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The IL-21/IL-21R interaction plays an important role in a variety of immune diseases; however, the roles and mechanisms in intracellular bacterial infection are not fully understood. In this study, we explored the effect of IL-21/IL-21R on chlamydial respiratory tract infection using a chlamydial respiratory infection model. The results showed that the mRNA expression of IL-21 and IL-21R was increased in Chlamydia muridarum–infected mice, which suggested that IL-21 and IL-21R were involved in host defense against C. muridarum lung infection. IL-21R−/− mice exhibited less body weight loss, a lower bacterial burden, and milder pathological changes in the lungs than wild-type (WT) mice during C. muridarum lung infection. The absolute number and activity of CD4+ T cells and the strength of Th1/Th17 responses in IL-21R−/− mice were significantly higher than those in WT mice after C. muridarum lung infection, but the Th2 response was weaker. Consistently, IL-21R−/− mice showed higher mRNA expression of Th1 transcription factors (T-bet/STAT4), IL-12p40, a Th17 transcription factor (STAT3), and IL-23. The mRNA expression of Th2 transcription factors (GATA3/STAT6), IL-4, IL-10, and TGF-β in IL-21R−/− mice was significantly lower than that in WT mice. Furthermore, the administration of recombinant mouse IL-21 aggravated chlamydial lung infection in C57BL/6 mice and reduced Th1 and Th17 responses following C. muridarum lung infection. These findings demonstrate that IL-21/IL-21R may aggravate chlamydial lung infection by inhibiting Th1 and Th17 responses.

Increasing soil organic carbon (SOC) is a widely accepted strategy to offset greenhouse gases and improve soil quality. Straw return can modify SOC dynamics and increase its stock, which are also i...

We quantified the effects of different straw return modes on soil organic carbon (SOC), total nitrogen content (TN) and C:N ratios in a wheat/maize double‐cropping agricultural system by analysing their content in different soil aggregate sizes and density fractions under four modes of straw return: (a) no return/retention of wheat and maize straw (Control); (b) retention of long wheat stubble only (Wheat Stubble); (c) retention of long wheat stubble and return of chopped maize straw (Mixed); and (d) return of chopped wheat and maize straw (Both Chopped). The Mixed and Both Chopped straw return modes produced the highest crop yields. Relative to the Control, SOC stock was 9.6% greater with the Mixed treatment and 14.5% greater with the Both Chopped treatment, whereas the Wheat Stubble treatment had no effect on SOC. Mixed and Both Chopped significantly enhanced TN stock relative to the Wheat Stubble and Control treatments. Compared with the Control, the Mixed and Both Chopped treatments increased the mass proportions of large macroaggregates and reduced the silt plus clay fraction; Mixed and Both Chopped caused a significant increase in SOC and TN in large and small macroaggregates; the Mixed treatment significantly increased SOC content in the coarse and fine intra‐aggregate particulate organic matter (iPOM) density fractions of large macroaggregates, whereas Both Chopped increased SOC in the coarse iPOM, fine iPOM and mineral‐associated organic matter (mSOM) density fractions of both large and small macroaggregates; and Mixed and Both Chopped enhanced TN content in coarse iPOM and fine iPOM within small macroaggregates. Although the Mixed treatment was slightly less effective at improving C sequestration in agricultural fields than the Both Chopped treatment, the Mixed treatment may nonetheless be the optimal plant residue management mode in terms of minimizing time and labour due to its ability to improve soil structure, maintain organic carbon levels and provide a means of sustainable crop production in intensive wheat/maize double‐cropping systems.

With the rapid development of new internet technologies, i.e. Internet of Things (IoT), the amount of IoT services has grown dramatically. To make people easier and faster to utilize the service resources, it becomes more and more important to gather the services on the IoT. Most of the current methods can only create automatic or semi-automatic service composition schemes, and lack support and consideration of real-time data and instant situation information, so they cannot achieve dynamic adaptive aggregation of services. In this paper, we focus on both the functional and non-functional constrains, and propose an IoT service aggregation method based on dynamic planning oriented QoE constraint. Firstly, the knowledge model of relationship among service category concepts are constructed. Secondly, the aggregation problem of service categories is mapped to a dynamic programming problem based on the relationship between service composition, and a new semantic similarity computing method is used as the main basis for service selection by using the ontology of IoT service category. Finally, for the selection of specific service resources, a trend-aware service selection algorithm for the QoE multi-constrained measurement is proposed. Experimental results show that the proposed method has better performance in terms of recall and precision.

Straw return is widely applied in China to achieve sustainable grain production. However, inappropriate farm practices can increase greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions and reduce soil organic carbon (SOC) sequestration, thereby increasing the carbon footprint (CFP) and affecting soil fertility and climate change. A 10-year experiment was conducted to evaluate and quantify the effects of straw management on SOC, crop yield, and CFP under a winter wheat–summer maize rotation in the Guanzhong Plain. The experiment involved seven straw-return modes, namely high wheat stubble retention and chopped maize straw return (WH-MC), high wheat stubble retention and chopped maize straw return with sub-soiling every two years (WH-MM), high wheat stubble retention and no maize straw return (WH-MN), both chopped wheat and maize straw return (WC-MC), chopped wheat and maize straw return with sub-soiling every two years (WC-MM), chopped wheat straw return and no maize straw return (WC-MN), and a control with no return of either wheat or maize straw (WN-MN). The results indicate that SOC change, crop yield, and CFP were significantly influenced by the straw-return mode in the annual wheat–maize season. SOC sequestration rate was positively correlated with cumulative plant-derived C input, which ranged from 29.4 Mg C ha −1 in WN-MN to 100.7 Mg C ha −1 in WH-MC. Of all the studied treatments, WH-MC produced the highest grain yield and lowest CFP, which were 26% higher and 20.5% lower than those of the control, respectively. However, crop yield and CFP in the individual wheat or maize seasons were only slightly affected by straw-return mode; only WC-MN in the wheat season and WH-MC, WH-MM, and WC-MN in the maize season produced a significantly higher grain yield and lower CFP compared to the no straw return treatment. Annual GHG emissions were highest in the WC-MM treatment and lowest in WH-MN. Therefore, WH-MC found to be the most suitable straw-return for lowering CFP and enhancing crop yield and SOC sequestration. However, to achieve the coordinated development of agriculture and the livestock industry it is necessary to remove some straw for animal feed and fuel, so WH-MN produced optimum yield and maintained SOC stock with low GHG emissions.

The IL-21/IL-21R interaction plays an important role in a variety of immune diseases; however, the roles and mechanisms in intracellular bacterial infection are not fully understood. In this study, we explored the effect of IL-21/IL-21R on chlamydial respiratory tract infection using a chlamydial respiratory infection model. The results showed that the mRNA expression of IL-21 and IL-21R was increased in

IL-27, a heterodimeric cytokine of the IL-12 family, has diverse influences on the development of multiple inflammatory diseases. In this study, we identified the protective role of IL-27/IL-27R in host defense against Chlamydia muridarum respiratory infection and further investigated the immunological mechanism. Our results showed that IL-27 was involved in C. muridarum infection and that IL-27R knockout mice (WSX-1–/– mice) suffered more severe disease, with greater body weight loss, higher chlamydial loads, and more severe inflammatory reactions in the lungs than C57BL/6 wild-type mice. There were excessive IL-17–producing CD4+ T cells and many more neutrophils, neutrophil-related proteins, cytokines, and chemokines in the lungs of WSX-1–/– mice than in wild-type mice following C. muridarum infection. In addition, IL-17/IL-17A–blocking Ab treatment improved disease after C. muridarum infection in WSX-1–/– mice. Overall, we conclude that IL-27/IL-27R mediates protective immunity during chlamydial respiratory infection in mice by suppressing excessive Th17 responses and reducing neutrophil inflammation.

Crop residue is a commonly used organic soil amendment in summer maize (June–October)–winter wheat (October–June of next year) rotation systems. However, the effects of different straw return modes on soil aggregation and soil organic carbon (SOC) stocks in different water-stable aggregates have not been extensively investigated in these cropping systems. The objective of this study was to quantify the long-term (7 yr) impact of C input on the SOC content of four soil aggregate size classes (large macroaggregates; small macroaggregates; microaggregates, silt plus clay fraction) and in explicit SOC fractions (free light fraction, free LF; intra-aggregate particulate organic matter, iPOM; mineral-associated matter, mSOM) within the top 40 cm of soil in a wheat–maize double cropping system in Northwest China. Four treatments were examined: (i) no return (control); (ii) return of wheat straw only (WR); (iii) return of maize straw only (MR); and (iV) return of both maize and wheat straw (MR-WR). Over the experimental period, the change in SOC under the four treatments ranged from −0.96 to 5.83 Mg ha −1 and a significant linear relationship between SOC change and cumulative C input (R 2 = 0.9882, P fine iPOM > coarse iPOM > free LF. Straw return significantly increased the C stock in iPOM and mSOM relative to the control. Coarse iPOM was the most sensitive indicator of C change and mSOM was the main form of SOC under long-term straw return. A significant linear relationship existed between cumulative C input and the mass proportion of macroaggregates as well as the C content of SOC fractions (or aggregate fractions). Soil depth had a significant influence on almost all measurements, with greater values observed in the 0–20 cm layer than in the 20–40 cm layer. Overall, return of both maize and wheat straw was the best strategy for improving soil structure, soil organic carbon, and crop yield. However, straw return from one crop was sufficient to maintain initial SOC levels, and conserved straw could be used for cellulosic feedstocks.

Soil organic carbon (SOC) and inorganic carbon (SIC) are important carbon reservoirs in terrestrial ecosystems. A large portion of carbon from stover enters the atmosphere after stover return. Howe...

Chlamydia is an obligate intracellular bacteria, which can infect cervix, urethra, conjunctiva, joints, lungs and so on. Neutrophils are important in host protection against microbial invasion during the early phase of infection. Here, to investigate the mechanism of IL-17A in recruiting neutrophils during Chlamydia muridarum (Cm) lung infection, we introduced IL-17A antibodies and IL-17-/- mice to confirm the effect of IL-17A on influencing neutrophil attractants expressions. From the analysis of the data, we found that showed that Cm infection could upregulate the expression of neutrophil-related chemokines such as KC, MIP-2 and IL-6, as well as adhesion molecules including ICAM-1 and VCAM-1. With blocking endogenous IL-17A, the upregulated MIP-2 and IL-6 were decreased, which induced less neutrophil recruitment in lung. Comparing to WT mice, IL-17-/- mice showed decreased infiltration of neutrophils in lung during the early phase of Cm infection, which were accordant with decreased chemokines, such as KC, MIP-2 and IL-6 expression. Whereas, the expression of adhesion molecules including ICAM and VCAM-1 in lungs were significantly increased in IL-17-/- mice comparing to WT mice during Cm lung infection. The results demonstrated that IL-17A influenced neutrophil infiltration by affecting expression of chemokines and adhesion molecules during the early phase of chlamydial lung infection.

Our previous studies showed that γδ T cells provided immune protection against Chlamydial muridarum (Cm), an obligate intracellular strain of chlamydia trachomatis, lung infection by producing abundant IL-17. In this study, we investigated the proliferation and activation of lung γδ T cell subsets, specifically the IL-17 and IFNγ production by them following Cm lung infection. Our results found that five γδ T cell subsets, Vγ1+ T, Vγ2+ T, Vγ4+ T, Vγ5+ T, and Vγ6+ T, expressed in lungs of naïve mice, while Cm lung infection mainly induced the proliferation and activation of Vγ4+ T cells at day 3 p.i., following Vγ1+ T cells at day 7 p.i. Cytokine detection showed that Cm lung infection induced IFNγ secretion firstly by Vγ4+ T cells at very early stage (day 3) and changed to Vγ1+ T cells at midstage (day 7). Furthermore, Vγ4+ T cell is the main γδ T cell subset that secretes IL-17 at the very early stage of Cm lung infection and Vγ1+ T cell did not secrete IL-17 during the infection. These findings provide in vivo evidence that Vγ4+T cells are the major IL-17 and IFNγ-producing γδ T cell subsets at the early period of Cm lung infection.

The original version of this article unfortunately contained mistakes in the author group and affiliation sections. Author Khan Muhammad's given name and surname were interchanged. His affiliation should also be updated to "Department of Software, Sejong University, Seoul, Republic of Korea".

Increasing organic carbon sequestration in agricultural soils is important for improving soil fertility and mitigating climate change. Wood ash is generally applied as a potassium fertilizer, but the effects of simultaneous incorporation of wood ash and crop straw on the turnover of soil organic carbon (SOC) and inorganic carbon (SIC) are not well understood. In this study, a 118-day lab incubation experiment was conducted using a calcareous soil (with 10 years of continuous maize cropping history) to study the effects of adding wheat straw, wood ash and lime. Our study showed that straw addition led to an increase in both SOC (19%) and SIC (3%). Wood ash and lime addition decreased CO2 emission by 182 and 1210 mg kg-1 and increased SIC by 125 and 1001 mg kg-1 during the incubation, respectively, which was due to supply of CaO from wood ash and lime. The increase of SOC content was 2.4% due to the addition of lime. In addition to straw addition enhanced straw-derived OC content, the addition of lime also increased straw-derived OC content by 34.5%. This study demonstrated that lime was more effective in reducing CO2 emission and and enhancing SOC than wood ash. In conclusion, adding lime to calcareous soil might be an effective method of enhancing carbon sequestration and slowing climate change.

The role of IL-17A is important in protection against lung infection with Chlamydiae, an obligate intracellular bacterial pathogen. In this study, we explored the producers of IL-17A in chlamydial lung infection and specifically tested the role of major IL-17A producers in protective immunity. We found that γδT cells and Th17 cells are the major producers of IL-17A at the early and later stages of chlamydial infection, respectively. Depletion of γδT cells in vivo at the early postinfection (p.i.) stage, when most γδT cells produce IL-17A, failed to alter Th1 responses and bacterial clearance. In contrast, the blockade of IL-17A at the time when IL-17A was mainly produced by Th17 (day 7 p.i.) markedly reduced the Th1 response and increased chlamydial growth. The data suggest that the γδ T cell is the highest producer of IL-17A in the very early stages of infection, but the protection conferred by IL-17A is mainly mediated by Th17 cells. In addition, we found that depletion of γδ T cells reduced IL-1α production by dendritic cells, which was associated with a reduced Th17 response. This finding is helpful to understand the variable role of IL-17A in different infections and to develop preventive and therapeutic approaches against infectious diseases by targeting IL-17A.

Family language planning is part of the micro-fields of linguistic policy and language planning. As for more and more children grow up in a bilingual or multilingual environment. We view the family as an important social linguistic environment. This paper briefly expounds the theory of micro language planning and focuses on the family language planning. And in this paper, the importance of family language planning, influenced factors and implications on family language planning are examined in depth. The development of foreign language education in family language planning also should be put into action positively.