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Abstract It is well-documented that type-III effectors are required by Gram-negative pathogens to directly target different host cellular pathways to promote bacterial infection. However, in the context of legume-rhizobium symbiosis, the role of rhizobial effectors in regulating plant symbiotic pathways remains largely unexplored. Here, we show that NopT, a YopT-type cysteine protease of Sinorhizobium fredii NGR234 directly targets the plant’s symbiotic signaling pathway by associating with two Nod factor receptors (NFR1 and NFR5 of Lotus japonicus). NopT inhibits cell death triggered by co-expression of NFR1/NFR5 in Nicotiana benthamiana. Full-length NopT physically interacts with NFR1 and NFR5. NopT proteolytically cleaves NFR5 both in vitro and in vivo, but can be inactivated by NFR1 as a result of phosphorylation. NopT plays an essential role in mediating rhizobial infection in L. japonicus. Autocleaved NopT retains the ability to cleave NFR5 but no longer interacts with NFR1. Interestingly, genomes of certain Sinorhizobium species only harbor nopT genes encoding truncated proteins without the autocleavage site. These results reveal an intricate interplay between rhizobia and legumes, in which a rhizobial effector protease targets NFR5 to suppress symbiotic signaling. NFR1 appears to counteract this process by phosphorylating the effector. This discovery highlights the role of a bacterial effector in regulating a signaling pathway in plants and opens up the perspective of developing kinase-interacting proteases to fine-tune cellular signaling processes in general. 

Recent progress in the Valley Hall insulator has demonstrated a nontrivial topology property due to the distinct valley index in 2D semiconductor systems. In this work, we propose a highly tunable topological phase transition based on valley photonic crystals. The topological phase transition is realized by the inversion symmetry broken due to the refractive index change of structures consisting of optical phase change material (OPCM) with thermal excitation of different sites in a honeycomb lattice structure. Besides, simulations of light propagation at sharp corners and pseudo-spin photon coupling are conducted to quantitatively examine the topological protection. Compared with other electro-optical materials based on reconfigurable topological photonics, a wider bandwidth and greater tunability of both central bandgap frequency and topological phase transition can happen in the proposed scheme. Our platform has great potential in practical applications in lasing, light sensing, and high-contrast tunable optical filters. 

Non-stoichiometric perovskite oxides have been studied as a new family of redox oxides for solar thermochemical hydrogen (STCH) production owing to their favourable thermodynamic properties. However, conventional perovskite oxides suffer from limited phase stability and kinetic properties, and poor cyclability. Here, we report a strategy of introducing A-site multi-principal-component mixing to develop a high-entropy perovskite oxide, (La1/6Pr1/6Nd1/6Gd1/6Sr1/6Ba1/6)MnO3 (LPNGSB_Mn), which shows desirable thermodynamic and kinetics properties as well as excellent phase stability and cycling durability. LPNGSB_Mn exhibits enhanced hydrogen production (∼77.5 mmol/mol-oxide) compared to (La2/3Sr1/3)MnO3 (∼53.5 mmol / mol-oxide) in a short 1 hour redox duration and high STCH and phase stability for 50 cycles. LPNGSB_Mn possesses a moderate enthalpy of reduction (252.51–296.32 kJ / mol-oxide), a high entropy of reduction (126.95–168.85 J / mol-oxide), and fast surface oxygen exchange kinetics. All A-site cations do not show observable valence changes during the reduction and oxidation processes. This research preliminarily explores the use of one A-site high-entropy perovskite oxide for STCH. 

Arctic Ocean gateway fluxes play a crucial role in linking the Arctic with the global ocean and affecting climate and marine ecosystems. We reviewed past studies on Arctic–Subarctic ocean linkages and examined their changes and driving mechanisms. Our review highlights that radical changes occurred in the inflows and outflows of the Arctic Ocean during the 2010s. Specifically, the Pacific inflow temperature in the Bering Strait and Atlantic inflow temperature in the Fram Strait hit record highs, while the Pacific inflow salinity in the Bering Strait and Arctic outflow salinity in the Davis and Fram straits hit record lows. Both the ocean heat convergence from lower latitudes to the Arctic and the hydrological cycle connecting the Arctic with Subarctic seas were stronger in 2000–2020 than in 1980–2000. CMIP6 models project a continuing increase in poleward ocean heat convergence in the 21st century, mainly due to warming of inflow waters. They also predict an increase in freshwater input to the Arctic Ocean, with the largest increase in freshwater export expected to occur in the Fram Strait due to both increased ocean volume export and decreased salinity. Fram Strait sea ice volume export hit a record low in the 2010s and is projected to continue to decrease along with Arctic sea ice decline. We quantitatively attribute the variability of the volume, heat, and freshwater transports in the Arctic gateways to forcing within and outside the Arctic based on dedicated numerical simulations and emphasize the importance of both origins in driving the variability. 

Mesoscale eddies are important to many aspects of the dynamics of the Arctic Ocean. Among others, they maintain the halocline and interact with the Atlantic Water circumpolar boundary current through lateral eddy fluxes and shelf-basin exchanges. Mesoscale eddies are also important for transporting biological material and for modifying sea ice distribution. Here, we review what is known about eddies and their impacts in the Arctic Ocean in the context of rapid climate change. Eddy kinetic energy (EKE) is a proxy for mesoscale variability in the ocean due to eddies. We present the first quantification of EKE from moored observations across the entire Arctic Ocean and compare those results to output from an eddy resolving numerical model. We show that EKE is largest in the northern Nordic Seas/Fram Strait and it is also elevated along the shelf break of the Arctic Circumpolar Boundary Current, especially in the Beaufort Sea. In the central basins, EKE is 100–1,000 times lower. Generally, EKE is stronger when sea ice concentration is low versus times of dense ice cover. As sea ice declines, we anticipate that areas in the Arctic Ocean where conditions typical of the North Atlantic and North Pacific prevail will increase. We conclude that the future Arctic Ocean will feature more energetic mesoscale variability. 

Abstract. The ocean mixed layer is the interface between the ocean interior and the atmosphere or sea ice and plays a key role in climate variability. It isthus critical that numerical models used in climate studies are capable of a good representation of the mixed layer, especially its depth. Here weevaluate the mixed-layer depth (MLD) in six pairs of non-eddying (1∘ grid spacing) and eddy-rich (up to 1/16∘) models from theOcean Model Intercomparison Project (OMIP), forced by a common atmospheric state. For model evaluation, we use an updated MLD dataset computed fromobservations using the OMIP protocol (a constant density threshold). In winter, low-resolution models exhibit large biases in the deep-waterformation regions. These biases are reduced in eddy-rich models but not uniformly across models and regions. The improvement is most noticeable inthe mode-water formation regions of the Northern Hemisphere. Results in the Southern Ocean are more contrasted, with biases of either sign remainingat high resolution. In eddy-rich models, mesoscale eddies control the spatial variability in MLD in winter. Contrary to a hypothesis that thedeepening of the mixed layer in anticyclones would make the MLD larger globally, eddy-rich models tend to have a shallower mixed layer at mostlatitudes than coarser models do. In addition, our study highlights the sensitivity of the MLD computation to the choice of a reference level andthe spatio-temporal sampling, which motivates new recommendations for MLD computation in future model intercomparison projects.