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This study aimed to examine the bacterial, methanogenic archaeal, and eukaryotic community structure in both the midgut and hindgut of Pachnoda marginata larvae using an amplicon sequencing approach. The goal was to investigate how various diets and the soil affect the composition of these three-domain microbial communities within the gut of insect larvae. The results indicated a notable variation in the microbial community composition among the gut compartments. The majority of the bacterial community in the hindgut was composed of Ruminococcaceae and Christensenellaceae. Nocardiaceae, Microbacteriaceae, and Lachnospiraceae were detected in midgut samples from larvae feeding on the leaf diet, whereas Sphingomonadaceae, Rhodobacteraceae, and Promicromonasporaceae dominated the bacterial community of midgut of larvae feeding on the straw diet. The diet was a significant factor that influenced the methanogenic archaeal and eukaryotic community patterns. The methanogenic communities in the two gut compartments significantly differed from each other, with the midgut communities being more similar to those in the soil. A higher diversity of methanogens was observed in the midgut samples of both diets compared to the hindgut. Overall, the microbiota of the hindgut was more host-specific, while the assembly of the midgut was more influenced by the environmental microorganisms., (© 2024 The Author(s). Environmental Microbiology Reports published by John Wiley & Sons Ltd.)

Objective: The aim of this study was to compare clinical and biomechanical features of scars resulting from the treatment of burn contractures using different acellular dermal matrices (ADM)., Summary Background Data: Extensive burns often lead to severe sequelae, such as skin contractures, that can be treated using ADM to improve the quality of these scars., Methods: A prospective, randomized and controlled clinical trial was performed including patients with burn contractures at least 1-year post-burn, treated using split-thickness skin graft (STSG). These patients were randomized into 4 groups: control (received only STSG without ADM), Integra (ADM + STSG), Matriderm (ADM + STSG), and Pelnac (ADM + STSG). Exclusion criteria were loss of follow-up and graft integration failure. The evaluation was performed using the Vancouver Scar Scale (VSS), the durom-eter, and the cutometer in areas of normal skin, hypertrophic scar, and surgical scar, at least 1 year after the surgery., Results: In the VSS, durometer, and cutometer evaluation, there was no difference in the comparison of surgical scars among groups. Analyzing each group, with an intraindividual evaluation comparing areas of normal skin with surgical scars, the results suggested a possibility of a surgical scar hardness closer to normal skin for Integra and Matriderm groups measured with the durometer. In the cutometer evaluation, surgical scars were not comparable to areas of normal skin., Conclusions: This study suggests that there is no difference in the quality of scar assessed through the analysis of clinical and biomechanical features comparing acellular dermal matrices (Integra, Matriderm, and Pelnac) and only split-thickness skin graft without a dermal matrix., Competing Interests: The authors report no conflicts of interest., (Copyright © 2022 Wolters Kluwer Health, Inc. All rights reserved.)

Electrified biotrickling filters represent sustainable microbial electrochemical technology for treating organic carbon-deficient ammonium-contaminated waters. However, information on the microbiome of the conductive granule bed cathode remains inexistent. For uncovering this black box and for identifying key process parameters, minimally invasive sampling units were introduced, allowing for the extraction of granules from different reactor layers during reactor operation. Sampled granules were analyzed using cyclic voltammetry and molecular biological tools. Two main redox sites [-288 ± 18 mV and -206 ± 21 mV vs. standard hydrogen electrode (SHE)] related to bioelectrochemical denitrification were identified, exhibiting high activity in a broad pH range (pH 6-10). A genome-centric analysis revealed a complex nitrogen food web and the presence of typical denitrifiers like Pseudomonas nitroreducens and Paracoccus versutus with none of these species being identified as electroactive microorganism so far. These are the first results to provide insights into microbial structure-function relationships within electrified biotrickling filters and underline the robustness and application potential of bioelectrochemical denitrification for environmental remediation., Competing Interests: The authors declare that the research was conducted in the absence of any commercial or financial relationships that could be construed as a potential conflict of interest., (Copyright © 2022 Korth, Pous, Hönig, Haus, Corrêa, Nunes da Rocha, Puig and Harnisch.)

Aims: How benzene is metabolized by microbes under anoxic conditions is not fully understood. Here, we studied the degradation pathways in a benzene-mineralizing, nitrate-reducing enrichment culture., Methods and Results: Benzene mineralization was dependent on the presence of nitrate and correlated to the enrichment of a Peptococcaceae phylotype only distantly related to known anaerobic benzene degraders of this family. Its relative abundance decreased after benzene mineralization had terminated, while other abundant taxa-Ignavibacteriaceae, Rhodanobacteraceae and Brocadiaceae-slightly increased. Generally, the microbial community remained diverse despite the amendment of benzene as single organic carbon source, suggesting complex trophic interactions between different functional groups. A subunit of the putative anaerobic benzene carboxylase previously detected in Peptococcaceae was identified by metaproteomic analysis suggesting that benzene was activated by carboxylation. Detection of proteins involved in anaerobic ammonium oxidation (anammox) indicates that benzene mineralization was accompanied by anammox, facilitated by nitrite accumulation and the presence of ammonium in the growth medium., Conclusions: The results suggest that benzene was activated by carboxylation and further assimilated by a novel Peptococcaceae phylotype., Significance and Impact of the Study: The results confirm the hypothesis that Peptococcaceae are important anaerobic benzene degraders., (© 2022 The Authors. Journal of Applied Microbiology published by John Wiley & Sons Ltd on behalf of Society for Applied Microbiology.)

Burn injuries commonly result in serious sequelae (such as skin contractures) in surviving patients, for which no single optimal solution is known. The goal of this study was to compare the late contraction of autologous skin grafts with or without dermal matrices used in the treatment of patients with burn contractures. This parallel design prospective, randomised and controlled clinical trial included patients with burn contracture treated using autologous skin grafts and dermal matrix. Patients were randomly assigned to one of the four groups: Integra® matrix (n = 10), Pelnac® matrix (n = 10), Matriderm® matrix (n = 9) or a Control Group (n = 10, without dermal matrix, only skin graft). The boundaries of skin defect were marked and transferred to a flat sterile surface for area measurement. The current area of the skin grafts was measured during surgery and compared with those obtained at 1, 3, 6 and 12 months postoperatively. Twelve months after surgery, the Control Group presented lower rates of skin graft contraction than Integra® (p < 0.01), Matriderm® (p = 0.01) and Pelnac® (p < 0.01) groups. Pelnac® resulted in larger skin graft contraction than Matriderm® (p < 0.01) and Integra® (p = 0.02), while differences between Integra® and Matriderm® were not significant (p = 0.16). The comparison between intraoperative and 12 months after surgery showed that the worst mean rates of skin graft contraction were from the Pelnac® (51.79%) and Matriderm® (59.17%). In patients with burn contractures, the use of these three dermal matrices did not reduce or avoid the occurrence of late contraction of the skin graft, so their use for this purpose should be carefully evaluated., (© 2022 The Wound Healing Society.)

Metagenomics became a standard strategy to comprehend the functional potential of microbial communities, including the human microbiome. Currently, the number of metagenomes in public repositories is increasing exponentially. The Sequence Read Archive (SRA) and the MG-RAST are the two main repositories for metagenomic data. These databases allow scientists to reanalyze samples and explore new hypotheses. However, mining samples from them can be a limiting factor, since the metadata available in these repositories is often misannotated, misleading, and decentralized, creating an overly complex environment for sample reanalysis. The main goal of the HumanMetagenomeDB is to simplify the identification and use of public human metagenomes of interest. HumanMetagenomeDB version 1.0 contains metadata of 69 822 metagenomes. We standardized 203 attributes, based on standardized ontologies, describing host characteristics (e.g. sex, age and body mass index), diagnosis information (e.g. cancer, Crohn's disease and Parkinson), location (e.g. country, longitude and latitude), sampling site (e.g. gut, lung and skin) and sequencing attributes (e.g. sequencing platform, average length and sequence quality). Further, HumanMetagenomeDB version 1.0 metagenomes encompass 58 countries, 9 main sample sites (i.e. body parts), 58 diagnoses and multiple ages, ranging from just born to 91 years old. The HumanMetagenomeDB is publicly available at https://webapp.ufz.de/hmgdb/., (© The Author(s) 2020. Published by Oxford University Press on behalf of Nucleic Acids Research.)

Lindane, the γ-hexachlorocyclohexane (HCH) isomer, was among the most used pesticides worldwide. Although it was banned in 2009, residues of Lindane and other HCH-isomers are still found with high concentrations in contaminated fields. For clean-up, phytoremediation combined with anaerobic digestion (AD) of contaminated biomass to produce biogas and fertilizer could be a promising strategy and was tested in two 15 L laboratory-scale continuous stirred tank reactors. During operation over one year by adding HCH isomers (γ, α and β) consecutively, no negative influence on conventional reactor parameters was observed. The γ- and α-HCH isomers were transformed to chlorobenzene and benzene, and transformation became faster along with time, while β-HCH was not removed. Genus Methanosaeta and order Clostridiales, showing significant enhancement on abundance with HCH addition, may be used as bioindicators for HCH dehalogenation in AD process. The potential for HCH degradation in AD system was restricted to axial Cl atoms of HCH and it showed slight enantioselective preference towards transformation of (+) α-HCH. Moreover, metabolite benzene was mineralized to CO 2 and methane, deducing from tracer experiments with benzene- 13 C 6 . Overall, AD appears to be a feasible option for treatment of γ and α-HCHs contaminated biomass., (Copyright © 2019 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.)

Microbiome studies focused on the genetic potential of microbial communities (metagenomics) became standard within microbial ecology. MG-RAST and the Sequence Read Archive (SRA), the two main metagenome repositories, contain over 202 858 public available metagenomes and this number has increased exponentially. However, mining databases can be challenging due to misannotated, misleading and decentralized data. The main goal of TerrestrialMetagenomeDB is to make it easier for scientists to find terrestrial metagenomes of interest that could be compared with novel datasets in meta-analyses. We defined terrestrial metagenomes as those that do not belong to marine environments. Further, we curated the database using text mining to assign potential descriptive keywords that better contextualize environmental aspects of terrestrial metagenomes, such as biomes and materials. TerrestrialMetagenomeDB release 1.0 includes 15 022 terrestrial metagenomes from SRA and MG-RAST. Together, the downloadable data amounts to 68 Tbp. In total, 199 terrestrial terms were divided into 14 categories. These metagenomes span 83 countries, 30 biomes and 7 main source materials. The TerrestrialMetagenomeDB is publicly available at https://webapp.ufz.de/tmdb., (© The Author(s) 2019. Published by Oxford University Press on behalf of Nucleic Acids Research.)

Some groups have avoided early microsurgical flaps in electrical burns under the pretext of injury to the microvasculature, which could increase vascular thrombosis. However, this option frequently results in amputation of the extremity. This study aims to evaluate the early application of microsurgical flaps for the treatment of electrical burns of extremities. A case series was retrospectively evaluated including patients with electrical trauma in extremities undergoing early microsurgical reconstruction. Data were obtained from medical charts, including age, trauma location, flap type and microvascular anastomosis, the need for other procedures, postoperative complications, the length of hospital stay after the flap surgery, and patient outcomes. Five microsurgical flaps were performed in less than 30 days to trauma, one anterolateral thigh flap to cover skin failure in upper limb, and four radial forearm flaps to cover failure in feet. The patient ages had a mean of 25.8 years (from 12 to 42 years). The microsurgical procedure occurred from 21 to 27 days after the burn, with a mean of 24.2 days. Hospital discharge had a mean of 26.6 days (from 19 to 35 days after the surgery). Only one patient required reintervention for re-anastomosis. All patients had a good flap viability, avoiding amputation of the affected extremity and with a proper preservation of function. The early application of microsurgical flaps for patients with electrical burns of extremities may provide adequate, sturdy, and stable skin coverage, contributing to the treatment of noble structures exposed and avoiding amputation of the extremities.

Objective: To demonstrate the feasibility of endoscopic extraperitoneal single site (EESS) inguinal hernia repair and compare it outcomes with the conventional totally extraperitoneal (TEP) technique., Background: TEP inguinal hernia repair is a widely accepted alternative to conventional open technique with several perioperative advantages. Transumbilical laparoendoscopic singlesite surgery (LESS) is an emerging approach and has been reported for a number of surgical procedures with superior aesthetic results but other advantages need to be proven., Patients and Methods: Thirty-eight uncomplicated inguinal hernias were repaired by EESS approach between January 2010 and January 2011. All procedures were performed through a 25 cm infraumbilical incision using the Alexis wound retractor attached to a surgical glove and three trocars. Body mass index, age, operative time, blood loss, complications, conversion rate, analgesia requirement, hospital stay, return to normal activities and patient satisfaction with aesthetic results were analysed and compared with the last 38 matched-pair group of patients who underwent a conventional TEP inguinal hernia repair by the same surgeon., Results: All procedures were performed successfully with no conversion. In both unilateral and bilateral EESS inguinal repairs, the mean operative time was longer than conventional TEP (55± 20 vs. 40± 15 min, P = 0.049 and 70± 15 vs. 55± 10 min, P = 0.014). Aesthetic result was superior in the EESS group (2.88± 0.43 vs. 2.79± 0.51, P = 0.042). There was no difference between the two approaches regarding blood loss, complications, hospital stay, time until returns to normal activities and analgesic requirement., Conclusion: EESS inguinal hernia repair is safe and effective, with superior cosmetic results in the treatment of uncomplicated inguinal hernias. Other advantages of this new technique still need to be proven.