To evaluate the effects of tetramethylpyrazine (TMP) on retinal neovascularization (NV) and neuroprotection in an oxygen-induced retinopathy (OIR) model.
Neonatal C57BL/6J mice were subjected to 75% ...oxygen from postnatal day 7 (P7) to P12 and then returned to room air. TMP (200 mg/kg) or normal saline was given daily from P12 to P17. Immunostaining, HE staining, TUNEL assay, and RT-PCR were used to assess the effects of TMP on retinal neurovascular repair.
TMP effectively prevented pathologic NV and accelerated physiologic revascularization by enhancing the formation of endothelial tip cells at the edges of the repairing capillary networks and preserving the astrocytic template in the avascular retina. TMP also prevented morphologic changes and significantly decreased TUNEL-positive cells in the avascular retina by rescuing neurons such as amacrine, rod bipolar, horizontal, and Müller cells. In TMP-treated mice retinas, there was a less obvious loss of amacrine cell bodies and their distinct bands; the number of both rod bipolar and horizontal cell bodies, as well as the density of their dendrites in the outer plexiform layer, was greater than that in OIR control mice. TMP not only decreased the loss of alignment of Müller cell bodies and distortion of processes but reduced the reactive expression of GFAP in Müller cells. Furthermore, HIF-1α and VEGF mRNA expression were downregulated in TMP-treated mice retinas.
TMP improved neurovascular recovery by preventing NV and protecting retinal astroglia cells and neurons from ischemia-induced cell death partially due to its downregulation of HIF-1α and VEGF mRNA expression.
Acute liver injury (ALI) is a life-threatening syndrome with few therapeutic drugs are available. Excessive inflammatory response and imbalance of the antioxidant system are the hallmark of ALI. ...Therefore, anti-inflammatory and anti-oxidant treatment would be beneficial for ALI. Pimpinella diversifolia DC. is a perennial aromatic herb of the Umbelliferae family. The whole herb has been used as a medicine for thousands of years by the She ethnic minority of China, and is claimed to have beneficial health effects on liver disease. Its roots are rich in essential oil, but there are few reports on its pharmacological study. Therefore, the aim of the current work was to reveal the hepatoprotective effects of P. diversifolia root essential oil (PDREO). PDREO was prepared by a simultaneous distillation–extraction method and characterized by gas chromatography–mass spectroscopy (GC–MS). The potential application of PDREO in detoxification of liver injury was evaluated using a lipopolysaccharide (LPS)- and D-galactosamine (D-GalN)-induced acute liver injury mouse model. The results showed that the major constituents of PDREO were isodaucene (29.97%), 4-methoxy-2-(3-methyloxiranyl)-phenyl isobutyrate (19.53%), geijerene isomer (12.33%), and 2-methyl-4-methoxy-2-(3-methyl-2-oxiranyl) phenyl butyrate (6.88%). Isodaucene was identified in the essential oil of the Pimpinella species for the first time. Pre-treatment with PDREO (50 mg/kg) and (150 mg/kg) can effectively reduce the serum levels of alanine aminotransferase and aspartate aminotransferase, and dramatically alleviate liver edema, hemorrhage, hepatocyte apoptosis, and necrosis, which may be attributed to the significant anti-inflammatory activity (inhibiting the secretion of inflammatory cytokines and chemokines and reducing the infiltration of monocyte-derived macrophages and neutrophils) and the regulatory effects on oxidative stress (upregulating the expression of antioxidant enzymes such as GPX4, SOD1, and CAT) of PDREO. In addition, PDREO (150 mg/kg) can completely block the death of mice induced by LPS/D-GalN, while the survival rate of mice treated with the clinical first-line drug N-acetylcysteine (300 mg/kg) was only 10%. In light of the results obtained, PDREO is a promising natural detoxification agent, with potential applications in the food and pharmaceutical industries.
Achieving a pre-designed scattering pattern from an ultra-compact platform is highly desired for on-chip integration optics, but conventional techniques suffer from the limitations of bulky size, ...wavelength-scale modulation and low efficiency. Here, we propose a new strategy to
generate arbitrary
scattering far-field patterns from surface-wave (SW) excitations on a designer Pancharatnam–Berry (PB) metasurface. We find that a PB meta-atom serves as a subwavelength scatter to decouple impinging SW to a
propagating wave (PW) with tailored amplitude and phase, and thus interference among PWs generated by scatterings at different PB meta-atoms can generate a tailored far-field pattern. As a proof of concept, we design and fabricate a series of PB metasurfaces in the microwave regime and experimentally demonstrate that they can generate desired radiation patterns within a broad frequency band, including unidirectional radiation, line/point focusing, vortex beam and hologram. These findings may stimulate important applications in on-chip integrated photonics.
Aim of study: A field study was conducted to assess responses of soil organic C (SOC) and total N (TN) to film mulching and manure, which were important in identifying the changes of SOC and TN.Area ...of study: A semiarid area in northwestern China.Material and methods: The field (soil classified as CumuliUstic Isohumosol) has been planted with spring maize (Zea mays L.) for years. Three treatments were: 1) NPK fertilization and no film mulching (CK), 2) NPK fertilization and film mulching (PF) and 3) film mulching and NPK fertilization combined with cow manure (OMF).Main results: Compared with CK, OMF significantly increased SOC and TN, while no significant effect was observed under PF. The average increases of SOC storage in OMF were 39.2% in 0-10 cm layer and 34.3% in 10-20 cm layer. The average increases of TN storage were 37.6% in 0-10 cm layer and 31.3% in 10-20 cm layer, relative to CK. Compared with the initial SOC (8.86 g/kg) and TN (0.99 g/kg), CK and PF decreased 1.4% and 6.9% of SOC, and 9.1% and 17.2% of TN, whereas OMF increased SOC and TN. The SOC/TN was not affected by treatments but slight increase was observed since the beginning of experiment. Both PF and OMF significantly increased maize grain yields (on average 45.8% and 75.7%, respectively) compared with CK.Research highlights: Manure combined with film mulching significantly increased soil C and N, ameliorating harmful effects of plastic film mulching, improving soil fertility in the long term and increasing crop yields.
The proper promotion of a deep root system is important for maize cultivation to improve water use efficiency in the arid and semi-arid Loess Plateau. Here, a field experiment was conducted to assess ...the effect of combined controlled release urea and normal urea on root growth and water extraction of maize in dryland fields. Maize in the combined controlled release urea and normal urea treatment had greater root systems compared to those in the normal urea treatment and no N application treatment. Compared to the urea treatment, combined controlled release urea and normal urea advanced the root length density and root weight density in the 0–10 cm soil layer at R1 stage by 30.99% and 45.03% in 2016 and by 20.54% and 19.13% in 2017. The root length density also increased at the dent stage (R5) by 52.05% and 47.75% in 2016 and 2017, and root weight density increased by 19.58% in 2016. Combined controlled release urea and normal urea promoted production of fine roots and root distribution, as well as decreased soil water storage (SWS) in the deep soil layer at the R5 stage. The grain yield was positively correlated with root length density and root weight density in the topsoil layer at the silking stage (R1) and in the whole soil profile at the R5 stage, suggesting that better root system management is helpful for increasing crop grain yield. Therefore, this work demonstrates that combined use of controlled release urea and normal urea to higher crop yields might attribute to increasing water extraction by optimizing in-season maize root morphology and distribution in the rainfed farmland of the Loess Plateau.
As a minimally invasive drug delivery platform, microneedles (MNs) overcome many drawbacks of the conventional transdermal drug delivery systems, therefore are favorable in biomedical applications. ...Microneedles with a combined burst and sustained release profile and maintained therapeutic molecular bioactivity could further broaden its applications as therapeutics. Here, we developed a double-network microneedles (DN MNs) based on gelatin methacrylate and acellular neural matrix (GelMA-ACNM). ACNM could function as an early drug release matrix, whereas the addition of GelMA facilitates sustained drug release. In particular, the double-network microneedles comprising GelMA-ACNM hydrogel has distinctive biological features in maintaining drug activity to meet the needs of application in treating different diseases. In this study, we prepared the double-network microneedles and evaluated its morphology, mechanical properties, drug release properties and biocompatibility, which shows great potential for delivery of therapeutic molecules that needs different release profiles in transdermal treatment.
Abstract
Regenerative braking is one of the most important methods to solve the difficulty of energy loss in city driving. The dual-motor pure electric vehicle is considered to be the object of study ...with the goal of energy utilization of the reproductive system of braking. The PSO (particle swarm optimization) algorithm is adopted to solve the problems under these constraints of ECE-R13 braking regulations and I-curve. The results of the simulation indicate that compared to the conventional braking tactic of AVL CRUISE, the energy renewal effect of the steering strategy is raised by almost 19.24% and the driving distance is increased by as much as 23.8%.
Water and phosphorus (P) are often unevenly distributed in the soil profile, thus limiting water and P uptake and plant growth. A soil column and a split‐root experiment were conducted to quantify ...the effect of localized water and P supply on shoot growth, root morphology, specific P uptake (SPU), P‐use efficiency (PUE), and water‐use efficiency (WUE) of maize (Zea mays L.). Our results indicate that roots preferentially grow in the layer or compartment with both adequate water and P supply, subsequently stimulating SPU, PUE, and WUE, and enhancing shoot growth. Compared with the treatments in which both layers and compartments were supplied with adequate P and/or water, the growth of maize was maintained or minimally affected. SPU, PUE, and WUE were increased when both P and water were supplied in one layer or one compartment only. These findings show that normal plant growth with an adequate P uptake was achieved even if part of the roots were supplied with 2/3 (soil column experiment) and 1/2 (split‐root experiment) of the phosphorus and water supplied in the full‐phosphorus and full‐water treatment. Changes in root morphology under water stress conditions induced by the application of phosphorus and water in deeper soil layers or to a part of the roots may have substantial practical implications for agricultural production and environmental protection.
Purpose To evaluate the long-term outcomes of vitrectomy for progressive X-linked retinoschisis. Design Prospective, nonrandomized, consecutive, interventional case series. Methods Twenty-eight eyes ...of 22 patients who were diagnosed with progressive X-linked retinoschisis were divided into 2 groups: a nonsurgical group (n = 11) and a vitrectomy group (n = 17). The main outcome measures included best-corrected visual acuity, the area of the macular schisis cavity measured by optical coherence tomography, the retinal anatomic status, and complications. Results The mean follow-up period was 34.7 months (range, 10 to 68 months). The mean best-corrected visual acuity increased from 20/125 at baseline to 20/55 at the final follow-up in the vitrectomy group ( P = .001), but decreased from 20/100 at baseline to 20/400 at the final follow-up in the nonsurgical group ( P = .000). In the vitrectomy group, the macular schisis cavity resolved in all 17 eyes; the mean area of the macular schisis cavity decreased from 0.85 mm2 at baseline to 0.23 mm2 at the final follow-up ( P = .000), and the retinas of 16 eyes (94%) were attached after surgery. In the nonsurgical group, retinal schisis progressively extended in 9 eyes (82%); the mean area of the macular schisis cavity increased from 0.82 mm2 at baseline to 1.21 mm2 at the final follow-up ( P = .000); in 8 eyes (72%), retinal detachment developed, and 2 eyes (18%) experienced vitreous hemorrhage, which terminated the observations. Conclusions Vitrectomy may be an effective and essential treatment for patients with progressive X-linked retinoschisis to prevent a deterioration of vision before severe complications developed in their eyes.
The human ErbB family of receptor tyrosine kinases comprises the epidermal growth factor receptor (EGFR/ErbB1/HER1), ErbB2 (HER2 Neu), ErbB3 (HER3), and ErbB4 (HER4). ErbBs play fundamental roles in ...cell growth and differentiation events in embryonic and adult tissues, and inappropriate ErbB activity has been implicated in several human cancers. We report here the 2.4 Å crystal structure of the extracellular region of human ErbB4 in the absence of ligand and show that it adopts a tethered conformation similar to inactive forms of ErbB1 and ErbB3. This structure completes the gallery of unliganded ErbB receptors and demonstrates that all human ligand-binding ErbBs adopt the autoinhibited conformation. We also show that the binding of neuregulin-1β to ErbB4 and ErbB3 and the binding of betacellulin to both ErbB4 and ErbB1 does not decrease at low pH, unlike the binding of epidermal growth factor and transforming growth factor-α to ErbB1. These results indicate an important role for ligand in determining pH-dependent binding and may explain different responses observed when the same ErbB receptor is stimulated by different ligands.
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