Effects of Fishery Utilization on the Physicochemical Index and Microbial Community Composition in Saline-Alkaline Water.

Fishery utilization of idle saline-alkaline water resources offers various benefits including reducing surrounding soil salinity, improving the ecological environment, increasing arable land area, and providing economic advantages to the fishery industry. However, for decades, the characteristics and regulatory mechanisms of microbial communities that affect fishery utilization have not been clear, which restricts their application. In this study, high-throughput 16S rRNA amplicon sequencing was employed to analyze the bacterial community in these water resources. The sequencing yielded high-quality sequences (2,765,063), resulting in the identification of 18,761 bacterial operational taxonomic units (OTUs). Analysis revealed that the type of saline-alkaline water had a more significant influence on the bacterial community compared to seasonal variations within the aquaculture period. The Chao index for saline-alkaline ponds (ASW) was significantly lower (P < 0.05) than for still saline-alkaline water (SSW) and flowing saline-alkaline water (FSW), while the Shannon index for ASW was also significantly lower (P < 0.05) compared to FSW. When comparing ASW to nonaquaculture saline-alkaline water, a decrease in Proteobacteria to 26.87% was noted, particularly α-proteobacteria and γ-proteobacteria, accompanied by a rapid increase in Actinobacteria and Cyanobacteria to 28.60%. Networkx analysis further revealed that ASW significantly increased competition and amensalism from secondary saline-alkaline water microorganisms, resulting in a more solitary bacterial community composition as an adaptive strategy to cope with intense environmental pressures. Key bacterial species such as Pseudomonas, Hydrogenophaga, and Flavobacterium were found to be involved in hydrogen-cycling, nitrogen-cycling, and carbon-cycling, respectively, with all three exhibiting high abundance in FSW. Consequently, FSW demonstrates significant advantages in biogeochemical cycling, pollutant degradation, and the utilization of indigenous probiotic bacteria. Although the surface of abandoned secondary saline-alkaline land was covered with white salt particles, the fishery utilization of saline-alkaline water with low salinity levels (4.0-5.5), and the presence of nitrate and phosphate were identified as primary determinants of bacterial community composition. Nevertheless, a comparison of coastal high-salinity ponds indicated that salinity still selectively affects bacterial communities to some extent. Overall, our study provides valuable insights into the microbial regulation of nitrite during saline-alkaline water aquaculture, thereby aiding in the efficient utilization of secondary saline-alkaline water resources for fisheries.

Expression signature and molecular basis of CDH11 in OSCC detected by a combination of multiple methods.

Oral squamous cell carcinoma (OSCC) is one of the most common malignancy in the oral cancer threatening human health and the survival rate of OSCC has not been effectively improved in recent decades, so more effective biomarkers for the targeted therapy of OSCC are needed. Moreover, the role of CDH11 in OSCC has not been intensively investigated. We here show that the CDH11 protein and mRNA expression levels in the OSCC tissues were all significantly higher than in the non-cancerous tissues using RT-qPCR and western blot. This study also revealed that patients with higher CDH11 levels showed a higher incidence of perineural invasion and lymph node metastasis. By using data available from the Cancer Genome Atlas (TCGA), Gene Expression Omnibus (GEO), and ArrayExpress databases, overexpressed CDH11 in OSCC that associated with patients'history of alcohol, negative Human Papilloma Virus (HPV) status, perineural invasion, infiltration of multiple immune cells, and Single-cell functional states including quiescence and angiogenesis, possessed an excellent discriminatory capability in the OSCC patients. Moreover, the majority of the biological processes or pathways were significantly clustered by co-expressed genes, including extracellular matrix organization, the epithelial to mesenchymal transition, carbon metabolism, and the PI3K-Akt signaling pathway, and the upstream transcriptional regulation mechanism of CDH11 in OSCC was showed on a transcription factor/miRNA-mRNA network with the online tool NetworkAnalyst. Finally, frequent mutation of CDH11 was observed on a mouse OSCC model through whole-genome sequencing. CDH11 might serve as a valuable biomarker in OSCC, as it was identified to be overexpressed in OSCC and related to its clinical progression.

Intestinal ion regulation exhibits a daily rhythm in Gymnocypris przewalskii exposed to high saline and alkaline water.

Naked carp (Gymnocypris przewalskii), endemic to the saline-alkaline Lake Qinghai, have the capacity to tolerate combinations of high salinity and alkalinity, but migrate to spawn in freshwater rivers each year. In this study, we measured the drinking rate over a 24 h period for naked carp exposed to saline-alkaline lake waters with salinities of 15 (L15) and 17 (L17). We also assessed the daily feed intakes of naked carp exposed to L15 and fresh water (FW). Additionally, we studied the daily expression of acid-base regulation and osmoregulation related genes and proteins in the intestine of naked carp exposed to saline-alkaline lake waters. Our results revealed that the drinking rate at night was significantly higher than in daytime when exposed to either L15 or L17, while feed intakes in daytime were significantly higher than at night. The relative expression of Na+/K+-ATPase α (NKA-α), solute carrier family members 26A6 (SLC26A6) and 4A4 (SLC4A4) in the intestine of naked carp exposed to L17 at night was higher than in daytime. Specifically, NKA-α mRNA expression at 4:00 was 7.22-fold and 5.63-fold higher than that at 10:00 and 16:00, respectively, and the expression at 22:00 was 11.29-fold and 8.80-fold higher than that at 10:00 and 16:00, respectively. Similarly, SLC26A6 mRNA expression was greatest at 22:00, exceeding that observed at 4:00, 10:00 and 16:00 by 3.59, 4.44 and 11.14-fold, respectively. Finally, the expression of NKA-α and SLC26A6 protein at the single cell level was also higher at night than during the day, which was 1.65-fold and 1.37-fold higher at 22:00 respectively compared to 16:00. Overall, the present findings revealed that naked carp drinks at night and feeds during the day, demonstrating that intestinal ion regulation exhibits a daily rhythm when exposed to high saline and alkaline lake water.

Automatic and robust segmentation of endoscopic OCT images and optical staining.

We report a generic method for automatic segmentation of endoscopic optical coherence tomography (OCT) images. In this method, OCT images are first processed with L1 -L0 norm minimization based de-noising and smoothing algorithms to increase the signal-to-noise ratio (SNR) and enhance the contrast between adjacent layers. The smoothed images are then formulated into cost graphs based on their vertical gradients. After that, tissue-layer segmentation is performed with the shortest path search algorithm. The efficacy and capability of this method are demonstrated by automatically and robustly identifying all five interested layers of guinea pig esophagus from in vivo endoscopic OCT images. Furthermore, thanks to the ultrahigh resolution, high SNR of endoscopic OCT images and the high segmentation accuracy, this method permits in vivo optical staining histology and facilitates quantitative analysis of tissue geometric properties, which can be very useful for studying tissue pathologies and potentially aiding clinical diagnosis in real time.