authors. Published by Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.)

Objectives: Selenium deficiency can be associated with increased susceptibility to some viral infections and even more severe diseases. In this study, we aimed to examine whether this association applies to severe fever with thrombocytopenia syndrome (SFTS)., Method: An observational study was conducted based on the data of 13,305 human SFTS cases reported in mainland China from 2010 to 2020. The associations among incidence, case fatality rate of SFTS, and crop selenium concentration at the county level were explored. The selenium level in a cohort of patients with SFTS was tested, and its relationship with clinical outcomes was evaluated., Results: The association between selenium-deficient crops and the incidence rate of SFTS was confirmed by multivariate Poisson analysis, with an estimated incidence rate ratio (IRR, 95% confidence interval [CI]) of 4.549 (4.215-4.916) for moderate selenium-deficient counties and 16.002 (14.706-17.431) for severe selenium-deficient counties. In addition, a higher mortality rate was also observed in severe selenium-deficient counties with an IRR of 1.409 (95% CI: 1.061-1.909). A clinical study on 120 patients with SFTS showed an association between serum selenium deficiency and severe SFTS (odds ratio, OR: 2.94; 95% CI: 1.00-8.67) or fatal SFTS (OR: 7.55; 95% CI: 1.14-50.16)., Conclusion: Selenium deficiency is associated with increased susceptibility to SFTS and poor clinical outcomes., Competing Interests: Conflict of interest The authors have no competing interests to declare., (Copyright © 2022 The Author(s). Published by Elsevier Ltd.. All rights reserved.)

Industrial thiocyanate (SCN - ) waste streams from gold mining and coal coking have caused serious environmental pollution worldwide. Phytoremediation is an efficient technology in treating hazardous wastes from the environment. However, the phytoremediation efficiency of thiocyanate is very low due to the fact that plants lack thiocyanate degradation enzymes. In this study, the thiocyanate hydrolase module was assembled correctly in rice seedlings and showed thiocyanate hydrolase activity. Rice seedlings engineered to express thiocyanate degrading activity were able to completely remove thiocyanate from coking wastewater. Our findings suggest that transforming the thiocyanate hydrolase module into plants is an efficient strategy for rapid phytoremediation of thiocyanate in the environment. Moreover, the rice seedlings expressing apoplastic or cytoplasmic targeted thiocyanate hydrolase module were constructed to compare the phytoremediation efficiency of secretory/intracellular recombinant thiocyanate hydrolase. The most obvious finding from this study is that the apoplastic expression system is more efficient than the cytoplasm expression system in the phytoremediation of thiocyanate. At last, this research also shows that the secreted thiocyanate hydrolase from engineered rice plants does not influence rhizosphere bacterial community composition., Competing Interests: Declaration of competing interest The authors declare that they have no known competing financial interests or personal relationships that could have appeared to influence the work reported in this paper., (Copyright © 2022 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.)

2,4,6-trinitrotoluene (TNT) and cobalt (Co) contaminants have posed a severe environmental problem in many countries. Phytoremediation is an environmentally friendly technology for the remediation of these contaminants. However, the toxicity of TNT and cobalt limit the efficacy of phytoremediation application. The present research showed that expressing the Acidithiobacillus ferrooxidans single-strand DNA-binding protein gene (AfSSB) can improve the tolerance of Arabidopsis and tall fescue to TNT and cobalt. Compared to control plants, the AfSSB transformed Arabidopsis and tall fescue exhibited enhanced phytoremediation of TNT and cobalt separately contaminated soil and co-contaminated soil. The comet analysis revealed that the AfSSB transformed Arabidopsis suffer reduced DNA damage than control plants under TNT or cobalt exposure. In addition, the proteomic analysis revealed that AfSSB improves TNT and cobalt tolerance by strengthening the reactive superoxide (ROS) scavenging system and the detoxification system. Results presented here serve as strong theoretical support for the phytoremediation potential of organic and metal pollutants mediated by single-strand DNA-binding protein genes. SUMMARIZES: This is the first report that AfSSB enhances phytoremediation of 2,4,6-trinitrotoluene and cobalt separately contaminated and co-contaminated soil., (Copyright © 2021 The Authors. Published by Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.)

Fabrication of metal-organic frameworks (MOFs) based multifunctional sensors for various environmental pollutants represents a promising solution to the development of novel monitoring technologies. In this work, a dual responsive sensor of UiO-66-MA has been efficiently fabricated via post-modification of the UiO-66-MOF with maleic anhydride (MA), and dual detection of H 2 S and Cu 2+ in aquatic environments has been achieved tandemly. UiO-66-MA could selectively undergo Michael addition with H 2 S accompanying a linear fluorescence turn-on behavior. The sensing is highly sensitive and selective, and the detection limit value of 3.3 nM represents the lowest record among all MOF-based H 2 S sensing researches. Moreover, an alternative sensor for Cu 2+ could be further tandemly afforded after the H 2 S sensing. The H 2 S added product of UiO-66-MA/H 2 S exhibits selective fluorescence quenching towards Cu 2+ with a detection limit as low as 2.6 nM. UiO-66-MA exhibits dual sensing functions for H 2 S and Cu 2+ following a tandem process based on combinatorial principles of Michael addition and S-Cu coordination. Evaluation studies suggest the promising potentials of UiO-66-MA in determining the level of H 2 S and Cu 2+ in aquatic environment, and the tandemly derived dual sensing functions demonstrate the advantages of developing multifunctional MOF sensors based on combinatorial principles., (Copyright © 2020 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.)

Pulp and paper mill sludge (PPMS) mainly consists of primary sludge and secondary sludge (activated sludge). Before the disposal and utilization of PPMS, it is dewatered due to high water content. Cellulose fiber is a key and characteristic component in PPMS. In this paper, the role of cellulose fiber on the dewaterability of simulated PPMS (the mixture of cellulose fibers and activated sludge) was investigated, including the fiber content, fiber length and fibrillation degree. The results showed that the specific resistance to filtration (SRF) of simulated PPMS decreased with the increase of fiber content (0-30 w%) and also decreased with the decrease of average fiber length (0.597-0.303 mm) noticeably. However, the SRF increased dramatically when the average fiber length reduced further to 0.189 mm. The fiber fibrillation had no obvious effect on the sludge SRF. Besides, the addition of cellulose fiber had little impact on the sludge compressibility. The role of cellulose fiber in the PPMS is to form aggregates with high fiber-sludge adhesion and large floc size, which relieves the blinding effect and changes the permeability of sludge cake respectively, resulting in improving sludge filterability., (Copyright © 2019 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.)

Micro-/nano-hydroxyapatite (MHA/NHA) has been used to reduce the concentration of available heavy metals and increase soil pH in the remediation of heavy metal-contaminated soils. However, little is known about the effects of MHA and NHA on soil fungal communities and function. In this study, fungal community composition was characterized from copper-contaminated soils amended with MHA, NHA and three other classic amendments combined with Elsholtzia splendens during a 3-year immobilization experiment. High-throughput sequencing results showed that applications of MHA increased the richness and diversity of the fungal community, which was opposite the results of NHA. SIMPER analysis indicated that both the relative abundance of fungi associated with biosorption and plant growth promotion increased, whereas the relative abundance of fungi related to bioleaching and potential pathogens decreased after applying MHA. Redundancy (RDA) analysis revealed that the soil pH was a crucial environmental factor in the succession of fungal communities. In addition, the results of functional prediction via FUNGuild suggested that the application of MHA had the potential to reduce the risk of pathogens infecting animals and plants in the soil but that NHA had some environmental risks. Overall, fungal community showed a synergistic effect of immobilization with the test amendments, and MHA was better for the remediation of heavy metal-contaminated soils than the other test amendments., (Copyright © 2019 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.)

Proximal spinal muscular atrophy (SMA) is a common fatal autosomal recessive disorder caused by deletion or mutation of the survival of motor neuron 1 (SMN1). Here, we studied SMA molecular pathology in 653 Chinese patients and found approximately 88.2% with homozygous SMN1 exon 7 deletion and 6.3% with heterozygous exon 7 loss using multiplex ligation-dependent probe amplification. SMN1 variants were detected in 34 patients with heterozygous SMN1 loss by clone sequencing. In 27 of them, 15 variants were identified: five were unreported novel variants [c.-7_9del(p.0), p.Tyr109Cys, p.Ile249Tyrfs*16, p.Tyr272Trpfs*35, and c.835-5T>G], five were previously found only in Chinese patients (p.Ser8Lysfs*23, p.Gln14*, p.Val19Glyfs*21, p.Leu228*, and p.Tyr277Cys), and five were reported in other populations [p.Ala2Gly, p.Gln15*, p.Glu134Lys, p.Ser230Leu, and c.863G>T (r.835_*3del, p.Gly279Glufs*5)]. Variants p.Ser8Lysfs*23 and p.Leu228* were the most common in Chinese SMA. Five variants (p.Ser8Lysfs*23, p.Gln14*, p.Gln15*, p.Val19Glyfs*21, and p.Leu228*) resulted in premature stop codons, likely causing SMN1 mRNA nonsense-mediated decay. The novel variant c.-7_9del (p.0) caused deletion of the translation start codon (AUG), resulting in full-length SMN protein loss. The novel variant c.835-5T>G, located in a splice site, resulted in 90% exon 7 skipping. Our study could facilitate early diagnosis for SMA patients in mutation detection and revealed the specific mutation spectrum of SMN1 in Chinese SMA and high genetic heterogeneity in subtle variants observed between patients from China and Caucasians., (Copyright © 2016 American Society for Investigative Pathology and the Association for Molecular Pathology. Published by Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.)

In this study, a hydroponic culture experiment was conducted in a greenhouse to investigate the molecular and microbial mechanisms involved in the endophytic Bacillus megaterium 1Y31-enhanced Mn tolerance and accumulation in Mn hyperaccumulator hybrid pennisetum. Strain 1Y31 significantly increased the dry weights (ranging from 28% to 94%) and total Mn uptake (ranging from 23% to 112%) of hybrid pennisetum treated with 0, 2, and 10mM Mn compared to the control. Total 98 leaf differentially expressed proteins were identified between the live and dead bacterial inoculated hybrid pennisetum. The major leaf differentially expressed proteins were involved in energy generation, photosynthesis, response to stimulus, metabolisms, and unknown function. Furthermore, most of the energy generation and photosynthesis-related proteins were up-regulated, whereas most of the response to stimulus and metabolism-related proteins were down-regulated under Mn stress. Notably, the proportion of indole-3-acetic acid (IAA)-producing endophytic bacteria was significantly higher in the bacterial inoculated plants under Mn stress. The results suggested that strain 1Y31 increased the growth and Mn uptake of hybrid pennisetum through increasing the efficiency of photosynthesis and energy metabolism as well as the proportion of plant growth-promoting endophytic bacteria in the plants., (Copyright © 2015 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.)

Three hundred Mn-resistant endophytic bacteria were isolated from the Mn-hyperaccumulator, Phytolacca americana, grown at different levels of Mn (0, 1, and 10mM) stress. Under no Mn stress, 90%, 92%, and 11% of the bacteria produced indole acetic acid (IAA), siderophore, and 1-aminocyclopropane-1-carboxylate (ACC) deaminase, respectively. Under Mn stress, 68-94%, 91-92%, and 21-81% of the bacteria produced IAA, siderophore, and ACC deaminase, respectively. Greater percentages of ACC deaminase-producing bacteria were found in the Mn-treated P. americana. Furthermore, the ratios of IAA- and siderophore-producing bacteria were significantly higher in the Mn treated plant leaves, while the ratio of ACC deaminase-producing bacteria was significantly higher in the Mn treated-roots. Based on 16S rRNA gene sequence analysis, Mn-resistant bacteria were affiliated with 10 genera. In experiments involving hybrid penisetum grown in soils treated with 0 and 1000mgkg(-1) of Mn, inoculation with strain 1Y31 was found to increase the root (ranging from 6.4% to 18.3%) and above-ground tissue (ranging from 19.3% to 70.2%) mass and total Mn uptake of above-ground tissues (64%) compared to the control. Furthermore, inoculation with strain 1Y31 was found to increase the ratio of IAA-producing bacteria in the rhizosphere and bulk soils of hybrid penisetum grown in Mn-added soils. The results showed the effect of Mn stress on the ratio of the plant growth-promoting factor-producing endophytic bacteria of P. americana and highlighted the potential of endophytic bacterium as an inoculum for enhanced phytoremediation of Mn-polluted soils by hybrid penisetum plants., (Copyright © 2015 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.)

Two metal-resistant and plant growth-promoting bacteria (Burkholderia sp. J62 and Pseudomonas thivervalensis Y-1-3-9) were evaluated for their impacts on plant growth promotion, Cd availability in soil, and Cd uptake in rape (Brassica napus) grown in different level (0, 50, and 100 mg kg(-1)) of Cd-contaminated soils. The impacts of the bacteria on the rape-associated bacterial community structures were also evaluated using denaturing gradient gel electrophoresis (DGGE) analysis of bacterial DNA extracted from the root interior and rhizosphere and bulk soil samples collected at day 60 after inoculation. Canonical correspondence analysis (CCA) was used to have a comparative analysis of DGGE profiles. Inoculation with live bacteria not only significantly increased root (ranging from 38% to 86%), stem (ranging from 27% to 65%) and leaf (ranging from 23% to 55%) dry weights and water-extractive Cd contents (ranging from 59% to 237%) in the rhizosphere soils of the rape but also significantly increased root (ranging from 10% to 61%), stem (ranging from 41% to 57%) and leaf (ranging from 46% to 68%) total Cd uptake of rape compared to the dead bacterial-inoculated controls. DGGE and sequence analyses showed that the bacteria could colonize the rhizosphere soils and root interiors of rape plants. DGGE-CCA also showed that root interior and rhizosphere and bulk soil community profiles from the live bacteria-inoculated rape were significantly different from those from the dead bacteria-inoculated rape respectively. These results suggested that the bacteria had the potential to promote the growth and Cd uptake of rape and to influence the development of the rape-associated bacterial community structures., (Copyright © 2012 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.)

Forty-nine lead (Pb)-resistant endophytic bacteria were isolated from metal-tolerant Commelina communis plants grown on lead and zinc mine tailing, of which, seven 1-aminocyclopropane-1-carboxylate (ACC) deaminase-producing endophytic bacteria were initially obtained and characterized with respect to heavy metal resistance and production of ACC deaminase, indole-3-acetic acid (IAA) as well as siderophores. Two isolates (Q2BJ2 and Q2BG1) showing higher ACC deaminase activity were evaluated for promoting plant growth and Pb uptake of rape grown in quartz sand containing 0 and 100 mg kg(-1) of Pb in pot experiments. The seven Pb-resistant and ACC deaminase-producing endophytic bacterial isolates were found to exhibit different multiple heavy metal resistance characteristics and to show different levels of ACC deaminase activity (ranging from 12.8 μM α-KB mg(-1) h(-1) to 121 μM α-KB mg(-1) h(-1)). Among the seven isolates, six isolates produced indole acetic acid, whilst five isolates produced siderophores. In experiments involving rape plants grown in quartz sand containing 100 mg kg(-1) of Pb, inoculation with the isolates resulted in the increased dry weights of above-ground tissues (ranging from 39% to 71%) and roots (ranging from 35% to 123%) compared to the uninoculated control. Increases in above-ground tissue Pb contents of rape cultivated in 100 mg kg(-1) of Pb-contaminated substrates varied from 58% to 62% in inoculated-rape plants compared to the uninoculated control., (Copyright © 2010 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.)

Toll-like receptor 9 (TLR9) plays a controversial role in the pathogenesis of systemic lupus erythematosus (SLE). T-bet may be involved in the processes between the initiation of TLR9 activation and the antibodies' production. To clarify the paradox of TLR9, we investigated the intracellular expressions of TLR9 and T-bet in B and T cells in peripheral blood samples from 35 newly diagnosed, untreated patients with SLE and 16 healthy subjects by flow cytometry (FCM). And we collected the clinic laboratory data obtained from the same individual blood sample tested by FCM each time. And the correlations among the expression levels of the two proteins and SLE laboratory data were calculated. We found the percentages of B cells expressing TLR9 and T-bet and of T cells expressing TLR9 were significantly elevated in SLE patients when compared with healthy controls. There was a significantly negative relationship between the proportion of B cells expressing TLR9 and SLE Disease Activity Index (SLEDAI) score. The serum levels of anti-dsDNA antibody reversely correlated with the mean fluorescence intensity (MFI) of B cells co-expressing T-bet and TLR9. The serum levels of anti-C1q antibody significantly associated with the proportion of B cells expressing T-bet. Also, the serum levels of IgM and IgA antibodies both significantly correlated with TLR9 and T-bet expressions in T and B cells. According to the immunological pathway knowledge and the mutually verified associations, the following conclusions are made. Expressions of TLR9 and T-bet were increased in patients with SLE. TLR9 may have a role to play in protecting against lupus. And the increase of the co-expression of TLR9 and T-bet may be of benefit to the protective antibodies' production and pathogenic antibodies' decline, and could be regarded as a good sign for lupus demission and/or treatment.