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Anammox bacteria enable an efficient removal of nitrogen from sewage in processes involving partial nitritation and anammox (PN/A) or nitrification, partial denitrification, and anammox (N-PdN/A). In mild climates, anammox bacteria must be adapted to 15 C, typically by gradual temperature decrease; however, this takes months or years. To reduce the time necessary for the adaptation, an unconventional method of cold shocks is promising, involving hours-long exposure of anammox biomass to extremely low temperatures. We compared the efficacies of gradual temperature decrease and cold shocks to increase the metabolic activity of anammox (fed-batch reactor, planktonic Ca. Kuenenia). We assessed the cold shock mechanism on the level of protein expression (quantitative shot-gun proteomics, LC-HRMS/MS) and structure of membrane lipids (UPLC-HRMS/MS). The shocked culture was more active (0.66+-0.06 vs 0.48+-0.06 kg-N/kg-VSS/d) and maintained the relative content of N-respiration proteins at levels consistent levels with the initial state, whereas the content of these proteins decreased in gradually acclimated culture. Cold shocks also induced a more efficient up-regulation of cold shock proteins (e.g. CspB, TypA, ppiD). Ladderane lipids characteristic for anammox evolved to a similar end-point in both cultures which confirms their role in anammox bacteria adaptation to cold and indicates a three-pronged adaptation mechanism involving ladderane lipids (ladderane alkyl length, introduction of shorter non-ladderane alkyls, polar headgroup). Overall, we show the outstanding potential of cold shocks for low-temperature adaptation of anammox bacteria and provide yet unreported detailed mechanisms of anammox adaptation to low temperatures.

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Finding optimal reaction conditions is usually complex, requires many experiments and is therefore demanding in terms of human, financial and environmental resources. This work provides a simple workflow for easier design of popular palladium catalyzed C-H functionalization reactions, where the active palladium catalysts contain carboxylate ligands. The key factor for optimizing reaction conditions is to find a balance between two opposing effects of the carboxylic acid in the reaction mixture; generation of more reactive palladium catalyst vs. deactivation of substrate by its protonation.

One of the major obstacles that limits the use of magnetic nanoparticles in biomedical applications is their potential toxicity. In the present study, we evaluated the cytotoxic effects of thiol-functionalized silica-coated iron oxide (Fe3O4@SiO2-SH) nanoparticles using human lung epithelial cells A549. We investigated the effect of Fe3O4@SiO2-SH nanoparticles on the cell viability, proliferation, cell cycle distribution, adhesion, apoptosis, and the orientation of the cytoskeletal networks, as well as on expression of proteins involved in cell death, cell survival, and cell adhesion. We demonstrated that exposure of A549 cells to Fe3O4@SiO2-SH nanoparticles resulted in severe disruption of the actin microfilaments and microtubule cytoskeleton and reduced the size of focal adhesions. Furthermore, cell adhesion was significantly affected as well as the phosphorylation of focal adhesion kinase (FAK), extracellular-signal-regulated kinase (ERK), and p38. Our findings highlight the need for in-depth cytotoxic evaluation of nanoparticles supporting their safer use, especially in biomedical applications.

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Diphyllin is a natural arylnaphtalide lignan extracted from tropical plants of particular importance in traditional Chinese medicine. This compound has been described as a potent inhibitor of vacuolar (H+)ATPases and hence of the endosomal acidification process that is required by numerous enveloped viruses to trigger their respective viral infection cascades after entering host cells by receptor-mediated endocytosis. Accordingly, we report here a revised, updated, and improved synthesis of diphyllin, and demonstrate its antiviral activities against a panel of enveloped viruses from Flaviviridae, Phenuiviridae, Rhabdoviridae, and Herpesviridae families. Diphyllin is not cytotoxic for Vero and BHK-21 cells up to 100 µM and exerts a sub-micromolar or low-micromolar antiviral activity against tick-borne encephalitis virus, West Nile virus, Zika virus, Rift Valley fever virus, rabies virus, and herpes-simplex virus type 1. Our study shows that diphyllin is a broad-spectrum host cell-targeting antiviral agent that blocks the replication of multiple phylogenetically unrelated enveloped RNA and DNA viruses. In support of this, we also demonstrate that diphyllin is more than just a vacuolar (H+)ATPase inhibitor but may employ other antiviral mechanisms of action to inhibit the replication cycles of those viruses that do not enter host cells by endocytosis followed by low pH-dependent membrane fusion.