Based on the successful establishment of a rat model of chronic restraint stress, we used multiple algorithms to quantify the morphological changes of rat hypothalamic microglia from various ...perspectives, providing a pathomorphological basis for the subsequent study of molecular mechanisms of hypothalamic stress injury, such as neuroinflammation. To verify the successful establishment of the chronic stress model, an enzyme-linked immunosorbent assay was performed to detect serum glucocorticoid levels. Microglia labeled with Iba1 in frozen sections of rat hypothalamus were scanned and photographed at multiple levels using confocal microscopy. Subsequently, images were processed for external contouring and skeletonization, and morphological indices of microglia were calculated and analyzed using fractal, skeleton, and Sholl analysis. In addition, the co-expression of CD68 (a marker that can reflect phagocytic activity) and Iba1 was observed by immunofluorescence technique. Compared with the control group, microglia in the chronic stress group displayed reduced fractal dimension and lacunarity, increased density and circularity, enlarged soma areas, and shortened and reduced branches. Sholl analysis confirmed the reduced complexity of microglia following chronic stress. Meanwhile, microglia CD68 increased significantly, indicating that the microglia in the chronic stress group have greater phagocytosis activity. In summary, chronic restraint stress promoted the conversion of microglia in the rat hypothalamus to a less complex form, manifested as larger soma, shorter and fewer branches, more uniform and dense texture, and increased circularity; indeed, the shape of these microglia resembled that of amoeba and they displayed strong phagocytosis activity.
•The spatial complexity of microglia in the hypothalamus of rats decreased after chronic stress.•The branches of microglia decreased and shortened after chronic stress, and the area of cell soma enlarged.•The phagocytosis of microglia in hypothalamus of rats was enhanced after chronic stress.
•A large-scale (5m×5m×7.5m) bioreactor experiment was conducted on unprocessed high food waste content (HFWC) MSW.•A large quantity of self-released leachate was collected within two months after ...waste filling.•A rapid build-up of high leachate level was observed after waste filling.•A linear increase of compression strain with an increase of leachate draining rate was found.
A large-scale bioreactor experiment lasting for 2years was presented in this paper to investigate the biochemical, hydrological and mechanical behaviors of high food waste content (HFWC) MSW. The experimental cell was 5m in length, 5m in width and 7.5m in depth, filled with unprocessed HFWC-MSWs of 91.3 tons. In the experiment, a surcharge loading of 33.4kPa was applied on waste surface, mature leachate refilling and warm leachate recirculation were performed to improve the degradation process. In this paper, the measurements of leachate quantity, leachate level, leachate biochemistry, gas composition, waste temperature, earth pressure and waste settlement were presented, and the following observations were made: (1) 26.8m3 leachate collected from the 91.3 tons HFWC-MSW within the first two months, being 96% of the total amount collected in one year. (2) The leachate level was 88% of the waste thickness after waste filling in a close system, and reached to over 100% after a surcharge loading of 33.4kPa. (3) The self-weight effective stress of waste was observed to be close to zero under the condition of high leachate mound. Leachate drawdown led to a gain of self-weight effective stress. (4) A rapid development of waste settlement took place within the first two months, with compression strains of 0.38–0.47, being over 95% of the strain recorded in one year. The compression strain tended to increase linearly with an increase of leachate draining rate during that two months.
Milk-derived exosomes were identified as a novel mechanism of mother-to-child transmission of regulatory molecules, but their functions in intestinal tissues of neonates are not well-studied. Here, ...we characterized potential roles of porcine milk-derived exosomes in the intestinal tract. In vitro, treatment with milk-derived exosomes (27 ± 3 ng and 55 ± 5 ng total RNA) significantly promoted IPEC-J2 cell proliferation by MTT, CCK8, EdU fluorescence and EdU flow cytometry assays. The qRT-PCR and Western blot analyses indicated milk-derived exosomes (0.27 ± 0.03 μg total RNA) significantly promoted expression of CDX2, IGF-1R and PCNA, and inhibited p53 gene expression involved in intestinal proliferation. Additionally, six detected miRNAs were significantly increased in IPEC-J2 cell, while FAS and SERPINE were significantly down-regulated relative to that in control. In vivo, treated groups (0.125 μg and 0.25 μg total RNA) significantly raised mice' villus height, crypt depth and ratio of villus length to crypt depth of intestinal tissues, significantly increased CDX2, PCNA and IGF-1R' expression and significantly inhibited p53' expression. Our study demonstrated that milk-derived exosomes can facilitate intestinal cell proliferation and intestinal tract development, thus giving a new insight for milk nutrition and newborn development and health.
Understanding the particle size distribution in the air and patterns of environmental contamination of SARS-CoV-2 is essential for infection prevention policies. Here we screen surface and air ...samples from hospital rooms of COVID-19 patients for SARS-CoV-2 RNA. Environmental sampling is conducted in three airborne infection isolation rooms (AIIRs) in the ICU and 27 AIIRs in the general ward. 245 surface samples are collected. 56.7% of rooms have at least one environmental surface contaminated. High touch surface contamination is shown in ten (66.7%) out of 15 patients in the first week of illness, and three (20%) beyond the first week of illness (p = 0.01, χ
test). Air sampling is performed in three of the 27 AIIRs in the general ward, and detects SARS-CoV-2 PCR-positive particles of sizes >4 µm and 1-4 µm in two rooms, despite these rooms having 12 air changes per hour. This warrants further study of the airborne transmission potential of SARS-CoV-2.
Atherosclerosis (AS) is associated with high morbidity and mortality, thus imposing a growing burden on modern society. Herb‐derived bicyclol (BIC) is a versatile bioactive compound that can be used ...to treat AS. However, its efficacy in AS is not yet described. Here, it is shown that BIC normalizes gut microflora dysbiosis induced by a high fat diet in Apoe(−/−) mice. Metagenome‐wide association study analysis verifies that the modulation on carbohydrate‐active enzymes and short‐chain fatty acid generating genes in gut flora is among the mechanisms. The gut healthiness, especially the gut immunity and integrity, is restored by BIC intervention, leading to improved systemic immune cell dynamic and liver functions. Accordingly, the endothelial activation, macrophage infiltration, and cholesterol ester accumulation in the aortic arch are alleviated by BIC to lessen the plaque onset. Moreover, it is proved that the therapeutic effect of BIC on AS is transmissible by fecal microbiota transplantation. The current study, for the first time, demonstrates the antiatherosclerotic effects of BIC and shows that its therapeutic value can at least partially be attributed to its manipulation of gut microbiota.
Bicyclol (BIC) effectively modulates the composition, function, and production of endogenous metabolites of gut microbiota. The gut health reinstated by BIC benefits systemic immune cell dynamics and liver functions, leading to improved chronic inflammation and hypercholesterolemia. Consequently, endothelial activation, macrophage infiltration, and cholesterol ester accumulation in the aortic arch are attenuated, causing less plaque onset.
Lymph node metastasis (LNM) is one of the most important factors affecting the prognosis of breast cancer. The accurate evaluation of lymph node status is useful to predict the outcomes of patients ...and guide the choice of cancer treatment. However, there is still lack of a low-cost non-invasive method to assess the status of axillary lymph node (ALN). Gene expression signature has been used to assess lymph node metastasis status of breast cancer. In addition, nucleosome footprint of cell-free DNA (cfDNA) carries gene expression information of its original tissues, so it may be used to evaluate the axillary lymph node status in breast cancer.
In this study, we found that the cfDNA nucleosome footprints between the ALN-positive patients and ALN-negative patients showed different patterns by implementing whole-genome sequencing (WGS) to detect 15 ALN-positive and 15 ALN-negative patients. In order to further evaluate its potential for assessing ALN status, we developed a classifier with multiple machine learning models by using 330 WGS data of cfDNA from 162 ALN-positive and 168 ALN-negative samples to distinguish these two types of patients.
We found that the promoter profiling between the ALN-positive patients and ALN-negative patients showed distinct patterns. In addition, we observed 1071 genes with differential promoter coverage and their functions were closely related to tumorigenesis. We found that the predictive classifier based on promoter profiling with a support vector machine model, named PPCNM, produced the largest area under the curve of 0.897 (95% confidence interval 0.86-0.93).
These results indicate that promoter profiling can be used to distinguish ALN-positive patients from ALN-negative patients, which may be helpful to guide the choice of cancer treatment.
Abstract
Background
Studies have been conducted to evaluate whether sarcopenia is a predictor for survival in patients with colon cancer postsurgery, but findings have been inconsistent, and effects ...of age were seldom evaluated.
Methods
We recruited 133 patients with resectable colon cancer who underwent surgery between January 2014 and December 2017 at a teaching hospital to evaluate the effects of sarcopenia on survival, after adjusting for age and other potential predictors, including visceral adiposity (VA).
Results
Preoperative sarcopenia was associated with worse overall survival (OS: 62.3% vs. 83.8%,
p
= 0.04) and longer hospital stay (20.6 vs. 14.9 days,
p
< 0.01) while VA was not. Cox proportional hazards regressions showed that sarcopenia was associated with an adjusted hazard ratio (HR) of 2.91 (95% confidence interval CI: 1.08−7.86) after adjustment for other independent risk factors, but was not associated with disease free survival. In stratified analyses, we found that sarcopenia was an independent factor for worse OS (adjusted HR = 1.94; 95% CI: 1.11−3.38) among patients >70 years, but not among patients ≤70 years (HR = 0.48; 95% CI: 0.55−4.55).
Conclusions
Age appeared to be a modifier of the effects of sarcopenia on OS among colon cancer patients postsurgery.
SIRT7 is a member of the sirtuin family of proteins that are known to be associated with tumor development. However, the functional roles and molecular mechanisms underlying the function of SIRT7 in ...breast cancer cell survival and tumor development remain unclear. Recent studies demonstrated that SIRT7 is upregulated in breast cancer cells and tissues. In the present study, we systematically explored the roles of SIRT7 in the growth of breast cancer cells and tumors both in vitro and in vivo. Our results showed that SIRT7 plays a major role in facilitating cell survival by promoting cell proliferation and inhibiting apoptosis. SIRT7 depletion significantly inhibited cell invasion and wound healing by blocking cell cycle progression and inducing cell apoptosis. Meanwhile, SIRT7 depletion can increase the sensitivity of breast cancer cells to doxorubicin (DOX). Xenograft model studies showed that stable silencing of SIRT7 inhibited tumor growth and enhanced tumor sensitivity to DOX. Further research revealed that p38MAPK is involved in SIRT7‐mediated regulation of breast cancer cell proliferation and tumor growth. Taken together, our results showed that SIRT7 plays a critical role in breast cancer cell survival, migration, and tumor growth, and increased the efficiency of DOX treatment both in vitro and in vivo. Therefore, SIRT7 is a promising therapeutic target in breast cancer treatment.
(1) SIRT7 affected proliferation and migration of breast cancer cell. (2) Depletion of SIRT7 arrested of cell cycle and caused apoptosis in breast cancer cells. (3) Stable silencing of SIRT7 decreased MDA‐MB‐231 tumors growth and increased the sensitivity of breast cancer cells to DOX.
Dimming and scattering control are two of the major features of smart windows, which provide adjustable sunlight intensity and protect the privacy of people in a building. A hybrid photo- and ...electrical-controllable smart window that exploits salt and photochromic dichroic dye-doped cholesteric liquid crystal was developed. The photochromic dichroic dye causes a change in transmittance from high to low upon exposure to sunlight. When the light source is removed, the smart window returns from colored to colorless. The salt-doped cholesteric liquid crystal can be bi-stably switched from transparent into the scattering state by a low-frequency voltage pulse and switched back to its transparent state by a high-frequency voltage pulse. In its operating mode, an LC smart window can be passively dimmed by sunlight and the haze can be actively controlled by applying an electrical field to it; it therefore exhibits four optical states—transparent, scattering, dark clear, and dark opaque. Each state is stable in the absence of an applied voltage. This smart window can automatically dim when the sunlight gets stronger, and according to user needs, actively adjust the haze to achieve privacy protection.
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