Highlights d Cities possess a consistent ''core'' set of non-human microbes d Urban microbiomes echo important features of cities and city-life d Antimicrobial resistance genes are widespread in cities d Cities contain many novel bacterial and viral species

Background: Zebrafish have the ability for heart regeneration. However, another teleost animal model, the medaka, had not yet been investigated for this capacity. Results: Compared with zebrafish, the medaka heart responded differently to an injury: An excessive fibrotic response occurred in the medaka heart, and existing cardiomyocytes or cardiac progenitor cells remained dormant, resulting in no numerical difference between the uncut and injured heart with respect to the number of EdUincorporated cardiomyocytes. The results obtained from the analysis of the medaka raldh2-GFP transgenic line showed a lack of raldh2 expression in the endocardium. Regarding periostin expression, the localization of medaka periostin-b, a marker of fibrillogenesis, in the medaka heart remained at the wound site at 30 dpa; whereas zebrafish periostin-b was no longer localized at the wound but was detected in the epicardium at that time. Conclusions: Compared with zebrafish heart regeneration, the medaka heart phenotypes suggest the possibility that the medaka could hardly regenerate its heart tissue or that these phenotypes for heart regeneration showed a delay.

OGG1 protein has an ability to suppress mutagenesis induced by 8-hydroxyguanine (8OHG), an oxidatively damaged promutagenic base. Here, the mutation suppressive ability was compared between two common polymorphic OGG1 proteins, OGG1-Ser326 and OGG1-Cys326, using a supF forward mutation assay employing an 8OHG-containing plasmid. Polymorphic OGG1 proteins were exogenously expressed by adenoviral transduction in H1299 human lung cancer cells, in which endogenous OGG1 protein was undetectable by western blot analysis. Mutations by 8OHG were more efficiently suppressed in OGG1-Ser326 transduced cells than OGG1-Cys326 transduced cells. The results indicated that OGG1-Cys326 has a lower ability to prevent mutagenesis by 8OHG than OGG1-Ser326 in vivo in human cells; supporting the results of recent association studies that OGG1-Cys326 is a risk allele for several types of human cancers.

Autologous fat grafting for breast augmentation has faced some historical hurdles. However, in recent years it has been gaining acceptance from the medical community. This prospective, nonrandomized open-label study of 20 Japanese women supports the use of autologous fat grafting in breast augmentation and explores enhancement of fat graft tissue with autologous adipose-derived regenerative cells (ADRCs). After adipose harvesting using syringe liposuction, the tissue is processed in the Celution 800 System(®), which washes the graft and isolates ADRCs. The average cells per gram of harvested adipose tissue was 3.42 × 10(5), and the mean cell viability measured using an automated cell counting system before graft delivery was 85.3%. All patients demonstrated improvement in circumferential breast measurement (BRM) from their baseline state, and breast measurements were stable by 3 months after surgery. The mean BRM 9 months after surgery had increased 3.3 cm from preoperative measurements. Through 9 months, overall physician satisfaction was 69% and patient satisfaction was 75%. No serious or unexpected adverse events were reported, and the procedure was safe and well tolerated in all patients. Postoperative cyst formation was seen in two patients. These prospective results demonstrate that ADRC-enriched fat grafts processed with a closed automated system maintain high cell viability and that the procedure is safe and effective, with all patients showing improvement after a single treatment.

Gluconacetobacter xylinus (formerly Acetobacter xylinum and presently Komagataeibacter medellinensis) is known to produce cellulose as a stable pellicle. However, it is also well known to lose this ability very easily. We investigated the on and off mechanisms of cellulose producibility in two independent cellulose-producing strains, R1 and R2. Both these strains were isolated through a repetitive static culture of a non-cellulose-producing K. medellinensis NBRC 3288 parental strain. Two cellulose synthase operons, types I and II, of this strain are truncated by the frameshift mutation in the bcsBI gene and transposon insertion in the bcsCII gene, respectively. The draft genome sequencing of R1 and R2 strains revealed that in both strains the bcsBI gene was restored by deletion of a nucleotide in its C-rich region. This result suggests that the mutations in the bcsBI gene are responsible for the on and off mechanism of cellulose producibility. When we looked at the genomic DNA sequences of other Komagataeibacter species, several non-cellulose-producing strains were found to contain similar defects in the type I and/or type II cellulose synthase operons. Furthermore, the phylogenetic relationship among cellulose synthase genes conserved in other bacterial species was analyzed. We observed that the cellulose genes in the Komagataeibacter shared sequence similarities with the γ-proteobacterial species but not with the α-proteobacteria and that the type I and type II operons could be diverged from a same ancestor in Komagataeibacter.