Plants are important in urban environments for removing pathogens and improving water quality. Seagrass meadows are the most widespread coastal ecosystem on the planet. Although these plants are known to be associated with natural biocide production, they have not been evaluated for their ability to remove microbiological contamination. Using amplicon sequencing of the 16S ribosomal RNA gene, we found that when seagrass meadows are present, there was a 50% reduction in the relative abundance of...

Ecological theory suggests that co-infecting parasite species can interact within hosts directly, via host immunity and/or via resource competition. In mice, competition for red blood cells (RBCs) between malaria and bloodsucking helminths can regulate malaria population dynamics, but the importance of RBC competition in human hosts was unknown. We analyzed infection density (i.e. the concentration of parasites in infected hosts), from a 2-year deworming study of over 4,000 human subjects. After accounting for resource-use differences...

During extensive surveys of Phytophthora diversity, 14 new species were detected in natural ecosystems in Chile, Louisiana, Sweden, Ukraine, Vietnam and Indonesia. Multigene phylogeny based on the nuclear LSU, rpl10, ITS, ßtub, enl, hsp90, tef-1α, ras-ypt1 and tigA and the mitochondrial cox1, nadh1 and rps10 gene sequences demonstrated that they belong to phylogenetic Clade 10 which is structured into three subclades. Subclades 10a and 10b comprise soil- and waterborne species with nonpapillate sporangia and variable...

Rising ocean temperatures are the primary driver of coral reef declines throughout the tropics. Such declines include reductions in coral cover that facilitate the monopolisation of the benthos by other taxa such as macroalgae, resulting in reduced habitat complexity and biodiversity. Long term monitoring projects present rare opportunities to assess how sea surface temperature anomalies (SSTAs) influence changes in the benthic composition of coral reefs across distinct locations. Here, using extensively monitored coral reef sites...

Nephrolithiasis has shifted to be a systemic disease. As opposed to an isolated urinary metabolic problem, it became determined that nephrolithiasis turned into considerably related to link with systemic diseases such as hypertension, obesity, dyslipidemia, and insulin resistance. The interplay between these four factors defines MetS (metabolic syndrome). In this review we aim to clarify the associations of metabolic syndrome and its components to kidney stone incident. Online databases of EMBASE, MEDLINE, and Google Scholar...

Arbutin is frequently used as an inhibitor of tyrosinase, a key enzyme in the biosynthesis of melanin. Tyrosinase inhibitors are highly sought after by the pharmaceutical and cosmetic industries. Given the increasing interest in such products, we performed a one-step synthesis of acylated arbutin by protease-catalysed transesterification using undecylenic acid ester as acyl donor. We simulated the docking of tyrosinase with the product using AutoDock Vina and identified its activity as a tyrosinase inhibitor by...

Plastic waste can promote microbial colonization by pathogens implicated in outbreaks of disease in the ocean. We assessed the influence of plastic waste on disease risk in 124,000 reef-building corals from 159 reefs in the Asia-Pacific region. The likelihood of disease increases from 4% to 89% when corals are in contact with plastic. Structurally complex corals are eight times more likely to be affected by plastic, suggesting that microhabitats for reef-associated organisms and valuable fisheries...

Root and butt rot caused by members of the Heterobasidion annosum species complex is the most economically important disease of conifer trees in boreal forests. Wood decay in the infected trees dramatically decreases their value and causes considerable losses to forest owners. Trees vary in their susceptibility to Heterobasidion infection, but the genetic determinants underlying the variation in the susceptibility are not well-understood. We performed the identification of Norway spruce genes associated with the resistance...