Macallisterite, a functional material with excellent properties, is widely used in industries. However, the rapid synthesis of high-purity macallisterite with both high yield and uniform morphology remains challenging due to the complex polymerization of borate species during the production process. Herein, we propose a novel magnesium ion-induced strategy for the efficient synthesis of macallisterite by combining sonochemistry assistance and additive method. The polymerization mechanism of borate species under excess magnesium salts was investigated using Raman spectroscopy and DFT. It has been shown that chloride magnesium is the optimal inducer for the macallisterite synthesis as Cl- exhibits lower electrostatic interaction and spatial steric hindrance than SO42- and NO3-. Sonochemical assistance significantly accelerated the nucleation and crystallization of macallisterite through kinetic conditions created by cavitation effects. Accordingly, the crystallization is promoted achieving a maximum yield of 97.92%. Raman and DFT study revealed that Mg2+ ions can effectively induce the formation of the stable neutral complex cluster [Mg(H2O)4(B6O7(OH)6)] in the supersaturated solution, which lowers the reaction activation energy through charge transfer and coordination. Furthermore, dense macallisterite spherulites with uniform morphology and high purity can also be achieved by using sodium dodecyl sulfonate (SDS) as additive. Based on these findings, this study not only elucidates a metal ion-induced crystallization mechanism but also establishes an efficient, green, and scalable synthetic route for high-quality macallisterite.
Hexamethylenediamine (HMD), adipic acid, and ε-caprolactam (ε-CL) are essential C6 monomers used in the production of nylon 6,6 and nylon 6. Developing sustainable, bio-based routes to these compounds remains challenging due to pathway complexity. Here, we report a modular Escherichia coli platform for the de novo biosynthesis of all three monomers directly from glycerol. We divided the overall pathway into upstream and downstream modules, with the upstream module converting glycerol to adipic acid. To construct downstream module, two distinct strains were engineered to individually convert adipic acid into HMD or ε-CL. Both strains employed carboxylic acid reductases Macar from Mycobacteroides abscessus and Mmocar from Mycolicibacterium moriokaense, with the latter identified and validated in this work. Specifically, HMD biosynthesis incorporated aminotransferases PatA from E. coli, GabT from Streptomyces avermitilis, and the introduced Bcta from Burkholderia cenocepacia. ε-CL biosynthesis utilized a similar upstream pathway but relied critically on a lactamization step catalyzed by an HLadh-Smnox fusion enzyme containing a flexible linker for efficient NAD+ regeneration. The common precursor, adipic acid, was produced by an upstream strain optimized through reverse β-oxidation pathway reconstruction, PaaJ engineering, and metabolic flux balancing, achieving a titer of 6.1 g/L. In fed-batch fermentation, cocultivation of the engineered strains with delayed inoculation enabled temporally coordinated conversion of glycerol to HMD (230.9 mg/L) and ε-CL (808.0 µg/L), representing low yet the highest titers reported to date. This work opens up the possibility of a unified, modular microbial platform for the sustainable production of nylon monomers from a renewable carbon source.
Mononuclear nonheme Fe(II) and 2-oxoglutarate-dependent enzymes (Fe(II)/2OG) constitute an enzyme superfamily that oxidizes substrates by activating molecular oxygen (O2) via the highly oxidized iron(IV)-oxo (ferryl) intermediate. Despite the high similarity of their active sites, the enzymes of this superfamily perform a diverse array of reactions such as hydroxylation, halogenation, epoxidation, and desaturation. WelO5, a member of this superfamily, regio- and stereospecifically monochlorinates a free-standing substrate, 12-epi-fischerindole U isonitrile (FIUI), at its aliphatic C(13) to give 12-epi-fischerindole G (FIG). Researchers have proposed that a dynamic reconfiguration of the WelO5 active site governs the selective halogenation of FIUI. Unfortunately, the requirements of spectroscopic and structural methods for large amounts of fully assembled samples of protein-substrate complexes impede the investigation of such reconfiguration. In this work, we describe a synthesis of (+)-FIUI that makes use of the Baran group's strategy for coupling of indoles with carbonyl compounds. We apply EPR and LC-MS methods to demonstrate the ability of WelO5 to bind the synthetic (+)-FIUI and subsequently convert it to FIG.
Catalyst design is essential for advancing sustainable chemistry, particularly through heterogeneous systems that offer recyclability and environmental benefits. Herein, we report the synthesis and application of a novel covalent triazine framework (CTF) incorporating 1,10-phenanthroline units, which serve as coordination sites for Cu(I) ions. The resulting heterogeneous catalyst, Cu@Phen-CTF, was prepared through postsynthetic metalation and fully characterized by Fourier-transform infrared, Raman, solid-state nuclear magnetic resonance, scanning electron microscopy/energy-dispersive X-ray, transmission electron microscopy, X-ray photoelectron spectroscopy, and Brunauer-Emmett-Teller surface area analysis, confirming successful Cu(I) incorporation and structural integrity. This catalyst was applied to the tandem cyclization of 2-iodoanilines with isothiocyanates to access pharmacologically relevant 2-aminobenzothiazole derivatives. The Cu@Phen-CTF system showed excellent catalytic activity under mild conditions (50 °C, toluene, 72 h), affording high yields and a broad substrate scope. Furthermore, the material demonstrated good thermal stability, negligible leaching, and high recyclability, maintaining performance across multiple catalytic cycles.
Haspin is an atypical serine/threonine protein kinase involved in the regulation of mitosis progression. In the recent years, significant progress, especially in terms of selectivity, has been achieved in the discovery of Haspin inhibitors. Based on Haspin structure knowledge, rational design identified various chemical series such as indole, indazole, quinoline, isoquinoline, benzothiophene and purine derivatives exhibiting potent Haspin inhibitory activity and good selectivity profiles when tested toward large kinase panels. In this review, we present recent findings on Haspin inhibitors, classified by chemical family, reported in the patented and journal literature since 2022.
Pancreatic cancer is a highly lethal malignancy that is frequently accompanied by drug resistance. Betulinic acid (BA) has therapeutic potential; its clinical utility is hampered by poor solubility and a lack of organelle-specific targeting. Given the functional abnormalities of tumor mitochondria, mitochondria-targeted interventions may enhance therapeutic efficacy while reducing systemic toxicity. Using BA as the parent scaffold, we designed and synthesized 30 mitochondria-targeted BA derivatives by attaching delocalized lipophilic cations (DLCs), including triphenylphosphonium (TPP+), at the C-28 position. We performed in vitro activity screening, transcriptomic analysis, mechanistic validation, and in vivo efficacy and safety assessments. Compound 14 showed the strongest cytotoxicity against PANC-1 cells (IC50 = 1.36 ± 0.09 μM), which was markedly superior to BA (IC50 = 79.29 ± 6.87 μM) with a fold reduction of approximately 58. Transcriptomics and mechanistic analysis indicate that compound 14 accumulated in mitochondria, inducing excessive ROS production, which then led to the collapse of mitochondrial membrane potential (ΔΨm) and mitochondrial dysfunction. This mitochondrial dysfunction subsequently promoted cytochrome c release and activated the caspase cascade, thereby triggering intrinsic mitochondrial apoptosis. Concurrently, compound 14 induced ferroptosis by upregulating ACSL4 and downregulating GPX4, which was accompanied by increased lipid peroxidation products and intracellular Fe2+. The ROS scavenger N-acetylcysteine significantly reversed these ferroptosis-associated changes. In vivo, compound 14 significantly inhibited tumor growth in xenografts without evident systemic toxicity. Compound 14, a mitochondria-targeted BA derivative, inhibits pancreatic cancer via ROS-driven mitochondrial apoptosis and ferroptosis, showing favorable efficacy and safety and potential for preclinical development.
A novel protocol for a copper-catalyzed cascade cross-coupling/cyclization strategy utilizing silyl enolates has been developed, enabling the direct and highly regioselective construction of valuable 2,3,5-trisubstituted furans. Preliminary mechanistic investigations suggest that the reaction process involves a tandem carbon-carbon radical cross-coupling, formal 1,2-hydrogen migration, intramolecular Paal-Knorr cyclization, and aromatization. This protocol eliminates the necessity for initial 1,4-diketone preparation and demonstrates a broad substrate scope along with good functional group compatibility.
A series of isatin-based Schiff base derivatives (1-12) was synthesized via a two-step reaction and characterized using spectroscopic techniques such as 1H-NMR and mass spectrometry. The urease and tyrosinase inhibitory activities of the synthesized compounds were evaluated using thiourea (IC50 = 21.25 ± 0.15 µM) and kojic acid (IC50 = 121 ± 0.5 µM) as standard inhibitors. Among the synthesized analogs, only three compounds-1 (IC50 = 38.9 ± 0.06 µM), 3 (IC50 = 56.7 ± 0.02 µM), and 10 (IC50 = 71 ± 0.09 µM) showed moderate urease inhibition, while the remaining compounds were inactive. All compounds were inactive against tyrosinase inhibition. The structure-activity relationship (SAR) of the active analogs was established based on the nature, position, and number of substituents on the phenyl ring of the basic nucleus of the compounds. Molecular docking studies were performed to confirm the binding interactions of the most potent analogs with the active site of urease. The docking results revealed that compound 1 formed six strong intermolecular interactions with the binding site residues of urease, exhibiting the lowest docking score of -4.8944. The findings suggest that the synthesized isatin-based Schiff base derivatives, particularly compounds 1, 3, and 10, could serve as potential lead compounds for developing novel urease inhibitors.
Peptidoglycan Recognition Proteins (PGRPs) are conserved pattern-recognition receptors that detect microbe-associated molecular patterns (MAMPs) and activate host immune responses. Compared to other dipterans, the tsetse fly (Glossina morsitans morsitans) genome encodes only five PGRPs- PGRP-LA, -LB, -LC, -SA, and -SB - far fewer than most dipterans, likely reflecting its sterile blood diet and streamlined microbiota. Here, we identify PGRP-LA as a critical regulator of peritrophic matrix (PM) integrity in the cardia (proventriculus), the tissue responsible for PM production. The PM is a chitinous sleeve-like barrier that separates the midgut epithelium from the ingested bloodmeal, supporting digestive homeostasis and infection resistance. We show that pgrp-la is prominently expressed in the cardia, transiently induced after a bloodmeal in newly eclosed flies, and reinduced following subsequent feedings, likely in response to blood- constituents or mechanical stretch. This induction is sustained during microbial exposure and prolonged in trypanosome-infected flies. RNAi-mediated reduction of pgrp-la significantly increased the prevalence of midgut trypanosome infections, indicating a protective role during early infection. PGRP-LA did not mediate infection resistance via canonical IMD pathway signaling, as its silencing did not affect antimicrobial peptide expression. Instead, PGRP-LA modulated the expression of PM-associated genes and gut barrier integrity. Silencing pgrp-la reduced PM structure, increased midgut weights and enhanced fly survival following oral challenge with entomopathogen Serratia marcescens, likely due to earlier epithelial immune responses through a compromised PM. Similar phenotypes were observed when flies were fed anti-PGRP-LA antibodies, supporting a structural role for PGRP-LA. In addition, soluble variant surface glycoproteins (sVSGs) from trypanosomes and knockdown of microRNA-275 (miR-275), also decreased pgrp-la expression, suggesting that PGRP-LA is part of a broader regulatory network, including the miR-275/Wingless signaling. Collectively, our results identify PGRP-LA as novel regulator of PM biogenesis and vector competence in tsetse, expanding the functional repertoire of PGRPs in insect gut barrier maintenance beyond canonical immune signaling pathways.
Blueberries are highly favored by consumers owing to their abundant nutritional components. In the present study, fresh blueberries were subjected to an exogenous spray application of 0.5 mmol/L GABA, aiming to investigate its effect on the levels of phenolic compounds throughout the storage period. The results showed that the 0.5 mmol/L GABA treatment was effective in maintaining desirable fruit quality, delayed spoilage, and simultaneously inducing a significant increase in the concentration of certain phenolic substances, notably anthocyanins. Additionally, GABA enhanced the activities of enzymes associated with phenylpropanoid metabolism, antioxidant systems, and anthocyanin biosynthesis. The corresponding genes exhibited upregulated expression. Collectively, exogenous GABA application elevates the GABA content and antioxidant capacity of blueberries through the activation of phenylpropanoid metabolism and anthocyanin biosynthesis pathways.
Myocardial infarction (MI) remains a major cause of death and disability. Although late gadolinium enhancement (LGE) cardiac MRI is the reference for assessing myocardial viability, it requires contrast injection, complex protocols, and added cost. Prior virtual LGE approaches-mostly GAN-based-mainly use cine or T1 mapping and ignore T2-weighted short-tau inversion recovery (T2-STIR), which is highly sensitive to edema in acute MI. They also typically require manual post-hoc delineation of infarcts. We propose SSDiff (Synthesis joint Segmentation Diffusion), a multitask conditional diffusion framework that synthesizes contrast-free virtual LGE from routine cine + T2-STIR for acute infarct assessment and simultaneously segments myocardium, ventricular blood pool, and infarct. SSDiff introduces a feature-disentangled attention module that isolates sequence-specific cues to steer the diffusion process, and a cross-fusion module that aligns synthesis and segmentation decoders for mutual optimization. Evaluated on a multi-center, multi-vendor dataset of 409 subjects (2,177 aligned cine-T2-STIR-LGE triplets), SSDiff yields significant gains in synthetic image quality and downstream segmentation accuracy over strong baselines. Beyond serving as a clinically feasible alternative when LGE is unavailable or contraindicated, SSDiff also generates paired image-mask samples that augment LGE-scarce training, highlighting its practical utility and translational potential. Code is available at: https://github.com/QijingGJ/SSDiff.
Vitex rotundifolia L.f. (VRL) is a plant belonging to the Verbenaceae family with antipyretic, analgesic, and anti-inflammatory properties, but research on the melanocyte-targeted skin depigmenting-related responses of VRL is lacking. In this study, VRL cone essential oil (VRLCEO) was obtained through steam distillation, and its effects on melanin synthesis and transport-related responses were investigated. Gas chromatography-mass spectrometry analysis identified 15 components from VRLCEO. In all biological activity experiments, VRLCEO was used at noncytotoxic concentrations (≤ 50 µg/mL) to ensure cell viability. VRLCEO inhibited serum-induced cell proliferation of B16BL6 mouse melanoma cells. VRLCEO suppressed tyrosinase enzyme activity and melanin synthesis in B16BL6 melanoma cells induced by α-MSH. VRLCEO also reduced the expression of MITF, tyrosinase, and TRP-2 proteins in α-melanocyte-stimulating hormone (α-MSH)-stimulated B16BL6 cells, but did not affect TRP-1 protein expression. Moreover, it increased the p38 MAPK and ERK1/2 phosphorylation levels in α-MSH-exposed B16BL6 cells, but not the JNK phosphorylation level. Furthermore, VRLCEO decreased α-MSH-upregulated Rab27a and melanophilin expression in B16BL6 cells. Therefore, VRLCEO may exert an anti-pigmentation effect by inhibiting melanin production and transfer in melanocytes. Accordingly, VRLCEO may be a natural material for the development of skin whitening agents.
Spatial analysis of gene expression patterns has been a key technique for revealing the potential functions of genes. Traditionally, these analyses conducted using in-situ hybridizations and other labor-intensive protocols were constrained to examining only a few candidate genes per sample. However, the advent of spatial transcriptomic techniques like Slide-seqV2 has transformed this field, enabling massively parallel exploration of gene expression patterns within their tissue contexts by pairing spatial locations with RNA sequencing. Despite its potential, Slide-seqV2 datasets often produce fewer usable reads than expected. We have identified that a significant source of errors in the technology stems from the chemical synthesis of barcodes used in Slide-seqV2. These errors are systematic, and in many cases, they can be bioinformatically identified and corrected. We have developed "Syrah, " an analysis pipeline that identifies and corrects barcode errors in Slide-SeqV2 and Curio seeker datasets. Syrah can dramatically enhance read numbers in Slide-seqV2 datasets, recovering up to 35% more reads, reassigning erroneous barcode matches, and removing improperly formed reads. Unlike other dataset improvement methods that rely on data driven imputation, Syrah uses a biochemical model and the barcode sequence data and does not, require additional datasets or intricate calculations. This innovative technique promises to transform the utility of Slide-seqV2 and Curio Seeker datasets by identifying usable reads that were discarded during previous analysis that required exact matching of barcode sequences.
Poly(ADP-ribose) (PAR) is a polymer of ADP-ribose synthesized by four members of the ADP-ribose polymerase family of enzymes-PARP1, PARP2, PARP5a, and PARP5b. However, only PARP1 and PARP2 synthesize PAR in response to DNA breaks. PAR is defined as a protein post-translational modification, but it is also shown to exist as a DNA or RNA modification. Levels of PAR are further regulated by PARG, a PAR glycohydrolase that, together with PARP1 and PARP2, modulates the cellular level of DNA damage-induced PAR. The dynamic synthesis and degradation of PAR is critical to its regulatory role in DNA repair, and the DNA damage response, which in turn affects chromatin reorganization, replication, transcription, and cell death. PARP1/PARP2 activation and the accumulation of PAR can be considered sites of ongoing base excision repair or DNA single-strand break repair; however, numerous PARP1/PARP2 activators are also associated with replication stress and other DNA metabolic processes. Once formed, PAR chains facilitate the recruitment of DNA repair and DNA damage response (DDR) factors to sites of DNA damage or genomic insult via their PAR-binding domains (PBDs). Ten different PBDs recognize various regions of the PAR molecule, including the PAR binding motif, PAR binding Zinc finger, the WWE domain, and the macrodomain, among other PBDs. To facilitate cellular analysis of PAR dynamics, we used PBDs fused to enhanced green fluorescent protein (EGFP) to optimize cell-based quantitation of PAR foci. We describe an assay that uses a fragment of RNF146 encoding the PBD/WWE domain, linked to EGFP, to visualize and quantify PAR accumulation at sites of genomic insult and ongoing BER or SSBR. We describe experimental steps, including the production of lentiviral particles, transduction of the target cell line, treatment of mammalian cells to induce genomic DNA damage, acquisition of confocal fluorescence micrographs, and semi-automated quantification of the data.
Automated medical report generation in specialized fields like spine radiography is constrained by data scarcity and high annotation costs. Consequently, existing multimodal large language models (MLLMs) struggle in these settings, often missing minute, scattered spinal abnormalities. We introduce SpineVLM, a data-efficient framework for structured spine X-ray report generation. The framework is built upon the newly constructed SXRG dataset, comprising 10,468 image-report pairs developed via a hierarchical AI-assisted annotation pipeline. To optimize learning under limited data, we propose Markdown-Guided Structured Learning (MGSL), which reformulates unconstrained free-text synthesis into a structured completion task, acting as a strong regularizer. Furthermore, an unsupervised Region-Focused Inference (RFI) module powered by foundation models (DINOv2) isolates the vertebral column to enhance the perception of subtle lesions without requiring manual spatial annotations. Evaluated on a 7B-parameter vision-language backbone, SpineVLM achieves strong performance against ten baseline multimodal models across standard linguistic metrics. In a double-blind reader study, the system achieved a diagnostic F1-score of 0.866, comparable to specialist performance, while reducing clinical reporting time by over 41%. By open-sourcing the dataset and codebase, we provide, to our knowledge, the first quantitative benchmark for automated spine radiography report generation, together with a structured framework for this data-limited setting. All data and code will be publicly released at https://github.com/LiuDongDaniel/SpineVLM.
This protocol describes a sequential differential centrifugation approach to enrich lipid droplets (LDs) of different sizes from bovine mammary epithelial cells (BMECs) and mammary tissues, enabling size-resolved analysis beyond conventional bulk LD isolation methods. As dynamic regulatory hubs of intracellular lipid metabolism, LDs serve critical functions by storing neutral lipids (such as triglycerides and cholesteryl esters) and coordinating their synthesis, hydrolysis, and transport. They play a central role in maintaining energy homeostasis, supporting membrane biogenesis, and facilitating cellular signal transduction. LD extraction is essential for investigating the regulatory mechanisms of lipid metabolism. Studying mammary gland lipid metabolism has significant implications for infant development, human health, agricultural economics, and fundamental cell biology. Therefore, we describe a differential centrifugation method for extracting LDs from BMECs and mammary gland tissue. In contrast to conventional bulk LD isolation approaches, this protocol enables size-based enrichment of LD subpopulations by sequentially adjusting centrifugal forces. The integrity and relative enrichment of LD fractions are preliminarily evaluated using BODIPY493/503 staining, providing a practical and reproducible approach for downstream analyses of lipid metabolism and LD-associated processes.
Water pollution remains a serious global challenge, and biochar has become a sustainable and economically efficient adsorbent for removing various aquatic pollutants. Recent engineering advances, including physical/chemical activation, hetero-atom doping, template-assisted synthesis and O-functionalization, have substantially upgraded its textural and chemical attributes. State-of-the-art activations typically deliver surface areas of 1500-2600 m2 g-1 and Cd(II) uptake capacities in the 200-450 mg g-1 range, whereas La or Mg-modified biochars frequently achieve over 80 % phosphate removal. Despite these advances, the current focus of biochar modification is still on the pore structure and functional groups, and the perspective of decontamination still only focuses on the single adsorption function of biochar. This review proposes a multi-pathway synergistic strategy integrating adsorption, oxidation, precipitation, and complexation, along with non-radical oxidation and metal-biochar collaborative systems for removing heavy metal ions, non-metallic ions, dyes, antibiotics, and pesticides. It systematically analyzes mechanistic coupling in multi-pollutant matrices and environmental influences, establishing a ternary design framework (pore-surface-electronic properties) and a mechanistic hierarchy from passive adsorption to active redox degradation, offering molecular-level guidance for next-generation biochar reactors.
Correct and consistent male condom use can help prevent transmission of sexually transmitted infections and unintended pregnancy. Although alcohol is a risk factor for condomless sex, the relationship between alcohol and condomless sex is not fully understood, suggesting additional factors should be considered. Alcohol Expectancy (AE) Theory suggests that people's beliefs about the effects of alcohol might influence people's behaviors while intoxicated. Although research has investigated the relationship between sex-related AE and condomless sex, there is a lack of evidence synthesis. In this scoping review, 28 quantitative studies that assessed the relationship between sex-related AE and condomless sex were summarized. Results suggested that holding stronger beliefs that alcohol increases sexual risk-taking, disinhibition, sexual coercion, sexual aggression, enhances sexual experiences, and increases difficulty for condom use are positively associated with condomless sex, but this relationship has only been demonstrated consistently among community heterosexual men. Findings suggest that sex-related alcohol expectancies play multiple roles in alcohol-involved sexual decision-making, including acting as mediators and moderators of condomless sex risk, as well as being mediated by other cognitive and emotional factors. This scoping review also revealed limitations of extant research, such as homogeneity of samples and inconsistent operationalization of sex-related AE and male condom use. Current evidence partially supports AE theory in the context of condom use and highlights the need to further investigate inconsistent findings across populations.
Recent advances in zero-shot text-to-3D generation have revolutionised 3D content creation by enabling direct synthesis from textual descriptions. While state-of-the-art methods leverage 3D Gaussian Splatting with score distillation to enhance multi-view rendering through pre-trained text-to-image (T2I) models, they suffer from inherent prior view biases in T2I Models. These biases lead to inconsistent 3D generation, particularly manifesting as the multi-face Janus problem, where objects exhibit conflicting features across views. To address this fundamental challenge, we propose ConsDreamer, a novel method that mitigates view bias by refining both the conditional and unconditional terms in the score distillation process: (1) a View Disentanglement Module (VDM) that eliminates viewpoint biases in conditional prompts by decoupling irrelevant view components and injecting precise view control; and (2) a similarity-based partial order loss that enforces geometric consistency in the unconditional term by aligning cosine similarities with azimuth relationships. Extensive experiments demonstrate that ConsDreamer can be seamlessly integrated into various 3D representations and score distillation paradigms, effectively mitigating the multi-face Janus problem.
This study investigated the effects of phytase (PHY) and phosphate-solubilizing Bacillus (PSB) isolates on maize growth and phosphorus (P) acquisition in low-P red soil, under conditions with or without organic P application. A pot experiment demonstrated that the combined application of organic P with exogenous PHY and PSB significantly enhanced maize agronomic traits, root morphology, rhizosphere properties, and P mobilization. Compared to the P-free control, organic P application alone increased plant height, stem diameter, dry matter, and P uptake by 9.9%, 5.4%, 23.2%, and 34.6%, root surface area, volume, and branching increased by 39.7%, 26.7%, and 44.7%, while average root diameter decreased by 19.5%, respectively. Exogenous phytase treatment was more effective than bacterial adding in enhancing P activation and uptake, increasing maize P absorption by 55.4% and 47.3% with and without sodium phytate, respectively. Redundancy analysis indicated positive correlations between root traits (root tips, surface area, volume) and P uptake, and between Olsen-P, resin-P, NaHCO₃-Pi, and enzyme activities. The results suggest that combining organic P with exogenous phytase effectively mobilizes native soil P pools, improves maize growth, and increases P use efficiency, offering a sustainable strategy for P management in low-P red soils.