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The bacteria inhabiting brackish lake environments in arid or semi-arid regions have not been thoroughly identified. In this study, the 454 pyrosequencing method was used to study the sedimentary bacterial community composition (BCC) and diversity in Lake Bosten, which is located in the arid regions of northwestern China. A total of 210,233 high-quality sequence reads and 8,427 operational taxonomic units (OTUs) were successfully obtained from 20 selected sediment samples. The samples were quantitatively dominated by members of Proteobacteria (34.1% ± 11.0%), Firmicutes (21.8% ± 21.9%) and Chloroflexi (13.8% ± 5.2%), which accounted for more than 69% of the bacterial sequences. The results showed that (i) Lake Bosten had significant spatial heterogeneity, and TOC(total organic carbon), TN(total nitrogen) and TP(total phosphorus) were the most important contributors to bacterial diversity; (ii) there was lower taxonomic richness in Lake Bosten, which is located in an arid region, than in reference lakes in eutrophic floodplains and marine systems; and (iii) there was a low percentage of dominant species in the BCC and a high percentage of unidentified bacteria. Our data help to better describe the diversity and distribution of bacterial communities in contaminated brackish lakes in arid regions and how microbes respond to environmental changes in these stable inland waters in arid or semi-arid regions.

Particle size of nanomaterials has significant impact on their photocatalyst properties. In this paper, TiO2 nanoparticles with different crystalline sizes were prepared by adjusting the alkali-hydrothermal time (0–48 h). An annealing in N2 atmosphere after hydrothermal treatment caused TiO2 reduction and created defects, resulting in the visible light photocatalytic activity. The evolution of physicochemical properties along with the increase of hydrothermal time at a low alkali concentration has been revealed. Compared with other TiO2 samples, TiO2-24 showed higher photocatalytic activity toward degrading Rhodamine B and Sulfadiazine under visible light. The radical trapping and ESR experiments revealed that O2•- is the main reactive specie in TiO2-24. Large specific surface areas and rapid transfer of photogenerated electrons are responsible for enhancing photocatalytic activity. The above findings clearly demonstrate that particle size and surface oxygen defects can be regulated by alkali-hydrothermal method. This research will deepen the understanding of particle size on the nanomaterials performance and provide new ideas for designing efficient photocatalysts.

To address the problem of environmental pollution caused by the extensive use of low-density polyethylene (LDPE) mulch film, this study developed a novel sprayable mulch using natural fibers and biodegradable polymers. Urea–formaldehyde resin (UF), strengthened with polyvinyl alcohol (PVA), was used as a modifier to induce beneficial physicochemical structural changes in PVA-modified urea–formaldehyde (PUF) resins. Characterization of these resins was conducted using Fourier transformation infrared spectroscopy (FT-IR), thermogravimetric analysis (TGA), and scanning electron microscopy (SEM). Preparation of the biodegradable mulch was conducted using Xuan paper waste residue (XP) as an enhancer, with PUF as the auxiliary agent. The resulting film (PUF-XP) was examined for differences in thickness, morphological characterization, and rate of weight loss, and the effects of different covering films on cucumber growth, root development, soil temperature, and weed control were evaluated. Characterization reveals that when the PVA content was 4% (W4UF), the film had the lowest free formaldehyde content (0.26%) and highest elongation at break (5.70%). In addition, W4UF could easily undergo thermal degradation at 278.4 °C and possessed a close-knit, three-dimensional structural network. W4UF was then mixed with paper powder and water in various proportions to produce three mulch films (BioT1, BioT2, and BioT3) that demonstrated excellent water retention and heat preservation and inhibited weed growth by 68.8–96.8%. Compared to no mulching (NM), BioT1 increased both the specific root length and root density, as well as improved the plant height, stem diameter, and total biomass of the cucumbers by 43.5%, 34.1%, and 33.9%, respectively. Therefore, a mass ratio of paper powder, water, and W4UF of 1:30:2 produced a biodegradable mulch film that could be used as an alternative to LDPE, mitigating the environmental pollution rendered by synthetic plastic mulch films and offering the potential for a sustainable agricultural application.

Nano-titanium dioxide (TiO2) is currently the most widely studied photocatalyst. However, its rapid recombination of photogenerated carriers and narrow range of light absorption have limited its development. Crystal form regulation and polymer modification are important means for improving the photocatalytic activity of single-phase materials. In this paper, TiO2 materials of different crystal forms were prepared by changing the synthesis conditions, and they were compounded with trimesoyl chloride–melamine polymers (TMPs) by the hydrothermal synthesis method. Then, their photocatalytic performance was evaluated by degrading methylene blue (MB) under visible light. The mechanisms of influence of TiO2 crystal form on the photocatalytic activity of TiO2-TMP were explored by combining characterization and theoretical calculation. The results showed that the TiO2 crystal form, through interface interaction, the built-in electric field intensity of the heterojunction, and active sites, affected the interface charge separation and transfer, thereby influencing the photocatalytic activity of TiO2-TMP. In the 4T-TMP photocatalytic system, the degradation rate of MB was the highest. These studies provide theoretical support for understanding the structure–property relationship of the interfacial electronic coupling between TiO2 crystal forms and TMP, as well as for developing more efficient catalysts for pollutant degradation.

Objective To investigate the diagnostic value of serum neurofilament light chain (NFL) for discriminating Parkinson disease (PD) from Essential tremor (ET) and healthy controls, and to evaluate its correlation with some clinical features of PD patients. Methods This cross-sectional study measured NFL levels with electrochemiluminescence immunoassay in serum of 146 PD patients, 82 ET patients and 60 age-matched healthy controls. We used multivariate regression analyses to examine whether NFL contributes to PD biomarkers. Disease severity were assessed by Unified Parkinson’s Disease Rating Scale part III (UPDRS III), Hoehn & Yahr (H-Y) stage and Mini-Mental State Examination (MMSE). Results Serum NFL levels were significantly higher in PD than in ET and healthy controls (16.6 ± 3.5, 12.2 ± 2.4 and 11.8 ± 2.4 pg/mL, respectively, p  < 0.001). In patients with PD, serum NFL were markedly increased in patients with advanced H-Y stage and patients with dementia (both p  < 0.001). The correlation analysis revealed that serum NFL was positively associated with UPDRS III score ( r  = 0.79, p  < 0.001) and H-Y stage ( r  = 0.86, p  < 0.001), and negatively correlated with MMSE scores ( r  = − 0.70, p  < 0.001). Further multivariate regression analyses showed that serum NFL was an independent contributor to motor symptom and cognition severity in PD patients (all p  < 0.01). Conclusions Serum NFL levels were markedly elevated may be a useful clinical biomarker for discriminating PD patients from ET and controls. Serum NFL may serve as a potential blood biomarker for motor and cognition severity of PD.

Necrosis with inflammation plays a crucial role in acute respiratory distress syndrome (ARDS). Receptor-interacting protein 3 (RIPK3) regulates a newly discovered programmed form of necrosis called necroptosis. However, the underlying mechanism of necroptosis in ARDS remains unknown. Thus, the purpose of this study was to examine the possible involvement of RIPK3 in ARDS-associated necroptosis. RIPK3 protein levels were found to be significantly elevated in the plasma and bronchoalveolar lavage fluid of ARDS patients. Next, we utilised a mouse model of severe ARDS induced with high-dose lipopolysaccharide and found that lung injury was mainly due to RIPK3-mixed lineage kinase domain-like pseudokinase (MLKL)-mediated necroptosis and endothelial dysfunction. The activation of RIPK3-MLKL by tumour necrosis factor receptor 1 (TNFR1) and TNFR1-associated death domain protein (TRADD) required catalytically active RIPK1 and the inhibition of Fas-associated protein with death domain (FADD)/caspase-8 catalytic activity. We further showed that the molecular chaperone heat shock protein 90 (Hsp90)/p23, as a novel RIPK3- and MLKL-interacting complex, played an important role in RIP-MLKL-mediated necroptosis, inflammation and endothelial dysfunction in the pulmonary vasculature, which resulted in ARDS. Collectively, the results of our study indicate that necroptosis is an important mechanism of cell death in ARDS and the inhibition of necroptosis may be a therapeutic intervention for ARDS.Key messagesLung injury in high-dose LPS-induced severe ARDS is mainly due to RIP3-MLKL-mediated necroptosis and endothelial dysfunction.Chaperone HSP90/p23 is a novel RIP3- and MLKL-interacting complex in HPAECs.HSP90/p23 is a novel RIP3- and MLKL-interacting complex in RIP-MLKL-mediated necroptosis, inflammation and endothelial dysfunction.

Soil salinization is an important worldwide environmental problem and the main reason to reduce agricultural productivity. Recent findings suggested that histidine is a crucial residue that influences the ROS reduction and improves the plants’ tolerance to salt stress. Herein, we conducted experiments to understand the underlying regulatory effects of histidine on maize root system under salt stress (100 mM NaCl solution system). Several antioxidant enzymes were determined. The related expressed genes (DEGs) with its pathways were observed by Transcriptome technologies. The results of the present study confirmed that histidine can ameliorate the adverse effects of salt stress on maize root growth. When the maize roots exposed to 100 mM NaCl were treated with histidine, the accumulation of superoxide anion radicals, hydrogen peroxide, and malondialdehyde, and the content of nitrate nitrogen and ammonium nitrogen were significantly reduced; while the activities of superoxide dismutase, peroxidase, catalase, nitrate reductase, glutamine synthetase, and glutamate synthase were significantly increased. Transcriptome analysis revealed that a total of 454 (65 up-regulated and 389 down-regulated) and 348 (293 up-regulated and 55 down-regulated) DEGs were observed when the roots under salt stress were treated with histidine for 12 h and 24 h, respectively. The pathways analysis of those DEGs showed that a small number of down-regulated genes were enriched in phytohormone signaling and phenylpropanoid biosynthesis at 12 h after histidine treatment, and the DEGs involved in the phytohormone signaling, glycolysis, and nitrogen metabolism were significantly enriched at 24 h after treatment. These results of gene expression and enzyme activities suggested that histidine can improve the salt tolerance of maize roots by enriching some DEGs involved in plant hormone signal transduction, glycolysis, and nitrogen metabolism pathways.

This study aimed to identify candidate biomarkers for predicting outcomes in nonalcoholic fatty liver disease (NAFLD) and hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC). Using Gene Expression Omnibus and The Cancer Genome Atlas (TCGA) databases, we identified common upregulated differential expressed genes (DEGs) in patients with NAFLD/nonalcoholic steatohepatitis (NASH) and HCC and conducted survival analysis of these upregulated DEGs with HCC outcomes. Two common upregulated DEGs including squalene epoxidase (SQLE) and EPPK1 messenger RNA (mRNA) were significantly upregulated in NAFLD, NASH, and HCC tissues, both in GSE45436 (P < .001) and TCGA profile (P < .001). Both SQLE and EPPK1 mRNA were upregulated in 15.56% and 8.06% patients with HCC in TCGA profile. Overexpression of SQLE in tumors was significantly associated with worse overall survival (OS) and disease-free survival (DFS) in patients with HCC (log-rank P = .027 and log-rank P = .048, respectively), while no statistical significances of OS and DFS were found in EPPK1 groups (both log-rank P > .05). For validation, SQLE upregulation contributed to significantly worse OS in patients wih HCC using Kaplan-Meier plotter analysis (hazard ratio = 1.43, 95% confidence interval: 1.01-2.02, log-rank P = .043). In addition, high level of SQLE significantly associated with advanced neoplasm histologic grade, advanced AJCC stage, and α-fetoprotein elevation (P = .036, .045, and .029, respectively). Squalene epoxidase is associated with OS and DFS and serves as a novel prognostic biomarker for patients with HCC.

We linked coffee quality to its different varieties. This is of interest because the identification of coffee varieties should help coffee trading and consumption. Laser-induced breakdown spectroscopy (LIBS) combined with chemometric methods was used to identify coffee varieties. Wavelet transform (WT) was used to reduce LIBS spectra noise. Partial least squares-discriminant analysis (PLS-DA), radial basis function neural network (RBFNN), and support vector machine (SVM) were used to build classification models. Loadings of principal component analysis (PCA) were used to select the spectral variables contributing most to the identification of coffee varieties. Twenty wavelength variables corresponding to C I, Mg I, Mg II, Al II, CN, H, Ca II, Fe I, K I, Na I, N I, and O I were selected. PLS-DA, RBFNN, and SVM models on selected wavelength variables showed acceptable results. SVM and RBFNN models performed better with a classification accuracy of over 80% in the prediction set, for both full spectra and the selected variables. The overall results indicated that it was feasible to use LIBS and chemometric methods to identify coffee varieties. For further studies, more samples are needed to produce robust classification models, research should be conducted on which methods to use to select spectral peaks that correspond to the elements contributing most to identification, and the methods for acquiring stable spectra should also be studied.

Taking advantage of the magnetoelectric and its inverse effect, this article demonstrates strain-mediated magnetoelectric write and read operations simultaneously in Co 60 Fe 20 B 20 /Pb(Mg 1/3 Nb 2/3 ) 0.7 Ti 0.3 O 3 heterostructures based on a pseudo-magnetization µ ≡ m x 2  − m y 2 . By applying an external DC-voltage across a (011)-cut PMN-PT substrate, the ferroelectric polarization is re-oriented, which results in an anisotropic in-plane strain that transfers to the CoFeB thin film and changes its magnetic anisotropy H k . The change in H k in-turn results in a 90° rotation of the magnetic easy axis for sufficiently high voltages. Simultaneously, the inverse effect is employed to read changes of the magnetic properties. The change of magnetization in ferromagnetic (FM) layer induces an elastic stress in the piezoelectric (PE) layer, which generates a PE potential that can be used to readout the magnetic state of the FM layer. The experimental results are in excellent qualitative agreement with an equivalent circuit model that considers how magnetic properties are electrically controlled in such a PE/FM heterostructure and how a back-voltage is generated due to changing magnetic properties in a self-consistent model. We demonstrated that a change of easy axis of magnetization due to an applied voltage can be directly used for information processing, which is essential for future ME based devices.