Microbiome of the Cool Season Forage Grass Timothy (\u3ci\u3ePhleum pratense\u3c/i\u3e L.) and Its Potential Role in Stress Tolerance

The functional attributes of the microbiome associated with timothy for growth promotion properties, antimicrobial and biosurfactant capacities were characterized. A total of 254 culturable bacteria were identified by 16S rRNA sequencing and grouped into 16 taxa that shared high homology of 98–99% with other known sequences. The majority of bacterial isolates exhibited multifunctional growth promotion attributes and plant stress improvement. The selection of competent and compatible strains for application in forage production is dependent on the recognition of root exudates and motility towards the roots, attachment to the root surface, formation of biofilm, penetration, and colonization of internal tissues. We selected competent rhizospheric bacteria to generate a multispecies consortium made of three strains that displayed growth-promoting abilities in timothy through the production of IAA, volatile organic compounds that increased root biomass, the production of siderophores and antibiotic resistance, as well as the ability to colonize plants. This study demonstrated that the multispecies consortium displayed biofilm formation and chemotactic behaviour towards several organic acids and towards root exudates released from the model grass Brachypodium distachyon. Organic acids were successful in stimulating the formation of biofilm of the multispecies consortium. In particular, fumaric and malic acids enhanced selective recruitment of the multispecies consortium in a dose-dependent manner thereby, promoting biofilm formation on root surface as demonstrated in SEM micrographs. The multispecies consortium exhibited biofilm-related traits including the production of exopolysaccharides (EPS) and alginate. EPS amounts were comparable in single strains and consortium forms and alginate production increased by 160% when the consortium was subjected to drought stress. These findings demonstrated that plant-microbe interaction is the hub of various factors directly affecting this balanced dual relation and that root exudates could be very selective in recruiting highly qualified multispecies consortium

Text to speech using Mel-Spectrogram with deep learning algorithms

The purpose of text to speech (TTS), sometimes called speech synthesis, is to synthesize a natural and intelligible speech for a given text. A wide range of applications uses TTS technologies in media, chatbots, and entertainment, among other fields, making it a hot topic for the research community. Recently, the progress achieved by artificial intelligence, especially in deep learning and neural networks, enables TTS to produce a high-quality synthesized speech. However, despite the success achieved, currently, available works suffer from the need for very long training and inference time, which makes it dominated by big tech companies. This paper proposes a model based on convolutional neural networks (CNN) and gated recurrent units (GRU). The proposed model can work even in low computational environments and requires low training time. The MOS achieved is 4.26, higher than the MOS performed by state-of-the-art methods

Expression and reactivation of HIV in a chemokine induced model of HIV latency in primary resting CD4+ T cells

<p>Abstract</p> <p>Background</p> <p>We recently described that HIV latent infection can be established <it>in vitro </it>following incubation of resting CD4+ T-cells with chemokines that bind to CCR7. The main aim of this study was to fully define the post-integration blocks to virus replication in this model of CCL19-induced HIV latency.</p> <p>Results</p> <p>High levels of integrated HIV DNA but low production of reverse transcriptase (RT) was found in CCL19-treated CD4+ T-cells infected with either wild type (WT) NL4.3 or single round envelope deleted NL4.3 pseudotyped virus (NL4.3- Δenv). Supernatants from CCL19-treated cells infected with either WT NL4.3 or NL4.3- Δenv did not induce luciferase expression in TZM-bl cells, and there was no expression of intracellular p24. Following infection of CCL19-treated CD4+ T-cells with NL4.3 with enhanced green fluorescent protein (EGFP) inserted into the <it>nef </it>open reading frame (NL4.3- Δnef-EGFP), there was no EGFP expression detected. These data are consistent with non-productive latent infection of CCL19-treated infected CD4+ T-cells. Treatment of cells with phytohemagluttinin (PHA)/IL-2 or CCL19, prior to infection with WT NL4.3, resulted in a mean fold change in unspliced (US) RNA at day 4 compared to day 0 of 21.2 and 1.1 respectively (p = 0.01; n = 5), and the mean expression of multiply spliced (MS) RNA was 56,000, and 5,000 copies/million cells respectively (p = 0.01; n = 5). In CCL19-treated infected CD4+ T-cells, MS-RNA was detected in the nucleus and not in the cytoplasm; in contrast to PHA/IL-2 activated infected cells where MS RNA was detected in both. Virus could be recovered from CCL19-treated infected CD4+ T-cells following mitogen stimulation (with PHA and phorbyl myristate acetate (PMA)) as well as TNFα, IL-7, prostratin and vorinostat.</p> <p>Conclusions</p> <p>In this model of CCL19-induced HIV latency, we demonstrate HIV integration without spontaneous production of infectious virus, detection of MS RNA in the nucleus only, and the induction of virus production with multiple activating stimuli. These data are consistent with <it>ex vivo </it>findings from latently infected CD4+ T-cells from patients on combination antiretroviral therapy, and therefore provide further support of this model as an excellent <it>in vitro </it>model of HIV latency.</p

The antibody response to Plasmodium falciparum Merozoite Surface Protein 4: comparative assessment of specificity and growth inhibitory antibody activity to infection-acquired and immunization-induced epitopes

<p>Abstract</p> <p>Background</p> <p>Malaria remains a global public health challenge. It is widely believed that an effective vaccine against malaria will need to incorporate multiple antigens from the various stages of the parasite's complex life cycle. <it>Plasmodium falciparum </it>Merozoite Surface Protein 4 (MSP4) is a vaccine candidate that has been selected for development for inclusion in an asexual stage subunit vaccine against malaria.</p> <p>Methods</p> <p>Nine monoclonal antibodies (Mabs) were produced against <it>Escherichia coli</it>-expressed recombinant MSP4 protein and characterized. These Mabs were used to develop an MSP4-specific competition ELISA to test the binding specificity of antibodies present in sera from naturally <it>P. falciparum</it>-infected individuals from a malaria endemic region of Vietnam. The Mabs were also tested for their capacity to induce <it>P. falciparum </it>growth inhibition <it>in vitro </it>and compared against polyclonal rabbit serum raised against recombinant MSP4</p> <p>Results</p> <p>All Mabs reacted with native parasite protein and collectively recognized at least six epitopes. Four of these Mabs recognize reduction-sensitive epitopes within the epidermal growth factor-like domain found near the C-terminus of MSP4. These sera were shown to contain antibodies capable of inhibiting the binding of the six Mabs indicating infection-acquired responses to the six different epitopes of MSP4. All of the six epitopes were readily recognized by human immune sera. Competition ELISA titres varied from 20 to 640, reflecting heterogeneity in the intensity of the humoral response against the protein among different individuals. The IgG responses during acute and convalescent phases of infection were higher to epitopes in the central region than to other parts of MSP4. Immunization with full length MSP4 in Freund's adjuvant induced rabbit polyclonal antisera able to inhibit parasite growth <it>in vitro </it>in a manner proportionate to the antibody titre. By contrast, polyclonal antisera raised to individual recombinant fragments rMSP4A, rMSP4B, rMSP4C and rMSP4D gave negligible inhibition. Similarly, murine Mabs alone or in combination did not inhibit parasite growth.</p> <p>Conclusions</p> <p>The panel of MSP4-specific Mabs produced were found to recognize six distinct epitopes that are also targeted by human antibodies during natural malaria infection. Antibodies directed to more than three epitope regions spread across MSP4 are likely to be required for <it>P. falciparum </it>growth inhibition <it>in vitro</it>.</p

HIV integration and the establishment of latency in CCL19-treated resting CD4(+) T cells require activation of NF-κB

BACKGROUND: Eradication of HIV cannot be achieved with combination antiretroviral therapy (cART) because of the persistence of long-lived latently infected resting memory CD4(+) T cells. We previously reported that HIV latency could be established in resting CD4(+) T cells in the presence of the chemokine CCL19. To define how CCL19 facilitated the establishment of latent HIV infection, the role of chemokine receptor signalling was explored. RESULTS: In resting CD4(+) T cells, CCL19 induced phosphorylation of RAC-alpha serine/threonine-protein kinase (Akt), nuclear factor kappa B (NF-&kappa;B), extracellular-signal-regulated kinase (ERK) and p38. Inhibition of the phosphoinositol-3-kinase (PI3K) and Ras/Raf/Mitogen-activated protein kinase/ERK kinase (MEK)/ERK signalling pathways inhibited HIV integration, without significant reduction in HIV nuclear entry (measured by Alu-LTR and 2-LTR circle qPCR respectively). Inhibiting activation of MEK1/ERK1/2, c-Jun N-terminal kinase (JNK), activating protein-1 (AP-1) and NF-&kappa;B, but not p38, also inhibited HIV integration. We also show that HIV integrases interact with Pin1 in CCL19-treated CD4(+) T cells and inhibition of JNK markedly reduced this interaction, suggesting that CCL19 treatment provided sufficient signals to protect HIV integrase from degradation via the proteasome pathway. Infection of CCL19-treated resting CD4(+) T cells with mutant strains of HIV, lacking NF-&kappa;B binding sites in the HIV long terminal repeat (LTR) compared to infection with wild type virus, led to a significant reduction in integration by up to 40-fold (range 1-115.4, p&nbsp;=&nbsp;0.03). This was in contrast to only a modest reduction of 5-fold (range 1.7-11, p&nbsp;&gt;&nbsp;0.05) in fully activated CD4(+) T cells infected with the same mutants. Finally, we demonstrated significant differences in integration sites following HIV infection of unactivated, CCL19-treated, and fully activated CD4(+) T cells. CONCLUSIONS: HIV integration in CCL19-treated resting CD4(+) T cells depends on NF-&kappa;B signalling and increases the stability of HIV integrase, which allow subsequent integration and establishment of latency. These findings have implications for strategies needed to prevent the establishment, and potentially reverse, latent infection

Reducing the environmental impact of surgery on a global scale: systematic review and co-prioritization with healthcare workers in 132 countries

Abstract Background Healthcare cannot achieve net-zero carbon without addressing operating theatres. The aim of this study was to prioritize feasible interventions to reduce the environmental impact of operating theatres. Methods This study adopted a four-phase Delphi consensus co-prioritization methodology. In phase 1, a systematic review of published interventions and global consultation of perioperative healthcare professionals were used to longlist interventions. In phase 2, iterative thematic analysis consolidated comparable interventions into a shortlist. In phase 3, the shortlist was co-prioritized based on patient and clinician views on acceptability, feasibility, and safety. In phase 4, ranked lists of interventions were presented by their relevance to high-income countries and low–middle-income countries. Results In phase 1, 43 interventions were identified, which had low uptake in practice according to 3042 professionals globally. In phase 2, a shortlist of 15 intervention domains was generated. In phase 3, interventions were deemed acceptable for more than 90 per cent of patients except for reducing general anaesthesia (84 per cent) and re-sterilization of ‘single-use’ consumables (86 per cent). In phase 4, the top three shortlisted interventions for high-income countries were: introducing recycling; reducing use of anaesthetic gases; and appropriate clinical waste processing. In phase 4, the top three shortlisted interventions for low–middle-income countries were: introducing reusable surgical devices; reducing use of consumables; and reducing the use of general anaesthesia. Conclusion This is a step toward environmentally sustainable operating environments with actionable interventions applicable to both high– and low–middle–income countries

New Versions of Locating Indices and Their Significance in Predicting the Physicochemical Properties of Benzenoid Hydrocarbons

In this paper, we introduce some new versions based on the locating vectors named locating indices. In particular, Hyper locating indices, Randić locating index, and Sambor locating index. The exact formulae for these indices of some well-known families of graphs and for the Helm graph are derived. Moreover, we determine the importance of these locating indices for 11 benzenoid hydrocarbons. Furthermore, we show that these new versions of locating indices have a reasonable correlation using linear regression with physicochemical characteristics such as molar entropy, acentric factor, boiling point, complexity, octanol–water partition coefficient, and Kovats retention index. The cases in which good correlations were obtained suggested the validity of the calculated topological indices to be further used to predict the physicochemical properties of much more complicated chemical compounds

New Versions of Locating Indices and Their Significance in Predicting the Physicochemical Properties of Benzenoid Hydrocarbons

In this paper, we introduce some new versions based on the locating vectors named locating indices. In particular, Hyper locating indices, Randi&#263; locating index, and Sambor locating index. The exact formulae for these indices of some well-known families of graphs and for the Helm graph are derived. Moreover, we determine the importance of these locating indices for 11 benzenoid hydrocarbons. Furthermore, we show that these new versions of locating indices have a reasonable correlation using linear regression with physicochemical characteristics such as molar entropy, acentric factor, boiling point, complexity, octanol&ndash;water partition coefficient, and Kovats retention index. The cases in which good correlations were obtained suggested the validity of the calculated topological indices to be further used to predict the physicochemical properties of much more complicated chemical compounds

Scale-Invariant Feature Transform Algorithm with Fast Approximate Nearest Neighbor

There is a great deal of systems dealing with image processing that are being used and developed on a daily basis. Those systems need the deployment of some basic operations such as detecting the Regions of Interest and matching those regions, in addition to the description of their properties. Those operations play a significant role in decision making which is necessary for the next operations depending on the assigned task. In order to accomplish those tasks, various algorithms have been introduced throughout years. One of the most popular algorithms is the Scale Invariant Feature Transform (SIFT). The efficiency of this algorithm is its performance in the process of detection and property description, and that is due to the fact that it operates on a big number of key-points, the only drawback it has is that it is rather time consuming. In the suggested approach, the system deploys SIFT to perform its basic tasks of matching and description is focused on minimizing the number of key-points which is performed via applying Fast Approximate Nearest Neighbor algorithm, which will reduce the redundancy of matching leading to speeding up the process. The proposed application has been evaluated in terms of two criteria which are time and accuracy, and has accomplished a percentage of accuracy of up to 100%, in addition to speeding up the processes of matching and description