Year: 2022

A group from Department of Nutritional Crop Physiology, Institute of Crop Science, University of Hohenheim, Stuttgart, Germany, etc. has reported about effects of nitrogen fertilization onto Blumeria graminis f. sp. tritici (Bgt) and Gaeumannomyces graminis f. sp. tritici (Ggt) infestation.
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC9500508/

In this study, the role of nitrogen sources, including nitrate, ammonium, and cyanamide, on Bgt and Ggt infestation in winter wheat was investigated, to gain insights into the plant’s physical and biochemical mechanisms mediated by the interaction between nitrogen source and pathogen characterizing rhizo bacterial and fungal flora using next-generation sequencing.

Wheat inoculated with the foliar pathogen Bgt was comparatively up to 80% less infested when fertilized with nitrate or cyanamide than with ammonium.

Bacterial richness ranged from 720 to 969 ASVs and it did not differ among the four fertilization N treatments. Likewise, bacterial community structure was not affected by N application and N form. However, fungal richness ranged from 161 to 312 ASVs and it was higher in soil without any fertilization and in the ammonium treatment, while the soil amended with nitrate showed the lowest value in richness.

A group from Department of Anesthesiology, Show Chwan Memorial Hospital, Changhua 50008, Taiwan, etc. has reported that fucoidan-based combination chemotherapy may exert beneficial effects and facilitate the treatment of docetaxel-resistant prostate cancer (PCa).
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC9500773/

The standard treatment for advanced PCa is androgen deprivation therapy (ADT). Although hormone-sensitive PCa is curable with ADT, most patients progress to castration-resistant prostate cancer (CRPCa) and metastatic CRPCa (mCRPCa). Front-line docetaxel treatment is administered to patients with CRPCa and mCRPCa to improve survival. Docetaxel is a chemotherapeutic agent belonging to the taxane class of drugs. Docetaxel-based chemotherapy has shown survival benefits and has emerged as the primary treatment for CRPCa. Nevertheless, docetaxel resistance after half a year of therapy has emerged as an urgent clinical concern in patients with CRPCa and mCRPCa.

Fucoidan, sourced from various matrices of brown seaweed, is primarily composed of a complex sulfated polysaccharide, shows anti-cancer effects, and binds to P-selectin.

In this study, it was demonstrated that the combination of Fucoidan/Docetaxel on docetaxel-resistant DU/DX50 cells shows a potent synergistic antiproliferative effect as shown below.

It was also observed that fucoidan reduced the migration and invasion of DU/DX50 cells. Since the protein levels of IL-1R, IKKα, NF-κB p50, and Cox2 were downregulated with an increased concentration of fucoidan, the observed attenuation of cancer cell migration, invasion, and cell viability would be due to the binding effect between fucoidan and P-selectin, resulting in the downregulation of the IL-1R signaling pathway, including reduced levels of NFκB p50 and Cox-2. It is known that IKKα and NF-κB p50 are involved in cancer cell proliferation and metastasis, and the activation of Cox2 promotes tumor growth and resistance to chemotherapy and radiotherapy.

A group from North Central Agriculture Research Laboratory, USDA-ARS, Brookings, SD, USA, etc. has reported about the effects of synthetic microbial consortia derived from rhizosphere soil of wheat against rhizoctonia solani AG8, a pathogen causing root rot disease.
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC9473337/

The effects of bacteria, including 14 single strains and 10 SynComs, on wheat root rot disease caused by R. solani AG8 were evaluated in soil in the greenhouse. After 3 weeks, compared with wheat growth in AG8 inoculated soil (CK1, CK2), wheat treated with some single bacterial strains and SynComs reduced root rot at different levels. Among them, wheat treated with single bacterial strains (Pseudomonas sp. B5, Rhodococcus erythropolis B43, Chryseobacterium soldanellicola P38, and Pedobacter sp. P44) and SynComs (C1, C3, C4, C7, C8, C9, and C10) significantly reduced wheat root rot score, compared with the controls (CK1 and CK2) in AG8 inoculated soil. Further, the fresh root weight of wheat treated with single bacterial strains (Pseudomonas spp. B5 and B11, and Chryseobacterium sp. B7) and SynComs (C1, C4, C7, C8, C9, and C10) were greater than those of the controls in AG8 inoculated soil.

SynCom 1(C1): Pseudomonas sp. B5, Pseudomonas sp. B11, Pseudomonas sp. B12, Pseudomonas sp. P25
SynCom 2(C2): Chryseobacterium sp. B7, Chryseobacterium soldanellicola P38, Chryseobacterium sp. P43
SynCom 3(C3): Sphingomonas sp. B17, Cupriavidus campinensis B20, Asticcacaulis sp. B27, Rhodococcus erythropolis B43
SynCom 4(C4): Cupriavidus campinensis B20, Asticcacaulis sp. B27, Rhodococcus erythropolis B43, Chryseobacterium soldanellicola P38
SynCom 5(C5): Cupriavidus campinensis B20, Rhodococcus erythropolis B43, Janthinobacterium lividum BJ, Chryseobacterium soldanellicola P38
SynCom 6(C6): Streptomyces sp. B6, Chryseobacterium sp. B7, Pseudomonas sp. B12, Sphingomonas sp. B17
SynCom 7(C7): Pseudomonas sp. B5, Streptomyces sp. B6, Chryseobacterium sp. B7, Pseudomonas sp. B11
SynCom 8(C8): Pseudomonas sp. B12, Sphingomonas sp. B17, Cupriavidus campinensis B20, Asticcacaulis sp. B27
SynCom 9(C9): Pseudomonas sp. B12, Rhodococcus erythropolis B43, Janthinobacterium lividum BJ, Pedobacter sp. P44
SynCom 10(C10): All 14 bacterial strains

A group from Laboratory of Virology and Chemotherapy, Rega Institute, Department of Microbiology, Immunology and Transplantation, KU Leuven, Belgium, etc. has reported about antiviral activity of UDA against SARS-CoV-2.
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC9468479/

UDA is one of the smallest plant lectins reported, and has a binding preference for GlcNAc and high-mannose sugars on target glycoproteins.

It was shown that UDA prevents viral replication of the early Wuhan-Hu-1 strain in Vero E6 cells (IC₅₀ = 225 nM), but also the replication of SARS-CoV-2 variants of concern, including Alpha, Beta and Gamma (IC₅₀ ranging from 115 to 171 nM). In addition, UDA exerts antiviral activity against the latest circulating Delta and Omicron variant in U87.ACE2+ cells (IC₅₀ values are 1.6 and 0.9 µM, respectively).

It was found that UDA is not acting as a direct receptor-attachment competitor, and its strongest interaction site is not located in the RBD from SPR analyses.

For self-organizing complex systems, feature extraction methods such as principal component analysis and clustering analysis are often used. Conversely, it means that there is no other good analysis methodology close at hand. In self-organizing complex systems, the properties of the whole can often be neither understood nor predicted by knowledge of its constituents alone, and the interactions between the constituents of the system give rise to new structures and functions, and those will appear on a large scale.
In the case of the rhizobacterial microbiomes, it is possible that when good bacteria is exceeded a certain threshold, opportunistic bacteria become allies and a synergistic effect appears remarkably. The reverse is also true, and when the number of bad bacteria exceeds a certain threshold, the plant dies at once.

The problem is how to perform feature extraction (in other words, pattern recognition) of such a complex system of rhizobacterial microbiome in the field (farm). At the research level, 16S rRNA read analysis of the rhizobacterial microbiomes and computer analysis on the full use of the obtained big data might be able to visualize the hidden patterns which could not be identified with  conventional methods. But, can such a method be used in the field? No, this kind of work will remain in the world of papers. If the technology is not easy for anyone to use, it will not succeed in reality as a business. To be used on site, it has to be cheap, and it has to give immediate results.

Bacillus, Pseudomonas, Streptomyces, Arthrobacter are said to be representative good bacteria as rhizobacteria, and Enterobacter and Barkholderia are also to be good bacteria.
The bacterial classification of such representative good bacteria and bad bacteria is written below.
First of all, good bacteria,
Actinobacteria phylum→ Actinobacteria class → Streptomyces order → Streptomycetae → Streptomyces genus (good guys)
Proteobacteria phylum → γ-Proteobacterial class → Pseudomonad order → Pseudomonadidae → Pseudomonas genus (typical good guys)
Proteobacteria phylum → γ-Proteobacterial class → Enterobacter order → Enterobacteraceae → Enterobacter genus (good guys)
Proteobacteria phylum → β-Proteobacterial class → Barkholderia order → Barkholderidae → Balkholderia genus (good)
Firmicutes phylum→ Bacillus class → Bacillus order → Bacillus family → Bacillus genus (typical good guy)
Actinobacteria phylum→ Actinobacteria class → Actinobacteria family→ Micrococcaceae → Arthrobacter genus (good guys)
and bad bacteria,
Ascomycota phylum → Hydrangea class → Pistanthus → Asteraceae → Fusarium genus (typical bad guys)

If we can sense the phylum Actinobacteria, Proteobacteria, and Firmicutes, it will be possible that we can grasp major patterns in the rhizosphere, I think.
For your information, Proteobacteria are Gram-negative bacteria, while Actinobacteria and Firmicutes are Gram-positive bacteria.

A group from College of Environment, Zhejiang University of Technology, Hangzhou 310032, China, etc. has reported that Humic acid could be a good organic fertilizer in greenhouse-planted cherry tomato.
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC9434616/

Due to the adverse effects of chemical fertilization on greenhouse soils, nowadays, special attention has been paid to organic and biological fertilizers or those technical managements that avoid soil fertility reduction in greenhouses. Humic acid is a component of humus, and it is also a natural component and contributes toward the reduction of the diseases and stresses and increase of the crop yield. Actually, several studies have shown that Humic acid application in vegetable production can improve the primary and secondary metabolism of plants, increase crop yields and quality, and decrease pests and diseases. Humic acid can accelerate soil organic material decomposition by increasing the microbial activity in soil. Furthermore, Humic acid can also alter the root exudation profile by affecting the plant metabolism and thus influence the structure of the rhizosphere microbial community. Principal coordinate analysis of the bacterial communities revealed that control, Humic acid application, and organic fertilizer formed different clusters.

where, humic acid (HA), farmyard manure (FM), commercial organic fertilizer (COF), and control check (CK)