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Septic acute liver injury is one of the leading causes of fatalities in patients with sepsis. Toll-like receptor 4 (TLR4) plays a vital role in response to lipopolysaccharide (LPS) challenge, but the mechanisms underlying TLR4 function in septic injury remains unclear. In this study, we investigated the role of TLR4 in LPS-induced acute liver injury (ALI) in mice with a focus on inflammation and apoptosis. Wild-type (WT) and TLR4-knockout (TLR4 −/− ) mice were challenged with LPS (4 mg/kg) for 6 h. TLR4 signaling cascade markers (TLR4, MyD88, and NF-κB), inflammatory markers (TNFα, IL-1β, and IL-6), and apoptotic markers (Bax, Bcl-2, and caspase 3) were evaluated. We showed that LPS challenge markedly increased the levels of serum alanine aminotransferase (ALT)/aspartate aminotransferase (AST) and other liver pathological changes in WT mice. In addition, LPS challenge elevated the levels of liver carbonyl proteins and serum inflammatory cytokines, upregulated the expression of TLR4, MyD88, and phosphorylated NF-κB in liver tissues. Moreover, LPS challenge significantly increased hepatocyte apoptosis, caspase 3 activity, and Bax level while suppressing Bcl-2 expression in liver tissues. These pathological changes were greatly attenuated in TLR4 −/− mice. Similar pathological responses were provoked in primary hepatic Kupffer cells isolated from WT and TLR4 −/− mice following LPS (1 μg/mL, 6 h) challenge. In summary, these results demonstrate that silencing of TLR4 attenuates LPS-induced liver injury through inhibition of inflammation and apoptosis via TLR4/MyD88/NF-κB signaling pathway. TLR4 deletion confers hepatoprotection against ALI induced by LPS, possibly by repressing macrophage inflammation and apoptosis.

There is increasing evidence that deep sequencing-based T cell repertoire can sever as a biomarker of immune response in cancer patients; however, the characteristics of T cell repertoire including diversity and similarity, as well as its prognostic significance in patients with cervical cancer (CC) remain unknown. In this study, we applied a high throughput T cell receptor (TCR) sequencing method to characterize the T cell repertoires of peripheral blood samples from 25 CC patients, 30 cervical intraepithelial neoplasia (CIN) patients and 20 healthy women for understanding the immune alterations during the cervix carcinogenesis. In addition, we also explored the signatures of TCR repertoires in the cervical tumor tissues and paired sentinel lymph nodes from 16 CC patients and their potential value in predicting the prognosis of patients. Our results revealed that the diversity of circulating TCR repertoire gradually decreased during the cervix carcinogenesis and progression, but the circulating TCR repertoires in CC patients were more similar to CIN patients than healthy women. Interestingly, several clonotypes uniquely detected in CC patients tended to share similar CDR3 motifs, which differed from those observed in CIN patients. In addition, the TCR repertoire diversity in sentinel lymphatic nodes from CC patients was higher than in tumor tissues. More importantly, less clonotypes in TCR repertoire of sentinel lymphatic node was associated with the poor prognosis of the patients. Overall, our findings suggested that TCR repertoire might be a potential indicator of immune monitoring and a biomarker for predicting the prognosis of CC patients. Although functional studies of T cell populations are clearly required, this study have expanded our understanding of T cell immunity during the development of CC and provided an experimental basis for further studies on its pathogenesis and immunotherapy.

Porphyrins have planar and conjugated structures, good optical properties, and other special functional properties. Owing to these excellent properties, in recent years, porphyrins and their analogues have emerged as a multifunctional platform for chemical sensors. The rich chemistry of these molecules offers many possibilities for metal ions detection. This review mainly discusses two types of molecular porphyrin and porphyrin composite sensors for metal ions detection, because porphyrins can be functionalized to improve their functional properties, which can introduce more chemical and functional sites. According to the different application materials, the section of porphyrin composite sensors is divided into five sub-categories: (1) porphyrin film, (2) porphyrin metal complex, (3) metal–organic frameworks, (4) graphene materials, and (5) other materials, respectively.

MIL-100(Fe, Cr) and MIL-101(Cr) were synthesized by the hydrothermal method and applied to the adsorptions of five aromatic amines from aqueous solutions. These three metal-organic frameworks (MOFs) were well characterized by powder X-ray diffraction (PXRD), scanning electron microscope (SEM), transmission electron microscope (TEM), thermogravimetric analysis (TGA) and surface area analysis. The adsorption mechanism of three MOFs and the effects of the structures of MOFs on the adsorption of aromatic amines were discussed. The results show that the cavity system and suitable hydrogen bond acceptor were important factors for the adsorption for five aromatic amines of aniline, 1-naphthalamine, o-toluidine, 2-amino-4-nitrotoluene and 2-nitroaniline: (a) the saturated adsorption capacity of aniline, 1-naphthylamine and o-toluidine on MIL-100(Fe) were 52.0, 53.4 and 49.6 mg/g, respectively, which can be attributed to the intermolecular hydrogen bond interaction and cavity system diffusion. (b) The adsorption capacity of 2-nitroaniline and 2-amino-4-nitrotoluene on MIL-101(Cr) were 54.3 and 25.0 mg/g, respectively, which can be attributed to the more suitable pore size of MIL-101(Cr) than that of MIL-100(Fe, Cr). The MOFs of MIL-100(Fe) and MIL-101(Cr) can be potential materials for removing aromatic amines from aqueous solutions.

In this paper, platinum (Pt)–selenium (Se) nanostructures and Pt nanoparticles were synthesized by a facile one-step chemical reduction route and their catalytic performance was evaluated as oxidase mimic. The results of structure characterization revealed that Pt – Se nanostructures consist of Pt and Se atoms (the Pt/Se atomic molar ratio is approximately 7:3), while Pt nanoparticles consist of pure element Pt. The oxidase-like activity of Pt – Se nanostructures and Pt nanoparticles was evaluated with 3,3′,5,5′-tetramethylbenzidine (TMB) as substrate. The results indicated that Pt – Se nanostructures had a lower Michaelis constant ( K m ) and higher catalytic constant ( K cat ) for TMB oxidation than that of Pt nanoparticles,which mean the binary Pt – Se hybrid nanostructures had stronger binding affinity with TMB and higher catalytic activity in comparison with monometallic Pt nanoparticles. The enhanced oxidase-like activity of Pt – Se nanostructures may be due to element Se doped in binary Pt – Se hybrid nanostructures, which can accelerate electron transport and provide excellent chemical stability against catalytic performance degradation during the TMB oxidation reaction. Mercury (II) ions (Hg 2+ ) could inhibit the oxidase mimetic activity of Pt – Se nanostructures and resulted in a color change of the reaction system. Based on this mechanism, a facile colorimetric assay for Hg 2+ was developed with a detection limit as low as 70 nm and a linear range of 0–2.5 μM.

The ethanol precipitation method has been widely-used for Dendrobium officinale polysaccharides preparation. However, the alcohol-soluble fractions have always been ignored, which causes significant wastes of resources and energies. In this study, the extraction, physicochemical properties, and immune regulation activity of an edible D. officinale polysaccharide (DOPs) isolated from the supernatant after 75% ethanol precipitation were systematically investigated. The structural characteristics determination results showed that DOPs was mainly composed of glucose and mannose at a molar ratio of 1.00:5.78 with an average molecular weight of 4.56 × 103 Da, which was made up of α-(1,3)-Glcp as the main skeleton, and the α-(1,4)-Glcp and β-(1,4)-Manp as the branches. Subsequently, the cyclophosphamide (CTX)-induced immunosuppressive mice model was established, and the results demonstrated that DOPs could dose-dependently protect the immune organs against CTX damage, improve the immune cells activities, and promote the immune-related cytokines (IL-2, IFN-γ and TNF-α) secretions. Furthermore, DOPs treatment also effectively enhanced the antioxidant enzymes levels (SOD, GSH-Px) in sera and livers, therefore weakening the oxidative damage of CTX-treated mice. Considering these above data, DOPs presented great potential to be explored as a natural antioxidant and supplement for functional foods.

SH2 and BT2 are the large (SH2) and small (BT2) subunit of ADP‐glucose Pyrophosphorylase genes; GBSS, the WAXY gene encodes the enzyme GRANULE BOUND STARCH SYNTHASE; SS, the soluble starch synthase genes; SBE, starch branching enzyme genes; DBE, the debranching enzyme genes; Red crosses represent CRISPR/Cas9 targeted‐knockout activity. (b) The CRISPR/Cas9 construct to target the SH2 and WX genes in duplex. Bar, bialaphos resistance marker; E35S, 35S CaMV promoter; LB, T‐DNA left border; NLS, nuclear location signal sequence; Nos, Nos terminator; RB, T‐DNA right border; sgRNA‐SH2, single‐guide RNA targeting the SH2 gene; sgRNA‐WX, single‐guide RNA targeting the WX gene; Ubi, the promoter of the ubiquitin 1 gene; U6‐2, the maize endogenous U6 PolIII promoter. (c) and (d) The targeted mutations on the SH2 (c) and WX (d) genes. Counts, variant counts identified in 52 T1 events; Nucleotide sequence in red shows the mutations; PAM, proto‐spacer‐motif; Red dash in sequence, deletions; Blue sequence, the sgRNA location; Sequence underlined, the PAM sequence; sgRNA, single‐guide RNA; Var., variants of identified mutations; WT, the wild type. (e) and (f) The diagram of the genetic basis for SWC production (e) and the morphology of corn ears from genome edited lines (f).Texts in red indicate supersweet traits and genotypes while those in blue indicate waxy traits and genotypes. Acknowledgements This work was supported by grants from Beijing Municipal Science and Technology (Major Program D171100007717001), the Key Area Research and Development Program of Guangdong Province (2018B020202008), the China National Major Research and Development Program (2016YFD0101803), the National Science Foundation of China (No. 31771808) and the National Engineering Laboratory for Crop Molecular Breeding.

Wheat is an important global crop with an extremely large and complex genome that contains more transposable elements (TEs) than any other known crop species. Here, we generated a chromosome-scale, high-quality reference genome of Aegilops tauschii , the donor of the wheat D genome, in which 92.5% sequences have been anchored to chromosomes. Using this assembly, we accurately characterized genic loci, gene expression, pseudogenes, methylation, recombination ratios, microRNAs and especially TEs on chromosomes. In addition to the discovery of a wave of very recent gene duplications, we detected that TEs occurred in about half of the genes, and found that such genes are expressed at lower levels than those without TEs, presumably because of their elevated methylation levels. We mapped all wheat molecular markers and constructed a high-resolution integrated genetic map corresponding to genome sequences, thereby placing previously detected agronomically important genes/quantitative trait loci (QTLs) on the Ae. tauschii genome for the first time. The wild grass Aegilops tauschii is a wheat progenitor. A high-quality genome sequence, along with methylome and transcriptome data, provides insights on domestication and the effect of transposons, and offers a resource for wheat improvement.