Role of extracellular polymeric substance (EPS) in toxicity response of soil bacteria Bacillus sp. S3 to multiple heavy metals

Heavy metal resistant bacteria are of great interest because of their potential use in bioremediation. Understanding the survival and adaptive strategies of these bacteria under heavy metal stress is important for better utilization of these bacteria in remediation. The objective of this study was to investigate the role of bacterial extracellular polymeric substance (EPS) in detoxifying against different heavy metals in Bacillus sp. S3, a new hyper antimony-oxidizing bacterium previously isolated from contaminated mine soils. The results showed that Bacillus sp. S3 is a multi-metal resistant bacterial strain, especially to Sb(III), Cu(II) and Cr(VI). Toxic Cd(II), Cr(VI) and Cu(II) could stimulate the secretion of EPS in Bacillus sp. S3, significantly enhancing the adsorption and detoxification capacity of heavy metals. Both Fourier transform infrared spectroscopy (FTIR) and three-dimensional excitation–emission matrix (3D-EEM) analysis further confirmed that proteins were the main compounds of EPS for metal binding. In contrast, the EPS production was not induced under Sb(III) stress. Furthermore, the TEM–EDX micrograph showed that Bacillus sp. S3 strain preferentially transported the Sb(III) to the inside of the cell rather than adsorbed it on the extracellular surface, indicating intracellular detoxification rather than extracellular EPS precipitation played an important role in microbial resistance towards Sb(III). Together, our study suggests that the toxicity response of EPS to heavy metals is associated with difference in EPS properties, metal types and corresponding environmental conditions, which is likely to contribute to microbial-mediated remediation.

     

海南岛海岸带木麻黄和厚藤叶片碳、氮、磷含量及其化学计量特征

海岸带植物叶片的化学计量学特征及其影响因素可以为改善海岸带的生态环境提供理论依据。选取海南岛沿岸12个市（县）海岸带木麻黄防护林的木麻黄和周边沙滩上的藤本植物厚藤为研究对象,通过测定木麻黄与厚藤叶片中的碳（C）、氮（N）和磷（P）含量,分析两种植物叶片C、N和P的化学计量学特征及其差异,探究不同环境因子对两种植物叶片C、N、P含量、C：N、C：P和N：P的影响,以期寻找影响海岸带植被生长的主要限制因素。结果表明：海南岛木麻黄叶片C、N和P的平均含量分别是399.06±20.29、12.56±1.04、1.04±0.35 g·kg^-1,C：N、C：P和N：P分别为32.04±2.82、420.65±121.27和12.92±3.21;厚藤叶片C、N和P的平均含量分别是364.31±30.20、12.84±1.96和2.06±0.64 g·kg^-1,C：N、C：P和N：P分别为29.13±4.95、185.85±63.14和6.47±2.12。相关性分析结果表明：木麻黄叶片的N含量与年平均气温和年平均降水量呈显著正相关关系,P含量与年平均降水量呈极显著正相关关系,C：P和N：P与年平均降水量呈显著负相关关系;厚藤叶片C含量与年平均气温呈显著正相关,C：N与年平均降水量呈显著负相关。木麻黄叶片的N含量与10~20 cm土层的SOC呈显著负相关关系,C：N与10~20 cm土层的SOC呈显著正相关,C：P与0~10 cm土层的C：N呈显著正相关关系;厚藤叶片的C含量与10~20 cm土层的SOC呈显著负相关关系,P含量与0~10 cm土层的TN含量,N：P和10~20 cm的SOC含量呈正相关关系,C：N与0~10 cm土层的C：N呈显著正相关关系,C：P与0~10 cm的TN含量呈显著负相关关系而与0~10 cm土层的C：N呈极显著正相关关系,N：P与0~10 cm土层的TN含量呈显著负相关关系。研究结果表明海南岛海岸带植被叶片的碳氮含量较低,N可能是影响该区域植物生长的主要因子,同时,植被生长受到年平均气温、年平均降水量的共同影响,受土壤养分含量影响低,环境因子对不同类型的植物的影响并不相同。     

微小RNA(microRNA)在肝细胞肝癌发生发展中的作用研究进展

MicroRNA是近几年发现的一种非编码小分子RNA,其主要功能体现在参与调节生物个体发育、细胞增殖与分化、肿瘤细胞的发生等多种病理过程中。MicroRNA在调控癌基因和抑癌基因的表达过程中,以及在肝细胞肝癌发生和发展中发挥着关键性的作用。本综述对microRNA在肝细胞肝癌发生发展中的作用进行汇总,以期为肝细胞肝癌的临床诊断以及治疗提供理论参考。     

In memory of Professor Tang Yan‐Cheng: New perspectives in systematic and evolutionary biology

In China, three institutes for botanical research were established in the 1920s. They were the Department of Botany, Biological Laboratory of the Science Society of China (1922, Nanjing), the Fan Memorial Institute of Biology (1928, Beiping), and the Institute of Botany, Beiping Academy of Sciences (1929, Beiping).     

二甲双胍调控糖尿病大鼠骨髓间充质干细胞的增殖和分化

虽然二甲双胍广泛用于治疗2型糖尿病,但是其对骨骼的潜在影响知之甚少。因此,本研究评估了二甲双胍对培养的大鼠骨髓间充质干细胞(MSCs)和脂肪细胞两者的分化以及增殖的影响。首先随机组形成对照实验,其中对照组为在不经二甲双胍处理培养基中培养MSCs细胞21 d,而二甲双胍组则在用100μmol/L二甲双胍处理培养基中培养MSCs 21 d。结果表明,二甲双胍增强了大鼠MSCs的成骨细胞分化细胞中ALP的活性,抑制了培养中MSCs脂肪形成分化的过程,但是增强了MSCs细胞的增殖能力。     

An innovative protein expression system using RNA polymerase I for large-scale screening of high-nucleic-acid content Saccharomyces cerevisiae strains

Saccharomyces cerevisiae is the preferred source of RNA derivatives, which are widely used as supplements for foods and pharmaceuticals. As the most abundant RNAs, the ribosomal RNAs (rRNAs) transcribed by RNA polymerase I (Pol I) have no 5′ caps, thus cannot be translated to proteins. To screen high-nucleic-acid content yeasts more efficiently, a cap-independent protein expression system mediated by Pol I has been designed and established to monitor the regulatory changes of rRNA synthesis by observing the variation in the reporter genes expression. The elements including Pol I-recognized rDNA promoter, the internal ribosome entry site from cricket paralytic virus which can recruit ribosomes internally, reporter genes (URA3 and yEGFP3), oligo-dT and an rDNA terminator were ligated to a yeast episomal plasmid. This system based on the URA3 gene worked well by observing the growth phenotype and did not require the disruption of cap-dependent initiation factors. The fluorescence intensity of strains expressing the yEGFP3 gene increased and drifted after mutagenesis. Combined with flow cytometry, cells with higher GFP level were sorted out. A strain showed 58% improvement in RNA content and exhibited no sequence alteration in the whole expression cassette introduced. This study provides a novel strategy for breeding high-nucleic-acid content yeasts.     

Loci and candidate gene identification for soybean resistance to Phytophthora root rot race 1 in combination with association and linkage mapping

Molecular Breeding - Northern corn leaf blight (NCLB) is one of the main diseases of maize, which greatly reduces production and causes millions of dollars in losses worldwide annually....     

Cleavage and degradation of EDEM1 promotes coxsackievirus B3 replication via ATF6a‐mediated unfolded protein response signalling

Our previous study of coxsackievirus B3 (CVB3)‐induced unfolded protein responses (UPR) found that overexpression of ATF6a enhances CVB3 VP1 capsid protein production and increases viral particle formation. These findings implicate that ATF6a signalling benefits CVB3 replication. However, the mechanism by which ATF6a signalling is transduced to promote virus replication is unclear. In this study, using a Tet‐On inducible ATF6a HeLa cell line, we found that ATF6a signalling downregulated the protein expression of the endoplasmic reticulum (ER) degradation‐enhancing α‐mannosidase‐like protein 1 (EDEM1), resulting in accumulation of CVB3 VP1 protein; in contrast, expression of a dominant negative ATF6a had the opposite effect. Furthermore, we found that EDEM1 was cleaved by both CVB3 protease 3C and virus‐activated caspase and subsequently degraded via the ubiquitin‐proteasome pathway. However, overexpression of EDEM1 caused VP1 degradation, likely via a glycosylation‐independent and ubiquitin‐lysosome pathway. Finally, we demonstrated that CRISPR/Cas9‐mediated knockout of EDEM1 increased VP1 accumulation and thus CVB3 replication. This is the first study to report the ER protein quality control of non‐enveloped RNA virus and reveals a novel mechanism by which CVB3 evades host ER quality control pathways through cleavage and degradation of the UPR target gene EDEM1, to ultimately benefit its own replication.     

A high‐throughput BAC end analysis protocol (BAC‐anchor) for profiling genome assembly and physical mapping

Traditional approaches for sequencing insertion ends of bacterial artificial chromosome (BAC) libraries are laborious and expensive, which are currently some of the bottlenecks limiting a better understanding of the genomic features of auto‐ or allopolyploid species. Here, we developed a highly efficient and low‐cost BAC end analysis protocol, named BAC‐anchor, to identify paired‐end reads containing large internal gaps. Our approach mainly focused on the identification of high‐throughput sequencing reads carrying restriction enzyme cutting sites and searching for large internal gaps based on the mapping locations of both ends of the reads. We sequenced and analysed eight libraries containing over 3 200 000 BAC end clones derived from the BAC library of the tetraploid potato cultivar C88 digested with two restriction enzymes, Cla I and Mlu I. About 25% of the BAC end reads carrying cutting sites generated a 60–100 kb internal gap in the potato DM reference genome, which was consistent with the mapping results of Sanger sequencing of the BAC end clones and indicated large differences between autotetraploid and haploid genotypes in potato. A total of 5341 Cla I‐ and 165 Mlu I‐derived unique reads were distributed on different chromosomes of the DM reference genome and could be used to establish a physical map of target regions and assemble the C88 genome. The reads that matched different chromosomes are especially significant for the further assembly of complex polyploid genomes. Our study provides an example of analysing high‐coverage BAC end libraries with low sequencing cost and is a resource for further genome sequencing studies.