Metal–organic complexes assembled from coordinative interactions are known to be able to display a wide range of photoluminescent behaviors benefiting from an extensive number of metal ions, organic ...linkers, and inclusion guests, depending on the multifaceted nature of their chemical structures and photophysical properties. In the past two decades, the white-light-emitting (WLE) and photoluminescent color-tuning (PLCT) materials based on the single-phase metal–organic coordination assemblies have merited particular attention and gained substantial advances. In this review, we give an overview of recent progress in this field, placing emphasis on the WLE and PLCT properties realized in the single-phase materials, which covers the origin, generation, and manipulation of different types of photoluminescence (PL) derived from ligand-centered (LC), metal/cluster-centered (MC or CC), excimer/exciplex-based (EX), metal-to-ligand or ligand-to-metal charge-transfer-based (MLCT or LMCT), or guest-included emissions. The coordination assemblies in this topic can be generally classified into three categories (1) mono/homometallic coordination assemblies based on main group (s,p-block), transition (d-block), or lanthanide (f-block) metal centers, (2) s/p–f-, d–f-, or f–f-type heterometallic coordination assemblies, and (3) guest-included coordination assemblies for which WLE and PLCT properties can be achieved by virtue of either a wide-band/overlapped emission covering the whole visible spectrum from a single emitting center or a combination of complementary color emissions from multiple emitting centers/origins. Some state-of-the-art assembly methods and successful design models relevant to the above three categories are elaborated to demonstrate how to achieve efficient and controllable white-light emission in a single-phase material through a tunable PL approach. Potential applications in the fields of lighting and displaying, sensing and detecting, and barcoding and patterning are surveyed, and at the end, possible prospects and challenges for future development along this line are proposed.
The efficacy and safety of maternal tenofovir disoproxil fumarate (TDF) in reducing mother‐to‐infant hepatitis B virus (HBV) transmissions is not clearly understood. We conducted a prospective, ...multicenter trial and enrolled 118 hepatitis B surface antigen (HBsAg)– and hepatitis B e antigen–positive pregnant women with HBV DNA ≥7.5 log10 IU/mL. The mothers received no medication (control group, n = 56, HBV DNA 8.22 ± 0.39 log10 IU/mL) or TDF 300 mg daily (TDF group, n = 62, HBV DNA 8.18 ± 0.47 log10 IU/mL) from 30‐32 weeks of gestation until 1 month postpartum. Primary outcome was infant HBsAg at 6 months old. At delivery, the TDF group had lower maternal HBV DNA levels (4.29 ± 0.93 versus 8.10 ± 0.56 log10 IU/mL, P < 0.0001). Of the 121/123 newborns, the TDF group had lower rates of HBV DNA positivity at birth (6.15% versus 31.48%, P = 0.0003) and HBsAg positivity at 6 months old (1.54% versus 10.71%, P = 0.0481). Multivariate analysis revealed that the TDF group had lower risk (odds ratio = 0.10, P = 0.0434) and amniocentesis was associated with higher risk (odds ratio 6.82, P = 0.0220) of infant HBsAg positivity. The TDF group had less incidence of maternal alanine aminotransferase (ALT) levels above two times the upper limit of normal for ≥3 months (3.23% versus 14.29%, P = 0.0455), a lesser extent of postpartum elevations of ALT (P = 0.007), and a lower rate of ALT over five times the upper limit of normal (1.64% versus 14.29%, P = 0.0135) at 2 months postpartum. Maternal creatinine and creatinine kinase levels, rates of congenital anomaly, premature birth, and growth parameters in infants were comparable in both groups. At 12 months, one TDF‐group child newly developed HBsAg positivity, presumably due to postnatal infection and inefficient humoral responses to vaccines. Conclusions: Treatment with TDF for highly viremic mothers decreased infant HBV DNA at birth and infant HBsAg positivity at 6 months and ameliorated maternal ALT elevations. (Hepatology 2015;62:375–386
Two-dimensional (2D) metal-organic frameworks have exhibited a range of fascinating attributes, of interest to numerous fields. Here, a calcium-based metal-organic framework with a 2D layered ...structure has been designed. Dual emissions relating to intralayer excimers and interlayer trapped excitons are produced, showing excitation-dependent shifting tendency, characteristic of a low dimensional semiconductor nature. Furthermore, the layer stacking by weak van der Waals forces among dynamically coordinated DMF molecules enables exfoliation and morphology transformation, which can be achieved by ultrasound in different ratios of DMF/H
O solvents, or grinding under appropriate humidity conditions, leading to nano samples including ultrathin nanosheets with single or few coordination layers. The cutting down of layer numbers engenders suppression of interlayer exciton-related emission, resulting in modulation of the overall emitting color and optical memory states. This provides a rare prototypical model with switchable dual-channel emissions based on 2D-MOFs, in which the interlayer excitation channel can be reversibly tuned on/off by top-down exfoliation and morphology transformation.
Personalized medical care focuses on prediction of disease risk and response to medications. To build the risk models, access to both large-scale genomic resources and human genetic studies is ...required. The Taiwan Biobank (TWB) has generated high-coverage, whole-genome sequencing data from 1492 individuals and genome-wide SNP data from 103,106 individuals of Han Chinese ancestry using custom SNP arrays. Principal components analysis of the genotyping data showed that the full range of Han Chinese genetic variation was found in the cohort. The arrays also include thousands of known functional variants, allowing for simultaneous ascertainment of Mendelian disease-causing mutations and variants that affect drug metabolism. We found that 21.2% of the population are mutation carriers of autosomal recessive diseases, 3.1% have mutations in cancer-predisposing genes, and 87.3% carry variants that affect drug response. We highlight how TWB data provide insight into both population history and disease burden, while showing how widespread genetic testing can be used to improve clinical care.
Background and purpose
Recent genetic progress has shown many causative/risk genes linked to Parkinson's disease (PD), mainly in patients of European ancestry. The study aimed to investigate the ...PD‐related genes and determine the mutational spectrum of early‐onset PD in ethnic Chinese.
Methods
In this study, whole‐exome sequencing and/or gene dosage analysis were performed in 704 early‐onset PD (EOPD) patients (onset age ≤45 years) and 1866 controls. Twenty‐six PD‐related genes and 20 other genes linked to neurodegenerative and lysosome diseases were analysed.
Results
Eighty‐two (11.6%, 82/704) EOPD patients carrying rare pathogenic/likely pathogenic variants in PD‐related genes were identified. The mutation frequency in autosomal recessive inheritance EOPD (42.9%, 27/63) was much higher than that in autosomal dominant inheritance EOPD (0.9%, 12/110) or sporadic EOPD (8.1%, 43/531). Bi‐allelic mutations in PRKN were the most frequent, accounting for 5.1% of EOPD cases. Three common pathogenic variants, p.A53V in SNCA, p.G284R in PRKN and p.P53Afs*38 in CHCHD2, occur exclusively in Asians. The putative damaging variants from GBA, PRKN, DJ1, PLA2G6 and GCH1 contributed to the collective risk for EOPD. Notably, the protein‐truncating variants in CHCHD2 were enriched in EOPD, especially for p.P53Afs*38, which was also found in three patients from an independent cohort of patients with late‐onset PD (n = 1300). Functional experiments confirmed that truncated CHCHD2 variants cause loss of function and are linked to mitochondrial dysfunction.
Conclusions
Our study reveals that the genetic spectrum of EOPD in Chinese, which may help develop genetic scanning strategies, provided more evidence supporting CHCHD2 in PD.
Three common pathogenic variants, p.A53V in SNCA, p.G284R in PRKN and p.P53Afs*38 in CHCHD2, occur exclusively in Asians. The putative damaging variants from GBA, PRKN, DJ1 and PLA2G6 contributed the collective risk for early‐onset Parkinson’s disease (PD). The protein‐truncating variants in CHCHD2 were significantly enriched in early‐onset PD, especially for p.P53Afs*38, which was confirmed in an independent cohort of patients with late‐onset PD and functional experiments.
Abstract
Context
The association between circulating triglyceride (TG) and glycated hemoglobin A1c (HbA1c), a biomarker for type 2 diabetes, has been widely addressed, but the causal direction of the ...relationship is still ambiguous.
Objective
To confirm the causal relationship between TG and HbA1c by using bidirectional and 2-step Mendelian randomization (MR) approaches.
Methods
We carried out a bidirectional MR approach using the summarized results from the public database to examine any potential causal effects between serum TG and HbA1c in 16 000 individuals of the Taiwan Biobank cohort. We used the MR estimate and the MR inverse variance–weighted method to reveal that relationship between TG and HbA1c. To further determine whether the DNA methylation at specific sequences mediate the causal pathway between TG and HbA1c, using the 2-step MR approach.
Results
We identified that a single-unit increase in TG measured via log transformation of mg/dL data was associated with a significant increase of 10 units of HbA1c (95% CI = 1.05−18.95, P = 0.029). In contrast, the genetic determinants of HbA1c do not contribute to the amount of circulating TG (beta = 1.75, 95% CI = –11.50 to 14.90). Sensitivity analyses, included the weighted-median approach and MR-Egger regression, were performed to confirm no pleiotropic effect among these instrumental variables. Furthermore, we identified the genetic variant, rs1823200, is associated with both methylation of the CpG site adjacent to CADPS gene and HbA1c level.
Conclusion
Our study suggests that higher circulating TG can have an affect on genomic methylation status, ultimately causing elevated level of circulating HbA1c.
Reactive oxygen species (ROS) levels largely determine pulmonary fibrosis. Antioxidants have been found to ameliorate lung fibrosis after long-term paraquat (PQ) exposure. The effects of ...antioxidants, however, on the signalling pathways involved in PQ-induced lung fibrosis have not yet been investigated sufficiently. Here, we examined the impacts of ligustrazin on lung fibrosis, in particular ROS-related autophagy and pro-fibrotic signalling pathways, using a murine model of PQ-induced lung fibrosis.
We explored the effects of microRNA-193 (miR-193a) on Hedgehog (Hh) and PI3K/Akt/mTOR signalling and oxidative stress in lung tissues. Levels of miR-193a, protein kinase B (Akt), phosphoinositide 3-Kinase (PI3K), ceclin1, mammalian target of rapamycin (mTOR), sonic hedgehog (SHH), myosin-like Bcl2 interacting protein (LC3), smoothened (Smo), and glioma-associated oncogene-1 (Gli-1) mRNAs were determined with quantitative real-time PCR. Protein levels of PI3K, p-mTOR, p-Akt, SHH, beclin1, gGli-1, LC3, smo, transforming growth factor-β1 (TGF-β1), mothers against DPP homologue-2 (Smad2), connective tissue growth factor (CTGF), collagen I, collagen III, α-smooth muscle actin (α-SMA) nuclear factor erythroid 2p45-related factor-2 (Nrf2), and p-Smad2 were detected by western blotting. In addition, α-SMA, malondialdehyde, ROS, superoxide dismutase (SOD), oxidised and reduced glutathione, hydroxyproline, and overall collagen levels were identified in lung tissues using immunohistochemistry.
Long-term PQ exposure blocked miR-193a expression, reduced PI3K/Akt/mTOR signalling, increased oxidative stress, inhibited autophagy, increased Hh signalling, and facilitated the formation of pulmonary fibrosis. Ligustrazin blocked PI3K/Akt/mTOR and Hh signalling as well as reduced oxidative stress via increasing miR-193a expression and autophagy, all of which reduced pulmonary fibrosis. These effects of ligustrazin were accompanied by reduced TGF-β1, CTGF, and Collagen I and III expression.
Ligustrazin blocked PQ-induced PI3K/Akt/mTOR and Hh signalling by increasing miR-193a expression, thereby attenuating PQ-induced lung fibrosis.
Background
We tested the hypothesis that multiple obesity‐related risk factors (obesity, physical activity, cardiopulmonary physical fitness, sleep‐disorder breathing (SDB), and sleep quality) are ...associated with childhood asthma using a Mendelian randomization (MR) design. Furthermore, we aim to investigate whether these risk factors were associated with incident asthma prospectively.
Methods
In total, 7069 children aged 12 from the Taiwan Children Health Study were enrolled in the current study. Cross‐sectional logistic regression, one‐sample MR, summary‐level MR sensitivity analyses, and prospective survival analyses were used to investigate each causal pathway.
Results
In MR analysis, three of the five risk factors (obesity, SDB, and sleep quality) were associated with asthma, with the highest effect sizes per inter‐quartile range (IQR) increase observed for sleep quality (odds ratio OR = 1.42; 95% confidence interval CI: 1.06 to 1.92) and the lowest for obesity (OR = 1.08; 95% CI: 1.00–1.16). In the prospective survival analysis, obesity showed the highest risk of incident asthma per IQR increase (hazard ratio HR = 1.28; 95% CI: 1.05 to 1.56), followed by SDB (HR = 1.18; 95% CI: 1.08 to 1.29) and sleep quality (HR = 1.10; 95% CI: 1.03 to 1.17).
Conclusion
Among the examined factors, the most plausible risk factors for asthma were obesity, SDB, and poor sleep quality. For the prevention of childhood asthma, relevant stakeholders should prioritize improving children's sleep quality and preventing obesity comorbidities such as SDB.
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