The growth hormone/insulin-like growth factor (GH/IGF) system, also called the pituitary-liver axis, has a somatotrophic role in the body. Although the GH/IGF system has always been regarded as a ...vertebrate-specific endocrine system, its actual origin remained unknown for a long time. The basal chordate, amphioxus, occupies an evolutionary position between vertebrates and invertebrates. Impressively, most of the members of the GH/IGF system are present in the amphioxus. The GH-like molecule in the amphioxus is mainly expressed in Hatschek's pit. It functions similarly to vertebrate GH and has a GH receptor-like binding partner. The amphioxus IGF-like peptide shows mitogenic activity and an expression pattern resembling that of vertebrate IGF-I. The receptor of IGF-like peptide and IGF binding protein (IGFBP) have also been demonstrated to exist in the amphioxus. These results reveal the origin of the gene families in the GH/IGF system, providing strong evidence that this system emerged in the amphioxus.
This paper uses deep learning algorithms to detect and extract student behavioral features in the Civics classroom. It first predicts and detects the target location and behavior of students in ...classroom images by FastR-CNN algorithm, extracts the detected student data features by MSResNet-50 algorithm, and then introduces the attention mechanism to screen the extracted behavioral features, and analyzes the accurate location information and channel information to get the student’s behavioral performance in the Civics classroom. The Civics element framework is used to construct a digital transformation path for Civics courses in this study. In order to reflect the value of the digital transformation of Civics teaching, the study conducted a teaching comparison practice. After a semester’s test, the Civics scores of the students in the five classes were above 80 (good or excellent). In contrast, the mean score of Civic Literacy in the post-test reached 3.863, which was significantly different from that before the practice (p=0.007<0.05). The value of “student-initiated speaking” behavior was higher than 45 in the practice class, and the student’s participation in the class was much higher than that in the control class. Analysis of the effect of teaching implementation found that the motivation score of students in class E increased from 3.511 to 4.957, with a significant difference (p=0.048<0.05). It was also found that the posttest score of “value concept” of students’ Civics literacy increased by 21.19%, and the score of “honesty and friendliness” also increased by 0.959 points. The massive amount of digital information generated by the implementation of the digital Civics teaching path in this paper may affect the student’s ability to think independently. However, the results achieved by the teaching path still provide reference ideas for the innovation of Civics teaching and reference data for the value and significance of the path’s implementation.
Electrodynamic therapy (EDT) has recently emerged as a potential external field responsive approach for tumor treatment. While it presents a number of clear superiorities, EDT inherits the intrinsic ...challenges of current reactive oxygen species (ROS) based therapeutic treatments owing to the complex tumor microenvironment, including glutathione (GSH) overexpression, acidity and others. Herein for the first time, iron oxide nanoparticles are decorated using platinum nanocrystals (Fe.sub.3O.sub.4@Pt NPs) to integrate the current EDT with chemodynamic phenomenon and GSH depletion. Fe.sub.3O.sub.4@Pt NPs can effectively induce ROS generation based on the catalytic reaction on the surface of Pt nanoparticles triggered by electric field (E), and meanwhile it may catalyze intracellular H.sub.2O.sub.2 into ROS via Fenton reaction. In addition, Fe.sup.3+ ions released from Fe.sub.3O.sub.4@Pt NPs under the acidic condition in tumor cells consume GSH in a rapid fashion, inhibiting ROS clearance to enhance its antitumor efficacy. As a result, considerable in vitro and in vivo tumor inhibition phenomena are observed. This study has demonstrated an alternative concept of combinational therapeutic modality with superior efficacy.
We designed and synthesized a series of fused-ring electron acceptors (FREAs) based on naphthalene-fused octacyclic cores end-capped by 3-(1,1-dicyanomethylene)-5,6-difluoro-1- indanone (NOICs) using ...a bottom-up approach. The NOIC series shares the same end groups and side chains, as well as similar fused-ring cores. The butterfly effects, arising from different methoxy positions in the starting materials, impact the design of the final FREAs, as well as their molecular packing, optical and electronic properties, charge transport, film morphology, and performance of organic solar cells. The binary-blend devices based on this NOIC series show power conversion efficiencies varying from 7.15% to 14.1%, due to the different intrinsic properties of the NOIC series, morphologies of blend films, and voltage losses of devices.
Abstract
Room temperature and selective hydrogenation of quinolines to 1,2,3,4-tetrahydroquinolines using a safe and clean hydrogen donor catalyzed by cost-effective materials is significant yet ...challenging because of the difficult activation of quinolines and H
2
. Here, a fluorine-modified cobalt catalyst is synthesized via electroreduction of a Co(OH)F precursor that exhibits high activity for electrocatalytic hydrogenation of quinolines by using H
2
O as the hydrogen source to produce 1,2,3,4-tetrahydroquinolines with up to 99% selectivity and 94% isolated yield under ambient conditions. Fluorine surface-sites are shown to enhance the adsorption of quinolines and promote water activation to produce active atomic hydrogen (H*) by forming F
−
-K
+
(H
2
O)
7
networks. A 1,4/2,3-addition pathway involving H* is proposed through combining experimental and theoretical results. Wide substrate scopes, scalable synthesis of bioactive precursors, facile preparation of deuterated analogues, and the paired synthesis of 1,2,3,4-tetrahydroquinoline and industrially important adiponitrile at a low voltage highlight the promising applications of this methodology.
Non-coding RNAs (ncRNAs) are considered major players in physiological and pathological processes based on their versatile regulatory roles in different diseases including cardiovascular disease. ...Circular RNAs (circRNAs), a newly discovered class of RNAs, constitute a substantial fraction of the mammalian transcriptome and are abundantly expressed in the cardiovascular system. However, the regulatory functions of these circRNAs in ischemic cardiac disease remain largely unknown. Here, we investigated the role of a circRNA transcribed from the sodium/calcium exchanger 1 (ncx1) gene, named circNCX1, in oxidative stress-induced cardiomyocyte apoptosis during ischemic myocardial injury.
Divergent polymerase chain reaction (PCR) was conducted to amplify the circRNA. The circular structure of circNCX1 was verified by Sanger sequencing and RNase R digestion. The subcellular localization of circNCX1 was detected by fluorescence
hybridization (FISH). To test the expression pattern and function of circNCX1 during oxidative stress, H9c2 cells and neonatal rat cardiomyocytes were treated with H
O
or hypoxia-reoxygenation (H/R). Mechanistically, the interaction of circNCX1 with miRNA was examined by AGO2-IP and RNA pull-down assays. The regulatory role of circNCX1 in target gene expression was tested by western blot and luciferase reporter assays. At the animal level, we constructed a myocardial ischemia-reperfusion (I/R) mouse model to analyze the effect of circNCX1 on heart function, cardiomyocyte apoptosis and cardiac remodeling.
circNCX1 was increased in response to reactive oxygen species (ROS) and promotes cardiomyocyte apoptosis by acting as an endogenous miR-133a-3p sponge. Due to competitive binding of circNCX1 to miR-133a-3p, the suppressive activity of pro-apoptotic gene cell death-inducing protein (CDIP1) by miR-133a-3p was reduced. Knockdown of circNCX1 in murine cardiomyocytes and heart tissues reduced the levels of CDIP1 and attenuated the apoptosis and I/R injury.
Our findings reveal a novel regulatory pathway that comprises circNCX1, miR-133a-3p and CDIP1, that is involved in cardiomyocyte apoptosis. This pathway may serve as a potential therapeutic avenue for ischemic heart diseases.
As a novel class of endogenous RNAs, circRNAs, have a covalently closed continuous loop, with neither a 5'to 3'polarity, nor a polyadenylated tail. Numerous circRNAs have been characterized by ...abundance, stabilization, conservation, and exhibit tissue/developmental stage-specific expression. Furthermore, circRNAs play vital roles in tumorigenesis and metastasis, such as functioning as a ceRNA or miRNA sponge, interacting with protein and encoding protein. Increasing evidence has revealed that it potentially serves as a required novel biomarker for cancer diagnosis. This review summarized the latest research on circRNAs, including its classification and biogenesis, mechanism and functions, as well as circRNAs in different cancers, as a potential biomarker.
SUMMARY
A deep understanding of earthquake physics requires a large amount of numerical simulations on seismic wave propagation and dynamic rupture. However, the corresponding intensive computational ...expense of simulations at traditional CPU (central processing unit) platforms make related researches time-consuming. There are many mature graphics processing unit (GPU) programs that can dramatically accelerate the calculation of seismic wave propagation. Unfortunately, there are few discussions about GPU implementations for rupture dynamics. In this work, we extend our 3-D curved-grid finite-difference method (CG-FDM) for rupture dynamics to the GPU platform using the CUDA (compute unified device architecture) programming language. By taking advantage of the new features of the NVIDIA Volta architecture, we implement the GPU-based program for rupture dynamics that is not only efficient but also easy to maintain. The GPU-based CG-FDM program is two orders of magnitude faster than our previous serial CPU-based program and still has a considerable advantage compared with the parallel one. The reliability and correctness of the program are carefully examined by the comparisons of the benchmarks from the ‘Southern California Earthquake Center/U.S. Geological Survey (SCEC/USGS) Dynamic Earthquake Rupture Code Verification Exercise’. The performance improvements of the GPU-based CG-FDM can save a lot of computing time, allowing researchers to perform much more numerical simulations of rupture dynamics to reveal more details of earthquake physics.
Gram-positive (G
) bacterial infection is a great burden to both healthcare and community medical resources. As a result of the increasing prevalence of multidrug-resistant G
bacteria such as ...methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus (MRSA), novel antimicrobial agents must urgently be developed for the treatment of infections caused by G
bacteria. Endolysins are bacteriophage (phage)-encoded enzymes that can specifically hydrolyze the bacterial cell wall and quickly kill bacteria. Bacterial resistance to endolysins is low. Therefore, endolysins are considered promising alternatives for solving the mounting resistance problem. In this review, endolysins derived from phages targeting G
bacteria were classified based on their structural characteristics. The active mechanisms, efficacy, and advantages of endolysins as antibacterial drug candidates were summarized. Moreover, the remarkable potential of phage endolysins in the treatment of G
bacterial infections was described. In addition, the safety of endolysins, challenges, and possible solutions were addressed. Notwithstanding the limitations of endolysins, the trends in development indicate that endolysin-based drugs will be approved in the near future. Overall, this review presents crucial information of the current progress involving endolysins as potential therapeutic agents, and it provides a guideline for biomaterial researchers who are devoting themselves to fighting against bacterial infections.
With the development of medical diagnosis and treatment, knowing the mechanical properties of living tissues becomes critical. The aim of this study was to investigation material properties of the ...fresh porcine kidney and the parametric characterization of its viscoelastic material behavior. The material investigation included uniaxial tension tests in different strain rates, relaxation tests, as well as hydrostatic compression tests on the samples extracted from the fresh porcine kidney cortex. Tension tests and relaxation tests were performed by a planar dog-bone specimen with a micron loading testing machine. Hydrostatic compression tests were performed on the kidney cylinder sample which was placed in a compression chamber. Furthermore, a nonlinear viscoelastic model recently proposed by us was employed to characterize the tension data at different strain rates and relaxation test data. The the experimental and numerical results show that the stress-strain relations of the porcine kidney cortex at different strain rates in tension are presented for the first time and a higher strain rate results in higher ultimate strength and initial Young modulus but a lower rupture strain. A damage-dependent visco-elastic model is employed to model the tension data at different strain rates and relaxation data and exhibits a good agreement with the experimental data, which also demonstrates that the damage has an obvious influence on the stress-strain relation. Through comparison with the existing reference covering the uniaxial compression data, it seems that the mechanical behavior of the porcine kidney cortex manifests a stress state-dependent mechanical behavior. The ultimate strength and rupture strain are larger in compression than that in tension.
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