IMGT®, the international ImMunoGeneTics information system® (http://www.imgt.org), was created in 1989 by Marie-Paule Lefranc, Laboratoire d'ImmunoGénétique Moléculaire LIGM (Université Montpellier 2 and CNRS) at Montpellier, France, in order to standardize and manage the complexity of immunogenetics data. The building of a unique ontology, IMGT-ONTOLOGY, has made IMGT® the global reference in immunogenetics and immunoinformatics. IMGT® is a high-quality integrated knowledge resource specialized in the immunoglobulins or antibodies, T cell receptors, major histocompatibility complex, of human and other vertebrate species, proteins of the IgSF and MhcSF, and related proteins of the immune systems of any species. IMGT® provides a common access to standardized data from genome, proteome, genetics and 3D structures. IMGT® consists of five databases (IMGT/LIGM-DB, IMGT/GENE-DB, IMGT/3Dstructure-DB, etc.), fifteen interactive online tools for sequence, genome and 3D structure analysis, and more than 10 000 HTML pages of synthesis and knowledge. IMGT® is used in medical research (autoimmune diseases, infectious diseases, AIDS, leukemias, lymphomas and myelomas), veterinary research, biotechnology related to antibody engineering (phage displays, combinatorial libraries, chimeric, humanized and human antibodies), diagnostics (clonalities, detection and follow-up of residual diseases) and therapeutical approaches (graft, immunotherapy, vaccinology). IMGT is freely available at http://www.imgt.org.

Nanoparticles possess unique features due to their small size and can be composed of different surface chemistries. Carbon quantum dots possess several unique physico-chemical and antibacterial activities. This review provides an overview of different methods to prepare carbon quantum dots from different carbon sources in order to provide guidelines for choosing methods and carbon sources that yield carbon quantum dots with optimal antibacterial efficacy. Antibacterial activities of carbon quantum dots predominantly involve cell wall damage and disruption of the matrix of infectious biofilms through reactive oxygen species (ROS) generation to cause dispersal of infecting pathogens that enhance their susceptibility to antibiotics. Quaternized carbon quantum dots from organic carbon sources have been found to be equally efficacious for controlling wound infection and pneumonia in rodents as antibiotics. Carbon quantum dots derived through heating of natural carbon sources can inherit properties that resemble those of the carbon sources they are derived from. This makes antibiotics, medicinal herbs and plants or probiotic bacteria ideal sources for the synthesis of antibacterial carbon quantum dots. Importantly, carbon quantum dots have been suggested to yield a lower chance of inducing bacterial resistance than antibiotics, making carbon quantum dots attractive for large scale clinical use.

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In this reported study, poly(vinylidene fluoride) (PVDF) and polyacrylonitrile (PAN) blend flat-sheet membranes were prepared via a phase-inversion method with various loadings of multiwalled carbon nanotubes. The effects of the carbon nanotubes (CNTs) on the performance and morphology of the PVDF-PAN composites were investigated via tests of the pure water flux and rejection of bovine serum albumin, scanning electron microscopy, atomic force microscopy, Fourier transform infrared spectroscopy, X-ray diffraction, thermogravimetric analysis, and contact angle (CA) analysis. The experimental results demonstrate that the CNTs contributed to the improvement of the flux and hydrophilicity of the membranes. The maximum value of the flux was 398.1 L m 22 h 21 , and the value of CA for the composite membranes was found to be 488. In addition, the results of the mechanical properties tests illustrate that the brittleness and plasticity of the hybrid membranes were greatly improved by the presence of the CNTs. The flux recovery ratio was maintained at 75%; this demonstrated that the PVDF-PAN membranes enhanced with the CNTs possessed good antifouling performance.Polyacrylonitrile (PAN) is also a common microfiltration and ultrafiltration membrane material by virtue of its chemical stability, thermal stability, low cost, and tolerance to organic solvents. 5,32 The molecular structures of PVDF and PAN are Additional Supporting Information may be found in the online version of this article.

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Edwardsiella piscicida is an infectious Gram-negative bacterium that causes great losses to the aquaculture industry worldwide. Based on pattern analysis of conditional essentiality (PACE), a new method for transposon insertion sequencing (Tn-seq) data analysis, we investigated the genome-wide genetic requirements during the dynamic process of infection and colonization in turbot in this study. As a result, disruption of ETAE_1437 was discovered to lead to substantially reduced colonization, which was similar to the in vivo dynamic patterns of the mutants of T3SS or T6SS. Bioinformatics analysis indicated that ETAE_1437 is a YebC/PmpR family regulator. Moreover, we found that ETAE_1437 not only regulated quorum sensing by directly binding to the edwR promoter region but also activated T3SS expression by directly binding to the promoter region of the T3SS gene ETAE_0873. In addition, ETAE_1437 mutants exhibited substantial colonization defects and significantly decreased virulence in turbot. Overall, this study identified ETAE_1437 as a novel virulence regulator in E. piscicida and enriched our understanding of the pathogenesis of E. piscicida in fish. We thus reannotated ETAE_1437 as YebC.

Aims: To determine whether sublethally-injured (acid-or heat-shocked) Staphylococcus aureus cells are recoverable using selective agar overlays. Methods and Results: Brain Heart Infusion (BHI) Agar overlaid with either Baird-Parker Agar (BPA) or GramPositive Agar (GPA) was compared in the ability to resuscitate heat-and acid-shocked enterotoxigenic Staph. aureus. BHI ⁄ BPA overlays allowed for greater recovery of both heat-and acid-shocked cells than BHI ⁄ GPA, although the former was not selective and allowed growth of bacteria other than Staph. aureus. No significant difference existed in percent recovery of heat-and acid-shocked cells between the two overlay approaches. Significant differences were noted in counts on BHI ⁄ GPA plates and straight selective GPA ⁄ GPA plates, however. Viability of heat-and acid-shocked Staph. aureus was also examined using fluorescence microscopy, the relative counts of which correlated well to the calculated percent recovery on selective agar overlays. Conclusions: This work has shown that an improved agar overlay technique increases the sensitivity of the standard plate count while enumerating sublethally-injured enterotoxigenic Staph. aureus compared with direct plating onto selective media. Significance and Impact of the Study: These data emphasize the need to develop practical and cost-effective methods that reliably detect and enumerate sublethally-injured pathogens such as Staph. aureus.

Marine pathogens are transmitted from one host to another through seawater. Therefore, it is important for marine pathogens to maintain survival or growth in seawater. However, little is known about how marine pathogens adapt to living in seawater environments. Here, transposon insertion sequencing was performed to explore the genetic determinants of Edwardsiella piscicida survival in seawater at 16 and 28°C. Seventy-one mutants with mutations mainly in metabolism-, transportation-, and type III secretion system (T3SS)-related genes showed significantly increased or impaired fitness in 16°C water. In 28°C seawater, 63 genes associated with transcription and translation, as well as energy production and conversion, were essential for optimal survival of the bacterium. In particular, 11 T3SS-linked mutants displayed enhanced fitness in 16°C seawater but not in 28°C seawater. In addition, 13 genes associated with oxidative phosphorylation and 4 genes related to ubiquinone synthesis were identified for survival in 28°C seawater but not in 16°C seawater, which suggests that electron transmission and energy-producing aerobic respiration chain factors are indispensable for E. piscicida to maintain survival in higher-temperature seawater. In conclusion, we defined genes and processes related to metabolism and virulence that operate in E. piscicida to facilitate survival in low-and high-temperature seawater, which may underlie the infection outbreak mechanisms of E. piscicida and facilitate the development of improved vaccines against marine pathogens. IMPORTANCE Edwardsiella piscicida is one of the most important marine pathogens and causes serious edwardsiellosis in farmed fish during the summer-autumn seasonal changes, resulting in enormous losses to aquaculture industries worldwide. Survival and transmission of the pathogen in seawater are critical steps that increase the risk of outbreaks. To investigate the mechanism of survival in seawater for this marine pathogen, we used transposon insertion sequencing analysis to explore the fitness determinants in summer and autumn seawater. Approximately 127 genes linked to metabolism and virulence, as well as other processes, were revealed in E. piscicida to contribute to better adaptations to the seasonal alternations of seawater environments; these genes provide important insights into the infection outbreak mechanisms of E. piscicida and potential improved treatments or vaccines against marine pathogens. Expression of T3SS increased the fitness burden of E. piscicida survival in 16°Cseawater. E. piscicida did not normally grow in 28°C seawater after 24 h of incubation, probably due to the nutrient limitation in filtered natural seawater (Fig. 4A). Afterward, the survival of the WT strain dramatically decreased in 28°C seawater, particularly after 36 h of incubation (Fig. 4A). The survival capabilities of the esrA, esrB, esrC, and esaM FIG 3 Competitive index (CI) assays to validate the TIS data from the 16 and 28°C seawater. (A and B) The indicated strain was mixed with th...