Besides mosquitoes, ticks are regarded as the primary source of vector-borne infectious diseases. Indeed, a wide variety of severe infectious human diseases, including those involving viruses, are transmitted by ticks in many parts of the world. To date, there are no published reports on the use of next-generation sequencing for studying viral diversity in ticks or discovering new viruses in these arthropods from China. Here, Ion-torrent sequencing was used to investigate the presence of viruses in three Rhipicephalus spp. tick pools (NY-11, NY-13, and MM-13) collected from the Menglian district of Yunnan, China. The sequencing run resulted in 3,641,088, 3,106,733, and 3,871,851 reads in each tick pool after trimming. Reads and assembled contiguous sequences (contigs) were subject to basic local alignment search tool analysis against the GenBank database. Large numbers of reads and contigs related to known viral sequences corresponding to a broad range of viral families were identified. Some of the sequences originated from viruses that have not been described previously in ticks. Our findings will facilitate better understanding of the tick virome, and add to our current knowledge of disease-causing viruses in ticks living under natural conditions.

Purpose: Usage of different types of contact lenses is associated with increased risk of sight-threatening complications. Changes in the ocular microbiome caused by contact lens wear are suggested to affect infection development in those individuals. To address this question, this study compares conjunctival microbial communities in contact lens wearers with those in noncontact lens wearers. Methods: Paired-end sequencing of the V3 region of the 16S rRNA gene was used to characterize the bacterial communities on the conjunctival surfaces of contact lens wearers and nonwearers. Results: No differences in microbial diversity were detected between contact lens wearers and nonwearers. Nevertheless, some slight microbe variability was evident between these two different groups. Bacillus, Tatumella and Lactobacillus abundance was less in orthokeratology lens (OKL) wearers than in nonwearers. In soft contact lenses (SCL) wearers, Delftia abundance decreased whereas Elizabethkingia levels increased. The difference in the SCL and nonwearer group was smaller than that in the OKL group. Variations in the conjunctival taxonomic composition between SCL wearers were larger than those in other groups. Sex differences in the conjunctival microbiota makeup were only evident among nonwearers. Conclusions: Even though there were slight percentage changes between contact lens wearers and nonwearers in some microbes, there were no differences in their diversity. On the other hand, contact lens usage might cause relative abundance of some taxa to change. Our results will help assess whether or not conjunctival microbiome changes caused by contact lens wear affect infection risk.

Previous research suggested that Pseudomonas spp. may attack the pyrrolidine ring of nicotine in a way similar to mammalian metabolism, resulting in the formation of pseudooxynicotine, the direct precursor of a potent tobacco-specific lung carcinogen. In addition, the subsequent intermediates, 6-hydroxy-3-succinoylpyridine (HSP) and 2,5-dihydroxypyridine (DHP) in the Pseudomonas nicotine degradation pathway are two important precursors for drug syntheses. However, there is little information on the molecular mechanism for nicotine degradation via the pyrrolidine pathway until now. In this study we cloned and sequenced a 4,879-bp gene cluster involved in nicotine degradation. Intermediates N -methylmyosmine, pseudooxynicotine, 3-succinoylpyridine, HSP, and DHP were identified from resting cell reactions of the transformant containing the gene cluster and shown to be identical to those of the pyrrolidine pathway reported in wild-type strain Pseudomonas putida S16. The gene for 6-hydroxy-3-succinoylpyridine hydroxylase (HSP hydroxylase) catalyzing HSP directly to DHP was cloned, sequenced, and expressed in Escherichia coli , and the purified HSP hydroxylase (38 kDa) is NADH dependent. DNA sequence analysis of this 936-bp fragment reveals that the deduced amino acid shows no similarity with any protein of known function.

Nicotine, the main alkaloid produced by Nicotiana tabacum and other Solanaceae, is very toxic and may be a leading toxicant causing preventable disease and death, with the rise in global tobacco consumption. Several different microbial pathways of nicotine metabolism have been reported: Arthrobacter uses the pyridine pathway, and Pseudomonas, like mammals, uses the pyrrolidine pathway. We identified and characterized a novel 6-hydroxy-3-succinoyl-pyridine (HSP) hydroxylase (HspB) using enzyme purification, peptide sequencing, and sequencing of the Pseudomonas putida S16 genome. The HSP hydroxylase has no known orthologs and converts HSP to 2,5-dihydroxy-pyridine and succinic semialdehyde, using NADH. ¹⁸O₂ labeling experiments provided direct evidence for the incorporation of oxygen from O₂ into 2,5-dihydroxy-pyridine. The hspB gene deletion showed that this enzyme is essential for nicotine degradation, and site-directed mutagenesis identified an FAD-binding domain. This study demonstrates the importance of the newly discovered enzyme HspB, which is crucial for nicotine degradation by the Pseudomonas strain.

Artificial intelligence has had a profound impact on life sciences. This review discusses the application, challenges, and future development directions of artificial intelligence in various branches of life sciences, including zoology, plant science, microbiology, biochemistry, molecular biology, cell biology, developmental biology, genetics, neuroscience, psychology, pharmacology, clinical medicine, biomaterials, ecology, and environmental science. It elaborates on the important roles of artificial intelligence in aspects such as behavior monitoring, population dynamic prediction, microorganism identification, and disease detection. At the same time, it points out the challenges faced by artificial intelligence in the application of life sciences, such as data quality, black-box problems, and ethical concerns. The future directions are prospected from technological innovation and interdisciplinary cooperation. The integration of Bio-Technologies (BT) and Information-Technologies (IT) will transform the biomedical research into AI for Science and Science for AI paradigm.

Background: Abnormal DNA methylation is a hallmark of human cancers and may be a promising biomarker for early diagnosis of human cancers. However, the majority of DNA methylation biomarkers that have been identified are based on the hypothesis that early differential methylation regions (DMRs) are maintained throughout carcinogenesis and could be detected at all stages of cancer. Methods: In this study, we identified potential early biomarkers of colorectal cancer (CRC) development by genome-wide DNA methylation assay (Illumina infinium450, 450 K) of normal (N = 20) and pre-colorectal cancer samples including 18 low-grade adenoma (LGA) and 22 high-grade adenoma (HGA), integrated with GEO and ArrayExpress datasets (N = 833). Results: We identified 209 and 8692 CpG sites that were significantly hyper-methylated in LGA and HGA, respectively. Pathway analysis identified nervous system-related methylation changes that are significantly associated with early adenoma development. Integration analysis revealed that DNA methylation in the promoter region of ADHFE1 has the most potential for being an early diagnostic biomarker for colorectal adenoma and cancer (sensitivity = 0.96, specificity = 0.95, area under the curve = 0.97). Conclusions: Overall, we demonstrated that DNA methylation have been shown significant changes in the stage of LGA and HGA in the development of colon cancer. Genome-wide DNA methylation to LGA and HGA provided an important proxy to identify promising early diagnosis biomarkers for colorectal cancer.