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Adhesion molecules play critical roles in maintaining the structural integrity of the airway epithelium in airways under stress. Previously, we reported that catenin alpha-like 1 (CTNNAL1) is downregulated in an asthma animal model and upregulated at the edge of human bronchial epithelial cells (HBECs) after ozone stress. In this work, we explore the potential role of CTNNAL1 in the structural adhesion of HBECs and its possible mechanism. We construct a CTNNAL1‒/‒ mouse model with CTNNAL1-RNAi recombinant adeno-associated virus (AAV) in the lung and a CTNNAL1-silencing cell line stably transfected with CTNNAL1-siRNA recombinant plasmids. Hematoxylin and eosin (HE) staining reveals that CTNNAL1‒/‒ mice have denuded epithelial cells and structural damage to the airway. Silencing of CTNNAL1 in HBECs inhibits cell proliferation and weakens extracellular matrix adhesion and intercellular adhesion, possibly through the action of the cytoskeleton. We also find that the expressions of the structural adhesion-related molecules E-cadherin, integrin β1, and integrin β4 are significantly decreased in ozone-treated cells than in vector control cells. In addition, our results show that the expression levels of RhoA/ROCK1 are decreased after CTNNAL1 silencing. Treatment with Y27632, a ROCK inhibitor, abolished the expressions of adhesion molecules induced by ozone in CTNNAL1-overexpressing HBECs. Overall, the findings of the present study suggest that CTNNAL1 plays a critical role in maintaining the structural integrity of the airway epithelium under ozone challenge, and is associated with epithelial cytoskeleton dynamics and the expressions of adhesion-related molecules via the RhoA/ROCK1 pathway.

Cashmere and wool are common raw materials in the textile industry. The clothes made of cashmere are popular because of the excellent comfort. A system that can quickly and automatically classify the two will improve the efficiency of fiber recognition in the textile industry. We propose a classification method of cashmere and wool fibers based on feature fusion using the maximum inter-class variance. First, the fiber target area is obtained by the preprocessing algorithm. Second, the features of sub-images are extracted through the algorithm of the Discrete Wavelet Transform. It is linearly fused by introducing the weight in the approximate and detailed features. The maximum separability of the feature data can be achieved by the maximum inter-class variance. Finally, different classifiers are used to evaluate the performance of the proposed method. The support vector machine classifier can achieve the highest recognition rate, with an accuracy of 95.20%. The experimental results show that the recognition rate of the fused feature vectors is improved by 6.73% compared to the original feature vectors describing the image. It verifies that the proposed method provides an effective solution for the automatic recognition of cashmere and wool.

The development of the mammalian retina is a complicated process involving the generation of distinct types of neurons from retinal progenitor cells (RPCs) in a spatiotemporal-specific manner. The progression of RPCs during retinogenesis includes RPC proliferation, cell-fate commitment, and specific neuronal differentiation. In this study, by performing single-cell RNA sequencing of cells isolated from human embryonic stem cell (hESC)-derived 3D retinal organoids, we successfully deconstructed the temporal progression of RPCs during early human retinogenesis. We identified two distinctive subtypes of RPCs with unique molecular profiles, namely multipotent RPCs and neurogenic RPCs. We found that genes related to the Notch and Wnt signaling pathways, as well as chromatin remodeling, were dynamically regulated during RPC commitment. Interestingly, our analysis identified that CCND1, a G1-phase cell-cycle regulator, was coexpressed with ASCL1 in a cell-cycle-independent manner. Temporally controlled overexpression of CCND1 in retinal organoids demonstrated a role for CCND1 in promoting early retinal neurogenesis. Together, our results revealed critical pathways and novel genes in early retinogenesis of humans.

A long-term sustainable tungsten cathode-solution anode glow discharge (SAGD) source for atomic emission spectrometry was developed for the determination of heavy metal elements. The tungsten cathode of this source was cooled by a compact refrigeration semiconductor, which is simple in design and able to operate at atmospheric pressure for long periods. When the equipment operates at its optimal conditions (75 mA discharge current, 2.0 mm discharge gap, 3.8 mL min−1 flow rate, and solution pH value of 2.0), the detection limits of Ag (338.24 nm), Cd (228.80 nm), Hg (253.66 nm), Pb (368.28 nm), Tl (337.52 nm), and Zn (213.79 nm) were explored, and the values were 0.030, 1.7, 7.2, 17, 0.24, and 25 μg L−1, respectively. The interference of coexisting ions in water, such as K+, Ca2+, Na+, Mg2+, and Li+, on the analytical performance of the solution anode glow discharge-atomic emission spectrometry (SAGD-AES) for Cd, Hg, Pb, and Zn were investigated. The results showed that coexisting metal ions' interferences are insignificant. The SAGD-AES system was successfully applied for analyzing water samples from the Yangtze River and Baixi River, and its accuracy and practicality were verified by comparison with inductively coupled plasma-optical emission spectrometry (ICP-OES) results. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]