Category Nature

A group from School of Biotechnology and Pharmaceutical Engineering, Nanjing Tech University, Nanjing, China, etc. has reported that n-hexadecanoic acid secreted by tomato roots most strongly promotes biofilm formation of Pseudomonas stutzeri.
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC10220591/

Plant growth-promoting rhizobacteria (PGPR) have been widely used in agricultural applications because of their safety, biological control of diseases and insect pests, and ability to induce c abiotic tolerance. It is know that the colonization, chemotaxis, and biofilm formation by PGPR are induced by the root exudates and certain metabolites.

In this study, it was shown that inoculation with a certain concentration of Pseudomonas stutzeri NRCB010 significantly promoted tomato growth and induced significant changes in tomato root exudates. Among those root exudates, n-hexadecanoic acid induced the most remarkable growth, chemotactic response, biofilm formation, and rhizosphere colonization of Pseudomonas stutzeri.

A group from Department of Life Sciences, Pohang University of Science and Technology (POSTECH), Pohang, Gyeongbuk, Republic of Korea, etc. has reported that terminal fucosylation of haptoglobin (Hp) in cancer-derived exosomes could be a good biomarker for cholangiocarcinoma (CCA).
https://www.frontiersin.org/articles/10.3389/fonc.2023.1183442/full

Tumor glycosylation has been proposed as potential cancer biomarkers. Many studies have focused on characterizing the aberrant glycosylation of secreted molecules circulating the blood in their soluble form. In this study, it was shown that terminal fucosylation of membrane-bound components correlated with extracellular vesicles (EVs) correlates with CCA.

Glycomic analysis revealed that CCA-EV contained more α1-3/4 fucosylated glycans (terminal fucosylation) than normal EVs. Notably however, α1-6 fucose (core fucosylation) was comparable between samples. As a result, it was shown that the α1-3/4 fucosylation of β-Hp in cancer-derived EV can be used as biomarkers for early diagnosis of CCA as well as for the prediction of recurrence after surgery. And further, it was also shown that fucosylated EVs derived from CCA contribute to tumor progression.

Diagnostic and prognostic value of EV-Hp fucosylation in CCA.

A group from Key Laboratory of Microbial Resources Collection and Preservation, Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Affairs, Institute of Agricultural Resources and Regional Planning, Chinese Academy of Agricultural Sciences, Beijing, China, etc. has reported about rhizosphere bacteriome associated with tobacco black shank disease and its biocontrol with Bacillus velezensis S719.
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC10108594/

The tobacco rhizosphere soil samples obtained from the diseased field was regarded as the disease group (D group),
the samples obtained from the healthy control field were regarded as the healthy group (H group), which were 600 m away from the diseased field,
and the biocontrol group (B group) was defined as the diseased field treated with biocontrol agent consisting of Bacillus velezensis S719 after tobacco seedlings were transplanted.

The desease index was the owest in H groups and the highest in D groups as shown below. The effect of Bacillus innocuration was clearly obserbed in B groups comparing with D groups.

The relative abundance of the bacterial taxa was compared at the class levels.
In B groups, Alphaproteobacteria accounted for 27.2% of the ASVs, at least two folds more than other terms in the same group;
In D groups, Actinobacteria was abundant, accounting for 13% of the ASVs, while the proportions in group B and H were 10.6% and 9.5%, respectively;
In H groups, Sphingobacteria and Cytophagia were abundant, accounting for 6.7% and 3.5% of the ASVs, respectively.

A group from Department of Biochemistry, Emory University School of Medicine, Atlanta, GA, USA, etc. has reported that protective antibodies to schistosome infections in brown rats and rhesus monkeys include IgG responses to the core Xyl/Fuc epitopes in surface-expressed N-glycans, and raise the potential of novel glyco-based vaccines that might be developed to combat this disease.
https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/37081851/

Schistosomiasis, caused by infection with parasitic helminths of the genus Schistosoma, infects over two hundred million people worldwide and causes up to seventy million disability-adjusted-life years (DALYs)—more DALYs than those caused by malaria. Therefore, it is thought that novel vaccine targets are urgently needed. Many different mammals can host schistosomes. Humans become chronically infected, while Rodents can clear the worms soon after infection.

Human N-glycans typically contain a core modification of the GlcNAc residues in GlcNAc-Asn by α6-linked fucose. Core α2-Xylose (CX) and core α3-Fucose (CF) are not found in humans, but are common in N-glycans from insects (CF), plants (CX, CF), and worms (CX, CF).

In ths work, it was demonstrated that antibodies including rabbit anti-horseradish peroxidase (rabαHRP) to CX/CF promote complement-dependent and glycan-specific killing of schistosomula in vitro.

A group from Department of Molecular Biochemistry and Clinical Investigation, Osaka University Graduate School of Medicine, Osaka, Japan, etc. has reported that core fucose-binding lectin Pholiota squarrosa lectin (PhoSL) inhibits HBV infection.
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC10105536/

Current anti-HBV therapies include nucleoside and nucleotide analogs, which can competitively inhibit HBV replication2,3, and pegylated interferons, which can modulate the host immune response to HBV infection and induce the degradation of covalently closed circular DNA (cccDNA) in hepatocytes.

In this study, it was investigated the effects of PhoSL on HBV infection of the human cell line HepG2-hNTCP-C4, and also analyzed the molecular mechanisms underlying PhoSL-mediated inhibition of HBV infection. It was shown that the treatment with PhoSL dramatically decreased the levels of human HBV e antigen (HBeAg) , cccDNA (as shown belwo), HBV DNA, and HBV RNA), markers of HBV infection, in a dose-dependent manner without cytotoxicity.

There are two possibilities: (1) PhoSL affects the protein dynamics of the host cells, or (2) PhoSL binds to HBV.
As aresult, it was found that PhoSL inhibits EGFR activation by blocking the binding of EGF to EGFR, and also PhoSL binds to HBV particles directly. HBV particles bound by PhoSL are internalized into host cells, and PhoSL seems to inhibit HBV infection after internalization.

PhoSL treatment could contribute to the development of novel anti-HBV therapies.