Macrophages are cells of the innate immune system that regulate the maintenance of tissue homeostasis, host defense during pathogen infection, and tissue repair in response to tissue injury. Recent ...studies indicate that macrophage functions are influenced by cellular metabolism, including lipid metabolism. Here, we review how macrophage lipid metabolism can be dynamically altered in different physiological and pathophysiological contexts and the key regulators involved. We also describe how alterations in lipid metabolism are integrated with the signaling pathways that specify macrophage functions, allowing for coordinated control of macrophage biology. Finally, we discuss how dysregulated lipid metabolism contributes to perturbed macrophage functions in settings such as atherosclerosis and pathogen infections.
Macrophages have diverse roles depending on the setting. They maintain tissue homeostasis at steady state, and can be activated to assume new, context-dependent functions in response to infection, metabolic stress, and tissue damage.Lipid metabolism has a key role in regulating macrophage functions. Signals that drive macrophage activation (e.g., to an inflammatory state that regulates host defense) impinge on metabolic-sensing pathways to coordinate shifts in lipid metabolism.Lipids are a source of energy for macrophages, and provide precursors for bioactive lipids and components of cellular membranes. Lipids also regulate signal transduction and gene regulation during macrophage activation.Dysregulated lipid metabolism is implicated in aberrant macrophage functions, for example, in atherosclerosis and obesity or in certain intracellular infections.
Deep-learning-based object detection algorithms have significantly improved the performance of wheat spike detection. However, UAV images crowned with small-sized, highly dense, and overlapping ...spikes cause the accuracy to decrease for detection. This paper proposes an improved YOLOv5 (You Look Only Once)-based method to detect wheat spikes accurately in UAV images and solve spike error detection and miss detection caused by occlusion conditions. The proposed method introduces data cleaning and data augmentation to improve the generalization ability of the detection network. The network is rebuilt by adding a microscale detection layer, setting prior anchor boxes, and adapting the confidence loss function of the detection layer based on the IoU (Intersection over Union). These refinements improve the feature extraction for small-sized wheat spikes and lead to better detection accuracy. With the confidence weights, the detection boxes in multiresolution images are fused to increase the accuracy under occlusion conditions. The result shows that the proposed method is better than the existing object detection algorithms, such as Faster RCNN, Single Shot MultiBox Detector (SSD), RetinaNet, and standard YOLOv5. The average accuracy (AP) of wheat spike detection in UAV images is 94.1%, which is 10.8% higher than the standard YOLOv5. Thus, the proposed method is a practical way to handle the spike detection in complex field scenarios and provide technical references for field-level wheat phenotype monitoring.
•The LBL electrostatic deposition maintained strawberry firmness and volatile aroma.•The LBL coating inhibited some primary metabolism in strawberry.•Special secondary metabolites in LBL coated ...strawberry were reduced after storage.
Postharvest strawberries (Fragaria × ananassa Duch.) were coated either by the layer-by-layer (LBL) electrostatic deposition, based on chitosan and carboxymethyl cellulose (CMC), or coated by 1% chitosan. Results suggested that LBL edible coating was significantly effective at inhibiting the loss of fruit firmness and aroma volatiles of strawberry, with little effect on the total soluble solids and total acidity contents. Through an untargeted metabolomic analysis, we found that the LBL application significantly reduced the primary metabolite contents involved in carbohydrate, fatty acids and amino acids metabolism, as well as the secondary metabolite contents involved in terpenoid, carotenoid, phenylpropanoid and flavonoid metabolism after storage. Our results indicated that the LBL edible coating could be potential to maintain strawberry quality with lower metabolites contents after eight days of storage.
An effective and facile fluorescence sensing approach for the determination of 2,4,6-trinitrophenol (TNP) using the chemically oxidized and liquid exfoliated graphitic carbon nitride (g-C3N4) ...nanosheets was developed. The strong inner filter effect and molecular interactions (electrostatic, π–π, and hydrogen bonding interactions) between TNP and the g-C3N4 nanosheets led to the fluorescence quenching of the g-C3N4 nanosheets with efficient selectivity and sensitivity. Under optimal conditions, the limit of detection for TNP was found to be 8.2 nM. The proposed approach has potential application for visual detection of TNP in natural water samples for public safety and security.
Effective strategy to mitigate the ongoing pandemic of 2019 novel coronavirus (COVID-19) require a comprehensive understanding of humoral responses against severe acute respiratory syndrome ...coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2), the emerging virus causing COVID-19. The dynamic profile of viral replication and shedding along with viral antigen specific antibody responses among COVID-19 patients started to be reported but there is no consensus on their patterns. Here, we conducted a serial investigation on 21 individuals infected with SARS-CoV-2 in two medical centres from Jiangsu Province, including 11 non-severe COVID-19 patients, and 5 severe COVID-19 patients and 5 asymptomatic carriers based on nucleic acid test and clinical symptoms. The longitudinal swab samples and sera were collected from these people for viral RNA testing and antibody responses, respectively. Our data revealed different pattern of seroconversion among these groups. All 11 non-severe COVID-19 patients and 5 severe COVID-19 patients were seroconverted during hospitalization or follow-up period, suggesting that serological testing is a complementary assay to nucleic acid test for those symptomatic COVID-19 patients. Of note, immediate antibody responses were identified among severe cases, compared to non-severe cases. On the other hand, only one were seroconverted for asymptomatic carriers. The SARS-CoV-2 specific antibody responses were well-maintained during the observation period. Such information is of immediate relevance and would assist COVID-19 clinical diagnosis, prognosis and vaccine design.
Using graphitic carbon nitride (g-C3N4) nanosheets, an effective and facile fluorescence sensing approach for the label-free and selective determination of chromium (VI) (Cr(VI)) was developed. The ...fluorescence of the solution of g-C3N4 nanosheets was quenched effectively by Cr(VI) via the inner filter effect. Under optimal conditions, a wide detection linear range for Cr(VI) was found to be from 0.6 μM to 300 μM with a limit of detection (LOD) of 0.15 μM. In addition, the fluorescence of the solution of g-C3N4 nanosheets-Cr(VI) could be sensitively turned on in the presence of a reductant such as ascorbic acid (AA) via an "on-off-on" fluorescence response through the oxidation-reduction between Cr(VI) and AA. And a wide detection linear range for AA was found to be from 0.5 μM to 200 μM with an LOD of 0.13 μM. Furthermore, the proposed method has the potential application for detection of Cr(VI) in lake waters and AA in biological fluids.
The swift advancements in robotics have rendered navigation an essential task for mobile robots. While map-based navigation methods depend on global environmental maps for decision-making, their ...efficacy in unfamiliar or dynamic settings falls short. Current deep reinforcement learning navigation strategies can navigate successfully without pre-existing map data, yet they grapple with issues like inefficient training, slow convergence, and infrequent rewards. To tackle these challenges, this study introduces an improved two-delay depth deterministic policy gradient algorithm (LP-TD3) for local planning navigation. Initially, the integration of the long-short-term memory (LSTM) module with the Prioritized Experience Re-play (PER) mechanism into the existing TD3 framework was performed to optimize training and improve the efficiency of experience data utilization. Furthermore, the incorporation of an Intrinsic Curiosity Module (ICM) merges intrinsic with extrinsic rewards to tackle sparse reward problems and enhance exploratory behavior. Experimental evaluations using ROS and Gazebo simulators demonstrate that the proposed method outperforms the original on various performance metrics.
Metal–organic layers (MOLs) represent an emerging class of tunable and functionalizable two‐dimensional materials. In this work, the scalable solvothermal synthesis of self‐supporting MOLs composed ...of Hf6O4(OH)4(HCO2)6 secondary building units (SBUs) and benzene‐1,3,5‐tribenzoate (BTB) bridging ligands is reported. The MOL structures were directly imaged by TEM and AFM, and doped with 4′‐(4‐benzoate)‐(2,2′,2′′‐terpyridine)‐5,5′′‐dicarboxylate (TPY) before being coordinated with iron centers to afford highly active and reusable single‐site solid catalysts for the hydrosilylation of terminal olefins. MOL‐based heterogeneous catalysts are free from the diffusional constraints placed on all known porous solid catalysts, including metal–organic frameworks. This work uncovers an entirely new strategy for designing single‐site solid catalysts and opens the door to a new class of two‐dimensional coordination materials with molecular functionalities.
A very thin catalyst: Two‐dimensional metal–organic layers with the thinness of a single monolayer act as highly efficient single‐site solid catalysts for alkene hydrosilylation. They outperform traditional metal–organic frameworks in terms of their activity as diffusional constraints on the substrates and products are removed.
There is an urgent need for effective treatment and preventive vaccine to contain this devastating global pandemic, which requires a comprehensive understanding of humoral responses specific to ...SARS-CoV-2 during the disease progression and convalescent phase of COVID-19 patients. We continuously monitored the serum IgM and IgG responses specific to four SARS-CoV-2 related antigens, including the nucleoprotein (NP), receptor binding domain (RBD), S1 protein, and ectodomain (ECD) of the spike protein among non-severe and severe COVID-19 patients for seven weeks since disease onset. Most patients generated humoral responses against NP and spike protein-related antigens but with their distinct kinetics profiles. Combined detection of NP and ECD antigens as detecting antigen synergistically improved the sensitivity of the serological assay, compared to that of using NP or RBD as detection antigen. 80.7% of convalescent sera from COVID-19 patients revealed that the varying extents of neutralization activities against SARS-CoV-2. S1-specific and ECD-specific IgA responses were strongly correlated with the neutralization activities in non-severe patients, but not in severe patients. Moreover, the neutralizing activities of the convalescent sera were shown to significantly decline during the period between 21 days to 28 days after hospital discharge, accompanied by a substantial drop in RBD-specific IgA response. Our data provide evidence that are crucial for serological testing, antibody-based intervention, and vaccine design of COVID-19.
In supercapacitors based on ionic liquid electrolytes, small amounts of absorbed water could potentially reduce the electrochemical window of electrolytes and cause performance degradation. The same ...would take place if ionic liquids are used as solvents for electrocatalysis involving the dissolved molecular species. In this work, we carry out molecular dynamics simulations, with gold and carbon electrodes in typical ionic liquids, hydrophobic and hydrophilic, to study electrosorption of water. We investigate the effects of hydrophobicity/hydrophilicity of ionic liquids and electrodes on interfacial distribution of ions and electrosorbed water. Results reveal that using hydrophilic ionic liquids would help to keep water molecules away from the negatively charged electrodes, even at large electrode polarizations. This conclusion is supported by electrochemical cyclic voltammetry measurements on gold and carbon electrodes in contact with humid ionic liquids. Thereby, our findings suggest potential mechanisms for protection of electrodes from water electrosorption.
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