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Abstract Background Lycium barbarum polysaccharide (LBP) is an active ingredient extracted from Lycium barbarum that inhibits neuroinflammation, and Lycium barbarum glycopeptide (LbGp) is a glycoprotein with immunological activity that was purified and isolated from LBP. Previous studies have shown that LbGp can regulate the immune microenvironment, but its specific mechanism of action remains unclear. Aims In this study, we aimed to explore the mechanism of action of LbGp in the treatment of spinal cord injury through metabolomics and molecular experiments. Methods SD male rats were randomly assigned to three experimental groups, and after establishing the spinal cord hemisection model, LbGp was administered orally. Spinal cord tissue was sampled on the seventh day after surgery for molecular and metabolomic experiments. In vitro, LbGp was administered to mimic the inflammatory microenvironment by activating microglia, and its mechanism of action in suppressing neuroinflammation was further elaborated using metabolomics and molecular biology techniques such as western blotting and q-PCR. Results In vivo and in vitro experiments found that LbGp can improve the inflammatory microenvironment by inhibiting the NF-kB and pyroptosis pathways. Furthermore, LbGp induced the secretion of docosahexaenoic acid (DHA) by microglia, and DHA inhibited neuroinflammation through the MAPK/NF-κB and pyroptosis pathways. Conclusions In summary, we hypothesize that LbGp improves the inflammatory microenvironment by regulating the secretion of DHA by microglia and thereby inhibiting the MAPK/NF-κB and pyroptosis pathways and promoting nerve repair and motor function recovery. This study provides a new direction for the treatment of spinal cord injury and elucidates the potential mechanism of action of LbGp.

Modified Benney-Luke equation (mBL equation) is a three-dimensional temporal-spatial equation with complex structures, that is a high-dimensional partial differential equation (PDE), it is also a new equation of the physical ocean field, and its solution is important for studying the internal wave-wave interaction of inclined seafloor. For conventional PDE solvers such as the pseudo-spectral method, it is difficult to solve mBL equation with both accuracy and speed. Physics-informed neural network (PINN) incorporates physical prior knowledge in deep neural networks, which can solve PDE with relative accuracy and speed. However, PINN is only suitable for solving low-dimensional PDE with simple structures, and not suitable for solving high-dimensional PDE with complex structures. This is mainly because high-dimensional PDEs usually have complex structures and high-order derivatives and are likely to be high-dimensional non-convex functions, and the high-dimensional non-convex optimization problem is an NP-hard problem, resulting in the PINN easily falling into inaccurate local optimal solutions when solving high-dimensional PDEs. Therefore, we improve the PINN for the characteristics of mBL equation and propose “DF-ParPINN: parallel PINN based on velocity potential field division and single time slice focus” to solve mBL equation with large amounts of data. DF-ParPINN consists of three modules: temporal-spatial division module of overall velocity potential field, data rational selection module of multiple time slices, and parallel computation module of high-velocity fields and low-velocity fields. The experimental results show that the solution time of DF-ParPINN is no more than 0.5s, and its accuracy is much higher than that of PINN, PIRNN, cPINN, and DeepONet. Moreover, the relative error of DF-ParPINN after deep training 1000000 epochs can be reduced to less than 0.1. The validity of DF-ParPINN proves that the improved PINN also can solve high dimensional PDE with complex structures and large amounts of data quickly and accurately, which is of great significance to the deep learning of the physical ocean field.

In opportunistic networks, opportunistic routing protocols are used for nodes to forward messages, which are the core technology to realize various opportunistic network applications. However, the existing opportunistic routing protocols generally have three problems: Key nodes forwarded too many messages, resulting in unbalanced energy consumption; Delivered message still occupies the cache space of nodes, resulting in the loss of undelivered message; Nodes constantly sense their surroundings and forward messages, resulting in rapid energy depletion. To better solve these problems, this paper proposes HP-ECD: heuristic Prophet routing protocol based on energy balance, cache optimization, and asynchronous dormancy. Based on Prophet, First, the HP-ECD defines the message forwarding benefits based on multiple node attributes and message importance, to realize the energy balance mechanism of nodes. Then, the HP-ECD designs the message delivery list based on the node history information, to realize the cache optimization mechanism of nodes. Finally, the HP-ECD determines whether a node is in dormancy based on the node running status, to realize the asynchronous dormancy mechanism of nodes. Simulation results show that, compared with Epidemic, Prophet, and EC-CW, HP-ECD greatly improves the message delivery rate and average remaining energy, and reduces the routing overhead rate and average storage time.

Glioma is malignant tumor derives from glial cells in the central nervous system. High-grade glioma shows aggressive growth pattern, and conventional treatments, such as surgical removal and chemo-radiotherapy, archive limitation in the interference of this process. In this work, HOXA5, from the HOX family, was identified as a glioma cell proliferation-associated factor by investigating its feature in the TCGA and CGGA data set. High HOXA5 expression samples contain unfavorable clinical features of glioma, including IDH wild type, un-methylated MGMT status, non-codeletion 1p19q status, malignant molecular subtype. Survival analysis indicates that high HOXA5 expression samples are associated with worse clinical outcome. The CNVs and SNPs profile difference further confirmed the enrichment of glioma aggressive related biomarkers. In the meantime, the activation of DNA damage repair-related pathways and TP53-related pathways is also related to HOXA5 expression. In cell lines, U87MG and U251, by interfering HOXA5 expression significantly inhibit glioma progression and apoptosis, and cell cycle is arrested at the G2/M phase. Collectively, increased HOXA5 expression can promote glioma progression via affecting glioma cell proliferation.

Brucellosis, caused by intracellular gram-negative pathogens of the genus Brucella, continues to be one of the most pandemic zoonotic diseases in most countries. At present, the therapeutic treatment of brucellosis relies on a combination of multiple antibiotics that involves a long course of treatment, easy relapse, and high side effects from the use of certain antibiotics (such as streptomycin). Thus, the need to identify novel drugs or targets to control this disease is urgent. Diaminopimelate decarboxylase (DAPDC), a key enzyme involved in the bacterial diaminopimelate (DAP) biosynthetic pathway, was suggested to be a promising anti-Brucella target in our previous study. In this work, the biological activity of Brucella melitensis DAPDC was characterized, and a library of 1,591 compounds was screened for inhibitors of DAPDC. The results of a high-throughput screening (HTS) assay showed that 24 compounds inhibited DAPDC activity. In a further in vitro bacterial inhibition experiment, five compounds exhibited anti-Brucella activity (SID3, SID4, SID14, SID15, and SID20). These results suggested that the identified compounds can be used as potent molecules against brucellosis and that the application ranges of these approved drugs can be expanded in the future.

Pollination is an important part of fertilization and reproduction in seed plants. Pollen movement largely restricts gene flow among individual plants and the manner of reproduction in a population, thereby affecting the genetic traits and fitness of plant offspring. For insect-pollinator-based plants, the flower-visiting characteristics, frequency and timing of the pollinating insects have decisive effects on the successful pollination of plants, whereas the colour and morphology of various floral components are important factors affecting the pollinating insects. Based on the pollination biology of plants, we studied the pollination mechanisms and links of Urophysa rochkii to understand its endangered status. Using U. rochkii at the full flowering period for the study, and using methods to observe, record, and perform experimental analysis, we recorded the species, frequency and flower-visiting time of these insects every 15 min and observed the effects of weather and temperature on the insects. Additionally, we captured the flower-visiting insects, brought them to the laboratory, and took photographs under a dissecting electron microscope for observation and identification. U. rochkii plants were grouped under different treatments that included removal of sepals, stamens and or pistils, while untreated plants were included as control group. In summary, the effects of floral components on the pollination process were examined. The experimental results showed that the effective pollinator of U. rochkii was Apis cerana Fabricius, and that sky-blue sepal was the most important factor affecting the flower-visiting frequency of the pollinators. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Brucellosis is a widespread zoonotic infection, and in recent years human brucellosis emerged as one of the most significant public health concerns in Xinjiang, China. In these cases, B. melitensis is the major pathogen. In order to explore the genetic features of B. melitensis in Xinjiang, five suspected B. melitensis strains isolated in Northern Xinjiang were selected for whole-genome sequencing and analysis in this study. The results showed that all five strains belonged to B. melitensis. Phylogenetic analysis based on whole genomes showed that the five samples had significant differences from other B. melitensis strains from Europe and other Asian countries, but these strains were highly homologous with strains previously isolated in China. Among them, BY38 and BY72 had the closest phylogenetic relationship with B. melitensis M28, while AKS, ALT2 and ALT3 had the closest phylogenetic relationship with B. melitensis NI. Meanwhile, the SNPs and InDels that exist in the five strains make traceability possible, and the missense variant genes in COG analysis can help researchers understand the genetic and/or phenotypic differences among the strains, such as amino acid transport and metabolism (COG category E) indentified in this study. This study showed the genetic characteristics of B. melitensis strains from Xinjiang, and also provided basic data for researches on the prevention and control brucellosis in China. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]