Target Fish Research Articles

Hydro-morphological stressors reduce distribution range and affect population status of cyprinid fishes in Austria

Rivers worldwide have been transformed into fragmented, impounded, channelized, and flow-regulated ecosystems. These anthropogenic transformations can reduce fish distribution and population status, especially of those species belonging to medium- or long-distance migratory guilds and those dependent on free-flowing rivers and intact sediment and habitat conditions. Here, we aim to understand how different hydro-morphological pressure types affect the distribution and population status of key potamodromous fish species of the rheophilic and lithophilic fish guilds, the barbel (Barbus barbus) and the nase (Chondrostoma nasus). We also assess the status of chub (Squalius cephalus) to include a species less sensitive to habitat degradation. For the first time, we assembled an extensive Austrian-wide GIS-based fish sampling database with hundreds of biological surveys, allowing us to analyze quantitatively >4,000 river kilometers for presence/absence of target fishes and to assess population status. The data reveal that the distribution range of target species decreased by around 40–60% compared to their natural ranges according to the reference standard (Leitbild). Hydro-morphological pressures affect target species’ population biomass, and trends between impact types can be detected. Chub and barbel exhibit the highest median biomass in free-flowing rivers and residual flow reaches, followed by reservoir sections. Of all pressure types, population biomass is lowest in hydropeaked river stretches. Nase biomass has a grand median of 0.0 kg/ha across all sites, showing hardly any differences between hydro-morphological pressure types. Overall, our results show a drastic shrinkage of the distribution range of three cyprinid fish species previously prominent in Austria. By linking current population vitality to hydro-morphological stressors and ecological status assessments, this study sets a baseline for data-based conservation actions of (Red-listed) species as well as policy and management frameworks.

Challenges to the lake fisheries, and factors affecting the effectiveness of a co-management regime in African Great Lakes: A case study of Lake Victoria, Kenya

AbstractThere is a common agreement that establishment of co-management could be of benefit to fisher community and other stakeholders across the African Great Lakes. This could aid in promoting community livelihoods and sustainability of the fishery and lakes ecosystem. However, the effectiveness of established co-management regimes remains unknown. This study evaluated the effectiveness of established co-management units, specifically Beach Management Units, along Lake Victoria, Kenya. Data was collected through site observations, and questionnaire led interviews involving the key informants and Beach Management Units’ members. The study depicted presence of illegal gears (5.7%), pollution (10.2%), insecurity (3.4%) and targeting of undersized fish (1.1%) among others. The role of the management units in lessening aforesaid challenges was reported overall to be below 36%. Features donating to overall performance, enforcement, conflict resolution, welfare and awareness creation, were rated at 17.6%, 33.8%, 35.5% and 13.2% correspondingly. The low rating of such measurable attributes advocates lack of effectiveness of co-management in Lake Victoria, Kenya. Albeit key registers and records were known to most of the members, there were no signs of progressive growth in the management units. This was attributed mainly to lack of continuous awareness creation amid the changing lake environmental conditions and dynamics in the specific species fishery. There is need to sustain the achievements so far attained in promoting co-management and ecosystem sustainability, as enforcement of laws and regulations can be a challenging undertaking without government support. Governments should ensure financial and material provision in expanding capacity of co-management units in promoting community livelihoods and fishery sustainability.

Deep images enhancement for turbid underwater images based on unsupervised learning

In agriculture, aquaculture technologies such as precise feeding, fish identification and fishing based on underwater machine vision all rely on the analysis of underwater images. However, due to the scatting and attenuation of the illumination in the real-world underwater environment, turbid underwater images are inevitably degraded, limiting their applicability in many vision tasks. In this paper, we present an unsupervised deep learning framework, called Underwater Loop Enhancement Network (ULENet), to improve the quality of turbid underwater images. We first propose an underwater dataset construction scheme and construct the dataset on which the network proposed above is trained. The underwater dataset contains images of three different scenes: lake and reservoir scene data (no label), pool scene data (weakly correlated label), and laboratory scene data (strongly correlated label). Then we propose a loop enhancement structure that uses the approximate candidates as labels and improves the visual quality of the image through the iterative training process. We formulate a new underwater visual perception loss function that evaluates the perceptual image quality based on its color, contrast, saturation and clarity. During the training process, a more realistic, higher-contrast, and clearer underwater image is gradually generated. Qualitative and quantitative evaluations show that the proposed method can effectively enhance image clarity. Moreover, the enhanced images are applied to several vision tasks to achieve better results, such as edge detection, key point matching, fish target detection and saliency prediction etc.

Prediction of herbal medicines based on immune cell infiltration and immune- and ferroptosis-related gene expression levels to treat valvular atrial fibrillation.

Inflammatory immune response is apparently one of the determinants of progressive exacerbation of valvular atrial fibrillation(VAF). Ferroptosis, an iron-dependent modality of regulated cell death, is involved in the immune regulation of cardiovascular disease. However, the relevant regulatory mechanisms of immune infiltration and ferroptosis in VAF have been less studied. In the current study, a highly efficient system for screening immunity- and ferroptosis-related biomarkers and immunomodulatory ability of herbal ingredients has been developed with the integration of intelligent data acquisition, data mining, network pharmacology, and computer-assisted target fishing. VAF patients showed higher infiltration of neutrophils and resting stage dendritic cells, while VSR patients showed higher infiltration of follicular helper T cells. In addition, six (e.g., PCSK2) and 47 (e.g., TGFBR1) ImmDEGs and one (SLC38A1) and four (TGFBR1, HMGB1, CAV1, and CD44) FerDEGs were highly expressed in patients with valvular sinus rhythm (VSR) and VAF, respectively. We further identified a core subnetwork containing 34 hub genes, which were intersected with ImmDEGs and FerDEGs to obtain the key gene TGFBR1. Based on TGFBR1, 14 herbs (e.g., Fructus zizyphi jujubae, Semen Juglandis, and Polygonum cuspidatum) and six herbal ingredients (curcumin, curcumine, D-glucose, hexose, oleovitamin A, and resveratrol) were predicted. Finally, TGFBR1 was found to dock well with curcumin and resveratrol, and it was further verified that curcumin and resveratrol could significantly reduce myocardial fibrosis. We believe that herbs rich in curcumin and resveratrol such as Rhizoma curcumae longae and Curcuma kwangsiensis, mitigate myocardial fibrosis to improve VAF by modulating the TGFβ/Smad signaling pathway. This strategy provides a prospective approach systemically characterizing phenotype-target-herbs relationships based on the tissue-specific biological functions in VAF and brings us new insights into the searching lead compounds from Chinese herbs.

Effects of a natural nutritional supplement on immune cell infiltration and immune gene expression in exercise-induced injury.

Inflammatory immune response plays a key role in exercise-induced injury and healing; however, the relevant regulatory mechanisms of immune infiltration in exercise-induced injuries remain less studied. In the present study, a highly efficient system for screening immunity-related biomarkers and immunomodulatory ability of natural nutritional supplements was developed by integrating intelligent data acquisition, data mining, network pharmacology, and computer-assisted target fishing. The findings demonstrated that resting natural killer cells showed a higher rate of infiltration after exercise, whereas naive B cells and activated dendritic cells showed higher rate of infiltration before exercise. Four key genes, namely PRF1, GZMB, CCL4, and FASLG, were associated with exercise-induced injuries and inflammatory immune response. In total, 26 natural compounds including echinacoside, eugenol, tocopherol, and casuariin were predicted by using the HERB databases. Molecular docking analysis showed that GZMB, FASLG, and CCL4 bound to echinacoside. In vivo experiments in mice showed that after 30 min swimming, natural killer (NK) cells showed high infiltration rates, and the key genes (GZMB, PRF1, FASLG, and CCL4) were highly expressed; however, echinocandin significantly reduced the level of NK cells and decreased the expression of the four key genes post exercise. This natural nutritional supplement may act to protect against inflammatory injury after exercise by suppressing specific immune infiltration.

Discovery of Highly Potent Daphnane Diterpenoids Uncovers Importin-β1 as a Druggable Vulnerability in Castration-Resistant Prostate Cancer.

Importins are overexpressed in many cancers and mediate the abnormal nuclear transport of oncogenic factors. The druggable potential of importins still remains unclear, largely because of the lack of potent inhibitors. Herein, the anti-castration-resistant prostate cancer (CRPC) screening of a Euphorbiaceae diterpenoid library followed by target fishing led to the identification of a highly potent importin-β1 inhibitor, daphnane diterpenoid DD1. DD1 selectively inhibited the growth and survival of CRPC cells at subnanomolar concentrations and completely blocked tumor growth in preclinical models at an extremely low dosage. Mechanistic studies revealed that targeting of importin-β1 by DD1 significantly reduced the nuclear accumulation of key CRPC drivers, shutting down their downstream oncogenic signaling. Disruption of the predicted binding sites of DD1 on importin-β1 abolished this anti-CRPC effect. These findings suggest that importin-β1 is an effective therapeutic target in CRPC and that DD1 as the most potent importin-β1 inhibitor to date can be developed as therapeutics for treatment of this disease.

Managed culls mean extinction for a marine mammal population when combined with extreme climate impacts

Human actions led to the worldwide decline of marine mammal populations in the 18th–19th centuries. Global adoption of protective legislation during the 20th century has recently allowed many marine mammal populations to recover. This positive trend is particularly true of pinnipeds (e.g., seals and sea lions), whose recovering populations are increasingly in conflict with fisheries. Fisheries organisations have called for managed culls of sea lion populations to reduce competition for target fish species as well as damage to catch and fishing gear through operational interactions. However, despite widespread perceptions that sea lion populations are generally increasing, to-date, culls have often been considered or implemented without quantitative evidence of their impacts on seal lion population viability. This knowledge gap is particularly concerning given the expected increase in extreme climate conditions, such as extreme El Niño events, which together with culls could push sea lion populations in some parts of the world into the extinction vortex. Here, I develop stochastic matrix population models of the South American sea lion (Otaria flavescens) parameterised through a combination of species-specific field data and phylogenetic imputation using data from related species in the COMADRE animal matrix database. Using these models, I project the impact of (1) three cull scenarios with different intensity and temporal frequency targeting adult females, (2) extreme El Niño events whose frequency is modelled using a Markovian transition matrix, and (3) the interaction of culls and extreme climate events on population dynamics. I focus on the Chilean population of O. flavescens, where recent increases in sea lion numbers have triggered widespread conflict with small-scale fisheries, and where sea lion populations will increasingly be affected by extreme El Niño conditions. I find that sea lion populations decline below minimum viable population sizes within 16–28 years under all scenarios involving culls and extreme climate events. This research explicitly incorporates parameter uncertainty into population projections—in so doing, it illustrates the need for future research to collect stage-specific, annual population data to reduce uncertainty regarding marine mammal vital rates.

The Effect of Bait Types on the Catch of Bottom Long Line in Bantan Sari Village Bantan District Bengkalis Regency

The main factor for the success of bottom longline fishing depends on the type of bait, both natural bait and artificial bait. The bait serves as an attractant for the target fish so that it is attracted to prey on it. In this study, the bait used was a machete, puput, and layur fish. The purpose of this study was to determine the amount, weight, and type of catch based on the appropriate type of bait so that it can be a reference for fishermen for optimal use of bait in the operation of longline fishing gear. This research was conducted in February 2022, located in the waters of Bantan Sari Village, Bantan District, Bengkalis Regency. The method used is the experimental fishing method, by operating the fishing gear directly and analyzing using the analysis of variance and the Least Significant Difference test. Based on the research, the catches obtained were debuk fish, gelama , stingrays, and puffer, with the highest catches in terms of weight, namely stingrays as much as 61800 g.

Comparison of species-specific qPCR and metabarcoding methods to detect small pelagic fish distribution from open ocean environmental DNA.

Environmental DNA (eDNA) is increasingly used to noninvasively monitor aquatic animals in freshwater and coastal areas. However, the use of eDNA in the open ocean (hereafter referred to OceanDNA) is still limited because of the sparse distribution of eDNA in the open ocean. Small pelagic fish have a large biomass and are widely distributed in the open ocean. We tested the performance of two OceanDNA analysis methods-species-specific qPCR (quantitative polymerase chain reaction) and MiFish metabarcoding using universal primers-to determine the distribution of small pelagic fish in the open ocean. We focused on six small pelagic fish species (Sardinops melanostictus, Engraulis japonicus, Scomber japonicus, Scomber australasicus, Trachurus japonicus, and Cololabis saira) and selected the Kuroshio Extension area as a testbed, because distribution of the selected species is known to be influenced by the strong frontal structure. The results from OceanDNA methods were compared to those of net sampling to test for consistency. Then, we compared the detection performance in each target fish between the using of qPCR and MiFish methods. A positive correlation was evident between the qPCR and MiFish detection results. In the ranking of the species detection rates and spatial distribution estimations, comparable similarity was observed between results derived from the qPCR and MiFish methods. In contrast, the detection rate using the qPCR method was always higher than that of the MiFish method. Amplification bias on non-target DNA and low sample DNA quantity seemed to partially result in a lower detection rate for the MiFish method; the reason is still unclear. Considering the ability of MiFish to detect large numbers of species and the quantitative nature of qPCR, the combined usage of the two methods to monitor quantitative distribution of small pelagic fish species with information of fish community structures was recommended.

Progress of target determination and mechanism of bioactive components of traditional Chinese medicine

The pharmacodynamic substances of traditional Chinese medicine(TCM) are the basis for the research of TCM and the development of innovative drugs. However, the lack of clarity of targets and molecular mechanisms is the bottleneck problem that restricts the research of pharmacodynamic substances of TCM. Bioactive components are the material basis of the efficacy of TCM, which exert activity by regulating the corresponding targets. Therefore, it is very important to identify the targets of the bioactive components to elucidate the pharmacological mechanism of TCM. Proteins are the most important drug targets, and study of the interaction between the proteins and bioactive components of TCM plays a key role in the development of pharmacological mechanism of TCM. In recent years, the main techniques for detecting the interaction between the bioactive components and proteins include surface plasmon resonance, fluorescence resonance energy transfer, bio-layer interference, molecular docking, proteome chip, target fishing, target mutant, and protein crystallization techniques, etc. This review summarized the biological target detection techniques and their applications in locating the targets of the bioactive components in TCM in the last decade, and this paper will provide useful strategies to elucidate the pharmacological mechanisms of TCM.

Clinical and Genomic Profiles of Korean Patients with MECOM Rearrangement and the t(3;21)(q26.2;q22.1) Translocation.

The translocation (3;21)(q26.2;q22.1) is a unique cytogenetic aberration that characterizes acute myeloid leukemia with myelodysplasia-related changes (AML-MRC) in patients with AML and myelodysplastic syndrome (MDS) or a therapy-related myeloid neoplasm. Using multigene target sequencing and FISH, we investigated the clinical and genomic profiles of patients with t(3;21) over the past 10 years. The frequency of t(3;21) among myeloid malignancies was very low (0.2%). Half of the patients had a history of cancer treatment and the remaining patients had de novo MDS. Twenty-one somatic variants were detected in patients with t(3;21), including in CBL, GATA2, and SF3B1. Recurrent variants in RUNX1 (c.1184A>C, p.Glu395Ala) at the same site were detected in two patients. None of the patients with t(3;21) harbored germline predisposition mutations for myeloid neoplasms. MECOM rearrangement was detected at a higher rate using FISH than using G-banding, suggesting that FISH is preferable for monitoring. Although survival of patients with t(3;21) is reportedly poor, the survival of patients with t(3;21) in this study was not poor when compared with that of other AML patients in Korea.

Modelling the hydraulic characteristics of diaphragm fishways and the effects on fish habitats

Diaphragm fishways are often used in fishway engineering construction. Although there are an increasing number of new types of fishways, other types of diaphragm fishways can be derived from the combination or evolution of the following three basic types of fishways: vertical slot, overflow weir and orifice. To compare the hydraulic characteristics of different foundation types of fishways, the operations of vertical slot fishways, overflow weir fishways and orifice fishways are calculated by numerical simulation, and we comprehensively compare the flow field characteristics and application scenarios of various types of fishways from the two dimensions of hydraulic characteristics and application characteristics. This paper analyses the hydraulic characteristics of the flow field, such as velocity distribution and turbulent kinetic energy, and analyses the application characteristics of the fishway from the aspects of applicable flow, favourite swimming speed range, explosive swimming speed, fish passing position, and the matching characteristics of typical target fish. It is concluded that the vertical slot fishway can be widely applied to different target fish species due to its own advantages, such as less impact from environmental conditions. The characteristics of the overflow weir fishway and orifice fishway need to be analysed in combination with the hydraulic characteristics of the fishway, the swimming ability of the target fish species and the natural environmental conditions.

Network Pharmacology-Based Exploration of the Therapeutic Mechanisms of Cordyceps cicadae in Renal Ischemia/Reperfusion.

BackgroundCordyceps cicadae is beneficial in treating renal diseases, especially in inhibiting renal ischemia/reperfusion injury (IRI). The aim of this study was to systematically analyze and predict the potential mechanism of Cordyceps cicadae in renal IRI therapy using network pharmacology.Material/MethodsCordycepin, adenosine, and cordycepic acid are the 3 major medicinal ingredients in Cordyceps cicadae. Based on network pharmacology, the 3D structure of the 3 compounds were obtained, and then the common targets between these compounds and renal IRI were analyzed and determined. We used the ingredient-target (I-T), protein–protein interaction (PPI) networks, the enrichment analysis of Gene Ontology (GO), and Kyoto Encyclopedia of Genes and Genomes (KEGG) to find the possible pharmacological mechanism of Cordyceps cicadae in treating renal IRI.ResultsThrough target fishing and analysis, the 3 active ingredients of Cordyceps cicadae shared 81 target genes with renal IRI. I-T network showed that adenosine had the highest degree, and 5 genes were associated with the 3 active ingredients. PPI network analysis showed that ALB, GAPDH, CASP3, MAPK1, FN1, and IL-10 play a pivotal role. The enrichment analysis of GO and KEGG showed that Cordyceps cicadae can treat renal IRI through MAPK, cAMP, PPAR, Rap1, and HIF-1 signaling pathways.ConclusionsCordyceps cicadae exerts its therapeutic effect on renal IRI via multiple targets and pathways. Nevertheless, further experimentation is needed to verify this. The method of network pharmacology provides an effective method of determining the comprehensive action mechanism of Traditional Chinese Medicine (TCM).

A MobileNetV2-SENet-based method for identifying fish school feeding behavior

Analyzing fish school feeding behavior can assist aquaculturists in making successful feeding decisions, which is critical for enhancing farming efficiency and supporting healthy fish growth. Due to the fierce gathering, jumping, chasing and other actions that occur during fish school feeding, images contain varying degrees of noise and significant overlap between fish targets. Therefore, accurately identifying fish school feeding behavior becomes challenging. To address this problem, the study proposes a MobileNetV2-SENet-based method for identifying fish school feeding behavior. To enhance sample diversity, fish school images are preprocessed with some operations, such as random cropping and brightness-contrast adjustment. Then, MobileNetV2 is used to extract fish school image features, and a feature weighting network based on SENet (Squeeze-and-Excitation Networks) is built. Weights are assigned to features with varying degrees of value. The feeding behavior of fish school is identified using the linear classifier. Finally, a method of determining feeding amount is provided based on the identification result to reduce feed consumption. The SENet is introduced in the proposed method based on the original MobileNetV2 feature extraction network, and a feature extraction and weighting network that integrates MobileNetV2 and SENet is built to improve the weights of features relevant for fish school state identification while suppressing the weights of interference elements such as noise, resulting in more accurate identification. The proposed method was tested on the real fish school images and yielded an accuracy of 97.76%. The accuracy of our model was improved by 3.81%, 9.99%, 50.35%, and 100.37% when compared to the fish school feeding behavior identification model based on EfficientNet_B0, ShuffleNetV2, AlexNet, and EfficientNetV2, respectively, indicating that our method can accurately identify the feeding behavior of fish school in real aquaculture.

A Review of Empirical Evidence that Examines the Effectiveness of Harvest Regulation Evaluations in Freshwater Systems: A Systematic, Standardized Collaborative Approach

Harvest regulations are important tools that fisheries professionals use to impact fish abundance, alter population size structure, and improve fishing opportunities. Fisheries professionals often assume that specialized harvest regulations will have specific effects on target fish populations, but these predictions are not always realized because theory and practice do not always match (literature indicates that predictions are not met in about half of the cases). To identify trends that can improve the future success of harvest regulations, we reviewed a representative sample of harvest regulation evaluations for inland sport fish (i.e., 62 evaluations from 41 studies). Our review revealed gaps related to quantitative predictions, evaluation duration, statistical design, researcher–manager collaboration, and data standardization. Fisheries professionals can benefit from shared and thoughtful data collection designs and protocol standardizations. These designs can transform assessment sampling into empirical regulation evaluations that provide generality across locations and time periods with similar effort and cost.

Juvenile fish stranding induced by upstream gate operation: A risk assessment through eco-hydraulic modeling

Rapidly changing flows in regulated rivers can significantly impair freshwater biotas. At present, this issue is mostly addressed by hydropeaking research. In contrast, only limited information is available concerning the environmental effects of sharp streamflow variations determined by manmade manipulation other than hydroelectricity generation.In this paper, we assessed the stranding risk of juvenile marble trout (Salmo marmoratus), an endemic species of particular interest in the study area, during rapid streamflow decrease controlled by upstream gate operation. Our investigation focused on the falling limb of a regulated flood hydrograph in a residual-flow reach of the Ticino River, located few kilometers below its outlet from Lake Maggiore (Northern Italy).The stranding risk assessment was carried out by coupling two-dimensional unsteady flow simulation and standard habitat suitability modeling. Specifically, we adopted univariate habitat suitability curves, and a threshold for the critical rate of decrease of the water surface elevation (downramping rate), commonly used in hydropeaking assessments. Our results evidenced potential stranding occurrence of the target fish species, and possible mitigation by reducing the rate of streamflow decrease before restoring the minimum flow after flood spilling. However, more reliable estimates, including partitioning the stranding risk into classes, are challenged in our opinion by difficulties arising from extensive field validation and related selection of model parameters.In a global context characterized by the urgent need of mitigating the hydro-morphological alteration of regulated rivers, we are confident that the presented approach could support an improved streamflow management in river reaches below reservoirs and regulated lakes, therefore arousing attention and research advancement by the scientific community.

CME-YOLOv5: An Efficient Object Detection Network for Densely Spaced Fish and Small Targets

Fish are indicative species with a relatively balanced ecosystem. Underwater target fish detection is of great significance to fishery resource investigations. Traditional investigation methods cannot meet the increasing requirements of environmental protection and investigation, and the existing target detection technology has few studies on the dynamic identification of underwater fish and small targets. To reduce environmental disturbances and solve the problems of many fish, dense, mutual occlusion and difficult detection of small targets, an improved CME-YOLOv5 network is proposed to detect fish in dense groups and small targets. First, the coordinate attention (CA) mechanism and cross-stage partial networks with 3 convolutions (C3) structure are fused into the C3CA module to replace the C3 module of the backbone in you only look once (YOLOv5) to improve the extraction of target feature information and detection accuracy. Second, the three detection layers are expanded to four, which enhances the model’s ability to capture information in different dimensions and improves detection performance. Finally, the efficient intersection over union (EIOU) loss function is used instead of the generalized intersection over union (GIOU) loss function to optimize the convergence rate and location accuracy. Based on the actual image data and a small number of datasets obtained online, the experimental results showed that the mean average precision (mAP@0.50) of the proposed algorithm reached 94.9%, which is 4.4 percentage points higher than that of the YOLOv5 algorithm, and the number of fish and small target detection performances was 24.6% higher. The results show that our proposed algorithm exhibits good detection performance when applied to densely spaced fish and small targets and can be used as an alternative or supplemental method for fishery resource investigation.

Heavy metal accumulation in selected fish species from Pulicat Lake, India, and health risk assessment

Heavy metal pollution in aquatic systems has become a major problem worldwide. The present study was designed to assess bioaccumulation of metals, Cu, Zn, Pb, and Cr, in fish species such as Lutjanus fulviflamma, Chanos chanos, Arius sp., and Terapon jarbua, commonly present in the Pulicat Lake, a brackish water ecosystem located in north Chennai coastal region, southeast India. Mean concentration of Cu and Cr in the sediment samples were 123.1μg/g and 90.1μg/g, respectively. The order of metal prevalence in water and sediment samples were Pb>Cr>Zn>Cu and Cu>Cr>Pb>Zn, respectively. However, in fish samples, the order of metal accumulation was Cu>Cr>Zn>Pb. Mean concentration of Cu in L. fulviflamma, C. chanos, Arius sp., and T. jarbua was 10.5μg/g, 25.5μg/g, 19.0μg/g, and 23.6μg/g, respectively. Mean Cr concentration in the animals varied from 1.19μg/g to 23.1μg/g with highest accumulation in the liver of Arius sp. In general, maximum accumulation of metals is mostly observed in the gills of the organisms. Although the concentration of Cu and Cr in the muscles was above World Health Organization’s permissible limit, the Estimated Daily Intake values were below the standard reference dose which means that the muscle tissues of the fishes are safe for human consumption.

Network analysis for elucidating the mechanisms of Shenfu injection in preventing and treating COVID-19 combined with heart failure

BackgroundThe emergence of the novel coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19), caused by severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2) has led to millions of infections and is exerting an unprecedented impact on society and economies worldwide. The evidence showed that heart failure (HF) is a clinical syndrome that could be encountered at different stages during the progression of COVID-19. Shenfu injection (SFI), a traditional Chinese medicine (TCM) formula has been widely used for heart failure therapy in China and was suggested to treat critical COVID-19 cases based on the guideline for diagnosis and treatment of COVID-19 (the 7th version) issued by National Health Commission of the People's Republic of China. However, the active components, potential targets, related pathways, and underlying pharmacology mechanism of SFI against COVID-19 combined with HF remain vague. ObjectiveTo investigate the effectiveness and possible pharmacological mechanism of SFI for the prevention and treatment of COVID-19 combined with HF. MethodsIn the current study, a network analysis approach integrating active compound screening (drug-likeness, lipophilicity, and aqueous solubility models), target fishing (Traditional Chinese Medicine Systems Pharmacology, fingerprint-based Similarity Ensemble Approach, and PharmMapper databases), compound-target-disease network construction (Cytoscape software), protein-protein interaction network construction (STRING and Cytoscape software), biological process analysis (STRING and Cytoscape plug-in Clue GO) and pathway analysis (Kyoto Encyclopedia of Genes and Genomes pathway enrichment analysis) was developed to decipher the active ingredients, potential targets, relevant pathways, and the therapeutic mechanisms of SFI for preventing and treating COVID-19 combined with HF. ResultsFinally, 20 active compounds (DL ≥ 0.18, 1≤Alog P ≤ 5, and −5≤LogS ≤ −1) and 164 relevant targets of SFI were identified related to the development of COVID-19 combined with HF, which were mainly involved in three biological processes including metabolic, hemostasis, and cytokine signaling in immune system. The C-T-D network and reactome pathway analysis indicated that SFI probably regulated the pathological processes of heart failure, respiratory failure, lung injury, and inflammatory response in patients with COVID-19 combined with HF through acting on several targets and pathways. Moreover, the venn diagram was used to identify 54 overlapped targets of SFI, COVID-19, and HF. KEGG pathway enrichment analysis showed that 54 overlapped targets were highly enriched to several COVID-19 and HF related pathways, such as IL-17 signaling pathway, Th17 cell differentiation, and NF-kappa B signaling pathway. ConclusionsA comprehensive network analysis approach framework was developed to systematically elucidate the potential pharmacological mechanism of SFI for the prevention and treatment of SFI against COVID-19 combined with HF. The current study may not only provide in-depth understanding of the pharmacological mechanisms of SFI, but also a scientific basis for the application of SFI against COVID-19 combined with HF.

Evaluation of probiotic characteristics and whole genome analysis of Bacillus velezensis R-71003 isolated from the intestine of common carp (Cyprinus carpio L.) for its use as a probiotic in aquaculture

Probiotics have been widely used in aquaculture and may serve as a potential alternative to antibiotics. Diverse sources of probiotics have different effects on the host, and the application of native probiotics isolated from target fish may play a better role. This study was conducted to evaluate the probiotic potential of the bacteria isolated from the gut of common carp (Cyprinus carpio L.). Based on morphological, 16 S rRNA sequencing and whole-genome sequencing analysis, an isolated strain that simultaneously produces protease, mannanase, amylase, and cellulose was identified as Bacillus velezensis R-71003. This strain showed antagonistic activity against various pathogens. Further studies showed that B. velezensis R-71003 was susceptible to ampicillin, gentamicin, penicillin G, erythromycin, chloramphenicol, amikacin, cefamezin, sulfamethoxazole, ciprofloxacin and norfloxacin. Additionally, B. velezensis R-71003 met the safety criteria based on safety evaluation results, such as haemolytic activity and biosafety tests in common carp. Moreover, B. velezensis R7–1003 was resistant to low pH (2) and higher bile salt concentration (0.3 %) and showed higher viability ability after high temperature exposure (60, 70, and 80 °C), as well as higher auto-aggregation and cell-surface hydrophobicity. In addition, the challenge test showed that B. velezensis R-71003 significantly increased the survival rate of common carp after challenged with Aeromonas hydrophila. Finally, the growth-promoting effects of sodium gluconate on B. velezensis R-71003 were evaluated. The results indicated that a low concentration of sodium gluconate could promote the growth of B. velezensis R-71003 and increase the expression levels of dnaA and yabD. Whole-genome analysis revealed that genome contains genes related to the biosynthesis of antibacterial substances, digestive enzymes, amino acids and vitamins, as well as stress resistance. The results collectively suggest that B. velezensis R-71003 exhibited good probiotic potential, and its combined application with sodium gluconate may be used to improve the health status of aquatic animals.