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Abstract Pyroptosis, an immunogenic programmed cell death, could efficiently activate tumor immunogenicity and reprogram immunosuppressive microenvironment for boosting cancer immunotherapy. However, the overexpression of SLC7A11 promotes glutathione biosynthesis for maintaining redox balance and countering pyroptosis. Herein, we develop intermetallics modified with glucose oxidase (GOx) and soybean phospholipid (SP) as pyroptosis promoters (Pd2Sn@GOx-SP), that not only induce pyroptosis by cascade biocatalysis for remodeling tumor microenvironment and facilitating tumor cell immunogenicity, but also trigger disulfidptosis mediated by cystine accumulation to further promote tumor pyroptosis in female mice. Experiments and density functional theory calculations show that Pd2Sn nanorods with an intermediate size exhibit stronger photothermal and enzyme catalytic activity compared with the other three morphologies investigated. The peroxidase-mimic and oxidase-mimic activities of Pd2Sn cause potent reactive oxygen species (ROS) storms for triggering pyroptosis, which could be self-reinforced by photothermal effect, hydrogen peroxide supply accompanied by glycometabolism, and oxygen production from catalase-mimic activity of Pd2Sn. Moreover, the increase of NADP+/NADPH ratio induced by glucose starvation could pose excessive cystine accumulation and inhibit glutathione synthesis, which could cause disulfidptosis and further augment ROS-mediated pyroptosis, respectively. This two-pronged treatment strategy could represent an alternative therapeutic approach to expand anti-tumor immunotherapy.

Abstract Clean water and sanitation are major global challenges highlighted by the UN Sustainable Development Goals. Water treatment using energy-efficient membrane technologies is one of the most promising solutions. Despite decades of research, the membrane permeability-selectivity trade-off remains the major challenge for synthetic membranes. To overcome this challenge, here we develop a two-dimensional cobalt-functionalized vermiculite membrane (Co@VMT), which innovatively combines the properties of membrane filtration and nanoconfinement catalysis. The Co@VMT membrane demonstrates a high water permeance of 122.4 L·m−2·h−1·bar−1, which is two orders of magnitude higher than that of the VMT membrane (1.1 L·m−2·h−1·bar−1). Moreover, the Co@VMT membrane is applied as a nanofluidic advanced oxidation process platform to activate peroxymonosulfate (PMS) for degradation of several organic pollutants (dyes, pharmaceuticals, and phenols) and shows excellent degradation performance (~100%) and stability (for over 107 h) even in real-world water matrices. Importantly, safe and non-toxic effluent water quality is ensured by the Co@VMT membrane/PMS system without brine, which is totally different from the molecular sieving-based VMT membrane with the concentrated pollutants remaining in the brine. This work can serve as a generic design blueprint for the development of diverse nanofluidic catalytic membranes to overcome the persistent membrane permeability-selectivity issue in water purification.

Abstract Surgical therapy of duodenal perforation into the retroperitoneum entails high morbidity. Conservative treatment and endoscopic negative pressure therapy have been suggested as promising therapeutic alternatives. We aimed to retrospectively assess outcomes of patients treated for duodenal perforation to the retroperitoneum at our department. A retrospective analysis of all patients that were treated for duodenal perforation to the retroperitoneum at our institution between 2010 and 2021 was conducted. Different therapeutic approaches with associated complications within 30 days, length of in-hospital stay, number of readmissions and necessity of parenteral nutrition were assessed. We included thirteen patients in our final analysis. Six patients underwent surgery, five patients were treated conservatively and two patients received interventional treatment by endoscopic negative pressure therapy. Length of stay was shorter in patients treated conservatively. One patient following conservative and surgical treatment each was readmitted to hospital within 30 days after initial therapy whereas no readmissions after interventional treatment occurred. There was no failure of therapy in patients treated without surgery whereas four (66.7%) of six patients required revision surgery following primary surgical therapy. Conservative and interventional treatment were associated with fewer complications than surgical therapy which involves high morbidity. Conservative and interventional treatment using endoscopic negative pressure therapy in selected patients might constitute appropriate therapeutic alternatives for duodenal perforations to the retroperitoneum.

Yurtman, Özer, Yüncü et al. provide an ancient DNA data set to demonstrate the impact of human activity on the demographic history of domestic sheep. The authors demonstrate that there may have been multiple domestication events with notable changes to the gene pool of European and Anatolian sheep since the Neolithic.

Abstract The secretory carrier-associated membrane proteins (SCAMPs) are associated with the development of multiple human cancers. The role of SCAMPs in acute myeloid leukemia (AML), however, remains to be identified. In the present study, we explored expression patterns and prognostic value of SCAMPs and network analysis of SCAMPs-related signaling pathways in AML using Oncomine, GEPIA, cBioPortal, LinkedOmics, DAVID and Metascape databases. Genetic alteration analysis revealed that the mutation rate of SCAMP genes was below 1% (9/1272) in AML, and there was no significant correlation between SCAMPs gene mutation and AML prognosis. However, the SCAMP2/5 mRNA levels were significantly higher in AML patients than in healthy controls. Moreover, high mRNA expressions of SCAMP2/4/5 were associated with poor overall survival, which might be due to that SCAMP2/4/5 and their co-expressed genes were associated with multiple pathways related to tumorigenesis and progression, including human T-cell leukemia virus 1 infection, acute myeloid leukemia, mTOR and NF-kappa B signaling pathways. These results suggest that SCAMP2/4/5 are potential prognostic markers for AML, and that SCAMP2 and SCAMP5 individually or in combination may be used as diagnostic markers for AML.

Abstract Ligusticum L., one of the largest members in Apiaceae, encompasses medicinally important plants, the taxonomic statuses of which have been proved to be difficult to resolve. In the current study, the complete chloroplast genomes of seven crucial plants of the best-known herbs in Ligusticum were presented. The seven genomes ranged from 148,275 to 148,564 bp in length with a highly conserved gene content, gene order and genomic arrangement. A shared dramatic decrease in genome size resulted from a lineage-specific inverted repeat (IR) contraction, which could potentially be a promising diagnostic character for taxonomic investigation of Ligusticum, was discovered, without affecting the synonymous rate. Although a higher variability was uncovered in hotspot divergence regions that were unevenly distributed across the chloroplast genome, a concatenated strategy for rapid species identification was proposed because separate fragments inadequately provided variation for fine resolution. Phylogenetic inference using plastid genome-scale data produced a concordant topology receiving a robust support value, which revealed that L. chuanxiong had a closer relationship with L. jeholense than L. sinense, and L. sinense cv. Fuxiong had a closer relationship to L. sinense than L. chuanxiong, for the first time. Our results not only furnish concrete evidence for clarifying Ligusticum taxonomy but also provide a solid foundation for further pharmaphylogenetic investigation.

Abstract With global warming, heat stress has become an important factor that seriously affects crop yield and quality. Therefore, understanding plant responses to heat stress is important for agricultural practice, but the molecular mechanism of high-temperature tolerance in garlic remains unclear. In this study, ‘Xusuan No. 6’ was used as the experimental material. After heat stress for 0 (CK), 2 and 24 h, transcriptome sequencing was used to screen metabolic pathways and differentially expressed genes (DEGs) closely related to heat stress and was further verified by quantitative real-time polymerase chain reaction (qRT-PCR). A total of 86,110 unigenes obtained from the raw transcriptome sequencing data were spliced. After 2 h of heat treatment, the expression levels of 8898 genes increased, and 3829 genes were decreased in leaves. After 24 h, the expression levels of 7167 genes were upregulated, and 3176 genes were downregulated. Gene Ontology enrichment analysis showed that DEGs were mainly enriched in seven categories: cellular processes, metabolic processes, binging, catalytic activity, cellular anatomical entity and protein-containing complex response to stimulus. Kyoto Encyclopedia of Genes and Genomes pathway enrichment showed that DEGs are involved in protein processing in the endoplasmic reticulum, plant hormone signal transduction, phenylpropanoid biosynthesis, and photosynthetic antenna proteins. Six genes were selected and further verified by qRT-PCR. In this study, the full-length transcriptome of garlic was constructed, and the regulatory genes related to the heat resistance of garlic were studied. Taken together, these findings can provide a theoretical basis for the cloning of heat resistance genes in garlic and for the analysis of heat resistance mechanisms.

Abstract Major, trace and rare earth element (REE) geochemistry of the late Cretaceous lower Zhoutian Formation from the Jitai Basin of Southeast China were measured by inductively coupled plasma mass spectrometry (ICP-MS) analysis to infer the provenance of the sediments and to reconstruct the palaeoenvironment and palaeoclimate. The wide range of Sr/Cu ratios point to a fluctuating palaeoclimate, and the negative correlation between the FeO/MnO and Al2O3/MgO ratios and the Sr/Cu ratio indicates that the late Cretaceous climate during the lower Zhoutian Formation in the Jitai Basin can be divided into two parts. The lower part experienced two cooling periods, whilst the upper part was dominated by warm-humid climate. Mostly corresponding trends of the B/Ga, Sr/Ba and Sr/Cu ratios show that the salinity changed consistently with the late Cretaceous climate during the lower Zhoutian Formation in the Jitai Basin. During the lower part, the salinity changed from salt water to fresh/brackish water. In the upper part, water was mainly fresh/brackish, and there were many changes from fresh/brackish water to salt water. The relatively stable Ni/Co, V/Cr, V/(V + Ni) and Ce/Ce* data indicate a long period of oxic conditions. The La-Th-Sc, Th-Sc-Zr/10 and La/Th-Hf data of the silt- and sandstones of the lower Zhoutian Formation show that its provenance was mainly a mixture of felsic upper crust sediments and older sedimentary rocks.