A non-symbiotic novel species, Rhizobium populisoli sp. nov., isolated from rhizosphere soil of Populus popularis.

Strain XQZ8T, isolated from the rhizosphere soil of a Populus popularis plant in China, was characterized using a polyphasic taxonomic approach. Cells were Gram-negative, aerobic, non-spore-forming, and rod-shaped. Phylogenetic analysis based on 16S rRNA gene sequences indicated that strain XQZ8T was related to members of the genus Rhizobium and had the highest 16S rRNA gene sequence similarity to Rhizobium smilacinae PTYR-5T (96.6%). The average nucleotide identity and digital DNA-DNA hybridization value between strain XQZ8T and R. smilacinae PTYR-5T were 77.5% and 21.4%, respectively. TYGS whole-genome-based taxonomic and multi-locus sequence analyses of three concatenated housekeeping genes (atpD-recA-glnII) further indicated that strain XQZ8T was a new member of the genus Rhizobium. The major cellular fatty acids included summed feature 8 (C18:1 ω7c/C18:1 ω6c), summed feature 2 (C12:0 aldehyde/unknown 10.928), C16:0, and C19:0 cyclo ω8c. The major respiratory quinones were Q-9 and Q-10. The polar lipids were phosphatidylglycerol, phosphatidylcholine, phosphatidylethanolamine, phosphatidyldimethylethanolamine, phosphatidylmonomethylethanolamine, an unidentified glycophospholipid, and three unidentified lipids. The genomic DNA G + C content of the strain was 60.1 mol%. Based on the phylogenetic, phenotypic, and genotypic characteristics, strain XQZ8T represents a novel species of the genus Rhizobium, for which the name Rhizobium populisoli sp. nov. is proposed. The type strain is XQZ8T (= JCM 34442T = GDMCC 1.2201T).

In Vitro Antibacterial and Antitumor Activity of Total Triterpenoids from a Medicinal Mushroom Sanghuangporus sanghuang (Agaricomycetes) in Liquid Fermentation Culture.

We analyzed the biological activity and composition of total triterpenoids extracted from the liquid fermentation culture of the medicinal mushroom Sanghuangporus sanghuang. S. sanghuang total triterpenoid extract (STTE) had the strongest inhibitory effect on Staphylococcus aureus, and STTE at 2-fold the minimum inhibitory concentration had a significant effect on the growth of four types of bacteria and caused marked nucleic acid leakage. Scanning electron microscopy confirmed that STTE destroyed bacterial cell walls. STTE also significantly inhibited the proliferation of Caco-2 cells and disrupted their morphology. Flow cytometry revealed that STTE induced cell cycle arrest and induced early and late apoptosis of Caco-2 cells. Infrared spectroscopy, and gas chromatography-mass spectrometry resulted in the detection of a variety of triterpenoids (e.g., pentacyclic triterpenoid, lanolinane triterpenoid, and trans-squalene) as well as other small molecules (e.g., esters, acids, and aldehydes). Our findings indicate that STTE has antibacterial and antitumor activity and will enable screening of novel fungal-derived anticancer and antibacterial compounds.

Image inpainting-based behavior image secret sharing.

The polynomial-based image secret sharing (ISS) scheme encodes a secret image into n shadows assigned to n participants. The secret image with high resolution is decoded by Lagrange interpolation when collecting any k or more shadows. Thus, ISS is used in applications such as distributive storage in the cloud, digital watermarking, block chain, and access control. Meaningful shadows are significant in ISS because meaningful shadows decrease the suspicion of image encryption and increase the efficiency of shadow management. Generally, previously meaningful ISS schemes were achieved through embedding the shadows into cover images using information hiding techniques and suffer from large pixel expansion and complex decoding procedure. Digital image processing, such as inpainting (texture synthesis), is a standard technique in multimedia applications. It will be highly significant if ISS can be performed in the processing of a normal digital image processing technique. Generally, the encoding method of an ISS scheme entails the use of a mathematical function that is sensitive to any slight change in the ISS output; therefore, the development of a method for performing the ISS procedure and simultaneously achieving image processing behavior is a key challenge. In this paper, we exploit the behavior ISS (BISS) and realize an image inpainting-based BISS scheme for the (k, n) threshold. Using screening operations, a secret image is encoded into the pixels of cover images by polynomial-based ISS in the processing of inpainting shadows to obtain meaningful shadows similar to the input cover images. In addition, the secret image can be losslessly decoded by Lagrange interpolation when collecting any k or more shadows. Experiments are given to confirm the efficiency of the scheme.