Aseptic Lemna minor was soaked for 4 h in pond water where wild L. minor was naturally flourishing. Seven of the eight surface-colonizing bacterial strains were found capable of promoting the growth of L. minor. This high appearance of plant growth-promoting bacteria (PGPB) suggests that association of environmental bacteria is generally beneficial rather than harmful for host plants. One of the PGPB, Pseudomonas sp. Ps6, enhanced the growth of L. minor by 2-2.5-fold in 10 days. This activity was higher than that previously reported for Acinetobacter calcoaceticus P23, which enhanced growth of L. minor by 1.5-2-fold. Ps6 mostly adhered to and colonized the root rather than the frond, a leaf-like structure of duckweed where P23 preferentially adheres. It was expected that these two strains can share niches, coexist, and enhance the growth of duckweed additively upon co-inoculation. However, contrary to expectation, the growth of L. minor was enhanced by only 2.3-fold by co-inoculation of these two bacteria. P23 lowered the initial adhesion of Ps6 cells by 98.2% on the fronds and by 79.5% on the roots. However, initial adhesion of P23 cells to the roots increased dramatically, by 47.2-fold, following co-inoculation with Ps6. However, the number of P23 cells decreased dramatically to 0.7% on the root and to 3.6% on the frond after 10 days, whereas Ps6 cells increased by 12.5-fold on the frond and kept 69% on the root, thereby eventually restoring the population on the plant surfaces. Because duckweed is the fastest growing vascular plant and it is easy to grow an aseptic and axenic plant, the duckweed/bacteria co-culture system will be a model platform for studying multiple interactions among host plants and the associated bacteria.

The number of patients with diabetes continues to increase in Japan, which means that education in disease management is important. However, there have been few investigations into the importance of hospital pharmacists performing outpatient education for diabetes mellitus in Japan. In the diabetes outpatient department of Kitakyushu City Moji Hospital, a pharmacist commenced patient education using check sheets before patients saw the physicians from 2012. We divided the patients into groups with an increase or decrease of hemoglobin A1c (HbA1c) level after 6 months from the start of patient education. To assess the factors related to a decrease of HbA1c level, we compared background factors, and laboratory values between these two groups. In the patients whose HbA1c level decreased, the level was high at the start of patient education and they had less knowledge about their medications. To evaluate the impact of this patient education, we compared HbA1c values before patient education and after 6 months to determine the eŠect of providing education in the diabetes outpatient department. In the HbA1c8％ group, the HbA1c level decreased signiˆcantly during 6 months of patient education. These results suggest that patient education by hospital pharmacists can be eŠective if HbA1c level is high at the start of education. This is theˆrst report about the usefulness of patient education by a hospital pharmacist for improvement of HbA1c level in diabetic outpatients in Japan.

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