Month: May 2023

A group from Jiangsu Collaborative Innovation Center for Solid Organic Wastes, Educational Ministry Engineering Center of Resource-Saving Fertilizers, Nanjing Agricultural University, Nanjing, China has reported about Trichoderma Coating on maize and watermelon.
https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/37195176/

In this study, the fungus Trichoderma guizhouense NJAU4742 was introduced to both maize and watermelon seed microbiomes by seed coating, and it was shown that seed coating on watermelon and maize with Trichoderma sp. improves plant growth and rhizosphere soil enzyme activities significantly.
The germination rate of coated seeds were significantly increased by 25% for maize after 3 days postplanting and 35% for watermelon after 8 days postplanting, compared with the control.
effects of tricodelma coating on maize

Compared with the control, the enzyme activities of urease, sucrase, acid phosphatase, alkaline phosphatase, α-glucosidase, peroxidase, and cellulase increased by 97.9%, 51.7%, 38.3%, 51.6%, 61.2%, 82.3%, and 27.0%, respectively, in the coated maize, and the enzyme activities of sucrase, acid phosphatase, neutral phosphatase, α-glucosidase, peroxidase, polyphenol oxidase, and cellulase increased by 51.7%, 25.7%, 21.1%, 62.6%, 39.1%, 34.3%, and 32.8%, respectively, in the coated watermelon.
The incidence of maize stalk rot in the coated treatment was significantly reduced by 28% compared with that in the control, and the incidence of watermelon with coating was reduced by 37% at 60 days after pathogen application.

A group from Department of Gastrointestinal and Hepato- Biliary- Pancreatic Surgery, Faculty of Medicine, University of Tsukuba, Tsukuba, Japan, etc. has reported about PET imaging targeting cell surface glycans for pancreatic cancer using a ¹⁸F-labeled rBC2LCN lectin.
https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/epdf/10.1111/cas.15846

In this study, the potential application of an rBC2LCN–fluorine-18 (¹⁸F) conjugate was explored as a novel positron emission tomography (PET) probe. Capan-1, an H-type-3-positive human pancreatic cancer cell line, was was selected and Capan-1 cells (2×10⁶) were injected subcutaneously into the right dorsa of nude mice. It is known that rBC2LCN lectin has a binding specificity to H-type-3 glycan. Importantly, rBC2LCN does not induce hemagglutination (induced when exogenous lectins are introduced into the blood), allowing it to be harmlessly admin-istered intravenously.

As aresult, it was shown that ¹⁸F-labeled rBC2LCN lectin offers a novel class of tumor-specific probes for PET that are based on targeting cell surface glycans. However, I feel that this probe is actually specific to cancer cells, but it might be a problem to know that this binds to other normal tissues as well as shown below.

A group from University of Vienna, Faculty of Life Sciences, Division of Pharmaceutical Technology and Biopharmaceutics, Vienna, Austria, etc.has reported about human serum albumin (HSA) nanoparticles conjugated with WGA for targeted delivery of antibiotics to combat urinary tract infections.
https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S1549963423000369?via%3Dihub

It is so interesting to learn how NPs were prepared. For the production of NPs, 20 mg HSA was dissolved in 10 ml 100 mM phosphate buffer pH 8. Afterwards, 1 ml olive oil was layered over the aqueous protein solution. The probe micro tip of the sonifier was positioned at the interface of the two phases. The sample was sonicated with an acoustic power of ≈253 W cm−2 at 40 % amplitude for 2 min. Subsequently the NPs were washed four times by centrifugation (5204 ×g, 40 min, 4 °C).　For production of active pharmaceutical ingredients (API) containing NPs, 2.5 mg, 5 mg, 10 mg or 20 mg rifampicin (RIF) was dissolved in 1 ml isopropyl alcohol, mixed with olive oil and treated as described above. For the preparation of trimethoprim (TMP) loaded particles, 2.5 mg, 5 mg, 10 mg or 20 mg API was dissolved in 10 ml 100 mM phosphate buffer pH 8.

When human urothelial cells were incubated with targeted NPs, NPs (stained with green dyes) were observed around the blue stained nucleus and within the red stained membrane, which indicates an effective internalization of the NPs into the cells. Comparing the cases between with WGA and without WGA, 60 % higher cell binding potential was observed with WGA.

A group from enGenes Biotech GmbH, Muthgasse 11, 1190 Vienna, Austria, etc. has reported about a drug delivery system using shiga toxin B subunit in cancer therapy.
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC10157870/

Shiga Toxin B subunit (STxB) is a kind of lectin which is specific to the glycosphingolipid (GSL) globotriaosylceramide (Gb3) on target tumore cells. Monomethyl auristatin E (MMAE) was conjugated to StxB (STxB-MMAE), and its tumore cell-killing capability was evakluated with using two types of cells, human colorectal adenocarcinoma cell lines—HT-29 (Gb3+) and LS-174 (Gb3-). The STxB–MMAE conjugate induced uptake and release of the MMAE drug in Gb3-positive tumor cells, reaching 94% of HT-29 cell elimination at 72 h post-treatment.

A group from Institut Pasteur Université Paris Cité, CNRS UMR 6047, Genetics of Biofilms laboratory, Paris, France, etc. has reported about non-biocidal surface-active polysaccharides to prevent the initial adhesion and aggregation of bacterial pathogens.
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC10156666/

Bacterial biofilms are widespread surface-attached or aggregated bacteria that can negatively impact human activities when developing on medical or industrial surfaces. Due to their high tolerance to antibiotics, biofilms are difficult to eradicate, and the prevention of biofilm-associated infections is a major health and economic issue. Strategies to prevent biofilm formation often target the initial steps of bacterial adhesion using surfaces coated by biocidal agents such as broad-spectrum antibiotics or heavy metals5. These biocidal approaches are limited by the rapid accumulation of dead bacteria and organic debris, which reduces the activity of the coated surfaces toward new incoming cells.

Here, the antibiofilm activity of a panel of 31 purified Gram+ or Gram bacterial capsular polysaccharides of known composition and structure was investigated. Among those, nine new non-biocidal polysaccharides were found, which inhibite biofilm formation by prototypical nosocomial pathogens, including E. coli and S. aureus.

Through the detailed anayses for these polysaccharides, it was found that the combination of a loose structure (i.e. a large permeability to flow due to a large number of intraparticle voids) and a high density of carried electrostatic charges is critical for polysaccharides to exhibit antibiofilm activity.

A group from Department of Microbiology, Himachal Pradesh University, Summerhill, Shimla, India, etc. has reprted about plant growth promoting Bacteria (PGPB) for Enhancing Growth of Rice Crops.
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC10142854/

This investigation was undertaken with the aim of selecting multifarious plant growth-promoting Bacillus strains from the rice rhizosphere. The individual inoculation of seeds and coinoculation of Bacillus strains (Bacillus licheniformis MNNITSR2 and Bacillus velezensis MNNITSR18) showed a significant increase in overall plant growth without any chemical fertilizer amendments such as the murate of potash, diammonium phosphate and urea, etc. In detail, Bacillus MNNIT SR2 showed a significant increase in fresh shoot and root length (14.7% and 30.8%, respectively) and the dry weight of the shoot and root (53% and 35.6%, respectively) of rice plants after eight weeks compared to the untreated control in the pot culture assay. Similar results were obtained with Bacillus velezensis MNNIT SR18 which also increased the fresh shoot and root length (17% and 20%) and the dry weight of the shoot and root (88.3% and 83.7%) of rice plants after eight weeks compared to the untreated control in the pot culture assay.

These Bacillus strains show the following plant growth promoting activities.

IAA Production: which regulates various physiological processes, including root initiation, cell enlargement, and the stimulation of cell division, and results in an increase in the root surface area while enabling the plant to take up significantly more nutrients from the soil.
Phosphate Solubilization: Plants utilize only inorganic phosphorus, and organic phosphorus compounds must first be hydrolyzed by phosphatase enzymes.
Siderophore Production: which chelates iron in the rhizosphere and prevents fungal pathogens from flourishing in iron-limiting conditions.
Antifungal Activity: both strains were able to inhibit the mycelial growth of F. oxysporum and R. solani.
HCN Production: which affects the respiratory system of plant pathogenic fungi and leads to the inhibition of their mycelial growth.
Ammonia Production: which directly promotes plant growth and productivity
ACC Deaminase Activity: which has beneficial effects on the growth of plants by reducing the concentration of ACC under a wide range of different abiotic stresses, viz., salt stress, flooding stress, heavy metal stress, and pathogen attack
Abiotic Stress Tolerance Activity: both strains also showed salt and drought tolerance and were found to be resistant to 10–15% NaCl and 25% PEG 6000, respectively

The optic biome sensor (OBS) that Mx (emukk) is developing is based on an optical fiber sensor, and has been devised under the motto of low cost, easy-to-usey and high speed sensing.
The first OBS (OBS1) was an demonstrator of this idea, and its mission was to confirm its operation.
In the second OBS (OBS2), we have improved its practicality by constructing the housing with robust black alumite and introducing an echange function of the optical fiber sensors. As a result, we were able to demonstrate that bacteria (living bacteria) can be measured over a wide measurement range of 1,000 cells/mL to 200 million cells/mL. We will continue this demonstration work while expanding the target bacterial species.
OBSの性能の一端をご紹介

OBS Unit 3 (OBS3) will have a smooth curve in the housing by using plastic housing, while advancing the realization of a low price and setting an outlook for commercialization.

Setting the OBS2 in a pipette holder and measuring a sample