Candida africana is distributed worldwide and colonized in human genitalia and cause mainly vulvovaginal candidiasis (VVC). We report the multilocus sequence typing (MLST) analysis of C. africana ...from VVC.
MLST analysis of 43 strains of C. africana, which were isolated from vaginal specimens of patients with VVC, was performed. The enzymatic activity of phospholipase, esterase and haemolysis enzyme production was evaluated.The level of virulent genes and resistant genes mRNA expression was determined by using real-time PCR. Antifungal susceptibilities of the isolates were assayed by using the broth microdilution method. The statistical of the results was determined by the T test and Pearson chi-squared test.
The MLST analysis revealed a substantial degree of genetic homogeneity. The DST782 and DST182 were the main MLST genotypes in C. africana. All the patients were symptomatic and with a high mycological cure rate when treated with commonly used antifungal agents.There were statistically significant differences in biofilm formation and phospholipase activity between C. africana and C.albicans. The level of virulent genes and resistant genes mRNA expression was higher in fluconazole-resistant strains. All C. africana isolates were susceptible to fluconazole, itraconazole, voriconazole, caspofungin, and micafungin. These isolates also exhibited low MICs to amphotericin B, flucytosine, and posaconazole.
Candida africana appear to be with a low level of sequence variation in MLST loci. Candida africana, a lower virulence candida, is susceptible to commonly used antifungal agents. This paper was presented at the conference of 8th Trend in Medical Mycology (6-9 October 2017, Belgrade, Serbia) and was published on conference abstract.
Aim
Quinoline is a recalcitrant pollutant in coking wastewater which has been broadly investigated with many isolates possessing aerobic quinoline‐degrading ability. However, studies on anaerobic ...degradation and the corresponding bacteria are very scarce. This study attempted to investigate the role of diverse functional members and the redundancy of quinoline degradation in a lab‐scale quinoline denitrifying bioreactor.
Methods and Results
Antibiotics were added to the batch culture under denitrifying conditions to disturb the microbial community of the quinoline‐degrading bioreactor. According to the results, the nitrate removal rate remained stable, and the quinoline removal rate increased by 9·7% after treatment with streptomycin. However, PCoA analysis of 16S rRNA gene sequencing data of these samples indicated a significant shift in microbial community structures. Specifically, 12 operational taxonomic units (OTUs), including OTU1 (Pseudomonas) and OTU2 (Achromobacter), were significantly enriched. OTU1 replaced OTU8 (Thauera) as the most predominant denitrifying quinoline‐degrading member. However, OTU8 and other predominant OTUs (Comamonas and Pseudoxanthomonas), which were hypothesized to contribute essentially to quinoline degradation in the origin bioreactor, became almost undetectable.
Conclusion
Functional redundancy due to high biological diversity allowed the role reversal of predominant quinoline‐degrading bacteria and other rare bacteria when disturbed by antibiotic stress. Although the abundance of OTU1 was much lower initially, it replaced the essential role of the predominant member OTU8 in the bioreactor community for quinoline degradation once the environmental condition changed.
Significance and Impact of the Study
This study indicated that the high biological diversity in a wastewater treatment bacterial community is crucial for maintaining the degrading function of organic pollutants, especially in a changing environment due to external disturbance or stress.
Background
Radioiodine therapy (RAI) after total or near-total thyroidectomy is a recommended treatment for patients with pulmonary metastasis from differentiated thyroid cancer (DTC). However, the ...total effective rate of iodine-131 therapy remains controversial. This study aimed to determine the efficacy of RAI for treating patients with pulmonary metastasis from DTC, and to identify independent predictors of its efficacy.
Methods
We conducted a retrospective study to evaluate 20 patients with pulmonary metastasis from DTC who underwent RAI at our center at first and performed a meta-analysis to evaluate relevant literature regarding the overall efficacy of RAI and subgroup-specific efficacies subsequently.
Results
The efficacy rate at our center was 40%, and no significant differences were observed according to sex, age, pathological type, metastasis state, or interval between the initial RAI and final surgery. The meta-analysis revealed that the pooled overall efficacy rate was 58%, and significant differences were observed when we compared pulmonary metastasis versus pulmonary and other distant metastasis, age of < 40 years versus age of ≥ 40 years, papillary thyroid cancer versus follicular thyroid cancer and male patients versus female patients.
Conclusions
These results suggest that RAI is an effective treatment for patients with pulmonary metastasis from DTC after surgical treatment. The efficacy of RAI was significantly predicted by the presence of papillary thyroid cancer, age of < 40 years, the absence of non-lung distant metastasis and female patients.
Accuracy and precision of the RABBIT technique Isinger, M; Busto, D; Mikaelsson, S ...
Philosophical transactions - Royal Society. Mathematical, Physical and engineering sciences/Philosophical transactions - Royal Society. Mathematical, physical and engineering sciences,
05/2019, Letnik:
377, Številka:
2145
Journal Article
Recenzirano
Odprti dostop
One of the most ubiquitous techniques within attosecond science is the so-called reconstruction of attosecond beating by interference of two-photon transitions (RABBIT). Originally proposed for the ...characterization of attosecond pulses, it has been successfully applied to the accurate determination of time delays in photoemission. Here, we examine in detail, using numerical simulations, the effect of the spatial and temporal properties of the light fields and of the experimental procedure on the accuracy of the method. This allows us to identify the necessary conditions to achieve the best temporal precision in RABBIT measurements. This article is part of the theme issue 'Measurement of ultrafast electronic and structural dynamics with X-rays'.
Effect of chemical and organic fertilization on soil carbon and nitrogen accumulation in a newly cultivated farmland YANG Rong, SU Yong-zhong, WANG Tao, YANG Qin (1Key Laboratory of Crop Genetics and Physiology of Jiangsu Province/Co-Innovation Center for Modern Production Technology of Grain Crops/College of Agriculture, Yangzhou University, Yangzhou 225009, P.R.China 2Suzhou Chien-Shiung Institute of Technology, Suzhou 215411, P.R.China)
Journal of Integrative Agriculture,
03/2016, Letnik:
15, Številka:
3
Journal Article
Recenzirano
Odprti dostop
Increased food demand from the rapidly growing human population has caused intensive land transition from desert to farmland in arid regions of northwest China. In this developing ecosystem, the ...optimized fertilization strategies are becoming an urgent need for sustainable crop productivity, efficient resources use, together with the delivery of ecosystems services including soil carbon（C） and nitrogen（N） accumulation. Through a 7-year field experiment with 9 fertilization treatments in a newly cultivated farmland, we tested whether different fertilizations had significant influences on soil C and N accumulation in this developing ecosystem, and also investigated possible mechanisms for this influence. The results showed that applying organic manure in cultivated farmland significantly increased the soil C and N accumulation rates; this influence was greater when it was combined with chemical fertilizer, accumulating 2.01 t C and 0.11 t N ha~（–1） yr~（–1） in the most successful fertilization treatment. These high rates of C and N accumulation were found associated with increased input of C and N, although the relationship between the N accumulation rate and N input was not significant. The improved soil physical properties was observed under only organic manure and integrated fertilization treatments, and the significant relationship between soil C or N and soil physical properties were also found in this study. The results suggest that in newly cultivated farmland, long term organic manure and integrated fertilization can yield significant benefits for soil C and N accumulation, and deliver additional influence on physical properties.
Abstract
We present the waiting time statistics of solar flares observed during the solar cycle 23 and of stellar flares produced by a solar-type star (KIC 11551430). The Kolmogorov–Smirnov test is ...applied to examine the reliability of Poisson hypothesis for the flare production. Different degrees of departure from a Poisson process have been found, depending on the flare intensities and levels of star activities. We then fit the waiting time distributions with both the non-stationary Poisson function and the Weibull function. It is evident that a certain amount of memory is present during the period of high solar activities, consistent with the result of Telloni et al. Furthermore, our analysis indicates that the occurrence of relatively ‘weak’ flares are persistently correlated, while the production of ‘super flares’ is closer to a stochastic process statistically.
•In-situ TiB2/Al-Mg-Si composites were processed by friction stir processing.•FSP can enhance both the ultimate strength and the elongation of the composite samples.•High strength was achieved ...without sacrificing the ductility in TiB2/Al-Mg-Si composites.
In this paper, we reported microstructure and mechanical properties of the in-situ TiB2/Al–Mg–Si composites processed by friction stir processing (FSP). Compared with the initial state, the proper FSP conditions can enhance both the ultimate strength and the elongation of the composite samples obtained from the nugget zone. Detailed microstructure investigation has been performed by synchrotron X-ray diffraction, scanning and transmission electron microscopy and associated electron backscattered diffraction in order to reveal the mechanisms being responsible for the unusual mechanical behaviors. The results show that the initial composite has a grain size of 50–100μm and the synthesized nanosized TiB2 particles are almost agglomerated to form micrometer sized clusters at grain boundaries. Comparatively, after FSP, the nugget zone is characterized by fine and equiaxed recrystallized grains (1–5μm in average grain size). The initial clusters are also broken up, while the nanosized TiB2 particles are distributed much more uniformly in the matrix and act as effective pins to interact with dislocations. Hence, the significantly refined grains and the uniform distribution of the nanosized TiB2 particles mainly contribute to the increase of both strength and ductility of the FSPed composites. The strengthening mechanisms are also discussed.
KEY MESSAGE : Stripe rust resistance transferred from Thinopyrum intermedium into common wheat was controlled by a single dominant gene, which mapped to chromosome 1B near Yr26 and was designated ...YrL693. Stripe rust caused by Puccinia striiformis f. sp. tritici (Pst) is a highly destructive disease of wheat (Triticum aestivum). Stripe rust resistance was transferred from Thinopyrum intermedium to common wheat, and the resulting introgression line (L693) exhibited all-stage resistance to the widely virulent and predominant Chinese pathotypes CYR32 and CYR33 and to the new virulent pathotype V26. There was no cytological evidence that L693 had alien chromosomal segments from Th. intermedium. Genetic analysis of stripe rust resistance was performed by crossing L693 with the susceptible line L661. F₁, F₂, and F₂:₃ populations from reciprocal crosses showed that resistance was controlled by a single dominant gene. A total 479 F₂:₃ lines and 781 pairs of genomic simple sequence repeat (SSR) primers were employed to determine the chromosomal location of the resistance gene. The gene was linked to six publicly available and three recently developed wheat genomic SSR markers. The linked markers were localized to wheat chromosome 1B using Chinese Spring nulli-tetrasomic lines, and the resistance gene was localized to chromosome 1B based on SSR and wheat genomic information. A high-density genetic map was also produced. The pedigree, molecular marker data, and resistance response indicated that the stripe rust resistance gene in L693 is a novel gene, which was temporarily designated YrL693. The SSR markers that co-segregate with this gene (Xbarc187-1B, Xbarc187-1B-1, Xgwm18-1B, and Xgwm11-1B) have potential application in marker-assisted breeding of wheat, and YrL693 will be useful for broadening the genetic basis of stripe rust resistance in wheat.
Oxide dispersion strengthened (ODS) ferritic alloys have a vast applicability due to their excellent mechanical resistance at high temperature. The precipitate dispersion of the nanoparticles in the ...matrix has a great effect on the creep properties of the material; in order to study the kinetics of precipitation of Y2Ti2O7 nanoparticles in Fe–14Cr1W ODS alloy, annealing experiments were taken at different temperatures (1050°C–1400°C) and for different times (0.5–10h), then these samples were characterized by the small-angle neutron scattering technique (SANS) under magnetic field and TEM investigations and microhardness measurements were performed to gather nanoscopic information about the dispersed oxide particles size.
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