Adipose tissue performs immunoregulatory functions in addition to fat storage. Various T cells in different fat depots either help maintain metabolic homeostasis under healthy conditions or ...contribute to metabolic disorders in pathological conditions such as obesity, diabetes, cardiovascular diseases, or even cancer. These T cells play critical roles in immunometabolism, which refers to the intersection of immunity and metabolism. Numerous studies have examined the presence and changes of different T cell subsets, including helper T cells, regulatory T cells, cytotoxic T cells, and natural killer T cells, in adipose depots in health and diseases. In this review, we will discuss the adipose tissue niches that influence the patterns and functions of T cell subsets and in turn the impact of these T cells on cell- or body-based immunometabolism accounting for health and obesity.
Environmental problems have always received immense attention from scientists. Toxicants pollution is a critical environmental concern that has posed serious threats to human health and agricultural ...production. Heavy metals and pesticides are top of the list of environmental toxicants endangering nature. This review focuses on the toxic effect of heavy metals (cadmium (Cd), lead (Pb), copper (Cu), and zinc (Zn)) and pesticides (insecticides, herbicides, and fungicides) adversely influencing the agricultural ecosystem (plant and soil) and human health. Furthermore, heavy metals accumulation and pesticide residues in soils and plants have been discussed in detail. In addition, the characteristics of contaminated soil and plant physiological parameters have been reviewed. Moreover, human diseases caused by exposure to heavy metals and pesticides were also reported. The bioaccumulation, mechanism of action, and transmission pathways of both heavy metals and pesticides are emphasized. In addition, the bioavailability in soil and plant uptake of these contaminants has also been considered. Meanwhile, the synergistic and antagonistic interactions between heavy metals and pesticides and their combined toxic effects have been discussed. Previous relevant studies are included to cover all aspects of this review. The information in this review provides deep insights into the understanding of environmental toxicants and their hazardous effects.
With the rise of online video content, especially the growth of online video consumption during the early days of the COVID-19 pandemic, this study focuses on Google’s video search as an important ...but understudied platform to explore Google’s role in three media diversity areas — format-type diversity, source diversity, and structural-social diversity—in the online video landscape. Findings of this study reveal a complicated picture: on the one hand, Google can expose users to video content alternative to YouTube video, which involves a variety of media and non-media sources; on the other hand, the lack of diversity can be found in the studied areas. In addition, Google-source partnership and the limited presentation of minority sources at the time of a global crisis, this study argues, has profound implications for media diversity. While normative expectations of digital platforms’ role in media diversity depend on different understandings of democracy models, media diversity is an important thread of the ongoing debate regarding platform governance. This study sheds light on one video platform, as a case updating our understanding of media diversity in the digital age.
This article analyzes the recent 14th Five-Year Plan for Social Organization Development, which signifies the Chinese party-state’s comprehensive planning for NGOs in the years 2021–2025. By ...clarifying the guiding ideology, basic principles, goals, targets, and tasks, the Plan stresses a dual political–regulatory mechanism that drives China’s nonprofit sector further in transitioning from an emerging organizational field to a manufactured civil society and shifts nonprofit policy fragmentation toward institutionalization. The Plan manifests centralized means to corral NGOs into a disciplined and capable nonprofit sector that subordinates itself to and enhances the authoritarian regime. Implications drawn from this article update policy analysts on state-NGO relations and the trajectory of the nonprofit sector in China.
Nanomaterials based on chitosan have emerged as promising carriers of therapeutic agents for drug delivery due to good biocompatibility, biodegradability, and low toxicity. Chitosan originated ...nanocarriers have been prepared by mini-emulsion, chemical or ionic gelation, coacervation/precipitation, and spray-drying methods. As alternatives to these traditional fabrication methods, self-assembled chitosan nanomaterials show significant advantages and have received growing scientific attention in recent years. Self-assembly is a spontaneous process by which organized structures with particular functions and properties could be obtained without additional complicated processing or modification steps. In this review, we focus on recent progress in the design, fabrication and physicochemical aspects of chitosan-based self-assembled nanomaterials. Their applications in drug delivery of different therapeutic agents are also discussed in details.
Over the past several decades, we have witnessed significant progress in chitosan and chitin based nanostructured materials. The nanofibers from chitin and chitosan with appealing physical and ...biological features have attracted intense attention due to their excellent biological properties related to biodegradability, biocompatibility, antibacterial activity, low immunogenicity and wound healing capacity. Various methods, such as electrospinning, self-assembly, phase separation, mechanical treatment, printing, ultrasonication and chemical treatment were employed to prepare chitin and chitosan nanofibers. These nanofibrous materials have tremendous potential to be used as drug delivery systems, tissue engineering scaffolds, wound dressing materials, antimicrobial agents, and biosensors. This review article discusses the most recent progress in the preparation and application of chitin and chitosan based nanofibrous materials in biomedical fields.
We derive a relativistic chiral kinetic equation with manifest Lorentz covariance from Wigner functions of spin-1/2 massless fermions in a constant background electromagnetic field. It contains ...vorticity terms and a four-dimensional Euclidean Berry monopole which gives an axial anomaly. By integrating out the zeroth component of the 4-momentum p, we reproduce the previous three-dimensional results derived from the Hamiltonian approach, together with the newly derived vorticity terms. The phase space continuity equation has an anomalous source term proportional to the product of electric and magnetic fields (FσρFover ˜σρ∼EσBσ). This provides a unified interpretation of the chiral magnetic and vortical effects, chiral anomaly, Berry curvature, and the Berry monopole in the framework of Wigner functions.
Adipose-derived stem cells (ADSCs) play critical roles in controlling obesity-associated inflammation and metabolic disorders. Exosomes from ADSCs exert protective effects in several diseases, but ...their roles in obesity and related pathological conditions remain unclear. In this study, we showed that treatment of obese mice with ADSC-derived exosomes facilitated their metabolic homeostasis, including improved insulin sensitivity (27.8% improvement), reduced obesity, and alleviated hepatic steatosis. ADSC-derived exosomes drove alternatively activated M2 macrophage polarization, inflammation reduction, and beiging in white adipose tissue (WAT) of diet-induced obese mice. Mechanistically, exosomes from ADSCs transferred into macrophages to induce anti-inflammatory M2 phenotypes through the transactivation of arginase-1 by exosome-carried active STAT3. Moreover, M2 macrophages induced by ADSC-derived exosomes not only expressed high levels of tyrosine hydroxylase responsible for catecholamine release, but also promoted ADSC proliferation and lactate production, thereby favoring WAT beiging and homeostasis in response to high-fat challenge. These findings delineate a novel exosome-mediated mechanism for ADSC-macrophage cross talk that facilitates immune and metabolic homeostasis in WAT, thus providing potential therapy for obesity and diabetes.
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