Search Results (44)

Citrus bacterial canker (CBC), caused by Xanthomonas citri subsp. citri (Xcc), threatens citrus production worldwide. Long-term dependence on copper-based bactericides not only poses environmental risks but also accelerates the emergence of copper-resistant Xcc strains. To develop safe and efficient alternative control strategies, 72 bacterial strains were isolated from the phyllosphere of citrus plants naturally infected by CBC and identified by 16S rRNA sequencing. Using an Xcc-GFP-based screening method, we systematically screened a highly effective strain, which was identified as Bacillus velezensis RF2 (Bv-RF2). Both inhibition zone assays and bioactivity tests of the crude methanolic extract of Bv-RF2 demonstrated stable antibacterial activity under UV irradiation, protease treatment, high temperature, and across a wide pH range. Whole-genome sequencing and antiSMASH analysis revealed multiple predicted NRPS/PKS-type biosynthetic gene clusters (BGCs). Together with metabolomic profiling, these data provide hypotheses for candidate metabolites that may contribute to antagonism. Bv-RF2 was associated with the induction of PR gene expression in immune-related pathways implicated in CBC responses. In sweet orange leaves, Bv-RF2 infiltration was associated with transient induction of defense-related (PR) genes, consistent with an ISR-like, priming-related response. In addition, Bv-RF2 inhibited the growth of fungal pathogens associated with citrus anthracnose and brown spot in vitro, indicating broad inhibitory potential under the tested conditions. Collectively, Bv-RF2 represents a promising candidate for developing environmentally friendly strategies against CBC and other citrus diseases. Full article

Background/Objectives: Neonatal pain must be treated due to its potential short- and long-term adverse effects. A frenotomy is a painful procedure where common strategies to relieve pain (oral sucrose solutions and sucking) cannot be used because the technique is performed on the tongue. Lavender essential oil (LEO) is useful in treating pain during blood sampling, heel punctures, vaccination, and frenotomies. We aimed to determine whether smelling colostrum had similar effects as inhaled LEO during frenotomies. Methods: A prospective, randomized clinical trial was carried out with neonates who underwent a frenotomy for ankyloglossia between September 2023 and June 2024. We assessed pain using the NIPS score, heart rate, oxygen saturation, and crying time. After obtaining parental informed consent, we randomized patients into experimental and control groups. In both groups, we performed swaddling, administered 1 mL of oral sucrose, and let the newborn suck for 2 min. In the experimental group, we placed a gauze pad with two drops of colostrum, whereas in the control group, we used one drop of LEO 2 cm under the neonate’s nose prior to and during the frenotomy. Results: We enrolled 142 patients (71 experimental cases and 71 controls). The experimental group showed lower crying times (28.0 vs. 40.2 s, p = 0.03). Both groups showed similar NIPS scores (1.4 vs. 1.5, p = 0.28). We observed no side effects in either of the groups. Conclusions: Inhaled colostrum and LEO help relieve pain in neonates who undergo a frenotomy for ankyloglossia and have no side effects. Aromatherapy with colostrum may decrease crying time during the frenotomy. Full article

Background: Plant anthocyanins are a secondary metabolite widely distributed in the roots, stems, leaves, flowers, and fruits of plants, and their synthesis is significantly affected by light intensity. To investigate the synthesis of anthocyanins in Aglaonema commutatum’s leaves under different light intensities is essential. Methods: Using the commonly colored leaf A. commutatum variety ‘Emerald’ as the control group, and the red-leaf varieties ‘Red Ruyi’, ‘Angel’, and ‘Gilly Red’ as the experimental material, three light intensities were set: 254~368 μmol·m⁻²·s⁻¹ (CK), 588~678 μmol·m⁻²·s⁻¹ (T1), and 1125~1267 μmol·m⁻²·s⁻¹ (T2). Results: The changes in anthocyanin content and anthocyanin-related gene expression in the leaves of A. commutatum with different leaf colors under different light intensities were studied. The results show that the anthocyanin content of A. commutatum leaves had a different trend compared to A. commutatum with increasing light intensity, and the appropriate light intensity could significantly promote anthocyanin synthesis after a certain time, and vice-versa. The anthocyanin content of CK and the T1 treatment was 1.14–3.72 times that of the T2 treatment; the photosensitive genes PHYB, CRY, and UVR8 were correlated with the anthocyanin synthesis of ‘Angel’ and ‘Gilly Red’. The anthocyanin structural genes PAL, DFR, and ANS were correlated with the anthocyanin synthesis of ‘Red Ruyi’, ‘Angel’, and ‘Gilly Red’. The anthocyanin transcription factor bHLH was strongly correlated with the anthocyanin synthesis of ‘Angel’. Conclusions: As a byproduct from A. commutatum leaves with ornamental value and potential economic value, this study was helpful to understand the potential mechanism of A. commutatum’s leaves where light intensity regulates anthocyanin synthesis and accumulation. Full article

Aphids (Hemiptera: Aphididae) are cosmopolitan generalist pests of many agricultural crops. Their ability to reproduce rapidly through parthenogenesis allows them to quickly reach population sizes that are difficult to control. Their damage potential is further exacerbated when they act as vectors for plant pathogens, causing diseases in plants. Aphids are typically managed through the widespread use of insecticides, increasing the likelihood of short-term insecticide resistance. However, for the past few decades, entomopathogenic bacteria have been used as an alternative management strategy. Entomopathogenic bacteria have demonstrated their effectiveness for biologically suppressing insect pests, including aphids. In addition to identifying bacterial species that are pathogenic to aphids, research has been conducted on toxins such as Cry, Cyt, Vip, recombinant proteins, and other secondary metabolites with insecticidal activity. Most studies on aphids have been conducted in vitro, exposing them to an artificial diet contaminated with entomopathogenic bacteria or bacterial metabolites for periods ranging from 24 to 96 h. The discovery of new bacterial species with insecticidal potential, as well as the possibility of biotechnological applications through the genetic improvement of crops, will provide more alternatives for managing these agricultural pests in the future. This will also help address challenges related to field application. Full article

Public acceptance of genetically modified crops engineered with Bacillus thuringiensis (Bt) insecticidal protein genes (BT-GMCs), which confer resistance to various lepidopteran insect pests, is generally lacking. As a major concern over BT-GMCs is the allergenicity of insecticidal proteins, alleviating safety concerns should help increase public acceptance. In this study, three lepidopteran-specific Bt toxins, Cry1Aa, Cy1Ab, and Cry1Ac, were treated with simulated digestive fluids under various conditions. Western blotting using antiserum raised against individual segments (α-helices of domain I and β-sheets of domains II and III) of Cry1Aa showed that digestion produces a variety of polypeptides. In particular, the transmembrane α4–α5 of domain I, which may retain the ability to form pores, was the most resistant to digestion. Intact Cry1A toxins and these digests were then applied to RBL-2H3 cultured rat mast cells to determine whether the toxins directly induce histamine release. However, fluorescence microscopy revealed no specific binding of Cry1A toxins to RBL-2H3 cultured rat mast cells. In addition, neither the OPA method nor HPLC analysis detected significant histamine release from mast cells treated with Cry1A toxins and these digests. Our results provide important data supporting the safety of Cry1A toxins and potentially BT-GMCs. Full article

An important hurdle in medical diagnostics is the high-quality and interpretable classification of audio signals. In this study, we present an image-based representation of infant crying audio files to predict abnormal infant cries using a vision transformer and also show significant improvements in the performance and interpretability of this computer-aided tool. The use of advanced feature extraction techniques such as Gammatone Frequency Cepstral Coefficients (GFCCs) resulted in a classification accuracy of 96.33%. For other features (spectrogram and mel-spectrogram), the performance was very similar, with an accuracy of 93.17% for the spectrogram and 94.83% accuracy for the mel-spectrogram. We used our vision transformer (ViT) model, which is less complex but more effective than the proposed audio spectrogram transformer (AST). We incorporated explainable AI (XAI) techniques such as Layer-wise Relevance Propagation (LRP), Local Interpretable Model-agnostic Explanations (LIME), and attention mechanisms to ensure transparency and reliability in decision-making, which helped us understand the why of model predictions. The accuracy of detection was higher than previously reported and the results were easy to interpret, demonstrating that this work can potentially serve as a new benchmark for audio classification tasks, especially in medical diagnostics, and providing better prospects for an imminent future of trustworthy AI-based healthcare solutions. Full article

Cry toxins from Bacillus thuringiensis are effective biopesticides that kill lepidopteran pests, replacing chemical pesticides that indiscriminately attack both target and non-target organisms. However, resistance in susceptible pests is an emerging problem. B. thuringiensis also produces vegetative insecticidal protein (Vip3A), which can kill insect targets in the same group as Cry toxins but using different host receptors, making the combined application of Cry and Vip3A an exciting possibility. Vip3A toxicity requires the formation of a homotetramer. Hence, screening of Vip3A mutants for increased stability requires orthogonal biophysical assays that can test both tetrameric integrity and monomeric robustness. For this purpose, we have used herein for the first time a combination of analytical ultracentrifugation (AUC), mass photometry (MP), differential static light scattering (DSLS) and differential scanning fluorimetry (DSF) to test five mutants at domains I and II. Although all mutants appeared more stable than the wild type (WT) in DSLS, mutants that showed more dissociation into dimers in MP and AUC experiments also showed earlier thermal unfolding by DSF at domains IV–V. All of the mutants were less toxic than the WT, but toxicity was highest for domain II mutations N242C and F229Y. Activation of the protoxin was complete and resulted in a form with a lower sedimentation coefficient. Future high-resolution structural data may lead to a deeper understanding of the increased stability that will help with rational design while retaining native toxicity. Full article

Transgenic poplars have been used to control quarantine pests worldwide, such as the fall webworm (Hyphantria cunea, FW). However, the studies on the resistance mechanism of FW to Cry toxins are limited. This study obtained an FW strain with 45-fold resistance to Cry1Ab toxin by continuous screening in the laboratory. The resistance to Cry1Ab was autosomally completely recessive, and it had approximately 40-fold cross-resistance to Cry1Ac but no cross-resistance to Cry2Ab toxin. Analysis of indoor population life tables for the resistant and susceptible strains found no significant difference in the net reproduction rate (R₀) between the two strains. The resistant strain had an insignificantly longer larval development duration and a comparable pupation rate, pupal weight, emergence rate, eggs laidper female, and egg hatching rate compared to the susceptible strain. This indicated that there was no fitness cost for Cry1Ab resistance. Our study helps in evaluating the risk of resistance to Cry1Ab toxin and the mechanisms of resistance to Cry1Ab toxin in FW. Full article

Recently, emotion analysis has played an important role in the field of artificial intelligence, particularly in the study of speech emotion analysis, which can help understand one of the most direct ways of human emotional communication—speech. This study focuses on the emotion analysis of infant crying. Within cries lies a variety of information, including hunger, pain, and discomfort. This paper proposes an improved classification model using ResNet and transformer. It utilizes modified Mel-frequency cepstral coefficient Mel-frequency cepstral coefficient (MFCC) features obtained through feature engineering from infant cries and integrates SE attention mechanism modules into residual blocks to enhance the model’s ability to adjust channel weights. The proposed method achieved 93% accuracy rate in experiments, offering advantages of shorter training time and higher accuracy compared to other traditional models. It provides an efficient and stable solution for infant cry classification. Full article

Each life is challenged to adapt to an ever-changing environment with integrity—simply put, to maintain identity. We hypothesize that this mission statement of adaptive homeostasis is particularly poignant in an adaptive response, like inflammation. A maladaptive response of unresolved inflammation can seed chronic disease over a lifetime. We propose the concept of a molecular thumbprint: a biological signature of loss of identity as a measure of incomplete return to homeostasis after an inflammatory response. Over time, personal molecular thumbprints can measure dynamic and precise trajectories to chronic inflammatory diseases and further loss of self to cancer. Why is this important? Because the phenotypes and molecular signatures of established complex inflammatory diseases are a far cry from the root of the complex problem, let alone the initial seed. Understanding the science behind key germinating seeds of disease helps to identify molecular factors of susceptibility, resilience, and early dietary or drug intervention. We pilot this hypothesis in a rat colitis model that is well-established for understanding molecular mechanisms of colonic health, disease, and transition of colitis to cancer. Full article

Bacillus thuringiensis (Bt) represents one of the most economical biopesticides to date. It produces toxins with insecticidal activity against many agricultural pests, including members of the genus Spodoptera. However, Bt tolerance leads to inefficiency in biological control. To overcome this problem, discovering the hidden cause(s) for the evolution of insect tolerance against Bt is of great importance. We hypothesized that changes in the gut microbiota due to the frequent application of Bt is one of those hidden causes. To investigate this hypothesis, we studied the effect of Bt Cry1c application on the Spodoptera littoralis larval gut microbiota in both Bt-susceptible and Bt-tolerant populations. The results revealed changes in the diversity and abundance of gut bacterial composition between the susceptible and tolerant populations. A high abundance of Enterococcaceae was detected in the tolerant population. Interestingly, Cry1c tolerance eliminates the bacterial genera Klebsiella and Serratia from the larval midgut. These changes may confirm the mechanism developed by Spodoptera larvae to counteract Bt Cry1c toxicity. Understanding the B. thuringiensis–gut microbiota interaction may help in improving biocontrol strategies against agricultural pests to overcome the evolution of tolerance. Full article

Background: The dreaded sensation of pain in the dental chair has a significant impact on children’s behavior. This study aimed to compare and contrast the perception of pain and patient behavior between the use of INJEX and the conventional syringe needle technique during pulpotomy among children. Methods: A randomized clinical trial was designed and conducted among pediatric dentistry patients aged 6–12 years old. Fifty-eight children were divided into two groups, conventional syringe needle and INJEX, using simple randomization method applying the sequentially numbered, opaque, sealed envelope method of allocation concealment. Anesthesia was administered to the groups as local infiltration by a single operator following routine behavior guidance techniques. After 3 min, pulpotomy was performed using the standard protocol. The Face, Legs, Activity, Cry, Consolability (FLACC) scale and Wong–Baker FACES Pain Rating Scale (WBS) were used to assess the intensity of pain, while the Frankl behavior rating scale (FBRS) was used to assess the children’s behavior. Results: During anesthesia, most of the participants in the INJEX group (median = 3) had higher FBRS scores compared with the conventional syringe needle group (median = 2), and the difference was very highly significant (p-value < 0.001). Analyzing the FLACC scores during local anesthesia administration revealed a high statistical significance (p-value < 0.01) across the two groups. A very high statistically significant difference (p-values < 0.001) with higher WBS scores for pain intensity was seen in the group using conventional syringe needles. Conclusions: INJEX administration significantly reduced the intensity of pain experienced by the children and helped maintain a positive attitude among them during pulpotomy. It provided a positive and comfortable experience for both the child and the practitioner. Therefore, it can serve as an excellent alternative to conventional needle anesthesia. Full article

Natural enemies are an additional component that may interact directly with the plant–virus–vector association, affecting viral dispersion. In our study, we conducted olfactometry assays to explore how single and mixed infections with CMV or/and CABYV modify the attractiveness of A. colemani to aphid-free and aphid-infested melon plants using two melon genotypes. Subsequently, we investigated the influence of CABYV-infected plants infested by A. gossypii on the parasitism rate and emergence of A. colemani in a dual-choice assay under greenhouse conditions. Our study demonstrates that males showed no preference for either infected or non-infected plants. Female parasitoids exhibit a preference for volatiles emitted by CMV and mixed-infected melon plants over clean air but not over mock-inoculated plants, suggesting a response influenced by plant genotype. Female parasitoid responses to CABYV and its interactions with aphids revealed a preference for mock-inoculated plants over CABYV-infected plants and a parasitism rate slightly higher (7.12%) on non-infected plants. Our study revealed that (1) parasitoids may reject olfactory cues from CABYV-infected plants, potentially interfering with the plant’s “cry for help” response; (2) in the case of CMV, whether in single or mixed infections, non-infected plants are as attractive as infected ones to parasitoids. Our findings suggest that persistent viruses manipulate aphid parasitoid behavior to their advantage, promoting virus disease in melon crops. Full article

The fall armyworm, Spodoptera frugiperda J.E. Smith (Lepidoptera: Noctuidae), is an agricultural pest native to tropical and subtropical regions of the Americas, with considerable potential for global invasion and seasonal migration. Although genetically modified (GM) plants have shown positive impacts on the economy and the environment as they synthesize proteins that act as natural insecticides and are primarily intended to protect the crops from damage by specific pests, potential effects of Bt toxins on non-target organisms can occur. This experiment aimed to evaluate the potential impacts on the parasitoid Palmistichus elaeisis (Hymenoptera: Eulophidae), using the pupae of Spodoptera frugiperda (Lepidoptera: Noctuidae) as hosts, which were fed with transgenic maize genotypes such as Herculex^®, expressing Cry1F protein, and PowerCore^®, expressing Cry1F, Cry1A.105, and Cry2Ab2 proteins, or their non-transgenic isohybrid. The experiment was conducted in a completely randomized design with ten replicates. Spodoptera frugiperda larvae were fed ad libitum with transgenic and non-transgenic maize until the pupal stage and then individually exposed to six P. elaeisis females for 78 h. The total number of adults, emerged males, tibia size, cephalic capsule size, and parasitoid body size were not influenced by host feeding. However, the number of emerged females from the Herculex^® and PowerCore^® treatments was lower than that for the isohybrid treatment. The sex ratio and longevity of parasitoids emerging from PowerCore^® were 1.05 and 1.26 times lower, respectively, than that of those from the isohybrid. Furthermore, the number of dead P. elaeisis within the host pupa was 10.56 times higher in the PowerCore^® genotype. Combining Bt proteins within pyramided genotypes should cause minimal impacts and promote the conservation and integration of beneficial insects. The results of this study provide helpful information for developing effective and compatible integrated pest management (IPM) strategies. Full article

Nowadays, wild animals are threatened by humans, with the number of species and individuals decreasing during recent years. Wildlife rescue centers play a vital role in the conservation of wildlife populations. This study aims to describe a new release technique, the Speaker Method, to rescue and facilitate the reunion of different baby mammals that arrived at a wildlife rescue center with their mothers within their natural habitat, avoiding the need for captivity. This method is based on a recorded baby’s cry played on a speaker to make a “call effect” in the mother. The efficacy of the Speaker Method for babies’ reunion with their mothers was 45.8% in Hoffmann’s two-toed sloths (Choloepus hoffmanni) and 91.9% in brown-throated sloths (Bradypus variegatus). Among the mantled howler monkeys (Alouatta palliata), 50% of the babies could be released using this new technique. The findings suggest that the method could be helpful in the early release of young individuals, highlighting higher release outcomes in these three species compared to traditional nursery care provided by human caretakers, who face inherent difficulties in raising young animals without their mothers. Full article