ACS Appl Mater Interfaces
September 2024
The development of new microbicidal compounds has become a top priority due to the emergence and spread of drug-resistant pathogenic microbes. In this study, blue-emitting and positively charged carbon dots (CDs), called Du-CDs, were fabricated for the first time utilizing the natural product extract of endophyte YSP3 as raw material through a one-step solvothermal method, which possessed varied functional groups including amino, carboxyl, hydroxyl, and sulfite groups. Interestingly, Du-CDs exhibited notably enhanced antimicrobial activities toward both bacteria and fungi as compared to the natural product extract of YSP3, with low minimum inhibitory concentrations.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFHow prevalent is spontaneous thrombosis in a population containing all sizes of intracranial aneurysms? How can we calibrate computational models of thrombosis based on published data? How does spontaneous thrombosis differ in normo- and hypertensive subjects? We address the first question through a thorough analysis of published datasets that provide spontaneous thrombosis rates across different aneurysm characteristics. This analysis provides data for a subgroup of the general population of aneurysms, namely, those of large and giant size (>10 mm). Based on these observed spontaneous thrombosis rates, our computational modeling platform enables the first observational study of spontaneous thrombosis prevalence across a broader set of aneurysm phenotypes.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFβ-glucosidases play an important role in the synthesis of cellulase in fungi, but their molecular functions and mechanisms remain unknown. We found that the 10 putative β-glucosidases investigated in facilitate cellulase production, with being the most crucial Transcriptional analysis revealed that the most affected biological processes in △ strain were cellulase synthesis, ribosome biogenesis, and RNA polymerases. Moreover, CEL3J was unconventionally transported through the endoplasmic reticulum, bypassing the Golgi apparatus, whereas overexpression altered cellulase secretion from conventional to unconventional, likely owing to the activated unconventional protein secretion pathway (UPS), as indicated by the upregulation of genes related to UPS.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFSugar transporters play an important role in the cellulase production of lignocellulose-degrading fungi. Nevertheless, the role and function of these transporters are still unclear. Here we first report intracellular sugar transporters assisting cellulase production in () using lactose.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFAntimicrobial peptides (AMPs) are potent compounds for treating bacterial infection and cancer, drawing ever-increasing interest. However, the function and mechanism of most AMPs remain to be explored. In this research, we focused on investigating the antibacterial and anticancer activities of four AMPs (Dhvar4, Lasioglossin-III, Macropin 1, and Temporin La) and the possible corresponding mechanisms.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFComput Methods Programs Biomed
March 2023
Background And Objectives: Automatic segmentation of the cerebral vasculature and aneurysms facilitates incidental detection of aneurysms. The assessment of aneurysm rupture risk assists with pre-operative treatment planning and enables in-silico investigation of cerebral hemodynamics within and in the vicinity of aneurysms. However, ensuring precise and robust segmentation of cerebral vessels and aneurysms in neuroimaging modalities such as three-dimensional rotational angiography (3DRA) is challenging.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFNucleolus, which participates in many crucial cellular activities, is an ideal target for evaluating the state of a cell or an organism. Here, bright red-emissive carbon dots (termed CPCDs) with excitation-independent/polarity-dependent fluorescence emission are synthesized by a one-step hydrothermal reaction between congo red and p-phenylenediamine. The CPCDs can achieve wash-free, real-time, long-term, and high-quality nucleolus imaging in live cells, as well as in vivo imaging of two common model animals-zebrafish and Caenorhabditis elegans (C.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFThe measurement of fungal cell growth in submerged culture systems containing insoluble compounds is essential yet difficult due to the interferences from the insoluble compounds like biopolymers. Here, we developed a fluorescent strategy based on chitosan-modified fluorescein isothiocyanate (GC-FITC) to monitor the cell growth of lignocellulosic fungi cultivated on biopolymers. GC-FITC could stain only lignocellulosic fungi (Tricoderma reesei, Penicillium oxalicum, Aspergillus nidulans, and Neurospora crassa), but not biopolymers (cellulose, xylan, pectin, or lignin), excluding the interferences from these insoluble biopolymer.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFBiotechnol Biofuels Bioprod
November 2022
Background: In the process of cellulose hydrolysis, carbohydrate hydrolysates are transported into cells through membrane transporters, and then affect the expression of cellulase-encoding genes. Sugar transporters play a crucial role in cellulase production in lignocellulolytic fungi, of which relatively few have been functionally validated to date and are all reported to be on cell membrane.
Result: Through transcriptome analysis and qRT-PCR, three putative MFS sugar transporters GST, MFS, and LAC1 were found to display significantly higher mRNA levels in T.
Frequent bacterial/fungal infections and occurrence of antibiotic resistance pose increasing threats to the public and thus require the development of new antibacterial/antifungal agents and strategies. Carbon dots (CDs) have been well demonstrated to be promising and potent antimicrobial nanomaterials and serve as potential alternatives to conventional antibiotics. In recent years, great efforts have been made by many researchers to develop new carbon dot-based antimicrobial agents to combat microbial infections.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFDespite the remarkable significance and encouraging breakthroughs of intracellular enzyme-instructed self-assembly of peptides (IEISAP) in disease diagnosis and treatment, a comprehensive review that focuses on this topic is still desirable. In this article, we carefully review the advances in the applications of IEISAP, including the development of various bioimaging techniques, such as fluorescence imaging, photoacoustic imaging, magnetic resonance imaging, positron-emission tomography imaging, radiation imaging, and multimodal imaging, which are successfully leveraged in visualizing cancer tissues and cells, bacteria, and enzyme activity. We also summarize the utilization of IEISAP in disease treatments, including anticancer, antibacterial, and antiinflammation applications, among others.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFNucleus pH is closely linked to many diseases such as aging, heart disease, skeletal myopathies, cancer, Alzheimer's disease, etc. Nevertheless, fluorescent sensors that can directly monitor nucleus pH changes have not yet been reported. Here, we first reported a green emissive carbon dots (CDs) for nucleus pH detection in living cells.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFBiotechnol Biofuels Bioprod
August 2022
Background: Microbial production of bioactive secondary metabolites is challenging as most of the encoding genes are silent; and even if they are activated, the biosynthetic pathways are usually complex. Sorbicillinoids with multifunctional bioactivities are examples of these problems, which if solved can result in a more sustainable, simple supply of these important compounds to the pharmaceutical industry. As an excellent producer of cellulosic enzymes, Trichoderma reesei can secrete various sorbicillinoids.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFBackground: Knowledge on regulatory networks associated with cellulase biosynthesis is prerequisite for exploitation of such regulatory systems in enhancing cellulase production with low cost. The biological functions of intron retention (IR) and nonsense-mediated mRNA decay (NMD) in filamentous fungi is lack of study, let alone their roles in cellulase biosynthesis.
Results: We found that major cellulase genes (cel7a, cel7b, and cel3a) exhibited concomitant decrease in IR rates and increase in their gene expression in T.
Background: A total of 11 β-glucosidases are predicted in the genome of Trichoderma reesei, which are of great importance for regulating cellulase biosynthesis. Nevertheless, the relevant function and regulation mechanism of each β-glucosidase remained unknown.
Results: We evidenced that overexpression of cel1b dramatically decreased cellulase synthesis in T.
Given the significant impact of ions on environment pollution and human health, it is urgently needed to establish effective and convenient ion detection approaches, particularly in living cells. In this paper, we constructed multicolor N-doped-carbon dots (mPD-CDs) by facile one-step hydrothermal carbonization of m-phenylenediamine (mPD). mPD-CDs were successfully deployed for multicolor cellular imaging for animal cells, fungi, and bacteria in a wash-free way with high photostability and satisfactory biocompability.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFCongo red (CR) is a hazardous pigment, posing increasing dangerous to the environment and human health. However, the in-situ detection of CR in living cells has not been reported, as far as we know. Here, negatively-charged green-emitting Ca, N, S-doped carbon dots (Mis-mPD-CDs) were fabricated from plant and m-phenylenediamine (mPD) by facile one-step hydrothermal carbonization.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFThe discrimination between dead and live cells is crucial for cell viability evaluation. Carbon dots (CDs), with advantages like simple and cost-effective synthesis, excellent biocompatibility, and high photostability, have shown potential for realizing selective live/dead cell staining. However, most of the developed CDs with the live/dead cell discrimination capacity usually have low photoluminescence quantum yields (PLQYs) and excitation wavelength-dependent fluorescence emission (which can cause fluorescence overlap with other fluorescent probes and make dual-color live/dead staining impossible), and hence, developing ultrabright CDs with excitation wavelength-independent fluorescence emission property for live/dead cell discrimination becomes an important task.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFBiotechnol Biofuels
October 2021
Background: Cellulase synthesized by fungi can environment-friendly and sustainably degrades cellulose to fermentable sugars for producing cellulosic biofuels, biobased medicine and fine chemicals. Great efforts have been made to study the regulation mechanism of cellulase biosynthesis in fungi with the focus on the carbon sources, while little attention has been paid to the impact and regulation mechanism of nitrogen sources on cellulase production.
Results: Glutamine displayed the strongest inhibition effect on cellulase biosynthesis in Trichoderma reesei, followed by yeast extract, urea, tryptone, ammonium sulfate and L-glutamate.
has 11 putative β-glucosidases in its genome, playing key parts in the induction and production of cellulase. Nevertheless, the reason why the genome encodes so many β-glucosidases and the distinct role each β-glucosidase plays in cellulase production remain unknown. In the present study, the cellular function and distribution of 10 known β-glucosidases (CEL3B, CEL3E, CEL3F, CEL3H, CEL3J, CEL1A, CEL3C, CEL1B, CEL3G, and CEL3D) were explored in , leaving out BGL1 (CEL3A), which has been well investigated.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFBackground: Knowledge with respect to regulatory systems for cellulase production is prerequisite for exploitation of such regulatory networks to increase cellulase production, improve fermentation efficiency and reduce the relevant production cost. The target of rapamycin (TOR) signaling pathway is considered as a central signaling hub coordinating eukaryotic cell growth and metabolism with environmental inputs. However, how and to what extent the TOR signaling pathway and rapamycin are involved in cellulase production remain elusive.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFAntimicrobial photodynamic therapy (APDT) is a promising alternative to traditional antibiotics for the treatment of bacterial infections, which inactivates a broad spectrum of bacteria. However, many traditional photosensitizers (PSs) are hydrophobic with poor water solubility and easy aggregation. On the other hand, some light sources such as ultraviolet (UV) have poor penetration and high cytotoxicity.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFBackground And Aims: The development and progression of hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC) is dependent on its local microenvironment. Tumor-associated macrophages (TAMs) are deemed a key factor for the tumor microenvironment and attribute to contribute to tumor aggressiveness. However, the detailed mechanism underlying the pro-metastatic effect of TAMs on HCC remains undefined.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFPancreatic ductal adenocarcinoma (PDAC) is radioresistant. Due to their strong X-ray absorption capacity, gold nanoparticles (AuNPs) have been used as radiosensitizers for cancer therapeutics. Herein, we describe a novel conjugate complex consisting of a peptide for targeting plectin-1 (PTP) specifically expressed on the PDAC cell membrane and AuNPs, termed AuNP-PTP, to be used for PDAC radiotherapy and .
View Article and Find Full Text PDFHere it is demonstrated how some anionic food additives commonly used in our diet, such as tartrazine (TZ), bind to DHVAR4, an antimicrobial peptide (AMP) derived from oral host defense peptides, resulting in significantly fostered toxic activity against both Gram-positive and Gram-negative bacteria, but not against mammalian cells. Biophysical studies on the DHVAR4-TZ interaction indicate that initially large, positively charged aggregates are formed, but in the presence of lipid bilayers, they rather associate with the membrane surface. In contrast to synergistic effects observed for mixed antibacterial compounds, this is a principally different mechanism, where TZ directly acts on the membrane-associated AMP promoting its biologically active helical conformation.
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