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Non-alcoholic fatty liver disease (NAFLD) is one of the most common causes of cardiometabolic diseases in overweight individuals. While liver biopsy is the current gold standard to diagnose NAFLD and magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) is a non-invasive alternative still under clinical trials, the former is invasive and the latter costly. We demonstrate electrical impedance tomography (EIT) as a portable method for detecting fatty infiltrate. We enrolled 19 overweight subjects to undergo liver MRI scans, followed by EIT measurements. The MRI images provided the a priori knowledge of the liver boundary conditions for EIT reconstruction, and the multi-echo MRI data quantified liver proton-density fat fraction (PDFF%) to validate fat infiltrate. Using the EIT electrode belts, we circumferentially injected pairwise current to the upper abdomen, followed by acquiring the resulting surface-voltage to reconstruct the liver conductivity. Pearson’s correlation analyses compared EIT conductivity or MRI PDFF with body mass index, age, waist circumference, height, and weight variables. We reveal that the correlation between liver EIT conductivity or MRI PDFF with demographics is statistically insignificant, whereas liver EIT conductivity is inversely correlated with MRI PDFF (R = −0.69, p = 0.003, n = 16). As a pilot study, EIT conductivity provides a portable method for operator-independent and cost-effective detection of hepatic steatosis.

Rheumatoid arthritis (RA) is a chronic inflammatory disease characterized by proliferation and insufficient apoptosis of fibroblast-like synoviocytes (FLSs).The biology and functions of interleukin (IL)-34 are only beginning to be uncovered. We previously demonstrated IL-34 could upregulate the expression of IL-17 in RA patients. In this study, the 3-(4,5-dimethylthiazol-2-yl)-2,5-diphenyltetrazolium bromide (MTT) assay and flow cytometry of Annexin V and PI staining were performed to assess cell proliferation and apoptosis progression in RA-FLSs after stimulated with increasing concentrations of IL-34, respectively. Inflammatory cytokines and angiogenic factors were measured using quantitative real-time PCR, Western blotting and ELISA. We explored the association between IL-34 and RA-FLS proliferation and apoptosis in the context of RA. Stimulating RA-FLSs with different concentrations of IL-34 significantly promoted the proliferation and inhibited the apoptosis of RA-FLSs in a concentration-dependent manner. Neutralization of IL-17 with the IL-17 inhibitor plumbagin (PB) reduced the effects of IL-34. Proinflammatory cytokine (IL-17A IL-6 and tumor necrosis factor-α, TNF-α) and angiogenic factor (vascular endothelial growth factor, VEGF and hypoxia-inducible factor-1α, HIF-1α) expression was markedly upregulated in RA-FLSs stimulated by IL-34. PB-mediated inhibition of IL-17A also decreased the expression of IL-6, TNF-α, HIF-1α and VEGF in RA-FLSs. Taken together, these findings suggest that targeting IL-34 production in RA-FLSs may be a therapeutic strategy for RA.

It is a promising method to identify structural damage using bridge dynamic response under moving vehicle excitation, but the lack of accurate information about road roughness and vehicle parameters will lead to the failure of this method. The paper proposed a step-by-step EKF damage identification method, which transforms the inversion problem of unknown structural parameters under unknown loads (vehicle and road roughness) into two separate inversion problems: moving contact force identification and damage parameters identification. Firstly, the VBI model is converted into bridge vibration model under a moving contact force, and the moving contact force covering the information of road roughness and vehicle parameters can be calculated by EKF iteration. Secondly, the moving contact force identified in the first step is loaded on the bridge as a known condition, and the bridge damage problem is also solved by the EKF method. Numerical analyses of a simply-supported bridge under the moving vehicle are conducted to investigate the accuracy and efficiency of the proposed method. Effects of the vehicle speed, the damage cases, the measurement noise, and the roughness levels on the accuracy of the identification results are investigated. The results demonstrate the proposed algorithm is efficient and robust, and the algorithm can be developed into an effective tool for structural health monitoring of bridges.

This study aimed to determine the association between serum uric acid (sUA) and nonalcoholic fatty liver disease (NAFLD) in nonobese postmenopausal women. A total of 4323 female individuals over 18 years of age participated in this cross-sectional study. The subjects were divided into four groups according to menopause status and body mass index. sUA quartiles in this female population were categorized as follows: Q1 ≤ 230 mmol/L, Q2: 231–270 mmol/L, Q3: 271–310 mmol/L and Q4: ≥ 311 mmol/L. The presence or absence of NAFLD was assessed by abdominal ultrasonography. The prevalence of NAFLD was 38.8% in the general population, and the average age was 46.5 ± 11.3 years. Among nonobese and obese subjects, the prevalence of NAFLD was lower in nonmenopausal subjects than in postmenopausal subjects (nonobese: 20.74% vs 45.26%, respectively, P P value for trend

Mounting evidence suggests that microbiota dysbiosis caused by antibiotic administration is a risk factor for cancer, but few research reports focus on the relationships between antibiotics and chemotherapy efficiency. We evaluated the influence of antibiotic administration on neoadjuvant therapy efficacy in patients with breast cancer (BC) in the present study. BC patients were stratified into two groups: antibiotic-treated and control based on antibiotic administration within 30 days after neoadjuvant therapy initiation. Disease-free survival (DFS) and overall survival (OS) were assessed using the Kaplan–Meier method, and the Cox proportional hazards model was used for multivariate analyses. The pathologic complete response rate of the control group was significantly higher than that of the antibiotic-treated group (29.09% vs. 10.20%, p = 0.017). Further univariate analysis with Kaplan–Meier calculations demonstrated that antibiotic administration was strongly linked with both reduced DFS (p = 0.04) at significant statistical levels and OS (p = 0.088) at borderline statistical levels. Antibiotic administration was identified as a significant independent prognostic factor for DFS [hazard ratio (HR) 3.026, 95%, confidence interval (CI) 1.314–6.969, p = 0.009] and OS (HR 2.836, 95% CI 1.016–7.858, p = 0.047) by Cox proportional hazards model analysis. Antibiotics that initiated reduced efficiency of chemotherapy were more noticeable in the HER2-positive subgroup for both DFS (HR 5.51, 95% CI 1.77–17.2, p = 0.003) and OS (HR 7.0395% CI 1.94–25.53, p = 0.003), as well as in the T3-4 subgroup for both DFS (HR 20.36, 95% CI 2.41–172.07, p = 0.006) and OS (HR 13.45, 95% CI 1.39–130.08, p = 0.025) by stratified analysis. Antibiotic administration might be associated with reduced efficacy of neoadjuvant therapy and poor prognosis in BC patients. As a preliminary study, our research made preparations for further understanding and large-scale analyses of the impact of antibiotics on the efficacy of neoadjuvant therapy.

The chloroplast is one of two organelles containing a separate genome that codes for essential and distinct cellular functions such as photosynthesis. Given the importance of chloroplasts in plant metabolism, the genomic architecture and gene content have been strongly conserved through long periods of time and as such are useful molecular tools for evolutionary inferences. At present, complete chloroplast genomes from over 4000 species have been deposited into publicly accessible databases. Despite the large number of complete chloroplast genomes, comprehensive analyses regarding genome architecture and gene content have not been conducted for many lineages with complete species sampling. In this study, we employed the genus Populus to assess how more comprehensively sampled chloroplast genome analyses can be used in understanding chloroplast evolution in a broadly studied lineage of angiosperms. We conducted comparative analyses across Populus in order to elucidate variation in key genome features such as genome size, gene number, gene content, repeat type and number, SSR (Simple Sequence Repeat) abundance, and boundary positioning between the four main units of the genome. We found that some genome annotations were variable across the genus owing in part from errors in assembly or data checking and from this provided corrected annotations. We also employed complete chloroplast genomes for phylogenetic analyses including the dating of divergence times throughout the genus. Lastly, we utilized re-sequencing data to describe the variations of pan-chloroplast genomes at the population level for P. euphratica. The analyses used in this paper provide a blueprint for the types of analyses that can be conducted with publicly available chloroplast genomes as well as methods for building upon existing datasets to improve evolutionary inference.

In this study, sediments were collected from two different sites in the deep-sea hydrothermal region of the South Atlantic Ocean. Two microbial enrichment cultures (H7S and H11S), which were enriched from the sediments collected at two sample sites, could effectively degrade petroleum hydrocarbons. The bacterial diversity was analyzed by high-throughput sequencing method. The petroleum degradation ability were evaluated by gas chromatography–mass spectrometry and gravimetric analysis. We found that the dominant oil-degrading bacteria of enrichment cultures from the deep-sea hydrothermal area belonged to the genera Pseudomonas, Nitratireductor, Acinetobacter, and Brevundimonas. After a 14-day degradation experiment, the enrichment culture H11S, which was obtained near a hydrothermal vent, exhibited a higher degradation efficiency for alkanes (95%) and polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons (88%) than the enrichment culture H7S. Interestingly, pristane and phytane as biomarkers were degraded up to 90% and 91% respectively by the enrichment culture H11S, and six culturable oil-degrading bacterial strains were isolated. Acinetobacter junii strain H11S-25, Nitratireductor sp. strain H11S-31 and Pseudomonas sp. strain H11S-28 were used at a density ratio of 95:4:1 to construct high-efficiency oil-degrading consortium H. After a three-day biodegradation experiment, consortium H showed high degradation efficiencies of 74.2% and 65.7% for total alkanes and PAHs, respectively. The degradation efficiency of biomarkers such as pristane and high-molecular-weight polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons (such as CHR) reached 84.5% and 80.48%, respectively. The findings of this study indicate that the microorganisms in the deep-sea hydrothermal area are potential resources for degrading petroleum hydrocarbons. Consortium H, which was artificially constructed, showed a highly efficient oil-degrading capacity and has significant application prospects in oil pollution bioremediation.

Composite structures made of 2 mm-thick titanium and 10 mm-thick carbon steel are widely used in infrastructures such as long-distance gas transportation. However, cracking, which is caused by intermetallic compounds (ICs), is a dominate failure mode in welds of this structure. Thus, a common way to improve the in-service life of is reduce the number of ICs. In this paper, we employ a novel hybrid welding method to fabricate composite structures of TA2 titanium and Q235 carbon steel. Specifically, Ti and carbon steel is welded by laser and double Cold Metal Transfer (CMT) welding, respectively. The microstructure near the interface of Ti and steel is then examined using SEM, EBSD, EDS, with emphasis on the ICs in terms of chemical elements and morphologies. Results show that FeTi and Fe2Ti are the main ICs near the interface, and responsible for the failure of the welds. The effect of welding heat input on the formation of ICs is investigated as well. Results show that ICs are smaller when the heat input is low. Under low heat input circumstance, the tensile strength of the weld can reach up to 420 MPa.

The ability to quickly and easily assess the activity of large collections of enzymes for a desired substrate holds great promise in the field of biocatalysis. Cell-free synthesis, although not practically amenable for large-scale enzyme production, provides a way to accelerate the timeline for screening enzyme candidates using small-scale reactions. However, because cell-free enzyme synthesis requires a considerable amount of template DNA, the preparation of high-quality DNA “parts” in large quantities represents a costly and rate-limiting prerequisite for high throughput screening. Based on time-cost analysis and comparative activity data, a cell-free workflow using synthetic DNA minicircles and rolling circle amplification enables comparable biocatalytic activity to cell-based workflows in almost half the time. We demonstrate this capability using a panel of sequences from the carbon-nitrogen hydrolase superfamily that represent possible green catalysts for synthesizing small molecules with less waste compared to traditional industrial chemistry. This method provides a new alternative to more cumbersome plasmid- or PCR-based protein expression workflows and should be amenable to automation for accelerating enzyme screening in industrial applications.

A new design of peculiar-shaped β-NaYF4: 20% Yb3+/2% Er3+ hexagonal microcrystal (PSβHM) is proposed and its upconversion (UC) luminescence with adjustable color pattern is studied with near infrared excitation. Flower-like green UC luminescence emission pattern from blooming to withering process and intensive directional red emission are achieved by simply adjusting the focal point position of the excitation light. The mechanism that determines the unique UC luminescence phenomena are investigated systematically. The function of the internal light reflection and waveguide effect with annular microcavity is explored based on the structure characteristic of the hexagonal microplate. The current work may have great significant and potential applications in the development of optoelectronic device, color display, directional light and laser emission of microsystem.

It is well known that when a laser is reflected from a rough surface or transmitted through a diffusive medium, a speckle pattern will be formed at a given observation plane. Speckle is commonly produced by laser beams with a homogeneous intensity, for which, well-known relations have been derived, relating the speckle size to the area of illumination. Here we investigate the speckle generated by higher-order Laguerre-Gaussian (LG) modes, characterized by a non-uniform intensity distribution of concentric rings.We show that the ring-structure of the LG modes does not play any role in the speckle size, which happens to be the same as that obtained for a homogeneous intensity distribution. This allow us to provide with a simple expression that relates the speckle size to the spot size of the LG modes. Our findings will be of great relevance in many speckle-based applications., Comment: 5 pages, 5 figures

Severe ozone (O3) episodes occur frequently in Shanghai during late-summers. We define geopotential height averaged over the key area region (122.5°E-135°E, 27.5°N -35°N) at 500 hPa as a WPSH_SHO3 index which has high positive correlation with surface O3 concentration in Shanghai. In addition, the index has a significant long-term increasing trend during the recent 60 years. Analysis shows the meteorological conditions under the strong WPSH_SHO3 climate background (compared to the weak background) have several important anomalies: (1) A strong WPSH center occurs over the key area region. (2) The cloud cover is less, resulting in high solar radiation and low humidity, enhancing the photochemical reactions of O3. (3) The near-surface southwesterly winds are more frequent, enhancing the transport of upwind pollutants and O3 precursors from polluted regions to Shanghai and producing higher O3 chemical productions. This study suggests that the global climate change could lead to a stronger WPSH in the key region, enhancing ozone pollution in Shanghai. A global chemical/transport model (MOZART-4) is applied to show that the O3 concentrations can be 30 ppbv higher under a strong WPSH_SHO3 condition than a weak condition, indicating the important effect of the global climate change on local air pollution in Shanghai.

Endocrine data from wild populations provide important insight into social systems. However, obtaining samples for traditional methods involves capture and restraint of animals, and/or pain, which can influence the animal’s stress level, and thereby undesirable release of hormones. Here, we measured corticosterone, testosterone and progesterone in the hair of 482 wild-derived house mice that experienced sexual competition while living under semi-natural conditions. We tested whether sex, age, weight and indicators of sexual maturity, reproduction and social conflicts predict hormone concentrations measured in hair (sampling at endpoint). We show that body weight, sex and age significantly predict cumulative testosterone and progesterone levels, allowing the differentiation between subadults and adults in both sexes. Corticosterone was only slightly elevated in older males compared to older females and increased with the level of visible injuries or scars. Testosterone in males positively correlated with body weight, age, testes size, and sperm number. Progesterone in females significantly increased with age, body weight, and the number of embryos implanted throughout life, but not with the number of litters when controlled for age and weight. Our results highlight the biological validity of hair steroid measurements and provide important insight into reproductive competition in wild house mice.

Growing oilseed rape in the fallow season may be a feasible alternative to growing green manure (e.g. Chinese milk vetch) for improving rice productivity. The objective of this study was to determine the yield performance of machine-transplanted double-season rice (i.e. early- and late-season rice) grown following oilseed rape. Field experiments were conducted to compare machine-transplanted double-season rice grown following oilseed rape, Chinese milk vetch and fallow (i.e. no crop) at Hengyang and Yueyang, Hunan Province, China in three cropping cycles from 2014 to 2017. Results showed that machine-transplanted double-season rice grown following oilseed rape and Chinese milk vetch produced similar grain yield, which was higher than that grown following fallow across two sites and three cropping cycles. The higher grain yield of machine-transplanted double-season rice grown following oilseed rape and Chinese milk vetch was attributable to improvement in both sink size (spikelet number per m2) and source capacity (total biomass). However, the reasons for the improved sink size of machine-transplanted double-season rice grown following oilseed rape and Chinese milk vetch were not entirely the same. Growing oilseed rape increased panicle size (spikelet number per panicle) and panicle number in early- and late-season rice, respectively, while growing Chinese milk vetch increased panicle number in both the early- and late-season rice. Our study suggests that growing oilseed rape in the fallow season is a useful alternative strategy for improving productivity of machine-transplanted double-season rice.

Long-term neurological conditions (LTNCs) often cause debilitating symptoms. Better understanding of symptom dimensions in LTNCs is needed to support health professionals and improve care. This can be achieved by exploring the factor structure of a standardised measure of symptoms in LTNC patients. The symptom subscale of the Integrated Palliative Outcome Scale for LTNCs (IPOS Neuro-S24) comprises 24 items measuring symptom severity. Descriptive statistics and psychometric properties of the scale were assessed, followed by differential item functioning (DIF), exploratory factor analysis (EFA) and confirmatory factor analysis (CFA). Data from N = 238 patients were analysed. The mean IPOS Neuro S-24 score was 27.0 (possible range 0–96) and floor effects were found for 21 items. The scale had good internal consistency (Cronbach’s alpha = 0.77). Weak evidence of DIF was found for nine items. All but one item (falls) loaded onto four factors with loadings > 0.3. The factors represented four clinically meaningful symptom dimensions: fatigue, motor symptoms, oral problems and non-motor symptoms. We identified a reliable four-factor structure of symptom experience in LTNC patients. The results suggest that symptom dimensions are common across LTNCs. The IPOS Neuro S-24 is an appropriate tool to measure symptoms in LTNC patients, which may improve care.

The transmission between community-associated (CA-) and healthcare-associated (HA-) methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus (MRSA) has increased the challenge of infection control. To understand the clonal evolution and transmission of MRSA isolates, we compared the characteristics of 175 CA-MRSA and 660 HA-MRSA strains at a Chinese tertiary hospital in 2012–2017. Antibiotic susceptibility was performed on VITEK system, the genetic background of the isolates was characterized by SCCmec, spa, and MLST typing, while virulence determinants were screened using conventional PCR. Although more than 70% of the CA-MRSA isolates were erythromycin and clindamycin resistant, CA-MRSA was more susceptible than HA-MRSA to most of the antibiotics tested. ST239-MRSA-III-t030 (30%) was the most prevalent clone among HA-MRSA, while ST59-MRSA-IVa-t437 (28.8%) was the major clone among CA-MRSA. Notably, ST59-MRSA-IVa-t437 accounted for 6.7% of the chosen HA-MRSA isolates. Additionally, difference in virulence gene content was found between the CA- and HA-MRSA strains. In conclusion, epidemiological characteristics were largely different between CA- and HA-MRSA. Although ST239-MRSA-III-t030 is still the predominant clone among HA-MRSA, the community clone ST59-MRSA-IVa-t437 has the potential of becoming an essential part of HA-MRSA in the region tested.

Sputum deposition blocks the airways of patients and leads to blood oxygen desaturation. Medical staff must periodically check the breathing state of intubated patients. This process increases staff workload. In this paper, we describe a system designed to acquire respiratory sounds from intubated subjects, extract the audio features, and classify these sounds to detect the presence of sputum. Our method uses 13 features extracted from the time-frequency spectrum of the respiratory sounds. To test our system, 220 respiratory sound samples were collected. Half of the samples were collected from patients with sputum present, and the remainder were collected from patients with no sputum present. Testing was performed based on ten-fold cross-validation. In the ten-fold cross-validation experiment, the logistic classifier identified breath sounds with sputum present with a sensitivity of 93.36% and a specificity of 93.36%. The feature extraction and classification methods are useful and reliable for sputum detection. This approach differs from waveform research and can provide a better visualization of sputum conditions. The proposed system can be used in the ICU to inform medical staff when sputum is present in a patient’s trachea.

With the explosive economic development of China over the past few decades, air pollution has attracted increasing global concern. Using satellite-based PM2.5 data from 2000 to 2015, we found that the available emissions of atmospheric compositions show similar yearly variation trends to PM2.5, even if the synchronization is not met for each composition, implying that the intensity of anthropogenic emissions dominates the temporal variation of PM2.5 in East China. Empirical orthogonal function analysis demonstrates that the dominant variability in the seasonal PM2.5 is closely associated with climate circulation transformation, incarnated as the specific climate index such as the Asia Polar Vortex intensity in spring, the Northern Hemisphere Subtropical High Ridge Position for the leading mode and the Kuroshio Current SST for the second mode in summer, the Asia Polar Vortex Area for the leading mode and the Pacific Polar Vortex Intensity for the second mode in autumn, the NINO A SSTA for the leading mode and the Pacific Decadal Oscillation for the second mode in winter. Therefore, apart from anthropogenic emissions effects, our results also provide robust evidence that over the past 16 years the climate factor has played a significant role in modulating PM2.5 in eastern China.

A series of novel Fe-Cd co-doped ZnO nanoparticle based photocatalysts are successfully synthesized by sol-gel route and characterized using scanning electron microscopy (SEM), energy dispersive X-ray emission (EDX), transmission electron microscopy (TEM), X-ray diffraction (XRD), UV-Vis spectroscopy, X-ray photoelectron spectroscopy (XPS), and Brunauer-Emmett-Teller (BET) techniques. The photocatalytic activity of ZnO nanoparticles doped with various atomic weight fraction of Fe and Cd has been investigated under visible light irradiation using the Methylene Blue and Rhodamine B dye in aqueous solution. The FeCd (2%):ZnO (ZFC-1) exhibit the highest photocatalytic activity in terms of rate constant as KMB = 0.01153 min−1 and KRhB = 0.00916 min−1). Further, the re-usability of the ZFC-1 photocatalyst is studied which confirms that it can be reused up to five times with nearly negligible loss of the photocatalytic efficiency. Moreover, the role of photoactive species investigated using a radical scavenger technique. The present investigations show that the doping concentration plays significant role in photocatalytic performance. The visible light absorption shown by Fe-Cd co-doped ZnO nanoparticles is much higher than that of undoped body probably due to co-doping, and the charge carrier recombination is decreased effectively which yields a higher photocatalytic performance. The mechanism for the enhancement of photocatalytic activity under visible light irradiation is also proposed.

Ketogulonicigenium vulgare has been widely used in vitamin C two-step fermentation. Four K. vulgare strains (WSH-001, Y25, Hbe602 and SKV) have been completely genome-sequenced, however, less attention was paid to elucidate the reason for the differences in 2-KGA yield on genetic level. Here, a novel K. vulgare SPU B805 with higher 2-keto-L-gulonic acid (2-KGA) yield, was genome-sequenced to confirm harboring one circular chromosome with plasmid free. Comparative genome analyses showed that the absence of plasmid 2 was an important factor for its high 2-KGA productivity. The amino acid biosynthetic pathways in strain SPU B805 are much more complete than those in other K. vulgare strains. Meanwhile, strain SPU B805 harbored a complete PPP and TCA route, as well as a disabled EMP and ED pathway, same as to strain SKV, whereas strain WSH-001, Y25 and Hbe602 harbored complete PPP, ED, TCA pathway and a nonfunctional EMP pathway. The transcriptome of strain SPU B805 validated the carbon metabolism in cytoplasm mainly through the PPP pathway due to its higher transcriptional levels. This is the first time to elucidate the underlying mechanism for the difference in 2-KGA yield, and it is of great significance for strain improvement in the industrial fermentation.

Using the principle of antibody-drug conjugates that deliver highly potent cytotoxic agents to cancer cells for cancer therapy, we here report the synthesis of antisense-oligonucleotides (ASO) and thyroid hormone T3 conjugates for obesity treatment. ASOs primarily target fat and liver with poor penetrance to other organs. Pharmacological T3 treatment increases energy expenditure and causes weight loss, but is contraindicated for obesity treatment due to systemic effects on multiple organs. We hypothesize that ASO-T3 conjugates may knock down target genes and enrich T3 action in fat and liver. Two established ASOs are tested. Nicotinamide N-methyltransferase (NNMT)-ASO prevents diet-induced obesity in mice. Apolipoprotein B (ApoB)-ASO is an FDA approved drug for treating familial hypercholesterolemia. NNMT-ASO and ApoB-ASO are chemically conjugated with T3 using a non-cleavable sulfo-SMCC linker. Both NNMT-ASO-T3 (NAT3) and ApoB-ASO-T3 (AAT3) enhance thyroid hormone receptor activity. Treating obese mice with NAT3 or AAT3 decreases adiposity and increases lean mass. ASO-T3 enhances white fat browning, decreases genes for fatty acid synthesis in liver, and shows limited effects on T3 target genes in heart and muscle. Furthermore, AAT3 augments LDL cholesterol-lowering effects of ApoB-ASO. Therefore, ASO and hormone/drug conjugation may provide a novel strategy for obesity and hyperlipidemia treatment.

Recent studies in animal models and humans show that long non-coding RNAs (lncRNAs) are involved in the development of atherosclerosis, which contributes to the pathological foundation of coronary artery disease (CAD). LncRNAs in plasma and serum have been considered as promising novel biomarkers for diagnosis and prognosis of cardiovascular diseases, especially CAD. We here measured the circulating levels of 8 individual lncRNAs which are known to be relevant to atherosclerosis in the plasma samples from 300 patients with CAD and 180 control subjects by using quantitative real-time reverse transcription-polymerase chain reaction (qRT-PCR) methods. We found that the plasma level of H19 and long intergenic non-coding RNA predicting cardiac remodeling (LIPCAR) were significantly increased in patients with CAD. The area under the receiver operating characteristic curve was 0.631 for H19 and 0.722 for LIPCAR. Multivariate logistic regression analyses indicated that plasma H19 and LIPCAR were independent predictors for CAD, even after adjustment for traditional cardiovascular risk factors. Further studies identified that plasma levels of H19 and LIPCAR were also increased in CAD patients with heart failure compared to those with normal cardiac function. Taken together, our results suggest that increased plasma levels of H19 and LIPCAR are associated with increased risk of CAD and may be considered as novel biomarkers for CAD.

Tracheobronchial anomalies are common in congenital heart disease (CHD), including tracheobronchial stenosis, tracheal bronchus, cardiac bronchus, and bronchial isomerism, which can cause varying degrees of respiratory illness. It is necessary to assess tracheobronchial anomalies and make a preoperative airway evaluation. Multi-slice computed tomography (MSCT) and cardiac magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) are the most effective noninvasive modalities for the diagnosis of CHD and the associated tracheobronchial anomalies. However, MSCT remains an ionizing procedure despite using low dose protocols. The aim of this study was to evaluate diagnostic accuracy of tracheobronchial anomalies in patients with CHD using three-dimensional turbo field echo(3D-TFE) magnetic resonance imaging sequence for preoperative airway evaluation. The results indicated that 3D-TFE provided better image quality as compared to that of 3D-balanced turbo field echo (3D-bTFE), and it can clearly demonstrated the tracheobronchial tree and tracheobronchial anomalies in CHD. This study confirms the clinical value of 3D-TFE in diagnosing tracheobronchial anomalies and supply helpful tracheobronchial information for preoperative strategies and postoperative follow-up.

Haemodynamic disorders are common clinical findings in hypertension and lead to adverse cardiovascular events. However, the haemodynamic conditions in hypertension models are poorly understood. This study aimed to observe the characteristics of haemodynamics in spontaneously hypertensive rats (SHRs) and antihypertensive-treated SHRs. Twenty-four adult male SHRs and Wistar-Kyoto rats (WKYs) were randomly divided into four groups and treated for 7 days as follows: WKY-CON (WKYs + saline), WKY-NIF (WKYs + nifedipine, 50 mg/kg/day), SHR-CON (SHRs + saline), and SHR-NIF (SHRs + nifedipine). Aortic computational fluid dynamics (CFD) models were simulated to obtain the haemodynamic parameters. We found that in the hypertensive (SHR-CON) and blood pressure-controlled (SHR-NIF) groups, the oscillatory shear index (OSI) and relative residence time (RRT), which are key haemodynamics indices, were markedly elevated. Furthermore, there was a correlation between both the elevated OSI and RRT with the vascular wall thickening in regions near the inner wall of the aortic arch. Our research demonstrates that haemodynamics remains disturbed even if the blood pressure is normalized. In addition, vascular remodelling may play an important role in maintaining elevated OSI and RRT values.

Catestatin was discovered as a potent inhibitor of catecholamine secretion and plays important roles in the cardiovascular system. Our previous study demonstrates a close relationship between catestatin levels and prognosis of ST-elevation myocardial infarction (STEMI). Using the same population, the goal of this study is to investigate the ability of catestatin to predict left ventricular (LV) remodeling in STEMI patients. 72 patients and 30 controls were included. Catestatin was sampled after admission to the emergency room (ER), at day3 (D3), and day7 (D7) after STEMI. Echocardiography was performed at D3 and after 65 months for evaluation of LVEDD, EF, IVS, LVPW, E, A, E’, E/A, and E/E’. The changes of these parameters from D3 to 65 months were used to reflect the changes of ventricular structure and function. We found that plasma catestatin levels at D3 were highly correlated with the changes of LVEDD, EF, E, A, E’, E/A, as well as E/E’. Patients with higher catestatin levels developed worse ventricular function during the follow-up period. Single-point catestatin was effective to predict LVEDD change. And concurrently increasing catestatin and NT-proBNP levels predicted the highest risk of LV remodeling. This study suggests an important prognostic information of catestatin on LV remodeling.

Triptolide and celastrol, two principal bioactive compounds in Tripterygium wilfordii, are produced from geranylgeranyl diphosphate (GGPP) and farnesyl diphosphate ((E,E)-FPP) through terpenoid biosynthesis pathway. However, little is known about T. wilfordii terpene synthases which could competitively utilize GGPP and (E,E)-FPP as substrates, producing C15 and C20 tertiary alcohols. Here we firstly cloned the genes encoding nerolidol synthase (NES) and geranyllinalool synthases (GES1, GES2), which are responsible for the biosynthesis of (E)-nerolidol and (E,E)-geranyllinalool. In vitro characterization of recombinant TwNES and TwGES1 revealed both were functional enzymes that could catalyze the conversion of (E,E)-FPP and GGPP to (E)-nerolidol and (E,E)-geranyllinalool, which were consistent with the results of yeast fermentation. Biochemical characterization revealed TwNES and TwGES1 had strong dependency for Mg2+, Km and Kcat/Km values of TwNES for (E,E)-FPP were 12.700 μM and 0.029 s−1/μM, and TwGES1 for GGPP were 2.039 μM and 0.019 s−1/μM. Real-time PCR analysis showed the expression levels of NES and GES1 increased by several fold in the suspension cells treated with alamethicin, indicating TwNES and TwGES1 are likely to utilize GGPP and (E,E)-FPP to generate tertiary alcohols as precursor of plant volatiles, which play important roles in the ecological interactions between T. wilfordii and other organisms.

Stimulated Brillouin scattering (SBS), a fundamental nonlinear interaction between light and acoustic waves occurring in any transparency material, has been broadly studied for several decades and gained rapid progress in integrated photonics recently. However, the SBS noise arising from the unwanted coupling between photons and spontaneous non-coherent phonons in media is inevitable. Here, we propose and experimentally demonstrate this obstacle can be overcome via a method called orbital angular momentum mode division filtering. Owing to the introduction of a new distinguishable degree-of-freedom, even extremely weak signals can be discriminated and separated from a strong noise produced in SBS processes. The mechanism demonstrated in this proof-of-principle work provides a practical way for quasi-noise-free photonic-phononic operation, which is still valid in waveguides supporting multi-orthogonal spatial modes, permits more flexibility and robustness for future SBS devices.

Deep brain stimulation of the nucleus accumbens (NAc-DBS) is an emerging therapy for diverse, refractory neuropsychiatric diseases. Although DBS therapy is broadly hypothesized to work through large-scale neural modulation, little is known regarding the neural circuits and networks affected by NAc-DBS. Using a healthy, sedated rat model of NAc-DBS, we employed both evoked- and functional connectivity (fc) MRI to examine the functional circuit and network changes achieved by electrical NAc stimulation. Optogenetic-fMRI experiments were also undertaken to evaluate the circuit modulation profile achieved by selective stimulation of NAc neurons. NAc-DBS directly modulated neural activity within prefrontal cortex and a large number of subcortical limbic areas (e.g., amygdala, lateral hypothalamus) and influenced functional connectivity among sensorimotor, executive and limbic networks. The pattern and extent of circuit modulation measured by evoked-fMRI was relatively insensitive to DBS frequency. Optogenetic stimulation of NAc cell bodies induced a positive fMRI signal in the NAc, but no other detectable downstream responses, indicating that therapeutic NAc-DBS might exert its effect through antidromic stimulation. Our study provides a comprehensive mapping of circuit and network-level neuromodulation by NAc-DBS, which should facilitate our developing understanding of its therapeutic mechanisms of action.

The mushroom of the genus Pleurotus in western China, called Bailinggu, is a precious edible fungus with high economic value. However, its taxonomical position is unclear. Some researchers regard it as a variety of P. eryngii, namely P. eryngii var. tuoliensis, whereas others consider it to be a subspecies of P. eryngii, viz. P. eryngii subsp. tuoliensis. A total of 51 samples representing seven genetic groups of the genus Pleurotus were subjected to a phylogenetic analysis of partial sequences of the translation elongation factor 1 alpha gene (ef1a), the RNA polymerase II largest subunit gene (rpb1), the RNA polymerase II second largest subunit gene (rpb2) and nuc rDNA internal transcribed spacers (ITS). Our data indicate that the mushroom Bailinggu is a lineage independent of P. eryngii and should be lifted as its own species, namely P. tuoliensis. In addition, its known distribution range consists of both western China and Iran.