Proteomic Analysis Reveals Key Proteins and Phosphoproteins upon Seed Germination of Wheat (Triticum aestivum L.)

Wheat (Triticum aestivum L.) is one of the oldest cultivated crops and the second most important food crop in the world. Seed germination is the key developmental process in plant growth and development, and poor germination directly affects plant growth and subsequent grain yield. In this study, we performed the first dynamic proteome analysis of wheat seed germination using a two-dimensional differential gel electrophoresis (2D-DIGE)-based proteomic approach. A total of 166 differentially expressed protein (DEP) spots representing 73 unique proteins were identified, which are mainly involved in storage, stress/defense/detoxification, carbohydrate metabolism, photosynthesis, cell metabolism, and transcription/translation/ transposition. The identified DEPs and their dynamic expression profiles generally correspond to three distinct seed germination phases after imbibition: storage degradation, physiological processes/morphogenesis, and photosynthesis. Some key DEPs involved in storage substance degradation and plant defense mechanisms, such as globulin 3, sucrose synthase type I, serpin, beta-amylase, and plastid ADP-glucose pyrophosphorylase (AGPase) small subunit, were found to be phosphorylated during seed germination. Particularly, the phosphorylation site Ser355 was found to be located in the enzyme active region of beta-amylase, which promotes substrate binding. Phosphorylated modification of several proteins could promote storage substance degradation and environmental stress defense during seed germination. The central metabolic pathways involved in wheat seed germination are proposed herein, providing new insights into the molecular mechanisms of cereal seed germination

Immunological resilience and biodiversity for prevention of allergic diseases and asthma

Increase of allergic conditions has occurred at the same pace with the Great Acceleration, which stands for the rapid growth rate of human activities upon earth from 1950s. Changes of environment and lifestyle along with escalating urbanization are acknowledged as the main underlying causes. Secondary (tertiary) prevention for better disease control has advanced considerably with innovations for oral immunotherapy and effective treatment of inflammation with corticosteroids, calcineurin inhibitors, and biological medications. Patients are less disabled than before. However, primary prevention has remained a dilemma. Factors predicting allergy and asthma risk have proven complex: Risk factors increase the risk, while protective factors counteract them. Interaction of human body with environmental biodiversity with micro-organisms and biogenic compounds as well as the central role of epigenetic adaptation in immune homeostasis have given new insight. Allergic diseases are good indicators of the twisted relation to environment. In various non-communicable diseases, the protective mode of the immune system indicates low-grade inflammation without apparent cause. Giving microbes, pro- and prebiotics, has shown some promise in prevention and treatment. The real-world public health programme in Finland (2008-2018) emphasized nature relatedness and protective factors for immunological resilience, instead of avoidance. The nationwide action mitigated the allergy burden, but in the lack of controls, primary preventive effect remains to be proven. The first results of controlled biodiversity interventions are promising. In the fast urbanizing world, new approaches are called for allergy prevention, which also has a major cost saving potential.Peer reviewe

Impact of opioid-free analgesia on pain severity and patient satisfaction after discharge from surgery: multispecialty, prospective cohort study in 25 countries

Background: Balancing opioid stewardship and the need for adequate analgesia following discharge after surgery is challenging. This study aimed to compare the outcomes for patients discharged with opioid versus opioid-free analgesia after common surgical procedures.Methods: This international, multicentre, prospective cohort study collected data from patients undergoing common acute and elective general surgical, urological, gynaecological, and orthopaedic procedures. The primary outcomes were patient-reported time in severe pain measured on a numerical analogue scale from 0 to 100% and patient-reported satisfaction with pain relief during the first week following discharge. Data were collected by in-hospital chart review and patient telephone interview 1 week after discharge.Results: The study recruited 4273 patients from 144 centres in 25 countries; 1311 patients (30.7%) were prescribed opioid analgesia at discharge. Patients reported being in severe pain for 10 (i.q.r. 1-30)% of the first week after discharge and rated satisfaction with analgesia as 90 (i.q.r. 80-100) of 100. After adjustment for confounders, opioid analgesia on discharge was independently associated with increased pain severity (risk ratio 1.52, 95% c.i. 1.31 to 1.76; P < 0.001) and re-presentation to healthcare providers owing to side-effects of medication (OR 2.38, 95% c.i. 1.36 to 4.17; P = 0.004), but not with satisfaction with analgesia (beta coefficient 0.92, 95% c.i. -1.52 to 3.36; P = 0.468) compared with opioid-free analgesia. Although opioid prescribing varied greatly between high-income and low- and middle-income countries, patient-reported outcomes did not.Conclusion: Opioid analgesia prescription on surgical discharge is associated with a higher risk of re-presentation owing to side-effects of medication and increased patient-reported pain, but not with changes in patient-reported satisfaction. Opioid-free discharge analgesia should be adopted routinely

Composite body movements modulate numerical cognition: Evidence from the motion–numerical compatibility effect

A recent hierarchical model of numerical processing, initiated by Fischer and Brugger (2011) and Fisher (2012), suggested that situated factors, such as different body postures and body movements, can influence the magnitude representation and bias numerical processing. Indeed, Loetscher and colleagues (2008) found that participants’ behavior in a random number generation (RNG) task was biased by head rotations. More small numbers were reported after leftward than rightward head turns, i.e. a motion–numerical compatibility effect. Here, by carrying out two experiments, we explored whether similar motion–numerical compatibility effects exist for movements of other important body components, e.g. arms, and for composite body movements as well, which are basis for complex human activities in many ecologically meaningful situations. In Experiment 1, a motion-numerical compatibility effect was observed for lateral rotations of two body components, i.e., the head and arms. Relatively large numbers were reported after making rightward compared to leftward movements for both lateral head and arm turns. The motion-numerical compatibility effect was observed again in Experiment 2 when participants were asked to perform composite body movements of congruent movement directions, e.g., simultaneous head left turns and arm left turns. However, it disappeared when the movement directions were incongruent, e.g., simultaneous head left turns and arm right turns. Taken together, our results extended Loetscher et al.'s (2008) finding by demonstrating that their effect is effector-general and exists for arm movements. Moreover, our study reveals for the first time that the impact of spatial information on numerical processing induced by each of the two sensorimotor-based situated factors, e.g., a lateral head turn and a lateral arm turn, can cancel each other out

Modern urbanization has reshaped the bacterial microbiome profiles of house dust in domestic environments

Background: The prevalence of allergy and other common chronic diseases is higher in developed than developing countries, and higher in urban than rural regions. Urbanization through its modification of environmental microbiomes may play a predominant role in the development of these conditions. However, no studies have been conducted to compare the microbiome in house dust among areas with different urbanization levels. Methods: House dust from Xinxiang rural area (XR, n = 74), Xinxiang urban area (XU, n = 33), and Zhengzhou urban area (ZU, n = 32) in central China, and from Australia (AU, n = 58 [with pets AUP, n = 15, without pets AUNP, n = 43]) were collected during a summer season in China and Australia. High-throughput sequencing of 16S rDNA was employed to profile house dust bacterial communities. Results: Settled dust collected in China was dominant with 2 bacterial phyla: Proteobacteria and Actinobacteria, while floor dust collected in Australia had a higher proportion of phylum Proteobacteria, Firmicutes, and Actinobacteria. XR dust samples presented higher bacterial richness and diversity compared with XU or ZU samples. Urbanization level (r2 = 0.741 P 0.5) between urbanization level and bacterial genera Streptococcus, Bartonella, Staphylococcus, Pseudomonas, Acinetobacter, Bacteroides, Corynebacterium_1, and Enhydrobacter and a negative correlation (r coefficient < −0.5) with Rhodanobacter. Conclusion: There was a significant difference in house dust microbiota among different urbanization areas. The areas with a lower urbanization level presented higher dust-borne bacterial richness and diversity. Modern urbanization has a significant influence on the bacterial microbiome profiles of indoor dust

Natively Folded HypF-N and Its Early Amyloid Aggregates Interact with Phospholipid Monolayers and Destabilize Supported Phospholipid Bilayers

Recent data depict membranes as the main sites where proteins/peptides are recruited and concentrated, misfold, and nucleate amyloids; at the same time, membranes are considered key triggers of amyloid toxicity. The N-terminal domain of the prokaryotic hydrogenase maturation factor HypF (HypF-N) in 30% trifluoroethanol undergoes a complex path of fibrillation starting with initial 2–3-nm oligomers and culminating with the appearance of mature fibrils. Oligomers are highly cytotoxic and permeabilize lipid membranes, both biological and synthetic. In this article, we report an in-depth study aimed at providing information on the surface activity of HypF-N and its interaction with synthetic membranes of different lipid composition, either in the native conformation or as amyloid oligomers or fibrils. Like other amyloidogenic peptides, the natively folded HypF-N forms stable films at the air/water interface and inserts into synthetic phospholipid bilayers with efficiencies depending on the type of phospholipid. In addition, HypF-N prefibrillar aggregates interact with, insert into, and disassemble supported phospholipid bilayers similarly to other amyloidogenic peptides. These results support the idea that, at least in most cases, early amyloid aggregates of different peptides and proteins produce similar effects on the integrity of membrane assembly and hence on cell viability

Genome‐wide association study of body mass index in 23 000 individuals with and without asthma

International audienceBackground-Both asthma and obesity are complex disorders that are influenced by environmental and genetic factors. Shared genetic factors between asthma and obesity have been proposed to partly explain epidemiological findings of co-morbidity between these conditions. Objective-To identify genetic variants that are associated with body mass index (BMI) in asthmatic children and adults, and to evaluate if there are differences between the genetics of BMI in asthmatics and healthy individuals. Methods-In total, 19 studies contributed with genome-wide analysis study (GWAS) data from more than 23,000 individuals with predominantly European descent, of whom 8,165 are asthmatics. Results-We report associations between several DENND1B variants (p=2.2×10 −7 for rs4915551) on chromosome 1q31 and BMI from a meta-analysis of GWAS data using 2,691 asthmatic children (screening data). The top DENND1B SNPs were next evaluated in seven independent replication data sets comprising 2,014 asthmatics, and rs4915551 was nominally replicated (p<0.05) in two of the seven studies and of borderline significance in one (p=0.059). However, strong evidence of effect heterogeneity was observed and overall, the association between rs4915551 and BMI was not significant in the total replication data set, p=0.71. Using a random effects model, BMI was overall estimated to increase by 0.30 kg/m 2 (p=0.01 for combined screening and replication data sets, N=4,705) per additional G allele of this DENND1B SNP. FTO was confirmed as an important gene for adult and childhood BMI regardless of asthma status. Conclusions and Clinical Relevance-DENND1B was recently identified as an asthma susceptibility gene in a GWAS on children, and here we find evidence that DENND1B variants may also be associated with BMI in asthmatic children. However, the association was overall not replicated in the independent data sets and the heterogeneous effect of DENND1B points to complex associations with the studied diseases that deserve further study

Genome-wide association study of body mass index in 23000 individuals with and without asthma

<p>Background Both asthma and obesity are complex disorders that are influenced by environmental and genetic factors. Shared genetic factors between asthma and obesity have been proposed to partly explain epidemiological findings of co-morbidity between these conditions. Objective To identify genetic variants that are associated with body mass index (BMI) in asthmatic children and adults, and to evaluate if there are differences between the genetics of BMI in asthmatics and healthy individuals. Methods In total, 19 studies contributed with genome-wide analysis study (GWAS) data from more than 23000 individuals with predominantly European descent, of whom 8165 are asthmatics. In total, 19 studies contributed with genome-wide analysis study (GWAS) data from more than 23000 individuals with predominantly European descent, of whom 8165 are asthmatics. In total, 19 studies contributed with genome-wide analysis study (GWAS) data from more than 23000 individuals with predominantly European descent, of whom 8165 are asthmatics. In total, 19 studies contributed with genome-wide analysis study (GWAS) data from more than 23000 individuals with predominantly European descent, of whom 8165 are asthmatics. In total, 19 studies contributed with genome-wide analysis study (GWAS) data from more than 23000 individuals with predominantly European descent, of whom 8165 are asthmatics. In total, 19 studies contributed with genome-wide analysis study (GWAS) data from more than 23000 individuals with predominantly European descent, of whom 8165 are asthmatics. In total, 19 studies contributed with genome-wide analysis study (GWAS) data from more than 23000 individuals with predominantly European descent, of whom 8165 are asthmatics. In total, 19 studies contributed with genome-wide analysis study (GWAS) data from more than 23000 individuals with predominantly European descent, of whom 8165 are asthmatics. In total, 19 studies contributed with genome-wide analysis study (GWAS) data from more than 23000 individuals with predominantly European descent, of whom 8165 are asthmatics. Results We report associations between several DENND1B variants (P=2.2x107 for rs4915551) on chromosome 1q31 and BMI from a meta-analysis of GWAS data using 2691 asthmatic children (screening data). The top DENND1B single nucleotide polymorphisms (SNPs) were next evaluated in seven independent replication data sets comprising 2014 asthmatics, and rs4915551 was nominally replicated (P</p>