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•A newly acid-resistant strain JR1 was isolated from pharmaceutical wastewater.•A high nitrogen removal could be achieved by JR1 under the acidic condition.•Nitrate began to be ...utilized as substitute N-source after exhausting of ammonium.•Ammonium was utilized through assimilation along with heterotrophic nitrification.
A new acid-resistant bacterium Acinetobacter sp. JR1 was isolated, and its feasibility in nitrogen removal was investigated under acidic condition. Results show that JR1 indicated excellent ammonium and nitrate removal abilities with no accumulation of intermediates, and the maximum ammonium and nitrate removal efficiencies were 98.5% and 91.1%, respectively. Further experiments demonstrated that JR1 preferred to use ammonium with ammonium and nitrate as the mixed N-sources. For JR1, ammonium was assimilated directly as nutrients into cells and also converted into N2 through heterotrophic nitrification-aerobic denitrification. Under acidic condition, JR1 performed comparable nitrogen removal abilities to other strains under neutral or weak alkaline environment, and the efficient removal of ammonium occurred at pH 4.5–10, C/N 12–24, 20–40 °C, DO ≥4.72 mg/L, 0–1.5% of salinity, 10 mg/L Zn2+ or 20 mg/L Mn2+. All these make JR1 a promising candidate for treating acidic wastewater containing nitrogen.
Gamma-ray Burst (GRB) collimation has been inferred with the observations of achromatic steepening in GRB light curves, known as jet breaks. Identifying a jet break from a GRB afterglow light curve ...allows a measurement of the jet opening angle and true energetics of GRBs. In this paper, we re-investigate this problem using a large sample of GRBs that have an optical jet break that is consistent with being achromatic in the X-ray band. Our sample includes 99 GRBs from 1997 February to 2015 March that have optical and, for Swift GRBs, X-ray light curves that are consistent with the jet break interpretation. Out of the 99 GRBs we have studied, 55 GRBs are found to have temporal and spectral behaviors both before and after the break, consistent with the theoretical predictions of the jet break models, respectively. These include 53 long/soft (Type II) and 2 short/hard (Type I) GRBs. Only 1 GRB is classified as the candidate of a jet break with energy injection. Another 41 and 3 GRBs are classified as the candidates with the lower and upper limits of the jet break time, respectively. Most jet breaks occur at 90 ks, with a typical opening angle θj = (2.5 1.0)°. This gives a typical beaming correction factor f b − 1 ∼ 1000 for Type II GRBs, suggesting an even higher total GRB event rate density in the universe. Both isotropic and jet-corrected energies have a wide span in their distributions: log(Eγ,iso/erg) = 53.11 with = 0.84; log(EK,iso/erg) = 54.82 with = 0.56; log(Eγ/erg) = 49.54 with = 1.29; and log(EK/erg) = 51.33 with = 0.58. We also investigate several empirical correlations (Amati, Frail, Ghirlanda, and Liang-Zhang) previously discussed in the literature. We find that in general most of these relations are less tight than before. The existence of early jet breaks and hence small opening angle jets, which were detected in the Swfit era, is most likely the source of scatter. If one limits the sample to jet breaks later than 104 s, the Liang-Zhang relation remains tight and the Ghirlanda relation still exists. These relations are derived from Type II GRBs, and Type I GRBs usually deviate from them.
Abstract
Introduction/Aims
Brachial plexus injury can seriously affect distal target muscle function, and long‐term denervation leads to irreversible structural damage. In the present study, we ...examined the effect of hemin, a heme oxygenase‐1 (HO‐1) inducer, on intrinsic forepaw muscle atrophy induced by pan‐plexus injury in juvenile rats, as well as its underlying mechanism.
Methods
A global brachial plexus avulsion (GBPA) model of rat was established, and thirty 6‐wk‐old male rats were randomly divided into five groups: control, GBPA plus scramble small intering RNA (siRNA), GBPA plus scramble siRNA plus hemin, GBPA plus HO‐1 siRNA, and GBPA plus HO‐1 siRNA plus hemin. Hemin (50 mg/kg) was administered intraperitoneally once daily and the siRNA (5 μg) was injected intramuscularly twice a week. Intrinsic forepaw muscles were used for analysis. Myofiber cross‐sectional area (CSA), capillary‐to‐fiber ratio (C/F), and fiber‐type composition were assessed. The levels of inflammatory factors, ubiquitin‐protein ligases, and autophagy‐related proteins were also measured.
Results
We found that hemin treatment could effectively ameliorate denervated intrinsic forepaw muscle atrophy and suppress type I to II myofiber‐type conversion. Hemin treatment failed to prevent muscle capillary loss after denervation. The levels of inflammatory factors (tumor necrosis factor alpha TNFα and interleukin 6 IL‐6), ubiquitin‐protein ligases (MuRF‐1 and MAFbx), and autophagy‐related proteins (BNIP3 and LC3B‐II/I ratio) were increased by denervation and HO‐1 therapy attenuated the increment.
Discussion
Upregulation of HO‐1 might potentially be an effective strategy to alleviate denervation‐related muscle atrophy and might be a promising adjunctive treatment to improve hand function in children with pan‐plexus injury.
L., an ancient dioecious gymnosperm, is now cultivated worldwide for landscaping and medical purposes. A novel biflavonoid-amentoflavone 7''-O-β-D-glucopyranoside (
)-and four known biflavonoids were ...isolated and identified from the male flowers of
. The anti-proliferative activities of five biflavonoids were evaluated on different cancer lines. Bilobetin (
) and isoginkgetin (
) exhibited better anti-proliferative activities on different cancer lines. Their effects were found to be cell-specific and in a dose and time dependent manner for the most sensitive HeLa cells. The significant morphological changes validated their anticancer effects in a dose-dependent manner. They were capable of arresting the G2/M phase of the cell cycle, inducing the apoptosis of HeLa cells dose-dependently and activating the proapoptotic protein Bax and the executor caspase-3. Bilobetin (
) could also inhibit the antiapoptotic protein Bcl-2. These might be the mechanism underlying their anti-proliferation. In short, bilobetin (
) and isoginkgetin (
) might be the early lead compounds for new anticancer agents.
Immunogenic cell death (ICD) is a rare immunostimulatory form of cell death that can improve the clinical outcomes of chemo‐immunotherapeutic combination regimens through the establishment of a ...long‐term cancer immunity. None of the clinically used DNA‐binding PtII complexes is considered a Type II ICD inducer. We generated a series of PtII‐carbene complexes by applying minor structural alterations to the scaffold of a Type II ICD inducer Pt‐NHC and compared their efficiency in triggering ICD‐related cellular responses and phagocytosis. We successfully identified PlatinER, a novel highly potent PtII candidate with superior ICD properties. Crucially, the magnitude of ICD‐associated phagocytosis induced upon exposure of cancer cells to Pt complexes was dependent on the levels of ER‐localized reactive oxygen species (ROS) generation, which underpins their mechanisms of action and provides a feasible approach for the design of more effective Type II ICD inducers.
A platinum(II)‐carbene Type II immunogenic cell death (ICD) inducer, PlatinER, promotes phagocytosis by immune cells via release of ICD‐associated DAMPs, including surface exposure of calreticulin and HSP‐90. By comparing its activity against a panel of structurally analogous PtII‐carbene analogues, we determined that PlatinER acts by invoking a partial endoplasmic reticulum (ER) stress response through localised generation of reactive oxygen species in the ER.
An efficient formation of synthetically and biologically relevant β‐ketosulfones via a photo‐mediated decarboxylative ketonization of atropic acids was disclosed. The approach features metal‐free ...conditions, good functional group compatibility, readily available starting materials and the use of ubiquitous dioxygen as both oxygen source and oxidant. Furthermore, mechanistic studies reveal that the decarboxylative ketonization reaction proceeds via a radical mechanism and may involve a radical chain reaction.
In this work, the effects of calcium chloride (CaCl2) concentration on the creep-recovery, linear and nonlinear rheological behavior of nanocellulose gels had been investigated to quantify gel ...properties. The absolute zeta potential of nanocellulose gels were decreased as the CaCl2 concentration increased, which was related to the electrostatic repulsion that origin from carboxyl group could be effectively screened with increasing CaCl2 concentration. Rheological measurements further confirmed this result for nanocellulose gels, which revealed that the increased modulus and viscoelastic properties were obtained in the presence of CaCl2. The rheological properties of nanocellulose gels were showed to depend on CaCl2 concentration. The enhanced gel network structure was related to the Ca2+ ions that promoted crosslink between nanocellulose by salt bridge. This work highlighted the potential of using electrostatic complexation between nanocellulose and Ca2+ ions to form gels, and demonstrated the tunability of the rheological behavior by adjusting the concentration of CaCl2.
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•The creep-recovery, linear, and nonlinear rheological behavior of nanocellulose gels were studied.•An enhanced gel network structure was formed with increase of CaCl2 concentration.•Nanocellulose gels showed less deformable network structure in the presence of CaCl2.•Nanocellulose gels exhibited different nonlinear behavior at large strain amplitude.
Abstract
It is well known that most gamma-ray bursts (GRBs) are dominated by positive spectral lags, while a small fraction of GRBs show negative lags. However, Wei et al. first identified a ...well-defined transition from positive lags to negative lags in GRB 160625B, and then got robust limits on a possible violation of Lorentz invariance (LIV) based on the observation. Recently, such a transition has been found in three different emission episodes in GRB 190530A by Gunapati et al., which provides us a great opportunity to investigate whether the transition results from LIV-induced observed spectral lags. Our analysis shows that the LIV model cannot be compatible with the current observations, whereas, only the spectral evolution induced spectral lags could responsible for the transition. So, spectral evolution can also explain the positive to negative lag in GRB 190530A.
Cadmium (Cd), one of the most toxic environmental and industrial pollutants, is known to exert gonadotoxic and spermiotoxic effects. In the present study, we examined the toxic effect of Cd on the ...testis of freshwater crab, Sinopotamon henanense. Crabs were exposed to different Cd concentrations (from 0 to 116.00 mg·L(-1)) for 7 d. Oxidative stress and apoptotic changes in the testes were detected. The activities of SOD, GPx and CAT initially increased and subsequently decreased with increasing Cd concentrations, which was accompanied with the increase in malondialdehyde (MDA) and H(2)O(2) content in a concentration-dependent manner. Typical morphological characteristic and physiological changes of apoptosis were observed using a variety of methods (HE staining, AO/EB double fluorescent staining, Transmission Electron Microscope observation and DNA fragmentation analysis), and the activities of caspase-3 and caspase-9 were increased in a concentration-dependent manner after Cd exposure. These results led to the conclusion that Cd could induced oxidative damage as well as apoptosis in the testis, and the apoptotic processes may be mediated via mitochondria-dependent apoptosis pathway by regulating the activities of caspase-3 and caspase-9.