We reported an erythrocyte membrane-coated nanogel (RBC-nanogel) system with combinatorial antivirulence and responsive antibiotic delivery for the treatment of methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus (MRSA) infection. RBC membrane was coated onto the nanogel via a membrane vesicle templated in situ gelation process, whereas the redox-responsiveness was achieved by using a disulfide bond-based crosslinker. We demonstrated that the RBC-nanogels effectively neutralized MRSA-associated toxins in extracellular environment and the toxin neutralization in turn promoted bacterial uptake by macrophages. In intracellular reducing environment, the RBC-nanogels showed an accelerated drug release profile, which resulted in more effective bacterial inhibition. When added to the macrophages infected with intracellular MRSA bacteria, the RBC-nanogels significantly inhibited bacterial growth compared to free antibiotics and non-responsive nanogel counterparts. These results indicate the great potential of the RBC-nanogel system as a new and effective antimicrobial agent against MRSA infection.

MnO@C microsphere are designed as anodes to alleviate volume changes and enhance conductivity, showing improved lithium ion battery performance.

Resistance to medical triazoles in is an emerging problem for patients at risk of aspergillus diseases. There are currently two presumed routes for medical triazole-resistance selection: (i) through selection pressure of medical triazoles when treating patients and (ii) through selection pressure from non-medical sterol-biosynthesis-inhibiting (SI) triazole fungicides which are used in the environment. Previous studies have suggested that SI fungicides can induce cross-resistance to medical triazoles. Therefore, to assess the potential of selection of resistance to medical triazoles in the environment, we assessed cross-resistance to three medical triazoles in lineages of from previous work where we applied an experimental evolution approach with one of five different SI fungicides to select for resistance. In our evolved lines we found widespread cross-resistance indicating that resistance to medical triazoles rapidly arises through selection pressure of SI fungicides. All evolved lineages showed similar evolutionary dynamics to SI fungicides and medical triazoles, which suggests that the mutations inducing resistance to both SI fungicides and medical triazoles are likely to be the same. Whole-genome sequencing revealed that a variety of mutations were putatively involved in the resistance mechanism, some of which are in known target genes.

Douchi, a traditional fermented soybean product that originated in China, has been consumed since ancient times as a food seasoning. The influence of fermentation on the chemical components of naturally fermented douchi and Aspergillus egypticus pure-cultured douchi was investigated. Changes in per cent and/or concentration of amino-type nitrogen, total acid, reducing sugar, organic acid, amino acids (AA) and isoflavone, along with the neutral protease and b-glucosidase activities during the fermentation, were analysed. The results indicated that fermentation had a significant effect on the concentration of chemical components. The concentration of all free amino acids (FAA) increased gradually during fermentation, to a maximum of 109.54 mg g )1 in 15-day fermented products. The main organic acids in douchi are 7.788 and 17.778 mg g )1 , respectively. During fermentation, the contents of daidzin and genistin decreased from 160.7 and 207.9 to 7.54 and 24.12 lg g )1 respectively. Daidzein and genistein increased from 18.2 and 16.9 to 63.4 and 84.6 lg g )1 , respectively.