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Doxorubicin (DOX) is one of the most effective antineoplastic drugs. However, its clinical application has been greatly limited due to the development of cardiotoxicity with DOX ...utilization. A number of theories have been postulated for DOX-induced cardiotoxicity with a pivotal contribution from unchecked (excess) mitophagy and mitochondrial fission. Liensinine (LIEN), a newly identified mitophagy inhibitor, strengthens the antineoplastic efficacy of DOX although its action on hearts remains elusive. This study was designed to examine the effect of LIEN on DOX-induced cardiotoxicity and the underlying mechanisms involved with a focus on mitochondrial dynamics. Our data revealed that LIEN alleviated DOX-induced cardiac dysfunction and apoptosis through inhibition of dynamin-related protein 1 (Drp1)-mediated excess (unchecked) mitochondrial fission. LIEN treatment decreased Drp1 phosphorylation at Ser616 site, inhibited mitochondrial fragmentation, mitophagy (assessed by TOM20 and TIM23), oxidative stress, cytochrome C leakage, cardiomyocyte apoptosis, as well as improved mitochondrial function and cardiomyocyte contractile function in DOX-induced cardiac injury. In DOX-challenged neonatal mouse ventricular myocytes (NMVMs), LIEN-suppressed Drp1 phosphorylation, mitochondrial fragmentation, and apoptosis were blunted by Rab7 overexpression, the effect of which was reversed by the ERK inhibitor U0126. Moreover, activation of ERK or Drp1 abolished the protective effects of LIEN on cardiomyocyte mechanical anomalies. These data shed some lights towards understanding the role of LIEN as a new protective agent against DOX-associated cardiotoxicity without compromising its anti-tumor effects.
Even though ladybirds are well known as economically important biological control agents, an integrative framework of DNA barcoding research was not available for the family so far. We designed and ...present a set of efficient mini-barcoding primers to recover full DNA barcoding sequences for Coccinellidae, even for specimens collected 40 years ago. Based on these mini-barcoding primers, we obtained 104 full DNA barcode sequences for 104 species of Coccinellidae, in which 101 barcodes were newly reported for the first time. We also downloaded 870 COI barcode sequences (658 bp) from GenBank and BOLD database, belonging to 108 species within 46 genera, to assess the optimum genetic distance threshold and compare four methods of species delimitation (GMYC, bPTP, BIN and ABGD) to determine the most accurate approach for the family. The results suggested the existence of a 'barcode gap' and that 3% is likely an appropriate genetic distance threshold to delimit species of Coccinellidae using DNA barcodes. Species delimitation analyses confirm ABGD as an accurate and efficient approach, more suitable than the other three methods. Our research provides an integrative framework for DNA barcoding and descriptions of new taxa in Coccinellidae. Our results enrich DNA barcoding public reference libraries, including data for Chinese coccinellids. This will facilitate taxonomic identification and biodiversity monitoring of ladybirds using metabarcoding.
Electrochemical activation can be appropriate for constructing tunable/controllable defects within the interior of electrode materials. However, the activation mechanisms under different applied ...electric fields urgently need to be systematically explored. Herein, the electrochemically activated manganese dioxide (MnO2) samples are prepared via applying a positive/negative electric field, and two different activation mechanisms are revealed through a series of characterization methods. During the activation process, it is fascinating to discover that MnO2 mainly generates the O vacancies under positive voltage, whereas the electrolyte cations are embedded in the interlayer under negative voltage. The generated O vacancies and intercalated ions not only act as active sites or participate in the charge‐transport process, but also enhance the transmission capability of carriers. In contrast, the specific capacitances of optimized MnO2 samples are 2.9 and 2.8 times than that of pure‐MnO2 after electrochemical activation under positive and negative voltage, respectively. In addition, the activated samples exhibit excellent cycle stability and resistance to electrochemical corrosion, which can well‐maintain the 3D network structure composed of nanosheets after 5000 cycles. This strategy opens up a promising approach for exploring efficient and corrosion‐resistant electrode materials.
The manganese dioxide (MnO2) is activated by applying a positive/negative electric field, and the activation mechanisms under two different electric fields are systematically explored through a series of characterization methods. It is found that oxygen vacancies will be generated under positive voltage, whereas the electrolyte cations will be embedded in the MnO2 interlayer under negative voltage.
Angiogenesis is a critical, fine-tuned, multi-staged biological process. Tip-stalk cell selection and shuffling are the building blocks of sprouting angiogenesis. Accumulated evidences show that ...tip-stalk cell selection and shuffling are regulated by a variety of physical, chemical and biological factors, especially the interaction among multiple genes, their products and environments. The classic Notch-VEGFR, Slit-Robo, ECM-binding integrin, semaphorin and CCN family play important roles in tip-stalk cell selection and shuffling. In this review, we outline the progress and prospect in the mechanism and the roles of the various molecules and related signaling pathways in endothelial tip-stalk cell selection and shuffling. In the future, the regulators of tip-stalk cell selection and shuffling would be the potential markers and targets for angiogenesis.
Image rain removal involves eliminating the impact of rain on an image to increase its visual quality. In this paper, we propose a single-image rain removal network based on an attention mechanism ...and a residual structure. The proposed method extracts high-level semantic information and low-level detail information via a feature aggregation module and a residual channel attention mechanism, respectively, and fuses the two feature parts through a fusion tail to learn a mapping to the rain removal image. The attention mechanism unequally processes different features and pixels to improve the generalization of the image deraining procedure. A continuous residual structure is used to prevent problems such as overfitting and gradient disappearance during network training. In an ablation study, we show that both the feature aggregation module and the residual channel attention mechanism significantly improve the resulting image quality in terms of the PSNR and SSIM index measure. Moreover, the obtained experimental results demonstrate that our method quantitatively and qualitatively outperforms the current state-of-the-art approaches on the Rain100L, Rain100H and real-world image datasets.
The interrelationship between ionizing radiation and the immune system is complex, multifactorial, and dependent on radiation dose/quality and immune cell type. High-dose radiation usually results in ...immune suppression. On the contrary, low-dose radiation (LDR) modulates a variety of immune responses that have exhibited the properties of immune hormesis. Although the underlying molecular mechanism is not fully understood yet, LDR has been used clinically for the treatment of autoimmune diseases and malignant tumors. These advancements in preclinical and clinical studies suggest that LDR-mediated immune modulation is a well-orchestrated phenomenon with clinical potential. We summarize recent developments in the understanding of LDR-mediated immune modulation, with an emphasis on its potential clinical applications.
Considering the great threat of oil spilling to human safety and ecological balance, treatment of oily wastewater became a worldwide challenge. Inspired by the underwater superoleophobic property of ...fish scale surface, we fabricated the superhydrophilic and underwater superoleophobic cotton fabric (CF) through grafting modification of ammonium polyphosphate (APP) followed by surface deposition of Fe3O4 nanoparticles via micro-dissolution method. The incorporation of APP, which contained numerous anionic groups, was found to be advantageous in enhancing the water holding capacity of fabric. More significantly, the micro-nanoscale rough structure resulting from Fe3O4 nanoparticles was pivotal in achieving superwetting ability towards water. The synergistic effect of hydrophilic chemical and rough structure significantly improved the superhydrophilicity and underwater superoleophobicity of the CF. The as-prepared fabric not only exhibited applicability for separating oil/water mixture, but also demonstrated exceptional performance in the separation of emulsions with relatively high water flux. The presence of numerous anionic groups was crucial in facilitating water flux during emulsions separation by screening electrostatic repulsion. Furthermore, benefiting from the self-glue effect of micro-dissolved CF, the as-prepared fabric exhibited remarkable stability against harsh conditions such as mechanical abrasion, immersion in acid or alkali solution, high temperature and frequent laundering. In general, this study would contribute to the development of fabric-based materials for oily wastewater separation with excellent separation performance and high stability.
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•The underwater superoleophobic cotton fabric was prepared by micro-dissolution method.•The obtained fabric could effectively separate oil/water mixture and emulsions.•The presence of numerous anionic groups facilitated the water flux.•The as-prepared fabric exhibited excellent stability against harsh conditions.
Debris flow activity is strongly controlled by trigger conditions, specifically the sediment availability and water input, which are expected to change in response to future climate changes. These ...hydrological and geomorphological impacts are difficult to predict in climate-sensitive alpine mountain regions. This research focuses on the impacts of future environmental changes on debris flow occurrence in the Xinduqiao-Changdu section of the Sichuan-Tibet traffic corridor. Two distinct aspects are examined and discussed: the spatial variability of triggering conditions and the prediction of debris flow behavior under changing conditions. We used long-term (1961-2017) meteorological data to analyze the variation of debris flow water source conditions with results indicating an increasing trend in annual average temperature, especially in the northwest of corridor. However, annual precipitation shows no significant change. Another consideration is the variation in materials source conditions, reflected by historical seismic and fault density, suggesting a potential earthquake risk in the southeast corridor. Subsequently, the Flo-2D is employed to simulate two trigger types of debris flow (rainfall and ice-snow) by modifying flow volume and flow properties under warming or seismic conditions. These findings serve as a reference for hazard prevention in climate-sensitive alpine areas.
Debris flow occurs frequently in mountainous areas due to the special geographical and geological environment, causing significant damage to linear infrastructure. However, a systematic assessment of ...debris flow risk to the national highway is limited by the lack of regional vulnerability data. Based on a detailed inventory of debris flow and highway structure characteristics, this study presents a comprehensive regional risk assessment framework on the northern line of the Sichuan-Tibet Highway in China. The proposed framework consists of three main procedures: (1) debris flow hazard analyses by the weight-of-evidence method, (2) analyses of physical vulnerability using 12 vulnerability indexes, and (3) risk calculation which considers the natural attributes of debris flow and the social characteristics of a linear highway. The predictive performance was evaluated through receiver operating characteristic (ROC) curves, and the validation results showed that areas under the ROC curves were 83.77%. The risk zoning map indicated that the high-risk areas were particularly distributed in Dege County and Daofu County, with a high disaster frequency and a low highway protection standard. The regional risk assessment framework supports decision-making for disaster prevention and highway rehabilitation in mountainous areas.
We have constructed a regional risk assessment framework for the national highway in mountainous areas.
Vulnerability indicators provide detailed information on the structural characteristics of the highway.
Analysis of debris flow characteristics and causative factors about the northern line of the Sichuan-Tibet Highway.
The Dadu River Basin (DRB) is an important economic corridor on the Chuanxi Plateau. The DRB is located in the highly changeable terrain of the eastern Qinghai-Tibet Plateau and is often threatened ...by debris flows. To mitigate the damage of debris flow disasters to the construction and operation of large infrastructures such as railways, roads and hydropower stations in the DRB, it is necessary to evaluate debris flow susceptibility. The connectivity of potential material sources (CPMS), which proxies the possibility of potential material transfer from the source to the outlet, was calculated using an improved index of connectivity, excess topography and brittle fracture index to identify and quantify debris flow susceptibility. The results show that the IC and the gully scale have a Logartihmic function in the DRB, in which IC decreases as the catchment area increases. In 3967 gullies of the Dadu River and its tributaries, the total connectivity of potential material sources (TCPMS) could be used to distinguish between debris flow gullies and non-debris flow gullies (AUC = 0.748). The TCPMS and average connectivity of potential material sources (ACPMS) were used to classify the scale and activity intensity of the 2398 debris flow gullies into four levels. The moderate- and high-activity intensity and large- and extra large-scale debris flows are mainly distributed in Danba, Luding and Kangding. The results of this study provide reference and evidence for the identification and evaluation of debris flow susceptibility.
•A new method for assessing debris flow susceptibility based on potential material sources and sediment connectivity.•The quantitative relationship between the scale of debris flow and conditioning factors.•The contribution of excess topography was considered.
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