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The global potato industry has changed dramatically over the past half century—the potato-planting area in Poland decreased from 2,819,200 hectares in 1961 to 188,580 hectares in 2023, representing a 1394.96% relative decrease; South Africa’s potato production increased from 332,000 tons in 1961 to 2.42 million tons in 2023, representing a 627.60% relative increase. This study provides a comprehensive comparison of the potato-processing industries in China and major global producers. The global potato-processing market was valued at USD 40.97 billion in 2023 and is projected to reach USD 60.08 billion by 2031, with significant variations in production and consumption patterns across countries. As the world’s largest potato producer, China processes approximately 15% of its total potato output, whereas India, the second-largest producer, processes only about 7%. In contrast, developed countries such as the United States, Canada, and leading European nations—including Germany, the Netherlands, France, and Belgium—demonstrate significantly higher levels of processing, underpinned by advanced technologies, automation, and efficient quality-control systems. In order to conduct an in-depth analysis of the competitiveness of China’s potato-processing industry, this paper employs the Diamond Model to carry out relevant research. Despite rapid progress, China’s potato-processing industry still lags behind these global leaders in key aspects such as automation, production efficiency, and product quality. Differences remain evident in major processed potato products, including French fries, potato chips, potato flakes, and starch, as well as in raw-material supply chains, environmental sustainability, and market competitiveness. However, China’s role in the global potato-processing industry is evolving. A major milestone was reached in 2022 when China became a net exporter of frozen French fries for the first time, signaling a shift in its position in the international market. This transformation highlights China’s emergence as a key player in global French fry exports and suggests a potential restructuring of the industry. While challenges remain, the growing acceptance of Chinese French fries in international markets reflects improving product quality. Future industry trends point toward increased automation, product innovation, circular economy practices, and greater international market integration. To enhance its competitiveness, China must further modernize its processing industry, adopt cutting-edge technologies, strengthen quality control, and expand its global footprint to secure a stronger position in the evolving international potato-processing landscape.

A facile synthetic approach has been developed to prepare uniform and size-tunable spiky Au@Ag core-shell nanoparticles (NPs) to tailor the localized surface plasmon resonance (LSPR) properties. The gradual assembly of small Au nanocrystals allows the size of spiky Au NPs to be modulated from tens to several hundreds of nanometers by tuning the concentration of initial Au seeds and Au source; and the thickness of the Ag shell can be adjusted with stepwise reduction of Ag(I) ions. The LSPR bands of such spiky Au@Ag core-shell NPs resemble those of pure spiky Au NP cores of similar sizes in near-infrared region, and increasing the Ag shell thickness results in a blue shift and broadening of the LSPR band in the near-infrared region. Additionally, the spiky Au@Ag core-shell NPs exhibit improved surface-enhanced Raman scattering (SERS) activity as compared to the bare spiky Au NPs and spherical Ag@Au NPs. This work has offered a facile route to synthesize plasmonic metal NPs with LSPR band in 650 to 800 nm that show strong enhancement of localized electromagnetic field, which provides an effective SERS substrate for SERS imaging and detection in biological fluids and tissues.

Hypoxia-inducible factor 1α (HIF-1α) and vascular endothelial growth factor (VEGF) play important roles in angiogenesis and tumor growth. Tanshinone IIA (T2A) is a novel antiangiogenic agent with promising antitumor effects; however, the molecular mechanism underlying the antiangiogenic effects of T2A remains unclear. In the present study, we provided evidence showing that T2A inhibited angiogenesis and breast cancer growth by down-regulating VEGF expression. Specifically, T2A repressed HIF-1α expression at the translational level and inhibited the transcriptional activity of HIF-1α, which led to the down-regulation of VEGF expression. Suppression of HIF-1α synthesis by T2A correlated with strong dephosphorylation of mammalian target of rapamycin (mTOR) and its effectors ribosomal protein S6 kinase (p70S6K) and eukaryotic initiation factor 4E-binding protein-1 (4E-BP1), a pathway regulating HIF-1α expression at the translational level. In addition, we also found that T2A inhibited the angiogenesis and growth of human breast cancer xenografts in nude mice through suppression of HIF-1α and VEGF. Our study provides novel perspectives and potential targets for the treatment of human breast cancer.

Background Macroautophagy (hereafter referred to as autophagy) is an evolutionarily conserved intracellular mechanism for lysosomal degradation of damaged cellular components. The specific degradation of nuclear components by the autophagy pathway is called nucleophagy. Most studies have focused on autophagic turnover of cytoplasmic materials, and little is known about the role of autophagy in the degradation of nuclear components. Methods Human MDA-MB-231 and MCF-7 breast cancer cell lines were used as model systems in vitro. Induction of nucleophagy by nuclear DNA leakage was determined by western blot and immunofluorescence analyses. The interaction and colocalization of LC3 and lamin A/C was determined by immunoprecipitation and immunofluorescence. The role of the SUMO E2 ligase, UBC9, on the regulation of SUMOylation of lamin A/C and nucleophagy was determined by siRNA silencing of UBC9, and analyzed by immunoprecipitation and immunofluorescence. Results DNA damage induced nuclear accumulation of UBC9 ligase which resulted in SUMOylation of lamin A/C and that SUMOylation of this protein was required for the interaction between the autophagy protein LC3 and lamin A/C, which was required for nucleophagy. Knockdown of UBC9 prevented SUMOylation of lamin A/C and LC3-lamin A/C interaction. This attenuated nucleophagy which degraded nuclear components lamin A/C and leaked nuclear DNA mediated by DNA damage. Conclusions Our findings suggest that nuclear DNA leakage activates nucleophagy through UBC9-mediated SUMOylation of lamin A/C, leading to degradation of nuclear components including lamin A/C and leaked nuclear DNA.

The gray level run length matrix (GLRLM) whose entries are statistics recording distribution and relationship of images pixels is a widely used method for extracting statistical features for medical images, e.g., magnetic resonance (MR) images. Recently these features are usually employed in some artificial neural networks to identify and distinguish texture patterns. But GLRLM construction and features extraction are tedious and computationally intensive while the images are too big with high resolution, or there are too many small or intermediate Regions of Interest (ROI) to process in a single image, which makes the preprocess a time consuming stage. Hence, it is of great importance to accelerate the procedure which is nowadays possible with the rapid development of massively parallel Graphics Processing Unit, i.e. the GPU computing technology. In this article, we propose a new paradigm based on mature parallel primitives for generating GLRLMs and extracting multiple features for many ROIs simultaneously in a single image. Experiments show that such a paradigm is easy to implement and offers an acceleration over 5 fold increase in speed than an optimized serial counterpart.

Background Although non-pharmacological smoking cessation measures have been widely used among smokers, current research evidence on the effects of smoking cessation is inconsistent and of mixed quality. Moreover, there is a lack of comprehensive evidence synthesis. This study seeks to systematically identify, describe, and evaluate the available evidence for non-pharmacological interventions in smoking populations through evidence mapping (EM), and to search for best-practice smoking cessation programs. Methods A comprehensive search for relevant studies published from the establishment of the library to January 8, 2023, was conducted in PubMed, Web of Science, Embase, the Cochrane Library, CNKI, CBM, Wan Fang, and VIP. Two authors independently assessed eligibility and extracted data. The PRISMA statement and AMSTAR 2 tool were used to evaluate the report quality and methodology quality of systematic reviews/meta-analyses (SRs/MAs), respectively. Bubble plots were utilized to display information, such as the study population, intervention type, evidence quality, and original study sample size. Results A total of 145 SRs/MAs regarding non-pharmacological interventions for smoking cessation were investigated, with 20 types of interventions identified. The most commonly used interventions were cognitive behaviour education ( n  = 32, 22.07%), professional counselling ( n  = 20, 13.79%), and non-nicotine electronic cigarettes (e-cigarettes) ( n  = 13, 8.97%). Among them, counselling and behavioural support can improve smoking cessation rates, but the effect varies depending on the characteristics of the support provided. These findings are consistent with previous SRs/MAs. The general population ( n  = 108, 74.48%) was the main cohort included in the SRs/MAs. The total score of PRISMA for the quality of the reports ranged from 8 to 27, and 13 studies (8.97%) were rated as high confidence, and nine studies (6.21%) as moderate confidence, in the AMSTAR 2 confidence rating. Conclusions The abstinence effect of cognitive behaviour education and money incentive intervention has advantages, and non-nicotine e-cigarettes appear to help some smokers transition to less harmful replacement tools. However, the methodological shortcomings of SRs/MAs should be considered. Therefore, to better guide future practice in the field of non-pharmacological smoking cessation, it is essential to improve the methodological quality of SRs and carry out high-quality randomized controlled trials (RCTs).

This paper describes a ZnO-nanotaper array sacrificial templated synthetic approach for the fabrication of the arrays of nanotubes with tube-walls assembled by building-blocks of Ag-nanoplates, Au-nanorods, Pt-nanothorns or Pd-nanopyramids, thus possessing high-density 3D ＂hot spots＂ in sub-10-nm gaps of neighboring building blocks with nano-tips, -corners or -edges. Additionally, these hierarchical nanostructure arrays possess high surface area with rich surface chemistry, being beneficial to capturing the analyte. The Ag-nanoplate- assembled nanotube arrays can be used as sensitive surface-enhanced Raman scattering （SERS） substrates with good signal uniformity and reproducibility. Using such Ag hierarchical nanostructure arrays as SERS-substrates, not only has 10-14 M rhodamine 6G been identified, but also 10-7 M polychlorinated biphenyls （PCBs, a notorious class of persistent organic pollutants） are recognized, and even two congeners of PCBs can be identified in a mixture, showing the potential applications of the materials in SERS-based rapid detection of environmental organic pollutants.

Uterine leiomyosarcoma has the characteristics of high malignancy, a poor prognosis, and a high recurrence rate. Surgery is the main treatment option, supplemented by chemotherapy and radiotherapy. We report on a patient with recurrent uterine leiomyosarcoma who was treated with high-intensity focused ultrasound combined with chemotherapy. Tumor growth was controlled and the patient’s survival time was prolonged. High-intensity focused ultrasound combined with chemotherapy may thus provide a new treatment strategy for patients with recurrent and surgically difficult uterine leiomyosarcoma.

Increasing evidences reveal that autophagy inhibitor could enhance the effect of chemotherapy to cancer. However, few autophagy inhibitors are currently approved for clinical application in humans. Berbamine (BBM) is a natural compound extracted from traditional Chinese medicine that is widely used for treatment of a variety of diseases without any obvious side effects. Here we found that BBM is a novel auophagy inhibitor, which potently induced the accumulation of autophagosomes by inhibiting autophagosome-lysosome fusion in human breast cancer cells. Mechanistically, we found that BBM blocked autophagosome-lysosome fusion by inhibiting the interaction of SNAP29 and VAMP8. Furthermore, BBM induced upregulation of BNIP3 and the interaction between SNAP29 and BNIP3. BNIP3 depletion or SNAP29 overexpression abrogated BBM-mediated blockade of autophagosome-lysosome fusion through the interaction between SNAP29 and VAMP8, whereas BNIP3 overexpression blocked autophagosome-lysosome fusion through inhibition of the interaction between SNAP29 and VAMP8. These findings suggest that upregulation of BNIP3 and interaction between BNIP3 and SNAP29 could be involved in BBM-mediated blockade of autophagosome-lysosome fusion through inhibition of the interaction between SNAP29 and VAMP8. Our findings identify the critical role of BNIP3 in blockade of autophagosome-lysosome fusion mediated by BBM, and suggest that BBM could potentially be further developed as a novel autophagy inhibitor, which could enhance the effect of chemotherapy to cancer.

Background: Titanium dioxide (TiO2) nanotubes are often used as carriers for loading materials such as drugs, proteins, and growth factors. Materials and methods: In this study, we loaded tetracycline onto TiO2 nanotubes to demonstrate its antibacterial properties and biocompatibility. The two-layered anodic TiO2 nanotubes with a honeycomb-like porous structure were fabricated by using a two-step anodization, and they were loaded with tetracycline by using a simplified lyophilization method and vacuum drying. Their physical properties, such as chemical compositions, wettability, and surface morphologies of the different samples, were observed and measured by X-ray photoelectron spectroscopy (XPS), contact angle measurement, and scanning electron microscopy (SEM). The in vitro growth behaviors of mouse bone marrow stromal cells (BMSCs) on these substrates were investigated.Results: The TiO2 nanotube (NT) substrates and the tetracycline-loaded TiO2 nanotube (NT-T) substrates revealed a crucial potential for promoting the adhesion, proliferation, and differentiation of BMSCs. Similarly, the NT-T substrates displayed a sudden release of tetracycline in the first 15 minutes of their administration, and the release tended to be stable 90 minutes later. The antibacterial performances of the prepared substrates were assessed with Porphyromonas gingivalis. The result showed that NT and NT-T substrates had antibacterial capacities. Conclusion: Overall, this research provides a promising method with potential for clinical translation by allowing local slow release of antimicrobial compounds by loading them onto constructed nanotubes.