Organophosphate esters (OPs) are substitutes for polybrominated diphenyl ether (PBDE) flame retardants. China is the largest producer of OPs globally, with the production rate increasing at 15% ...annually. Since some OPs are neurodevelopmental and/or carcinogenic toxicants, human exposure is a concern. In this study, concentrations of eight OP metabolites (mOPs) were measured in human urine samples collected from 13 cities located in Northern, Eastern, Southern, and Southwestern China. All target mOPs were frequently detected with detection rates of 50% to 100%, indicating widespread human exposure to OPs. Bis(2-chloroethyl) phosphate (BCEP; median: 0.68 ng/mL), bis(1-chloro-2-propyl) phosphate (BCIPP; 0.30 ng/mL), diphenyl phosphate (DPHP; 0.30 ng/mL), and dibutyl phosphate (DBP; 0.29 ng/mL) were the dominant mOPs across all participants. Regional differences in concentrations (ΣmOPs varied from 0.86 to 3.7 ng/mL) and composition profiles (contribution of chlorinated mOPs to ΣmOPs varied from 35% to 95%) of mOPs were observed within China. In comparison to the concentrations reported worldwide, urinary DPHP and bis(1,3-dichloro-2-propyl) phosphate (BDCIPP) levels in China were lower, whereas BCEP and DBP levels were comparable or higher. The total daily intake (TDI) of tris(2-chloroethyl) phosphate (TCEP), tris(1,3-dichloro-2-propyl) phosphate (TDCIPP) and triphenyl phosphate (TPHP) were estimated from daily urine excretion rate and the fraction of OP metabolized in human liver microsomes (TDIHLM) or S9 fraction (TDIS9). The intake estimates showed that Chinese residents were exposed to TCEP from 96.9 to 46,700 (or 52.2 to 25,200) ng/kg bw/day. Depending on the reference dose, we found that approximately 5% of the individuals exceeded the limit (i.e., 2200 ng/kg bw/day) for TCEP intake. To our knowledge, this is the first nationwide baseline survey to determine urinary levels of mOPs in Chinese residents.
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•First nationwide baseline survey of urinary mOPs levels in China•Chinese residents are widely exposed to OPs, regardless of sampling locations.•BCEP, BCIPP, DPHP and DBP were the dominated mOPs.•BCEP and DBP levels in China were comparable or higher than those in various countries.•Potential health risk of human TCEP exposure was identified.
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GEOZS, IJS, IMTLJ, KILJ, KISLJ, NLZOH, NUK, OILJ, PNG, SAZU, SBCE, SBJE, UILJ, UL, UM, UPCLJ, UPUK, ZAGLJ, ZRSKP
This study aims to thoroughly study the connection between congenital heart disease (CHD) and neurodevelopmental disorders (NDDs) through observational and Mendelian randomization (MR) designs.
This ...observational study uses data from the National Survey of Children's Health (2020-2021). Multivariable logistic regression and propensity score matching (PSM) were performed to analyze the association. PSM was used to minimize bias for covariates such as age, race, gender, maternal age, birth weight, concussion or brain injury, preterm birth, cerebral palsy, Down syndrome, and other inherited conditions. In MR analyses, inverse variance-weighted measures, weighted median, and MR-Egger were employed to calculate causal effects.
A total of 85,314 children aged 0-17 were analyzed in this study. In regression analysis, CHD (p = 0.04), the current heart condition (p = 0.03), and the severity of current heart condition (p < 0.05) had a suggestive association with speech or language disorders. The severity of current heart condition (p = 0.08) has a potential statistically significant association with attention deficit hyperactivity disorder(ADHD). In PSM samples, ADHD(p = 0.003), intellectual disability(p = 0.012), and speech or language disorders(p < 0.001) were all significantly associated with CHD. The severity of current heart condition (p < 0.001) also had a significant association with autism. MR analysis did not find causality between genetically proxied congenital cardiac malformations and the risk of NDDs.
Our study shows that children with CHD have an increased risk of developing NDDs. Heart conditions currently and severity of current heart conditions were also significantly associated with these NDDs. In the future, we need to try more methods to clarify the causal relationship between CHD and NDDs.
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IZUM, KILJ, NUK, PILJ, PNG, SAZU, UL, UM, UPUK
Necrotic enteritis (NE) causes huge economic losses to the poultry industry. Probiotics are used as potential alternatives to antibiotics to prevent NE. It is known that
Clostridium butyricum
can act ...as a probiotic that can prevent infection. However, whether or not it exerts a beneficial effect on NE in chickens remains elusive. Therefore, we investigated the impact of
C. butyricum
on immune response and intestinal microbiota during the development of NE in chickens, including experimental stages with basal diets, high-fishmeal-supplementation diets, and
Clostridium perfringens
challenge. Chickens were divided into two groups from day 1 to day 20: one group had its diet supplemented with
C. butyricum
supplementation and one did not. At day 20, the chickens were divided into four groups:
C. perfringens
challenged and unchallenged chickens with and without
C. butyricum
supplementation. All groups were fed a basal diet for 13 days and thereafter a basal diet with 50% fishmeal from day 14 to 24. Chickens were infected with
C. perfringens
from day 21 to 23. At days 13, 20 and 24, samples were collected for analysis of the relative expression of immune response and intestinal mucosa barrier-related genes and intestinal microbes. The results show that
C. butyricum
can inhibit the increase in IL-17A gene expression and the reduction in Claudin-1 gene induced-expression caused by
C. perfringens
challenge. Moreover,
C. butyricum
was found to increase the expression of anti-inflammatory IL-10 in infected chickens. Although
C. butyricum
was found to have a significant beneficial effect on the structure of intestinal bacteria in the basal diet groups and decrease the abundance of
C. perfringens
in the gut, it did not significantly affect the occurrence of intestinal lesions and did not significantly correct the shift in gut bacterial composition post
C. perfringens
infection. In conclusion, although
C. butyricum
promotes the expression of anti-inflammatory and tight junction protein genes and inhibits pro-inflammatory genes in
C. perfringens-
challenged chickens, it is not adequate to improve the structure of intestinal microbiota in NE chickens. Therefore, more effective schemes of
C. butyricum
supplementation to prevent and treat NE in chickens need to be identified.
In the field of social networks rumor control, finding the important nodes with the greatest propagating influence is of great practical importance to effectively control the propagation of rumors. ...In order to solve the problem that the network coupling information and information transfer mechanism in the existing node importance metric affects the accuracy of the metric, we propose a measure of node importance based on multiple feature fusion (MFF). The method uses an improved Dempster–Shafer evidence theory to fuse the centrality, transmissibility, and prestige measurement of nodes and rank the importance of nodes based on the fusion results. The proposed method was first evaluated against similar methods on six real networks in terms of robustness and vulnerability, as well as in terms of SIR propagation characteristics. Then, we simulated the changes in the number of users who believed the rumor after the rumor was propagated in three cases: before the control, after suppress rumors by random nodes, and after suppress rumors by important nodes. The experimental results show that the proposed method is more accurate for node importance measurement and more effective in rumor control.
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EMUNI, FIS, FZAB, GEOZS, GIS, IJS, IMTLJ, KILJ, KISLJ, MFDPS, NLZOH, NUK, OILJ, PNG, SAZU, SBCE, SBJE, SBMB, SBNM, UKNU, UL, UM, UPUK, VKSCE, ZAGLJ
The toll-like receptor 2 (TLR2)-mediated immune response is critical for host defense against
. There is evidence that TLR10, a TLR2 signaling modulator, may be involved in progression of ...tuberculosis (TB).
Using a self-validating case-control design, we tested for an association between seven
polymorphisms and susceptibility to TB in three independent series with two distinct populations. Single-nucleotide polymorphism (SNP) genotypes were determined by the SNPscan
method. Three genetic models (additive, dominant, and recessive) as well as multiple-SNP score analyses were used to evaluate the risk of TB associated with the
SNPs.
By comparing TB patients with healthy controls, we observed two SNPs (rs11466617 and rs4129009) that were associated with decreased risk of TB in the Tibetan population, but did not in the Chinese Han population. Further analysis demonstrated that the rs11466617 Chengdu cohort genotype served as a protective factor against the progression of latent TB infection (LTBI) to active TB under the recessive model. None of the SNPs were significantly different in comparisons of TB-uninfected people with LTBI individuals. Additionally, when the underlying four TB-associated loci were considered together in a multiple-SNP score analysis, we observed an allele dose-dependent decrease in TB risk in Tibetans.
Variants of
may show an ethnic specificity on susceptibility to TB in Tibetan individuals. rs11466617 affected the susceptibility to progress from LTBI to active TB disease, but was not associated with the establishment of LTBI after
exposure. More studies are needed to verify this genetic epidemiological result and unravel the role of
SNPs in the pathogenesis of TB.
This study investigated signaling pathways via which extracellular histones induce the pro-inflammatory cytokine tumor necrosis factor-α (TNF-α) release from the macrophage cell line RAW 264.7 and ...the anti-inflammatory efficacy of the antioxidant alpha-lipoic acid (ALA).
ELISA and western blotting analyses were conducted to detect the release of TNF-α from histone-stimulated RAW 264.7 macrophages and the associated phospho-activation of MAPKs (ERK and p38) and NF-κB p65. The effects of ALA on the release of TNF-α and phospho-activation of the MAPKs and NF-κB p65 were studied. P < 0.05 was considered statistically significant.
Extracellular histones dose-dependently induced TNF-α release from RAW 264.7 cells and increased the phosphorylation of p38, ERK, and NF-κB p65. TNF-α release was markedly suppressed by p38, ERK, and NF-kB inhibitors. ALA reduced histone-induced TNF-α release, ERK/p38 MAPK activation, and NF-kB activation without affecting macrophage viability.
Histones induce TNF-α release from macrophages by activating the MAPK and NF-kB signaling pathways, while ALA suppresses this response by inhibiting ERK, p38 and NF-kB. These findings identify potentially critical inflammatory signaling pathways in sepsis and molecular targets for sepsis treatment.
Tobacco smoking is a risk factor for tuberculosis but little is known about the relationship between tobacco smoking and drug-resistant tuberculosis (DR-TB). We undertook a systematic review and ...meta-analysis to quantitatively assess the association between DR-TB and tobacco smoking.
We searched for relevant studies in the Ovid MEDLINE, Embase, Cochrane Library, Web of Science, China National Knowledge Infrastructure, WANFANG, and WEIPU data-bases from inception to September 1, 2017. Results were expressed as odds ratios (ORs) with accompanying 95% CIs, and subgroup analyses were performed by study design, smoking type, DR-TB type, and multivariate analysis.
Thirty-three studies related to tobacco smoking and DR-TB were included. We found substantial evidence that tobacco smoking is associated with an increased risk of DR-TB (OR 1.57, 95% CI 1.33-1.86). Associations were also found in subgroup analyses: for multidrug-resistant tuberculosis (OR 1.49, 95% CI 1.19-1.86) and for any DR-TB (OR 1.70, 95% CI 1.3-2.23); the pooled OR was 1.45 (95% CI 1.11-1.90) for current smoking, 2.25 (95% CI 1.46-3.47) for past smoking, and 1.56 (95% CI 1.22-1.98) for smoking history; and similar ORs were also observed in study design and multivariate analysis subgroup analysis.
This study demonstrated that tobacco smoking is an independent risk factor for DR-TB.
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