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Post-electrospinning treatment is a facile process to improve the properties of electrospun nanofibers for various applications. This technique is commonly used when direct electrospinning is not a suitable option to fabricate a nonwoven membrane of the desired polymer in a preferred morphology. In this study, a representative natural-synthetic hybrid of cellulose acetate (CA) and polycaprolactone (PCL) in different ratios was fabricated using an electrospinning process, and CA in the hybrid fiber was transformed into cellulose (CL) by post-electrospinning treatment via alkaline saponification. Scanning electron microscopy was employed to study the effects of polymer composition and subsequent saponification on the morphology of the nanofibers. Increasing the PCL content in the PCL/CA blend solution caused a gradual decrease in viscosity, resulting in smoother and more uniform fibers. The saponification of fibers lead to pronounced changes in the physicochemical properties. The crystallinity of the PCL in the composite fiber was varied according to the composition of the component polymers. The water contact angle was considerably decreased (from 124° to less than 20°), and the mechanical properties were greatly enhanced (Young's Modulus was improved by ≈20-30 fold, tensile strength by 3-4 fold, and tensile stress by ≈2-4 fold) compared to those of PCL and PCL/CA membranes. Regeneration of cellulose chains in the nanofibers increased the number of hydroxyl groups, which increased the hydrogen bonding, thereby improving the mechanical properties and wettability of the composite nanofibers. The improved wettability and presence of surface functional groups enhanced the ability to nucleate bioactive calcium phosphate crystals throughout the matrix when exposed to a simulated body fluid solution. Experimental results of cell viability assay, confocal microscopy, and scanning electron microscopy imaging showed that the fabricated nanofibrous membranes have excellent ability for MC3T3-E1 cell proliferation and growth. Given the versatility and widespread use of cellulose-synthetic hybrid systems in the construction of tissue-engineered scaffolds, this work provides a novel strategy to fabricate the biopolymer-based materials for applications in tissue engineering and regenerative medicine.

Burkholderia glumae is the primary causal agent of bacterial panicle blight of rice. In this study, 11 naturally avirulent and nine virulent strains of B. glumae native to the southern United States were characterized in terms of virulence in rice and onion, toxofalvin production, antifungal activity, pigmentation and genomic structure. Virulence of B. glumae strains on rice panicles was highly correlated to virulence on onion bulb scales, suggesting that onion bulb can be a convenient alternative host system to efficiently determine the virulence of B. glumae strains. Production of toxoflavin, the phytotoxin that functions as a major virulence factor, was closely associated with the virulence phenotypes of B. glumae strains in rice. Some strains of B. glumae showed various levels of antifungal activity against Rhizoctonia solani, the causal agent of sheath blight, and pigmentation phenotypes on casamino acid-peptone-glucose (CPG) agar plates regardless of their virulence traits. Purple and yellow-green pigments were partially purified from a pigmenting strain of B. glumae, 411gr-6, and the purple pigment fraction showed a strong antifungal activity against Collectotrichum orbiculare. Genetic variations were detected among the B. glumae strains from DNA fingerprinting analyses by repetitive element sequence-based PCR (rep-PCR) for BOX-A1R-based repetitive extragenic palindromic (BOX) or enterobacterial repetitive intergenic consensus (ERIC) sequences of bacteria; and close genetic relatedness among virulent but pigment-deficient strains were revealed by clustering analyses of DNA fingerprints from BOX-and ERIC-PCR.

Potential biological control agents for two major rice diseases, sheath blight and bacterial panicle blight, were isolated from rice plants in this study. Rice-associated bacteria (RABs) isolated from rice plants grown in the field were tested for their antagonistic activities against the rice pathogens, Rhizoctonia solani and Burkholderia glumae, which cause sheath blight and bacterial panicle blight, respectively. Twenty-nine RABs were initially screened based on their antagonistic activities against both R. solani and B. glumae. In follow-up retests, 26 RABs of the 29 RABs were confirmed to have antimicrobial activities, but the rest three RABs did not reproduce any observable antagonistic activity against R. solani or B. glumae. According to16S rDNA sequence identity, 12 of the 26 antagonistic RABs were closest to Bacillus amyloliquefaciens, while seven RABs were to B. methylotrophicus and B, subtilis, respectively. The 16S rDNA sequences of the three non-antagonistic RABs were closest to Lysinibacillus sphaericus (RAB1 and RAB12) and Lysinibacillus macroides (RAB5). The five selected RABs showing highest antimicrobial activities (RAB6, RAB9, RAB16, RAB17S, and RAB18) were closest to B. amyloliquefaciens in DNA sequence of 16S rDNA and gyrB, but to B. subtilis in that of recA. These RABs were observed to inhibit the sclerotial germination of R. solani on potato dextrose agar and the lesion development on detached rice leaves by artificial inoculation of R. solani. These antagonistic RABs also significantly suppressed the disease development of sheath blight and bacterial panicle blight in a field condition, suggesting that they can be potential biological control agents for these rice diseases. However, these antagonistic RABs showed diminished disease suppression activities in the repeated field trial conducted in the following year probably due to their reduced antagonistic activities to the pathogens during the long-term storage in -70C, suggesting that development of proper storage methods to maintain antagonistic activity is as crucial as identification of new biological control agents.

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