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Colletotrichum fructicola is a devastating fungal pathogen of diverse plants. Sexually compatible plus and minus strains occur in the same ascus. However, the differentiation mechanism of plus and minus strains remains poorly understood. Here, we characterized a novel Cys2-His2-containing transcription factor CfCpmdl. The plus CfCpmdl deletion mutant (is+CfCpmdl) resulted in slow hyphal growth and a fluffy cottonlike colony, and the minus deletion mutant (¿s-CfCpmdl) exhibited characters similar to the wild type (WT)./\+CfCpmdl led to defective perithecial formation, whereas A-CfCpmdl produced more and smaller perithecia. The normal mating line was developed by pairing cultures of h-CfCpmdl and plus WT, whereas a weak line was observed between is+CfCpmd 1 and minus WT. Conidial production was completely abolished in both plus and minus mutants. When inoculated on non-wounded apple leaves with mycelial plugs, is-CfCpmdl was nonpathogenic because of failure to develop conidia and appressoria, while is+CfCpmdl could infect apple leaves by appressoria differentiated directly from hyphal tips, even though no conidia formed. Collectively, our results demonstrate that CfCpmdl of C. fructicola is an important gene related to plus and minus strain differentiation, which also affects hyphal growth, sporulation, appressorium formation, and pathogenicity. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Acetaminophen (APAP) is the leading cause of acute liver failure (ALF), which is characterized by GSH depletion, oxidative stress and mitochondrial dysfunction. However, the specific mechanism of APAP-induced ALF remains to be clarified. In this study, we demonstrated that indoleamine 2,3-dioxygenase 1 (IDO1) aggravated APAP-induced ALF associated with excess lipid peroxidation, which was reversed by lipid peroxidation inhibitor (ferrostatin-1). Meanwhile, IDO1 deficiency effectively decreased the accumulation of reactive nitrogen species. Additionally, IDO1 deficiency prevented against APAP-induced liver injury through suppressing the activation of macrophages, thereby reduced their iron uptake and export, eventually reduced iron accumulation in hepatocytes through transferrin and transferrin receptor axis. In summary, our study confirmed that APAP-induced IDO1 aggravated ALF by triggering excess oxidative and nitrative stress and iron accumulation in liver. These results offer new insights for the clinical treatment of ALF or iron-dysregulated liver diseases in the future. [Display omitted] • IDO1 is up-regulated in acetaminophen-induced acute liver failure. • IDO1 deficiency dampens nitroxidative stress and reduces infiltration of inflammatory cells. • IDO1 served as a molecular target of iron metabolism associated with transferrin and transferrin receptor pathway. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Recently, in vitro models of intestinal mucosa have become important tools for drug screening and studying the physiology and pathology of the intestine. These models enable the examination of cellular behavior in diseased states or in reaction to alterations in the microenvironment, potentially serving as alternatives to animal models. One of the major challenges in constructing physiologically relevant in vitro models of intestinal mucosa is the creation of three-dimensional microstructures that accurately mimic the integration of intestinal epithelium and vascularized stroma. Here, core-shell alginate (Alg) microspheres were generated to create the compartmentalized extracellular matrix microenvironment needed to simulate the epithelial and vascularized stromal compartments of the intestinal mucosa. We demonstrated that NIH-3T3 and human umbilical vein endothelial cells embedded in the core of the microspheres can proliferate and develop a vascular network, while human colorectal adenocarcinoma cells (Caco-2) can form an epithelial monolayer in the shell. Compared to Caco-2 monolayer encapsulated within the shell, the presence of the vascularized stroma enhances their proliferation and functionality. As such, our core-shell Alg microspheres provide a valuable method for generating in vitro models of vascularized intestinal mucosa with epithelial and vascularized stroma arranged in a spatially relevant manner and demonstrating near-physiological functionality., (© 2024 IOP Publishing Ltd.)

To rationally design photocatalysts with high generation rate and selectivity of target product remains an ongoing challenge for CO 2 conversion in pure H 2 O. Herein, from the viewpoint of enhancing the separation efficiency of photoinduced electron-hole pairs and the adsorption ability of CO 2 molecule, we have constructed a series of Z-scheme defective heterojunctions of BiOBr nanosheets and hollow NH 2 -functionalized metal-organic framework (MOF) MIL-125 with Ti ions as metal centers (noted as NH 2 -MIL-125(Ti)). Systematic characterization demonstrates that the BiOBr nanosheets are anchored on the surface of hollow NH 2 -MIL-125(Ti), which facilitates the efficient visible-light-driven catalytic reduction of CO 2 to CO with nearly 100% selectivity by pure H 2 O. Especially, the CO generation rate of optimized catalyst with oxygen vacancies reaches 459.7 μmol g -1  h -1 , which is higher than those of all the previously reported photocatalysts without sacrificial reagents. This approach provides a new insight for using inorganic semiconductors to fabricate semiconducting MOFs for high-efficiency photocatalytic reduction CO 2 into value-added chemicals by pure H 2 O., (© 2023 Wiley-VCH GmbH.)