Invasive aspergillosis promotes tumor growth and severity in a tumor-bearing mouse model

Invasive aspergillosis increases in chronic immunosuppressive diseases such as cancer. There is little information about the mechanisms by which Aspergillus infection affects the immune regulation and microenvironment of cancer cells. Hence, this study was aimed at investigating the effect of invasive aspergillosis on immunosurveillance, metastasis, and prognosis of cancer in tumor-bearing mice. After implantation of mouse mammary tumor in BALB/c mice, they were infected with Aspergillus conidia intravenously. For comparison, groups of mice were experimentally infected with Aspergillus conidia or implanted with tumor cells separately. Seven days after Aspergillus infection, the serum levels of tissue inhibitor of metalloproteinase-1 (TIMP-1) were measured by ELISA, and subsequently regulatory T lymphocytes were analyzed by flow cytometry. The survival of animals and mean tumor size were then determined. Our results indicated that tumor sizes in mice increased significantly after infection with Aspergillus conidia. Moreover, invasive aspergillosis enhanced the population of regulatory lymphocytes and level of TIMP-1. This study supports the idea that massive Aspergillus infection could stimulate tumor growth and increases the possibility of a bad prognosis. As a result, treatment of Aspergillus infection could be considered an important issue for efficient cancer therapy.     

A lipidomic view of SARS-CoV-2

The global pandemic of severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2), which started in late 2019, has caused huge social and economic losses. A growing number of investigators are focusing on understanding the interaction of SARS-CoV-2 with host cellular processes to find therapeutic approaches. New data suggest that lipid metabolism may play a significant role in regulating the response of immune cells like macrophages to viral infection, thereby affecting the outcome of the disease. Therefore, understanding the role of lipid metabolism could help develop new therapeutic approaches to mitigate the social and economic cost of coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19).     

Ultrastructural changes of sheep cumulus-oocyte complexes following different methods of vitrification

To determine the ultrastructural changes of sheep cumulus-oocyte complexes (COCs) following different methods of vitrification, good quality isolated COCs (GV stage) were randomly divided into the non-vitrified control, conventional straw, cryotop and solid surface vitrification groups. In both conventional and cryotop methods, vitrified COCs were respectively loaded by conventional straws and cryotops, and then plunged directly into liquid nitrogen (LN2); whereas in the solid surface group, vitrified COCs were first loaded by cryotops and then cooled before plunging into LN2. Post-warming survivability and ultrastructural changes of healthy COCs in the cryotop group especially in comparison with the conventional group revealed better viability rate and good preservation of the ooplasm organization. However in all vitrification groups except the cryotop group, mitochondria were clumped. Solely in the conventional straw group, the mitochondria showed different densities and were extremely distended. Moreover in the latter group, plenty of large irregular connected vesicles in the ooplasm were observed and in some parts their membrane ruptured. Also, in the conventional and solid surface vitrification groups, cumulus cells projections became retracted from the zona pellucida in some parts. In conclusion, the cryotop vitrification method as compared with other methods seems to have a good post-warming survivability and shows less deleterious effects on the ultrastructure of healthy vitrified-warmed sheep COCs.     

Antibacterial and antioxidant activity and essential oil composition of Grammosciadium scabridum Boiss. from Iran

The in vitro antibacterial and antioxidant activity of the essential oil and its two main components of Grammosciadium scabridum Boiss. (Apiaceae) growing wild in Iran, as well as the composition of its essential oil were studied. A total of 19 compounds representing 99.9% of the oil has been identified. Gamma-Terpinene (73.5%), p-cymene (14.2%) and (E)-beta-farnesene (5.3%) were characterized as the main components. The oil showed remarkable activity against three Gram-negative and four Gram-positive test bacteria, with minimal inhibitory concentration (MIC) values ranging from 0.31 to 10.00 mg/ml. The oil and its two main components were also subjected to screening for their possible antioxidant activity by using the 2,2-diphenyl-l-picrylhydrazyl (DPPH) assay. The free radical scavenging capacity of the oil was determined with an IC50 value of 6.6 mg/ml.     

A new avenue for classification and prediction of olive cultivars using supervised and unsupervised algorithms

Various methods have been used to identify cultivares of olive trees; herein we used different bioinformatics algorithms to propose new tools to classify 10 cultivares of olive based on RAPD and ISSR genetic markers datasets generated from PCR reactions. Five RAPD markers (OPA0a21, OPD16a, OP01a1, OPD16a1 and OPA0a8) and five ISSR markers (UBC841a4, UBC868a7, UBC841a14, U12BC807a and UBC810a13) selected as the most important markers by all attribute weighting models. K-Medoids unsupervised clustering run on SVM dataset was fully able to cluster each olive cultivar to the right classes. All trees (176) induced by decision tree models generated meaningful trees and UBC841a4 attribute clearly distinguished between foreign and domestic olive cultivars with 100% accuracy. Predictive machine learning algorithms (SVM and Naïve Bayes) were also able to predict the right class of olive cultivares with 100% accuracy. For the first time, our results showed data mining techniques can be effectively used to distinguish between plant cultivares and proposed machine learning based systems in this study can predict new olive cultivars with the best possible accuracy.     

Life‐history parameters and predation capacity of Macrolophus pygmaeus and Nesidiocoris tenuis (Hemiptera: Miridae) on eggs of Plutella xylostella (Lepidoptera: Plutellidae)

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Agitation increases expansion of cord blood hematopoietic cells and promotes their differentiation into myeloid lineage

Mechanical stress caused by agitation is one of the factors that can affect hematopoietic stem cell expansion in suspension bioreactors. Therefore, we have investigated the effects of agitation on umbilical cord blood hematopoietic stem cell (UCB-HSC) growth and differentiation. A comparison was made between various agitation rates (20, 40 and 60 rpm) in spinner-flask and cells cultured in glass petri dish as a static culture. Moreover, the fluid dynamic at various agitation rates of spinner-flask was analyzed to determine shear stress. The spinner-flask contained a rotational moving mixer with glass ball and was kept in tissue culture incubator. To reduce consumption of cytokines, UCB-serum was used which widely decreased the costs. Our results determined that, agitation rate at 40 rpm promoted UCB-HSCs expansion and their colony forming potential. Myeloid progenitors were the main type of cells at 40 rpm agitation rate. The results of glucose consumption and lactic acid production were in complete agreement with colony assay and expansion data and indicated the superiority of culture in spinner-flask when agitated at 40 rpm over to other agitation speeds and also static culture. Cell viability and colony count was affected by changing the agitation speed. We assume that changes in cell growth resulted from the effect of shear stress directly on cell viability, and indirectly on signaling pathways that influence the cells to differentiate.