MicroRNA-223 ameliorates alcoholic liver injury by inhibiting the IL-6–p47phox–oxidative stress pathway in neutrophils

Objectives Chronic-plus-binge ethanol feeding activates neutrophils and exacerbates liver injury in mice. This study investigates how recent excessive drinking affects peripheral neutrophils and liver injury in alcoholics, and how miR-223, one of the most abundant microRNAs (miRNAs) in neutrophils, modulates neutrophil function and liver injury in ethanol-fed mice. Designs Three hundred alcoholics with (n=140) or without (n=160) recent excessive drinking and 45 healthy controls were enrolled. Mice were fed an ethanol diet for 10 days followed by a single binge of ethanol. Results Compared with healthy controls or alcoholics without recent drinking, alcoholics with recent excessive drinking had higher levels of circulating neutrophils, which correlated with serum levels of alanine transaminase (ALT) and aspartate transaminase (AST). miRNA array analysis revealed that alcoholics had elevated serum miR-223 levels compared with healthy controls. In chronic-plus-binge ethanol feeding mouse model, the levels of miR-223 were increased in both serum and neutrophils. Genetic deletion of the miR-223 gene exacerbated ethanol-induced hepatic injury, neutrophil infiltration, reactive oxygen species (ROS) and upregulated hepatic expression of interleukin (IL)-6 and phagocytic oxidase (phox) p47phox. Mechanistic studies revealed that miR-223 directly inhibited IL-6 expression and subsequently inhibited p47phox expression in neutrophils. Deletion of the p47phox gene ameliorated ethanol-induced liver injury and ROS production by neutrophils. Finally, miR-223 expression was downregulated, while IL-6 and p47phox expression were upregulated in peripheral blood neutrophils from alcoholics compared with healthy controls. Conclusions miR-223 is an important regulator to block neutrophil infiltration in alcoholic liver disease and could be a novel therapeutic target for the treatment of this malady

Bacillus amyloliquefaciens YN201732 Produces Lipopeptides With Promising Biocontrol Activity Against Fungal Pathogen Erysiphe cichoracearum

Bacillus amyloliquefaciens YN201732 is an endophytic bacteria with high biocontrol efficiency and broad-spectrum antimicrobial activities. In order to clarify the main active ingredients and their antifungal mechanisms against powdery mildew of tobacco, this study is focused on lipopeptide obtained through acid precipitation and organic solvent extraction. HPLC and LCMS-IT-TOF were used to separate and identify antimicrobial lipopeptides. Findings revealed that bacillomycin D plays an important role against surrogate fungal pathogen Fusarium solani. Synthetic pathways of sfp, bacillomycin D, and fengycin were separately disrupted. The sfp gene knockout mutant B. amyloliquefaciens YN201732M1 only showed minor antagonistic activity against F. solani. While Erysiphe cichoracearum spore germination was inhibited and pot experiments displayed a significant decrease in tobacco powdery mildew. The spore inhibition rate of YN201732M1 was only 30.29%, and the pot experiment control effect was less than 37.39%, which was significantly lower than that of the wild type. The inhibitory effect of mutant YN201732M2 (deficient in the production of bacillomycin D) and mutant YN201732M3 (deficient in the production of fengycin) on the spore germination of E. cichoracearum were 50.22% and 53.06%, respectively, suggesting that both fengycin and bacillomycin D had potential effects on spore germination of powdery mildew. Interestingly, in a greenhouse assay, both B. amyloliquefaciens YN201732M2 and YN201732M3 mutants displayed less of a control effect on tobacco powdery mildew than wild type. The results from in vitro, spore germination, and greenhouse-pot studies demonstrated that antimicrobial lipopeptides especially bacillomycin D and fengycin may contribute to the prevention and control of tobacco powdery mildew. In addition, gene mutation related to lipopeptide synthesis can also affect the biofilm formation of strains

Novel Virulence Factors Deciphering <i>Klebsiella pneumoniae</i> KpC4 Infect Maize as a Crossing-Kingdom Pathogen: An Emerging Environmental Threat

Klebsiella pneumoniae is not only a human and animal opportunistic pathogen, but a food-borne pathogen. Cross-kingdom infection has been focused on since K. pneumoniae was identified as the pathogen of maize, banana, and pomegranate. Although the pathogenicity of K. pneumoniae strains (from ditch water, maize, and human) on plant and mice has been confirmed, there are no reports to explain the molecular mechanisms of the pathogen. This study uncovered the K. pneumoniae KpC4 isolated from maize top rot for the determination of various virulence genes and resistance genes. At least thirteen plant disease-causing genes are found to be involved in the disruption of plant defense. Among them, rcsB is responsible for causing disease in both plants and animals. The novel sequence types provide solid evidence that the pathogen invades plant and has robust ecological adaptability. It is imperative to perform further studies on the verification of these KpC4 genes’ functions to understand the molecular mechanisms involved in plant–pathogen interactions

Environmental effect of agriculture-related manufactured nano-objects on soil microbial communities

Agriculture-related manufactured nano-objects (MNOs) can revolutionize the crop production and help to achieve sustainable development goals. MNOs with diverse physico-chemical properties and ability to encapsulate and deliver active ingredients in controlled, targeted and stimuli responsive manner can enhance the efficiency while minimizing collateral damage to non-target organisms and environment. Application of MNOs in the form of nanopesticides and nanofertilizers is known to affect soil microbial communities both positively and negatively, but detailed studies with varying dose, type and environmental conditions are scarce. Therefore, it is imperative to understand the complex mechanisms and factors which shape the MNOs-microbial interactions through integrating state of the art technologies including omics (transcriptomics, metabolomics, and proteomics), artificial intelligence, and statistical frameworks. Lastly, we propose the idea of MNOs-mediated manipulation of soil microbiome to modify the soil microbial communities for improved microbial services. These microbial services, if harnessed appropriately, can revolutionize modern agriculture and help in achieving sustainable development goals

Intellectual Property Protection and High-quality Development of Cotton Industry in Xinjiang

This paper firstly introduces the general situation of cotton planting areas in China and cotton industry in Xinjiang, and the current situation of intellectual property protection of Xinjiang’s cotton industry. Then, it analyzes the main problems in its intellectual property protection and high-quality development. On this basis, it comes up with the recommendations for high-quality development of cotton industry in Xinjiang under the strategy of strengthening the country with intellectual property. The recommendations include improving the level of creation of creative intellectual property rights, building an intellectual property rule system in the entire cotton industry chain in Xinjiang, building protected zones for production of major high quality agricultural product cotton, establishing a demonstration zone to undertake the transfer of the domestic cotton textile and garment industry, undertaking education on the sense of community for the Chinese nation in response to the Xinjiang cotton incident, and developing the "Belt and Road" blue market for Xinjiang cotton and its products

A Study on Intellectual Property Protection of Geographical Indications and Regional Public Brand Building in Xinjiang

This paper studies the geographical indication resources of Xinjiang and their distribution in administrative regions, national grain production functional zones, protected zones for production of major agricultural products, advantageous areas of Chinese characteristic agricultural products, and national advantageous characteristic industrial clusters. It analyzes the main problems existing in the protection of intellectual property rights of geographical indications. Besides, it discusses the strategies for the protection of intellectual property rights of geographical indications in the autonomous region and the building of regional public brands in the contest of the strategy of strengthening the country with intellectual property and rural revitalization strategy. Finally, it comes up with recommendations, including collecting and sorting out the human factors and natural factors of geographical indications of famous, excellent and special products, strengthening the protection of geographical indications of Xinjiang cotton and its products, enhancing the protection of geographical indications of grain and oil crops and sugar beet, etc., implementing the protection of geographical indications for products with special needs for ethnic minorities, building national geographical indication product protection demonstration areas, formulating national and international standards for geographical indication products, and take full advantage of the EU-China Agreement on Cooperation on and Protection of Geographical Indications to actively participate in the EU protection of geographical indications

A Study on Intellectual Property Protection of Geographical Indications and Regional Public Brand Building in Xinjiang

This paper studies the geographical indication resources of Xinjiang and their distribution in administrative regions, national grain production functional zones, protected zones for production of major agricultural products, advantageous areas of Chinese characteristic agricultural products, and national advantageous characteristic industrial clusters. It analyzes the main problems existing in the protection of intellectual property rights of geographical indications. Besides, it discusses the strategies for the protection of intellectual property rights of geographical indications in the autonomous region and the building of regional public brands in the contest of the strategy of strengthening the country with intellectual property and rural revitalization strategy. Finally, it comes up with recommendations, including collecting and sorting out the human factors and natural factors of geographical indications of famous, excellent and special products, strengthening the protection of geographical indications of Xinjiang cotton and its products, enhancing the protection of geographical indications of grain and oil crops and sugar beet, etc., implementing the protection of geographical indications for products with special needs for ethnic minorities, building national geographical indication product protection demonstration areas, formulating national and international standards for geographical indication products, and take full advantage of the EU-China Agreement on Cooperation on and Protection of Geographical Indications to actively participate in the EU protection of geographical indications