Wuyishan National Park is well known for its rich biodiversity. Previously, only five species of
Meigen, 1803 were known to occur in this region. In this study, 27 species of the genus
from Wuyishan ...National Park are reviewed based on comparative morphological characteristics. Among these, nine species are described as new to science:
,
,
,
,
,
,
,
, and
Diagnoses, detailed descriptions, remarks, colored illustrations, distributions, and some of the female terminalia characteristics are provided for nine new species. In addition, 13 species of this genus are reported for the first time in Wuyishan National Park. A key to
species from Wuyishan National Park is also given.
Background
Porphyromonas gingivalis is the main pathogen of periodontal disease affecting over half of the worldwide adult population. Recent studies have shown that P. gingivalis is related to the ...development of non‐alcoholic fatty liver disease (NAFLD), a global major chronic liver disease, especially in developed countries. However, how P. gingivalis contributes to the pathogenesis of NAFLD has not been fully clarified. We aimed to conduct a preliminary exploration of the underlying mechanism of P. gingivalis infection in the development of NAFLD.
Methods
Human hepatocellular cells HepG2 were incubated with/without oleic acid (OA) and tested for lipid accumulation upon stimulation by lipopolysaccharide (LPS) derived from P. gingivalis or Escherichia coli. Intracellular lipid droplet formation was analyzed and quantified by Oil Red O staining. The involvement of signaling pathway molecules and pro‐inflammatory cytokines related to NF‐κB and MAPKs were examined with Western blot and quantitative real‐time PCR (qRT‐PCR) analyses and further evaluated with inhibitor treatment and RNA interference.
Results
HepG2 cells accumulated more intracellular lipids when stimulated with P. gingivalis LPS, as compared to cells treated with E. coli LPS or control. Further pathway analysis demonstrated that after stimulation with P. gingivalis LPS, cells displayed significantly upregulated MyD88 expression, increased phosphorylation of p65 and JNK, and more release of pro‐inflammatory cytokines, such as IL‐1, IL‐8, and TNF‐α. In addition, suppression of phosphorylation of p65 and JNK by inhibitors and RNA interference resulted in a reduction in lipid accumulation upon P. gingivalis LPS treatment.
Conclusions
These results suggest that P. gingivalis‐derived LPS may contribute to intracellular lipid accumulation and inflammatory reaction of HepG2 cells via the activation of NF‐κB and JNK signaling pathways. This study offers a possible explanation to the functional involvement of P. gingivalis infection in the pathological progression of NAFLD. These findings may help design new treatment strategies in NAFLD.
The removal of low-concentration antibiotics from water to alleviate the potential threat of antibiotic-resistant bacteria and genes calls for the development of advanced treatment technologies with ...high efficiency. In this study, a novel graphene modified electro-Fenton (e-Fenton) catalytic membrane (EFCM) was fabricated for in situ degradation of low-concentration antibiotic florfenicol. The removal efficiency was 90%, much higher than that of electrochemical filtration (50%) and single filtration process (27%). This demonstrated that EFCM acted not only as a cathode for e-Fenton oxidation process in a continuous mode but also as a membrane barrier to concentrate and enhance the mass transfer of florfenicol, which increased its oxidation chances. The removal rate of florfenicol by EFCM was much higher (10.2 ± 0.1 mg m–2 h–1) than single filtration (2.5 ± 0.1 mg m–2 h–1) or batch e-Fenton processes (4.3 ± 0.05 mg m–2 h–1). Long-term operation and fouling experiment further demonstrated the durability and antifouling property of EFCM. Four main degradation pathways of florfenicol were proposed by tracking the degradation byproducts. The above results highlighted the feasibility of this integrated membrane catalysis process for advanced water purification.
Ammonium‐ion batteries (AIBs) have recently attracted increasing attention in the field of aqueous batteries owing to their high safety and fast diffusion kinetics. The NH4+ storage mechanism is ...quite different from that of spherical metal ions (e.g. Li+, Na+, K+, Mg2+, and Zn2+) because of the formation of hydrogen bonds between NH4+ and host materials. Although many materials have been proposed as electrode materials for AIBs, their performances hardly meet the requirement of future electrochemical energy storage devices. It is thus urgent to design and exploit advanced materials for AIBs. This review highlights the state‐of‐the‐art research on AIBs. The insights into the basic configuration, operating mechanism and recent progress of electrode materials and corresponding electrolytes for AIBs have been comprehensively outlined. The electrode materials are classified and compared according to different NH4+ storage behaviour in the structure. The challenges, design strategies and perspectives are also discussed for the future development of AIBs.
Ammonium‐ion batteries have shown great potential due to their unique advantages including their high safety and fast diffusion kinetics in low‐cost energy storage systems. Compared with the common metal cations batteries AIBs offer great advantages of favorable sustainability and fast diffusion kinetics through hydrogen bonding in different electrode materials.
Several screening tools have been developed to facilitate early diagnosis of psoriatic arthritis (PsA); however, their performance varied greatly across different studies. In this study, we validated ...and compared the performance of four screening tools in detecting undiagnosed PsA Chinese patients with psoriasis, and determined the key questions and their weights. The four screening tools were the Early Arthritis for Psoriatic Patients (EARP) questionnaire, Psoriatic Arthritis Screening and Evaluation (PASE) questionnaire, Psoriasis and Arthritis Screening Questionnaire (PASQ), and Psoriasis Epidemiology Screening Tool (PEST). The receiver–operator curve (ROC) with area under curve (AUC) was used to determine sensitivity, specificity, and accuracy. Least absolute shrinkage and selection operator and logistic regression were utilized to retrieve key questions, and a nomogram was utilized to visualize their weights. Of 482 psoriasis patients from dermatology clinics, 77 were newly diagnosed with PsA. Another 68 patients with newly diagnosed PsA from rheumatology clinics were incorporated in the analysis. ROC analysis indicated that the optimal cut‐off values for EARP, PASE, PASQ, and PEST were 3, 40, 7, and 3, with corresponding sensitivities of 91.4%, 88.6%, 86.2%, and 88.5%, and specificities of 88.6%, 75.2%, 80.2%, and 83.6%, respectively. The AUC of EARP (0.925) was higher than those of PASE (0.885), PASQ (0.905), and PEST (0.827). However, none of them were sufficiently sensitive to identify pure axial PsA (sensitivities of EARP, PASQ, and PASE were 25.0%, 36.8%, and 42.1%, respectively). Twelve key questions were retrieved from these four tools to establish a nomogram with a high discrimination (C‐index = 0.993) and a good calibration (mean absolute error = 0.014). In conclusion, to screen undiagnosed PsA, EARP has slightly better balanced sensitivity and specificity, and higher accuracy. The retrieval of key questions and nomogram signify the necessity of attributing different scores to differently weighted questions when developing a new screening tool to make it function more efficiently.
The large yellow croaker Larimichthys crocea (L. crocea) is one of the most economically important marine fish in China and East Asian countries. It also exhibits peculiar behavioral and ...physiological characteristics, especially sensitive to various environmental stresses, such as hypoxia and air exposure. These traits may render L. crocea a good model for investigating the response mechanisms to environmental stress. To understand the molecular and genetic mechanisms underlying the adaptation and response of L. crocea to environmental stress, we sequenced and assembled the genome of L. crocea using a bacterial artificial chromosome and whole-genome shotgun hierarchical strategy. The final genome assembly was 679 Mb, with a contig N50 of 63.11 kb and a scaffold N50 of 1.03 Mb, containing 25,401 protein-coding genes. Gene families underlying adaptive behaviours, such as vision-related crystallins, olfactory receptors, and auditory sense-related genes, were significantly expanded in the genome of L. crocea relative to those of other vertebrates. Transcriptome analyses of the hypoxia-exposed L. crocea brain revealed new aspects of neuro-endocrine-immune/metabolism regulatory networks that may help the fish to avoid cerebral inflammatory injury and maintain energy balance under hypoxia. Proteomics data demonstrate that skin mucus of the air-exposed L. crocea had a complex composition, with an unexpectedly high number of proteins (3,209), suggesting its multiple protective mechanisms involved in antioxidant functions, oxygen transport, immune defence, and osmotic and ionic regulation. Our results reveal the molecular and genetic basis of fish adaptation and response to hypoxia and air exposure. The data generated by this study will provide valuable resources for the genetic improvement of stress resistance and yield potential in L. crocea.
High-throughput experimental technologies often identify dozens to hundreds of genes related to, or changed in, a biological or pathological process. From these genes one wants to identify biological ...pathways that may be involved and diseases that may be implicated. Here, we report a web server, KOBAS 2.0, which annotates an input set of genes with putative pathways and disease relationships based on mapping to genes with known annotations. It allows for both ID mapping and cross-species sequence similarity mapping. It then performs statistical tests to identify statistically significantly enriched pathways and diseases. KOBAS 2.0 incorporates knowledge across 1327 species from 5 pathway databases (KEGG PATHWAY, PID, BioCyc, Reactome and Panther) and 5 human disease databases (OMIM, KEGG DISEASE, FunDO, GAD and NHGRI GWAS Catalog). KOBAS 2.0 can be accessed at http://kobas.cbi.pku.edu.cn.
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•Ten OPEs were detected in organisms of a coral reef foodweb in the South China Sea.•Composition profiles of OPEs were species-specific among different organisms.•Biomagnification of ...TPTP in the pelagic foodweb was found for the first time.•A significantly linear correlation was found between TMFs and latitudes.
Environmental exposure to organophosphate esters (OPEs) continues to be a concern. Little is known about their bioaccumulation and trophodynamics, especially in tropical food webs. This study collected seawater and fifteen types of organism from a tropical ecosystem, South China Sea, to investigate the species-specific compositional, bioaccumulation, and trophic transfer of OPEs. The total concentrations of 11 target OPEs (ng/g dw) in the organisms decreased with the increase of their trophic levels in the order: phytoplankton (922) > zooplankton (660) > oysters (309) > crabs (225) > coral tissues (202) > fishes (58.2). The composition profiles (relative abundances) of OPEs were different among the species of organisms, which is likely affected by metabolism and the physicochemical property of OPEs. The trophic biomagnification of tripentyl phosphate (TPTP) in the pelagic food web was unexpected and requires further investigation. The trophic magnification factors (TMFs) of OPEs were generally lower in this tropical aquatic food web than in temperate and frigid aquatic food web. Our analysis suggests that there is a significant positive linear correlation between latitude and TMF. Intakes of OPEs through the consumption of the seafood involved in this work does not pose health risk to adults.
In this study, 21 species of
Meigen, 1803 are reviewed in Huaping National Nature Reserve, China. Among these, three species, i.e.,
,
and
, are described as new to science. In addition, nine known ...species of this genus are reported for the first time in Guangxi. All the known species were enumerated, and an identification key to the species of
from Huaping National Nature Reserve based on morphological characteristics is provided.
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