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This study aimed to evaluate the effects of wilting and exogenous lactic acid bacteria treatments on the chemical composition, fermentation quality, and microbial community composition of Plantago lanceolata silage (PS). This experiment was carried out in the Guizhou Extension Station of Grassland Technology (25°38′48″ N, 106°13′6″ E). The PS samples were divided into four treatment groups, namely control PS (C-PS), wilting-treated PS (W-PS), Lactobacillus brucei-treated PS (LB-PS), and wilting + L. brucei-treated PS (WLB-PS) groups, and analyzed after 60 d of treatment. The W-PS and WLB-PS groups showed significantly lower ether extract, ash, and Neutral detergent fiber contents but significantly higher water-soluble carbohydrate content compared to the C-PS and LB-PS groups (p < 0.05). Additionally, the W-PS group had significantly lower propionic acid content but significantly higher butyric acid content compared to the other groups (p < 0.05). Meanwhile, the WLB-PS group had the highest lactic acid content, the lowest pH, and no butyric acid content (p < 0.05). Additionally, the WLB-PS group showed a high proliferation of beneficial bacterial species (Lactobacillus buchneri and Lactobacillus plantarum) and decreased proliferation of undesirable bacterial species (Clostridium lutlcellarli and Clostridium tyrobutyricum). In conclusion, the combination treatment with wilting and L. brucei increased beneficial microorganisms and inhibited undesirable microorganisms during ensiling, thereby improving the fermentation quality of PS. Therefore, the combination treatment with wilting and L. brucei may be an effective Plantago lanceolata silage modulation technique. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Objective: This study is aimed at identifying the most common drugs associated with the risk of intracranial pressure increase (IPI) based on the US Food and Drug Administration Adverse Event Reporting System (FAERS) database. Methods: OpenVigil 2.1 was used to query the FAERS database and data from the first quarter of 2004 to the third quarter of 2022 were retrieved. Pharmacovigilance tools were employed for the quantitative detection of signals, where a signal represents a drug‐induced adverse event, including the reporting odds ratio (ROR > 1 with 95% confidence interval, the reports number ≥ 2) and proportional reporting ratio (PRR > 2, χ2 ≥ 4). Results: Among the 12,060,031 adverse event reports, there were 3113 cases in which drugs were the primary suspect cause of IPI. Drug‐induced intracranial pressure increase (DIPI) was more often observed in young females. The Top 5 drugs with the highest ROR and PRR were minocycline, doxycycline, acetazolamide, somatropin recombinant, and cytarabine. Conclusion: Potential risks of DIPI should be closely monitored in clinical practice. Our study is consistent with clinical observations, which call for further research to establish the basis of these drugs and IPI. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Ascorbic acid (AsA), an essential non-enzymatic antioxidant in plants, regulates development growth and responses to abiotic and biotic stresses. However, research on AsA's role in cold tolerance remains largely unknown. Here, our study uncovered the positive role of AsA in improving cold stress tolerance in tomato seedlings. Physiological analysis showed that AsA significantly enhanced the enzyme activity of the antioxidant defense system in tomato seedling leaves and increased the contents of proline, sugar, abscisic acid (ABA), and endogenous AsA. In addition, we found that AsA is able to protect the photosynthetic system of tomato seedlings, thereby relieving the declining rate of chlorophyll fluorescence parameters. qRT-PCR analysis indicated that AsA significantly increased the expression of genes encoding antioxidant enzymes and involved in AsA synthesis, ABA biosynthesis/signal transduction, and low-temperature responses in tomato. In conclusion, the application of exogenous AsA enhances cold stress tolerance in tomato seedlings through various molecular and physiological responses. This provides a theoretical foundation for exploring the regulatory mechanisms underlying cold tolerance in tomato and offers practical guidance for enhancing cold tolerance in tomato cultivation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In the enhancement of Novel Sorghum bicolor × S. propinquum Hybrid utilization, optimal planting densities and silage methods remain elusive. This study assesses the effects of planting densities, cellulase (CE), Lactobacillus buchneri (LAB), and their combination (LC) on fermentation quality and bacterial diversity of the hybrid silage. The experiment was carried out in a completely random block design with four additives and five planting densities (M1, M2, M3, M4, M5) as follows (4 additives × 5 planting densities): a control group without additives (CK), a group treated with Lactobacillus buchneri (LAB), a group with cellulase (CE), and a group treated with a combination of LAB and CE (LC), maintaining triplicates per treatment. In this study, the additive treatment improved the fermentation quality of silage compared with the control. In the M2-LC group, the contents of crude protein (CP; 7.88%), ether extract (EE; 1.91%), and ash (7.76%) were the highest, while the pH (3.30) was the lowest. The water-soluble carbohydrate (WSC; 11.28%) content was the highest in the M3-CE group, the lactic acid (LA; 6.79%) content was the highest in the M4-CE group, and the acetic acid (AA; 7.71%) content was the highest in the M2-LAB group. Meanwhile, the neutral washing fiber (NDF; 53.17%) content was the lowest in the M5-CE group, the acid detergent fiber (ADF; 41.01%) content was the lowest in the M2-CE group, and the propionic acid (PA; 0.26%) content was the lowest in the M1-LAB group. Adding LC notably reduced bacterial diversity, boosted Lentilactobacillus, and curbed Proteobacteria. LAB and LC markedly improved amino acid metabolism over CE and CK. Conversely, beta-lactam resistance, flagellar assembly, and ascorbate/aldarate metabolism pathways were suppressed. In the future, we will explore a variety of additives and adjust the cutting height to improve its comprehensive quality, create an innovative path for silage production, promote the efficient use of agricultural resources, and provide high-quality feed for animal husbandry. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

ABSTRACT Coronavirus Disease 2019 (COVID-19) has rapidly spread worldwide. Numerous studies have shown its typical and atypical CT findings. We report one COVID-19 patient who presented with a transient pneumothorax, spontaneous pneumomediastinum (SP), as well as subcutaneous emphysema during hospitalization. Chest CT andclinical findings were discussed, and a literature review is presented. The probable cause of SP in COVID-19 was alveolar damage. Once pneumothorax and SP were present, the patient should be carefully monitored to prevent respiratory deterioration, especially when lung lesions are severe.

PLAC8 is a cysteine-rich protein that serves as a central mediator of tumor evolution in mammals. PLAC8 motif-containing proteins widely distribute in fungi, algae, higher plants and animals that have been described to be implicated in fruit size, cell number and the transport of heavy metals such as cadmium or zinc. In tomatoes, FW2.2 is a PLAC8 motif-containing gene that negatively controls fruit size by regulating cell division and expansion in the carpel ovary during fruit development. However, despite FW2.2, other FWL (FW2.2-Like) genes in tomatoes have not been investigated. In this study, we identified the 21 SlFWL genes, including FW2.2, examined their expression profiles under various abiotic adversity-related conditions. The SlFWL gene structures and motif compositions are conserved, indicating that tomato SlFWL genes may have similar roles. Cis-acting element analysis revealed that the SlFWL genes may participate in light and abiotic stress responses, and they also interacted with a variety of phytohormone-responsive proteins and plant development elements. Phylogenetic analyses were performed on five additional plant species, including Arabidopsis, pepper, soybean, rice and maize, these genes were classified into five subfamilies. Based on the results of collinearity analyses, the SlFWL genes have a tighter homologous evolutionary relationship with soybean, and these orthologous FWL gene pairs might have the common ancestor. Expression profiling of SlFWL genes show that they were all responsive to abiotic stresses, each subgroup of genes exhibited a different expression trend. Our findings provide a strong foundation for investigating the function and abiotic stress responses of the SlFWL family genes. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Pepper (Capsicum annuum L.) represents a highly significant agricultural commodity worldwide. Heat stress (HS) poses a severe threat to pepper productivity and quality. However, our understanding of the molecular alterations triggered by HS remains insufficient. This study focused on characterizing P19055 and P17087 as heat-tolerant and heat-sensitive pepper lines, respectively. Through RNA sequencing, we quantified transcript abundance in pepper fruit to investigate the impact of HS on gene expression. A total of 41,793 differentially expressed genes (DEGs) was identified, encompassing 33,703 known genes and 8090 novel genes. Additionally, we obtained 89,821 expressed transcripts, including 52,726 known transcripts and 37,095 new transcripts. By comparing gene expression levels between P17087 and P19055 fruit, we pinpointed 2324 genes exhibiting differential expression across three time points (0.5 h, 2 h, 6 h). Leveraging the weighted correlation network analysis (WGCNA) approach, we constructed a co-expression network of DEGs in P19055 and P17087 based on transcriptomic data acquired at these time points. Notably, nineteen modules displayed significant correlations with the time points following HS during the fruiting stage in both genotypes. Functional enrichment analysis revealed that the DEGs were primarily associated with metabolic and cellular processes in response to stress, particularly photosynthesis at the 2 h and 6 h time points. Moreover, we identified and categorized 26 families of transcription factors, including ERF (19), WRKY (12), MYB (15), NAC (7), bHLH (7), MIKC (7), GRAS (6), and 40 others, which may potentially regulate the expression of key genes in response to HS. Our findings contribute to a comprehensive understanding of the molecular mechanisms governing HS during the fruiting stage of pepper cultivation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Given that wet experimental methods were no longer adequate for the rapid identification of bitter peptides, this paper presented Bitter-Fus, a novel predictive deep learning method incorporating traditional manual features and pre-trained deep features. Firstly, the method automatically extracted deep learning features from peptide sequences using a pre-trained protein sequence language model, then fed the deep learning features into a long short-term memory (LSTM) network for dimensionality reduction to retain the most relevant features. Finally, the reduced-dimensional deep features were fused with the manual features composed of traditional amino acids composition (AAC) method and passed into the feedforward neural network to construct a prediction model. The validation experimental results showed that the prediction method Bitter-Fus obtained an accuracy precision value of 0. 902 and a Mathews correlation coefficient value of 0. 805 in a 10-fold cross-validation, and an accuracy precision value of 0. 930 and a Mathews correlation coefficient value of 0. 862 in the independent dataset test, which significantly outperformed the current state-of-the-art bitter peptide prediction methods BERT4Bitter and iBitter-SCM. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article puts the power centralization drive of the CPC since 2012 into perspective by going back to the Party's history. By employing the retrospective governance studies approach, it singles out three cases in the CPC's history in which top Party leaders chose to reinforce the CPC's centralized system even when the Party had made strides in the previous stage, including creating the Instruction Request and Work Report System in 1948, adjusting Party-government Relations in 1953 and prioritizing top-level design since the 18th Party Congress in 2012. Based on a detailed analysis and comparison of the background, process and repercussions of furthering the CPC's centralized system in the three cases, this article concludes that top Party leaders chose to further strengthen the CPC's centralized system even when the Party was making strides in its cause primarily because of their concerns about the negative influences, real or imaginary, of the changing environment on the organizational integrity of the Party. By demonstrating the significance of CPC's Leninist heritage in enabling its resilience, the present analysis broadens the scope of authoritarian resilience studies. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]