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Antimicrobial resistance seriously threatened human health, and new antimicrobial agents are desperately needed. As one of the largest classes of plant secondary metabolite, flavonoids can be widely found in various parts of the plant, and their antibacterial activities have been increasingly paid attention to. Based on the physicochemical parameters and antibacterial activities of sixty-six flavonoids reported, two regression equations between their ACD/LogP or LogD 7.40 and their minimum inhibitory concentrations (MICs) to gram-positive bacteria were established with the correlation coefficients above 0.93, and then were verified by another sixty-eight flavonoids reported. From these two equations, the MICs of most flavonoids against gram-positive bacteria could be roughly calculated from their ACD/LogP or LogD 7.40 , and the minimum MIC was predicted as approximately 10.2 or 4.8 μM, more likely falls into the range from 2.6 to 10.2 μM, or from 1.2 to 4.8 μM. Simultaneously, both tendentiously concave regression curves indicated that the lipophilicity is a key factor for flavonoids against gram-positive bacteria. Combined with the literature analyses, the results also suggested that the cell membrane is the main site of flavonoids acting on gram-positive bacteria, and which likely involves the damage of phospholipid bilayers, the inhibition of the respiratory chain or the ATP synthesis, or some others.

Antimicrobial resistance (AMR) poses a serious threat to human health, and new antimicrobial agents are desperately needed. Plant flavonoids are increasingly being paid attention to for their antibacterial activities, for the enhancing of the antibacterial activity of antimicrobials, and for the reversing of AMR. To obtain more scientific and reliable equations, another two regression equations, between the minimum inhibitory concentration (MIC) (y) and the lipophilicity parameter ACD/LogP or LogD7.40 (x), were established once again, based on the reported data. Using statistical methods, the best one of the four regression equations, including the two previously reported, with regard to the antimicrobial quantitative relationship of plant flavonoids to Gram-positive bacteria, is y = −0.1285 x6 + 0.7944 x5 + 51.785 x4 − 947.64 x3 + 6638.7 x2 − 21,273 x + 26,087; here, x is the LogP value. From this equation, the MICs of most plant flavonoids to Gram-positive bacteria can be calculated, and the minimum MIC was predicted as approximately 0.9644 μM and was probably from 0.24 to 0.96 μM. This more reliable equation further proved that the lipophilicity is a key factor of plant flavonoids against Gram-positive bacteria; this was further confirmed by the more intuitive evidence subsequently provided. Based on the antibacterial mechanism proposed in our previous work, these also confirmed the antibacterial mechanism: the cell membrane is the major site of plant flavonoids acting on the Gram-positive bacteria, and this involves the damage of the phospholipid bilayers. The above will greatly accelerate the discovery and application of plant flavonoids with remarkable antibacterial activity and the thorough research on their antimicrobial mechanism.

Light scattering in disordered media has been studied extensively due to its prevalence in natural and artificial systems. In photonics most of the research has focused on understanding and mitigating the effects of scattering, which are often detrimental. For certain applications, however, intentionally introducing disorder can actually improve device performance, as in photovoltaics. Here, we demonstrate a spectrometer based on multiple light scattering in a silicon-on-insulator chip featuring a random structure. The probe signal diffuses through the chip generating wavelength-dependent speckle patterns, which are detected and used to recover the input spectrum after calibration. A spectral resolution of 0.75 nm at a wavelength of 1,500 nm in a 25-μm-radius structure is achieved. Such a compact, high-resolution spectrometer is well suited for lab-on-a-chip spectroscopy applications. A miniature spectrometer has been developed that employs light scattering in a photonic chip with a random structure. It generates wavelength-dependent speckle patterns, which are detected and analysed to recover the spectrum of the input signal. It has a resolution of 0.75 nm in the 1,500 nm wavelength region.

We aimed to investigate the correlation between the neutrophil-to-lymphocyte ratio (NLR), platelet-to-lymphocyte ratio (PLR), platelet-to-neutrophil ratio (PNR), platelet-to-white blood cell ratio (PWR) and 90-day mortality in patients with acute ischemic stroke (AIS). We retrospectively included 633 patients with AIS from January 2017 to May 2018. The correlation between each indicator and the degree of neurologic deficit was assessed. Kaplan-Meier survival curves based on blood cell ratios were used to analyze the 90-day survival rate of patients with AIS. A total of 663 patients with AIS were enrolled, of which 24 (3.6%) experienced recurrence and 13 (2.0%) died. NLR>3.23 (odds ratio; OR = 2.236; 95% confidence interval [CI], 1.472-3.397; P<0.001), PNR<31.14 (OR = 0.471; 95% CI, 0.297-0.749; P = 0.001), and PWR3.23, PWR<20.62, and PNR<31.14 were associated with an increased risk of 90-day mortality. PNR, PWR, and NLR were associated with the 90-day mortality of patients with AIS. Patients with high NLRs or low PWRs and PNRs may have a greater risk of mortality than other patients. These clinical indicators may help clinicians judge unfavorable prognosis early and implement the appropriate interventions.

A fundamental challenge in physics is controlling the propagation of waves in disordered media despite strong scattering from inhomogeneities. Spatial light modulators enable one to synthesize (shape) the incident wavefront, optimizing the multipath interference to achieve a specific behaviour such as focusing light to a target region. However, the extent of achievable control is not known when the target region is much larger than the wavelength and contains many speckles. Here we show that for targets containing more than g speckles, where g is the dimensionless conductance, the extent of transmission control is substantially enhanced by the long-range mesoscopic correlations among the speckles. Using a filtered random matrix ensemble appropriate for coherent diffusion in open geometries, we predict the full distributions of transmission eigenvalues as well as universal scaling laws for statistical properties, in excellent agreement with our experiment. This work provides a general framework for describing wavefront-shaping experiments in disordered systems. Controlled wave propagation in disordered media is a challenge because of scattering processes. Now it is shown that for speckled targets much larger than the wavelength, long-range correlations between the speckles enhance wave propagation control.

Bodies are often made of repeated units, or serial homologs, that develop using the same core gene regulatory network. Local inputs and modifications to this network allow serial homologs to evolve different morphologies, but currently we do not understand which modifications allow these repeated traits to evolve different levels of phenotypic plasticity. Here we describe variation in phenotypic plasticity across serial homologous eyespots of the butterfly Bicyclus anynana, hypothesized to be under selection for similar or different functions in the wet and dry seasonal forms. Specifically, we document the presence of eyespot size and scale brightness plasticity in hindwing eyespots hypothesized to vary in function across seasons, and reduced size plasticity and absence of brightness plasticity in forewing eyespots hypothesized to have the same function across seasons. By exploring the molecular and physiological causes of this variation in plasticity across fore and hindwing serial homologs we discover that: 1) temperature experienced during the wandering stages of larval development alters titers of an ecdysteroid hormone, 20-hydroxyecdysone (20E), in the hemolymph of wet and dry seasonal forms at that stage; 2) the 20E receptor (EcR) is differentially expressed in the forewing and hindwing eyespot centers of both seasonal forms during this critical developmental stage; and 3) manipulations of EcR signaling disproportionately affected hindwing eyespots relative to forewing eyespots. We propose that differential EcR expression across forewing and hindwing eyespots at a critical stage of development explains the variation in levels of phenotypic plasticity across these serial homologues. This finding provides a novel signaling pathway, 20E, and a novel molecular candidate, EcR, for the regulation of levels of phenotypic plasticity across body parts or serial homologs.

Tbx3 boosts iPS quality While much attention has been given to the study of different genetic and chemical methods for the generation of iPS (induced pluripotent stem) cell lines, relatively little is known about the variability in overall quality of iPS cells. This paper identifies a transcription factor, Tbx3, that significantly improves the quality of iPS cells. Tbx3 also accelerates the reprogramming process of mouse embryonic fibroblasts into iPS cells and significantly improves the germ-line transmission of iPS-derived germ cells in chimaeric animals. The transcription factor Tbx3 is shown to significantly improve the quality of induced pluripotent stem (iPS) cells. Tbx3 binding sites in embryonic stem cells are present in genes involved in pluripotency and reprogramming factors. Furthermore, there are intrinsic qualitative differences in iPS cells generated by different methods in terms of their pluripotency, thus highlighting the need to rigorously characterize iPS cells beyond in vitro studies. Induced pluripotent stem (iPS) cells can be obtained by the introduction of defined factors into somatic cells 1 . The combination of Oct4 (also known as Pou5f1), Sox2 and Klf4 (which we term OSK) constitutes the minimal requirement for generating iPS cells from mouse embryonic fibroblasts. These cells are thought to resemble embryonic stem cells (ESCs) on the basis of global gene expression analyses; however, few studies have tested the ability and efficiency of iPS cells to contribute to chimaerism, colonization of germ tissues, and most importantly, germ-line transmission and live birth from iPS cells produced by tetraploid complementation. Using genomic analyses of ESC genes that have roles in pluripotency and fusion-mediated somatic cell reprogramming, here we show that the transcription factor Tbx3 significantly improves the quality of iPS cells. iPS cells generated with OSK and Tbx3 (OSKT) are superior in both germ-cell contribution to the gonads and germ-line transmission frequency. However, global gene expression profiling could not distinguish between OSK and OSKT iPS cells. Genome-wide chromatin immunoprecipitation sequencing analysis of Tbx3-binding sites in ESCs suggests that Tbx3 regulates pluripotency-associated and reprogramming factors, in addition to sharing many common downstream regulatory targets with Oct4, Sox2, Nanog and Smad1. This study underscores the intrinsic qualitative differences between iPS cells generated by different methods, and highlights the need to rigorously characterize iPS cells beyond in vitro studies.

Brilliant animal colors often are produced from light interacting with intricate nano-morphologies present in biological materials such as butterfly wing scales. Surveys across widely divergent butterfly species have identified multiple mechanisms of structural color production; however, little is known about how these colors evolved. Here, we examine how closely related species and populations of Bicyclus butterflies have evolved violet structural color from brown-pigmented ancestors with UV structural color. We used artificial selection on a laboratory model butterfly, B. anynana , to evolve violet scales from UV brown scales and compared the mechanism of violet color production with that of two other Bicyclus species, Bicyclus sambulos and Bicyclus medontias , which have evolved violet/blue scales independently via natural selection. The UV reflectance peak of B. anynana brown scales shifted to violet over six generations of artificial selection (i.e., in less than 1 y) as the result of an increase in the thickness of the lower lamina in ground scales. Similar scale structures and the same mechanism for producing violet/blue structural colors were found in the other Bicyclus species. This work shows that populations harbor large amounts of standing genetic variation that can lead to rapid evolution of scales’ structural color via slight modifications to the scales’ physical dimensions.

We have studied carefully the behaviors of entangled qubits on the IBM Rochester with various connectivities and under a “noisy” environment. A phase trajectory analysis based on our measurements of the GHZ-like states is performed. Our results point to an important fact that entangled qubits are “protected” against environmental noise by a scaling property that impacts only the weighting of their amplitudes. The reproducibility of most measurements has been confirmed within a reasonably short gate operation time. But there still are a few combinations of qubits that show significant entanglement evolution in the form of transitions between quantum states. The phase trajectory of an entangled evolution, and the impact of the sudden death of GHZ-like states and the revival of newly excited states are analyzed in details. All observed trajectories of entangled qubits arise under the influences of the newly excited states in a “noisy” intermediate-scale quantum (NISQ) computer.

The FOX transcription factor family plays a pivotal role in the malignant progression of tumors. We propose a hypothesis that FOXQ1 recruits p300 and BRD4 to super-enhancer regions. Our findings indicate that p300 acetylates Lys190 of FOXQ1, resulting in its recognition and binding by BRD4. Subsequently, BRD4 recruits RNA-Pol II to form a “FOXQ1-p300-BRD4-RNA Pol II” complex, which then binds to the super-enhancers of target genes. Meanwhile, acetylation at Lys190 of FOXQ1 directly enhances its binding affinity to super-enhancers. Consequently, more target oncogenes can be transcribed to promote CRC proliferation and metastasis. Our results suggest that FOXQ1 acts as a key regulator of super-enhancers, providing insights into its role in CRC and highlighting its potential as a therapeutic target. This study highlights FOXQ1 as a key regulator of super enhancers, contributing to a deeper comprehension of FOXQ1-related tumours and bolstering the notion that FOXQ1 could be a potential target for colorectal cancer treatment