Rapid Proteomic Characterization of Bacteriocin-Producing Enterococcus faecium Strains from Foodstuffs

Enterococcus belongs to a group of microorganisms known as lactic acid bacteria (LAB), which constitute a broad heterogeneous group of generally food-grade microorganisms historically used in food preservation. Enterococci live as commensals of the gastrointestinal tract of warm-blooded animals, although they also are present in food of animal origin (milk, cheese, fermented sausages), vegetables, and plant materials because of their ability to survive heat treatments and adverse environmental conditions. The biotechnological traits of enterococci can be applied in the food industry; however, the emergence of enterococci as a cause of nosocomial infections makes their food status uncertain. Recent advances in high-throughput sequencing allow the subtyping of bacterial pathogens, but it cannot reflect the temporal dynamics and functional activities of microbiomes or bacterial isolates. Moreover, genetic analysis is based on sequence homologies, inferring functions from databases. Here, we used an end-to-end proteomic workflow to rapidly characterize two bacteriocin-producing Enterococcus faecium (Efm) strains. The proteome analysis was performed with liquid chromatography coupled to a trapped ion mobility spectrometry-time-of-flight mass spectrometry instrument (TimsTOF) for high-throughput and high-resolution characterization of bacterial proteins. Thus, we identified almost half of the proteins predicted in the bacterial genomes (>1100 unique proteins per isolate), including quantifying proteins conferring resistance to antibiotics, heavy metals, virulence factors, and bacteriocins. The obtained proteomes were annotated according to function, resulting in 22 complete KEGG metabolic pathway modules for both strains. The workflow used here successfully characterized these bacterial isolates and showed great promise for determining and optimizing the bioengineering and biotechnology properties of other LAB strains in the food industry.     

Osteoarthritis as an Umbrella Term for Different Subsets of Humans Undergoing Joint Degeneration: The Need to Address the Differences to Develop Effective Conservative Treatments and Prevention Strategies

Osteoarthritis (OA) of joints such as the knee and hip are very prevalent, and the number of individuals affected is expected to continue to rise. Currently, conservative treatments after OA diagnosis consist of a series of increasingly invasive interventions as the degeneration and pain increase, leading very often to joint replacement surgery. Most interventions are focused on alleviating pain, and there are no interventions currently available that stop and reverse OA-associated joint damage. For many decades OA was considered a disease of cartilage, but it is now considered a disease of the whole multi-tissue joint. As pain is the usual presenting symptom, for most patients, it is not known when the disease process was initiated and what the basis was for the initiation. The exception is post-traumatic OA which results from an overt injury to the joint that elevates the risk for OA development. This scenario leads to very long wait lists for joint replacement surgery in many jurisdictions. One aspect of why progress has been so slow in addressing the needs of patients is that OA has been used as an umbrella term that does not recognize that joint degeneration may arise from a variety of mechanistic causes that likely need separate analysis to identify interventions unique to each subtype (post-traumatic, metabolic, post-menopausal, growth and maturation associated). A second aspect of the slow pace of progress is that the bulk of research in the area is focused on post-traumatic OA (PTOA) in preclinical models that likely are not clearly relevant to human OA. That is, only ~12% of human OA is due to PTOA, but the bulk of studies investigate PTOA in rodents. Thus, much of the research community is failing the patient population affected by OA. A third aspect is that conservative treatment platforms are not specific to each OA subset, nor are they integrated into a coherent fashion for most patients. This review will discuss the literature relevant to the issues mentioned above and propose some of the directions that will be required going forward to enhance the impact of the research enterprise to affect patient outcomes.     

Computationally efficient framework for diagnosing,understanding and predicting biphasic population growth

Throughout the life sciences, biological populations undergo multiple phases of growth, often referred to as biphasic growth for the commonly encountered situation involving two phases. Biphasic population growth occurs over a massive range of spatial and temporal scales, ranging from microscopic growth of tumours over several days, to decades-long regrowth of corals in coral reefs that can extend for hundreds of kilometres. Different mathematical models and statistical methods are used to diagnose, understand and predict biphasic growth. Common approaches can lead to inaccurate predictions of future growth that may result in inappropriate management and intervention strategies being implemented. Here, we develop a very general computationally efficient framework, based on profile likelihood analysis, for diagnosing, understanding and predicting biphasic population growth. The two key components of the framework are as follows: (i) an efficient method to form approximate confidence intervals for the change point of the growth dynamics and model parameters and (ii) parameter-wise profile predictions that systematically reveal the influence of individual model parameters on predictions. To illustrate our framework we explore real-world case studies across the life sciences.     

How Can We Improve Vaccination Response in Old People? Part I: Targeting Immunosenescence of Innate Immunity Cells

Vaccination, being able to prevent millions of cases of infectious diseases around the world every year, is the most effective medical intervention ever introduced. However, immunosenescence makes vaccines less effective in providing protection to older people. Although most studies explain that this is mainly due to the immunosenescence of T and B cells, the immunosenescence of innate immunity can also be a significant contributing factor. Alterations in function, number, subset, and distribution of blood neutrophils, monocytes, and natural killer and dendritic cells are detected in aging, thus potentially reducing the efficacy of vaccines in older individuals. In this paper, we focus on the immunosenescence of the innate blood immune cells. We discuss possible strategies to counteract the immunosenescence of innate immunity in order to improve the response to vaccination. In particular, we focus on advances in understanding the role and the development of new adjuvants, such as TLR agonists, considered a promising strategy to increase vaccination efficiency in older individuals.     

Senescence-Independent Anti-Inflammatory Activity of the Senolytic Drugs Dasatinib,Navitoclax, and Venetoclax in Zebrafish Models of Chronic Inflammation

Telomere shortening is the main molecular mechanism of aging, but not the only one. The adaptive immune system also ages, and older organisms tend to develop a chronic pro-inflammatory status with low-grade inflammation characterized by chronic activation of the innate immune system, called inflammaging. One of the main stimuli that fuels inflammaging is a high nutrient intake, triggering a metabolic inflammation process called metainflammation. In this study, we report the anti-inflammatory activity of several senolytic drugs in the context of chronic inflammation, by using two different zebrafish models: (i) a chronic skin inflammation model with a hypomorphic mutation in spint1a, the gene encoding the serine protease inhibitor, kunitz-type, 1a (also known as hai1a) and (ii) a non-alcoholic fatty liver disease/non-alcoholic steatohepatitis (NAFLD/NASH) model with inflammation induced by a high-fat diet. Our results show that, although these models do not manifest premature aging, the senolytic drugs dasatinib, navitoclax, and venetoclax have an anti-inflammatory effect that results in the amelioration of chronic inflammation.     

2021年物联网领域发展趋势预测:无线互联技术需求日益增长

引言 2020年,肆虐全球的新冠肺炎疫情迫使各行各业加速数字化转型进程.企业开始探索如何利用新型工作方式简化运营流程,并最终在艰难的经济环境中生存下来.许多企业在大量创新应用中采用了互联设备和物联网技术.2021年,疫情将继续加速物联网在医疗、零售、酒店等行业和环境中的创新应用.     

Hematites Precipitated in Alkaline Precursors: Comparison of Structural and Textural Properties for Methane Oxidation

Hematite (α-Fe₂O₃) catalysts prepared using the precipitation methods was found to be highly effective, and therefore, it was studied with methane (CH₄), showing an excellent stable performance below 500 °C. This study investigates hematite nanoparticles (NPs) obtained by precipitation in water from the precursor of ferric chloride hexahydrate using precipitating agents NaOH or NH₄OH at maintained pH 11 and calcined up to 500 °C for the catalytic oxidation of low concentrations of CH₄ (5% by volume in air) at 500 °C to compare their structural state in a CH₄ reducing environment. The conversion (%) of CH₄ values decreasing with time was discussed according to the course of different transformation of goethite and hydrohematites NPs precursors to magnetite and the structural state of the calcined hydrohematites. The phase composition, the size and morphology of nanocrystallites, thermal transformation of precipitates and the specific surface area of the NPs were characterized in detail by X-ray powder diffraction, transmission electron microscopy, infrared spectroscopy, thermal TG/DTA analysis and nitrogen physisorption measurements. The results support the finding that after goethite dehydration, transformation to hydrohematite due to structurally incorporated water and vacancies is different from hydrohematite α-Fe₂O₃. The surface area SBET of Fe₂O₃_NH-70 precipitate composed of protohematite was larger by about 53 m²/g in comparison with Fe₂O₃_Na-70 precipitate composed of goethite. The oxidation of methane was positively influenced by the hydrohematites of the smaller particle size and the largest lattice volume containing structurally incorporated water and vacancies.     

Using knowledge to control tree searching

PARADISE (PAttern Recognition Applied to DIrecting SEarch) uses a knowledge-based analysis and little searching to find the correct move in chess middle game positions. PARADISE's search does not have a depth limit or any other artificial effort limit. This paper describes the methods used to constrain the search. The ideas of using different strategies to show that one move is best and using ranges to express the values of moves (first developed in Berliner's B1 search), are extended and clarified. PARADISE combines these ideas with the use of plans, a threshold, and various measures of possibility. Examples are presented, including one in which PARADISE uses an indirect strategy to prove that one move is best without finding the winning line (a first for a chess program).