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Abstract Individuals’ continuous success in competitive interactions with conspecifics strongly affects their social hierarchy. Medial prefrontal cortex (mPFC) is the key brain region mediating both social competition and hierarchy. However, the molecular regulatory mechanisms underlying the neural ensemble in the mPFC remains unclear. Here, we demonstrate that in excitatory neurons of prelimbic cortex (PL), lncRNA Sera remodels the utilization of Pkm Exon9 and Exon10, resulting in a decrease in the Pkm1/2 ratio in highly competitive mice. By employing a tet-on/off system, we disrupt or rebuild the normal Pkm1/2 ratio by controlling the expression of Pkm2 in PL excitatory neurons. We find that long-term Pkm2 modulation induces timely competition alteration and hysteretic rank change, through phosphorylating the Ser845 site of GluA1. Together, this study uncovers a crucial role of lncRNA Sera/Pkm2 pathway in the transition of social competition to rank by remodeling neural ensemble in mPFC.

Abstract Hard carbon has been widely used in anode of lithium/sodium ion battery, electrode of supercapacitor, and carbon molecular sieve for CO2 capture and hydrogen storage. In this study the lignin derived hard carbon products are investigated, and the conclusions are abstracted as follows. (1) The lignin derived hard carbon products consist of microcrystal units of sp 2 graphene fragments, jointed by sp 3 carbon atoms and forming sp 2–sp 3 hybrid hard carbon family. (2) From the lignin precursors to the sp 2–sp 3 hybrid hard carbon products, most carbon atoms retain their original electron configurations (sp 2 or sp 3) and keep their composition in lignin. (3) The architectures of lignin-derived hard carbon materials are closely dependent on the forms of their lignin precursors, and could be preformed by different pretreatment techniques. (4) The carbonization of lignin precursors follows the mechanism “carbonization in situ and recombination nearby”. (5) Due to the high carbon ratio and abundant active functional groups in lignin, new activation techniques could be developed for control of pore size and pore volume. In general lignin is an excellent raw material for sp 2–sp 3 hybrid hard carbon products, a green and sustainable alternative resource for phenolic resin, and industrial production for lignin derived hard carbon products would be feasible.

Abstract Microcrystal cellulose (MCC) is a green and sustainable resource that widely exists in various lignocellulose species in percentage 10% to 30%. The fine powder of MCC is often discarded in industrial productions that use lignocellulose as feedstock. The crystal structure of two types of MCC (sugarcane pith and bamboo pith) and their derived carbon materials are studied, and the key findings are summarized as follows. (1) In the MCC refined from sugarcane pith, there are large amount of cellulose 2D crystal, which can be converted to valuable 2D graphene crystal. (2) In the MCC refined from bamboo pith there are large amount of cluster microcrystal cellulose, which can be converted to soft and elastic graphene microcrystal (GMC). (3) The 2D cellulose in MCC of sugarcane pith has large surface area and is easily to be degraded to sugars by acid–base hydrolysis reaction, which can be carbonized to Fullerenes-like carbon spheres. (4) The crystal structures of MCC derived carbon materials are strongly impacted by the crystal structures of MCC, and the carbonization reaction of MCC follows “in situ carbonization” and “nearby recombination” mechanism. In general, the results from this study may open a new way for value-added applications of microcrystal cellulose.

Abstract Cancer stem cells (CSCs), a rare subset of tumor cells, have been recognized as promotive role on tumor initiation and propagation. Among, aerobic glycolysis, widely clarified in multiple tumor cells, is the key for maintaining cancer stemness. Regrettably, it is largely unknown about the connection of cellular metabolic reprogramming and stemness in gastric carcinoma (GC). Two GC parental cells lines PAMC‐82 and SNU‐16 and their spheroids were obtained to determine the expression status of POU1F1 using quantitative real‐time PCR (qRT‐PCR) and western blotting analysis, respectively. Gain or loss‐of‐function assay was employed to assess its biological effects. Sphere formation and transwell assays were performed to evaluate the stem cell‐like traits, including self‐renewal capacity, migration and invasion. Chromatin immunoprecipitation (ChIP) and luciferase reporter assays were conducted for determining the binding relationship of POU1F1 on ENO1 promoter region. Herein, aberrantly upregulated POU1F1 was observed in spheroids, compared with the parental PAMC‐82 and SNU‐16 cells, which promoted stem cell‐like traits, as representing increasing sphere formation, enhanced cell migration and invasion. Additionally, POU1F1 expression was positively with glycolytic signaling, as displaying increasing glucose consumption, lactic acid production, and extracellular acid ratio (ECAR). Furthermore, POU1F1 was identified to be a transcriptional activator of ENO1, of which overexpression remarkably abolished POU1F1 knockdown‐mediated blocking effects. Taken together, we draw a conclusion that POU1F1 facilitated the stem cell‐like properties of GC cells through transcriptionally augmenting ENO1 to enhance glycolysis.

The mechanisms behind a lack of efficient fear extinction in some individuals are unclear. Here, by employing a principal components analysis-based approach, we differentiated the mice into extinction- resistant and susceptible groups. We determined that elevated synapsin 2a (Syn2a) in the infralimbic cortex (IL) to basolateral amygdala (BLA) circuit disrupted presynaptic orchestration, leading to an excitatory/inhibitory imbalance in the BLA region and causing extinction resistance. Overexpression or silencing of Syn2a levels in IL neurons replicated or alleviated behavioral, electrophysiological, and biochemical phenotypes in resistant mice. We further identified that the proline-rich domain H in the C-terminus of Syn2a was indispensable for the interaction with synaptogyrin-3 (Syngr3) and demonstrated that disrupting this interaction restored extinction impairments. Molecular docking revealed that ritonavir, an FDA- approved HIV drug, could disrupt Syn2a- Syngr3 binding and rescue fear extinction behavior in Syn2a-elevated mice. In summary, the aberrant elevation of Syn2a expression and its interaction with Syngr3 at the presynaptic site were crucial in fear extinction resistance, suggesting a potential therapeutic avenue for related disorders., Introduction Posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD) is a debilitating neuropsychiatric disorder (1) with complicated psychological and neurobiological mechanisms involving varied brain circuits mediating stress and fear responses (2-4), as well as [...]

Background: Limited data are available on applying circulating tumor DNA (ctDNA) in metastatic triple-negative breast cancer (mTNBC) patients. Here, we investigated the value of ctDNA for predicting the prognosis and monitoring the treatment response in mTNBC patients. Methods: We prospectively enrolled 70 Chinese patients with mTNBC who had progressed after ≤2 lines of chemotherapy and collected blood samples to extract ctDNA for 457-gene targeted panel sequencing. Results: Patients with ctDNA+, defined by 12 prognosis-relevant mutated genes, had a shorter progression-free survival (PFS) than ctDNA− patients (5.16 months vs. 9.05 months, p=0.001), and ctDNA+ was independently associated with a shorter PFS (HR, 95% CI: 2.67, 1.2–5.96; p=0.016) by multivariable analyses. Patients with a higher mutant-allele tumor heterogeneity (MATH) score (≥6.316) or a higher ctDNA fraction (ctDNA%≥0.05) had a significantly shorter PFS than patients with a lower MATH score (5.67 months vs.11.27 months, p=0.007) and patients with a lower ctDNA% (5.45 months vs. 12.17 months, p

Abstract Dysregulation of microRNAs (miRNAs) is involved in the pathogenesis of neurodegenerative diseases, including Alzheimer’s disease (AD). Hitherto, sample sizes from differential miRNA expression studies in AD are exceedingly small aggravating any biological inference. To overcome this limitation, we investigated six candidate miRNAs in a large collection of brain samples. Brain tissue was derived from superior temporal gyrus (STG) and entorhinal cortex (EC) from 99 AD patients and 91 controls. MiRNA expression was examined by qPCR (STG) or small RNA sequencing (EC). Brain region-dependent differential miRNA expression was investigated in a transgenic AD mouse model using qPCR and FISH. Total RNA sequencing was used to assess differential expression of miRNA target genes. MiR-129-5p, miR-132-5p, and miR-138-5p were significantly downregulated in AD vs. controls both in STG and EC, while miR-125b-5p and miR-501-3p showed no evidence for differential expression in this dataset. In addition, miR-195-5p was significantly upregulated in EC but not STG in AD patients. The brain region-specific pattern of miR-195-5p expression was corroborated in vivo in transgenic AD mice. Total RNA sequencing identified several novel and functionally interesting target genes of these miRNAs involved in synaptic transmission (GABRB1), the immune-system response (HCFC2) or AD-associated differential methylation (SLC16A3). Using two different methods (qPCR and small RNA-seq) in two separate brain regions in 190 individuals we more than doubled the available sample size for most miRNAs tested. Differential gene expression analyses confirm the likely involvement of miR-129-5p, miR-132-5p, miR-138-5p, and miR-195-5p in AD pathogenesis and highlight several novel potentially relevant target mRNAs.

Infrared small target detection is an important and core problem in infrared search and track systems. Many infrared small target detection methods work well under the premise of a static background; however, the detection effect decreases seriously when the background changes dynamically. In addition, the spatiotemporal information of the target and background of the image sequence are not fully developed and utilized, lacking long-term temporal characteristics. To solve these problems, a novel long-term spatial–temporal tensor (LSTT) model is proposed in this paper. The image registration technique is employed to realize the matching between frames. By directly superimposing the aligned images, the spatiotemporal features of the resulting tensor are not damaged or reduced. From the perspective of the horizontal slice of this tensor, it is found that the background component has similarity in the time dimension and correlation in the space dimension, which is more consistent with the prerequisite of low rank, while the target component is sparse. Therefore, we transform the problem of infrared detection of a small moving target into a low-rank sparse decomposition problem of new tensors composed of several continuous horizontal slices of the aligned image tensor. The low rank of the background is constrained by the partial tubal nuclear norm (PTNN), and the tensor decomposition problem is quickly solved using the alternating-direction method of multipliers (ADMM). Our experimental results demonstrate that the proposed LSTT method can effectively detect small moving targets against a dynamic background. Compared with other benchmark methods, the new method has better performance in terms of detection efficiency and accuracy. In particular, the new LSTT method can extract the spatiotemporal information of more frames in a longer time domain and obtain a higher detection rate. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Employees' emotions have an important effect on their job performance, thus leaders can influence subordinates' emotions through emotional contagion and emotional appeal and ultimately affect their job performance. Based on the affective events theory, this study examines the impact of emotional leadership on the subordinates' job performance, the mediating role of subordinates' positive emotions, and the moderating role of susceptibility to positive emotion. Hierarchical regression analysis of 362 valid questionnaires showed that: (1) emotional leadership has a significant positive effect on subordinates' job performance; (2) subordinates' positive emotion partially mediated the relationship between emotional leadership and subordinates' job performance; (3) subordinates' susceptibility to positive emotion positively moderated the relationship between emotional leadership and positive emotions, i.e., the higher the subordinates' susceptibility to positive emotion, the greater the effect of emotional leadership on their positive emotions. This study validates affective events theory, deepens the understanding of the influence mechanism and boundary conditions of emotional leadership on subordinates' job performance, and provides some references for employee performance management.

Several micro RNAs have been shown to be deregulated in brain tissue or sera from individuals with Alzheimer’s disease and in AD mouse models. The authors show that miR-135a-5p is downregulated in excitatory pyramidal neurons from AD mice and that dysfunction of miR-135a-5p/Rock2/Add1 results in memory/synaptic disorder in AD.

Hard carbon has been widely used in anode of lithium/sodium ion battery, electrode of supercapacitor, and carbon molecular sieve for CO2 capture and hydrogen storage. In this study the lignin derived hard carbon products are investigated, and the conclusions are abstracted as follows. (1) The lignin derived hard carbon products consist of microcrystal units of sp2 graphene fragments, jointed by sp3 carbon atoms and forming sp2–sp3 hybrid hard carbon family. (2) From the lignin precursors to the sp2–sp3 hybrid hard carbon products, most carbon atoms retain their original electron configurations (sp2 or sp3) and keep their composition in lignin. (3) The architectures of lignin-derived hard carbon materials are closely dependent on the forms of their lignin precursors, and could be preformed by different pretreatment techniques. (4) The carbonization of lignin precursors follows the mechanism "carbonization in situ and recombination nearby". (5) Due to the high carbon ratio and abundant active functional groups in lignin, new activation techniques could be developed for control of pore size and pore volume. In general lignin is an excellent raw material for sp2–sp3 hybrid hard carbon products, a green and sustainable alternative resource for phenolic resin, and industrial production for lignin derived hard carbon products would be feasible. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]