Reconstituted tobacco sheet process has been developed to treat and reuse tobacco wastes in the industry. During this process, microorganisms in original and concentrated tobacco waste extract (TWE) might play important roles in the final quality of the reconstituted tobacco. However, microbial communities in TWE remain largely unknown. In the present study, the Roche 454 bar-coded pyrosequencing was applied to analyze the bacterial community structure in samples. Comparison based on 16S rRNA gene sequences showed that the original and concentrated solutions of TWE harbored abundant bacteria probably resistant to the acid, high nicotine concentration, and high osmotic pressure environment. The dominant phyla were Firmicutes and Proteobacteria. Lactobacillus and Lysinibacillus were the dominant genera of Firmicutes. The most interesting genus of Proteobacteria was Pseudomonas. It is the first time to reveal the bacterial diversities on the TWE samples from the process of reconstituted tobacco sheets.

The increasing demand for flexible and wearable electronics has promoted the rapid development of the pressure sensors capable of monitoring diverse human movements and physiological signals. However, more and more research requires the pressure sensor to possess high sensing performance and desires the fabrication to exhibit the characteristics of low cost, large-scale production, high reproduction, even disposability. Here, we propose a full tissue-based capacitive pressure sensor with a sandwiched structure consisting of two MXene-coated tissue electrodes and a blank tissue dielectric layer. The tight contact and adequate adsorption of the MXene sheets with the cellulose fibers endow the electrode with uniform conductivity and high stability over a large area. In addition, the flexible sensor could be conveniently cut into any shape and size to meet the diverse application requirements. Thereby, the pressure sensor exhibits a sensitivity of 0.051 kPa–1 (<7 kPa), a wide detection range of 0.02–160 kPa, a fast response (∼100 ms), and good repeatability. The flexible device has been demonstrated to monitor a variety of human activities and physical stimuli. The assembled sensor array can accurately and reliably detect the pressure distribution.

Microbial degradation of nicotine is an important process to control nicotine residues in the aqueous environment. In this study, a high active nicotine degradation strain named Pseudomonas sp. JY-Q was isolated from tobacco waste extract (TWE). This strain could completely degrade 5.0 g l−1 nicotine in 24 h under optimal culture conditions, and it showed some tolerance even at higher concentrations (10.0 g l−1) of nicotine. The complete genome of JY-Q was sequenced to understand the mechanism by which JY-Q could degrade nicotine and tolerate such high nicotine concentrations. Comparative genomic analysis indicated that JY-Q degrades nicotine through putative novel mechanisms. Two candidate gene cluster duplications located separately at distant loci were predicted to be responsible for nicotine degradation. These two nicotine (Nic) degradation-related loci (AA098_21325—AA098_21340, AA098_03885—AA098_03900) exhibit nearly completely consistent gene organization and component synteny. The nicotinic acid (NA) degradation gene cluster (AA098_17770–AA098_17790) and Nic-like clusters were both predicted to be flanked by mobile genetic elements (MGE). Furthermore, we analyzed the regions of genomic plasticity (RGP) in the JY-Q strain and found a dynamic genome carrying a type VI secretion system (T6SS) that promotes nicotine metabolism and tolerance based on transcriptomics and used in silico methods to identify the T6SS effector protein. Thus, a novel nicotine degradation mechanism was elucidated for Pseudomonas sp. JY-Q, suggesting its potential application in the bioremediation of nicotine-contaminated environments, such as TWEs.