A large amount of plastic waste is generated yearly worldwide, and landfills are commonly used for the disposal of plastic waste. However, burying in landfill does not get rid of the plastic waste ...but leave the problem to the future. Previous works have showed that microplastics are presented in the landfill refuse and leachate, which might be potential sources of microplastics. In this work, characteristics of microplastic pollution in an informal landfill in South China were studied. Landfill refuse, underlying soil, leachate, and groundwater samples were collected from different sites within and around the landfill. Results show that microplastics in the landfill refuse and underlying soil varied from 590 to 103,080 items/kg and from 570 to 14,200 items/kg, respectively. Most of the microplastics are fibrous, small sized, and transparent. Polyethylene (PE), polypropylene (PP), and polyethylene terephthalate (PET) are major polymer types. Scanning electron microscope (SEM) images and Fourier Transform Infrared (FTIR) spectra of the microplastic samples indicate varying degree of weathering. Microplastic abundances in the landfill leachate and groundwater ranged from 3 to 25 items/L and from 11 to 17 items/L, respectively. Microplastics detected in the landfill leachate and groundwater are even smaller compared with those in the refuse and underlying soil and their polymer types are more diverse. This work demonstrated that microplastics presented in an informal landfill without sufficient protection can leak out to the surrounding environment. The microplastic pollution originated from informal landfills should receive more attentions.
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•Characteristics of microplastic pollution were studied in an informal landfill.•Microplastics were detected in landfill refuse, leachate, underlying soil, and groundwater.•Microplastic characteristics suggest their formation are related to the weathering in landfill.•Informal landfills are important sources of microplastic pollution to the environment.
With the continuous development of the coal industry, coal mine safety and environmental protection have gradually become the focus of important attention. The design and optimization of mine ...ventilation systems is a key factor in ensuring air quality and safety in the working area. In order to improve the application level of automation and intelligent equipment of mine ventilation system, under the existing conditions of mine, the design significance and goal of mine intelligent ventilation system are taken as the starting point, and the design and application effects are analyzed. By optimizing the layout of ventilation routes, increasing the number of sensors, building an intelligent ventilation system, optimizing the ventilation scheme in the main production scenarios such as coal face, driving face and opening up main roadway in the daily production process of the mine, realizing rapid wind regulation and wind counteraction when disasters occur, and using air flow short circuit to form protective measures, effectively avoiding the expansion of disasters and accidents. At the same time, remote automatic control of ventilation facilities and equipment is carried out to effectively improve the optimal utilization of air supply, avoid the phenomenon of insufficient air supply and waste of air volume, and improve the intelligent level of mine ventilation system.
Objectives and design
Chlorogenic acid, which belongs to the polyphenols, is an anti-oxidant and anti-obesity agent. In this study, we investigated the role of chlorogenic acid in inflammation.
...Materials and methods
Anti-inflammatory effects of chlorogenic acid were examined in lipopolysaccharide (LPS)-stimulated murine RAW 264.7 macrophages and BV2 microglial cells. We observed the level of various inflammation markers such as nitric oxide (NO), inducible NO synthase (iNOS), cyclooxygenase-2 (COX-2), tumor necrosis factor-α (TNF-α), interleukin-1β (IL-1β), interleukin-6 (IL-6), and chemokine (C-X-C motif) ligand 1 (CXCL1) under LPS treatment with or without chlorogenic acid. To clarify the specific effect of chlorogenic acid, we evaluated the adhesion activity of macrophages and ninjurin1 (Ninj1) expression level in macrophages. Finally, we confirmed the activation of the nuclear factor-κB (NF-κB) signaling pathway, which is one of the most important transcription factors in the inflammatory process.
Results
Chlorogenic acid significantly inhibited not only NO production but also the expression of COX-2 and iNOS, without any cytotoxicity. Chlorogenic acid also attenuated pro-inflammatory cytokines (including IL-1β and TNF-α) and other inflammation-related markers such as IL-6 in a dose-dependent manner. Additionally, endotoxin-induced adhesion of macrophages and the expression level of ninjurin1 (Ninj1) were decreased by chlorogenic acid. Finally, chlorogenic acid inhibited the nuclear translocation of NF-κB.
Conclusions
Chlorogenic acid may be beneficial for the prevention and treatment of anti-inflammatory diseases.
We investigate tidal effects produced in the spacetime of Schwarzschild black hole in holographic massive gravity, which has two additional mass parameters due to massive gravitons. As a result, we ...have obtained that massive gravitons affect the angular component of the tidal force, while the radial component has the same form with the one in massless gravity. On the other hand, by solving the geodesic deviation equations, we have found that radial components of two nearby geodesics keep tightening while falling into the black hole and after passing the event horizons get abruptly infinitely stretched due to massive gravitons. However, angular components of two nearby geodesics get stretched firstly, reach a peak and then get compressed while falling into the black hole. Moreover, we have also shown that the angular components are more easily deformed near the departure position as the mass of a black hole is smaller for a fixed graviton mass.
Green tea is one of the most popular beverages worldwide. Its major components include (-)-epicatechin ((-)-EC), (-)-epicatechin-3-gallate (ECG) (-)-epigallocatechin (EGC) and ...(-)-epigallocatechin-3-gallate (EGCG). It has demonstrated strong antioxidative, anti-inflammatory and anti-cancerous properties and attracted a great deal of interest over last several years. However, there is some discrepancy between the results from human pidemiological studies and cultured cell and animal models. Two reasons for its limited in vivo activities have been considered: metabolism and bioavailability. Recent studies have demonstrated that green tea catechins undergo methylation, glucuronidation and sulfation in in vitro systems and in animals and in humans. It has been also found that efflux transporters Pgp, MRP1 and MRP2 play roles in the absorption and excretion of green tea catechins. Several processes including intestinal metabolism, microbial metabolism, hepatic metabolism and chemical degradation have been found to be involved in the fate of green tea, and to be responsible for its low availability in animals, and most likely also in humans. Pharmacokinetics, absorption, distribution, drug metabolism and excretion properties of green tea provide a better understanding for its in vivo activities. In this article, drug metabolism and microbial metabolism of green tea catechins in in vitro systems and in animals and in humans will be reviewed. It also covers the factors affecting their biotransformation and bioavailability: drug-drug inhibitory and inductive interactions of phase I and phase II enzymes, inhibition of non-drug-metabolizing enzymes, transporters, chemical instability, epimerization and interindividual variability.
The transport of molecules and ions through biological nanopores is governed by interaction networks among restricted ions, transported molecules, and residue moieties at pore inner walls. However, ...identification of such weak ion fluctuations from only few tens of ions inside nanopore is hard to achieve owing to electrochemical measurement limitations. Here, we developed an advanced frequency method to achieve qualitative and spectral analysis of ion interaction networks inside a nanopore. The peak frequency fm reveals the dissociation rate between nanopore and ions; the peak amplitude am depicts the amount of combined ions with the nanopore after interaction equilibrium. A mathematical model for single‐molecule frequency fingerprint achieved the prediction of interaction characteristics of mutant nanopores. This single‐molecule frequency fingerprint is important for classification, characterization, and prediction of synergetic interaction networks inside nanoconfinement.
An advanced frequency spectral method was developed for the qualitative and spectral analysis of the ion interaction networks inside a nanopore. This method decodes the frequency fingerprint from the highly noisy ionic current trace, which achieves classification, characterization, and prediction of the ion interaction networks inside a nanopore.
Photodynamic therapy (PDT) can eradicate not only cancer cells but also stimulate an antitumor immune response. Herein, we describe two efficient synthetic methodologies for the preparation of ...Chlorin e6 (Ce6) from
and address the phototoxic effect of Ce6 in vitro along with antitumor activity in vivo. Melanoma B16F10 cells were seeded and phototoxicity was monitored by the MTT assay. The C57BL/6 mice were subcutaneously inoculated on the left and right flank with B16F10 cells. The mice were intravenously injected with Ce6 of 2.5 mg/kg and then exposed to red light (660 nm) on the left flank tumors 3 h after the injection. The immune response was studied by analyzing Interferon-gamma (IFN-γ), tumor necrosis factor-alpha (TNF-α), and Interleukin-2 (IL-2) of the right flank tumors through qPCR. Our results revealed that the tumor was suppressed not only in the left flank but also in the right flank, where no PDT was given. The upregulated gene and protein expression of IFN-γ, TNF-α, and IL-2 revealed antitumor immunity due to Ce6-PDT. The findings of this study suggest an efficient methodology of Ce6 preparation and the efficacy of Ce6-PDT as a promising antitumor immune response.
To find use in electronics, single-walled carbon nanotubes need to be efficiently separated by electronic type and aligned to ensure optimal and reproducible electronic properties. We report the ...fabrication of single-walled carbon nanotube (SWNT) network field-effect transistors, deposited from solution, possessing controllable topology and an on/off ratio as high as 900,000. The spin-assisted alignment and density of the SWNTs are tuned by different surfaces that effectively vary the degree of interaction with surface functionalities in the device channel. This leads to a self-sorted SWNT network in which nanotube chirality separation and simultaneous control of density and alignment occur in one step during device fabrication. Micro-Raman experiments corroborate device results as a function of surface chemistry, indicating enrichment of the specific SWNT electronic type absorbed onto the modified dielectric.
Epidemiologic and histopathologic associations between endometriosis and epithelial ovarian cancer have been reported; however, the underlying molecular and cellular mechanisms are not well ...understood. A possible genetic link has been suggested in recent publications. Driver mutations in PIK3CA, KRAS, ARID1A, and other genes have been found in the epithelium of intrauterine endometrial tissue, ovarian and extraovarian pelvic endometriosis tissue, ovarian cancers associated with endometriosis (i.e., clear cell and endometrioid type), and other epithelial ovarian cancers. This makes sense because pelvic endometriosis occurs primarily as a result of retrograde menstruation and implantation of endometrial tissue fragments in ovarian inclusion cysts or extraovarian peritoneal or subperitoneal sites. Unlike epithelial cells, endometriotic stromal cells are mutation free but contain widespread epigenetic defects that alter gene expression and induce a progesterone-resistant and intensely inflammatory environment, driven by estrogen via estrogen receptor-β. The resulting increased estrogenic action in the stroma drives inflammation and sends paracrine signals to neighboring epithelial cells to enhance proliferation. In addition, massively high concentrations of estrogen in the ovary may exert an additional and direct genotoxic effect on DNA and cause accumulation of additional mutations and malignant transformation in initially mutated endometriotic epithelial cells in an ovarian endometrioma, which may initiate epithelial ovarian cancer. The same epithelial mutations and inflammatory processes in stroma are seen in extraovarian deep-infiltrating endometriosis, but carcinogenesis does not occur. We provide a focused review of the literature and discuss the implications of recent genetic breakthroughs linking endometriosis and ovarian cancer.
Transfection is a modern and powerful method used to insert foreign nucleic acids into eukaryotic cells. The ability to modify host cells' genetic content enables the broad application of this ...process in studying normal cellular processes, disease molecular mechanism and gene therapeutic effect. In this review, we summarized and compared the findings from various reported literature on the characteristics, strengths, and limitations of various transfection methods, type of transfected nucleic acids, transfection controls and approaches to assess transfection efficiency. With the vast choices of approaches available, we hope that this review will help researchers, especially those new to the field, in their decision making over the transfection protocol or strategy appropriate for their experimental aims.
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