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Flowering is a key developmental transition in the plant life cycle. In temperate climates, flowering often occurs in response to the perception of seasonal cues such as changes in day-length and temperature. However, the mechanisms that have evolved to control the timing of flowering in temperate grasses are not fully understood. We identified a Brachypodium distachyon mutant whose flowering is delayed under inductive long-day conditions due to a mutation in the JMJ1 gene, which encodes a Jumonji domain-containing protein. JMJ1 is a histone demethylase that mainly demethylates H3K4me2 and H3K4me3 in vitro and in vivo. Analysis of the genome-wide distribution of H3K4me1, H3K4me2, and H3K4me3 in wild-type plants by chromatin immunoprecipitation and sequencing combined with RNA sequencing revealed that H3K4m1 and H3K4me3 are positively associated with gene transcript levels, whereas H3K4me2 is negatively correlated with transcript levels. Furthermore, JMJ1 directly binds to the chromatin of the flowering regulator genes VRN1 and ID1 and affects their transcription by modifying their H3K4me2 and H3K4me3 levels. Genetic analyses indicated that JMJ1 promotes flowering by activating VRN1 expression. Our study reveals a role for JMJ1-mediated chromatin modification in the proper timing of flowering in B. distachyon., Competing Interests: Conflict of interest statement. The authors declare no competing interest., (© The Author(s) 2024. Published by Oxford University Press on behalf of American Society of Plant Biologists. All rights reserved. For commercial re-use, please contact reprints@oup.com for reprints and translation rights for reprints. All other permissions can be obtained through our RightsLink service via the Permissions link on the article page on our site—for further information please contact journals.permissions@oup.com.)

A new unloading contact model of an elastic-perfectly plastic half-space indented by an elastic spherical indenter is presented analytically. The recovered deformation of the elastic indenter and the indented half-space has been found to be dependent on the elastic modulus ratio after fully unloading. The recovered deformation of the indented half-space can be calculated based on the deformation of the purely elastic indenter. The unloading process is assumed to be entirely elastic, and then the relationship of contact force and indentation can be determined based on the solved recovered deformation and conforms to Hertzian-type. The model can accurately predict the residual indentation and residual curvature radius after fully unloading. Numerical simulations are performed to demonstrate the assumptions and the unloading model. The proposed unloading model can cover a wide range of indentations and material properties and is compared with existing unloading models. The cyclic behavior including loading and unloading can be predicted by combining the proposed unloading law with the existing contact loading model. The combined model can be employed for low-velocity impact and nanoindentation tests and the comparison results are in good agreement.

Rice (Oryza sativa L.) is a short-day plant whose heading date is largely determined by photoperiod sensitivity (PS). Many parental lines used in hybrid rice breeding have weak PS, but their F 1 progenies have strong PS and exhibit an undesirable transgressive late-maturing phenotype. However, the genetic basis for this phenomenon is unclear. Therefore, effective methods are needed for selecting parents to create F 1 hybrid varieties with the desired PS. In this study, we used bulked segregant analysis with F 1 Ningyou 1179 (strong PS) and its F 2 population, and through analyzing both parental haplotypes and PS data for 918 hybrid rice varieties, to identify the genetic basis of transgressive late maturation which is dependent on dominance complementation effects of Hd1, Ghd7, DTH8, and PRR37 from both parents rather than from a single parental genotype. We designed a molecular marker-assisted selection system to identify the genotypes of Hd1, Ghd7, DTH8, and PRR37 in parental lines to predict PS in F 1 plants prior to crossing. Furthermore, we used CRISPR/Cas9 technique to knock out Hd1 in Ning A (sterile line) and Ning B (maintainer line) and obtained an hd1-NY material with weak PS while retaining the elite agronomic traits of NY. Our findings clarified the genetic basis of transgressive late maturation in hybrid rice and developed effective methods for parental selection and gene editing to facilitate the breeding of hybrid varieties with the desired PS for improving their adaptability., (© 2024 Society for Experimental Biology and John Wiley & Sons Ltd.)

While efficient removal of uremic toxins and accumulated water is pivotal for the well-being of dialysis patients, protein adsorption to the dialyzer membrane reduces the performance of a dialyzer. Hydrophilic membrane modification with polyvinylpyrrolidone (PVP) has been shown to reduce protein adsorption and to stabilize membrane permeability. In this study we compared middle molecule clearance and filtration performance of nine polysulfone-, polyethersulfone-, and cellulose-based dialyzers over time. Protein adsorption was simulated in recirculation experiments, while β2-microglobulin clearance as well as transmembrane pressure (TMP) and filtrate flow were determined over time. The results of this study showed that β2-microglobulin clearance (-7.2 mL/min/m 2 ) and filtrate flow (-54.4 mL/min) decreased strongly during the first 30 min and slowly afterwards (-0.7 mL/min/m 2 and -6.8 mL/min, respectively, for the next 30 min); the TMP increase (+37.2 mmHg and +8.6 mmHg, respectively) showed comparable kinetics. Across all tested dialyzers, the dialyzer with a hydrophilic modified membrane (FX CorAL) had the highest β2-microglobulin clearance after protein fouling and the most stable filtration characteristics. In conclusion, hydrophilic membrane modification with PVP stabilizes the removal capacity of middle molecules and filtration performance over time. Such dialyzers may have benefits during hemodiafiltration treatments which aim to achieve high exchange volumes.

Approximately 2-10% in-stent restenosis (ISR) may occur following percutaneous coronary intervention (PCI) despite the use of modern drug-eluting stents (DES); thus, our study aimed to explore the effects of tripartite motif-containing (TRIM) 27 on ISR and the underlying mechanism. For this purpose, a total of 42 patients undergoing coronary angiography who had prior coronary angiography with DES implantation were recruited. Endothelial progenitor cells (EPCs) markers (defined as CD34 and vascular endothelial growth factoreceptor-2 (VEGFR-2)) in peripheral blood were measured to asses the circulating EPC level. The TRIM family-related gene expressions were detected by reverse transcription-quantitative polymerase chain reaction. Results suggested that ISR patients had reduced CD34 + VEGFR-2 + and increased apoptosis rate of EPCs, along with upregulated TRIM27 and TRIM37 and downregulated TRIM28. TRIM27 promoted and TBK1 inhibited the apoptosis rate of EPCs. Mechanically, TRIM27 interacted with TBK1 to ubiquitinate TBK1 in in vitro study. In summary, TRIM27 promoted the progression of ISR in patients after PCI by ubiquitinating TBK1, which might provide novel ideas for the clinical treatment of ISR., (© 2024. The Author(s), under exclusive licence to Springer Science+Business Media, LLC, part of Springer Nature.)

Warm ambient conditions induce thermomorphogenesis and affect plant growth and development. However, the chromatin regulatory mechanisms involved in thermomorphogenesis remain largely obscure. In this study, we show that the histone methylation readers MORF-related gene 1 and 2 (MRG1/2) are required to promote hypocotyl elongation in response to warm ambient conditions. A transcriptome sequencing analysis indicates that MRG1/2 and phytochrome interacting factor 4 (PIF4) coactivate a number of thermoresponsive genes, including YUCCA8, which encodes a rate-limiting enzyme in the auxin biosynthesis pathway. Additionally, MRG2 physically interacts with PIF4 to bind to thermoresponsive genes and enhances the H4K5 acetylation of the chromatin of target genes in a PIF4-dependent manner. Furthermore, MRG2 competes with phyB for binding to PIF4 and stabilizes PIF4 in planta. Our study indicates that MRG1/2 activate thermoresponsive genes by inducing histone acetylation and stabilizing PIF4 in Arabidopsis., Competing Interests: Declaration of interests The authors declare no competing interests., (Copyright © 2024 The Author(s). Published by Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.)

A lithium-sulfur (Li-S) battery is a promising candidate for an electrochemical energy-storage system. However, for a long time, it suffered from the "shuttle effect" of the intermediate products of soluble polysulfides and safety issues concerning the combustible liquid electrolyte and lithium anode. In this work, sulfide polyacrylonitrile (SPAN) is employed as a solid cycled cathode to resolve the "shuttle effect" fundamentally, a gel polymer electrolyte (GPE) based on poly(ethylene glycol) diacrylate (PEGDA) is matched to the SPAN cathode to minimize the safety concerns, and finally, a quasi-solid-state Li-SPAN battery is combined by an in situ thermal polymerization strategy to improve its adaptability to the existing battery assembly processes. The PEGDA-based GPE achieved at 60 °C for 40 min ensures little damage to the in situ battery, a good electrode-electrolyte interface, a high ionic conductivity of 6.87 × 10 -3 S cm -1 at 30 °C, and a wide electrochemical window of 4.53 V. Ultimately, the as-prepared SPAN composite exerts a specific capacity of 1217.3 mAh g -1 after 250 cycles at 0.2 C with a high capacity retention rate of 89.9%. The combination of the SPAN cathode and in situ thermally polymerized PEGDA-based GPE provides a new inspiration for the design of Li-SPAN batteries with both high specific energy and high safety.

Key Message: We clarify the influence of the genotypes of the heading date genes Hd1, Ghd7, DTH8, and PRR37 and their combinations on yield-related traits and the functional differences between different haplotypes. Heading date is a key agronomic trait in rice (Oryza sativa L.) that determines yield and adaptability to different latitudes. Heading date 1 (Hd1), Grain number, plant height, and heading date 7 (Ghd7), Days to heading on chromosome 8 (DTH8), and PSEUDO-RESPONSE REGULATOR 37 (PRR37) are core rice genes controlling photoperiod sensitivity, and these genes have many haplotypes in rice cultivars. However, the effects of different haplotypes at these genes on yield-related traits in diverse rice materials remain poorly characterized. In this study, we knocked out Hd1, Ghd7, DTH8, or PRR37, alone or together, in indica and japonica varieties and systematically investigated the agronomic traits of each knockout line. Ghd7 and PRR37 increased the number of spikelets and improved yield, and this effect was enhanced with the Ghd7 DTH8 or Ghd7 PRR37 combination, but Hd1 negatively affected yield. We also identified a new weak functional Ghd7 allele containing a mutation that interferes with splicing. Furthermore, we determined that the promotion or inhibition of heading date by different PRR37 haplotypes is related to PRR37 expression levels, day length, and the genetic background. For rice breeding, a combination of functional alleles of Ghd7 and DTH8 or Ghd7 and PRR37 in the hd1 background can be used to increase yield. Our study clarifies the effects of heading date genes on yield-related traits and the functional differences among their different haplotypes, providing valuable information to identify and exploit elite haplotypes for heading date genes to breed high-yielding rice varieties., (© 2023. The Author(s), under exclusive licence to Springer-Verlag GmbH Germany, part of Springer Nature.)

Lanthipeptides are a major class of ribosomally synthesized and post-translationally modified peptides (RiPPs) characterized by thioether cross-links called lanthionine (Lan) and methyllanthionine (MeLan). Previously, we developed a method to produce mature lanthipeptides in recombinant Escherichia coli , but manual steps hinder large-scale analogue screening. Here we devised an automated workflow for creating and screening variant libraries of haloduracin, a two-component class II lanthipeptide. An integrated work cell of a synthetic biology foundry was programmed to robotically execute DNA library construction, host transformation, peptide production, mass spectrometry analysis, and activity screening by agar diffusion assay. For recombinantly produced Halα peptides, the sequence-activity relationship of 380 single-residue variants and >1300 triple-residue combinatorial variants were rapidly analyzed in microplates within weeks. The peptide expression levels in E. coli were also visualized via robotic creation and analysis of GFP-lanthipeptide fusions for select peptide mutants. Following shake-flask fermentation and purification, one Halα mutant was confirmed with enhanced specific antimicrobial activity relative to the wild-type peptide. Overall, this approach may be generally applicable for the high-throughput characterization and engineering of RiPP natural products.

Objective: Primary adrenal malignant tumor is rare. The factors affecting the prognosis remain poorly defined. This study targeted to construct and corroborate a model for predicting the overall survival of adrenal malignant tumor patients., Methods: We investigated the SEER database for patients with primary adrenal malignant tumor. 1,080 patients were divided into a construction cohort ( n  = 756) and a validation cohort ( n  = 324), randomly. The prognostic factors for overall survival were evaluated using univariate and multivariate Cox analyses. The nomogram was constructed and then validated with C-index, calibration curve, time-dependent ROC curve, and decision curve analysis in both cohorts. Then we divided the patients into 3 different risk groups according to the total points of the nomogram and analyzed their survival status by Kaplan-Meier curve with log-rank test., Results: The baseline characteristics of these two cohorts were not statistically different ( P  > 0.05). Using univariate and multivariate Cox analyses, 5 variables, including age, tumor size, histological type, tumor stage, and surgery of primary site, were distinguished as prognostic factors ( P  < 0.05). Based on these variables, we constructed a nomogram to predict the 3- year, 5- year, and 10-year overall survival. The C-indexes were 0.780 (0.760-0.800) in the construction cohort and 0.780 (0.751-0.809) in the validation cohort. In both cohorts, the AUC reached a fairly high level at all time points. The internal and external calibration curves and ROC analysis showed outstanding accuracy and discrimination. The decision curves indicated excellent clinical usefulness. The best cut-off values for the total points of the nomogram were 165.4 and 243.1, and the prognosis was significantly different for the three different risk groups ( P  < 0.001)., Conclusion: We successfully constructed a model to predict the overall survival of primary adrenal malignant tumor patients. This model was validated to perform brilliantly internally and externally, which can assist us in individualized clinical management., Competing Interests: The authors declare that the research was conducted in the absence of any commercial or financial relationships that could be construed as a potential conflict of interest., (© 2022 Xie, Zhang and Cao.)

Garnet Li 7 La 3 Zr 2 O 12 (LLZO) is a potential solid electrolyte for solid-state batteries (SSBs) because of its high ionic conductivity, electrochemical stability, and mechanical strength. However, large interface resistances arising from deserted cathodes and rigid garnet/electrode interfaces block its application. In order to deal with this issue, a gel polymer electrolyte (GPE) was introduced into the cathode and both sides of LLZO to achieve a solid-state battery. Especially, the provided GPE could be thermally polymerized and solidified in situ, which would integrate LLZO with both anode and cathode and dramatically simplify the battery manufacturing process. Since the interface from rigid LLZO is improved by the flexible GPE buffer, the inability of flexible GPE to inhibit lithium dendrites is compensated by the rigid LLZO in return. As a result, the interface resistances are reduced from 6880 to 473 Ω, the Li symmetric cell exhibits a flat galvanostatic charge/discharge for 400 h without lithium dendrites, and the solid-state Li|GPE@LLZO|LiCoO 2 battery exerts a capacity retention of 82.6% after 100 cycles at 0.5 C at room temperature. Such an interfacial engineering approach represents a promising strategy to address solid-solid interface issues and provides a new design for SSBs with high performance.

METTL4 belongs to a subclade of MT-A70 family members of methyltransferase (MTase) proteins shown to mediate N 6 -adenosine methylation for both RNA and DNA in diverse eukaryotes. Here, we report that Arabidopsis METTL4 functions as U2 snRNA MTase for N 6 -2'-O-dimethyladenosine (m 6 Am) in vivo that regulates flowering time, and specifically catalyzes N 6 -methylation of 2'-O-methyladenosine (Am) within a single-stranded RNA in vitro. The apo structures of full-length Arabidopsis METTL4 bound to S-adenosyl-L-methionine (SAM) and the complex structure with an Am-containing RNA substrate, combined with mutagenesis and in vitro enzymatic assays, uncover a preformed L-shaped, positively-charged cavity surrounded by four loops for substrate binding and a catalytic center composed of conserved residues for specific Am nucleotide recognition and N 6 -methylation activity. Structural comparison of METTL4 with the mRNA m6A enzyme METTL3/METTL14 heterodimer and modeling analysis suggest a catalytic mechanism for N 6 -adenosine methylation by METTL4, which may be shared among MT-A70 family members., (© 2022. The Author(s).)

Because of their high ionic conductivity, utilizing gel polymer electrolytes (GPEs) is thought to be an effective way to accomplish high-energy-density batteries. Nevertheless, most GPEs have poor adaptability to Ni-rich cathodes to alleviate the problem of inevitable rapid capacity decay during cycling. Therefore, to match LiNi 0.8 Co 0.1 Mn 0.1 O 2 (NCM811), we applied pentaerythritol tetraacrylate (PETEA) monomers to polymerize in situ in a polyacrylonitrile (PAN) membrane to obtain GPEs (PETEA-TCGG-PAN). The impedance variations and key groups during the in situ polymerization of PETEA-TCGG-PAN are investigated in detail. PETEA-TCGG-PAN with a high lithium-ion transference number (0.77) exhibits an electrochemical decomposition voltage of 5.15 V. Noticeably, the NCM811|PETEA-TCGG-PAN|Li battery can cycle at 2 C for 120 cycles with a capacity retention rate of 89%. Even at 6 C , the discharge specific capacity is able to reach 101.47 mAh g -1 . The combination of LiF and Li 2 CO 3 at the CEI interface is the reason for the improved rate performance. Moreover, when commercialized LFP is used as the cathode, the battery can also cycle stably for 150 cycles at 0.5 C . PETEA and PAN can together foster the transportation of Li + with the construction of a fast ion transport channel, making a contribution to stable charge-discharge of the above batteries. This study provides an innovative design philosophy for designing in situ GPEs in high-energy-density lithium metal batteries.

Hypoxia-inducible factor, also known as HIF, is a transcriptional factor universally found in mammalian cells. HIF-1 is one of the HIF-families and acts as a heterodimer consisting of α and β subunits. It is found to play significant roles in pathologic conditions such as tumor development and metastasis. Here, we first report benzo[ d ]isoxazole analogues as HIF-1α transcription inhibitors. Thereby, we designed and synthesized 26 benzo[ d ]isoxazole derivatives and evaluated their inhibitory activities against HIF-1α transcription in HEK293T cells by a dual-luciferase gene reporter assay. Among them, compounds 15 and 31 showed the best efficacy in a cell-based assay with an IC 50 value of 24 nM and have potential antitumor effects for further development., Competing Interests: The authors declare no competing financial interest., (© 2022 American Chemical Society.)

Directed evolution is a powerful approach to engineer enzymes via iterative creation and screening of variant libraries. However, assay development for high-throughput mutant screening remains challenging, particularly for new catalytic activities. Mass spectrometry (MS) analysis is label-free and well suited for untargeted discovery of new enzyme products but is traditionally limited by slow speed. Here we report an automated workflow for directed evolution of new enzymatic activities via high-throughput library creation and label-free MS screening. For a proof of concept, we chose to engineer a cyclodipeptide synthase (CDPS) that synthesizes diketopiperazine (DKP) compounds with therapeutic potential. In recombinant Escherichia coli , site-saturation mutagenesis (SSM) and error-prone PCR (epPCR) libraries expressing CDPS mutants were automatically created and cultivated on an integrated work cell. Culture supernatants were then robotically processed for matrix-assisted laser desorption/ionization time-of-flight (MALDI-ToF) MS analysis at a rate of 5 s per sample. The resulting mass spectral data were processed via custom computational algorithms, which performed a multivariant analysis of 108 theoretical mass-to-charge ( m / z ) values of 190 possible DKP molecules within a mass window of 115-373 Da. An F186L CDPS mutant was isolated to produce cyclo(l-Phe-l-Val), which is undetectable in the product profile of the wild-type enzyme. This robotic, label-free MS screening approach may be generally applicable to engineering other enzymes with new activities in high throughput., Competing Interests: There are no conflicts to declare., (This journal is © The Royal Society of Chemistry.)

Evaluating the accuracy of the satellite and reanalysis precipitation products is very important for understanding their uncertainties and potential applications. However, because of underestimation existing in commonly used evaluation benchmark, gauge precipitation data, it is necessary to investigate the influence of systematic errors in gauge data on the performance evaluation of satellite and reanalysis precipitation datasets. Daily satellite-based IMERG and model-based ERA5-Land, together with gauge precipitation data, were collected with the period from 2005 to 2016 over China in this study. Daily corrections for precipitation biases from wind-induced undercatch, wetting loss, and trace error were made for gauge measurements. A set of metrics, including relative bias, Kling-Gupta efficiency, frequency bias, and critical success index, were used to evaluate and intercompare the performances of IMERG and ERA5-Land against original and bias-corrected gauge data in different locations, years, seasons, climatic zones, classes of precipitation events, and precipitation phases. The results have shown that: After removing the bias in gauge data, the relative biases of IMERG and ERA5-Land both significantly decline. The noticeable changes of their accuracy occur and vary with different locations, years, seasons, climatic zones, and precipitation phases. Furthermore, the frequency biases of IMERG and ERA5-Land rise in no precipitation events and decline in light, moderate, heavy, and extreme precipitation events. The detection capability of IMERG and ERA5-Land in no and light precipitation events is also obviously affected. Therefore, this study has demonstrated the significant influence of systematic gauge precipitation errors on the assessment of IMERG and ERA5-Land and reinforces the necessity to remove negative bias in gauge data before using it as the benchmark., (© 2022. The Author(s).)

Phase change energy storage is a new type of energy storage technology that can improve energy utilization and achieve high efficiency and energy savings. Phase change hysteresis affects the utilization effect of phase change energy storage, and the influencing factors are unknown. In this paper, a low-temperature eutectic phase change material, CaCl 2 ·6H 2 O-MgCl 2 ·6H 2 O, was selected as the research object, combined with the mechanism of phase change hysteresis characteristics, using a temperature acquisition instrument to draw the step cooling curve. A differential scanning calorimeter was used to measure the DSC (differential scanning calorimetry) curve, and the hysteresis characteristics of phase transformation were studied by factors, such as heat storage temperature, cooling temperature, and cooling rate. The experimental results show that when heating temperature increases by 30 °C, phase transition hysteresis decreases by about 3 °C. The cooling temperature decreased by 10 °C, and the phase transition hysteresis increased by 2.69 °C. This paper provides a new idea for optimizing the properties of phase change energy storage materials and provides a possibility for realizing the parametric control of phase change hysteresis factors.

Herein, we report the first example of controllable magnetoresistance in a semiconducting carbonized phthalonitrile resin. This special phenomenon is explained using the different ratios of graphite-like (sp 2 ) and diamond-like (sp 3 ) bonds and localization length ( a 0 ) as well as the density of states at the Fermi-level ( N ( E F )).

Phase change materials (PCMs) are widely used in solar energy utilization, industrial waste heat recovery and building temperature regulation. However, there have been few studies on the application of PCMs in the field of biomedicine. In recent years, some scholars have carried out research in the biomedicine field using the characteristics of PCMs. It was observed that the excellent properties of PCMs enhance the quality of a variety of biomedical applications with many advantages over existing applications, which provide new methods for the treatment of disease. PCMs have broad application prospects in the field of biomedicine. Therefore, a timely review of relevant research progress is of great significance for the continuous development of new methods. Innovatively, from the unique perspective of the biomedical field, this paper systematically reviews the application and related research progress of PCMs from four aspects: cold chains for vaccines and medicines, drug delivery systems, thermotherapy/cold compress therapy and medical dressings. In addition, we summarize and discuss the general principles of the design and construction of PCMs in the biomedical field. Finally, existing problems, solutions and future research directions are also put forward in order to provide a basis for guidance and promote the future applications of phase change materials in the biomedicine field.

Rice (Oryza sativa) is a short-day (SD) plant originally having strong photoperiod sensitivity (PS), with SDs promoting and long days (LDs) suppressing flowering. Although the evolution of PS in rice has been extensively studied, there are few studies that combine the genetic effects and underlying mechanism of different PS gene combinations with variations in PS. We created a set of isogenic lines among the core PS-flowering genes Hd1, Ghd7 and DTH8 using CRISPR mutagenesis, to systematically dissect their genetic relationships under different day-lengths. We investigated their monogenic, digenic, and trigenic effects on target gene regulation and PS variation. We found that Hd1 and Ghd7 have the primary functions for promoting and repressing flowering, respectively, regardless of day-length. However, under LD conditions, Hd1 promotes Ghd7 expression and is recruited by Ghd7 and/or DTH8 to form repressive complexes that collaboratively suppress the Ehd1-Hd3a/RFT1 pathway to block heading, but under SD conditions Hd1 competes with the complexes to promote Hd3a/RFT1 expression, playing a tradeoff relationship with PS flowering. Natural allelic variations of Hd1, Ghd7 and DTH8 in rice populations have resulted in various PS performances. Our findings reveal that rice PS flowering is controlled by crosstalk of two modules - Hd1-Hd3a/RFT1 in SD conditions and (Hd1/Ghd7/DTH8)-Ehd1-Hd3a/RFT1 in LD conditions - and the divergences of these genes provide the basis for rice adaptation to broad regions., (©2020 The Authors New Phytologist ©2020 New Phytologist Foundation.)

Sepsis, a systemic inflammatory response syndrome (SIRS) caused by infection, is a major public health concern with limited therapeutic options. Infection disturbs the homeostasis of host, resulting in excessive inflammation and immune suppression. This has prompted the clinical use of immunomodulators to balance host response as an alternative therapeutic strategy. Here, we report that Thymopentin (TP5), a synthetic immunomodulator pentapeptide (Arg-Lys-Asp-Val-Tyr) with an excellent safety profile in the clinic, protects mice against cecal ligation and puncture (CLP)-induced sepsis, as shown by improved survival rate, decreased level of pro-inflammatory cytokines and reduced ratios of macrophages and neutrophils in spleen and peritoneum. Regarding mechanism, TP5 changed the characteristics of LPS-stimulated macrophages by increasing the production of 15-deoxy-Δ 12,14 -prostaglandin J2 (15-d-PGJ2). In addition, the improved effect of TP5 on survival rates was abolished by the peroxisome proliferator-activated receptor γ (PPARγ) antagonist GW9662. Our results uncover the mechanism of the TP5 protective effects on CLP-induced sepsis and shed light on the development of TP5 as a therapeutic strategy for lethal systemic inflammatory disorders., (© 2020 Federation of American Societies for Experimental Biology.)

In this study, Nd and As are mainly sealed into industrial pure Fe cylinders. The effect of different temperatures on the high-temperature interaction of an Nd-Fe-As ternary system is studied via X-ray diffraction, optical microscopy, and scanning electron microscopy after heat insulation for 30 h at 1173, 1223, and 1273 K. The results show that the common products under high-temperature interaction are NdAs, Fe 17 Nd 2 , and Fe. Fe 12 As 5 is present at 1173 K, whereas Fe 2 As is produced at 1223 and 1273 K. The diffusion ability of Nd is weaker than that of As. Nd mainly diffuses through the Fe atomic vacancy mechanism. As mainly binds to Fe to form Fe and As compounds.

Thermodynamic and kinetic parameters of co-combustion of textile dyeing sludge (TDS) and sugarcane bagasse (SB) were studied using thermogravimetric analysis in CO 2 /O 2 and N 2 /O 2 atmospheres. Our results showed that the comprehensive combustion characteristic index (CCI) of the blends was improved by 1.71-4.32 times. With the increased O 2 concentration, co-combustion peak temperature decreased from 329.7 to 318.2 °C, with an increase in its maximum weight loss rate from 10.04 to 14.99%/min and its CCI by 1.31 times (β = 20 °C·min -1 ). To evaluate the co-combustion characteristics, thermodynamic and kinetic parameters (entropy, Gibbs free energy and enthalpy changes, and apparent activation energy) were obtained in the five atmospheres. The lowest apparent activation energy of the TB64 blend was obtained in oxy-fuel atmosphere (CO 2 /O 2  = 7/3)., (Copyright © 2018 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.)

In fluorescence molecular tomography, the quality of image reconstruction of fluorophore distribution is heavily reduced by the mismodeling of inaccurately known tissue optical properties. We propose an efficient sparsity-promoting Bayesian approximation error (spBAE) method to compensate for this mismodeling. The spBAE method incorporates sparsity prior into the BAE method by updating the parameters of the Gaussian prior according to its initial solution. In vivo experiments demonstrate that this new method greatly improves the reconstruction quality.

The nonlinear normalized Born ratio (nBorn) method normalizes emission data with excitation data nonlinearly, which makes the relative distributions of the normalized measurements different from those of the emission data. When compared with the reconstruction using only emission data, what the nonlinear nBorn method does is equivalent to introducing the noisy excitation data to emission data. In our linear nBorn method, the emission data for each projection is linearly normalized with the average excitation data of all detectors. Phantom and in vivo mice studies indicate that the linear nBorn method provides better localization and quantitative performance than the nonlinear nBorn method.

When CCD-based free-space fluorescence molecular tomography (FMT) is used for imaging of fluorescent targets with a large concentration difference, the limited dynamic range of the CCD diminishes the localization and quantitative accuracy of FMT. To overcome this, we present a high-dynamic-range FMT (HDR-FMT) method. Under the multiple-exposure scheme, HDR fluorescence projection images are constructed using the recovered CCD response curve. Image reconstruction is implemented using iterative reweighted L1 regularization which can reduce artifacts by using fewer HDR fluorescence projection images. Phantom and in vivo animal studies indicate that localization of fluorescent targets with a large concentration difference is effectively improved with HDR-FMT and with good quantitative accuracy.

The functional information, the absorption and diffusion coefficients, as well as the structural information of biological tissues can be provided by the DOT(Diffuse Optical Tomograph)/MicroCT. In this paper, we use boundary element method to calculate the forward problem of DOT based on the structure prior given by the MicroCT, and then we reconstruct the absorption and diffusion coefficients of different biological tissues by the Levenberg-Marquardt algorithm. The method only needs surface meshing, reducing the complexity of calculation; in addition, it reconstructs a single value within an organ, which reduces the ill-posedness of the inverse problem to make reconstruction results have good noise stability. This indicates that the boundary element method-based reconstruction can serve as an new scheme for getting absorption and diffusion coefficients in DOT/MicroCT multimodality imaging.

A latex agglutination test (LAT) was developed for the rapid detection of antibodies against the VP1 or VP1 proteins of Enterovirus 71 (EV71). The proteins of interest including prokaryotically expressed VP1 and two strains of anti-VP1 monoclonal antibody (McAb) against EV71 were covalently linked to carboxylated latex using ethyl-dimethyl-amino-propyl carbodiimide (EDC) to prepare sensitized latex beads. LAT was evaluated by an enzyme-linked immunosorbent assay (ELISA) as a reference test. The VP1-LAT showed a sensitivity of 87.0%, specificity of 88.9%, and an agreement ratio of 90.0% in detecting VP1 in 100 serum samples from experimentally infected mice, whereas these values were 86.8, 96.7, and 93.3%, respectively, for 608 clinical human serum samples. The VP1-LAT has advantages over other assays in terms of low cost, rapidity, chemical stability, high sensitivity, repeatability, and specificity. The LAT established in the present study is a rapid and simple test suitable for field monitoring of antibodies against VP1-EV71., (Copyright © 2015 IMSS. Published by Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.)

We propose a method based on a decoupled fluorescence Monte Carlo model for constructing fluorescence Jacobians to enable accurate quantification of fluorescence targets within turbid media. The effectiveness of the proposed method is validated using two cylindrical phantoms enclosing fluorescent targets within homogeneous and heterogeneous background media. The results demonstrate that our method can recover relative concentrations of the fluorescent targets with higher accuracy than the perturbation fluorescence Monte Carlo method. This suggests that our method is suitable for quantitative fluorescence diffuse optical tomography, especially for in vivo imaging of fluorophore targets for diagnosis of different diseases and abnormalities.

In fluorescence molecular tomography (FMT), many artifacts exist in the reconstructed images because of the inherently ill-posed nature of the FMT inverse problem, especially with limited measurements. A new method based on iterative reweighted L1 (IRL1) regularization is proposed for reducing artifacts with limited measurements. Phantom experiments demonstrate that the reconstructed images have fewer artifacts even with very limited measurements. This indicates that FMT based on IRL1 can obtain high-quality images and thus has the potential to observe dynamic changes in fluorescence-targeted molecules.

Prurigo nodularis is a skin disease with unknown origin which is frequent in patients on maintenance renal replacement therapy. Here, we report a patient who was dialyzed for more than 10 years with different dialyzers using different dialyzer membranes. Each time when the patient was switched to a polymethylmethacrylate membrane (Filtryzer BK-1.6P), itching and skin lesions disappeared completely. This effect could be verified three times., (Copyright © 2013 S. Karger AG, Basel.)