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Plant cell wall polysaccharides (PCWPs) serve as an abundant but recalcitrant carbon source for many microbes living in the gut of humans and animals. An adhesion to PCWPs is common in gut bacteria and can even be observed in the lactobacilli, which are supposed to promote the growth competence of these non-PCWP degraders because of the facilitated acquisition of newly released oligosaccharides. Nevertheless, the binding of molecules of lactobacilli to PCWPs and the underlying mechanisms remain largely unknown. By analyzing the transcriptome of grown in xylan supplemented with a xylanase, a gene was identified to encode a putative S-layer PCWP-binding protein (Lb1145). Lb1145 was predicted to have four domains, among which domains 1 and 2 were responsible for binding PCWPs. The binding was nonspecific, since structurally distinct PCWPs, e.g., cellulose, xylan, mannan, and chitin, and even lignin, were all bound by Lb1145. Both of the two N-terminal domains have a high pI, and we demonstrated that a non-enzymatic glycosylation-like process plays an important role in binding. Compared with another surface protein, i.e., the WxL protein Lb630, Lb1145 displayed a binding preference for the phloem sieve tube in the wheat stem section. Moreover, Lb1145 could bind ten strains within the , , , and genera among the seventeen selected gut bacterial species. An analysis of the reported S-layer proteins from the Gram-positive bacteria (lactobacilli and bifidobacteria) and outer membrane proteins from the Gram-negative ( and ) indicated that bacterial cell surface proteins with high pI values are not rare. The high pI-based and non-enzymatic glycosylation-like process-mediated binding represents a new paradigm and may be popular in gut bacterial surface proteins binding to PCWPs, with important physiological implications in growth competition in the gut microbiota.

Clostridium perfringens infection can induce necrotic enteritis and lead to significant economic loss to the chicken industry. In this study, a xylanase (CbXyn10C), which effectively promotes the growth of probiotics, and a protease, which degrades the biofilm of C. perfringens, were analyzed for their ability to alleviate C. perfringens-induced necrotic enteritis in broiler chickens. A total of 300 male AA chickens were divided into five treatment groups (control, no enzyme and no C. perfringens challenge; Cp, no enzyme, C. perfringens challenge; Xyn, CbXyn10C plus C. perfringens challenge; Xyn+Am, CbXyn10C+Amylase plus C. perfringens challenge; Xyn+Ap, CbXyn10C+Alkaline protease plus C. perfringens challenge). The C. perfringens CVCC 60102 was administered orally on a daily basis to the chickens from 14 to 20 days. In comparison with Cp, Xyn+Ap significantly reduced intestinal damage in the duodenum, jejunum, and ileum of chickens challenged with C. perfringens (p < 0.05). The enzymes, and particularly Xyn+Ap, notably enhanced the expression of key intestinal barrier genes, reduced the IL-6 level, and decreased the DAO (diamine oxidase) level. Not unexpectedly, feeding enzymes influenced the abundance of Lactobacillus and Butyricicoccus bacteria in the intestine. These results indicated that CbXyn10C and protease can be used to alleviate intestinal damage caused by C. perfringens infection.

infection can induce necrotic enteritis and lead to significant economic loss to the chicken industry. In this study, a xylanase ( Xyn10C), which effectively promotes the growth of probiotics, and a protease, which degrades the biofilm of were analyzed for their ability to alleviate -induced necrotic enteritis in broiler chickens. A total of 300 male AA chickens were divided into five treatment groups (control, no enzyme and no challenge; Cp, no enzyme, challenge; Xyn, Xyn10C plus challenge; Xyn+Am, Xyn10C+Amylase plus challenge; Xyn+Ap, Xyn10C+Alkaline protease plus challenge). The CVCC 60102 was administered orally on a daily basis to the chickens from 14 to 20 days. In comparison with Cp, Xyn+Ap significantly reduced intestinal damage in the duodenum, jejunum, and ileum of chickens challenged with ( < 0.05). The enzymes, and particularly Xyn+Ap, notably enhanced the expression of key intestinal barrier genes, reduced the IL-6 level, and decreased the DAO (diamine oxidase) level. Not unexpectedly, feeding enzymes influenced the abundance of and bacteria in the intestine. These results indicated that Xyn10C and protease can be used to alleviate intestinal damage caused by infection.

The gut microbiota has been linked to many cancers, yet its role in acute myeloid leukaemia (AML) progression remains unclear. Here, we show decreased diversity in the gut microbiota of AML patients or murine models. Gut microbiota dysbiosis induced by antibiotic treatment accelerates murine AML progression while faecal microbiota transplantation reverses this process. Butyrate produced by the gut microbiota (especially Faecalibacterium ) significantly decreases in faeces of AML patients, while gavage with butyrate or Faecalibacterium postpones murine AML progression. Furthermore, we find the intestinal barrier is damaged in mice with AML, which accelerates lipopolysaccharide (LPS) leakage into the blood. The increased LPS exacerbates leukaemia progression in vitro and in vivo. Butyrate can repair intestinal barrier damage and inhibit LPS absorption in AML mice. Collectively, we demonstrate that the gut microbiota promotes AML progression in a metabolite-dependent manner and that targeting the gut microbiota might provide a therapeutic option for AML. The role of gut microbiota in acute myeloid leukaemia (AML) remains unclear. Here, the authors show disordered gut microbiota and reduced butyrate cause intestinal barrier damage in AML mice, with increased plasma LPS that accelerates AML progression.

WO 3 , a visible light reaction catalyst, absorbs light at a wavelength of 470 nm and has many advantages, such as strong stability, long life, non-toxicity, low cost, and suitable band edges. In this review, the photocatalytic mechanism of WO 3 in water pollution treatment is introduced, as well as a systematic summary, and some main strategies for improving the photocatalytic activity of WO 3 in water pollution treatment are introduced, for example surface and morphology control, synthetic heterojunctions, and doping element. Finally, the main conclusions and prospects of WO 3 -based photocatalysts are pointed out. It can be expected that this review can provide guidance for designing low-cost, high-efficiency new WO 3 -based photocatalysts in the process of water pollution treatment and can meet the application prospects of efficient utilization of solar degradation in the field of environmental purification. Graphical abstract

Controlling and programming quantum devices to process quantum information by the unit of quantum dit, i.e., qudit, provides the possibilities for noise-resilient quantum communications, delicate quantum molecular simulations, and efficient quantum computations, showing great potential to enhance the capabilities of qubit-based quantum technologies. Here, we report a programmable qudit-based quantum processor in silicon-photonic integrated circuits and demonstrate its enhancement of quantum computational parallelism. The processor monolithically integrates all the key functionalities and capabilities of initialisation, manipulation, and measurement of the two quantum quart (ququart) states and multi-value quantum-controlled logic gates with high-level fidelities. By reprogramming the configuration of the processor, we implemented the most basic quantum Fourier transform algorithms, all in quaternary, to benchmark the enhancement of quantum parallelism using qudits, which include generalised Deutsch-Jozsa and Bernstein-Vazirani algorithms, quaternary phase estimation and fast factorization algorithms. The monolithic integration and high programmability have allowed the implementations of more than one million high-fidelity preparations, operations and projections of qudit states in the processor. Our work shows an integrated photonic quantum technology for qudit-based quantum computing with enhanced capacity, accuracy, and efficiency, which could lead to the acceleration of building a large-scale quantum computer. Qudit-based quantum devices can outperform qubit-based ones, but a programmable qudit-based quantum computing device is still missing. Here, the authors fill this gap using a programmable silicon photonic chip employing ququart-based encoding, showing the scaling advantages compared to the qubit counterpart.

We present a self-powered, high-performance graphene-enhanced ultraviolet silicon Schottky photodetector. Different from traditional transparent electrodes, such as indium tin oxides or ultra-thin metals, the unique ultraviolet absorption property of graphene leads to long carrier life time of hot electrons that can contribute to the photocurrent or potential carrier-multiplication. Our proposed structure boosts the internal quantum efficiency over 100%, approaching the upper-limit of silicon-based ultraviolet photodetector. In the near-ultraviolet and mid-ultraviolet spectral region, the proposed ultraviolet photodetector exhibits high performance at zero-biasing (self-powered) mode, including high photo-responsivity (0.2 A W −1 ), fast time response (5 ns), high specific detectivity (1.6 × 10 13  Jones), and internal quantum efficiency greater than 100%. Further, the photo-responsivity is larger than 0.14 A W −1 in wavelength range from 200 to 400 nm, comparable to that of state-of-the-art Si, GaN, SiC Schottky photodetectors. The photodetectors exhibit stable operations in the ambient condition even 2 years after fabrication, showing great potential in practical applications, such as wearable devices, communication, and “dissipation-less” remote sensor networks. Optoelectronics: Graphene breaks limit of silicon-based UV detection A high-performance graphene/silicon ultraviolet (UV) photodetector significantly increases the upper-limit of traditional silicon-based UV detectors. A team led by Yang Xu at China’s Zhejiang University fabricated silicon-based UV detectors using graphene with unique UV absorption property, leading to ultra-long lifetime of hot carriers that contribute to photocurrent, and even to carrier multiplication. In the near- and mid-UV regime, the improved performance parameters are photocurrent responsivity (0.20 A W −1 ), response time (<5 ns), specific detectivity (1.6 × 10 13  Jones), and IQE (>100%). The key metrics of graphene/Si detector outperform those of UV detectors based on Si, GaN, SiC, etc. These results show great promise in applications such as wearable devices, secured mobile communication, and “dissipation-less” remote sensor networks.

Graphs have provided an expressive mathematical tool to model quantum-mechanical devices and systems. In particular, it has been recently discovered that graph theory can be used to describe and design quantum components, devices, setups and systems, based on the two-dimensional lattice of parametric nonlinear optical crystals and linear optical circuits, different to the standard quantum photonic framework. Realizing such graph-theoretical quantum photonic hardware, however, remains extremely challenging experimentally using conventional technologies. Here we demonstrate a graph-theoretical programmable quantum photonic device in very-large-scale integrated nanophotonic circuits. The device monolithically integrates about 2,500 components, constructing a synthetic lattice of nonlinear photon-pair waveguide sources and linear optical waveguide circuits, and it is fabricated on an eight-inch silicon-on-insulator wafer by complementary metal–oxide–semiconductor processes. We reconfigure the quantum device to realize and process complex-weighted graphs with different topologies and to implement different tasks associated with the perfect matching property of graphs. As two non-trivial examples, we show the generation of genuine multipartite multidimensional quantum entanglement with different entanglement structures, and the measurement of probability distributions proportional to the modulus-squared hafnian (permanent) of the graph’s adjacency matrices. This work realizes a prototype of graph-theoretical quantum photonic devices manufactured by very-large-scale integration technologies, featuring arbitrary programmability, high architectural modularity and massive manufacturing scalability.A graph-theoretical programmable quantum photonic device composed of about 2,500 components is fabricated on a silicon substrate within a 12 mm × 15 mm footprint. It shows the generation, manipulation and certification of genuine multiphoton multidimensional entanglement, as well as the implementations of scattershot and Gaussian boson sampling.

Seed size, an important agronomic trait determining crop yield, is regulated by multiple plant hormones. Jasmonate (JA) is a key phytohormone required for various plant defenses and diverse developmental processes. Here, we defined an essential role for JA in control of seed size. Through comprehensive analysis of genetic mutants in JA pathway, we showed that seed size was repressed by positive components in JA pathway including COI1, MYC2 (and its homologues), MED25 and JAR1, but promoted by JA signaling repressor JAZ proteins such as JAZ6. We further demonstrated that exogenous application of JA suppressed seed size in a COI1-dependent manner. Our results reveal that JA signaling represses seed size and negatively regulates integument cell proliferation. Elucidation of jasmonate action in seed size control would advance our understanding of inner mechanism of seed size regulation.

Graphene has attracted much attention for the realization of high-speed photodetection for silicon photonics over a wide wavelength range. However, the reported fast graphene photodetectors mainly operate in the 1.55 μm wavelength band. In this work, we propose and realize high-performance waveguide photodetectors based on bolometric/photoconductive effects by introducing an ultrathin wide silicon−graphene hybrid plasmonic waveguide, which enables efficient light absorption in graphene at 1.55 μm and beyond. When operating at 2 μm, the present photodetector has a responsivity of ~70 mA/W and a setup-limited 3 dB bandwidth of >20 GHz. When operating at 1.55 μm, the present photodetector also works very well with a broad 3 dB bandwidth of >40 GHz (setup-limited) and a high responsivity of ~0.4 A/W even with a low bias voltage of −0.3 V. This work paves the way for achieving high-responsivity and high-speed silicon–graphene waveguide photodetection in the near/mid-infrared ranges, which has applications in optical communications, nonlinear photonics, and on-chip sensing.2 µm photodetectors: silicon−graphene−metal hybrid plasmonicsThe use of a silicon−graphene plasmonic waveguide has enabled the realization of fast and sensitive photodetectors that operate at the wavelength of 2 µm. In order to satisfy the demands for the applications in optical communication and optical sensing, there is the need to extend silicon photonics to wavelengths beyond 1.55 µm. However, it is a challenge to create high-performance photodetectors at these wavelengths. Now, Daoxin Dai and coworkers from Zhejiang University and Southeast University in China have proposed and realized a silicon−graphene hybrid plasmonic waveguide photodetector that operates at 2 µm with a responsivity of ~70 mA/W and a 3-dB bandwidth over 20 GHz. In this design, efficient light absorption in graphene is enabled by using a hybrid plasmonic waveguide with a wide thin silicon ridge core and a metal cap that serves as a signal electrode.