Prospects for the development of probiotics and prebiotics for oral applications

There has been a paradigm shift towards an ecological and microbial community-based approach to understanding oral diseases. This has significant implications for approaches to therapy and has raised the possibility of developing novel strategies through manipulation of the resident oral microbiota and modulation of host immune responses. The increased popularity of using probiotic bacteria and/or prebiotic supplements to improve gastrointestinal health has prompted interest in the utility of this approach for oral applications. Evidence now suggests that probiotics may function not only by direct inhibition of, or enhanced competition with, pathogenic micro-organisms, but also by more subtle mechanisms including modulation of the mucosal immune system. Similarly, prebiotics could promote the growth of beneficial micro-organisms that comprise part of the resident microbiota. The evidence for the use of pro or prebiotics for the prevention of caries or periodontal diseases is reviewed, and issues that could arise from their use, as well as questions that still need to be answered, are raised. A complete understanding of the broad ecological changes induced in the mouth by probiotics or prebiotics will be essential to assess their long-term consequences for oral health and disease

Trait‐based analysis of subpolar North Atlantic phytoplankton and plastidic ciliate communities using automated flow cytometer

Plankton are an extremely diverse and polyphyletic group, exhibiting a large range in morphological and physiological traits. Here, we apply automated optical techniques, provided by the pulse‐shape recording automated flow cytometer—CytoSense—to investigate trait variability of phytoplankton and plastidic ciliates in Arctic and Atlantic waters of the subpolar North Atlantic. We used the bio‐optical descriptors derived from the CytoSense (light scattering [forward and sideward] and fluorescence [red, yellow/green and orange from chlorophyll a, degraded pigments, and phycobiliproteins, respectively]) and translated them into functional traits to demonstrate ecological trait variability along an environmental gradient. Cell size was the master trait varying in this study, with large photosynthetic microplankton (> 20 μm in cell diameter), including diatoms as single cells and chains, as well as plastidic ciliates found in Arctic waters, while small‐sized phytoplankton groups, such as the picoeukaryotes (< 4 μm) and the cyanobacteria Synechococcus were dominant in Atlantic waters. Morphological traits, such as chain/colony formation and structural complexity (i.e., cellular processes, setae, and internal vacuoles), appear to favor buoyancy in highly illuminated and stratified Arctic waters. In Atlantic waters, small cell size and spherical cell shape, in addition to photo‐physiological traits, such as high internal pigmentation, offer chromatic adaptation for survival in the low nutrient and dynamic mixing waters of the Atlantic Ocean. The use of automated techniques that quantify ecological traits holds exciting new opportunities to unravel linkages between the structure and function of plankton communities and marine ecosystems

Oxygen dayglow emissions as proxies for atomic oxygen and ozone in the mesosphere and lower thermosphere

International audienceThe main goal of this study is to propose and then to justify a set of methods for retrieving the [O] and [O3] altitude distributions from the observation of emissions of the excited oxygen molecules and O(1D) atom at daytime in the mesosphere and lower thermosphere (MLT) region. In other words, we propose retrieving the [O] and [O3] using the proxies. One of the main requirements for the proxy is that the measured value should be directly related to a variable of our interest while, at the same time, the influence of the proxies on [O3] and [O(3P)] should be minimal. For a comprehensive analysis of different O3 and O(3P) proxies, we use a full model of electronic vibrational kinetics of excited products of O3 and O2 photolysis in the MLT of the Earth. Based on this model, we have tested five excited components; namely, O2(b1Σg+, v = 0, 1, 2), O2(a1Δg , v = 0) and O(1D) as the [O3] and [O(3P)] proxies in the MLT region. Using an analytical approach to sensitivity studies and uncertainty analysis, we have therefore developed the following methods of [O(3P)] and [O3] retrieval, which utilise electronic-vibrational transitions from the oxygen molecule second singlet level (O2(b1 Σg+, v = 0, 1, 2). We conclude that O2(b1 Σg+, v = 2) and O2(b1 Σg+, v = 0) are preferable proxies for [O(3P)] retrieval in the altitude range of 90-140 km, while O2(b1 Σg+, v = 1) is the best proxy for [O3] retrieval in the altitude range of 50-98 km