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Background Threats of antimicrobial resistance (AMR) to human health are on the rise worldwide. Airborne fine particulate matter (PM 2.5 ), especially those emitted from hospitals, could serve as a substantial yet lesser-known environmental medium of inhalable antibiotic resistomes. A genome-centric understanding of the hosting bacterial taxa, mobility potential, and consequent risks of the resistomes is needed to reveal the health relevance of PM 2.5 -associated AMR from clinical settings. Results Compared to urban ambient air PM 2.5 , the hospital samples harbored nearly twice the abundance of antibiotic resistantance genes (ARGs, ~ 0.2 log 10 (ARGs/16S rRNA gene)) in the summer and winter sampled. The profiled resistome was closely correlated with the human-source-influenced (~ 30% of the contribution) bacterial community (Procrustes test, P < 0.001), reflecting the potential antibiotic-resistant bacteria (PARB), such as the human commensals Staphylococcus spp. and Corynebacterium spp. Despite the reduced abundance and diversity of the assembled metagenomes from summer to winter, the high horizontal transfer potential of ARGs, such as the clinically relevant bla OXA and bac A, in the human virulent PARB remained unaffected in the hospital air PM samples. The occurring patterns of β-lactam resistance genes and their hosting genomes in the studied hospital-emitting PM 2.5 were closely related to the in-ward β-lactam-resistant infections (SEM, std = 0.62, P < 0.01). Featured with more abundant potentially virulent PARB (2.89 genome copies/m 3 -air), the hospital samples had significantly higher resistome risk index scores than the urban ambient air samples, indicating that daily human exposure to virulent PARB via the inhalation of PM 2.5 was ten times greater than from the ingestion of drinking water. Conclusions The significance of AMR in the studied hospital-emitting PM 2.5 was highlighted by the greater abundance of ARGs, the prevalence of potentially virulent PARB, and the close association with hospital in-ward β-lactam infections. A larger-scale multi-source comparison of genome-resolved antibiotic resistomes is needed to provide a more holistic understanding to evaluate the importance of airborne AMR from the “One-Health” perspective. 39Xa41gPReog5Lijw58oAn Video Abstract

Observations of elliptical galaxies suggest that black holes (BHs) might serve as dark energy candidates, coupled to the expansion of the Universe. According to this hypothesis, the mass of a BH could increase as the Universe expands. BH low-mass X-ray binaries (LMXBs) in the Galactic disk were born several gigayears ago, making the coupling effect potentially significant. In this work, we calculate the evolution of BH binaries with a binary population synthesis method to examine the possible influence of cosmologically coupled growth of BHs, if it really exists. The measured masses of the compact objects in LMXBs show a gap around ∼2.5–5 M ⊙, separating the most-massive neutron stars from the least-massive BHs. Our calculated results indicate that considering the mass growth seems to (partially) account for the mass gap and the formation of compact BH LMXBs, alleviating the challenges in modeling the formation and evolution of BH LMXBs with traditional theory. However, critical observational evidence like the detection of intermediate-mass BH binaries is required to test this hypothesis.

Magnetic braking (MB) plays an important role in the evolution of close low-mass X-ray binaries (LMXBs). It is also essential to the formation of ultracompact X-ray binaries (UCXBs). There have been lively investigations on the MB mechanism(s) in both single stars and close binaries including cataclysmic variables and neutron star (NS) LMXBs but with diverse conclusions. In this paper we explore the effect of MB on the black hole (BH) LMXB evolution. We combine binary population synthesis with detailed binary evolution to obtain the expected properties of the Galactic BH LMXB population. The simulated results are compared with the observational data including the BH mass, companion mass, companion temperature, orbital period, and mean accretion rate. Our results reveal that the MB laws with relatively low efficiency (i.e., RM12 and RVJ83) exhibit better agreement with observations, contrary to what was found for NS LMXBs. This raises the interesting question about whether MB really follows the same unified law in different types of binaries. We also predict that only a very small fraction (≲2.5%) of BH LMXBs can evolve to be UCXBs. This explains why no BH UCXB has been discovered so far.

Swift J1858.6−0814 (hereafter J1858) is a transient neutron star (NS) low-mass X-ray binary (LMXB). There is controversy regarding its donor mass derived from observations and theoretical calculations. In this paper, we adopt seven magnetic braking (MB) prescriptions suggested in the literature and different metallicity Z to simulate the evolution of the LMXB. Our results show that, employing the MB model proposed by A. Reiners & S. Mohanty (“rm12”), the convection- and rotation-boosted (“carb”) model, and the intermediate (“inter”) and convection-boosted (“cboost”) models in K. X. Van et al. can match (part of) the observational parameters of J1858 well. We then apply our method to other observed LMXBs and find that the “rm12” and “inter” MB laws are most promising in explaining transient LMXBs. In comparison, the simulations with the “cboost” and “carb” MB laws are more inclined to reproduce persistent LMXBs and ultracompact X-ray binaries, respectively. Our results, though subject to computational and/or observational bias, show that it is challenging to find a unified MB law that applies to the NS LMXB subpopulations simultaneously, indicating our lack of understanding of the true MB law. In addition, we explore the influence of various MB laws on the magnitude of the bifurcation periods in LMXBs.

Cataclysmic variables (CVs) are close interacting binaries in which a white dwarf accretes materials from a low-mass main-sequence companion. CVs can experience nova eruptions due to low mass transfer rates. In the standard theory of CV evolution, the ejected materials during nova eruptions are assumed to leave the system in the form of fast, isotropic, optically thick winds, which predicts that novae only result in positive variation (expansion) of the orbital period (i.e., positive ΔP). In addition, the angular momentum losses (magnetic braking and gravitational radiation) only predict a steady long-term decay in the orbital period of CVs, i.e., Ṗ is negative. Interestingly, an observation lasting over 30 yr reveals positive and negative values for both ΔP and Ṗ in CVs, strongly conflicting with the standard evolutionary patterns. However, it cannot be excluded that these observations originate from short-term phenomena caused by nova eruptions because of a short timescale of observations. In this paper, we model the effect of instantaneous nova eruptions on the evolution of CVs, considering three mechanisms associated with mass loss in nova eruptions, including fast wind, the Frank jet, and binary-driven mass loss. By assuming that the observed ΔP and Ṗ are dominated by short-term phenomena, our results show that the binary-driven mass loss can explain almost all of the observations of normal CVs. However, the Frank jet may be needed for some long-period CVs with evolved companions.

While there are over a dozen known neutron star (NS) symbiotic X-ray binaries (SyXBs) in the Galaxy, no SyXBs containing a black hole (BH) have been detected. We address this problem by incorporating binary population synthesis and the accretion properties of BHs fed by the wind from red giant companions. We investigate the impact of different supernova mechanisms, kick velocity distributions, and wind velocities on the formation of both NS and BH SyXBs. Our simulations show that the number of BH SyXBs is at most one-sixth of that of NS SyXBs in the Galaxy provided that the common envelope efficiency parameter α ∼ 0.3–5, and less than ∼10 BH SyXBs could be detectable in X-ray, considering their low radiation efficiencies. These findings indicate a scarcity of BH SyXBs in the Galaxy.

The magnetic inclination angle χ, namely the angle between the spin and magnetic axes of a neutron star, plays a vital role in its observational characteristics. However, there are few systematic investigations of its long-term evolution, especially for accreting NSs in binary systems. Applying the model of Biryukov & Abolmasov and the binary evolution code MESA, we simultaneously simulate the evolution of the accretion rate, spin period, magnetic field, and magnetic inclination angle of accreting NSs in intermediate/low X-ray binaries. We show that the evolution of χ depends not only on the initial parameters of the binary systems, but also on the mass transfer history and the efficiency of pulsar loss. Based on the calculated results we present the characteristic distribution of χ for various types of systems including ultracompact X-ray binaries, binary millisecond pulsars, and ultraluminous X-ray sources, and discuss their possible observational implications.

Viruses exploit autophagy to degrade host immune components for their successful infection. However, how viral factors sequester the autophagic substrates into autophagosomes remains largely unknown. In this study, we showed that p20 protein, a viral suppressor of RNA silencing (VSR) encoded by citrus tristeza virus (CTV), mediated autophagic degradation of SUPPRESSOR OF GENE SILENCING 3 (SGS3), a plant-specific RNA-binding protein that is pivotal in antiviral RNA silencing. CTV infection activated autophagy, and the overexpression of p20 was sufficient to induce autophagy. Silencing of autophagy-related genes NbATG5 and NbATG7 attenuated CTV infection in Nicotiana benthamiana plants. In contrast, knockdown of the autophagy negative-regulated genes NbGAPCs led to virus accumulation, indicating the proviral role of autophagy in CTV infection. Further investigation found that p20 interacted with autophagy-related protein ATG8 through two ATG8-interacting motifs (AIMs) and sequestered SGS3 into autophagosomes by forming the ATG8-p20-SGS3 ternary complex. The mutations of the two AIMs in p20 (p20 mAIM1 and p20 mAIM5 ) abolished the interaction of p20 with ATG8, resulting in the deficiency of autophagy induction, SGS3 degradation, and VSR activity. Consistently, N. benthamiana plants infected with mutated CTV mAIM1 and CTV mAIM5 showed milder symptoms and decreased viral accumulation. Taken together, this study uncovers the molecular mechanism underlying how a VSR mediates the interplay between RNA silencing and autophagy to enhance the infection of a closterovirus.

The detection of gravitational wave events has stimulated theoretical modeling of the formation and evolution of double compact objects (DCOs). However, even for the most studied isolated binary evolution channel, there exist large uncertainties in the input parameters and treatments of the binary evolution process. So far, double neutron stars (DNSs) are the only DCOs for which direct observations are available through traditional electromagnetic astronomy. In this work, we adopt a population synthesis method to investigate the formation and evolution of Galactic DNSs. We construct 324 models for the formation of Galactic DNSs, taking into account various possible combinations of critical input parameters and processes such as mass transfer efficiency, supernova type, common envelope efficiency, neutron star kick velocity, and pulsar selection effect. We employ Bayesian analysis to evaluate the adopted models by comparing with observations. We also compare the expected DNS merger rate in the galaxy with that inferred from the known Galactic population of pulsar-neutron star systems. Based on these analyses we derive the favorable range of the aforementioned key parameters.

The existence of a population of low-accretion-rate symbiotic stars (SySts), consisting of a giant star and a compact companion (usually a white dwarf), has been proposed recently. However, their population has not been fully understood. In this work, we present an investigation on SySts candidates consisting of asymptotic giant branch stars (AGBs) by cross-correlating the Gaia DR3, the Galaxy Evolution Explorer All-Sky Imaging Survey, and the 4XMM DR13 catalogs. We first build a sample of AGBs within 500 pc based on their locations in the Gaia color–absolute magnitude diagram. We then explore the UV and X-ray properties of the sampled AGBs and compare them to known SySts and candidates. We find 10 SySts candidates based on the far-ultraviolet excess. The typical UV luminosity of the candidates is 1031 erg s−1, which corresponds to a typical accretion rate of 10−12–10−11 M ⊙ yr−1, which is more than 1 order of magnitude lower than known SySts. Based on these findings, the total number of SySts within 500 pc is estimated to be 18. The number of AGBs with X-ray flux above 10−14 erg s−1 cm−2 within 500 pc is estimated to be 37. Our finding implies that a large number of low-accretion-rate SySts are yet to be detected, which provides a base for a complete understanding of their population.