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[Display omitted] • MicroRNA expression profile of plasma exosomes from bulbar-onset ALS patients. • 52 miRNAs were upregulated in the ALS population by Small RNA sequencing. • miR-23a-3p was increased in bulbar-onset ALS patients. • The dysregulation of miR-23a-3p influenced cells survival. Amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS) is a neurodegenerative disease related to the progressive death of motor neurons. Understanding the pathogenesis of ALS continues to provide considerable challenges. Bulbar-onset ALS involves faster functional loss and shorter survival time than spinal cord-onset ALS. However, debate is ongoing regarding typical plasma miRNA changes in ALS patients with bulbar onset. Exosomal miRNAs have not yet been described as a tool for bulbar-onset ALS diagnosis or prognosis prediction. In this study, candidate exosomal miRNAs were identified by small RNA sequencing using samples from patients with bulbar-onset ALS and healthy controls. Potential pathogenic mechanisms were identified through enrichment analysis of target genes for differential miRNAs. Expression of miR-16-5p, miR-23a-3p, miR-22-3p, and miR-93-5p was significantly up-regulated in plasma exosomes from bulbar-onset ALS patients compared with healthy control subjects. Among them, miR-16-5p and miR-23a-3p were significantly lower in spinal-onset ALS patients than those with bulbar-onset. Furthermore, up-regulation of miR-23a-3p in motor neuron-like NSC-34 cells promoted apoptosis and inhibited cell viability. This miRNA was found to directly target ERBB4 and regulate the AKT/GSK3β pathway. Collectively, the above miRNAs and their targets are related to the development of bulbar-onset ALS. Our research indicates that miR-23a-3p might have an effect on motor neuron loss observed in bulbar-onset ALS and may be a novel target for the therapy of ALS in the future. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Colorectal cancer (CRC) is one of the most common malignant tumors worldwide, occurring in the colon or rectum portion. Quinoa is a dicotyledonous plant, and the quinoa bran is the outer seed coat of quinoa. Functional molecules in plants play an important role in the treatment and alleviation of chronic diseases. In this study, quinoa bran was used as the raw material. The active components with an anti-colorectal cancer effect were extracted by acetone and separated with an AB-8 macroporous resin column, which was further identified as terpenoids by liquid-mass spectrometry (LMS), named Quinoa bran terpenoids (QBT). The yield of quinoa bran terpenoids was 0.77%. Moreover, the results showed that QBT significantly inhibited the proliferation of colorectal cancer cells DLD-1 and HCT-8 with a concentration gradient dependent manner. Respectively, the IC 50 values of DLD-1 and HCT-8 cells were 0.42 ± 0.02 and 0.54 ± 0.05 mg/mL. Further studies showed that QBT upregulated apoptosis-related proteins such as activated-caspase-3, 8, and 9. In addition, QBT decreased mitochondrial membrane potential, promoted the expression of the pro-apoptotic protein Bax, and inhibited the anti-apoptotic protein Bcl-2. The experiments showed that QBT significantly repressed the growth of tumors in nude mice. In conclusion, these results indicated that QBT largely inhibits the development of colorectal cancer to large extent through upregulation of caspase-3, 8, and 9 and reduction of mitochondrial membrane potential, and has great potential for anti-tumor progression. [Display omitted] [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper proposes a novel artificial bee colony algorithm with dynamic population (ABC-DP), which synergizes the idea of extended life-cycle evolving model to balance the exploration and exploitation tradeoff. The proposed ABC-DP is a more bee-colony-realistic model that the bee can reproduce and die dynamically throughout the foraging process and population size varies as the algorithm runs. ABC-DP is then used for solving the optimal power flow (OPF) problem in power systems that considers the cost, loss, and emission impacts as the objective functions. The 30-bus IEEE test system is presented to illustrate the application of the proposed algorithm. The simulation results, which are also compared to nondominated sorting genetic algorithm II (NSGAII) and multi-objective ABC (MOABC), are presented to illustrate the effectiveness and robustness of the proposed method. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Shengli lignite (SL) was subjected to sequential extraction (SE) with carbon disulfide, benzene, methanol, acetone, and tetrahydrofuran under ultrasonication to afford extracts 1–5, respectively, and the residue (R SE , i.e., residue from SE). The R SE was subjected to sequential thermal dissolution (STD) in benzene, methanol, and acetone in a batch autoclave from 210 to 330 °C to afford soluble portions (SPs) and the residue (R STD , i.e., residue from STD). The total yield of extracts 1–5 is only 2.86%, while the yields of SPs from STD in benzene, methanol, and acetone are 5.69%, 10.15%, and 48.41%, respectively. The SPs from STD in benzene and methanol mainly consist of hydrocarbons and phenols, while ketones are the main compounds detected in the SP from STD in acetone and most of nitrogen-containing organic compounds appear in the SP from STD in acetone. During STD in acetone, acetone conversion to phorone, isophorone, and their derivatives was confirmed. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

• Convolutional neural network and Long Short-term Memory Network are connected in parallel to form a fusion network. • The spatial feature, temporal feature and middle layer feature are extracted and fused integrally. • The average accuracy and Kappa value of the proposed algorithm are 87.68% and 0.8245, respectively. Motor imagery brain-computer interface (MI-BCI) provides a novel way for human-computer interaction. Traditional neural networks often use serial structure to extract spatial features when dealing with motor imagery EEG signal classification, ignoring temporal information and a large amount of available information in the middle layer, resulting in poor classification performance of MI-BCI. A neural network feature fusion algorithm is proposed by combining the convolutional neural network (CNN) and the long-short-term memory network (LSTM). Specifically, the CNN and LSTM are connected in parallel. The CNN extracts spatial features, the LSTM extracts temporal features and the flatten layer added after the convolutional layer extracts the middle layer features. Then all the features are merged in the fully connected layer to improve the accuracy of classification. The average accuracy and Kappa value of all subjects were 87.68% and 0.8245, respectively. The result shows that the feature fusion neural network proposed in this paper can effectively improve the accuracy of motor imagery EEG, and provides new ideas for the study of feature extraction and classification of motor imagery brain-computer interfaces. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The present work aimed to evaluate the release behavior of tetracycline hydrochloride loaded chitosan/poly(lactic acid) (Tet–CS/PLA) antimicrobial nanofibrous membranes fabricated via electrospinning technique. The electrospinning solution was a blend of Tet, CS formic acid solution and PLA chloroform/ethanol solution. The interaction between CS and PLA in CS/PLA nanofibers was confirmed to be hydrogen bond. The incorporation of Tet caused a slight decrease in the diameter of nanofibers with Tet content below 30%. Tet–CS/PLA nanofibrous membrane showed a slight initial burst within the first 4 h before a gradual increase in cumulative release, and the release percentage increased with increasing Tet contents. Tet release ( M t / M ∞ < 0.6) from the medicated nanofibers could be described by Fickian diffusion model and the release profiles showed two sequential stages. Tet–CS/PLA nanofibrous membranes exhibited an effective and sustainable inhabitance on the growth of Staphylococcus aureus , and the antimicrobial activity increased rapidly with increasing Tet contents below 20%. Furthermore, the incorporation of Tet promoted the degradation of nanofibrous membranes. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this paper, two typical Chinese lignites, Shengli lignite (SL) and Xiaolongtan lignite (XL), with different geologic ages were firstly thermal dissolved in sub- and supercritical benzene and ethanol, then soluble organic species were analyzed with Fourier transform infrared spectroscopy (FTIR), gas chromatograph/mass spectrometer (GC/MS) and atmospheric solids analysis probe/time of flight mass spectrometer (ASAP/TOF-MS). The soluble organic species yield of XL in benzene is close to that of SL in the temperature investigated, whereas the soluble organic species yield of XL in ethanol is obviously higher than that of SL at high temperature region. Obvious difference exists in the molecular composition of the soluble organic species between SL and XL. The soluble organic species of XL contain more free aliphatics but less arenes than those of SL. The arenes in the soluble organic species of XL are mainly composed of the derivatives of benzene and naphthalene, while those from SL are dominated with condensed arenes and polycyclic biphenyls. Furthermore, the free oxygen-containing organic species in SL and XL are dominated with ketones and phenols, respectively. Additionally, ASAP/TOF-MS analysis indicates that the molecular weight of soluble organic species from SL is higher than that from XL. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

We report here a fully organic, self-assembled dimeric receptor, constructed from 1, 8-naphthalimide-based tweezer-liked building block. The macrocyclic-like dimer is stable in the solid and liquid states. This system acts as a receptor for electron-rich polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons such as anthracene, naphthalene, triphenylene and pyrene. • The 1, 8-naphthalimide-based tweezer-liked synthon (1) is easy to be prepared. • Synthon 1 is able to create a macrocyclic dimmer with large cavity through π-π stacking driven self-assembly. • The formed macrocycle showed excellent recognition properties toward anthracene, naphthalene, triphenylene and pyrene. • The macrocycle can be used as a useful tool for the detection of polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

A deep-red emission and lipid droplets-targeted fluorescence probe (named ZFPy) for effective bioimaging of bisulfite was developed from flavone moiety and benzoindole derivative based on intramolecular charge transfer (ICT) and Förster resonance energy transfer (FRET) platform. ZFPy displayed promising fluorescence parameters including bright deep red fluorescence (615 nm), large Stokes shift (205 nm), extended emission window gap (140 nm), high absolute fluorescence quantum yield (4.1%) and stable emission signal output. In addition, ZFPy realized ratiometric fluorescence monitoring for SO 2 derivatives with low detection limit (30 nM), preferable linearity, high sensitivity and selectivity. Interestingly, dual fluorophores (i.e. the donor moiety and 1,1,2,3-tetra-substituent-1H-benzo[e]indol-3-ium iodide moiety) released the same emission band about 475 nm to enhance the emission signal when ZFPy reacted with SO 2 derivatives, to the best of our knowledge, this is the first synergetic FRET/ICT platform for fluorescence probe, which might effectively offer ZFPy a high sensitivity and low detection limit in the detection of SO 2 derivatives. More importantly, ZFPy could image exogenous and endogenous SO 2 derivatives in living HeLa, HepG2 and L-O2 cells with good biocompatibility and photostability. ZFPy also preferred to load on lipid droplets with high Pearson's coefficient (0.95). Image 1 • A ratiometric fluorescent probe (ZFPy) for rapidly monitoring SO 2 derivatives was developed. • FRET-based ZFPy displayed larger gap (140 nm) between two emission spectra. • This is a first synergetic FRET/ICT platform for fluorescence probe. • ZFPy was applied to image exogenous and endogenous SO 2 derivatives in living Hela, HepG2 and L-O2 cells. • ZFPy showed lipid droplets-targeted ability (Pearson's coefficient 0.95). [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Abstract A series of symmetrical and unsymmetrical triptycene-based oligo(op-phenyleneethynylene)s were synthesized by deprotection of the acetone protected terminal alkynes, followed by Sonogashira coupling reactions. The photophysical properties of triptycene-based OPEs both in solution and solid state have been investigated by UV–Vis and fluorescence spectroscopy. Interestingly, the obtained compounds show strong fluorescence with partly high quantum yields in solid state, which suggested that triptycene moieties have not only prevented the intermolecular aggregation but also enforced the coplanarity of OPEs backbone in the solid state. Graphical abstract Image 1 [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]