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Cisplatin is a clinically advanced and highly effective anticancer drug used in the treatment of a wide variety of malignancies, such as head and neck, lung, testis, ovary, breast cancer, etc. However, it has only a limited use in clinical practice due to its severe adverse effects, particularly nephrotoxicity; 20%–35% of patients develop acute kidney injury (AKI) after cisplatin administration. The nephrotoxic effect of cisplatin is cumulative and dose dependent and often necessitates dose reduction or withdrawal. Recurrent episodes of AKI result in impaired renal tubular function and acute renal failure, chronic kidney disease, uremia, and hypertensive nephropathy. The pathophysiology of cisplatin-induced AKI involves proximal tubular injury, apoptosis, oxidative stress, inflammation, and vascular injury in the kidneys. At present, there are no effective drugs or methods for cisplatin-induced kidney injury. Recent in vitro and in vivo studies show that numerous natural products (flavonoids, saponins, alkaloids, polysaccharide, phenylpropanoids, etc.) have specific antioxidant, anti-inflammatory, and anti-apoptotic properties that regulate the pathways associated with cisplatin-induced kidney damage. In this review we describe the molecular mechanisms of cisplatin-induced nephrotoxicity and summarize recent findings in the field of natural products that undermine these mechanisms to protect against cisplatin-induced kidney damage and provide potential strategies for AKI treatment.

In materials chiral fermions such as Weyl fermions are characterized by nonzero chiral charges, which are singular points of Berry curvature in momentum space. Recently, new types of chiral fermions beyond Weyl fermions have been discovered in structurally chiral crystals CoSi, RhSi and PtAl. Here, we have synthesized RhSn single crystals, which have opposite structural chirality to the CoSi crystals we previously studied. Using angle-resolved photoemission spectroscopy, we show that the bulk electronic structures of RhSn are consistent with the band calculations and observe evident surface Fermi arcs and helical surface bands, confirming the existence of chiral fermions in RhSn. It is noteworthy that the helical surface bands of the RhSn and CoSi crystals have opposite handedness, meaning that the chiral fermions are reversed in the crystals of opposite structural chirality. Our discovery establishes a direct connection between chiral fermions in momentum space and chiral lattices in real space. Exotic chiral fermions beyond Weyl fermions have recently been discovered in a series of chiral crystals such as CoSi. Here, the authors report the evidences of chiral fermions in RhSn with opposite handedness compared to those observed in CoSi, where the structural chirality is also opposite.

Coseismic landslides and subsequent mobilization of sediment greatly aggravated the landscape evolution and river sedimentation after the Wenchuan earthquake. The debris-flow alluvial fan and river morphological index was combined to describe quantitatively the effects of debris-flow sediment on the river characteristics in Longmen Mountains. The section of the Min River from the urban area of the Wenchuan county to the epicenter, the Yingxiu town in this county, was selected as the study area. We identified 27 river-blocking debris-flows (5 partial-, 7 semi-, 7 over semi-, and 5 fully-blocking degrees) in the study area via remote sensing interpretation and field survey. Based on this, the response of river longitudinal profile and curvature to debris-flow sediment was qualitatively and quantitatively analyzed. The results show that the channel gradient has decreased due to debris-flow aggradation, while two marked peaks in the river steepness index (ksn, represents the relative steepness degree of the channel) changed from 585 m0.9 to 732 m0.9 in zone 1, from 362 m0.9 to 513 m0.9 in zone 2. Moreover, the main channel has undergone substantial lateral migration with channel width decreased and river curvature increased. The temporal and spatial variation between river morphological characteristics and debris-flow sediments in short-term provides insights into the internal dynamic role of mass wasting processes in river morphology, which could be served as useful information for natural hazards management to prevent the river from being blocked by episodically debris flows after the earthquake.

Macrophages play a critical role in the pathogenesis of acetaminophen (APAP)-induced liver injury (AILI), a major cause of acute liver failure or even death. Sapidolide A (SA) is a sesquiterpene lactone extracted from Baccaurea ramiflora Lour., a folk medicine used in China to treat inflammatory diseases. In this study, we investigated whether SA exerted protective effects on macrophages, thus alleviated the secondary hepatocyte damage in an AILI. We showed that SA (5–20 μM) suppressed the phosphorylated activation of NF-κB in a dose-dependent manner, thereby inhibiting the expression and activation of the NOD-like receptor protein 3 (NLRP3) inflammasome and pyroptosis in LPS/ATP-treated mouse bone marrow-derived primary macrophages (BMDMs). In human hepatic cell line L02 co-cultured with BMDMs, SA (10 μM) protected macrophages from the pyroptosis induced by APAP-damaged L02 cells. Moreover, SA treatment reduced the secondary liver cell damage aggravated by the conditioned medium (CM) taken from LPS/ATP-treated macrophages. The in vivo assessments conducted on mice pretreated with SA (25, 50 mg/kg, ip) then with a single dose of APAP (400 mg/kg, ip) showed that SA significantly alleviated inflammatory responses of AILI by inhibiting the expression and activation of the NLRP3 inflammasome. In general, the results reported herein revealed that SA exerts anti-inflammatory effects by regulating NLRP3 inflammasome activation in macrophages, which suggests that SA has great a potential for use in the treatment of AILI patients.

The efficiency of sunlight-driven reduction of carbon dioxide (CO 2 ), a process mimicking the photosynthesis in nature that integrates the light harvester and electrolysis cell to convert CO 2 into valuable chemicals, is greatly limited by the sluggish kinetics of oxygen evolution in pH-neutral conditions. Current non-noble metal oxide catalysts developed to drive oxygen evolution in alkaline solution have poor performance in neutral solutions. Here we report a highly active and stable oxygen evolution catalyst in neutral pH, Brownmillerite Sr 2 GaCoO 5 , with the specific activity about one order of magnitude higher than that of widely used iridium oxide catalyst. Using Sr 2 GaCoO 5 to catalyze oxygen evolution, the integrated CO 2 reduction achieves the average solar-to-CO efficiency of 13.9% with no appreciable performance degradation in 19 h of operation. Our results not only set a record for the efficiency in sunlight-driven CO 2 reduction, but open new opportunities towards the realization of practical CO 2 reduction systems. Solar-to-fuel conversion under mild conditions offers a renewable means to store energy. Here authors report a Brownmillerite oxide for neutral-pH oxygen evolution that, when integrated with an anodized silver cathode, enables a 13.9% energy-conversion efficiency for light-driven CO 2 reduction

Using theoretical analysis and three-dimensional Langevin dynamics simulations, we investigate the influence of chain rigidity on the ejection dynamics of polymers from a nanochannel. We find that there exist two distinct dynamical regimes divided by a critical chain length for both flexible and semiflexible chains. At the short chain regime, semiflexible chains eject faster than flexible chains of the same chain length due to the longer occupying length. In contrast, at the long chain regime, semiflexible chains eject slower than flexible ones as the effective entropic driving force decreases. Based on these results, we propose that the nanochannels could be used to separate flexible and semiflexible chains effectively.

为研究西北地区农田土壤重金属分布特征及其生态风险，以宁夏贺兰县为研究区，采集农田表层土壤样品140个，分析测试了Cr、Ni、Cu、Zn、As、Cd和Pb含量，并采用内梅罗综合污染指数和Håkanson潜在生态风险指数法进行了重金属生态风险评价。结果表明：宁夏贺兰县农田表层土壤Cr、Ni、Cu、Zn、As和Pb元素均低于国家土壤环境二级标准，仅有1.42%样点的Cd元素出现超标；与宁夏土壤背景值相比，各元素都有不同程度的累积，其中Cd和Ni元素超出背景值的点位率分别达到100%和85%；土壤各重金属元素的分布特征较为一致，各元素含量分布比较均匀，高值区集中在中部和东部地区，主要受人类活动的影响。单因子污染指数分析结果表明，Cd元素有0.71%的点位为中度污染水平，Ni和As分别有7.14%和5%的点位处于尚清洁水平，Cr、Cu、Zn、Pb全部清洁，尚未造成污染。重金属的单项生态风险指数（Eri）表明，Cd元素的平均潜在生态风险指数为97.68，达强烈风险水平，是最主要的生态风险元素。宁夏贺兰县农田土壤环境质量整体良好，Cd和Ni累积严重，值得关注。 Ningxia Helan County was taken as the research area in this paper to study the distribution characteristics and ecological risk of heavy metals in farmland soil in northwest China. 140 topsoil samples were collected aiming to analyze and measure the concentration of Cr, Ni, Cu, Zn, As, Cd and Pb belonging to heavy metal elements. The distributions, soil environment status and ecological risk of the seven heavy metals were studied by Nemerow pollution index and Håkanson potential ecological risk index methods. The results showed that conc

Highly mismatched ZnTeO alloys were grown by molecular beam epitaxy under various oxygen partial pressures (10 −7  Torr, 10 −6  Torr, and 10 −5  Torr). Despite this large variation in oxygen partial pressure, there was almost no change in the concentration of incorporated oxygen. However, increasing the oxygen partial pressure significantly enhanced the photoluminescence of the oxygen-related transition at 1.9 eV. The evolution of lattice constants, as determined by high-resolution x-ray diffraction, appeared to follow Vegard’s law for ideal substitutional alloys for ZnTeO films prepared at 10 −7  Torr and 10 −6  Torr, while a pronounced deviation occurred at 10 −5  Torr. Channeling nuclear reaction analysis further revealed the complexity of oxygen incorporation, as no significant shadowing was observed from the epitaxial films. The evidence suggests that the oxygen location in ZnTeO is more complicated than O-Te substitutional defects in a homogeneous solid solution, and that the configuration of the oxygen dopant might play an important role in the band structure and optical properties of the alloys.

GnRH sterilization vaccines have been developed for various practical and clinical reasons. However, conjugation of GnRH peptide to carrier protein has many drawbacks, hampering the further commercialization of GnRH vaccines. In this study, a new nonconjugated GnRH vaccine, D-Lys6-GnRH-tandem-dimer peptide （TDK）, emulsified in Specol adjuvant was investigated for its immunocastration efficacy in young male rats. Prepubertal male rats were randomly allocated into three groups （n = 12）： control （no treatment）, surgically castrated or immunized against 100 μg TDK in Specol adjuvant at 6 weeks of age （with a booster 8 weeks later）. Blood samples （for antibody titers and hormone concentrations） were collected at 2-week intervals until rats were killed （18 weeks of age）. Compared to intact controls, active immunization against TDK reduced （P〈 0.05） serum concentrations of testosterone, inhibin B, LH and FSH, prevented the onset of spermatogenesis at puberty. Furthermore, mRNA expressions of GnRH receptor, LH-β and FSH-β in the pituitary, LH receptor, FSH receptor, inhibin α, βA and βB subunit in the testes were decreased in immunocastrated rats compared to intact controls （P 〈 0.05）. These results demonstrate for the first time that GnRH-tandem-dimer peptide emulsified in Specol is a promising veterinary sterilization medicine.

In materials chiral fermions such as Weyl fermions are characterized by nonzero chiral charges, which are singular points of Berry curvature in momentum space. Recently, new types of chiral fermions beyond Weyl fermions have been discovered in structurally chiral crystals CoSi, RhSi and PtAl. Here, we have synthesized RhSn single crystals, which have opposite structural chirality to the CoSi crystals we previously studied. Using angle-resolved photoemission spectroscopy, we show that the bulk electronic structures of RhSn are consistent with the band calculations and observe evident surface Fermi arcs and helical surface bands, confirming the existence of chiral fermions in RhSn. It is noteworthy that the helical surface bands of the RhSn and CoSi crystals have opposite handedness, meaning that the chiral fermions are reversed in the crystals of opposite structural chirality. Our discovery establishes a direct connection between chiral fermions in momentum space and chiral lattices in real space.