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Given that Type-I photosensitizers (PSs) have hypoxia tolerance, developing general approaches to prepare Type-I PSs is of great importance, but remains a challenge. Here, we report a supramolecular strategy for the preparation of Type-I photodynamic agents, which simultaneously generate strong oxidizing cationic radicals and superoxide radicals, by introducing electron acceptors to the existing Type-II PSs. As a proof-of-concept, three electron acceptors were designed and co-assembled with a classical PS to produce quadruple hydrogen-bonded supramolecular photodynamic agents. The photo-induced electron transfer from the PS to the adjacent electron acceptor occurs efficiently, leading to the generation of a strong oxidizing PS +• and an anionic radical of the acceptor, which further transfers an electron to oxygen to form O 2 −• . In addition, these photodynamic agents induce direct photocatalytic oxidation of NADH with a turnover frequency as high as 53.7 min −1 , which offers an oxygen-independent mechanism to damage tumors. Tumour hypoxia is a major issue for conventional photodynamic therapies, Here, the authors report on the supramolecular assembly of electron acceptors with photosensitizers which have improved reactive oxygen species production and are able to directly oxidise NHDH and demonstrate application against hypoxic tumours.

Background Oriental river prawn Macrobrachium nipponense is an economically important aquaculture species in China, Japan, and Vietnam. In commercial prawn farming, feed cost constitutes about 50 to 65% of the actual variable cost. Improving feed conversion efficiency in prawn culture will not only increase economic benefit, but also save food and protect the environment. The common indicators used for feed conversion efficiency include feed conversion ratio (FCR), feed efficiency ratio (FER), and residual feed intake (RFI). Among these, RFI is much more suitable than FCR and FER during the genetic improvement of feed conversion efficiency for aquaculture species. Results In this study, the transcriptome and metabolome of hepatopancreas and muscle of M. nipponense from high RFI low RFI groups, which identified after culture for 75 days, were characterized using combined transcriptomic and metabolomic analysis. A total of 4540 differentially expressed genes (DEGs) in hepatopancreas, and 3894 DEGs in muscle were identified, respectively. The DEGs in hepatopancreas were mainly enriched in KEGG pathways including the metabolism of xenobiotics by cytochrome P450 (down-regulated), fat digestion and absorption (down-regulated) and aminoacyl-tRNA biosynthesis (up-regulated), etc. The DEGs in muscle were mainly enriched in KEGG pathways including the protein digestion and absorption (down-regulated), glycolysis/gluconeogenesis (down-regulated), and glutathione metabolism (up-regulated), etc. At the transcriptome level, the RFI of M. nipponense was mainly controlled in biological pathways such as the high immune expression and the reduction of nutrients absorption capacity. A total of 445 and 247 differently expressed metabolites (DEMs) were identified in the hepatopancreas and muscle, respectively. At the metabolome level, the RFI of M. nipponense was affected considerably by amino acid and lipid metabolism. Conclusions M. nipponense from higher and lower RFI groups have various physiological and metabolic capability processes. The down-regulated genes, such as carboxypeptidase A1, 6-phosphofructokinase, long-chain-acyl-CoA dehydrogenase, et. al., in digestion and absorption of nutrients, and the up-regulated metabolites, such as aspirin, lysine, et. al., in response to immunity could be potential candidate factors contributed to RFI variation for M. nipponense . Overall, these results would provide new insights into the molecular mechanism of feed conversion efficiency and assist in selective breeding to improve feed conversion efficiency in M. nipponense .

Currently, the carbon emissions from buildings account for one-third of the total global carbon emissions. Therefore, how to control the carbon emissions of buildings becomes the main direction of current research. The study aims to address the issue of poor energy regulation and carbon emission control effectiveness in the current digital low-carbon system for smart buildings. A smart building digital low-carbon new system based on proximal policy optimization algorithm is proposed in the research. The new system uses a near-end strategy optimization algorithm to control the energy changes of buildings, and adds an actor-critic algorithm to enhance the evaluation and analysis ability of system strategies. The research results indicate that improving the near-end strategy optimization algorithm can reduce carbon emissions by 2354CO2e, while the lowest operating cost of the model is only 35,000 yuan. The new system can effectively control building costs, reducing commercial building thermal energy costs by 1.1w and industrial building electrical energy costs by 17,000 yuan. The highest reliability of the new system is 92.4%, the highest stability is 93.6%, and the shortest response time of the system is 768 ms. The results show that the new system is superior to the existing system in reducing carbon emissions, lowering operating costs, improving system reliability and stability, and shortening response time. This demonstrates the effectiveness and superiority of the new system in the digital low-carbon system of intelligent buildings. Using the novel system can effectively decline the carbon emissions of buildings and improve the control effect on building energy. This has good guiding significance for improving the low-carbon emission control effect of smart buildings.

Ischemia-reperfusion injury (IRI) is a common complication associated with liver surgery, and macrophages play an important role in hepatic IRI. Liraglutide, a glucagon-like peptide-1 (GLP-1) analog primarily used to treat type 2 diabetes and obesity, regulates intracellular calcium homeostasis and protects the cardiomyocytes from injury; however, its role in hepatic IRI is not yet fully understood. This study aimed to investigate whether liraglutide can protect the liver from IRI and determine the possible underlying mechanisms. Our results showed that liraglutide pretreatment significantly alleviated the liver damage caused by ischemia-reperfusion (I/R), as evidenced by H&E staining, serum aspartate aminotransferase (AST) and alanine aminotransferase (ALT) levels, and TUNEL staining. Furthermore, the levels of inflammatory cytokines elicited by I/R were distinctly suppressed by liraglutide pretreatment, accompanied by significant reduction in TNF-α, IL-1β, and IL-6 levels. Furthermore, pretreatment with liraglutide markedly inhibited macrophage type I (M1) polarization during hepatic IRI, as revealed by the significant reduction in CD68 + levels in Kupffer cells (KCs) detected via flow cytometry. However, the protective effects of liraglutide on hepatic IRI were partly diminished in GLP-1 receptor-knockout (GLP-1R -/- ) mice. Furthermore, in an in vitro study, we assessed the role of liraglutide in macrophage polarization by examining the expression profiles of M1 in bone marrow-derived macrophages (BMDMs) from GLP-1R -/- and C57BL/6J mice. Consistent with the results of the in vivo study, liraglutide treatment attenuated the LPS-induced M1 polarization and reduced the expression of M1 markers. However, the inhibitory effect of liraglutide on LPS-induced M1 polarization was largely abolished in BMDMs from GLP-1R -/- mice. Collectively, our study indicates that liraglutide can ameliorate hepatic IRI by inhibiting macrophage polarization towards an inflammatory phenotype via GLP-1R. Its protective effect against liver IRI suggests that liraglutide may serve as a potential drug for the clinical treatment of liver IRI.

High-performance mullite-based composite ceramics were prepared successfully using natural kaolin and alumina as raw materials and ZrO2 as an additive. The influence of sintering temperature and ZrO2 content on the sintering behaviour and mechanical properties of zirconia-toughened mullite ceramics was studied systematically. With increasing sintering temperature from 1450°C to 1560°C, the primary phases of as-sintered composite ceramics were mullite and corundum with a small amount of ZrO2, and the bulk density of the composite ceramics increased from 2.29 to 2.72 g cm-3. Furthermore, the ZrO2 phase transition promoted transgranular fracture, and ZrO2 grains were pinned at the grain boundaries, thereby enhancing the mechanical strength of the composite ceramics. Moreover, the AZS12 sample, with 12 wt.% ZrO2 and sintered at 1560°C, had the greatest flexural strength and fracture toughness of 91.6 MPa and 2.47 MPa m-1/2, respectively. Adding ZrO2 to the composite ceramics increased their flexural strength by ∼37.6%.

The aryl hydrocarbon receptor (AhR) is a transcription factor that is activated by various ligands, including pollutants, microorganisms, and metabolic substances. It is expressed extensively in pulmonary and intestinal epithelial cells, where it contributes to barrier defense. The expression of AhR is pivotal in regulating the inflammatory response to microorganisms. However, dysregulated AhR expression can result in endocrine disorders, leading to immunotoxicity and potentially promoting the development of carcinoma. This review focuses on the crucial role of the AhR in facilitating and limiting the proliferation of pathogens, specifically in relation to the host cell type and the species of etiological agents involved in microbial pathogen infections. The activation of AhR is enhanced through the IDO1-AhR-IDO1 positive feedback loop, which is manipulated by viruses. AhR primarily promotes the infection of SARS-CoV-2 by inducing the expression of angiotensin-converting enzyme 2 (ACE2) and the secretion of pro-inflammatory cytokines. AhR also plays a significant role in regulating various types of T-cells, including CD4 + T cells and CD8 + T cells, in the context of pulmonary infections. The AhR pathway plays a crucial role in regulating immune responses within the respiratory and intestinal barriers when they are invaded by viruses, bacteria, parasites, and fungi. Additionally, we propose that targeting the agonist and antagonist of AhR signaling pathways could serve as a promising therapeutic approach for combating pathogen infections, especially in light of the growing prevalence of drug resistance to multiple antibiotics.

Microbial data exhibit high dimensionality, feature sparseness, and class imbalance. Popular data augmentation strategies typically generate intersecting or overlapping samples with low diversity. In this paper, we propose a two-stage data augmentation method to synthesize high-quality samples. First, we train a feature extractor by minimizing the cross-entropy. Positive training instances are oversampled to achieve class balance. Second, a transformer network is trained for data augmentation to balance diversity and discernibility. A dropout technique is designed to randomly set some feature values as missing. Experiments were carried out on 10 microbial datasets. The results show that: (1) the constructed feature extraction neural network can effectively reduce the dimension of the data, make the data no longer sparse, improve the distinguishability of the samples, and obtain more obvious classification boundaries, and (2) The trained data augmentation transformer network with dropout technique can generate high quality samples, improve the performance of the classifier and reduce the cost of misclassification.

Background Ameloblastic fibroma (AF) is a rare benign odontogenic tumor characterized by the coexistence of epithelial and mesenchymal components, typically arising intraosseously in the posterior mandible during the first two decades of life. Its peripheral variant, occurring extraosseously in gingival soft tissue without bone involvement, is exceedingly rare. Owing to its clinical resemblance to reactive gingival lesions, peripheral AF poses diagnostic challenges and is frequently misdiagnosed without histopathological confirmation. Case presentation We report a case of peripheral AF in a 34-year-old Chinese woman who presented with a slow-growing, asymptomatic soft tissue mass on the palatal gingiva between teeth 23 and 24. Clinical examination revealed a well-defined, sessile lesion measuring 6 mm × 6 mm, with no signs of pain, bleeding, or tooth mobility. Radiographic evaluation, including panoramic imaging and cone beam computed tomography, confirmed the absence of bone involvement. The lesion was excised under local anesthesia, followed by root planing and soft tissue reconstruction using a laterally positioned flap to preserve esthetics. Histopathological examination demonstrated classic features of AF, including epithelial strands and cords within a cell-rich ectomesenchymal stroma, with peripheral palisading and central stellate reticulum-like cells. Immunohistochemistry revealed low Ki-67 proliferation index and negative BRAF expression, supporting the benign nature of the lesion. The final diagnosis was peripheral ameloblastic fibroma. Follow-up over 20 months showed no recurrence and excellent gingival healing with preserved architecture. Conclusion This case underscores the importance of considering peripheral AF in the differential diagnosis of gingival masses, particularly those mimicking reactive lesions. Histopathological and immunohistochemical analyses are essential for accurate diagnosis and appropriate management. Conservative surgical excision with careful flap design can achieve excellent functional and esthetic outcomes. Given its rarity, every well-documented case of peripheral AF contributes meaningfully to the understanding of its clinical behavior and optimal treatment strategies.

Subcooling-based ice slurry production faces challenges in terms of energy efficiency and operational stability, which limit its applications for large-scale cold energy storage. A thermodynamic model is established to investigate the effects of key control parameters, including evaporation temperature, condensation temperature, subcooling degree, water flow rate, type of refrigerant, and adiabatic compression efficiency. The results show that using the refrigerant R161 achieves the highest energy efficiency, indicating that R161 is the optimal refrigerant in this research. When the evaporation and condensation temperatures are −10 °C and 30 °C, respectively, the system achieves the maximum comprehensive performance coefficient of 2.43. Moreover, under a flow velocity of 0.8 m/s and a temperature of 0.5 °C, the system achieves a peak ice production rate of 45.28 kg/h. A high water temperature and high flow velocity would significantly degrade the system’s ice production capacity. This research provides useful guidance for the design, optimization, and application of ice slurry-based cold energy storage systems.