Background As a bioactive metabolite preparation widely used in acute ischemic stroke (AIS), the efficacy and safety of Panax notoginseng saponins injections (PNSI) in patients with AIS after ...intravenous thrombolysis remain to be evaluated. Methods This study included randomized controlled trials published before 26 April 2024 in 8 databases. AIS patients who received intravenous thrombolysis were included. The control group receiving conventional treatment and the treatment group receiving additional PNSI. Primary outcomes were selected as mortality, disability, and adverse events. Secondary outcomes were selected as all-cause mortality, improvement of neurological deficit, quality of life, and cerebral injury indicators. The revised Cochrane Risk of Bias tool was used to assess risk of bias. Risk ratio (RR) and mean differences (MD) were calculated for binary variables and continuous variables, respectively, based on a 95% confidence interval (CI). Results A total of 20 trials involving 1,856 participants were included. None of them reported mortality or disability. There was no significant difference in the adverse events RR: 1.04; 95% CI: 0.60 to 1.81 and hemorrhagic transformation RR: 0.99; 95% CI: 0.36 to 2.70 between the two groups. Compared to the control group, the treatment group had a better effect in neurological improvement assessed by National Institutes of Health Stroke Scale MD: −2.91; 95% CI: −4.76 to −1.06, a better effect in activities of daily living changes in Barthel Index MD: 9.37; 95% CI: 1.86 to 16.88, and a lower serum neuron-specific enolase level MD: −2.08; 95% CI: −2.67 to −1.49. Conclusion For AIS patients undergoing intravenous thrombolysis, the use of PNSI improved neurological deficits and enhanced activity of daily living in the short term without increasing the occurrence rate of adverse events. However, due to the moderate to very low certainty of evidence, it is advisable to conduct high-quality clinical trials to validate the findings of this study. Systematic Review Registration https://www.crd.york.ac.uk/prospero/display_record.php?RecordID=466851 , Identifier CRD42023466851
Exploring the characteristics of safety risks is crucial for deeply understanding and promoting traffic construction safety. Bridge and tunnel construction engineering is of high risk, which has been ...studied separately, while mega traffic engineering projects often combine them, leading to increased complexity. In this study, a research framework is proposed to explore the risk characteristics of bridge-tunnel hybrid construction engineering, which can be applied in other types of hybrid constructions. The real data with respect to 67 typical bridge and 64 tunnel accidents was collected from the database of a large traffic construction enterprise in China. 146 risk factors and 326 trigger relations are extracted to establish bridge and tunnel construction risk subnetworks. Moreover, a whole risk network is established by combing the two subnetworks together,. With the network scale, diameter, and other metrics, the properties of the risk networks are revealed. The critical risk factors in the construction of bridges and tunnels are identified. The results show that most of the accidents are attributed to management and worker factors, while purely environmental factors do not significantly contribute to the occurrence of the accidents. The results provide some prevention and post-remedy safety suggestions for the management of bridge and tunnel construction.
Late embryogenesis abundant (LEA) proteins were reported to be related to adversity stress and drought tolerance. Lea-3 from Arachis hypogaea L. (AhLea-3) was previously found to be related to salt ...tolerance according to the result of transcriptome profiling and digital gene expression analysis. So, AhLea-3 was cloned and the salt tolerance was validated by transgenic peanut plants.
AhLea-3 was isolated from M34, a salt-resistant mutant of peanut, with its cDNA as the template. AhLea-3 contains one intron and two extrons, and the full-length cDNA sequence contains 303 bp. AhLea-3 was ligated to pCAMBIA1301 to obtain the overexpression vector pCAMBIA1301-AhLea-3, which was then transferred into peanut variety Huayu23. The expression level of AhLea-3, as determined by qRT-PCR analysis, was >10 times higher in transgenic than in non-transgenic plants. Five days after they were irrigated with 250 mM NaCl, the transgenic plants showed less severe leaf wilting, higher activities of antioxidant enzymes (superoxide dismutase, peroxidase, and catalase), and lower malonic dialdehyde content than non-transgenic plants. Relative to non-transgenic plants, the transgenic plants had a higher photosynthetic net rate, stomatal conductance, and transpiration rate, and a lower intercellular CO2 concentration after salt stress treatment (250 mM NaCl).
These results indicate that overexpression of AhLea-3 increased the salt tolerance of transgenic peanut plants. AhLea-3 might become a useful gene resource for the variety breeding of salinity tolerance in peanut.
How to cite: Qiao L, Jiang P, Tang Y, et al. Characterization of AhLea-3 and its enhancement of salt tolerance in transgenic peanut plants. Electron J Biotechnol 2021;49. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.ejbt.2020.10.006
Effective safety management significantly influences the success of construction projects. Comprehensive standards are developed to ensure a fundamental safety level. However, improving the standard ...system requires an effective evaluation method to assess its coverage of construction risks. This challenge arises due to the intricate relationships between risks and standards. Addressing this issue, this paper introduces a dual-layer network analytical framework for evaluating standard systems in construction safety management. By utilizing various property metrics and four dedicated node metrics, the framework allows quantifying the extent to which a standard system addresses project-specific risk factors. The efficacy of the analytical framework is validated through a case study, revealing that the management mechanism of a standard system primarily manifests in the overall management of specific risks and associated risks with triggering relationships. It is observed that key standards often encompass a wider array of risks. Based on the findings, this paper offers suggestions for revising construction standards.
•A data-driven framework for designing safety-enhancing strategies is proposed.•The metrics for identifying critical risk factors are designed.•The risk attributes of bridge-tunnel hybrid ...construction projects are analyzed.•The effectiveness of safety-enhancing strategies is verified.•Critical conclusions and corresponding managerial suggestions are offered.
Risk management is crucial and indispensable to the success of projects, while identifying critical risks is the fundamental step in devising the corresponding safety measures. To fully exploit the value of richly accumulated accidental cases, this paper presents a data-driven research framework for proposing effective safety enhancing strategies based on risk networks in construction engineering, spanning the whole process from extracting accident chains from accidents to construct a risk network to devising safety measures. Aiming at the weighted heterogeneity of the risk network, both the performance metrics at network level and critical-risk identification metrics at node level are deliberately designed. These metrics then enable the proposing of a series of safety-enhancing strategies. In the case study, based on the accident-related data in China’s bridge-and-tunnel hybrid projects, different safety-enhancing strategies are compared through simulation experiments and analyzed to verify their effectiveness on optimizing costs and improving safety. Finally, based on results from simulations, relevant managerial suggestions are proposed.
Peanut (Arachis hypogaea L.) is an allotetraploid oilseed crop worldwide due to its abundant high-quality oil production. Peanut oil stability and quality are determined by the relative proportions ...of saturated fatty acids (SFAs) and unsaturated fatty acids (UFAs). The principle approach to minimize the content of SFAs in peanut is to reduce the content of palmitic acid, which is linked to cardiovascular disease. Acyl-acyl carrier protein thioesterases (FATs) determine the types and levels of fatty acids that are exported them from the plastids. Two different classes of FAT have been classified into two families in plants, FatA and FatB. Among them, AhFatB has become the primary objective to genetically reduce the content of palmitic acid in peanut. Here, we identified 18 AhFatB genes in A. hypogaea genome and grouped into four major subfamilies through gene structures and phylogenetic relationships. Expression profiling of AhFatB genes was assessed using the publicly available RNA-seq data and qRT-PCR in 22 tissues. Using the CRISPR/Cas9 system, we designed two sgRNAs to edit the homologs AhFatB genes Arahy.4E7QKU and Arahy.L4EP3N, and identified different types of mutations. Additionally, we discovered mutations at Arahy.4E7QKU exhibited low palmitic acid and high oleic acid phenotypes. The obtained peanut mutants with altered SFAs content have great potential for improving peanut oil quality for human health.
•A total of 18 AhFatB members were characterized in Arachis hypogaea L.•Mutations of AhFatB showed low palmitic and high oleic acid using CRISPR/Cas9 system.•AhFatB determined the oil profile and improved oil quality in peanut.
Ginkgo biloba is a traditional Chinese medicine extracted from the Ginkgophyta and is commonly used in the treatment of cardiovascular diseases in China. Clinical trials have demonstrated the ...clinical benefits of Ginkgo biloba extract (GBE) preparations for patients with unstable angina pectoris (UAP).
The efficacy of different GBE preparations in treating UAP may vary, leading to a lack of guidance for physicians when choosing GBE preparations. How to make choices among different GBE preparations is a topic worthy of investigation. In order to clarify the efficacy differences among different GBE preparations, provide a reference for their optimal use conditions, this study was conducted.
This study included literature from eight databases from inception to November 2023. It included UAP patients, with the control group receiving conventional treatment and the treatment group receiving different GBE preparations in addition to conventional treatment. Angina efficacy, electrocardiogram (ECG) improvement, and frequency of angina were chosen as outcomes. This study employed a systematic review and Bayesian network meta-analysis, and the surface under the cumulative ranking (SUCRA) curve was used for estimating the efficacy ranking.
A total of 98 studies involving 9513 patients and 9 interventions were included. Compared with conventional treatment, GBE preparations combined with conventional treatment had better efficacy in angina symptoms and ECG improvement. According to the SUCRA ranking, Shuxuening injection was most effective in improving angina symptoms and reducing the frequency of angina. Among oral GBE preparations, Ginkgo tablets had the best performance in improving angina symptoms and ECG manifestations, and reducing the frequency of angina. There was no significant difference in the incidence of adverse events between the treatment group and the control group, and all adverse events were mild and self-limiting. Compared with oral preparations, the incidence of adverse events for injections was higher.
GBE preparations may alleviate angina symptoms and myocardial ischemia in the treatment of UAP with favorable safety. Shuxuening injection may be the most effective among all GBE preparations in improving angina symptoms, while Ginkgo tablets may perform best among oral formulations. The optimal use of GBE injection may be for rapidly alleviating angina symptoms and myocardial ischemia in patients with UAP, and oral formulation of GBE may be more suitable for the long-term treatment of patients with milder symptoms.
https://www.crd.york.ac.uk/prospero/display_record.php?ID=CRD42022361487, ID: CRD42022361487.
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Lithium metal batteries are vital devices for high-energy-density energy storage, but the Li metal anode is highly reactive with electrolyte and forms uncontrolled dendrite that can cause undesirable ...parasitic reactions and, thus, poor cycling stability and raise safety concerns. Despite remarkable progress to partially solve these issues, the Li metal still plates at the electrode/electrolyte interface where the parasitic reactions and dendrite formation invariably occur. Here, we demonstrate the inward-growth plating of Li atoms into a metal foil of thickness of tens of micrometers while avoiding surface deposition, which is driven by the reversible solid–solution-based alloy phase change. Lithiation of the solid–solution alloy phase allows the freshly generated Li atoms at the surface to sink into the metal foil, while the reversible alloy phase change is companied by the dealloying reaction during delithiation, which extracts Li atoms from inside of the metal foil. The yielded dendrite free Li anode produces an enhanced Coulombic efficiency of 99.5 ± 0.2% with a reversible capacity of 1660 mA h g–1 (3.3 mA h cm–2).
Abstract
Few-layer black phosphorus (BP) with an anisotropic two-dimensional (2D)-layered structure shows potential applications in photoelectric conversion and photocatalysis, but is easily oxidized ...under ambient condition preferentially at its edge sites. Improving the ambient stability of BP nanosheets has been fulfilled by chemical functionalization, however this functionalization is typically non-selective. Here we show that edge-selective functionalization of BP nanosheets by covalently bonding stable C
60
molecules leads to its significant stability improvement. Owing to the high stability of the hydrophobic C
60
molecule, C
60
functions as a sacrificial shield and effectively protects BP nanosheets from oxidation under ambient condition. C
60
bonding leads to a rapid photoinduced electron transfer from BP to C
60
, affording enhanced photoelectrochemical and photocatalytic activities. The selective passivation of the reactive edge sites of BP nanosheets by sacrificial C
60
molecules paves the way toward ambient processing and applications of BP.
CLASPIN is an essential mediator in the DNA replication checkpoint, responsible for ATR (ataxia telangiectasia and Rad3-related protein)-dependent activation of CHK1 (checkpoint kinase 1). Here we ...found a dynamic signaling pathway that regulates CLASPIN turn over. Under unperturbed conditions, the E3 ubiquitin ligase HERC2 regulates the stability of the deubiquitinating enzyme USP20 by promoting ubiquitination-mediated proteasomal degradation. Under replication stress, ATR-mediated phosphorylation of USP20 results in the disassociation of HERC2 from USP20. USP20 in turn deubiquitinates K48-linked-polyubiquitinated CLASPIN, stabilizing CLASPIN and ultimately promoting CHK1 phosphorylation and CHK1-directed checkpoint activation. Inhibition of USP20 expression promotes chromosome instability and xenograft tumor growth. Taken together, our findings demonstrated a novel function of HERC2/USP20 in coordinating CHK1 activation by modulating CLASPIN stability, which ultimately promotes genome stability and suppresses tumor growth.
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