The Chinese Academy of Tropical Agricultural Sciences (CATAS) (Chinese: 中国热带农业科学院) is an agricultural university located in Haikou City, Hainan Province, China.The academy was founded in 1954 in Guangzhou. It later moved to Danzhou, Hainan, and then to its current location in the south part of Haikou, beside the Hainan Medical College. Today, the academy has more than 3,000 staff members, 2,000 of which are involved in research work.
Microplastics (MP) pollution is widespread in livestock farming environments. Exposure to MP can impair the gastrointestinal barrier, alter the structure and metabolism of the microbiota, and subsequently lead to organ damage. MP not only hinder cattle farming but also enter the food chain, posing a potential risk. Polyethylene (PE), a type of MP commonly detected in ruminant feed, has not yet been studied for its specific effects on cattle. Using calves as an animal model, this study investigates how exposure to MP induces toxicity via the rumen microbiota-gut-liver axis. Exposure to MP impaired weight gain and liver development in cattle, altered liver tissue pathology, increased blood lipopolysaccharide (LPS) levels, and triggered a systemic inflammatory response, identifying the liver as the primary target organ. Inflammation was closely associated with the dysbiosis of rumen microbiota and metabolites. MP exposure also damages the barrier integrity of the rumen, jejunum, and colon. The underlying mechanism involves MP altering the rumen microbial composition, which in turn triggers metabolic disorders, activates LPS synthesis pathways, and inhibits tight junction protein expression in the jejunum and colon. Although MP do not cause significant architectural damage to muscle tissue, they disrupt lipid homeostasis and nutrient composition, thereby promoting the deposition of pro-inflammatory LPS within muscle tissue. Rumen fluid metabolomics analysis revealed that differential metabolites were mainly enriched in the ATP-binding cassette transporter (ABC) pathway, with 4-fluoro-3-phenoxybenzoic acid and isovalerylglutamic acid being significantly correlated with levels of LPS, IL-6, TNF-α, and IL-1β. Notably, the concurrent increase in TNF-α and LPS in both the bloodstream and liver, alongside altered blood metabolomics, indicates that MP induce hepatic damage by disrupting the rumen microbiota-gut-liver axis. Transcriptomic analysis revealed that liver inflammatory injury was closely associated with NF-κB activation. Further mechanistic analysis supported the central role of the TLR4/MyD88/NF-κB signaling pathway. MP impair liver function in cattle by disrupting the rumen microbiota-gut-liver axis. This process involves the perturbation of rumen flora and intestinal barriers, triggering LPS translocation into the bloodstream, and ultimately causing liver damage.
Toxin-antitoxin (TA) systems are pivotal in the bacterial stress response, yet signals controlling their activation and functional integration into virulence remain poorly understood. This study unveils a multi-layered signaling network centered on antitoxin HigA in the fish pathogen Edwardsiella piscicida. We identify XreR, a novel XRE-family transcriptional regulator, as a direct transcriptional activator of higA, and demonstrate that XreR-dependent upregulation of HigA modulates virulence. Beyond its antitoxin function, HigA acts as a transcription factor that directly activates ethB, a hemolysin activator gene, thereby enhancing hemolysis. However, excessive hemolysis triggers a host pyroptosis-like response, compromising intramacrophage survival and revealing a dual role for EthB in virulence. Based on the hypersensitivity of xreROE to oxidative stress, we reveal that HigA attenuates oxidative stress tolerance by directly repressing the RpoS-KatG pathway. This repression is counterbalanced by Lon protease, which degrades HigA under oxidative stress, representing a critical post-translational negative regulatory mechanism. Collectively, our findings establish the XreR-HigA-Lon axis as a central regulatory module. This not only governs hemolytic virulence via the XreR-HigA-EthB pathway but also mediates oxidative tolerance through the Lon-HigA-RpoS-KatG pathway, thereby revealing the dual role of HigA in coordinating pathogenicity and stress adaptation. This study offers a new paradigm for understanding how bacterial pathogens balance infection progression with host environmental constraints.
Abstract Soil volatile organic compounds (VOCs) are critical for suppressing soil-borne pathogens, yet their microbial origins, functional mechanisms, and contributions to disease suppression remain underexplored. This study investigated the role of VOCs in the disease-suppressive capacity of soils from two tomato monocropping regions against Ralstonia solanacearum, the causative agent of bacterial wilt. Among the disease-conductive and suppressive soils, suppressive soil exhibited the lowest disease incidence (0.37%) and pathogen load (9.6 × 103 CFU/g), which was associated with strong soil VOC-mediated suppression of R. solanacearum growth and disease development. GC–MS analysis identified 13 VOCs significantly related to the disease index, including naphthalene, 2-undecanone, and humulene, which inhibited pathogen growth in vitro and promoted plant growth and defense enzymes (CAT and SOD). Amplicon sequencing revealed differences in microbial community diversity and composition between conductive and suppressive soils, with Streptomyces as a key disease-suppressive taxon. Isolation of 10 Streptomyces strains from suppressive soil confirmed their role in restoring VOC-mediated suppressiveness in sterilized soil, with strain Stre2 achieving 46.17% pathogen inhibition. Correlation, Procrustes, and variation partitioning analyses (VPA) showed that soil physicochemical and microbial factors together shaped the composition of soil VOCs, but bacterial communities also had a significant direct influence (11.1% unique contribution). Our results demonstrate that disease-suppressive soils utilize microbiota-derived VOCs to inhibit R. solanacearum and prime plant defenses, offering new insights for sustainable pathogen management through microbial metabolite engineering.
Macadamia is a fruit tree with high economic value and high oil content, and is cultivated commercially in tropical and subtropical regions worldwide. Although the planting area of macadamia in China has ranked first in the world, research into the genetic diversity of available macadamia accessions in China is limited. The lack of core collection information hinders the efficient management and utilization of these accessions. This study is based on single nucleotide polymorphism (SNP) markers identified through whole-genome resequencing of 185 macadamia accessions from the USA, Australia, South Africa, Israel and China in our previous study. Following filtering, 6,266,537 high-quality SNP markers were used to investigate the genetic diversity of these accessions and to develop a core collection. Genetic diversity analysis revealed that these accessions exhibited low genetic diversity. Both phylogenetic and principal component analyses consistently divided these accessions into three groups according to species type: Macadamia integrifolia, Macadamia tetraphylla and their hybrids. Genetic differentiation index (FST) for the three groups ranged from 0.0147 to 0.1289, with M. integrifolia and M. tetraphylla groups exhibiting moderate genetic differentiation. Using Core Hunter II software, a core collection of 37 accessions representing 20
Background Food cold chain logistics (FCCL) maintains low-temperature conditions during circulation and thus reduces food loss. However, FCCL requires significant consumption of energy, refrigerants, and other resources, resulting in substantial greenhouse gas emissions. Consequently, FCCL faces complex and ubiquitous conflicts among multiple sustainable goals (e.g., food quality, economic efficiency, and environmental impact) across various perspectives and scales. Coordinating mixed objectives and reconciling conflicting decisions are essential to ensure sustainable FCCL. Scope and approach This study establishes performance evaluation criteria for FCCL sustainability, identifying the main conflicts from various perspectives: foundational refrigeration mechanisms, micro-level low-temperature circulation, meso-level supply operation, and macro-level industrial policy. Recent progress in intelligent optimization is reviewed across different perspectives; further the current challenges and future trends are analyzed and summarized. Key findings and conclusions FCCL is undergoing a digital and sustainable transformation as it transitions into the Industry 4.0 era, with intelligent decision-making tools playing a pivotal role in sustainability-driven optimization. Intelligent optimization methods increasingly address the complexity of real-world cold chain dynamics, focusing on multi-stage, multi-agent, and multi-region interactions while improving accuracy, timeliness, and generalizability. The profiles of optimization vary under different application scenarios: refrigeration system design emphasizes flexibility, stability and low-carbon emissions; environmental control prioritizes precision, efficiency, and continuity; operations management stresses product safety and stakeholder benefits; and industry development highlights regional adaptation and environmental protection. Future breakthroughs in multimodal information fusion, demand-driven supply coordination, and spatiotemporal resource matching are expected to advance the sustainable self-optimization of FCCL, particularly through the multi-agent collaborative framework integrating digital twins and vertical large models. This review not only advances the theoretical understanding of sustainability conflicts and intelligent optimization mechanisms in FCCL, but also offers actionable guidance for industry stakeholders and policymakers to support data-driven, low-carbon, and scalable cold chain transformation.
