Artificial lighting is a major cost in controlled-environment agriculture (CEA), motivating longer photoperiods at lower photosynthetic photon flux density (PPFD) to meet a target daily light integral (DLI). In tomato, static 24-h lighting can induce photoperiodic injury and reduced photosynthetic performance, often discussed as an end-product (triose-phosphate) limitation that constrains inorganic phosphate (Pi) recycling. Dynamic 24-h LED schedules that impose day-night spectral and intensity cues have been proposed to extend photoperiod without injury, but their effects on assimilation-export coupling remain unclear. We investigated whether early dysfunction under static 24-h light reflects a downstream sink-side export bottleneck that limits carbon export regardless of source (newly assimilated and mobilization of stored carbon), or a source-leaf limitation that selectively reduces concurrent export during assimilation while preserving export supported by mobilizing stored carbon, and whether dynamic schedules avoid these constraints. We used steady-state 14CO2 labeling with open-flow gas exchange to quantify net CO2 exchange rate (NCER), concurrent export, ¹4C retention, chase-derived reserve-supported export (remobilization), and transpiration in intact source leaves of tomato (Solanum lycopersicum "Money Maker") grown under a 16-h/8-h control, a static 24-h regime, or two DLI-matched dynamic 24-h schedules. After 4 days of static 24-h light (pre-injury), export declined more than NCER, lowering relative export by ~12% and increasing the retained labeled pool. Whole-night remobilization efficiency scaled with retained pool size was conserved across treatments (~30%), including the Day 4 static regime, arguing against an early shared sink/transport bottleneck. After 3 weeks, static continuous light caused severe injury with suppressed NCER, export and reduced water-use efficiency (WUE), whereas dynamic regimes remained injury-free and maintained daytime assimilation-export coupling and WUE comparable to the control. Together, these data indicate that pre-injury static continuous light first disrupts assimilation-concurrent export coupling, a symptom not observed under dynamic 24-h LED schedules.
Extracellular vesicles (EVs) are essential carriers of information between cells and tissues in multicellular (metazoan) organisms. MicroRNAs (miRNAs), key components of extracellular vesicles along with other non-RNA cargo, play a crucial role in regulating gene expression in both donor and recipient cells. Several questions about the basis and mechanisms of miRNA sorting into EVs have been raised, some of which have recently been addressed in reports on RNA-binding proteins and miRNA motifs that enable selective miRNA export. Recent studies indicate that both active and passive mechanisms of miRNA export occur in mammalian cells, underscoring that miRNA export is a selective and context-dependent process. This flexibility in the export process allows mammalian cells to respond quickly to changing environments. This review explores the mechanisms of miRNA export, the roles of RNA-binding proteins in this process, highlighting how these proteins enable the selective secretion of miRNAs across different mammalian cell types. EV-mediated export facilitates a targeted exchange mechanism for epigenetic signals like miRNAs, evolving from what initially appeared to be a random release process. Additionally, we have discussed the key unresolved questions regarding miRNA export and its evolution as a major mechanism of intercellular communication in metazoans.
The global agriculture and food trade plays a critical role in ensuring food security and economic stability. A country's agri-food export share is contingent upon various social, economic, and physical factors, and it defines its position within the global trade system. In this study, we propose a machine learning framework to systematically identify the most informative characteristics associated with export shares of countries and explore their projected positions within the agri-food trade. Our study focuses on 25 countries with varying export shares spanning from 1988 to 2022. The results show that the performance of logistics systems, population, reliability of government, and value of agricultural production have the greatest impact on shaping the export share of a country. Further, by 2035, the United States, the Netherlands, Brazil, Germany, China, and Australia are projected to be the leading exporters of global agriculture and food trade, following current trends closely. Our findings can offer insights to policymakers and researchers, enabling more strategic decision-making.
Acute kidney injury (AKI) frequently causes remote organ injury including hepatic steatosis, yet whether lipid accumulation reflects increased synthesis or impaired clearance has not been resolved. We used a murine ischemia-reperfusion AKI model. Unbiased liver proteomics was performed at 24 h after reperfusion, and dysregulated pathways were identified by Gene Set Enrichment Analysis. Results were validated by Western blotting, qPCR, and immunohistochemistry. These findings were complemented by retrospective analysis of two intensive care unit (ICU) databases (the Medical Information Mart for Intensive Care IV [MIMIC-IV] and the eICU Collaborative Research Database [eICU-CRD]). AKI significantly increased serum ALT and AST and induced hepatic lipid accumulation. Proteomic analysis revealed that key lipogenic enzymes (SCD1, FASN, ACLY, ACACA) were uniformly suppressed rather than upregulated. ApoB and MTTP, proteins essential for very-low-density lipoprotein (VLDL) assembly, were significantly downregulated, while ApoE showed a concordant downward trend (adjusted p = 0.072). Plasma triglycerides were decreased while liver triglycerides were increased, consistent with impaired hepatic lipid export. As in renal tubular cells, AKI also disrupted ER protein folding homeostasis in the liver, triggering ER stress. This was evidenced by upregulated levels of the ER chaperone GRP78, increased XBP1 splicing indicative of UPR activation, and elevated expression of the ER stress-induced pro-apoptotic transcription factor CHOP, suggesting that prolonged ER stress may also promote hepatocyte cell death. TLR4/MyD88 signaling was activated, yet inflammatory cytokines were paradoxically reduced, accompanied by Kupffer cell depletion (decreased F4/80) and monocyte infiltration (increased CD68). In 6,996 propensity-matched ICU patients (MIMIC-IV), AKI independently increased the risk of clinically significant liver injury 4-fold (adjusted OR = 4.41). Analysis of 22,727 patients across 208 hospitals (eICU-CRD) identified a lipid dissociation pattern: elevated triglycerides alongside decreased total cholesterol, HDL, and LDL, with dose-dependent scaling across KDIGO stages. These data are consistent with ER stress-associated impairment of VLDL export contributing to AKI-induced hepatic steatosis. Clinical cohort analyses across two independent ICU databases identify a dual metabolic insult: enhanced peripheral lipid delivery compounds impaired hepatic export, amplifying hepatic lipid retention. ER stress and lipid export machinery represent potential therapeutic targets for AKI-associated liver injury.
Phosphorus (P) loading data from 95 tributary monitoring stations were assimilated into a Bayesian SPARROW ensemble framework to quantify long-term total phosphorus (TP) delivery to the northern Lake Erie shoreline. Ten covariate-based model configurations, representing alternative agricultural source proxies and land-to-water delivery controls, were calibrated and synthesized using performance-weighted averaging to generate spatially explicit estimates of TP export, delivery, and in-network retention across 865 catchments. The ensemble produced a robust delivered-load benchmark of approximately 1200-1300 t P y-1, providing a defensible baseline for adaptive management and for evaluating progress toward the International Joint Commission's 40% TP reduction target. Source apportionment indicates that agricultural non-point sources dominate basin-scale loading, contributing approximately 82% of total TP load (∼1045 t P y-1), with high-intensity cropland alone accounting for ∼65% (∼818 t P y-1). Urban sources contribute ∼16% (∼205 t P y-1), while natural land cover remains minor at ∼1.4% (∼18 t P y-1). A novel finding is the identification of greenhouse operations as a substantial contributor to TP loading (∼15%, ∼187 t P y-1), particularly within the Essex Region, Grand River, and Long Point Region conservation authorities. Delivered fertilizer losses exceed those from manure applications, and the predicted spatial patterns suggest that Ontario's Nutrient Management Act, together with associated investments in beneficial management practices, has effectively reduced manure-derived P losses. This provides a novel basin-scale evidence of conservation policy effectiveness. Low in-stream attenuation (∼0.1% km-1) indicates limited natural buffering capacity, whereas reservoirs retain approximately 17-23% of incoming TP, highlighting engineered impoundments as complementary mitigation features. Achieving the 40% reduction target will therefore require sustained fertilizer input management, transport-focused BMPs in tile-drained landscapes, and explicit consideration of legacy P pools and temporal lags. Uncertainty surrounding greenhouse, and potentially manure, transport dynamics underscores the need for improved monitoring in identified critical areas. Although the northern Lake Erie basin contains an extensive monitoring network of approximately 300 stations, data fragmentation limits calibration efficiency and contributes to structural uncertainty. Harmonized datasets would improve model constraint and strengthen cross-scale integration with mechanistic watershed models. Overall, the ensemble SPARROW framework provides both a basin-wide TP baseline and a data-driven constraint for improved policy evaluation, adaptive management, and watershed model integration.
Quantifying the contribution of agricultural non-point sources to watershed export of nitrogen (N) depends on the integrated modeling of soil biogeochemistry and watershed hydrology. However, scale mismatch between biogeochemical and hydrological models prevents the reliable explicit tracking of N fate and transport in watersheds. To address this issue, we developed a spatially-explicit watershed model-INtegrated SImulator for bioGeochemical and Hydrological Trackings (INSIGHT)-by embedding a soil biogeochemical model at fine-resolution grids while simultaneously coupling surface and subsurface flowpath models fed by the outputs of water and N fluxes in each grid and layer. An agricultural-forested watershed in the lower Yangtze River basin was used to test if the INSIGHT model is capable of capturing N loss, removal, retention, and exports in different pathways as well as quantifying the contribution of agricultural non-point sources to N exports at high spatiotemporal scales. The model explained the variations in watershed TN export by 79% and enabled the tracking of contributions from different land uses and transport pathways. Surface and subsurface N generation were 26.0 and 206.9 Mg N yr⁻¹, respectively, but 89.6% of surface-derived and 28.3% of subsurface-derived N were only exported to the watershed outlet, because 53.5% of N generation was retained as soil organic N and 11.9% was removed by denitrification during horizontal transport. Tea cropland showed the highest export intensity (31.4 kg N ha⁻¹ yr⁻¹), followed by mixed forest (20.4 kg N ha⁻¹ yr⁻¹) and rice (18.5 kg N ha⁻¹ yr⁻¹). Tea cultivation on steep slopes, with short surface lag time and high fertilization rates, drives high N export intensity. The results suggest that subsurface transport as the dominant mechanism for N retention and export in a watershed, calling for targeted mitigation strategies. These findings highlight that INSIGHT provides a useful tool for tracking N fate and transport in watersheds and supporting targeted agricultural non-point pollution mitigations.
Bacterial type III secretion systems export proteins across the inner membrane using the proton-motive force (PMF), but how proton flow is coupled to opening of the export channel is unknown XX,XX . Here we present single-particle cryo-EM structures at 2.5-4.2 Å resolution of the intact flagellar Export Apparatus from Salmonella enterica , obtained using optimized extraction conditions of the endogenous assembly that retain the complete transmembrane complex. The transmembrane domain of FlhA forms a nonameric funnel-shaped basket beneath the Export Gate, with each subunit harboring a buried pathway of conserved hydrophilic residues spanning the hydrophobic core of the membrane. FlhB is resolved for the first time within the intact gate, revealing helices that thread through the FlhA channel, completely sealing it at rest. A symmetry-free reconstruction captures one FlhA protomer hinged outward at the water-filled cavity, breaking the rotational symmetry. Together, these structures define the architecture of the proton-transducing element of the type III secretion system and suggest a rotary gating mechanism, with parallels to the F 0 motor of ATP synthase, in which PMF-driven conformational cycling of FlhA drives regulated opening of the export channel.
Efflux-mediated export of pyrazinoic acid (POA) has been associated with pyrazinamide (PZA) resistance, yet the specific transport components remain incompletely defined. Mycobacterium smegmatis , which exhibits intrinsically high POA efflux, provides a quantitative model to study PZA/POA transport mechanisms. Using clustered regularly interspaced short palindromic repeats interference, we silenced three efflux pump orthologs of Mycobacterium tuberculosis in M. smegmatis : MSMEG_5046 ( Rv1250c ), MSMEG_0241 ( Rv0202c /MmpL11), and MSMEG_0232 ( Rv0191c ). Gene knockdown was validated by quantitative reverse transcription polymerase chain reaction, achieving 45.1-, 14.6-, and 4.18-fold repression, respectively. POA export kinetics were assessed after PZA loading (final concentration 6.5 mM; 800 µg/mL) using a colorimetric assay over 0-60 min. Efflux rates were calculated from slope values, normalized to intracellular protein content, and compared across biological replicates using analysis of covariance. All silenced strains showed significant differences in efflux slope compared with controls: MSMEG_5046 ( P = 0.0184), MSMEG_0241 ( P = 0.0497), and MSMEG_0232 ( P < 0.0001). At 60 min, normalized POA export changed by +32% (0.0048 mM POA/protein) for MSMEG_5046 , -89.33% (0.0134 mM POA/protein) for MSMEG_0241 , and -39.33% (0.0059 mM POA/protein) for MSMEG_0232 relative to wild type. MSMEG_0241 and MSMEG_0232 knockdowns reduced both efflux slope and total export, supporting a direct role in POA transport, whereas MSMEG_5046 repression increased efflux, suggesting compensatory activity. This protein-normalized, slope-based POA export assay resolves gene-specific contributions within a networked efflux system and prioritizes targeted validation in M. tuberculosis.
SUMMARYThe mycobacterial cell envelope, one of the most complex membranes found in bacteria, plays a major role in bacterial pathogenesis, virulence, and antimicrobial resistance. Biogenesis and modeling of this cell envelope are heavily influenced by the mycobacterial membrane protein large (MmpL) family of transporters due to their ability to export fatty acids and lipid components. Select MmpL transporters can also function as siderophore exporters to help regulate the acquisition of iron, which is critical for mycobacterial survival. Additionally, certain MmpLs can participate in active efflux of antimycobacterial drugs, directly contributing to antimicrobial resistance. Given the physiological significance of these MmpL membrane proteins and their potential to serve as important antimycobacterial targets, questions regarding their functional roles, cellular assemblies, interactions, and regulation need to be fully addressed. In this review, we summarize our current knowledge on the structures and functions of these MmpL transporters. It is our hope that researchers in the field will continue to build upon these efforts and apply various structural, biophysical, and biochemical methodologies to fully elucidate how MmpL transporters coordinate to participate in cell envelope biogenesis, cell elongation and division, and antimicrobial resistance.
The export of Hawaiian cut red ginger flowers to the US mainland and foreign markets is frequently rejected due to mealybug infestations, yet methyl bromide (MB) remains the only approved fumigation treatment. Ethyl formate (EF) and phosphine (PH3) have emerged as MB alternatives. However, EF alone often requires high doses that risk flower damage, while PH3 alone generally requires long exposures, undesirable for cut flowers with limited vase life. We evaluated EF, PH3, and low-dose EF + PH3 co-fumigation as potential phytosanitary treatment against Planococcus citri Risso (Hemiptera: Pseudococcidae) on red ginger flowers, assessing efficacy across different life stages, fumigant sorption, and flower quality. Stand-alone EF treatment at 70 g/m3 for 4 h at 23 °C achieved zero hatch of P. citri eggs, the most tolerant life stage to EF, but negatively affected flower quality, while PH3 alone (2 g/m3 at 23 °C) required >18.8 h exposure to completely inhibit egg hatch. In contrast, EF + PH3 at a lower dose combination (EF 20 g/m³ + PH3 2 g/m³ for 4 h at 23 °C), which individually could not achieve zero egg hatch, resulted in complete inhibition of P. citri egg hatch without loss of flower quality. Scaled-up trials confirmed these results, preventing hatch of ca., 13,500 P. citri eggs without negatively affecting flower quality. These findings demonstrate that short-duration, low-dose EF + PH3 co-fumigation is a feasible alternative to MB, suitable as a stand-alone quarantine treatment or as the final step in a systems approach for Hawaiian ornamental exports.
Herpesviruses employ sophisticated immune evasion strategies to establish lifelong infections, subverting type I interferon (IFN-I) responses critical for antiviral defense. However, their adaptive mechanisms across species remain poorly characterized. Using duck plague virus (DPV)-an avian alphaherpesvirus model-we identify a cooperative immune evasion axis wherein ICP27 orchestrates UL55-mediated immunosuppression through dual regulatory mechanisms: its RNA-binding domain (RGG) facilitates UL55 mRNA nuclear export, while its C-terminal domain (CTD) stabilizes UL55 protein via direct interaction. This partnership enables synergistic suppression of IFN-I signaling-co-expression of ICP27 and UL55 inhibits Poly(I:C)-induced immune genes (IFN-β, Mx, OASL, IL-6) more potently than either protein alone. UL55 functions as a precision-targeted IFN-I antagonist, selectively degrading RIG-I and IRF7 through proteasomal pathways-confirmed by proteasome inhibitor rescue (MG132), structural modeling (AlphaFold), and binding assays (Co-IP). Evolutionarily, UL55 homologs (DPV, Herpes simplex virus type 1 [HSV-1], Varicella zoster virus [VZV]) conserve RIG-I targeting but diverge in IRF3/IRF7 regulation-adaptations shaped by UL55 sequence divergence (38.68% identity) and host biology (e.g., waterfowl IRF3 deficiency). This work establishes ICP27-UL55 as a key regulatory axis in herpesviral immune evasion and redefines UL55 as a conserved yet adaptable immunosuppressor in Alphaherpesvirinae.IMPORTANCEThis study fundamentally advances herpesvirology by defining a novel immune evasion paradigm in duck plague virus. We reveal ICP27 as a master regulator that coordinates UL55 immunosuppression through a two-tiered mechanism: RGG domain-mediated mRNA nuclear export and CTD-dependent protein stabilization-an unreported strategy in herpesviruses. UL55 selectively degrades RIG-I and IRF7 via proteasomal pathways, enabling precise IFN-I suppression with minimal immune activation. Crucially, ICP27-UL55 synergy inhibits Poly(I:C)-induced immune genes (IFN-β, Mx, OASL, IL-6) more effectively than individual proteins. Evolutionary analyses demonstrate conserved targeting of RIG-I across alphaherpesvirus UL55 homologs (DPV, HSV-1, VZV) but host-adapted divergence in IRF3/IRF7 regulation, shaped by UL55 sequence variation (38.68% identity) and host biology (e.g., avian IRF3 deficiency). These findings provide the first evidence of effector coordination through integrated transcriptional/post-translational regulation in herpesviruses. Disrupting ICP27-UL55 interaction offers new antiviral targets, while UL55-deficient strains serve as vaccine candidates for poultry disease control.
Ethyl formate (EF) is a promising alternative to methyl bromide for postharvest disinfestation, but berry export chains require efficacy under refrigerated handling without loss of marketable quality. Using spotted-wing drosophila (Drosophila suzukii) in blueberries as a cold-chain model, we compared stage-specific tolerance at 5 to 15 °C and identified 1-day-old eggs as the most tolerant stage, with mortality strongly temperature dependent. Egg-stage concentration to mortality relationships were quantified under 4 h exposures at 5, 10, and 15 °C to nominate temperature-specific intensities within EF flammability safety limits. Candidate schedules (69, 83, and 94 mg·L-1 for 4 h at 5, 10, and 15 °C) were confirmed by verification-scale zero-survivor tests under simulated cold-chain conditions, achieving complete control of the most tolerant egg stage. Post-treatment quality was assessed after 1, 7, and 14 days of cold storage. Weight loss, firmness, total soluble solids, titratable acidity, sucrose, and proanthocyanidins were driven mainly by storage time and temperature. EF effects were limited to transiently elevated respiration early in storage, with no detectable injury, decay, or adverse changes in appearance or other physicochemical attributes. Overall, EF provides a cold-chain compatible processing window integrating efficacy, operational safety, and quality preservation for refrigerated blueberry export logistics.
Amid intensifying extreme climate events, geopolitical conflicts, and sudden trade policy disruptions, the resilience and vulnerability of global staple food trade systems have emerged as pressing governance concerns. This study constructs directed weighted trade networks for wheat, maize, and rice from 2015 to 2024 and evaluates their vulnerability and resilience evolution using a three-dimensional structural resilience framework and underload cascading failure models. The results reveal that all three networks display scale-free and disassortative properties. The wheat network gradually recovered following the Russia-Ukraine conflict, whereas structural imbalance continues to deepen in the maize network, and the rice network faces persistent resilience pressure arising from excessive dependence on core exporters. Cascading failure simulations indicate that targeted attacks on key exporting countries can trigger large-scale network collapse. Introducing cross-crop substitution effects markedly enhances the resilience of individual food trade networks through cross-layer substitution and supplementation; yet under simultaneous attacks, crop substitution effects instead serve as a conduit for cross-layer cascading failure propagation, and even a minimal willingness to substitute can weaken network resilience. Accordingly, this study proposes policy recommendations to strengthen the resilience of the global staple food trade network.
Large-diameter rescue shafts serve as critical infrastructure for emergency response in mining disaster scenarios, and their structural deformation directly affects the safe passage of rescue capsules. In this paper, we investigate three-dimensional (3D) reconstruction techniques for large-diameter rescue shaft environments and develop a Neural Radiance Fields (NeRF)-based reconstruction and deformation assessment scheme. The proposed workflow integrates no reference signal-to-noise-ratio (NR-SNR), image-quality filtering, SfM-based camera-pose estimation, Nerfacto reconstruction, point-cloud export, and circular-section fitting. The NR-SNR retention-ratio experiment shows that retaining approximately 35% high-quality images provides a practical efficiency-quality trade-off for the present dataset, reducing the computational burden of SfM pose estimation while preserving sufficient geometric information for subsequent reconstruction. The reconstructed radiance field is further exported as a dense point cloud and evaluated using relative radius error, circle-fitting residuals, and image-level rendering metrics. Experiments on a simulated large-diameter rescue shaft platform show that the proposed NeRF-based scheme provides favorable geometric measurement applicability and visual reconstruction quality under weak-texture and low-illumination conditions. Compared with conventional MVS and the tested 3DGS baseline, the proposed scheme produces a point-cloud output that is more suitable for subsequent circular-section fitting and deformation-related assessment. In addition, comparison with a representative SDF-based baseline indicates that direct implicit surface recovery remains challenging for the tested hollow cylindrical shaft-wall scene. The results demonstrate the potential of the proposed NeRF-based workflow for rescue-shaft inner-wall reconstruction and engineering-oriented deformation evaluation.
Nitrogen pollution represents a critical challenge in the 21st century, highlighting the urgent need for sustainable alternatives to industrial nitrogen fixation. Diazotrophic bacteria, which uniquely convert dinitrogen (N2) into bioavailable forms, offer a promising solution through biological nitrogen fixation (BNF). These bacteria typically perform nitrogen fixation under nitrogen-limited conditions. Over the past 50 years, extensive research has elucidated the molecular mechanisms and regulatory pathways governing BNF. Recent microbiome studies have revealed that wild rice accessions harbor a greater abundance of diazotrophic bacteria, whereas a substantial proportion of these beneficial microbes have been lost in modern cultivated varieties. Advancements in synthetic biology have enabled the engineering of nitrogen‑exporting diazotrophs, potentially reducing dependence on industrial nitrogen fertilizers. This review emphasizes the importance of targeted research to develop customized diazotrophic microbes in conjunction with synthetic microbial community that can serve as nitrogen exporters for rice. Furthermore, it highlights the necessity of identifying rice cultivars that are particularly responsive to these microbial interventions. Finally, it provides a comprehensive roadmap addressing key challenges and opportunities in deploying BNF to supplement plant nitrogen nutrition and advance sustainable agriculture.
During infection, host immune cells deploy a variety of strategies to neutralize invading pathogens, including the manipulation of metal availability, a process traditionally understood as nutritional immunity. While depriving microbes of essential metals, such as iron and manganese, inhibits their growth, host cells also engage in metal intoxication, actively overloading phagosomes with toxic levels of transition metals, such as copper and zinc. To survive these dual pressures, Mycobacterium tuberculosis, the etiological agent of tuberculosis, has evolved specialized metal resistance mechanisms. This review explores how M. tuberculosis counters host-imposed metal stress through an arsenal of P-type ATPases, particularly the diverse P1B subfamily of transition metal exporters. We detail the structural features, metal specificities, and regulatory mechanisms of M. tuberculosis' 12 P-type ATPases, focusing on three key systems, CtpC, CtpG, and CtpV, and their cognate scaffold proteins PacL1, PacL2, and PacL3. These PacL-Ctp pairs form dynamic membrane assemblies termed effluxosomes, which mediate resistance to transition metals such as zinc and cadmium. The review also highlights several distinctive features of M. tuberculosis P1B-ATPases relative to canonical transporters such as CopA and ZntA, suggesting unique adaptations to the intracellular environment. Finally, we discuss the challenges of functionally and structurally characterizing these systems and propose future directions to elucidate effluxosome assembly and function. Together, these insights reveal how M. tuberculosis leverages metal export as a critical survival strategy and suggest novel therapeutic opportunities targeting metal detoxification pathways.
Livestock production is a major contributor to land-use change and greenhouse gas emissions, yet it remains central to food security in many tropical countries. Brazil, the world's largest beef exporter, exemplifies this dual challenge: extensive pasturelands support national production, but widespread degradation limits productivity, accelerates soil carbon losses, and drives pressure for continued deforestation. This study provides the first integrated, national-scale assessment of how sustainable intensification and pasture restoration could simultaneously enhance beef production and contribute to climate mitigation across all Brazilian biomes. Using spatially explicit data on stocking rates, pasture condition, and soil organic carbon (SOC), we quantify productivity gaps and estimate the carbon sequestration potential associated with recovering degraded pastures. Specifically, we integrated municipal livestock records with remote sensing-derived maps and the SoilGrids platform to model regional production and land-use scenarios. Our results indicate that increasing stocking rates within existing pasture areas could raise national beef production by approximately 30% without expanding agricultural land. Alternatively, improved management could reduce pasture area requirements by up to 28% while maintaining current output. Restoring 89 million hectares of degraded pastures would sequester 598 Tg C over 20 years and avoid an additional 381 Tg C in losses, with sequestration rates varying by biome and degradation level. These findings demonstrate that sustainable intensification represents a viable pathway to reconcile food production, land-use efficiency, and climate mitigation. By quantifying the biophysical and territorial dimensions of this transition, our study provides evidence to inform Brazil's climate commitments and global efforts to decouple livestock production from environmental degradation. The results highlight the strategic role of tropical pasturelands in achieving large-scale soil carbon sequestration.
Herpes simplex virus type 1 (HSV-1) is a well-established model to investigate virus-host interactions due to its ability to modulate cell fate and establish lifelong persistence. Among the immediate-early genes, the multifunctional regulatory protein ICP27, encoded by the UL54 gene, plays a central role in viral mRNA processing, nuclear export, and reprogramming host gene expression. This study investigates the role of ICP27 in modulating the intrinsic apoptotic pathway in two cell models representative of different stages of infection: hTert RPE-1 epithelial cells, modeling the lytic replication, and SH-SY5Y neuroblastoma cells, used as a neuron-like model to approximate a neuronal microenvironment. To dissect the specific contribution of HSV-1 ICP27 to apoptosis regulation, cells infected with wild-type HSV-1 (HSV-1 w.t.) were compared with a viral vector lacking ICP27 (HSV-1ΔICP27). A multi-layered experimental approach was employed to characterize infection-induced cellular responses. Analyses were conducted using RT-qPCR for gene quantification, western blotting for protein evaluation, enzymatic assays to measure caspase activity, flow cytometry to determine reactive oxygen species (ROS) production and mitochondrial functionality, and quantitative proteomic approaches for the global characterization of infection-induced protein changes. ICP27 is associated with the modulation of apoptotic signal in a cell type-dependent manner. In epithelial cells, the presence of ICP27 is linked to intensified pro-apoptotic markers, including activation of caspase-9 and effector caspases (3/7), increased ROS generation, altered mitochondrial function, and elevated Bax/Bcl-2 ratio, indicative of mitochondrial pathway activation. Conversely, in neuron-like cells, ICP27 expression appears to correlate with reduced apoptotic signaling, characterized by lower caspase activity, limited oxidative stress, and preserved mitochondrial integrity. Overall, our findings indicate that ICP27 differentially modulates apoptotic signaling depending on the cellular context, enhancing pro-apoptotic features in epithelial cells while limiting intrinsic pathway activation in neuron-like cells. This dual behavior underscores HSV-1 adaptability across microenvironments, with implications for viral pathogenesis and therapeutic targeting.
The nuclear pore complex (NPC) is a large protein assembly that controls transport of macromolecules to or from the nucleus in eukaryotic cells. It is capable of facilitated transport in which "cargo" species can bind to "shuttles", which specifically translocate the NPC, while the cargo alone cannot pass. In order to better understand the transport mechanism, attempts have been made to reconstruct the NPC transport using synthetic systems (bottom-up). However, it has proven difficult to achieve a functioning shuttle-cargo transport mechanism, in particular with high selectivity. Here, we present fully artificial NPCs based on heteromolecular polymer complexation. Polymer brushes consisting of poly(hydroxyethyl acrylamide) are prepared on solid-state nanopores to form a barrier that generally only allows small molecules (a few kg/mol) to pass. Still, at lowered pH, multivalent interactions with poly(methacrylic acid) enable efficient transport of this polymer through the brush barrier (predicted max rate >1000 molecules per pore per second). By fine-tuning the affinity, which is strongly dependent on factors such as pH and molecular weight, we show that the polymer shuttles can diffuse through the brush barrier without strongly altering its morphology. As a mimic of nucleic acid export through the NPC, we show that DNA cargo strands conjugated to the polymer shuttles translocate the pores, even though they are too large to pass in their free form. We consider the selectivity of our system to be exceptional, since there is no detectable leakage of unconjugated macromolecules, not even in the presence of free transport shuttles. Besides being of fundamental interest to understand soft matter in general and the NPC in particular, the possibility to switch transport on/off with pH enables unique applications of nanopore-based structures. As an example, we show secure, tether-free, and noninvasive trapping of molecules inside nanoscale chambers a few attoliters in volume under physiological conditions.
Voice is a practical remote biomarker for Parkinson's disease (PD), but real-world capture often yields low-resolution time-frequency inputs that under-resolve diagnostically salient microstructure. In this controlled empirical comparison, we test whether spectrogram super-resolution (SR) at the feature level performed inside the model rather than via waveform resynthesis improves PD vs. healthy control (HC) discrimination under realistic constraints. Speech was recorded with a Microsoft HoloLens 2 using a standardized mixed-reality (MR) protocol from 161 speakers (75 PD/86 HC) across five tasks: Task 1 image description, Task 2 question answering, Task 3 story repetition, Task 4 sustained vowels, and Task 5 word repetition (DDK). Raw audio was exported as 48 kHz, 16-bit PCM, downmixed to mono, amplitude-normalized, conservatively trimmed for leading/trailing silence, and resampled to 16 kHz. Log-mel spectrograms (80 bins) were fed to practical ImageNet-pretrained backbones (ConvNeXt-Tiny, ResNet-50, EfficientNetV2-S). We compared six super-resolution (SR) strategies: identity, nearest (deterministic), bilinear SR, kernel/CARAFE-like SR, LIIF-like SR, and a frozen universal feature SR module (AnyUp) that upsamples intermediate feature maps. Evaluation used 5-fold, speaker-disjoint cross-validation with AUROC (AUC) and accuracy (ACC). AnyUp was the most consistent top performer, ranking first in 11/15 backbone-task cells. Gains were largest on tasks dominated by fine spectro-temporal cues: for ConvNeXt-Tiny, AnyUp vs. identity improved sustained vowels (Task 4) by ΔAUC 0.030/ΔACC 0.070 and DDK (Task 5) by ΔAUC 0.054/ΔACC 0.045. Macro-averaged over tasks, AnyUp outperformed identity by +0.025 AUC/+0.045 ACC (ConvNeXt-Tiny), +0.015/+0.027 (ResNet-50), and +0.052/+0.048 (EfficientNetV2-S). Representative best-in-class results include AUC/ACC of 0.899/0.886 (Task 4) and 0.927/0.897 (Task 5) for ConvNeXt-Tiny+AnyUp, and 0.940/0.903 (Task 5) for ResNet-50+AnyUp. Densifying spectrogram representations with a frozen, universal feature super-resolution module yields consistent, compute-efficient improvements in PD voice classification under MR-standardized acquisition, with the largest benefits on sustained vowels and DDK. The contribution is empirical rather than architectural: we compare practical representation-level SR choices rather than introduce a new SR module. Feature-level super-resolution is therefore a pragmatic alternative or complement to bandwidth extension when waveform synthesis is unnecessary. At a macro level, the observed accuracy gains (e.g., +0.045 for ConvNeXt-Tiny) suggest that representation-level SR may be operationally useful in low-resolution clinical-audio settings.