Proliferations of benthic cyanobacteria in the genus Phormidium are a global concern because of their increasing prevalence and ability to produce harmful toxins. Most studies have been observational and have linked physicochemical variables to Phormidium cover measured at the reach scale. Authors of these studies have alluded to nutrients and flow as key factors in accrual. Our goal was to use an experimental approach to examine how changes in velocity and NO 3 2 concentrations influence Phormidium accrual. We hypothesized that: 1) Phormidium biomass accrual would be positively correlated with stream velocity; 2) biomass accrual would be positively related to NO 3 2 concentration, which would have a stronger effect during early accrual; 3) an NO 3 2 Â velocity interaction would arise from saturation of accrual at high NO 3 2 and high velocity; and 4) the probability of detachment would increase with decreasing velocity. We assessed mat expansion, biomass (as phycoerythrin and chlorophyll a [Chl a] concentrations, and biovolume), and algal assemblage composition in flow-through channel mesocosms for 16 d. We crossed 2 velocity treatments (0.1 and 0.2 m/s, slow and fast, respectively) with 3 NO 3 2 treatments (0.02, 0.1, and 0.4 mg/L, ambient, medium, and high, respectively). Velocity was positively correlated with all measures of Phormidium biomass, but patch expansion rates increased at similar rates across all treatments. NO 3 2 had no effect during early accrual, but phycoerythrin concentrations increased with increasing NO 3 2 in fast-velocity treatments. At the end of the experiment, patch size was greater in the high-velocity treatments because of a greater number of partial or full patch detachments in slow-velocity treatments. These results suggest that NO 3 2 concentrations do not affect Phormidium expansion and detachment, but may be important during colonization (not investigated), and that mat expansion occurs at a similar rate regardless of velocity, but termination of accrual cycles occurs earlier in slow velocities.

Plastics are one of the most important technical materials at present, yet they are associated with a whole series of environmental problems such as micro-and nanoplastics or their plasticizers, which have become increasingly relevant in recent years. While there are many studies that focus on microplastics (MPs) introduced into the human body through commercially produced food, there are nearly none that consider the MPs we ingest through homemade food made with plastic kitchen utensils such as mixing bowls. To investigate this, samples were obtained by exposing different plastic bowls made of acrylonitrile–butadiene–styrene (ABS), polypropylene (PP), melamine, polyethylene (PE), polystyrene (PS), and styrene–acrylonitrile (SAN), to mechanical stress and then analyzed via infrared spectroscopy. This not only raises the question of whether microplastics are incorporated into foods but also the extent to which the degradation products produced by thermal stress in an oven could play a toxicological role. Degradation products were generated by pyrolysis and analyzed afterwards using gas chromatography mass spectrometry. There were differences in the number of microplastic particles abraded by the different types of plastic, with the most consisting of melamine (898 particles) and the least consisting of low-density polyethylene (331 particles). There were also differences in the number and relevance of the thermal degradation products for the different plastics, so that a human toxicological assessment would have to be evaluated in further work.

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Among non-viral vectors, cationic polymers, such as poly(propylene imine) (PPI), play a prominent role in nucleic acid delivery. However, limitations of polycationic polymer-based DNA delivery systems are (i) insufficient target specificity, (ii) unsatisfactory transgene expression, and (iii) undesired transfer of therapeutic DNA into non-target cells. We developed single-chain antibody fragment (scFv)-directed hybrid polyplexes for targeted gene therapy of prostate stem cell antigen (PSCA)-positive tumors. Besides mono-biotinylated PSCA-specific single-chain antibodies (scFv(AM1-P-BAP)) conjugated to neutravidin, the hybrid polyplexes comprise β-cyclodextrin-modified PPI as well as biotin/maltose-modified PPI as carriers for minicircle DNAs encoding for Sleeping Beauty transposase and a transposon encoding the gene of interest. The PSCA-specific hybrid polyplexes efficiently delivered a GFP gene in PSCA-positive tumor cells, whereas control hybrid polyplexes showed low gene transfer efficiency. In an experimental gene therapy approach, targeted transposition of a codon-optimized p53 into p53-deficient HCT116p53−/−/PSCA cells demonstrated decreased clonogenic survival when compared to mock controls. Noteworthily, p53 transposition in PTEN-deficient H4PSCA glioma cells caused nearly complete loss of clonogenic survival. These results demonstrate the feasibility of combining tumor-targeting hybrid polyplexes and Sleeping Beauty gene transposition, which, due to the modular design, can be extended to other target genes and tumor entities.