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Double-stranded RNA (dsRNA) is a virus-encoded signature capable of triggering intracellular Rig-like receptors (RLR) to activate antiviral signaling, but whether intercellular dsRNA structural reshaping mediated by the N 6 -methyladenosine (m 6 A) modification modulates this process remains largely unknown. Here, we show that, in response to infection by the RNA virus Vesicular Stomatitis Virus (VSV), the m 6 A methyltransferase METTL3 translocates into the cytoplasm to increase m 6 A modification on virus-derived transcripts and decrease viral dsRNA formation, thereby reducing virus-sensing efficacy by RLRs such as RIG-I and MDA5 and dampening antiviral immune signaling. Meanwhile, the genetic ablation of METTL3 in monocyte or hepatocyte causes enhanced type I IFN expression and accelerates VSV clearance. Our findings thus implicate METTL3-mediated m 6 A RNA modification on viral RNAs as a negative regulator for innate sensing pathways of dsRNA, and also hint METTL3 as a potential therapeutic target for the modulation of anti-viral immunity. N 6 -methyladenosine (m 6 A) RNA modification regulates RNA metabolism, and has been implicated in immune regulation. Here, the authors show that the m 6 A methyltransferase, METTL3, translocates into the cytoplasm to increase viral RNA m 6 A modification, decreases viral ds RNA content, and thereby dampens the RIG/MDA5-induced anti-viral immunity.

T helper 17 (Th17) cells are a subset of CD4 + T helper cells involved in the inflammatory response in autoimmunity. Th17 cells secrete Th17 specific cytokines, such as IL-17A and IL17-F, which are governed by the master transcription factor RoRγt. However, the epigenetic mechanism regulating Th17 cell function is still not fully understood. Here, we reveal that deletion of RNA 5-methylcytosine (m 5 C) methyltransferase Nsun2 in mouse CD4 + T cells specifically inhibits Th17 cell differentiation and alleviates Th17 cell-induced colitis pathogenesis. Mechanistically, RoRγt can recruit Nsun2 to chromatin regions of their targets, including Il17a and Il17f , leading to the transcription-coupled m 5 C formation and consequently enhanced mRNA stability. Our study demonstrates a m 5 C mediated cell intrinsic function in Th17 cells and suggests Nsun2 as a potential therapeutic target for autoimmune disease. Th17 cells produce a range of characteristic Th17 type cytokines and express transcription factors governed by epigenetic regulation to engage the Th17 programme. Here the authors implicate the RNA 5- methylcytosine (m 5 C) methyltransferase Nsun2 in Th17 cells and the promotion of colitis in a murine model.

Non-alcoholic fatty liver disease (NAFLD) is the hepatic manifestation of the metabolic syndrome that elevates the risk of hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC). Although alteration of lipid metabolism has been increasingly recognized as a hallmark of cancer cells, the deregulated metabolic modulation of HCC cells in the NAFLD progression remains obscure. Here, we discovers an endoplasmic reticulum-residential protein, Nogo-B, as a highly expressed metabolic modulator in both murine and human NAFLD-associated HCCs, which accelerates high-fat, high-carbohydrate diet-induced metabolic dysfunction and tumorigenicity. Mechanistically, CD36-mediated oxLDL uptake triggers CEBPβ expression to directly upregulate Nogo-B, which interacts with ATG5 to promote lipophagy leading to lysophosphatidic acid-enhanced YAP oncogenic activity. This CD36-Nogo-B-YAP pathway consequently reprograms oxLDL metabolism and induces carcinogenetic signaling for NAFLD-associated HCCs. Targeting the Nogo-B pathway may represent a therapeutic strategy for HCC arising from the metabolic syndrome. Non alcoholic fatty liver disease (NAFLD) associates with an elevated risk of developing hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC). Here, the authors find that Nogo-B, an endoplasmic reticulum resident protein, is upregulated by lipid uptake and acts as an oncogene in NAFLD-associated HCC by promoting lipid droplet breakdown by lipophagy and triggering Hippo pathway dysregulation

Double-stranded RNA (dsRNA) is a virus-encoded signature capable of triggering intracellular Rig-like receptors (RLR) to activate antiviral signaling, but whether intercellular dsRNA structural reshaping mediated by the N -methyladenosine (m A) modification modulates this process remains largely unknown. Here, we show that, in response to infection by the RNA virus Vesicular Stomatitis Virus (VSV), the m A methyltransferase METTL3 translocates into the cytoplasm to increase m A modification on virus-derived transcripts and decrease viral dsRNA formation, thereby reducing virus-sensing efficacy by RLRs such as RIG-I and MDA5 and dampening antiviral immune signaling. Meanwhile, the genetic ablation of METTL3 in monocyte or hepatocyte causes enhanced type I IFN expression and accelerates VSV clearance. Our findings thus implicate METTL3-mediated m A RNA modification on viral RNAs as a negative regulator for innate sensing pathways of dsRNA, and also hint METTL3 as a potential therapeutic target for the modulation of anti-viral immunity.

Rumor, with the fast speed of transmission, may bring us panic, even economic loss. Thus, it is significant for us to take effective steps to control the rumor spreading. Unfortunately, most of the existing works ignore that the spreading probability is not a constant, but depends on the number of spreaders currently. That is to say, the more spreaders, the larger spreading probability. In order to overcome this shortcoming, in this paper, we propose a novel susceptible–infected–removed (SIR) rumor spreading model with the influence mechanism, called SIR-IM, which first incorporates the number of current spreaders into the spreading probability. Then, it employs time function to describe the rate of people from spreader to stifler as time goes on. Moreover, we not only derive mean-field equations to describe the dynamics of our SIR model, but also give theoretical analysis. Numerical simulations are conducted on social networks, which show that the influence mechanism can accelerate the rumor spreading.

Background As independent and correctable risk factors, disturbances in lipid metabolism are significantly associated with type 2 diabetes mellitus (T2DM). This research investigated the mechanism underlying the lipid-regulating effects of Yam Gruel in diabetic rats. Methods First, rats in the control group were given a normal diet, and a diabetic rat model was established via the consumption of a diet that was rich in both fat and sugar for six weeks followed by the intraperitoneal injection of streptozotocin (STZ). After the model was established, the rats were divided into five distinct groups: the control group, model group, Yam Gruel (SYZ) group, metformin (MET) group, and combined group; each treatment was administered for six weeks. The fasting blood glucose (FBG), body and liver weights as well as liver index of the rats were determined. Total cholesterol (TC), triglyceride (TG), high-density lipoprotein cholesterol (HDL-C), low-density lipoprotein cholesterol (LDL-C), aspartic acid transaminase (AST), alanine aminotransferase (ALT), and nonesterified fatty acid (NEFA) levels were measured. Oil Red O staining was used to assess hepatic steatosis. In addition, the levels of Phospho-acetyl-CoA carboxylase (p-ACC), acetyl coenzyme A carboxylase (ACC), AMP-activated protein kinase (AMPK), Phospho-AMPK (p-AMPK), carnitine palmitoyl transferase I (CPT-1), and Malonyl-CoA decarboxylase (MLYCD) in liver tissues were measured by real-time PCR (q-PCR) and western blotting. Results After 6 weeks of treatment, Yam Gruel alone or in combination with metformin significantly reduced FBG level, liver weight and index. The concentrations of lipid indices (TG, TC, NEFA, and LDL-C), the levels of liver function indices (ALT and AST) and the degree of hepatic steatosis was improved in diabetic rats that were treated with Yam Gruel with or without metformin. Furthermore, Yam Gruel increased the protein levels of p-ACC/ACC, p-AMPK/AMPK, MLYCD, and CPT-1, which was consistent with the observed changes in gene expression. Additionally, the combination of these two agents was significantly more effective in upregulating the expression of AMPK pathway-related genes and proteins. Conclusions These results demonstrated that Yam Gruel may be a potential diet therapy for improving lipid metabolism in T2DM patients and that it may exert its effects via AMPK/ACC/CPT-1 pathway activation. In some respects, the combination of Yam Gruel and metformin exerted more benefits effects than Yam Gruel alone.

Granzyme B is a renowned effector molecule primarily utilized by CTLs and NK cells against ill-defined and/or transformed cells during immunosurveillance. The overall expression of granzyme B within tumor microenvironment has been well-established as a prognostic marker indicative of priming immunity for a long time. Until recent years, increasing immunosuppressive effects of granzyme B are unveiled in the setting of different immunological context. The accumulative evidence confounded the roles of granzyme B in immune responses, thereby arousing great interests in characterizing detailed feature of granzyme B-positive niche. In this paper, the granzyme B-related regulatory effects of major suppressor cells as well as the tumor microenvironment that defines such functionalities were longitudinally summarized and discussed. Multiplex networks were built upon the interactions among different transcriptional factors, cytokines, and chemokines that regarded to the initiation and regulation of granzyme B-mediated immunosuppression. The conclusions and prospect may facilitate better interpretations of the clinical significance of granzyme B, guiding the rational development of therapeutic regimen and diagnostic probes for anti-tumor purposes.

Influence maximization is a fundamental problem, which is aimed to specify a small subset of individuals as the seed set to influence the individuals as much as possible under a certain influence cascade model. Most existing works on influence maximization assume that all of the seeds would like to spread the designated information. However, in reality, a small number of the seeds may be unwilling to spread this information, which may waste unnecessary resources. Thus, it is important for us to find a series of successors to replace these useless seeds. To deal with this challenge, we put forward a new method, which utilizes the degree discount algorithm to find the original seed set firstly. Moreover, we design a candidate selection strategy to select a large number of candidate seeds combining the largest degree nodes and the neighbors of removed nodes. At last, by optimizing the combination of original seeds and candidate seeds, our algorithm can select the combination of the most influential seeds by simulated annealing method. Furthermore, exhaustive experiments demonstrate that our proposal performs better than the other conventional algorithms in the aspects of influence spread and running time.

As independent and correctable risk factors, disturbances in lipid metabolism are significantly associated with type 2 diabetes mellitus (T2DM). This research investigated the mechanism underlying the lipid-regulating effects of Yam Gruel in diabetic rats. First, rats in the control group were given a normal diet, and a diabetic rat model was established via the consumption of a diet that was rich in both fat and sugar for six weeks followed by the intraperitoneal injection of streptozotocin (STZ). After the model was established, the rats were divided into five distinct groups: the control group, model group, Yam Gruel (SYZ) group, metformin (MET) group, and combined group; each treatment was administered for six weeks. The fasting blood glucose (FBG), body and liver weights as well as liver index of the rats were determined. Total cholesterol (TC), triglyceride (TG), high-density lipoprotein cholesterol (HDL-C), low-density lipoprotein cholesterol (LDL-C), aspartic acid transaminase (AST), alanine aminotransferase (ALT), and nonesterified fatty acid (NEFA) levels were measured. Oil Red O staining was used to assess hepatic steatosis. In addition, the levels of Phospho-acetyl-CoA carboxylase (p-ACC), acetyl coenzyme A carboxylase (ACC), AMP-activated protein kinase (AMPK), Phospho-AMPK (p-AMPK), carnitine palmitoyl transferase I (CPT-1), and Malonyl-CoA decarboxylase (MLYCD) in liver tissues were measured by real-time PCR (q-PCR) and western blotting. After 6 weeks of treatment, Yam Gruel alone or in combination with metformin significantly reduced FBG level, liver weight and index. The concentrations of lipid indices (TG, TC, NEFA, and LDL-C), the levels of liver function indices (ALT and AST) and the degree of hepatic steatosis was improved in diabetic rats that were treated with Yam Gruel with or without metformin. Furthermore, Yam Gruel increased the protein levels of p-ACC/ACC, p-AMPK/AMPK, MLYCD, and CPT-1, which was consistent with the observed changes in gene expression. Additionally, the combination of these two agents was significantly more effective in upregulating the expression of AMPK pathway-related genes and proteins. These results demonstrated that Yam Gruel may be a potential diet therapy for improving lipid metabolism in T2DM patients and that it may exert its effects via AMPK/ACC/CPT-1 pathway activation. In some respects, the combination of Yam Gruel and metformin exerted more benefits effects than Yam Gruel alone.

In this study, the occurrence state and distribution characteristics of gallium (Ga) in zinc refinery residue were investigated by dilute acid pre-washing to enrich Ga in zinc refinery residue, followed by silane coupling agent pretreatment and epoxy resin curing, and then analyzed using scanning electron microscopy, focused ion beam micro-slicing technique and transmission electron microscopy. The acid washing increased the mass ratio of Ga from 0.92% to 2.12%. Energy-dispersive spectroscopy and select area electron diffraction revealed that Ga occurred as tiny ring-like particles of gallobeudantite (a Pb-jarosite) that intimately envelop the previously formed K-jarosite fine-grained inclusions. Density functional theory calculations showed that the interplanar spacings of the new phase formed after Ga substitution for Fe in Pb-jarosite (3.413 Å and 5.505 Å) were in good agreement with the actual measured values, further confirming that Ga substitution for Fe in Pb-jarosite was achieved. The kinetical model explains the formation of multiple phases during precipitation in the treatment of zinc leaching solution. Compared to existing studies, this work reveals the spatial distribution of gallium with higher resolution and jointly determines the gallium-containing phases through experimental analysis and simulation calculations. This microanalytical method enhances the understanding of Ga species formation during zinc refining, aiding in their distribution control and process optimization. Graphical abstract