Engineered bacterium-binding protein promotes root recruitment of functional bacteria for enhanced cadmium removal from wastewater by phytoremediation.

Functional bacteria promote the efficiency of phytoremediation by enhancing plant growth and participating in decontamination. However, their activity is frequently compromised by the weakness of their interaction with plant roots. In this study, we designed the artificial protein LcGC composed of a bacterium-binding domain, a GFP fluorescence reporter, and a carbohydrate-binding domain to function as a physical contact between functional bacteria and plant roots.

[Long non-coding RNAs: Emerging regulators of antiviral innate immune responses].

Long non-coding RNAs (lncRNAs) are designated as the transcripts longer than 200 nucleotides without protein-coding capacity. As a category of important gene regulatory factors, lncRNAs regulate the expression of target genes at epigenetic, transcription and post-transcriptional levels by various mechanisms, such as chromatin remodeling, DNA modification, transcription inhibition and RNA-RNA interactions, etc. In recent years, studies have shown that many lncRNAs can be induced by viruses or interferon (IFN) and to regulate the expression of related antiviral genes in IFN-mediated antiviral innate immune responses.