Plant diseases caused by pathogens lead to economic and agricultural losses, while plant resistance is defined by robustness and timing of defence response. Exposure to microbial-associated molecular patterns or specific chemical compounds can promote plants into a primed state with more robust defence responses. β-aminobutyric acid (BABA) is an endogenous stress metabolite that induces resistance, thereby protecting various plants’ diverse stresses by induction of non-canonical activity after binding into aspartyl-tRNA synthetase (AspRS). In this study, by integrating BABA-induced changes in selected metabolites and transcript data, we describe the molecular processes involved in BABA-induced resistance (BABA-IR) in tomatoes. BABA significantly restricted the growth of the pathogens P. syringae pv. tomato DC3000 and was related to the accumulation of transcripts for pathogenesis-related proteins and jasmonic acid signalling but not salicylic acid signalling in Arabidopsis. The resistance was considerably reduced by applying amino acids L-Asp and L-Gln when L-Gln prevents general amino acid inhibition in plants. Analysis of amino acid changes suggests that BABA-IR inhibition by L-Asp is due to its rapid metabolisation to L-Gln and not its competition with BABA for the aspartyl-tRNA synthetase (AspRS) binding site. Our results showed differences between the effect of BABA on tomatoes and other model plants. They highlighted the importance of comparative studies between plants of agronomic interest subjected to treatment with BABA.

Purpose The presence of Propionibacterium acnes in a substantial component of resected disc specimens obtained from patients undergoing discectomy or microdiscectomy has led to the suggestion that this prominent human skin and oral commensal may exacerbate the pathology of degenerative disc disease. This hypothesis, therefore, raises the exciting possibility that antibiotics could play an important role in treating this debilitating condition. To date, however, little information about antibiotic penetration into the intervertebral disc is available. Methods Intervertebral disc tissue obtained from 54 microdiscectomy patients given prophylactic cefazolin (n = 25), clindamycin (n = 17) or vancomycin (n = 12) was assayed by high-performance liquid chromatography, with cefaclor as an internal standard, to determine the concentration of antibiotic penetrating into the disc tissue. Results Intervertebral disc tissues from patients receiving the positively charged antibiotic clindamycin contained a significantly greater percentage of the antibacterial dose than the tissue from patients receiving negatively charged cefazolin (P < 0.0001) and vancomycin, which has a slight positive charge (P < 0.0001). Conclusion Positively charged antibiotics appear more appropriate for future studies investigating potential options for the treatment of low-virulence disc infections. Graphical abstract These slides can be retrieved under Electronic Supplementary Material.

Astrocytes are specialized glial cell types of the central nervous system (CNS) with remarkably high abundance, morphological and functional diversity. Astrocytes maintain neural metabolic support, synapse regulation, blood-brain barrier integrity and immunological homeostasis through intricate interactions with other cells, including neurons, microglia, pericytes and lymphocytes. Due to their extensive intercellular crosstalks, astrocytes are also implicated in the pathogenesis of CNS disorders, such as ALS (amyotrophic lateral sclerosis), Parkinson’s disease and Alzheimer’s disease. Despite the critical importance of astrocytes in neurodegeneration and neuroinflammation are recognized, the lack of suitable in vitro systems limits their availability for modeling human brain pathologies. Here, we report the time-efficient, reproducible generation of astrocytes from human induced pluripotent stem cells (hiPSCs). Our hiPSC-derived astrocytes expressed characteristic astrocyte markers, such as GFAP, S100b, ALDH1L1 and AQP4. Furthermore, hiPSC-derived astrocytes displayed spontaneous calcium transients and responded to inflammatory stimuli by the secretion of type A1 and type A2 astrocyte-related cytokines.

Aims There is growing evidence that alterations in the composition of esophageal microbiota occur in gastroesophageal reflux disease (GERD). Recently non-invasive esophageal swabs have been introduced collecting a representative sample of the microbiota along the entire length of the esophagus [1]. Methods We aimed to profile the bacteriome of the esophagus and oral swabs in patients with symptoms of GERD. The collection of oral microbiota and esophageal microbiota by a minimally invasive tool EsophaCap was performed in 12 patients, who were followed up for GERD. The bacteriome was analyzed by sequencing the V1-V2 region of the 16S rRNA gene on the Illumina MiniSeq platform enabling classification up to the species level. Results The analysis of the most abundant phyla in both analyzed samples (oral swabs and EsophaCap) corresponded to the typical bacteria composition of the upper GIT. Although the most abundant taxa overlapped between both sampling methods, the oral swabs did not cluster distinctly from EsophaCap samples. The samples collected by EsophaCap showed higher alpha diversity and the proportional abundances between both collection methods differed significantly. Besides, we observed statistically significant differences in the representation of the diagnostically important bacterial genera such as Prevotella (p<0.001) or Veillonella (p<0.001) that showed higher representation in EsophaCap samples compared to oral samples. Conclusions The results of our pilot study suggest that EsophaCap, reflects more appropriately the bacterial structure of the upper GIT compared to oral swabs. Article published online: 14 April 2023 © 2023. European Society of Gastrointestinal Endoscopy. All rights reserved. Georg Thieme Verlag KG Rüdigerstraße 14, 70469 Stuttgart, Germany

The receptor-like kinase SOBIR1 (SUPPRESSOR OF BIR1) is a core component of immune receptor complexes mediating plant responses to extracellular immunogenic signals. While its role in pattern-triggered immunity is well defined in model species, its broader physiological functions remain largely unexplored. Here, we generated CRISPR–Cas9-derived double knockouts of 2 homeologous SOBIR1 genes in allotetraploid Nicotiana tabacum. The resulting Nt sobir1 double mutants failed to trigger elicitor-induced cell death in response to elicitins from Phytophthora and Pythium spp. but retained an attenuated early reactive oxygen species (ROS) response while lacking sustained ROS accumulation, showing that the transient and sustained ROS outputs differ in their dependence on SOBIR1. Functionally, the mutants showed compromised resistance to Phytophthora parasitica but unaltered responses to Botrytis cinerea and Pseudomonas syringae, pointing to pathogen-specific SOBIR1 roles. Beyond immunity, SOBIR1 appears to interface with developmental signaling modules involving CLAVATA2 and ERECTA–YODA, implicating it in phytohormone signaling, meristem regulation, and cell proliferation. Notably, Nt sobir1 mutants displayed increased hypocotyl cell wall stiffness despite transcriptional upregulation of wall-loosening genes, suggesting compensatory cell wall remodeling and perturbed integrity signaling. Transcriptome and phytohormone profiling revealed tissue-specific expression changes and altered levels of cytokinins, salicylic acid, jasmonic acid, and their conjugates. These findings position SOBIR1 as a multifunctional regulatory hub that links immune perception with phytohormone dynamics and cell wall mechanics in N. tabacum, expanding our understanding of co-receptor signaling plasticity across plant lineages.