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For the famous Camassa-Holm equation, the well-posedness in B p , 1 1 + 1 p (R) with p ∈ [ 1 , ∞) and the ill-posedness in B p , r 1 + 1 p (R) with p ∈ [ 1 , ∞ ] , r ∈ (1 , ∞ ] had been studied in [13,14,16,23] , that is to say, it only left an open problem in the critical case B ∞ , 1 1 (R) proposed by Danchin in [13,14]. In this paper, we solve this problem by proving the norm inflation and hence the ill-posedness for the Camassa-Holm equation in B ∞ , 1 1 (R). Therefore, the well-posedness and ill-posedness for the Camassa-Holm equation in all critical Besov spaces B p , 1 1 + 1 p (R) with p ∈ [ 1 , ∞ ] have been completed. Finally, since the norm inflation occurs by choosing an special initial data u 0 ∈ B ∞ , 1 1 (R) but u 0 x 2 ∉ B ∞ , 1 0 (R) (an example implies B ∞ , 1 0 (R) is not a Banach algebra), we then prove that this condition is necessary. That is, if u 0 x 2 ∈ B ∞ , 1 0 (R) holds, then the Camassa-Holm equation has a unique solution u (t , x) ∈ C T (B ∞ , 1 1 (R)) ∩ C T 1 (B ∞ , 1 0 (R)) and the norm inflation will not occur. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Cryopreservation of single seminiferous tubule is significant for fertility preservation, especially for male patients with cryptorchidism, Y-chromosome deletion and orchitis. However, there are few studies on cryopreservation of single seminiferous tubule. This study proposes several improved strategies for cryopreservation of single seminiferous tubule in mice. First, single seminiferous tubule was cryopreserved with modified slow freezing and vitrification methods. The results showed that the apoptosis negative rates of spermatogenic cells in single seminiferous tubule with modified slow freezing method were significantly higher than vitrification with plastic slide. Then, plastic slide and two metal vitrification carriers with high thermal conductivity, copper mesh and aluminum foil, were used to vitrify single seminiferous tubule. The metal carriers could improve the outcome of vitrification than plastic slide. The apoptosis negative rates of spermatogenic cells in the aluminum foil group was significantly higher than that in the copper mesh group. Finally, single seminiferous tubule was perfused with CPAs by micro-injection technique and vitrified. The results of cryo-microscopy experiments showed that the ice crystals formed inside the injected seminiferous tubule was reduced during the cooling process, the apoptosis negative rate of spermatocytes, spermatids and Sertoli cells were significantly higher than that of the non-injection group, indicating that the injection technique can effectively improve the effect of vitrification. This study has potential clinical value for in-vitro culture of spermatogonial stem cells and autologous testicular tissue grafting in patients with azoospermia. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Oocyte cryopreservation is an important technology in assisted reproduction and fertility preservation. However, the developmental potential of cryopreserved oocyte remains poor. Osmotic stress injury (OSI) during cryoprotectants (CPAs) loading and unloading steps has critical impact on successful cryopreservation. In order to minimize OSI to oocytes, a microfluidic device was designed and fabricated to achieve continuous CPA concentration change. MII porcine oocytes were loaded and unloaded CPAs with step-wise and microfluidic methods, oocyte volume changes were recorded and compared, loading and unloading duration of microfluidic methods were optimized. The survival and developmental rate of treated oocytes in step-wise and microfluidic linear methods were also evaluated. The results showed that oocyte volume changes with microfluidic method were obviously less than step-wise method, and the survival, cleavage and blastocyst rate of oocytes were 95.3%, 64.4%, and 19.4%, respectively, which were significantly higher than the traditional step-wise method (79.4%, 43.6%, and 9.7%) (p < 0.05). In conclusion, microfluidic device can effectively reduce the osmotic damage to oocytes and improve the survival rate and developmental rate of oocytes, which may provide a new path for oocyte cryopreservation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In situ surface reconstruction strategy is developed to construct efficient acidic HER catalyst during the electrocatalytic process. By exploring the evolution of the catalyst, it is found that Ni-W-O amorphous layer is formed on the catalyst surface and serves as the actual active species. The synergistic effect between Ni and W modulates the electron structure of the in situ formed Ni-W-O amorphous surface layer, which may moderate the hydrogen adsorption Gibbs free energy and improve the HER catalytic activity. [Display omitted] • Efficient acidic HER catalyst is developed by an in situ surface reconstruction strategy during the electrocatalytic process. • The active species is identified to be Ni-W-O amorphous surface layer by exploring the evolution of the catalyst. • The synergistic effect between Ni and W modulates the electron structure of the in situ formed Ni-W-O amorphous surface layer. Noble metal free electrocatalysts for hydrogen evolution reaction (HER) in acid play an important role in proton exchange membrane-based electrolysis. Here, we develop an in situ surface self-reconstruction strategy to construct excellent acidic HER catalysts. Firstly, free-standing zinc nickel tungstate nanosheets inlaid with nickel tungsten alloy nanoparticles were synthesized on carbon cloth as pre-catalyst via metal–organic framework derived method. Amorphous nickel tungsten oxide (Ni-W-O) layer is in situ formed on surface of nanosheet as actual HER active site with the dissolution of NiW alloy nanoparticles and the leaching of cations. While the morphology of the free-standing structure remains the same, keeping the maximized exposure of active sites and serving as the electron transportation framework. As a result, benefiting from disordered arrangement of atoms and the synergistic effect between Ni and W atoms, the amorphous Ni-W-O layer exhibits an excellent acidic HER activity with only an overpotential of 46 mV to drive a current density of 10 mA cm−2 and a quite good Tafel slope of 36.4 mV dec−1 as well as an excellent durability. This work enlightens the exploration of surface evolution of catalysts during HER in acidic solution and employs it as a strategy for designing acidic HER catalysts. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

A heteropolysaccharide BCP-2 was isolated from blackcurrant fruits by successively using D4006 resin, aqueous two phase system, and Sephadex G-100 column chromatography. Its inhibitory activities against α -glucosidase, α -amylase and glycation were investigated. BCP-2 was found to be composed of galacturonic acid, rhamnose, arabinose, xylose, mannose, glucose, and galactose in a molar ratio of 1.3:2.5:5.1:1.8:1.0:72.0:4.5 with molecular weight of 2.18 × 10 4  kDa. The glycosyl linkages of (1 → 3)- α - l -Rhamnose, (1 → 4)- β - d -Mannose, (1 → 6)- α - d -Galactose and (1 → 4)- α - d -Glucose were confirmed in BCP-2. BCP-2 had no triple-helix conformation and possessed a honeycomb structure with an irregular branching shape. BCP-2 showed moderate α -amylase inhibitory activity (37.93%) and clear α -glucosidase inhibitory activity (78.42%). The inhibitory effect of BCP-2 on α -amylase was reversible and exhibited a competitively inhibitory process. Besides, BCP-2 exerted more significant anti-glycation activities than aminoguanidine during 15 days of incubation. Specifically, the inhibitory abilities were more effective on the formation of dicarbonyl compounds (66.54%) and AGEs (70.24%) than that of Amadori products (37.03%). These results suggested that BCP-2 may be a potential anti-diabetic agent. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The rigidity of bacterial cell walls synthesized by a complicated pathway limit the cell shapes as coccus, bar or ellipse or even fibers. A less rigid bacterium could be beneficial for intracellular accumulation of poly-3-hydroxybutyrate (PHB) as granular inclusion bodies. To understand how cell rigidity affects PHB accumulation, E. coli cell wall synthesis pathway was reinforced and weakened, respectively. Cell rigidity was achieved by thickening the cell walls via insertion of a constitutive gltA (encoding citrate synthase) promoter in front of a series of cell wall synthesis genes on the chromosome of several E. coli derivatives, resulting in 1.32–1.60 folds increase of Young's modulus in mechanical strength for longer E. coli cells over-expressing fission ring FtsZ protein inhibiting gene sulA . Cell rigidity was weakened by down regulating expressions of ten genes in the cell wall synthesis pathway using CRISPRi, leading to elastic cells with more spaces for PHB accumulation. The regulation on cell wall synthesis changes the cell rigidity: E. coli with thickened cell walls accumulated only 25% PHB while cell wall weakened E. coli produced 93% PHB. Manipulation on cell wall synthesis mechanism adds another possibility to morphology engineering of microorganisms. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

For the famous Camassa-Holm equation, the well-posedness in C ([ 0 , T ] ; B p , 1 1 + 1 p (R)) with 1 ≤ p ≤ 2 and the ill-posedness in C ([ 0 , T ] ; B ∞ , 1 1 (R)) had been studied in [15,16,23]. That is to say, it left an open problem in the critical case C ([ 0 , T ] ; B p , 1 1 + 1 p (R)) with 2 < p < + ∞ proposed by Danchin in [15,16]. In this paper, we solve this problem and obtain the local well-posedness for the Camassa-Holm equation in critical Besov spaces C ([ 0 , T ] ; B p , 1 1 + 1 p (R)) with 1 ≤ p < + ∞. It is worth mentioning that our method is suitable for many Camassa-Holm type equations, such as the Novikov equation and the two-component Camassa-Holm system, and can also improve their index of the local well-posedness. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Abstract: Microstructures self-assembled by amphiphilic ABC π-shaped block copolymers in dilute solution have been investigated by self-consistent field theory. The effects of architectural parameters and the interaction strength among the three blocks have been studied systematically. Our calculation results show that the distance of the two graft blocks has stronger effect than the length of graft blocks and the position of the first graft point on the phase behavior. The interaction strength among the three blocks is another important factor in controlling the resulting microstructures. Compound-core, multicompartment, and multicore micelles are observed in the case of π-shaped ABC block copolymers with hydrophilic backbone block A and hydrophobic graft blocks B and C. Core–shell–corona, incomplete skin-layered and hamburger micelles are formed when graft block C is hydrophilic and blocks A and B are hydrophobic. The wormlike multicore micelles have drawn our attention. We find that the morphology of wormlike multicore micelle can be controlled by changing the distance of the two graft blocks of the π-shaped block copolymers. In all of the wormlike multicore micelles, the streamline wormlike micelle is more stable than other wormlike micelles from the free energy analysis. [Copyright &y& Elsevier]

Abstract: A feasibility study of literature mining is conducted on drug PK parameter numerical data with a sequential mining strategy. Firstly, an entity template library is built to retrieve pharmacokinetics relevant articles. Then a set of tagging and extraction rules are applied to retrieve PK data from the article abstracts. To estimate the PK parameter population-average mean and between-study variance, a linear mixed meta-analysis model and an E–M algorithm are developed to describe the probability distributions of PK parameters. Finally, a cross-validation procedure is developed to ascertain false-positive mining results. Using this approach to mine midazolam (MDZ) PK data, an 88% precision rate and 92% recall rate are achieved, with an F-score=90%. It greatly out-performs a conventional data mining approach (support vector machine), which has an F-score of 68.1%. Further investigate on 7 more drugs reveals comparable performances of our sequential mining approach. [Copyright &y& Elsevier]

• Velocity distribution model of flexible thin-wall ellipse bearing (FTEB) is proposed. • Find that FTEB has radial velocity, which is not possessed by ordinary bearings. • Prove that the frequency of radial velocity of FTEB is twice the frequency of shaft. • The fault feature frequency of FTEB is derived, which is not fixed but fluctuating. • Find that the trajectory of roller center of FTEB is inconsistent with pitch ellipse. Flexible thin-wall ellipse bearing (FTEB) is a new type of bearing with completely different kinematic characteristics and fault feature frequencies from ordinary rolling bearing. It is found that the trajectory of the roller center of FTEB is not consistent with the pitch ellipse, while that of ordinary rolling bearing is the pitch circle. The motion trajectory of the roller relative to the pitch ellipse and the cage is further studied. A velocity distribution model of FTEB is proposed, it is proved that FTEB has radial velocity. The radial velocity and acceleration of FTEB are time-varying, and their frequency is twice that of the shaft, while ordinary bearing has no radial velocity and acceleration. Based on the velocity model, the fault feature frequencies of FTEB are derived, which are not fixed values but fluctuating, and the fault feature frequencies of ordinary bearing are only the special cases of FTEB. The vibration of the FTEBs with damaged outer and inner rings is detected, and the results show that there are periodic impacts caused by the rotation of the long and short axes of ellipse in the vibration of FTEB. Finally, the fault impulse feature of the damaged outer and inner rings is extracted, which verifies the theoretical result of the fault feature frequencies of FTEB. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this paper, we study the rotation two-component Camassa-Holm system, which is a model in the equatorial water waves with the effect of the Coriolis force. We establish the global Gevrey regularity of the rotation two-component Camassa-Holm system in Gevrey class G τ with τ ≥ 1 in time. Our obtained result improves considerably the recent result in [45]. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Microplastic (MP) can significantly affect soil behaviour and the ecosystem. This paper presents an experimental study to investigate the effects of MP contamination and leachate exposure on the desiccation cracks, hydraulic conductivity, and water retention properties of the natural black clay. The leachate was from a landfill in Australia. The black clay was incorporated with up to 2.0% MPs by weight (w/w) with diverse dimensions and mixed with water/leachate. The measured properties include saturated hydraulic conductivity (k sat), soil-water characteristic curves, moisture evaporation rates, and crack intensity factors. The results suggest that the inclusion of MPs significantly increases k sat , and this increase is more obvious for soils with larger dimensions and contents of MPs, e.g., k sat of the black clay with 2.0% of 500 μm MP increases significantly by 206% (p < 0.05). The black clay exposed to leachate exhibits a slight increase in k sat due to the low viscosity of leachate. The existence of MPs decreases the residual moisture contents and air-entry pressures, and so does the water retention capacity (v/v %) of the black clay. The exposure to leachate increases the air-entry pressures by 6.0%–15.8% of the clay. The evaporation rates increase with the dimensions and concentrations of MPs. The highest evaporation rate (0.96 g/h) can be observed in samples exposed to 2.0% 500 μm MP with water addition. For all samples, the crack intensity factors increase when MP content is between 0.2% and 1.0% and decreases slightly after that. After being exposed to leachate, the evaporation rates and crack intensity factors of the black clay are decreased by 2.4%–12.6% and 3.6%–13.7%, respectively. • Contamination of MPs increases the saturated hydraulic conductivity of clays. • Mature leachate does not significantly affect permeability or flow channel of clays. • MPs affect residual moisture contents and air-entry pressure of clays. • Existence of MPs affects the evaporation rate and desiccation crack of clays. • Leachate affects air-entry pressure, evaporation rate, and crack intensity of clays. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Nkx2-2 homeoprotein is essential for the development of the central nervous system and pancreas. Although the nuclear localization signals of Nkx2-2 have been identified, the responsible transport receptor is still unknown. Here, we demonstrate that imp α1 not only interacts with Nkx2-2 but also transports it into the nucleus in vitro by acting together with imp β1. However, the nuclear import of Nkx2-2 in cells was not inhibited in response to knockdown expression of endogenous imp β1 or over-expression of Bimax2. Furthermore, imp β1 and imp 13, but not imp 4, directly interact with Nkx2-2 and are capable of transporting Nkx2-2 in an in vitro import assay. By GST pull-down assay, we demonstrate that mutation of NLS1 or NLS2 has no effect on interaction with imp α1 or imp 13, but significantly reduced binding to imp β1. Thus, the nuclear import of Nkx2-2 is mediated not only by the classical import pathway but also directly by imp β1 or imp 13. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The increased usage of rare earth elements (REEs) leads to the extensive exploitation of rare earth mines, and the REEs pollution in soil caused by the legacy mine tailings has brought great harm to environment and human health. Although Phytolacca americana can remove REEs from contaminated soil to some extent, there is still an urgent problem to improve its efficiency. Hyperaccumulator extract is a new organic material with potential in metal phytoextraction, but its role in REEs phytoremediation and the related underlying processes remain unclear. In this study, hyperaccumulator extracts from P. americana root (PR), stem (PS), leaf (PL) and EDTA were used to improve the phytoremediation efficiency of REEs with P. americana. Soil zymography was applied to assess the enzyme hotspots' spatial distribution in the rhizosphere, and the hotspots' microbial communities were also identified. The results indicated that the application of hyperaccumulator extracts improved the biomass and REEs uptake of P. americana , and the highest REEs content in plant was observed in the treatment of PS, which increased 299% compared to that of the control. Hotspots area of β-glucosidase, leucine aminopeptidase and acid phosphatase were concentrated in the pant rhizosphere along the roots and increased 2.2, 5.3 and 2.2 times after PS application compared to unamended soils. The PS application increased the relative abundance of Proteobacteria, Cyanobacteria, Bacteroidota and Firmicutes phyla in rhizosphere. Soil fungi have a higher contribution on promoting REEs activation than that of bacteria. Available P and extractable REEs were leading predictors for the plant biomass and REEs concentrations. The co-occurrence network showed that the application of PS creates a more efficient and stable microbial network compared to other treatments. In conclusion, stem-derived hyperaccumulator extract is excellent in stimulating REEs phytoremediation with P. americana by improving hotspots microbial activities and form a healthy rhizosphere microenvironment. • First report on hyperaccumulator extracts on REEs uptake by Phytolacca americana. • In-situ soil zymography was used to locate rhizosphere hotspots. • Hyperaccumulator extracts enhanced plant growth and REEs uptake. • Extracts from stem enlarged hotspots of leucine aminopeptidase and acid phosphatase. • Extracts from stem strengthened mutualistic microbial relationships in hotspots. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The red seaweed Neopyropia yezoensis is one of the predominant seaweeds cultivated and consumed in China. Its quality characteristics and economic value are closely influenced by the environmental conditions. So developing a fast method to trace the geographical origins of N. yezoensis is urgent because it concerns consumers knowing the origin of the product, nutritional value and safety. In present work, the elemental profiling in a total of 132 subsamples of N. yezoensis collected from five areas along the eastern and northern coast of China was established. Results showed that the content of K was the highest among the analyzed elements, and the Na/K ratio in N. yezoensis was 0.37. The consumption of N. yezoensis was confirmed to be a good source of essential dietary elements. However, high levels of Cd must attract consumers' attention, because about 20.5% of the samples was not compliant with the current European regulations. The influence of the geographical origin have a great difference on element profile. The linear discriminant analysis (LDA) with the stepwise method showed that the samples from Liaoning Province and Shandong Province could be well distinguished from those from Jiangsu Province. Based on the leave-one-out cross-validation method, the predictive ability was 80.3%, indicating a good performance of elemental fingerprints in fast authenticating of the origin of N. yezoensis in China. This discrimination made it possible to simultaneously characterize the samples according to their nutritional value and human consumption safety levels. • The elemental profiling in Neopyropia yezoensis from China was established. • N. yezoensis is a good source of essential dietary elements, particularly Fe. • Cadmium poses high health risk to food safety of N. yezoensis. • The element fingerprints could be used in origin traceability of N. yezoensis. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Abstract Halomonas bluephagenesis has been developed as a platform strain for the next generation industrial biotechnology (NGIB) with advantages of resistances to microbial contamination and high cell density growth (HCD), especially for production of polyhydroxyalkanoates (PHA) including poly(3-hydroxybutyrate) (PHB), poly(3-hydroxybutyrate- co -4-hydroxybutyrate) (P34HB) and poly(3-hydroxybutyrate- co -3-hydroxyvalerate) (PHBV). However, little is known about the mechanism behind PHA accumulation under oxygen limitation. This study for the first time found that H. bluephagenesis utilizes NADH instead of NADPH as a cofactor for PHB production, thus revealing the rare situation of enhanced PHA accumulation under oxygen limitation. To increase NADH/NAD+ ratio for enhanced PHA accumulation under oxygen limitation, an electron transport pathway containing electron transfer flavoprotein subunits α and β encoded by etf operon was blocked to increase NADH supply, leading to 90% PHB accumulation in the cell dry weight (CDW) of H. bluephagenesis compared with 84% by the wild type. Acetic acid, a cost-effective carbon source, was used together with glucose to balance the redox state and reduce inhibition on pyruvate metabolism, resulting in 22% more CDW and 94% PHB accumulation. The cellular redox state changes induced by the addition of acetic acid increased 3HV ratio in its copolymer PHBV from 4% to 8%, 4HB in its copolymer P34HB from 8% to 12%, respectively, by engineered H. bluephagenesis. The strategy of systematically modulation on the redox potential of H. bluephagenesis led to enhanced PHA accumulation and controllable monomer ratios in PHA copolymers under oxygen limitation, reducing energy consumption and scale-up complexity. Highlights • PhaB is found to be a NADH dependent enzyme for PHB synthesis in Halomonas bluephagenesis. • Oxygen limitation was proven to promote PHA accumulation. • Acetic acid helps enhance PHA production and control the monomers ratios in copolymers. • Deletion of an unessential set of etf further increases PHA accumulation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Extremophiles are suitable chassis for developing the next generation industrial biotechnology (NGIB) due to their resistance to microbial contamination. However, engineering extremophiles are not an easy task. Halomonas, an industrially interesting halophile able to grow under unsterile and continuous conditions in large-scale processes, can only be engineered using suicide plasmid-mediated two-step homologous recombination which is very laborious and time-consuming (up to half a year). A convenient approach for the engineering of halophiles that can possibly be extended to other extremophiles is therefore urgently required. To meet this requirement, a rapid, efficient and scarless method via CRISPR/Cas9 system was developed in this study for genome editing in Halomonas . The method achieved the highest efficiency of 100%. When eight different mutants were constructed via this special CRISPR/Cas9 method to study the combinatorial influences of four different genes on the glucose catabolism in H. bluephagenesis TD01, it took only three weeks to complete the deletion and insertion of up to 4.5 kb DNA. H. bluephagenesis was designed to produce a microbial copolymer P(3HB-co-3HV) consisting of 3-hydroxybutyrate (3HB) and 3-hydroxyvalerate (3HV). The CRISPR/Cas9 was employed to delete the prpC gene in H. bluephagenesis TD01. Shake flask studies showed that the 3HV fraction in the copolymers increased approximately 16-folds, demonstrating enhanced effectiveness of the Δ prpC mutant to synthesize PHBV. This genome engineering strategy significantly speeds up the studies on Halomonas engineering, opening up a wide area for developing NGIB. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Technologies enabling high-cell-density growth are required for economical industrial production of most biotechnological products. However, the key factor limiting cell density in bioreactors is the availability of oxygen during the late phases of fermentation. Although the expression of bacterial Vitreoscilla hemoglobin (VHb) is useful for enhanced oxygen availability, bacterial cell membrane makes efficient hemoglobin-oxygen contact a challenge. On the other hand, periplasmic spaces of Gram-negative microorganisms offer an excellent compartment for the intermittent storage of hemoglobin-bound oxygen. In this study, the cell growth was increased by a remarkable 100% using the twin-arginine translocase (Tat) pathway to export active VHb into the periplasm of Escherichia coli, Halomonas bluephagenesis TD01 and H. campaniensis LS21. Furthermore, eight low-oxygen-inducible vgb promoters were constructed in tandem to become a strong promoter cassette termed P 8vgb , which better induces expression of both gene vgb encoding VHb and the PHB synthesis operon microaerobically. Both the P 8vgb and VHb performed excellently in E. coli and two Halomonas spp., demonstrating their universal applicability for various organisms. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Waist-to-height ratio (WHtR) with a cut-off value of 0.5 has been recognized as an anthropometric indicator of central obesity to predict the risk of the chronic disease. The aim of our study was to identify dietary related risk factors of central obesity based on WHtR. We used cross-sectional data from the China Health and Nutrition Survey (CHNS) in 2011 obtained from 2881 married women aged 19-55. The association of dietary related factors and central obesity was analyzed using binary logistic regression and back-propagation artificial neural network. Overall, central obesity prevalence was 48.4% (1394/2881). Compared to the population of women without central obesity, the population of women with central obesity had an older average age (41.84 ± 6.89 years vs 38.45 ± 7.91 years, P < 0.001), and meanwhile an average lower per capita annual income (13904 ± 15916 CNY vs 16753 ± 19163 CNY, P < 0.001). Our analysis indicated that the score of dietary knowledge (adjusted odds ratio (aOR), 0.956; 95% confidence interval (CI), 0.936-0.976) and the score of food preferences (aOR, 0.961; 95% CI, 0.926-0.997) were significantly associated with lower risk of central obesity; whereas fast food (aOR, 1.002; 95% CI, 1.000-1.003) was associated with higher risk of central obesity. The study showed the score of dietary knowledge (15.5%), fast foods (10.2%), and the score of food preferences (8.8%) were the most important modifiable factors for central obesity. In summary, aging, fast food intake, and lower per capita annual income were positively associated with higher prevalence of central obesity, while higher scores of dietary knowledge and food preferences were negatively correlated. More nutrition education programs should be implemented by the government to strengthen the pro-healthy dietary behaviors. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Endothelial-mesenchymal transition (EndMT) is a frequent event in endothelial dysfunction, which is associated with pulmonary arterial hypertension (PAH). MiR-181 family members exert diverse effects in multiple biological processes. However, the relationships between miR-181b-5p (miR-181b) and EndMT in PAH are not well understood. In this study, Sprague-Dawley (SD) rats were injected with monocrotaline (MCT) to establish PAH model, and primary rat pulmonary arterial endothelial cells (rPAECs) were treated with TNF-α, TGFβ1 and IL-1β in combination to induce EndMT (I-EndMT). Then we explored miR-181b expression and examined its functional role in PAH. Our data showed that miR-181b was down-expressed in PAH, and its overexpression attenuated the hemodynamics, pulmonary vascular hypertrophy, right ventricular remodeling and EndMT process in MCT-induced PAH rats. In I-EndMT rPAECs, we observed that inducing miR-181b reversed the decrease of endothelial markers and increase of mesenchymal markers. However, knockdown of miR-181b induced similar effects to EndMT. In addition, endocan and TGFBR1 levels were also increased in EndMT, which were negatively regulated by miR-181b. Luciferase activity results indicated that endocan and TGFBR1 were direct target genes of miR-181b. In summary, our findings firstly demonstrate that the beneficial effect of miR-181b on PAH may be associated with endocan/TGFBR1-mediated EndMT, providing a new insight into the diagnosis and treatment of PAH. • miR-181b-5p is decreased in monocrotaline-induced pulmonary arterial hypertension. • miR-181b-5p inhibits EndMT in PAH. • miR-181b-5p regulates EndMT through targeting endocan and TGFBR1. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]