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Traumatic injury to the spinal cord causes permanent loss of function and major personal, social, and economic problems. Cell-based delivery strategies is a promising approach for treating spinal cord injury (SCI). However, the inhospitable microenvironment in the injured spinal cord results in poor cell survival and uncontrolled differentiation of the transplanted stem cells. The combination of a scaffold with cells has been developed with a tendency for achieving greater survival and integration with the host tissue. We investigated the effect of Matrigel combined with neural stem cells (NSCs) in vitro and in vivo . We compared the effect of different types of scaffold on the survival and differentiation of brain-derived NSCs in an in vitro culture. Subsequently, NSCs were transplanted subcutaneously into nude mice to detect graft survival and differentiation in vivo . Finally, phosphate-buffered saline (PBS), Matrigel alone, or Matrigel seeded with NSCs was injected into 48 subacute, clinically relevant rat models of SCI (16 rats per group). Matrigel supported cell survival and differentiation efficiently in vitro and in vivo . SCI rats transplanted with NSCs in Matrigel showed improved behavioral recovery and neuronal and reactive astrocyte marker expression levels compared to PBS- or Matrigel-transplanted rats. Functional repair and neuronal and reactive astrocyte marker expression was slightly improved in the Matrigel-alone group relative to the PBS group, but not statistically significantly. These data suggest that Matrigel is a promising scaffold material for cell transplantation to the injured spinal cord.

Background Alongshan virus (ALSV) is a novel discovered segmented flavivirus associated with human febrile illness in northeastern China. Ixodes persulcatus is considered as a candidate vector of ALSV in the endemic regions. However, the role of domesticated animals in the circulation and transmission of ALSV have not been investigated. To evaluate the prevalence of ALSV infections in domesticated animals, viral RNA and viral specific antibodies were detected in sheep and cattle in Hulunbuir of northeastern Inner Mongolia. The findings contribute to the understanding of the ecology and transmission of ALSV among different natural hosts. Methods A total of 480 animal serum samples were collected in Hulunbuir of northeastern China in May, 2017. Viral specific antibodies were tested by indirect enzyme-linked immunosorbent assay (ELISA) with a purified E. coli recombinant capsid protein (VP2) of ALSV (strain H3) and further detected by viral neutralization test (VNT). RNA in serum samples were extracted and detected for ALSV sequence by quantitative real-time RT-PCR. ALSV RNA positive samples were used for virus isolation. Results ALSV-specific antibodies were detected in 9.2% (22/240) of examined sheep and 4.6% (11/240) of examined cattle by ELISA, while lower serological positivity with 4.2% (10/240) for sheep and 1.7% (4/240) for cattle was confirmed by VNT. In contrast, the prevalence of ALSV RNA was much higher, ranging from 26.3% (63/240) in sheep to 27.5% (66/240) in cattle. The partial S1 (NS5-like) and S3 (NS3-like) segments of ALSVs in sheep and cattle shared high identities of more than 98% to the human and tick isolates in the studied regions. Conclusions These results suggest that the natural infection of ALSV can be found in sheep and cattle in the endemic regions.

Background Frailty is the third most common complication of diabetes after macrovascular and microvascular complications. The aim of this study was to develop a validated risk prediction model for frailty in patients with diabetes. Methods The research used data from the China Health and Retirement Longitudinal Study (CHARLS), a dataset representative of the Chinese population. Twenty-five indicators, including socio-demographic variables, behavioral factors, health status, and mental health parameters, were analyzed in this study. The study cohort was randomly divided into a training set and a validation set at a ratio of 70 to 30%. LASSO regression analysis was used to screen the variables for the best predictors of the model based on a 10-fold cross-validation. The logistic regression model was applied to explore the associated factors of frailty in patients with diabetes. A nomogram was constructed to develop the prediction model. Calibration curves were applied to evaluate the accuracy of the nomogram model. The area under the receiver operating characteristic curve and decision curve analysis were conducted to assess predictive performance. Results One thousand four hundred thirty-six patients with diabetes from the CHARLS database collected in 2013 ( n  = 793) and 2015 ( n  = 643) were included in the final analysis. A total of 145 (10.9%) had frailty symptoms. Multivariate logistic regression analysis showed that marital status, activities of daily living, waist circumference, cognitive function, grip strength, social activity, and depression as predictors of frailty in people with diabetes. These factors were used to construct the nomogram model, which showed good concordance and accuracy. The AUC values of the predictive model and the internal validation set were 0.912 (95%CI 0.887–0.937) and 0.881 (95% CI 0.829–0.934). Hosmer–Lemeshow test values were P  = 0.824 and P  = 0.608 (both > 0.05). Calibration curves showed significant agreement between the nomogram model and actual observations. ROC and DCA indicated that the nomogram had a good predictive performance. Conclusions Comprehensive nomogram constructed in this study was a promising and convenient tool to evaluate the risk of frailty in patients with diabetes, and contributed clinicians to screening the high-risk population.

Yaw-based wake steering control is a potential way to improve wind plant overall performance. For its engineering application, it is crucial to accurately predict the turbine wakes under various yawed conditions within a short time. In this work, a two-dimensional analytical model is proposed for far wake modeling under yawed conditions by taking the self-similarity assumption for the streamwise velocity deficit and skewness angle at hub height. The proposed model can be applied to predict the wake center trajectory, streamwise velocity, and transverse velocity in the far-wake region downstream of a yawed turbine. For validation purposes, predictions by the newly proposed model are compared to wind tunnel measurements and large-eddy simulation data. The results show that the proposed model has significantly high accuracy and outperforms other common wake models. More importantly, the equations of the new proposed model are simple, the wake growth rate is the only parameter to be specified, which makes the model easy to be used in practice.

Shallow-water hydrothermal vent ecosystems are distinct from the deep-sea counterparts, because they are in receipt of sustenance from both chemosynthetic and photosynthetic production and have a lack of symbiosis. The trophic linkage and energy flow in these ecosystems, however remain elusive, which allows us poor understanding of the whole spectrum of biological components distributed across such environmental gradients. In this study, a thorough isotopic survey was conducted on various biological specimens and suspended particulates collected along four transects across the venting features of a shallow-water hydrothermal field off Kueishan Island, Taiwan. The isotope data combined with a Bayesian-based mixing model indicate that the vent-associated particulate organic matter (vent POM), as primary contribution of chemoautotrophic populations, has a high δ13C value (-18.2 ± 1.1‰) and a low δ15N value (-1.7 ± 0.4‰). Zooplankton and epibenthic crustaceans, as the fundamental consumers, exhibit δ13C and δ15N values ranging from -21.3 to -19.8‰ and +5.1 to +7.5‰, respectively, and can utilize the vent POM for 38-53% of their diets. The vent-obligate crab Xenograpsus testudinatus shows a large variation in δ13C (from -18.8 to -13.9‰) and δ15N values (from 1.1 to 9.8‰), although an omnivorous trophic level (2.5) is identified for it using δ15N values of amino acids, and it can utilize the vent POM for 6-87% of its diet. The consistently low (< 10.0‰) and overlapping δ15N values for most of the analyzed macroinvertebrates suggest extensive ingestion of chemosynthetic production complementing the photosynthetic production, a weak prey-predator relationship and low trophic complexity possibly imposed by the extreme environmental contexts of shallow-water hydrothermal ecosystems.

Inducing cancer differentiation is a promising approach to treat cancer. Here, we identified chlorogenic acid (CA), a potential differentiation inducer, for cancer therapy, and elucidated the molecular mechanisms underlying its differentiation-inducing effects on cancer cells. Cancer cell differentiation was investigated by measuring malignant behavior, including growth rate, invasion/migration, morphological change, maturation, and ATP production. Gene expression was analyzed by microarray analysis, qRT-PCR, and protein measurement, and molecular biology techniques were employed for mechanistic studies. LC/MS analysis was the method of choice for chemical detection. Finally, the anticancer effect of CA was evaluated both and Results: Cancer cells treated with CA showed reduced proliferation rate, migration/invasion ability, and mitochondrial ATP production. Treating cancer cells with CA resulted in elevated SUMO1 expression through acting on its 3'UTR and stabilizing the mRNA. The increased SUMO1 caused c-Myc sumoylation, miR-17 family downregulation, and p21 upregulation leading to G /G arrest and maturation phenotype. CA altered the expression of differentiation-related genes in cancer cells but not in normal cells. It inhibited hepatoma and lung cancer growth in tumor-bearing mice and prevented new tumor development in naïve mice. In glioma cells, CA increased expression of specific differentiation biomarkers Tuj1 and GFAP inducing differentiation and reducing sphere formation. The therapeutic efficacy of CA in glioma cells was comparable to that of temozolomide. CA was detectable both in the blood and brain when administered intraperitoneally in animals. Most importantly, CA was safe even at very high doses. CA might be a safe and effective differentiation-inducer for cancer therapy. \"Educating\" cancer cells to differentiate, rather than killing them, could be a novel therapeutic strategy for cancer.

The advance in communication technology has triggered worldwide concern on electromagnetic wave pollution. To cope with this challenge, exploring high-performance electromagnetic (EM) wave absorbing materials with dielectric and magnetic losses coupling is urgently required. Of the EM wave absorbers, transition metal diborides (TMB 2 ) possess excellent dielectric loss capability. However, akin to other single dielectric materials, poor impedance match leads to inferior performance. High-entropy engineering is expected to be effective in tailoring the balance between dielectric and magnetic losses through compositional design. Herein, three HE TMB 2 powders with nominal equimolar TM including HE TMB 2 -1 (TM = Zr, Hf, Nb, Ta), HE TMB 2 -2 (TM = Ti, Zr, Hf, Nb, Ta), and HE TMB 2 -3 (TM = Cr, Zr, Hf, Nb, Ta) have been designed and prepared by one-step boro/carbothermal reduction. As a result of synergistic effects of strong attenuation capability and impedance match, HE TMB 2 -1 shows much improved performance with the optimal minimum reflection loss (RL min ) of −59.6 dB (8.48 GHz, 2.68 mm) and effective absorption bandwidth (EAB) of 7.6 GHz (2.3 mm). Most impressively, incorporating Cr in HE TMB 2 -3 greatly improves the impedance match over 1–18 GHz, thus achieving the RL min of −56.2 dB (8.48 GHz, 2.63 mm) and the EAB of 11.0 GHz (2.2 mm), which is superior to most other EM wave absorbing materials. This work reveals that constructing high-entropy compounds, especially by incorporating magnetic elements, is effectual in tailoring the impedance match for highly conductive compounds, i.e., tuning electrical conductivity and boosting magnetic loss to realize highly efficient and broadband EM wave absorption with dielectric and magnetic coupling in single-phase materials.

Aim H 2 S is emerging as a signaling molecule involved in the regulation of many physiological processes in plants. Here, we investigated the potential antioxidant role of H 2 S in soybean ( Glycine max )-rhizobia ( Sinorhizobium fredii ) symbiotic root nodules. Method An endogenous H 2 S production deficit rhizobia mutant ∆ CSE was constructed to study the effect of decreased content of H 2 S in soybean nodules. Fluorescent probes and confocal microscope were used to observe the production and accumulation of H 2 S and reactive oxygen species. Transmission electronic microscopy was conducted to study the structural changes in ∆ CSE soybean nodules. Finally, qRT-PCR, enzymatic activity, and oxidative damage parameters were measured. Result The results demonstrated that abundant H 2 S was generated in the nitrogen-fixing zone of soybean nodules. The deletion of the cystathionine γ-lyase ( CSE ) gene in S. fredii ( ∆CSE ) caused a sharp decrease in H 2 S production in both free-living rhizobia and soybean nodules. We found that decrease in the H 2 S level in nodule cells inhibited nitrogenase activity. In addition, to elevated H 2 O 2 and malondialdehyde accumulation, increased protein carbonyl content and decreased O 2 − scavenging ability was observed in ∆CSE root nodules. Transmission electron microscopy revealed that an H 2 S deficit caused the deformation of bacteroids and damage of peribacteroid membranes in nodule cells. Moreover, the expression of some rhizobial and soybean genes related to antioxidant defense was up-regulated in ∆CSE nodules. Conclusion H 2 S is crucial for the nitrogen-fixation ability of soybean nodules by acting as an antioxidant element that protects nodule cells and bacteroids from oxidative damage.

Background Hydrogen sulphide (H 2 S) is involved in regulating physiological processes in plants. We investigated how H 2 S ameliorates iron (Fe) deficiency in soybean ( Glycine max L.) seedlings. Multidisciplinary approaches including physiological, biochemical and molecular, and transcriptome methods were used to investigate the H 2 S role in regulating Fe availability in soybean seedlings. Results Our results showed that H 2 S completely prevented leaf interveinal chlorosis and caused an increase in soybean seedling biomass under Fe deficiency conditions. Moreover, H 2 S decreased the amount of root-bound apoplastic Fe and increased the Fe content in leaves and roots by regulating the ferric-chelate reductase (FCR) activities and Fe homeostasis- and sulphur metabolism-related gene expression levels, thereby promoting photosynthesis in soybean seedlings. In addition, H 2 S changed the plant hormone concentrations by modulating plant hormone-related gene expression abundances in soybean seedlings grown in Fe-deficient solution. Furthermore, organic acid biosynthesis and related genes expression also played a vital role in modulating the H 2 S-mediated alleviation of Fe deficiency in soybean seedlings. Conclusion Our results indicated that Fe deficiency was alleviated by H 2 S through enhancement of Fe acquisition and assimilation, thereby regulating plant hormones and organic acid synthesis in plants.

Tannase plays a crucial role in many fields, such as the pharmaceutical industry, beverage processing, and brewing. Although many tannases derived from bacteria and fungi have been thoroughly studied, those with good pH stabilities are still less reported. In this work, a mangrove-derived yeast strain Rhodosporidium diobovatum Q95, capable of efficiently degrading tannin, was screened to induce tannase, which exhibited an activity of up to 26.4 U/mL after 48 h cultivation in the presence of 15 g/L tannic acid. The tannase coding gene TANRD was cloned and expressed in Yarrowia lipolytica. The activity of recombinant tannase (named TanRd) was as high as 27.3 U/mL. TanRd was purified by chromatography and analysed by SDS-PAGE, showing a molecular weight of 75.1 kDa. The specific activity of TanRd towards tannic acid was 676.4 U/mg. Its highest activity was obtained at 40 °C, with more than 70% of the activity observed at 25–60 °C. Furthermore, it possessed at least 60% of the activity in a broad pH range of 2.5–6.5. Notably, TanRd was excellently stable at a pH range from 3.0 to 8.0; over 65% of its maximum activity remained after incubation. Besides, the broad substrate specificity of TanRd to esters of gallic acid has attracted wide attention. In view of the above, tannase resources were developed from mangrove-derived yeasts for the first time in this study. This tannase can become a promising material in tannin biodegradation and gallic acid production.