We investigated whether ultra-processed foods affect energy intake in 20 weight-stable adults, aged (mean ± SE) 31.2 ± 1.6 years and BMI = 27 ± 1.5 kg/m2. Subjects were admitted to the NIH Clinical ...Center and randomized to receive either ultra-processed or unprocessed diets for 2 weeks immediately followed by the alternate diet for 2 weeks. Meals were designed to be matched for presented calories, energy density, macronutrients, sugar, sodium, and fiber. Subjects were instructed to consume as much or as little as desired. Energy intake was greater during the ultra-processed diet (508 ± 106 kcal/day; p = 0.0001), with increased consumption of carbohydrate (280 ± 54 kcal/day; p < 0.0001) and fat (230 ± 53 kcal/day; p = 0.0004), but not protein (−2 ± 12 kcal/day; p = 0.85). Weight changes were highly correlated with energy intake (r = 0.8, p < 0.0001), with participants gaining 0.9 ± 0.3 kg (p = 0.009) during the ultra-processed diet and losing 0.9 ± 0.3 kg (p = 0.007) during the unprocessed diet. Limiting consumption of ultra-processed foods may be an effective strategy for obesity prevention and treatment.
Display omitted
•20 inpatient adults received ultra-processed and unprocessed diets for 14 days each•Diets were matched for presented calories, sugar, fat, fiber, and macronutrients•Ad libitum intake was ∼500 kcal/day more on the ultra-processed versus unprocessed diet•Body weight changes were highly correlated with diet differences in energy intake
Hall et al. investigated 20 inpatient adults who were exposed to ultra-processed versus unprocessed diets for 14 days each, in random order. The ultra-processed diet caused increased ad libitum energy intake and weight gain despite being matched to the unprocessed diet for presented calories, sugar, fat, sodium, fiber, and macronutrients.
Abstract
The antifungal agent 5-fluorocytosine (5-FC) is used for the treatment of several mycoses, but is unsuitable for monotherapy due to the rapid development of resistance. Here, we show that ...cryptococci develop resistance to 5-FC at a high frequency when exposed to concentrations several fold above the minimal inhibitory concentration. The genomes of resistant clones contain alterations in genes relevant as well as irrelevant for 5-FC resistance, suggesting that 5-FC may be mutagenic at moderate concentrations. Mutations in
FCY2
(encoding a known permease for 5-FC uptake),
FCY1
,
FUR1
,
UXS1
(encoding an enzyme that converts UDP-glucuronic acid to UDP-xylose) and
URA6
contribute to 5-FC resistance. The
uxs1
mutants accumulate UDP-glucuronic acid, which appears to down-regulate expression of permease FCY2 and reduce cellular uptake of the drug. Additional mutations in genes known to be required for UDP-glucuronic acid synthesis (
UGD1
) or a transcriptional factor
NRG1
suppress UDP-glucuronic acid accumulation and 5-FC resistance in the
uxs1
mutants.
BACKGROUNDMirabegron is a β3-adrenergic receptor (β3-AR) agonist approved only for the treatment of overactive bladder. Encouraging preclinical results suggest that β3-AR agonists could also improve ...obesity-related metabolic disease by increasing brown adipose tissue (BAT) thermogenesis, white adipose tissue (WAT) lipolysis, and insulin sensitivity.METHODSWe treated 14 healthy women of diverse ethnicities (27.5 ± 1.1 years of age, BMI of 25.4 ± 1.2 kg/m2) with 100 mg mirabegron (Myrbetriq extended-release tablet, Astellas Pharma) for 4 weeks in an open-label study. The primary endpoint was the change in BAT metabolic activity as measured by 18F-2-fluoro-d-2-deoxy-d-glucose (18F-FDG) PET/CT. Secondary endpoints included resting energy expenditure (REE), plasma metabolites, and glucose and insulin metabolism as assessed by a frequently sampled intravenous glucose tolerance test.RESULTSChronic mirabegron therapy increased BAT metabolic activity. Whole-body REE was higher, without changes in body weight or composition. Additionally, there were elevations in plasma levels of the beneficial lipoprotein biomarkers HDL and ApoA1, as well as total bile acids. Adiponectin, a WAT-derived hormone that has antidiabetic and antiinflammatory capabilities, increased with acute treatment and was 35% higher upon completion of the study. Finally, an intravenous glucose tolerance test revealed higher insulin sensitivity, glucose effectiveness, and insulin secretion.CONCLUSIONThese findings indicate that human BAT metabolic activity can be increased after chronic pharmacological stimulation with mirabegron and support the investigation of β3-AR agonists as a treatment for metabolic disease.TRIAL REGISTRATIONClinicaltrials.gov NCT03049462.FUNDINGThis work was supported by grants from the Intramural Research Program of the NIDDK, NIH (DK075112, DK075116, DK071013, and DK071014).
In radiotherapy, air-filled ion chamber detectors are ubiquitously used in routine dose measurements for treatment planning. However, its use has been restricted by intrinsic low spatial resolution ...barriers. We developed one procedure for patient-specific quality assurance (QA) in arc radiotherapy by coalescing two adjacent measurement images into a single image to improve spatial resolution and sampling frequency, and investigated how different spatial resolutions affect the QA results. PTW 729 and 1500 ion chamber detectors were used for dosimetric verification via coalescing two measurements with 5 mm-couch shift and the isocenter, and only isocenter measurement, which we call coalescence and standard acquisition (SA). Statistical process control (SPC), process capability analysis (PCA), and receiver operating characteristic (ROC) curve were used to compare the performance of the two procedures in determining tolerance levels and identifying clinically relevant errors. By analyzing 1256 γ values calculated on interpolated data points, our results indicated that detector 1500 showed higher averages in coalescence cohorts at different tolerance criteria and the dispersion degrees were spread out smaller. Detector 729 yielded a slightly lower process capability of 0.79, 0.76, 1.10, and 1.34, but detector 1500 exhibited somewhat different results of 0.94, 1.42, 1.19, and 1.60 in magnitude. The results of SPC individual control chart showed that cases in coalescence cohorts with γ values lowering its lower control limit (LCL) were greater than those in SA cohorts for detector 1500. A combination of the width of multi-leaf collimator (MLC) leaf, the cross-sectional area of the single detector, and the spacing between adjacent detectors might lead to discrepancies in percent γ values across diverse spatial resolution scenarios. The accuracy of reconstructed volume dose is mainly determined by the interpolation algorithm used in dosimetric systems. The magnitude of filling factor in the ion chamber detectors determined its ability to detect dose deviations. SPC and PCA results indicated that coalescence procedure could detect more potential failure QA results than SA while enhancing action thresholds.
Leucine-responsive regulatory proteins (Lrps) are a family of transcription factors involved in diverse biological processes in bacteria. So far, molecular mechanism of Lrps for regulating ...antibiotics biosynthesis in actinomycetes remains largely unexplored. This study, for the first time in
Streptomyces lincolnensis
, identified an Lrp (named as SLCG_Lrp) associated with lincomycin production. SLCG_Lrp was validated to be a positive regulator for lincomycin biosynthesis by directly stimulating transcription of two structural genes (
lmbA
and
lmbV
), three resistance genes (
lmrA
,
lmrB
and
lmrC
), and a regulatory gene (
lmbU
) within the lincomycin biosynthetic gene (
lin
) cluster. SLCG_Lrp was transcriptionally self-inhibited and triggered the expression of its adjacent gene
SLCG_3127
encoding a LysE superfamily protein. Further, the binding site of SLCG_Lrp in the intergenic region of
SLCG_3127
and
SLCG_Lrp
was precisely identified. Inactivation of
SLCG_3127
in
S. lincolnensis
resulted in yield improvement of lincomycin, which was caused by intracellular accumulation of proline and cysteine. Arginine and phenylalanine were identified as specific regulatory ligands, respectively, to reduce and promote DNA-binding affinity of SLCG_Lrp. We further found that SLCG_Lrp was directly repressed by SLCG_2919, the first identified transcription factor outside
lin
cluster for lincomycin production. Therefore, our findings revealed SLCG_Lrp-mediated transcriptional regulation of lincomycin biosynthesis. This study extends the understanding of molecular mechanisms underlying lincomycin biosynthetic regulation.
Ubiquitination, catalyzed usually by a three-enzyme cascade (E1, E2, E3), regulates various eukaryotic cellular processes. E3 ligases are the most critical components of this catalytic cascade, ...determining both substrate specificity and polyubiquitination linkage specificity. Here, we reveal the mechanism of a naturally occurring E3-independent ubiquitination reaction of a unique human E2 enzyme UBE2E1 by solving the structure of UBE2E1 in complex with substrate SETDB1-derived peptide. Guided by this peptide sequence-dependent ubiquitination mechanism, we developed an E3-free enzymatic strategy SUE1 (sequence-dependent ubiquitination using UBE2E1) to efficiently generate ubiquitinated proteins with customized ubiquitinated sites, ubiquitin chain linkages and lengths. Notably, this strategy can also be used to generate site-specific branched ubiquitin chains or even NEDD8-modified proteins. Our work not only deepens the understanding of how an E3-free substrate ubiquitination reaction occurs in human cells, but also provides a practical approach for obtaining ubiquitinated proteins to dissect the biochemical functions of ubiquitination.
Abstract Multichannel meta-imaging, inspired by the parallel-processing capability of neuromorphic computing, offers considerable advancements in resolution enhancement and edge discrimination in ...imaging systems, extending even into the mid- to far-infrared spectrum. Currently typical multichannel infrared imaging systems consist of separating optical gratings or merging multi-cameras, which require complex circuit design and heavy power consumption, hindering the implementation of advanced human-eye-like imagers. Here, we present printable graphene plasmonic photodetector arrays driven by a ferroelectric superdomain for multichannel meta-infrared imaging with enhanced edge discrimination. The fabricated photodetectors exhibited multiple spectral responses with zero-bias operation by directly rescaling the ferroelectric superdomain instead of reconstructing the separated gratings. We also demonstrated enhanced and faster shape classification (98.1%) and edge detection (98.2%) using our multichannel infrared images compared with single-channel detectors. Our proof-of-concept photodetector arrays simplify multichannel infrared imaging systems and offer potential solutions in efficient edge detection in human-brain-type machine vision.
Large tumor suppressor 2 (LATS2), an important mediator of the cell apoptotic response pathway, has been linked to the progression of several cancers. Here, we described the molecular feature of ...LATS2 as a novel antitumor factor in liver cancer cells in vitro. Western blotting was used to detect the expression of LATS2 and its downstream factors. ELISA, immunofluorescence, and flow cytometry were used to evaluate the alterations of mitochondrial function in response to LATS2 overexpression. Adenovirus-loaded LATS2 and siRNA against DRP1 were transfected into liver cancer cells to overexpress LATS2 and knockdown DRP1 expression, respectively. The results of the present study demonstrated that overexpression of LATS2 was closely associated with more liver cancer cell death. Mechanistically, LATS2 overexpression increased the expression of DRP1, and DRP1 elevated mitochondrial division, an effect that was accompanied by mitochondrial dysfunction, including mitochondrial membrane potential reduction, mitochondrial respiratory complex downregulation, mitochondrial cyt-c release into the nucleus and mitochondrial oxidative injury. Moreover, LATS2 overexpression also initiated mitochondrial apoptosis, and this process was highly dependent on DRP1-related mitochondrial division. Molecular investigations demonstrated that LATS2 modulated DRP1 expression via the Wnt/β-catenin pathway. Inhibition of the Wnt/β-catenin pathway pregented LATS2-mediated DRP1 upregulation, ultimately sustaining mitochondrial function and cell viability in the presence of LATS2 overexpression. Altogether, the above data identify LATS2-Wnt/β-catenin/DRP1/mitochondrial division as a novel anticancer signaling pathway promoting cancer cell death, which might be an attractive therapeutic target for the treatment of hepatocellular carcinoma.
Organic heterojunctions are widely used in organic electronics and they are composed of semiconductors interfaced together. Good ordering in the molecular packing inside the heterojunctions is highly ...desired but it is still challenging to interface organic single crystals to form single-crystalline heterojunctions. Here, we describe how organic heterojunctions are formed by interfacing two single crystals from a droplet of a mixed solution containing two semiconductors. Based on crystallization of six organic semiconductors from a droplet on a substrate, two distinct crystallization mechanisms have been recognized in the sense that crystals form at either the top interface between the air and solution or the bottom interface between the substrate and solution. The preference for one interface rather than the other depends on the semiconductor–substrate pair and, for a given semiconductor, it can be switched by changing the substrate, suggesting that the preference is associated with the semiconductor–substrate molecular interaction. Furthermore, simultaneous crystallization of two semiconductors at two different interfaces to reduce their mutual disturbance results in the formation of bilayer single crystals interfaced together for organic heterojunctions. These single-crystalline heterojunctions exhibit ambipolar charge transport in field-effect transistors, with the highest electron mobility of 1.90 cm2 V–1 s–1 and the highest hole mobility of 1.02 cm2 V–1 s–1. Hence, by elucidating the interfacial crystallization events, this work should greatly harvest the solution-grown organic single-crystalline heterojunctions.
PDF
