Scope Sulfated polysaccharide from sea cucumber (SCSP), Stichopus japonicus, has been shown to prevent diverse diseases, but little is known about its effects on obesity and gut microbiota in mice fed a high‐fat diet (HFD). Methods and results Diet‐induced obese, BALB/c mice are fed an HFD with or without SCSP and depolymerized SCSP (d‐SCSP, 0.004 kcal g−1) for 8 weeks. The results show that both SCSP and d‐SCSP reduce body weight, fat and liver hypertrophy, insulin resistance, and serum lipid and inflammatory cytokine levels in HFD‐fed mice. Moreover, SCSP and d‐SCSP not only prevent HFD‐induced gut disorder, as indicated by the enriched probiotic Akkermansia and reduce endotoxin‐bearing Proteobacteria, but also improve the SCFAs and endotoxin (LPS) levels and gut tissue index. Spearman's correlation analysis reveals that several specific genera are strongly correlated with obesity‐related indexes. In addition, the inhibitory effect of d‐SCSP on fat accumulation is more effective than that of SCSP, which may be related to their different regulation of the gut microbiota. Conclusions These findings suggest that SCSP can prevent diet‐induced obesity and its associated diseases by modulating the gut microbiota and improving microbial metabolites and gut tissue, and its effects can be enhanced by free‐radical depolymerization.

Salinization is an important and increasingly prevalent issue which has broad and profound effects on plant survival and distribution pattern. To understand the patterns and potential drivers of leaf traits in saline environments, we determined the soil properties, leaf morphological traits (specific leaf area, SLA, and leaf dry matter content, LDMC), leaf chemical traits (leaf carbon, C, nitrogen, N, and phosphorus, P, stoichiometry) based on 142 observations collected from 23 sites in an arid saline environment, which is a vulnerable ecosystem in northwest China. We also explored the relationships among leaf traits, the responses of leaf traits, and plant functional groups (herb, woody, and succulent woody) to various saline environments. The arid desert halophytes were characterized by lower leaf C and SLA levels, higher N, but stable P and N:P. The leaf morphological traits were correlated significantly with the C, N, and P contents across all observations, but they differed within each functional group. Succulent woody plants had the lowest leaf C and highest leaf N levels among the three functional groups. The growth of halophytes might be more limited by N rather than P in the study area. GLM analysis demonstrated that the soil available nutrients and plant functional groups, but not salinity, were potential drivers of leaf C:N:P stoichiometry in halophytes, whereas species differences accounted for the largest contributions to leaf morphological variations. Our study provides baseline information to facilitate the management and restoration of arid saline desert ecosystem.

Fucoidan extracted from Ascophyllum nodosum exhibits beneficial effects on gut microbiota dysbiosis and colonic inflammation induced by ciprofloxacin and metronidazole.

The electronic structures of the AlB2-type transition-metal diborides TMB2 (TM=Sc,Ti,V,Cr,Mn,Y,Zr,Nb,Mo,Hf,Ta) have been calculated by using the self-consistent LMTO-ASA method. The binding mechanism is discussed and the rigid-band model is shown to provide a fairly good description of their electronic structures. The existence of a pseudogap in the total density of states is found to be a common feature of these compounds. The variation of the chemical stabilities of these diborides is analysed and we find that the trends can be understood in terms of the band-filling concept of the bonding states. The results are compared with other theoretical and experimental work.