() is an important dimorphic mycosis endemic in Southeast Asia and Southern China, but the origin and maintenance of virulence traits in this organism remains obscure. Several pathogenic fungi, including , , , and spp. interact with free living soil amoebae and data suggests that fungal pathogenic strategies may emerge from environmental interactions of these fungi with ubiquitous phagocytic microorganisms. In this study, we examined the interactions of with the soil amoeba . was rapidly ingested by and phagocytosis of fungal cells resulted in amoeba death after 24 h of contact. Co-culture also resulted in a rapid transition for conidia to the fission-yeast form. In addition, well-established virulence factors such as melanin and a yeast specific mannoprotein of were expressed during interaction with at 37°C. Our findings support the assumption that soil amoebae environmental predators play a role in the selection and maintenance of particular features in that impart virulence to this clinically important dimorphic fungus in mammalian hosts.
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http://dx.doi.org/10.3389/fcimb.2022.1023067 | DOI Listing |
Appl Microbiol Biotechnol
January 2025
Key Laboratory of Marine Ranching, Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Affairs, China, South China Sea Fisheries Research Institute, Chinese Academy of Fishery Sciences, Guangzhou, 510300, China.
The construction of artificial reefs (ARs) is an effective way to restore habitats and increase and breed fishery resources in marine ranches. However, studies on the impacts of ARs on the structure, function, and assembly patterns of the bacterial community (BC), which is important in biogeochemical cycles, are lacking. The compositions, diversities, assembly patterns, predicted functions, and key environmental factors of the attached and free-living microbial communities in five-year ARs (O-ARs) and one-year ARs (N-ARs) in Fangchenggang, China, were analyzed via 16S rRNA gene sequencing.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFBr J Hosp Med (Lond)
January 2025
Department of Geriatric Medicine, Royal Free Hospital, London, UK.
Parkinson's disease (PD) is a common neurodegenerative condition that can lead to problems swallowing. Individuals living with PD may be unable to take medications orally for various reasons including acute or chronic dysphagia, non-PD related causes and being placed nil-by-mouth for elective reasons. This article outlines a five-step approach to managing an individual living with PD who is unable to take oral medication acutely.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFPlants (Basel)
January 2025
National Key Laboratory of Agricultural Microbiology, Biotechnology Research Institute, Chinese Academy of Agricultural Sciences, Beijing 100086, China.
One of the most important and essential components of sustainable agricultural production is biostimulants, which are emerging as a notable alternative of chemical-based products to mitigate soil contamination and environmental hazards. The most important modes of action of bacterial plant biostimulants on different plants are increasing disease resistance; activation of genes; production of chelating agents and organic acids; boosting quality through metabolome modulation; affecting the biosynthesis of phytochemicals; coordinating the activity of antioxidants and antioxidant enzymes; synthesis and accumulation of anthocyanins, vitamin C, and polyphenols; enhancing abiotic stress through cytokinin and abscisic acid (ABA) production; upregulation of stress-related genes; and the production of exopolysaccharides, secondary metabolites, and ACC deaminase. is a free-living bacterial genus which can promote the yield and growth of many species, with multiple modes of action which can vary on the basis of different climate and soil conditions.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFPathogens
January 2025
Departamento de Biología, División de Ciencias Naturales y Exactas, Universidad de Guanajuato, Noria Alta s/n, Guanajuato 36050, Mexico.
The path to survival for pathogenic organisms is not straightforward. Pathogens require a set of enzymes for tissue damage generation and to obtain nourishment, as well as a toolbox full of alternatives to bypass host defense mechanisms. Our group has shown that the parasitic protist encodes for 14 sphingomyelinases (SMases); one of them (acid sphingomyelinase 6, aSMase6) is involved in repairing membrane damage and exhibits hemolytic activity.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFSensors (Basel)
January 2025
School of Computer Science, University of Birmingham, Birmingham B15 2TT, UK.
Objective and continuous monitoring of Parkinson's disease (PD) tremor in free-living conditions could benefit both individual patient care and clinical trials, by overcoming the snapshot nature of clinical assessments. To enable robust detection of tremor in the context of limited amounts of labeled training data, we propose to use prototypical networks, which can embed domain expertise about the heterogeneous tremor and non-tremor sub-classes. We evaluated our approach using data from the Parkinson@Home Validation study, including 8 PD patients with tremor, 16 PD patients without tremor, and 24 age-matched controls.
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