The Construction of a Microbial Synthesis System for Rare Earth Enrichment and Material Applications.

Rare earth materials play an irreplaceable role in biomedical and high technology fields. However, typical mining and extraction approaches to rare earth elements (REEs) often lead to severe environmental problems and resource wastage due to the involvement of hazardous chemicals. Although biomining shows elegant alternatives, there are still grand challenges to sustainably isolate and recover REEs in nature because of insufficient metal-extracting microbes and RE-scavenging macromolecular tools.

Microbial and enzymatic battle with food contaminant zearalenone (ZEN).

Zearalenone (ZEN) contamination of various foods and feeds is an important global problem. In some animals and humans, ZEN causes significant health issues in addition to massive economic losses, annually. Therefore, removal or degradation of the ZEN in foods and feeds is required to be done.

Isolation, characterization and comparison of lytic Epseptimavirus phages targeting Salmonella.

This study describes the characterization and genomic analysis of six lytic Salmonella phages. To examine the feasibility of using these phages as biocontrol agents, we analyzed their genomes and compared them to those of similar phages. These six phages belong to genus Epseptimavirus, family Demerecviridae.

Profiles of COVID-19 clinical trials in the Chinese Clinical Trial Registry.

The COVID-19 pandemic has caused a global public health crisis. There is a pressing need for evidence-based interventions to address the devastating clinical and public health effects of the COVID-19 pandemic. The Chinese scientists supported by private and government resources have adopted extensive efforts to identify effective drugs against the virus.

The endolysin of the Acinetobacter baumannii phage vB_AbaP_D2 shows broad antibacterial activity.

The emergence and rapid spread of multidrug-resistant bacteria has induced intense research for novel therapeutic approaches. In this study, the Acinetobacter baumannii bacteriophage D2 (vB_AbaP_D2) was isolated, characterized and sequenced. The endolysin of bacteriophage D2, namely Abtn-4, contains an amphipathic helix and was found to have activity against multidrug-resistant Gram-negative strains.

Complete genome analysis of a Staphylococcus aureus phage (vBSM-A1).

In this study, the genome of a new strain of lytic Staphylococcus aureus Herelleviridae, vBSM-A1, was characterized and annotated. The phage was isolated from sewage samples collected in Xinjiang Province, China. The genome of vBSM-A1 was found to comprise a linear double-stranded DNA of 140,654 bp length, with a G + C content of 30.

Complete genome analysis of the novel Edwardsiella tarda phage vB_EtaM_ET-ABTNL-9.

This work describes the characterization and genome annotation of a new lytic phage, vB_EtaM_ET-ABTNL-9 (referred to as PETp9), isolated from waste water samples collected in Dalian, China, that can kill bacteria of the species Edwardsiella tarda. The genome of phage PETp9 is a circular double-stranded DNA molecule that is 89,762 bp in length with a G+C content of 37.26%, contains 132 ORFs, and encodes one tRNA.

Interleukin-24 Concentrations Not Related with Age, but Affect Pro- and Anti-Inflammatory Cytokines Differently in Healthy Donors.

Background: Interleukin 24 (IL-24) is expressed at different levels in a variety of tumor tissues and matched normal tissues and is regarded as a potential tumor biomarker as its expression levels in tumor tissues are associated with tumor patient prognosis. At present, the expression level of IL-24 in healthy human peripheral blood is unknown.

Methods: In this study, 1940 blood samples were collected using different processing methods from healthy donors.