Effects of supplementing lactic acid bacteria on fecal microbiota, total cholesterol, triglycerides and bile acids in rats.

Background: Probiotics (LAB) are normal components of the intestinal micro-flora in both humans and animals and its ingestion in decreasing the risk of atherosclerosis. In addition, the potential health effects of LAB were investigated by monitoring changes in intestinal micro-flora and lipid metabolism in a rat model.Materials and Methods: Rats were randomly assigned into four treatments and fecal samples were obtained on days 1, 3, 5, 9 and 14，to evaluate fecal micro biota, total cholesterol (TC), triglycerides (TG) and bile acids in rats (TBA).Results: The results indicated that Lactobacillus plantarum strain L.p X3-2B increased fecal lactic acid bacteria(LAB) and Bifidobacterium while resisting the growth of harmful bacteria. Viable counts of LAB and Bifidobacterium reached 8 log cfu/mL after feeding for 14 days. Fecal pH in the control group was high in comparison with the treatments at all times. Treatment increased the excretion of triglycerides (TG), total cholesterol (TC) and total bile acid (TBA). The results indicate that LAB and Bifidobacterium induce a positive correlation with fecal TC, TG and TBA and a negative correlation with fecal Enterobacteriaceae, Enterococcus and Escherichia coli.Conclusion: Lactic acid bacteria screened from Inner Mongolia native meat sausages in China had cholesterol-lowering effect.Keywords: Lactic acid bacteria, fecal micro biota, TC, TG, TB

Genomic Inference of the Metabolism and Evolution of the Archaeal Phylum Aigarchaeota

Microbes of the phylum Aigarchaeota are widely distributed in geothermal environments, but their physiological and ecological roles are poorly understood. Here we analyze six Aigarchaeota metagenomic bins from two circumneutral hot springs in Tengchong, China, to reveal that they are either strict or facultative anaerobes, and most are chemolithotrophs that can perform sulfide oxidation. Applying comparative genomics to the Thaumarchaeota and Aigarchaeota, we find that they both originated from thermal habitats, sharing 1154 genes with their common ancestor. Horizontal gene transfer played a crucial role in shaping genetic diversity of Aigarchaeota and led to functional partitioning and ecological divergence among sympatric microbes, as several key functional innovations were endowed by Bacteria, including dissimilatory sulfite reduction and possibly carbon monoxide oxidation. Our study expands our knowledge of the possible ecological roles of the Aigarchaeota and clarifies their evolutionary relationship to their sister lineage Thaumarchaeota

A Review on Ultrafast Laser Microwelding of Transparent Materials and Transparent Material–Metals

Funding Information: J.P.O. acknowledges funding by national funds from FCT—Fundação para a Ciência e a Tecnologia, Portugal, I.P., in the scope of the projects LA/P/0037/2020 of the Associate Laboratory Institute of Nanostructures, Nano-modelling and Nanofabrication—i3N. Funding Information: This research was funded by the National Natural Science Foundation of China (No. 52275155), Class III Peak Discipline of Shanghai-Materials Science and Engineering and Equipment pre-study. Publisher Copyright: © 2023 by the authors.Transparent hard and brittle (THB) materials have generated significant interest due to their excellent properties, such as wide spectral transmittance, heat resistance, chemical inactivity and high mechanical strength. To further explore the application of THB materials, it is inevitable to be confronted with a range of joining THB materials and THB material–metals. Ultrafast (UF) laser microwelding enables a new means of joining THB materials and THB material–metals, due to a localized energy deposition method, which is dominated by nonlinear absorption. This process can realize high-quality micro-zone direct joining of THB materials or THB material–metals without the assistance of a light-absorbing intermediate layer. In this paper, we review the advances in UF laser microwelding of THB materials and THB material–metals considering the last two decades, from the analysis of the interaction mechanism between UF laser and matter to the key influencing factors and practical applications of this technology. Finally, the existing problems and the future research focus of UF laser microwelding technology of THB materials and THB material–metals are discussed.publishersversionpublishe

An ancient adaptive episode of convergent molecular evolution confounds phylogenetic inference

Convergence can mislead phylogenetic inference by mimicking shared ancestry, but has been detected only rarely in molecular evolution. Here, we show that significant convergence occurred in snake and agamid lizard mitochondrial genomes. Most evidence, and most of the mitochondrial genome, supports one phylogenetic tree, but a subset of mostly amino acid-altering mitochondrial sites strongly support a radically different phylogeny. These sites are convergent, probably selected, and overwhelm the signal from other sites. This suggests that convergent molecular evolution can seriously mislead phylogenetics, even with large data sets. Radical phylogenies inconsistent with previous evidence should be treated cautiously

Ionization in damped time-harmonic fields

We study the asymptotic behavior of the wave function in a simple one dimensional model of ionization by pulses, in which the time-dependent potential is of the form $V(x,t)=-2\delta(x)(1-e^{-\lambda t} \cos\omega t)$, where $\delta$ is the Dirac distribution. We find the ionization probability in the limit $t\to\infty$ for all $\lambda$ and $\omega$. The long pulse limit is very singular, and, for $\omega=0$, the survival probability is $const \lambda^{1/3}$, much larger than $O(\lambda)$, the one in the abrupt transition counterpart, $V(x,t)=\delta(x)\mathbf{1}_{\{t\ge 1/\lambda\}}$ where $\mathbf{1}$ is the Heaviside function

Dynamics of multipartite quantum correlations under decoherence

Quantum discord is an optimal resource for the quantification of classical and non-classical correlations as compared to other related measures. Geometric measure of quantum discord is another measure of quantum correlations. Recently, the geometric quantum discord for multipartite states has been introduced by Jianwei Xu [arxiv:quant/ph.1205.0330]. Motivated from the recent study [Ann. Phys. 327 (2012) 851] for the bipartite systems, I have investigated global quantum discord (QD) and geometric quantum discord (GQD) under the influence of external environments for different multipartite states. Werner-GHZ type three-qubit and six-qubit states are considered in inertial and non-inertial settings. The dynamics of QD and GQD is investigated under amplitude damping, phase damping, depolarizing and flipping channels. It is seen that the quantum discord vanishes for p>0.75 in case of three-qubit GHZ states and for p>0.5 for six qubit GHZ states. This implies that multipartite states are more fragile to decoherence for higher values of N. Surprisingly, a rapid sudden death of discord occurs in case of phase flip channel. However, for bit flip channel, no sudden death happens for the six-qubit states. On the other hand, depolarizing channel heavily influences the QD and GQD as compared to the amplitude damping channel. It means that the depolarizing channel has the most destructive influence on the discords for multipartite states. From the perspective of accelerated observers, it is seen that effect of environment on QD and GQD is much stronger than that of the acceleration of non-inertial frames. The degradation of QD and GQD happens due to Unruh effect. Furthermore, QD exhibits more robustness than GQD when the multipartite systems are exposed to environment.Comment: 15 pages, 4 figures, 4 table

Multidrug-Resistant Tuberculosis, People’s Republic of China, 2007–2009

Early detection, effective treatment, and infection control measures are needed to reduce transmission

Genome-Wide and Differential Proteomic Analysis of Hepatitis B Virus and Aflatoxin B1 Related Hepatocellular Carcinoma in Guangxi, China

Both hepatitis B virus (HBV) and aflatoxin B1 (AFB1) exposure can cause liver damage as well as increase the probability of hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC). To investigate the underlying genetic changes that may influence development of HCC associated with HBV infection and AFB1 exposure, HCC patients were subdivided into 4 groups depending upon HBV and AFB1 exposure status: (HBV(+)/AFB1(+), HBV(+)/AFB1(-), HBV(-)/AFB1(+), HBV(-)/AFB1(-)). Genetic abnormalities and protein expression profiles were analyzed by array-based comparative genomic hybridization and isobaric tagging for quantitation. A total of 573 chromosomal aberrations (CNAs) including 184 increased and 389 decreased were detected in our study population. Twenty-five recurrently altered regions (RARs; chromosomal alterations observed in ≥10 patients) in chromosomes were identified. Loss of 4q13.3-q35.2, 13q12.1-q21.2 and gain of 7q11.2-q35 were observed with a higher frequency in the HBV(+)/AFB1(+), HBV(+)/AFB1(-) and HBV(-)/AFB1(+) groups compared to the HBV(-)/AFB(-) group. Loss of 8p12-p23.2 was associated with high TNM stage tumors (P = 0.038) and was an unfavorable prognostic factor for tumor-free survival (P=0.045). A total of 133 differentially expressed proteins were identified in iTRAQ proteomics analysis, 69 (51.8%) of which mapped within identified RARs. The most common biological processes affected by HBV and AFB1 status in HCC tumorigenesis were detoxification and drug metabolism pathways, antigen processing and anti-apoptosis pathways. Expression of AKR1B10 was increased significantly in the HBV(+)/AFB1(+) and HBV(-)/AFB1(+) groups. A significant correlation between the expression of AKR1B10 mRNA and protein levels as well as AKR1B10 copy number was observed, which suggest that AKR1B10 may play a role in AFB1-related hepatocarcinogenesis. In summary, a number of genetic and gene expression alterations were found to be associated with HBV and AFB1- related HCC. The possible synergistic effects of HBV and AFB1 in hepatocarcinogenesis warrant further investigations