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Summary: The current work was carried out to enhance the quality (including product colour, rehydration performance, textural properties, product cracking rate and sensory evaluation) of microwave freeze‐dried prepared taro balls, a popular starch‐based food product, by synergistic addition of guar gum and sodium bicarbonate. The results showed that taro balls with added sodium bicarbonate had the shortest freeze‐drying time (153 min), but the high‐cracking rate (66.67%) was not acceptable to consumers. The addition of guar gum could effectively reduce the cracking rate (17.5%) during freeze‐drying of taro balls, but did not significantly improve sensory evaluation and textural properties. The combination of sodium bicarbonate and guar gum demonstrated satisfactory positive effects in increasing the rehydration rate of freeze‐dried taro balls (53.67%), maintaining the whiteness (WI = 84.52) and reducing the cracking rate (21.67%). Although sodium bicarbonate alone produced the best results in terms of sensory ratings and textural properties, there was no significant difference between the effects of sodium bicarbonate alone and the combination of the two food additives on rehydrated taro balls. Therefore, the combination of sodium bicarbonate and guar gum is an appropriate hybrid strategy for producing high quality freeze‐dried taro balls. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Summary: The inherent poor cooking quality and poor texture of mixed‐grain pasta limit consumer acceptance. This study systematically investigated the effect of curdlan in the processing of sweet potato puree oat mixed‐grain noodles, and comprehensively analysed a number of key indicators such as cooking characteristics, moisture state, texture properties, microstructure, starch crystallinity characteristics, short‐range ordered structure and thermal properties. At the production practice level, the study clearly indicated that the 0.6% curdlan addition ratio was the best solution in sweet potato puree oat mixed‐grain noodles processing. This finding not only significantly reduces the fracture rate, water absorption rate and cooking loss rate during the cooking process, but also significantly improves the quality and yield of the product, and brings significant improvement in the taste and texture of the noodles, which is of great significance for industrial production. In the microstructural and molecular studies, we revealed how curdlan could enhance the structural stability and mechanical strength of noodles by promoting the uniform distribution of starch granules in the gluten protein network. Further, through X‐ray diffraction, ordered structure and thermal property analyses, we have found that colchicine can effectively regulate the interactions of hydrogen bonding between starch and the content of straight‐chain and branched‐chain starch, which significantly reduces the crystallinity, ordered short‐chain structure and enthalpy of pasting of starch in the pasta. These in‐depth research results not only help us to understand more comprehensively the formation mechanism of the modification of pasta quality by curdlan, but also provide a solid theoretical foundation and practical guidance for the improvement of pasta quality in mixed grains. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

2D organic crystals play a unique role in photodetection owing to their tunable detection wavelength, low manufacturing cost, compatibility with lightweight, and controllable synthesis. However, their detection wavelength range mainly encompasses the visible (Vis) and near‐infrared (NIR) spectra. Herein, 2D erucamide crystals are synthesized using nitrogen gas and methanol as raw materials without catalysts at room temperature under atmospheric pressure via laser processing. The synthesized 2D erucamide is demonstrated to be a promising broad bandgap organic semiconductor material. A UV photodetector made of 2D erucamide exhibited a responsivity as high as 145 mA W−1, a millisecond‐level response speed, and an excellent detectivity of 4.96 × 109 Jones. Furthermore, the synthesized erucamide showed an excellent UV–vis suppression ratio (R254 nm/R532 nm) of 59. The synthesis mechanism of erucamide via laser bubbling in liquids is proposed. Thermodynamically, the high temperature of the bubbles is beneficial for nitrogen and methanol decomposition. Kinetically, rapid bubble quenching facilitates final product formation. This accomplishment represented the pioneering utilization of lasers in converting nitrogen gas into organic compounds while introducing 2D erucamide into the realm of organic UV photodetectors. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

BACKGROUND: The current study introduces a novel infrared‐assisted spouted bed drying technique for the dehydration of green soybeans, which aims to enhance the drying quality and efficiency. The investigation involves an examination of the flow pattern in the spouted bed to obtain relevant data, followed by an optimization of the entire drying process. The drying process of green soybeans was simulated using SolidWorks and ANSYS Fluent software, based on the principles of computational fluid dynamics. RESULTS: The simulation test results showed that the simulation outcomes were consistent with the experimental data. The optimal conditions for the process of green soybean infrared‐assisted spouted bed drying were found to be an inlet speed of 8 m/s and a temperature of 50 °C with the wavelength and power settings of the infrared board at 10 μm and 500 W, respectively. CONCLUSION: The simulation method selected in this article, based on gas–solid two‐phase flow dynamics, is feasible for green soybean infrared‐assisted spouted bed drying process. © 2023 Society of Chemical Industry. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Actinomycetota, associated with macroalgae, remains one of the least explored marine niches. The secondary metabolism of Actinomycetota, the primary microbial source of compounds relevant to biotechnology, continues to drive research into the distribution, dynamics, and metabolome of these microorganisms. In this study, we employed a combination of traditional cultivation and metagenomic analysis to investigate the diversity of Actinomycetota in two native macroalgae species from the Portuguese coast. We obtained and taxonomically identified a collection of 380 strains, which were distributed across 12 orders, 15 families, and 25 genera affiliated with the Actinomycetia class, with Streptomyces making up approximately 60% of the composition. Metagenomic results revealed the presence of Actinomycetota in both Chondrus crispus and Codium tomentosum datasets, with relative abundances of 11% and 2%, respectively. This approach identified 12 orders, 16 families, and 17 genera affiliated with Actinomycetota, with minimal overlap with the cultivation results. Acidimicrobiales emerged as the dominant actinobacterial order in both macroalgae, although no strain affiliated with this taxonomic group was successfully isolated. Our findings suggest that macroalgae represent a hotspot for Actinomycetota. The synergistic use of both culture‐dependent and independent approaches proved beneficial, enabling the identification and recovery of not only abundant but also rare taxonomic members. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Summary: Chlorogenic acid (CA) is a natural antioxidant with multiple biological activities, but its stability is poor. In this article, CA‐load pea protein nanoparticles (PPCNPs) were constructed by an anti‐solvent method to enhance CA stability and characterised by multiple technologies. The results exhibited that the particle size of PPCNPs ranged from 211.62 to 429.79 nm, and the zeta potential ranged from −41.21 to −35.85 mV. PPCNPs had the highest encapsulation efficiency (61.2%) at the CA/pea protein isolate (PPI) mass ratio of 1:20. The loading capacity increased with the ratio of CA/PPI ranging from 1.3% to 3.8%. SEM showed that the nanoparticle surface was an irregular lamellar structure. FTIR showed that O–H and C–H functional group interactions occurred between CA and PPI. DSC results showed that CA was encapsulated in PPCNPs with an amorphous structure. During in vitro digestion, the ABTS radical scavenging ability and retention ratio of CA in PPCNPs was higher than that of free CA. Moreover, PPCNPs increased the bio‐accessibility of CA in vitro by 7.75%, compared with unencapsulated CA. These results suggested that PPCNPs constructed by the anti‐solvent method can reduce the degradation of CA and improve the biological activity of CA. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Background: Egg yolk powder (EYP) with high immunoglobulin of yolk (IgY) content and good solubility is in great demand in the market of functional foods. In this article, the properties of spray‐dried EYP with the addition of five protectants (maltodextrin, trehalose, mannitol, maltitol and sucrose) were investigated. Results: All the protectants increased IgY activity and solubility of EYP. Among them, EYP with maltodextrin displayed the highest activity of IgY (27.11 mg/g), the highest solubility (66.39%) and the lowest surface hydrophobicity. Moreover, the average particle size of EYP with maltodextrin was the smallest (9.78 μm). The egg yolk particles obtained by adding the protectants are more uniformly distributed and have smaller particle size. Fourier‐transform infrared spectroscopy confirmed the structural integrity of the proteins, indicating that the protectants addition enhanced the hydrogen bonding forces between the EYP protein molecules. Conclusion: The addition of protectants can significantly improve the IgY content, solubility and structural stability of EYP. © 2023 Society of Chemical Industry. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Y3Al5O12 (YAG) is a widely used phosphor host. Its optical properties are controlled by chemical substitution at its YO8 or AlO6/AlO4 sublattices, with emission wavelengths defined by rare‐earth and transition‐metal dopants that have been explored extensively. Nonstoichiometric compositions Y3+xAl5‐xO12 (x ≠ 0) may offer a route to new emission wavelengths by distributing dopants over two or more sublattices simultaneously, producing new local coordination environments for the activator ions. However, YAG typically behaves as a line phase, and such compositions are therefore challenging to synthesize. Here, a series of highly nonstoichiometric Y3+xAl5‐xO12 with 0 ≤ x ≤ 0.40 is reported, corresponding to ≤20% of the AlO6 sublattice substituted by Y3+, synthesized by advanced melt‐quenching techniques. This impacts the up‐conversion luminescence of Yb3+/Er3+‐doped systems, whose yellow‐green emission differs from the red‐orange emission of their stoichiometric counterparts. In contrast, the YAG:Ce3+ system has a different structural response to nonstoichiometry and its down‐conversion emission is only weakly affected. Analogous highly nonstoichiometric systems should be obtainable for a range of garnet materials, demonstrated here by the synthesis of Gd3.2Al4.8O12 and Gd3.2Ga4.8O12. This opens pathways to property tuning by control of host stoichiometry, and the prospect of improved performance or new applications for garnet‐type materials. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Background: Infrared‐assisted spouted bed drying (IRSBD) is an innovative hybrid drying technology based on infrared drying and spouted bed drying, which has the advantages of higher drying efficiency and better uniformity. Temperature is an important process parameter that affects drying characteristics and product quality. Considering the overall quality of the product, drying at a constant temperature may not be the best solution. However, there is a lack of research on dynamically varying drying schemes. In this study, the effects of constant and variable temperature drying processes on the drying characteristics, uniformity, energy consumption, and quality of Chinese yams were evaluated. Results: The shortest drying time and lowest energy consumption were obtained by IRSBD at 70 °C, followed by staged rising temperature drying (SRTD). However, SRTD achieved the best drying uniformity. The Peleg model could describe the dehydration kinetics of dried yams well (R2 > 0.99). A high drying temperature (70 °C) favored the preservation of bioactive compounds (polyphenols and flavonoids) and gave the best antioxidant activity and equilibrium rehydration ratio of dried yams but resulted in poor color. Samples dried with SRTD showed comparable good antioxidant activity and better color than those dried at 70 °C. Conclusion: A reasonable variable temperature drying scheme using IRSBD is considered to be better when considering the drying performance and overall quality of the products. © 2022 Society of Chemical Industry. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

We have previously reported that Gypenoside LXXV (GP‐75), a novel natural PPARγ agonist isolated from Gynostemma pentaphyllum, ameliorated cognitive deficits in db/db mice. In this study, we further investigated the beneficial effects on cognitive impairment in APP/PS1 mice and a mouse model of diabetic AD (APP/PS1xdb/db mice). Interestingly, intragastric administration of GP‐75 (40 mg/kg/day) for 3 months significantly attenuated cognitive deficits in APP/PS1 and APP/PS1xdb/db mice. GP‐75 treatment markedly reduced the levels of glucose, HbA1c and insulin in serum and improved glucose tolerance and insulin sensitivity in APP/PS1xdb/db mice. Notably, GP‐75 treatment decreased the β‐amyloid (Aβ) burden, as measured by 11C‐PIB PET imaging. Importantly, GP‐75 treatment increased brain glucose uptake as measured by 18F‐FDG PET imaging. Moreover, GP‐75 treatment upregulated PPARγ and increased phosphorylation of Akt (Ser473) and GLUT4 expression levels but decreased phosphorylation of IRS‐1 (Ser616) in the hippocampi of both APP/PS1 and APP/PS1xdb/db mice. Furthermore, GP‐75‐induced increases in GLUT4 membrane translocation in primary hippocampal neurons from APP/PS1xdb/db mice was abolished by cotreatment with the selective PPARγ antagonist GW9662 or the PI3K inhibitor LY294002. In summary, GP‐75 ameliorated cognitive deficits in APP/PS1 and APP/PS1xdb/db mice by enhancing glucose uptake via activation of the PPARγ/Akt/GLUT4 signaling pathways. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The aquaculture environment, especially the culture ponds and aquaculture products, is considered to be an important reservoir of colistin resistance genes. However, systematic investigations of colistin resistance in Penaeus vannamei farming in different culture modes are scarce. In this study, a total of 93 non‐duplicated samples were collected from P. vannamei farms in five cities in China from 2019 to 2021. The prevalence, antibiotic resistance and multilocus sequence typing (MLST) of colistin‐resistant bacteria were measured and analysed. The results showed that among the 1601 isolates in P. vannamei and its environmental samples, the pollution of colistin‐resistant bacteria was serious (the overall prevalence was 37.3% and 28.8%, respectively), regardless of the earthen pond or high‐density polyethylene (HDPE) film‐lined pond. Among 533 isolates, the prevalence of mobile colistin resistance (mcr) genes, mcr‐1, was the highest (60%, 320/533), followed by mcr‐4 (1.5%, 8/533), mcr‐8 (0.9%, 5/533), mcr‐10 (0.6%, 3/533) and mcr‐7 (0.4%, 2/533). The prevalence of mcr‐1 in earthen ponds was significantly higher than that in HDPE film‐lined ponds (67.5% vs. 49.1%, p <.001). The dominant strain carrying mcr‐1 was Bacillus spp. (54.1%, 173/320), followed by Enterobacter spp. (8.1%, 26/320), Staphylococcus spp. (6.3%, 20/320) and Aeromonas spp. (5.3%, 17/320). The antibiotic resistance profiles of 173 Bacillus spp. varied among different sampling locations and culture types. These isolates were highly resistant to cefepime, ceftriaxone, trimethoprim‐sulfamethoxazole and ceftiofur (>45%), and multidrug‐resistant isolates were common (62.4%, 108/173). Sequence type (ST) 26 (37/66, 56%) was found to be the most prevalent ST in mcr‐1‐positive Bacillus cereus isolated from the aquaculture environment. In summary, our study pointed out that it is necessary to continuously monitor antibiotic usage and its residues regardless of the pond types, especially with regard to critical drugs such as colistin. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Targeting the PPARγ might be a potential therapeutic strategy for diabetes‐associated cognitive decline (DACD). In this study, Gypenoside LXXV (GP‐75), a dammarane‐type triterpene compound isolated from Gynostemma pentaphyllum, was found to be a novel PPARγ agonist using a dual‐luciferase reporter assay system. However, whether GP‐75 has protective effects against DACD remains unknown. Interestingly, intragastric administration of GP‐75 (40 mg/kg/day) for 12 weeks significantly attenuated the cognitive deficit in db/db mice. GP‐75 treatment significantly improved the glucose tolerance and lipid metabolism, and suppressed neuroinflammation. Notably, GP‐75 treatment dramatically increased the uptake of glucose by the brain, as detected by 18F‐FDG PET. Incubation of primary cortical neurons with GP‐75 significantly increased 2‐deoxyglucose uptake. In addition, GP‐75 treatment markedly increased the p‐Akt (Ser 473)/total Akt levels and the expression levels of PPARγ and GLUT4, while decreasing the levels of p‐IRS‐1 (Ser 616)/total IRS‐1. Importantly, all of these protective effects mediated by GP‐75 were abolished by cotreatment with the PPARγ antagonist, GW9662. However, GP‐75‐mediated PPARγ upregulation was not affected by coincubation with the phosphatidylinositol 3‐kinase inhibitor, LY294002. Collectively, GP‐75 might be a novel PPARγ agonist that ameliorates cognitive deficit by enhancing brain glucose uptake via the activation of Akt/GLUT4 signaling in db/db mice. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Resveratrol is a phenolic compound and has significant benefits for human health. Peanut, rich in resveratrol and with considerable biological activity, is generally considered as the raw material of functional food. Because of the low output of fresh peanut extracts, dried peanut powder often be used for extracting functional components. The effects of hot‐air drying (HD), infrared radiation drying (IRD), and microwave‐freeze‐drying (MFD) on the resveratrol extraction income and antioxidant activity of peanut were study. The most valid and economical method was IRD. The IRD peanut resveratrol extraction ratio was 33.5% and the DPPH free radical eliminate rate was 42.5%. The MFD peanut resveratrol extraction ratio was 40.9% and the DPPH free radical eliminate rate was 40.3%. However, the MFD energy consumption was the most. Practical Applications: This study investigated the effects of different drying methods on the drying characteristics of peanuts and the extraction rate of the antioxidant active substance resveratrol. It was found that MFD could be used to obtain peanut powder with high resveratrol extraction rate and antioxidant activity, and IRD had excellent energy‐saving performance, and the relatively high extraction rate of the corresponding product is more favored by the industry. The results obtained in the current work would help the comprehensive utilization of peanut and provide new ideas for the food industry to extract natural compound. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Enhancing glucagon‐like peptide 1 (GLP‐1) signaling with a dipeptidyl peptidase IV (DPP‐4) inhibitor might exert protective effects on Alzheimer's disease (AD). We found that intragastric administration of Gramcyclin A (10, 20 and 40 mg/kg), a novel DPP‐4 inhibitor, for 3 months significantly reversed cognitive decline in APP/PS1/tau triple transgenic mice in a dose‐dependent manner. Gramcyclin A treatment markedly reduced Aβ plaques as well as the insoluble and soluble forms of Aβ40 and Aβ42 in the hippocampus of APP/PS1/tau mice. Treatment with Gramcyclin A remarkedly decreased the level of microglia and suppressed neuroinflammation in the hippocampus of APP/PS1/tau mice. Moreover, Gramcyclin A treatment could increase brain glucose uptake in APP/PS1/tau mice, as detected by 18‐fluoro‐2‐deoxyglucose (18F‐FDG) micro‐positron emission tomography (micro‐PET) imaging. Furthermore, Gramcyclin A significantly increased expression of glucagon‐like peptide‐1 (GLP‐1), GLP‐1R, proliferator‐activated receptor gamma coactivator (PGC)‐1α and glucose transporter 4 (GLUT4), and inhibited insulin receptor (IRS)‐1 phosphorylation and tau hyperphosphorylation in the hippocampus of APP/PS1/tau mice. Collectively, Gramcyclin A conferred protective effects against AD via enhancing brain GLP‐1‐dependent glucose uptake. The DPP‐4 inhibitor Gramcyclin A might be a potential therapeutic drug for AD. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Ascorbate peroxidase (APX) as a crucial antioxidant enzyme has drawn attentions for its utilization in preventing cells from oxidative stress responses by efficiently scavenging H2O2 in plants. For eliminating the specific inactivation of natural APXs and regulating the catalytic activity, single‐atom nanozymes are considered as promising classes of alternatives with similar active sites and maximal atomic utilization efficiency to natural APXs. Herein, graphitic carbon nitride (g‐C3N4) anchored with isolated single copper atoms (Cu SAs/CN) is designed as an efficient nanozyme with intrinsic APX mimetic behavior. The engineered Cu SAs/CN exhibits comparable specific activity and kinetics to the natural APXs. Based on the density functional theory (DFT), Cu‐N4 moieties in the active center of Cu SAs/CN are determined to exert such favorable APX catalytic performance, in which the electron transfer between Cu and coordinated N atoms facilitates the activation and cleavage of the adsorbed H2O2 molecules and results in fast kinetics. The constructed Cu SAs/CN nanozyme with superior APX‐like performance and high biocompatibility can be applied for effectively protecting the H2O2‐treated cells against oxidative injury in vitro. These findings report the single‐atom nanozymes as a successful paradigm for guiding nanozymes to implement APX mimetic performance for reactive oxygen species‐related biotherapeutic. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Purpose: Recent studies have illustrated that the peritumoral regions of medical images have value for clinical diagnosis. However, the existing approaches using peritumoral regions mainly focus on the diagnostic capability of the single region and ignore the advantages of effectively fusing the intratumoral and peritumoral regions. In addition, these methods need accurate segmentation masks in the testing stage, which are tedious and inconvenient in clinical applications. To address these issues, we construct a deep convolutional neural network that can adaptively fuse the information of multiple tumoral‐regions (FMRNet) for breast tumor classification using ultrasound (US) images without segmentation masks in the testing stage. Methods: To sufficiently excavate the potential relationship, we design a fused network and two independent modules to extract and fuse features of multiple regions simultaneously. First, we introduce two enhanced combined‐tumoral (EC) region modules, aiming to enhance the combined‐tumoral features gradually. Then, we further design a three‐branch module for extracting and fusing the features of intratumoral, peritumoral, and combined‐tumoral regions, denoted as the intratumoral, peritumoral, and combined‐tumoral module. Especially, we design a novel fusion module by introducing a channel attention module to adaptively fuse the features of three regions. The model is evaluated on two public datasets including UDIAT and BUSI with breast tumor ultrasound images. Two independent groups of experiments are performed on two respective datasets using the fivefold stratified cross‐validation strategy. Finally, we conduct ablation experiments on two datasets, in which BUSI is used as the training set and UDIAT is used as the testing set. Results: We conduct detailed ablation experiments about the proposed two modules and comparative experiments with other existing representative methods. The experimental results show that the proposed method yields state‐of‐the‐art performance on both two datasets. Especially, in the UDIAT dataset, the proposed FMRNet achieves a high accuracy of 0.945 and a specificity of 0.945, respectively. Moreover, the precision (PRE = 0.909) even dramatically improves by 21.6% on the BUSI dataset compared with the existing method of the best result. Conclusion: The proposed FMRNet shows good performance in breast tumor classification with US images, and proves its capability of exploiting and fusing the information of multiple tumoral‐regions. Furthermore, the FMRNet has potential value in classifying other types of cancers using multiple tumoral‐regions of other kinds of medical images. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Perovskite solar cell has made a steady research progress with superior photovoltaic power conversion efficiency (PCE) over 25%. The quality of perovskite film is a key factor affecting device efficiency. Lewis bases such as urea, DMSO and thiourea etc. have been applied in perovskite precursor solutions for one step processing to effectively control the film morphology. Herein, we report urea treatment in a two‐step processing for obtaining high quality methylammonium lead triiodide perovskite (CH3NH3PbI3) film, which is accomplished by immersing the PbI2 film into the mixture solution of urea/methylammonium iodide (MAI). The optimized urea concentration in the MAI solution is 0.4 mg/mL, leading to larger‐sized and better crystalline perovskite grains than that without urea additive. The main function of the urea additive is the formation of the adduct MAI⋅PbI2⋅O=C(NH2)2, retarding the crystallization process of the perovskite film. The steady‐state and time‐resolved photoluminescence measurements revealed that perovskite CH3NH3PbI3 grown using optimized concentration of urea has prolonged carrier lifetime and reduced carrier recombination. Finally, the carbon‐based perovskite solar cells fabricated from the optimal urea concentration of 0.4 mg/mL achieved the enhanced photovoltaic performance with the highest PCE of 13.10% and an average value of 11.34%, in comparison to devices without urea treatment exhibiting an average PCE of only 8.67%. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Isoflavones are one group of the major flavonoids and possess multiple biological activities due to their antioxidant properties. However, a clear antioxidant mechanism of dietary isoflavones is still remained to be answered. In this study, the effects of isoflavones on the nuclear factor E2‐related factor 2 (Nrf2)–antioxidant response element (ARE) signaling pathway and the underlying molecular mechanisms were investigated. Results showed that isoflavones are potential Nrf2–ARE activators while their activities were structure dependent. Biochanin A (BCA), an O‐methylated isoflavone with low direct antioxidant activity, can effectively protect HepG2 cells against tert‐butyl hydroperoxide (t‐BHP)‐induced oxidative damage via activation of the Nrf2 signaling, and thereby the induction of downstream cytoprotective enzymes including NAD(P)H quinone oxidoreductase‐1, heme oxygenasae‐1, and glutamate‐cysteine ligase catalytic subunit. A molecular docking study revealed that BCA could directly bind into the pocket of Kelch‐like erythroid cell‐derived protein with CNC homology (ECH)‐associated protein 1 (Keap1), a cytoplasmic suppressor of Nrf2, to facilitate Nrf2 activation. The upstream mitogen‐activated protein kinase (MAPK) pathways were also involved in the activation of Nrf2 signaling. These findings indicate that the protective actions of dietary isoflavones against oxidative damage may be at least partly due to their ability to enhance the intracellular antioxidant response system by modulating the Nrf2−ARE signaling pathway. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

ABSTRACT A viable method for coating of cellulose fiber with quaternarized N-halamine is reported in this article. The use of quaternary ammonium salt group in combination with N-halamine group can reinforce the antibacterial activity. The chemical structure of as-synthesized N-halamine precursor 4-(Bromo-acetic acid methylester)-4-ethyl-2- oxazolidinone (BEO) was characterized by 1H-NMR. The cellulose fibers were characterized by Fourier transform infrared spectra and X-ray photoelectron spectra. The spectra data confirmed that the quaternarized N-halamine-grafted cellulose fibers were successfully obtained. The antibacterial properties of functional fibers were challenged with both Gram positive and Gram negative bacteria. The antibacterial tests and showed that the as-prepared antibacterial cellulose fibers exhibited powerful and rapid bactericidal performance against both Gram negative E. coli and Gram positive S. aureus. © 2015 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. J. Appl. Polym. Sci. 2015, 132, 42702. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

LRP6 is a common coreceoptor for different G protein-coupled seven-transmembrane receptors in production of cAMP. Extracelluar proteins sclerostin and DKK1, initially identified as antagonists for Wnt signaling by binding to LRP6, are negative regulators for bone formation. Here, we show that both sclerostin and DKK1 inhibit PTH-stimulated cAMP production. In addition, PTH suppresses expression of sclerostin in osteocytes in mice. We also found that sclerostin and DKK1 binds to LRP6 as antagonists to increase the availability of LRP6 to facilitate PTH signaling in a positive-feedback fashion. These studies reveal a previously unrecognized function of sclerostin and DKK1, which provides an alternative explanation for the application of sclerostin and DKK1 neutralization on enhancing bone formation as a potential therapy for skeletal diseases. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Developing multielectron reaction electrode materials is essential for achieving high specific capacity and high energy density in secondary batteries; however, it remains a great challenge. Herein, Na3MnTi(PO4)3/C hollow microspheres with an open and stable NASICON framework are synthesized by a spray‐drying‐assisted process. When applied as a cathode material for sodium‐ion batteries, the resultant Na3MnTi(PO4)3/C microspheres demonstrate fully reversible three‐electron redox reactions, corresponding to the Ti3+/4+ (≈2.1 V), Mn2+/3+ (≈3.5 V), and Mn3+/4+ (≈4.0 V vs Na+/Na) redox couples. In situ X‐ray diffraction results reveals that both solid‐solution and two‐phase electrochemical reactions are involved in the sodiation/desodiation processes. The high specific capacity (160 mAh g−1 at 0.2 C), outstanding cyclability (≈92% capacity retention after 500 cycles at 2 C), and the facile synthesis make the Na3MnTi(PO4)3/C a prospective cathode material for sodium‐ion batteries. NASICON‐structured Na3MnTi(PO4)3/C demonstrates fully reversible three‐electron redox reactions, corresponding to the Ti3+/4+ (2.1 V), Mn2+/3+ (3.5 V), and Mn3+/4+ (4.0 V vs Na+/Na) redox couples. The Na3MnTi(PO4)3/C delivers a high reversible sodium storage capacity and a durable cycling performance, which make the Na3MnTi(PO4)3/C a highly promising cathode material for sodium storage. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

There are two independent molecules in the asymmetric unit of the title compound, C9H6N2S, which is an inter-mediate compound of a cardiovascular drug. The two molecules are nearly planar, displaying dihedral angles of 3.5 (2) and 5.7 (2)° between the thiophene ring and the malononitrile moiety. In the crystal, C-H⋯N inter-actions lead to the formation of a sheet structure that packs in a parallel fashion.