Settlement and metamorphosis of planktonic larvae into benthic adults are critical components of a diverse range of marine invertebrate-mediated processes such as the formation of mussel beds and coral reefs, the recruitment of marine shellfisheries, and the initiation of macrobiofouling. Although larval settlement and metamorphosis induced by natural chemical cues is widespread among marine invertebrates, the mechanisms of action remain poorly understood. Here, we identified that the molecular target of adenosine (an inducer of larval settlement and metamorphosis from conspecific adults in the invasive biofouling mussel Mytilopsis sallei) is adenosine kinase (ADK). The results of transcriptomic analyses, pharmacological assays, temporal and spatial gene expression analyses, and siRNA interference, suggest that ATP-dependent phosphorylation of adenosine catalyzed by ADK activates the downstream AMPK-FoxO signaling pathway, inducing larval settlement and metamorphosis in M. sallei. This study not only reveals the role of the ADK-AMPK-FoxO pathway in larval settlement and metamorphosis of marine invertebrates but it also deepens our understanding of the functions and evolution of adenosine signaling, a process that is widespread in biology and important in medicine.

Progressive negative behavioral changes in normal aging are paralleled by a complex series of physical and functional declines expressed in the cerebral cortex. In studies conducted in the auditory domain, these degrading physical and functional cortical changes have been shown to be broadly reversed by intensive progressive training that improves the spectral and temporal resolution of acoustic inputs and suppresses behavioral distractors. Here we found older rats that were intensively trained on an attentionally demanding modulation-rate recognition task in young adulthood substantially retained training-driven improvements in temporal rate discrimination abilities over a subsequent 18-mo epoch-that is, forward into their older age. In parallel, this young-adult auditory training enduringly enhanced temporal and spectral information processing in their primary auditory cortices (A1). Substantially greater numbers of parvalbumin-and somatostatin-labeled inhibitory neurons (closer to the numbers recorded in young vigorous adults) were recorded in the A1 and hippocampus in old trained versus untrained age-matched rats. These results show that a simple form of training in young adulthood in this rat model enduringly delays the otherwise expected deterioration of the physical status and functional operations of the auditory nervous system, with evident training impacts generalized to the hippocampus.aging | auditory cortex | behavioral training | cortical processing | inhibition A degradation of the status of physical brain machinery, expressed by a decline in its temporal processing abilities, has been repeatedly associated with its deteriorating functional status in normal aging (1-4). Recent studies have shown that the machinery that supports processing accuracy and speed, as well as the processes supporting attention control and distractor suppression, can be substantially rejuvenated via simple forms of intensive training in the aged-rat model (4, 5). With auditory perceptual training, in parallel with recovery in behavioral abilities to that matching young-animal performance levels, serials of key physical, chemical, and functional aspects of cortical processing machinery in the trained rats were shown to be restored to a physical or functional status that approached that normally recorded in vigorous young-adult animals.In human studies, substantial changes in speed of processing (SOP) and in other spectro-temporal (or spatiotemporal) signal resolution of performance abilities have been shown to result from attention-demanding, speed-challenged auditory (3, 5-7) or visual training (8-11). For example, the accurate behavioral identification and stimulus-order reconstruction of rapidly successive auditory stimuli was restored in human individuals trained in their eighth decade of life to a performance level normally typifying human performance abilities recorded in their third or fourth decade (3, 6).Our goal here was to define the magnitude and endurance of an intense dose of attention-demanding modulation di...

HighlightsThe endophytic Bacillus megaterium isolated from Hybrid Pennisetum is promising isolate for Cd bioremediation.The mutated strain BM18-2 showed higher capacity to resist Cd until 70 μM and improving plant growth.Six different genes of BM18-2 are involved in Cd resistance mechanism.Hybrid Pennisetum inoculated with BM18-2 showed higher amount of growth and toleranc to Cd toxicity than uninoculated plants.

Lead acid battery occupies a very important position in the global battery market for its high security and excellent cost-effective. It is widely used in various energy storage systems, such as electric vehicles, hybrid electric vehicles, uninterruptible power supply and grid-scale energy storage system of electricity generated by renewable energy. Lead acid battery which operates under high rate partial state of charge will lead to the sulfation of negative electrode. Lead carbon battery, prepared by adding carbon material to the negative electrode of lead acid battery, inhibits the sulfation problem of the negative electrode effectively, which makes the problem of positive electrode become more prominent. As a result, more and more researchers are working on ways to improve the performance of the positive electrode, such as adding additives to positive active material. In this paper, the positive additives are divided into conductive additive, porous additive and nucleating additive from two aspects: the chemical properties of the additives and the effect on the performance of the lead-acid battery. The effect and mechanism of different additives on the structure and properties of positive electrode are discussed.