Attachment and biofilm formation by various serotypes of Salmonella as influenced by cellulose production and thin aggregative fimbriae biosynthesis

This study was undertaken to quantify thin aggregative fimbriae and cellulose produced by Salmonella and to evaluate their roles in attachment and biofilm formation on polystyrene and glass surfaces. Thin aggregative fimbriae and cellulose produced by four wild-type and two pairs of Salmonella, representing four different colony morphotypes (rdar: red, dry, and rough; pdar: pink, dry, and rough; bdar: brown, dry, and rough; and saw: smooth and white), were quantified. The ability of the Salmonella cells to attach and form biofilms on the selected surfaces was evaluated in Luria-Bertani (LB) broth with or without salt (0.5%) or glucose (2%) at 28 degrees C during a 7-day period. The cells expressing the rdar or pdar colony morphotypes produced significantly greater amounts of thin aggregative fimbriae and cellulose on LB no salt agar, respectively. The cells expressing the rdar colony morphotype attached in higher numbers and formed more biofilm than did the cells expressing the pdar colony morphotype. The members of the pairs expressing the bdar colony morphotype attached more efficiently and formed more biofilm on the tested surfaces than did their counterparts expressing the saw colony morphotype. These results indicated that thin aggregative fimbriae impart attachment ability to Salmonella and, upon coexpression with cellulose, enhance biofilm formation on certain abiotic surfaces. The knowledge acquired in the study may help develop better cleaning strategies for food processing equipment.     

Protein Arginine Methyltransferase 1 Is Essential for the Meiosis of Male Germ Cells

Protein arginine methyltransferase 1 (PRMT1) is a major enzyme responsible for the formation of methylarginine in mammalian cells; however, its function in vivo is not well understood due to its early embryonic lethality in null mice exhibiting spontaneous DNA damage, cell cycle delays, and defects in check point activation. Here, we generated germ cell-specific Prmt1 knock-out (KO) mice to evaluate the function of PRMT1 in spermatogenesis. Our findings demonstrate that PRMT1 is vital for male fertility in mice. Spermatogenesis in Prmt1 KO mice was arrested at the zygotene-like stage of the first meiotic division due to an elevated number of DNA double-strand breaks (DSBs). There was a loss of methylation in meiotic recombination 11 (MRE11), the key endonuclease in MRE11/RAD50/NBS 1 (MRN) complex, resulting in the accumulation of SPO11 protein in DSBs. The ATM-mediated negative feedback control over SPO11 was lost and, consequently, the repair pathway of DSBs was highly affected in PRMT1 deficient male germ cells. Our findings provide a novel insight into the role of PRMT1-mediated asymmetric demethylation in mouse spermatogenesis.     

Agglomeration of a model food powder: Effect of maltodextrin and gum Arabic dispersions on flow behavior and compacted mass

The process of agglomeration of particulate foods was studied by employing corn starch as a model system. The effect of different liquid binders (maltodextrin and gum Arabic) to the extent of 1–5% was used to study the changes in the characteristics of the powder. Rheological behavior of powder was quantified in terms of textural indices like maximum force, and energy of compression and decompression. The physical and functional properties of powder and that of the pressure-compacted masses were determined to understand the behavior of the particulate foods in presence of binder liquid. The compacted masses were subjected to compression testing to obtain textural indices like strain at failure and Young’s modulus. The different concentrations of gum and maltodextrin improved the wettability of powder. The electron micrographs were used to observe the characteristics of agglomerated particles including shape and size. The latter varied between 30 and 100 μm for agglomerated masses compared to 12 μm for untreated corn starch powder.     

Antibiotic resistance profiles and cell surface components of Salmonellae

Salmonellae were isolated from raw chilled retail poultry meats (n=100) using the procedures outlined in the Bacteriological Analytical Manual and Microbiology Laboratory Guidebook. These isolates and 36 Salmonella strains from our laboratory culture collection were tested for their resistance to 12 different antibiotics and for their ability to produce thin aggregative fimbriae and/or cellulose, two of the most important surface components influencing the ability of cells to attach to surfaces and form biofilms. The sensitivity of the salmonellae to the antibiotics was determined with a disc diffusion assay. Of 52 Salmonella isolates, 25 (48.0%) were resistant to one antibiotic, 5 (9.6%) were resistant to two, 4 (7.7%) were resistant to three, 6 (11.5%) were resistant to four, and 5 (9.6%) were resistant to five antibiotics. Two (3.8%) of the isolates were resistant to up to nine of the antibiotics tested. Fifty-one (98%) of the isolates were resistant to novobiocin, 18 (34.6%) were resistant to streptomycin, 14 (26.9%) were resistant to tetracycline, and 14 (26.9%) were resistant to oxytetracycline. In separate experiments, the isolates were grown on Luria-Bertani no-salt agar supplemented with Congo red (40 microg/ml) and Coomassie brilliant blue (20 microg/ml) or Calcofluor (200 microg/ml) to determine whether they produced thin aggregative fimbriae and/or cellulose. Of the total 52 Salmonella isolates, 25 expressed only thin aggregative fimbriae, and 1 synthesized only cellulose. Ten isolates produced both thin aggregative fimbriae and cellulose, and the remaining 16 isolates expressed neither surface structure. The findings of this study reveal a prevalence of Salmonella on raw retail poultry products in central Georgia and suggest that salmonellae have the ability to develop resistance to multiple antibiotics and to synthesize cell surface components that help them survive in hostile or suboptimal environments.     

Fusion of artificial intelligence and game theory for resource allocation in non-orthogonal multiple access-assisted device-to-device cooperative communication

Device-to-device (D2D) communication offers a low-cost paradigm where two devices in close proximity can communicate without needing a base station (BS). It significantly improves radio resource allocation, channel gain, communication latency, and energy efficiency and offers cooperative communication to enhance the weak user's network coverage. The cellular mobile users (CMUs) share the spectral resources (e.g., power, channel, and spectrum) with D2D mobile users (DMUs), improving spectral efficiency. However, the reuse of radio resources causes various interferences, such as intercell and intracell interference, that degrade the performance of overall D2D communication. To overcome the aforementioned issues, this paper presents a fusion of AI and coalition game for secure resource allocation in non-orthogonal multiple access (NOMA)-based cooperative D2D communication. Here, NOMA uses the successive interference cancellation (SIC) technique to reduce the severe impact of interference from the D2D systems. Further, we utilized a coalition game theoretic model that efficiently and securely allocates the resources between CMUs and DMUs. However, in the coalition game, all DMUs participate in obtaining resources from CMUs, which increases the computational overhead of the overall system. For that, we employ artificial intelligence (AI) classifiers that bifurcate the DMUs based on their channel quality parameters, such as reference signal received power (RSRP), received signal strength indicator (RSSI), signal-to-noise ratio (SNR), and channel quality indicator (CQI). It only forwards the DMUs that have better channel quality parameters into the coalition game, thus reducing the computational overhead of the overall D2D communication. The performance of the proposed scheme is evaluated using various statistical metrics, for example, precision score, accuracy, recall, F1 score, overall sum rate, and secrecy capacity, where an accuracy of 99.38% is achieved while selecting DMUs for D2D communication.