Explore the vast range of titles available.

Diabetic retinopathy (DR), as a major cause of blindness worldwide, is one common complication of diabetes mellitus. Inflammatory response and oxidative stress injury of endothelial cells play significant roles in the pathogenesis of DR. The study is aimed at investigating the effects of lysophosphatidylcholine (LPC) on the dysfunction of high glucose- (HG-) treated human retinal microvascular endothelial cells (HRMECs) after being cocultured with bone marrow mesenchymal stem cells (BMSCs) and the underlying regulatory mechanism. Coculture of BMSCs and HRMECs was performed in transwell chambers. The activities of antioxidant-related enzymes and molecules of oxidative stress injury and the contents of inflammatory cytokines were measured by ELISA. Flow cytometry analyzed the apoptosis of treated HRMECs. HRMECs were further treated with 10-50 μg/ml LPC to investigate the effect of LPC on the dysfunction of HRMECs. Western blotting was conducted to evaluate levels of TLR4 and p-NF-κB proteins. We found that BMSCs alleviated HG-induced inflammatory response and oxidative stress injury of HRMECs. Importantly, LPC offsets the protective effects of BMSCs on inflammatory response and oxidative stress injury of HRMECs. Furthermore, LPC upregulated the protein levels of TLR4 and p-NF-κB, activating the TLR4/NF-κB signaling pathway. Overall, our study demonstrated that LPC offsets the protective effects of BMSCs on inflammatory response and oxidative stress injury of HRMECs via TLR4/NF-κB signaling.

The role of root exudates has long been recognized for its potential to improve nutrient use efficiency in cropping systems. However, studies addressing the variability of root exudates involved in phosphorus solubilization across plant developmental stages remain scarce. Here, we grew Arabidopsis thaliana seedlings in sterile liquid culture with a low, medium, or high concentration of phosphate and measured the composition of the root exudate at seedling, vegetative, and bolting stages. The exudates changed in response to the incremental addition of phosphorus, starting from the vegetative stage. Specific metabolites decreased in relation to phosphate concentration supplementation at specific stages of development. Some of those metabolites were tested for their phosphate solubilizing activity, and 3-hydroxypropionic acid, malic acid, and nicotinic acid were able to solubilize calcium phosphate from both solid and liquid media. In summary, our data suggest that plants can release distinct compounds to deal with phosphorus deficiency needs influenced by the phosphorus nutritional status at varying developmental stages.

Background Solitary pulmonary nodules (SPNs) remain difficult to diagnose for clinical therapeutic purposes in patients with a history of breast cancer. This study try to investigate the value of 18 F-fluorodeoxyglucose ( 18 F-FDG) positron emission tomography/computed tomography (PET/CT) combined with clinicopathological predictors for the differential diagnosis of SPNs in breast cancer patients. Methods One hundred and twenty breast cancer patients with newly detected SPNs were enrolled in the study and divided into a primary lung cancer (PLC) group and a breast cancer metastasis (BCM) group. The clinicopathological characteristics as well as metabolic and morphological characteristics on 18 F-FDG-PET/CT images of 120 patients were retrospectively reviewed. The differences of clinicopathological and 18 F-FDG-PET/CT characteristics between the two groups were analyzed, and multivariate analyses for the diagnosis of SPNs were performed. Results Clinicopathological terms of carcinoembryonic antigen (CEA) and CA15-3 levels exhibited significant differences between PLC and BCM groups ( P  = 0.005 and P  = 0.001, respectively). Metabolic characteristics of 18 F-FDG-PET/CT images included FDG uptake, SUV max of SPNs, hilar and/or mediastinal lymph node metastasis, SUV max of hilar and/or mediastinal lymph node, and extrapulmonary metastasis showed significant differences between PLC and BCM groups ( P  = 0.004, P  < 0.001, P  = 0.01, P  = 0.032 and P  = 0.023, respectively). The lobulation sign, spicule sign, and pleural indentation sign were identified as statistically different morphological features of PLC in CT images (all P  < 0.001). Among these, the SUV max of SPNs, lobulation sign, and pleural indentation sign were valuable predictive factors for accurate diagnosis of SPNs in breast cancer patients. Conclusions 18 F-FDG-PET/CT combined with serum tumor markers are valuable for the diagnosis of SPNs in breast cancer patients.

During the cultivation and circulation of Chinese mitten crab (Eriocheir sinensis), the difficulty in tracing geographic origin leads to quality uncertainty and market disorder. To address this challenge, this study proposes a two-stage origin traceability framework that integrates a lightweight object detector and a high-precision classifier. In the first stage, an improved YOLOv10n-based model is designed by incorporating omni-dimensional dynamic convolution, a SlimNeck structure, and a Lightweight Shared Convolutional Detection head, which effectively enhances the detection accuracy of crab targets under complex multi-scale environments while reducing computational cost. In the second stage, an Improved GoogleNet’s Inception Net for Crab is developed based on the Inception module, with further integration of Asymmetric Convolution Blocks and Squeeze and Excitation modules to improve the feature extraction and classification ability for regional origin. A comprehensive crab dataset is constructed, containing images from diverse farming sites, including variations in species, color, size, angle, and background conditions. Experimental results show that the proposed detector achieves an mAP50 of 99.5% and an mAP50-95 of 88.5%, while maintaining 309 FPS and reducing GFLOPs by 35.3%. Meanwhile, the classification model achieves high accuracy with only 17.4% and 40% of the parameters of VGG16 and AlexNet, respectively. In conclusion, the proposed method achieves an optimal accuracy-speed-complexity trade-off, enabling robust real-time traceability for aquaculture systems.

Background RNA binding proteins (RBPs)-mediated regulation plays important roles in many eye diseases, including the canonical RBP CELF1 in cataract. While the definite molecular regulatory mechanisms of CELF1 on cataract still remain elusive. Methods In this study, we overexpressed CELF1 in human cultured lens epithelial SRA01/04 cells and applied whole transcriptome sequencing (RNA-seq) method to analyze the global differences mediated by CELF1. We then analyzed public RNA-seq and CELF1-RNA interactome data to decipher the underlying mechanisms. Results The results showed that transcriptome profile was globally changed by CELF1 overexpression (CELF1-OE). Functional analysis revealed CELF1 specifically increased the expression of genes in extracellular matrix disassembly, extracellular matrix organization, and proteolysis, which could be classified into matrix metalloproteinases (MMPs) family. This finding was also validated by RT-qPCR and public mouse early embryonic lens data. Integrating analysis with public CELF1-RNA interactome data revealed that no obvious CELF1-binding peak was found on the transcripts of these genes, indicating an indirectly regulatory role of CELF1 in lens epithelial cells. Conclusions Our study demonstrated that CELF1-OE promotes transcriptional level of MMP genes; and this regulation may be completed by other ways except for binding to RNA targets. These results suggest that CELF1-OE is implicated in the development of lens, which is associated with cataract and expands our understanding of CELF1 regulatory roles as an RNA binding protein.

BackgroundWild potato species harbor a distinctive rhizosphere microbiome relative to their modern counterparts, thus providing a competitive advantage for acquiring phosphorus (P) in their native habitats. Despite this, the effects of transferring phosphorus-solubilizing bacteria (PSB), recruited from wild potatoes rhizosphere, on modern potato varieties’ performance has not been investigated. Here, it was hypothesized that PSB isolated from wild potatoes could enhance plant growth and solubilization of various P forms when co-inoculated with commercial potatoes (Solanum tuberosum).ResultsTo test this hypothesis, three bacteria Enterobacter cloacae, Bacillus thuringiensis, and Pseudomonas pseudoalcaligenes were isolated from the rhizosphere of the wild potato Solanum bulbocastanum grown under greenhouse conditions and characterized for their P-solubilizing activities. It was found that both individual bacterial species and the consortium of the three bacteria, dissolved organic (i.e., phytin) and inorganic P (i.e., calcium phosphate) in vitro. The bacterial consortium increased dissolved P by 36-fold for calcium phosphate and sixfold for phytin compared to a sterile control and surpassed the effect of each individual PSB strain. To further evaluate the effect of the PSB consortium on plant growth and P use efficiency, the bacteria were co-inoculated on a commercial potato cultivar and amended separately with phytin, calcium phosphate, commercial P fertilizer, or a combination of the three P sources. The results showed an overall increase in total dry biomass and shoot P content in treatments co-inoculated with PSB.ConclusionsOur findings indicate that PSB isolated from wild potatoes and inoculated with modern potato varieties have the potential to enhance yield and nutrient uptake.

ObjectiveTo compare predictive values of small-for-gestational-age (SGA) by different measures for secondhand smoke (SHS) exposure during pregnancy and to develop and validate a prediction model for SGA using SHS exposure along with sociodemographic and pregnancy factors.MethodsWe compared the predictability of different measures of SHS exposure during pregnancy for SGA among 545 Chinese pregnant women, and then used the optimal SHS measure along with other clinically available factors to develop and validate a prediction model for SGA. We fit logistic regression models to predict SGA by single measures of SHS exposure (self-report, serum cotinine and CYP2A6*4) and different combinations (self-report+cotinine, cotinine+CYP2A6*4, self-report+CYP2A6*4 and self-report+cotinine+CYP2A6*4).ResultsWe found that self-reported SHS exposure alone predicted SGA (area under the receiver operating characteristic curve or area under the receiver operating curve (AUROC), 0.578) better than the other two single measures (cotinine, 0.547; CYP2A6*4, 0.529) or as accurately as combined SHS measures (0.545–0.584). The final prediction model that contained self-reported SHS exposure, prepregnancy body mass index, gestational weight gain velocity during the second and third trimesters, gestational diabetes, gestational hypertension and the third-trimester biparietal diameter Z-score could predict SGA fairly accurately (AUROC, 0.698).ConclusionsSelf-reported SHS exposure at peribirth performs better in predicting SGA than a single measure of serum cotinine at the same time, although repeated biochemical cotinine assessments throughout pregnancy may be optimal. Our simple prediction model is fairly accurate and can be potentially used in routine prenatal care.

The current study aimed to examine the effects of daily change of the Shenzhen Stock Exchange Index on cardiovascular mortality in Guangzhou and Taishan, China. Daily mortality and stock performance data during 2006-2010 were collected to construct the time series for the two cities. A distributed lag non-linear model was utilized to examine the effect of daily stock index changes on cardiovascular mortality after controlling for potential confounding factors. We observed a delayed non-linear effect of the stock index change on cardiovascular mortality: both rising and declining of the stock index were associated with increased cardiovascular deaths. In Guangzhou, the 15-25 lag days cumulative relative risk of an 800 index drop was 2.08 (95% CI: 1.38-3.14), and 2.38 (95% CI: 1.31-4.31) for an 800 stock index increase on the cardiovascular mortality, respectively. In Taishan, the cumulative relative risk over 15-25 days lag was 1.65 (95% CI: 1.13-2.42) for an 800 index drop and 2.08 (95% CI: 1.26-3.42) for an 800 index rising, respectively. Large ups and downs in daily stock index might be important predictor of cardiovascular mortality.

The oil reservoir of Mishrif Formation is of strong heterogeneity vertically and laterally, and its single‐well production rate after conventional acidizing is low and declines fast. Therefore, we intend to carry out the pilot test on diverting acid fracturing so as to improve the stimulation effect of acid fracturing by enlarging the lateral and vertical stimulation range. In this paper, a series of experimental studies (eg, rock mechanics, acid rheology, acid‐rock reaction kinetics, and full‐diameter core etching diversion) were carried out to deal with the reservoir characteristics and stimulation demand of Mishrif Formation, the principal oil reservoir in Halfaya Oilfield in Iraq, the Middle East. It is shown that calcite content of Mishrif Formation reservoir is higher than 95%, indicating the strong acid dissolution. As for rock mechanics, the characteristics of “low Young's modulus and high Poisson's ratio” are presented, and the stress‐strain curves show certain elastic‐plastic characteristics. Additionally, a large number of wormholes appear on the surface of the full‐diameter cores after acid etching, so it is necessary to consider the serious filtration of acidizing fluid near the wellbore. The mechanical strength of rock plates decreases after acid etching, so it is recommended to adopt and optimize the closed acidizing technology so as to avoid excessive etching. Furthermore, the self‐support flow conductivity of etched fractures is weak, so it is recommended to adopt the sand fracturing or the combined stimulation technology of acid fracturing + sand fracturing to improve the reservoir stimulation effects. A series of experimental studies, for example, rock mechanics, acid rheology, acid‐rock reaction kinetics, full‐diameter core etching diversion, and analysis of three‐dimensional digital imaging technology were carried out on the cores of Mishrif Formation to analyze the stimulation feasibility of acid fracturing in this paper, which is seldom studied before for carbonate reservoirs in the Middle East.

Apple anthracnose is a fruit fungal disease that is currently recognized as one of the most severe threats to apples worldwide. In this study, antifungal protein from Bacillus subtilis SL-44 was isolated, purified, identified, and applied for Colletotrichum gloeosporioides control. The antagonistic experiment showed that SL-44 had an excellent broad spectrum against plant pathogenic fungi. The optimal fermentation conditions were as follows: initial pH was 7, inoculum volume was 2%, and rotational speed was 180 r/min. The optimized yield of antifungal protein increased by 45.83% compared with that before. The crude protein was isolated and purified by (NH 4 ) 2 SO 4 precipitation, DEAE-Sepharose Fast Flow, and Sephadex G-100 column chromatography. LC–MS analyzed that antifungal protein was likely to be a novel protein with a molecular weight of 42 kDa. The mechanism revealed that the antifungal protein may disrupt the cell wall structure of C. gloeosporioides and function as its antifungal action. Additionally, antifungal protein significantly alleviated the size of the lesion to more than 70% in the apple infection protection test. In conclusion, antifungal protein has remarkable potential in developing fungicides for the biological control of apple anthracnose. Highlights 1. B. subtilis SL-44 had broad-spectrum antagonism against plant pathogenic fungi. 2. The optimal fermentation conditions for extracting antifungal protein were optimized. 3. The antifungal protein is a novel protein with a molecular weight of 42 kDa. 4. The mechanism of antifungal protein may disrupt the cell wall structure of C. gloeosporioides . Graphical Abstract