White light generation by mixing red, green, and blue laser diodes (RGB LDs) was demonstrated with Commission International de l'Eclairage coordinates of (0.2928, 0.2981), a correlated color ...temperature of 8382 K, and a color rendering index of 54.4 to provide a maximal illuminance of 7540 lux. All the white lights generated using RGB LDs were set within the risk group-1 criterion to avoid the blue-light hazard to human eyes. In addition, the RGB-LD mixed white light was diffused using a frosted glass to avoid optical aberration and to improve the performance of the lighting source. In addition, visible light communication (VLC) by using RGB-LD mixed white-light carriers and a point-to-point scheme over 1 m was performed in the directly modulated 16-QAM OFDM data format. In back-to-back transmission, the maximal allowable data rate at 10.8, 10.4, and 8 Gbps was determined for R, G, and B LDs, respectively. Moreover, the RGB-LD mixed white light-based indoor wavelength-division multiplexing (WDM)-VLC system yielded a total allowable transmission data rate of 8.8 Gbps over 0.5 m in free space. Such a high-speed RGB-LD mixed WDM-VLC system without any channel interference can be used to simultaneously provide data transmission and white lighting in an indoor environment.
Lead‐free perovskite infrared light‐emitting diodes are achieved by using a halide perovskite CsSnI3 as an emissive layer. The film shows compact micrometer‐sized grains with only a few pinholes and ...cracks at the grain boundaries. The device exhibits maximum radiance of 40 W sr−1 m−2 at a current density of 364.3 mA cm−2 and maximum external quantum efficiency of 3.8% at 4.5 V.
Global warming is causing a negative impact on plant growth and adversely impacts on crop yield. MicroRNAs (miRNAs) are critical in regulating the expression of genes involved in plant development as ...well as defense responses. The effects of miRNAs on heat-stressed
warrants further investigation. Heat stress increased the expression of miR160 and its precursors but considerably reduced that of its targets,
, and
. To study the roles of miR160 during heat stress, transgenic
plants overexpressing
a (160OE) and artificial miR160 (MIM160), which mimics an inhibitor of miR160, were created. T-DNA insertion mutants of miR160 targets were also used to examine their tolerances to heat stress. Results presented that overexpressing miR160 improved seed germination and seedling survival under heat stress. The lengths of hypocotyl elongation and rachis were also longer in 160OE than the wild-type (WT) plants under heat stress. Interestingly, MIM160 plants showed worse adaption to heat. In addition,
, and
mutants presented similar phenotypes to 160OE under heat stress to advance abilities of thermotolerance. Moreover, transcriptome and qRT-PCR analyses revealed that
, and
expression levels were regulated by heat in 160OE, MIM160,
, and
plants. Hence, miR160 altered the expression of the heat shock proteins and plant development to allow plants to survive heat stress.
To enable high-speed underwater wireless optical communication (UWOC) in tap-water and seawater environments over long distances, a 450-nm blue GaN laser diode (LD) directly modulated by pre-leveled ...16-quadrature amplitude modulation (QAM) orthogonal frequency division multiplexing (OFDM) data was employed to implement its maximal transmission capacity of up to 10 Gbps. The proposed UWOC in tap water provided a maximal allowable communication bit rate increase from 5.2 to 12.4 Gbps with the corresponding underwater transmission distance significantly reduced from 10.2 to 1.7 m, exhibiting a bit rate/distance decaying slope of -0.847 Gbps/m. When conducting the same type of UWOC in seawater, light scattering induced by impurities attenuated the blue laser power, thereby degrading the transmission with a slightly higher decay ratio of 0.941 Gbps/m. The blue LD based UWOC enables a 16-QAM OFDM bit rate of up to 7.2 Gbps for transmission in seawater more than 6.8 m.
A GaN blue laser diode (BLD)-based visible-light communication link is demonstrated in a seawater environment to provide 16-quadrature amplitude modulation orthogonal frequency-division multiplexing ...(QAM OFDM) data transmission at 14.8 Gbps over 1.7 m. Lengthening the seawater distance to 10.2 m only decreases the transmission data rate by 4 Gbps, as caused by the frquency response limitation of the used avalanche photodiode. To optimize the QAM-OFDM transmission, the sampling rate of the encoded data is compromised to avoid the aliasing and oversampling effects during the waveform extraction procedure. The sampling rate is optimized to 3-5 times of the encoded data bandwidth for suppressing peak-to-average power ratio. Oversampling not only filters out background noise but also attenuates data amplitude to degrade transmission performance. Without using the multicarrier spectrally filtered OFDM, the 16-QAM OFDM data format only promotes the transmission capacity of BLD up to 7.6 Gbps in seawater. With spectrally filtering out the sidelobes of each OFDM subcarrier, the allowable modulation bandwidth is greatly improved from 1.9 to 2.7 GHz, as the intercarrier interference induced crosstalk between subbands is relieved to improve the SNR of the carried data with a raw data rate of up to 10.8 Gbps.
Psychological stress increases risk of gastrointestinal tract diseases. However, the mechanism behind stress-induced gastrointestinal injury is not well understood. The objective of our study is to ...elucidate the putative mechanism of stress-induced gastrointestinal injury and develop an intervention strategy. To achieve this, we employed the restraint stress mouse model, a well-established method to study the pathophysiological changes associated with psychological stress in mice. By orally administering gut-nonabsorbable Evans blue dye and monitoring its plasma levels, we were able to track the progression of gastrointestinal injury in live mice. Additionally, flow cytometry was utilized to assess the viability, death, and inflammatory status of splenic leukocytes, providing insights into the stress-induced impact on the innate immune system associated with stress-induced gastrointestinal injury. Our findings reveal that neutrophils represent the primary innate immune leukocyte lineage responsible for stress-induced inflammation. Splenic neutrophils exhibited elevated expression levels of the pro-inflammatory cytokine IL-1, cellular reactive oxygen species, mitochondrial burden, and cell death following stress challenge compared to other innate immune cells such as macrophages, monocytes, and dendritic cells. Regulated cell death analysis indicated that NETosis is the predominant stress-induced cell death response among other analyzed regulated cell death pathways. NETosis culminates in the formation and release of neutrophil extracellular traps, which play a crucial role in modulating inflammation by binding to pathogens. Treatment with the NETosis inhibitor GSK484 rescued stress-induced neutrophil extracellular trap release and gastrointestinal injury, highlighting the involvement of neutrophil extracellular traps in stress-induced gastrointestinal inflammation. Our results suggest that neutrophil NETosis could serve as a promising drug target for managing psychological stress-induced gastrointestinal injuries.
Abstract
Background
Increasing evidences have suggested an important role of microRNAs (miRNAs) in regulating cell death processes including NETosis and apoptosis. Dysregulated expression of miRNAs ...and increased formation of neutrophil extracellular traps (NETs) and apoptosis participate in autoimmune-mediated diffuse alveolar hemorrhage (DAH), mostly associated with pulmonary capillaritis in systemic lupus erythematosus (SLE) patients. In particular, besides the inhibition of apoptosis, miR-146a can control innate and acquired immune responses, and regulate the toll-like receptor pathway through targeting TRAF6 to reduce the expression of pro-inflammatory cytokines/chemokines like IL-8, a NETosis inducer.
Methods
Expression of miR-146a, TRAF6 and NETs were examined in peripheral blood neutrophils (PBNs) and lung tissues from SLE-associated DAH patients, and in neutrophils and pristane-induced DAH lung tissues from C57BL/6 mice. To assess NETs formation, we examined NETosis-related DNAs morphology and crucial mediators including protein arginine deiminase 4 and citrullinated Histone 3. Expression of miR-146a and its endogenous RNA SNHG16 were studied in HL-60 promyelocytic cells and MLE-12 alveolar cells during NETosis and apoptosis processes, respectively. MiR-146a-overexpressed and CRISPR-Cas13d-mediated SNHG16-silenced HL-60 cells were investigated for NETosis. MiR-146a-overexpressed MLE-12 cells were analyzed for apoptosis. Pristane-injected mice received intra-pulmonary miR-146a delivery to evaluate therapeutic efficacy in DAH.
Results
In DAH patients, there were down-regulated miR-146a levels with increased TRAF6 expression and PMA/LPS-induced NETosis in PBNs, and down-regulated miR-146a levels with increased TRAF6, high-mobility group box 1 (HMGB1), IL-8, NETs and apoptosis expression in lung tissues. HMGB1-stimulated mouse neutrophils had down-regulated miR-146a levels with increased TRAF6, IL-8 and NETs expression. PMA-stimulated HL-60 cells had down-regulated miR-146a levels with enhanced NETosis. MiR-146a-overexpressed or SNHG16-silenced HL-60 cells showed reduced NETosis. Apoptotic MLE-12 cells had down-regulated miR-146a expression and increased HMGB1 release, while miR-146a-overexpressed MLE-12 cells showed reduced apoptosis and HMGB1 production. There were down-regulated miR-146a levels with increased TRAF6, HMGB1, IL-8, NETs and apoptosis expression in mouse DAH lung tissues. Intra-pulmonary miR-146a delivery could suppress DAH by reducing TRAF6, IL-8, NETs and apoptosis expression.
Conclusions
Our results demonstrate firstly down-regulated pulmonary miR-146a levels with increased TRAF6 and IL-8 expression and NETs and apoptosis formation in autoimmune-mediated DAH, and implicate a therapeutic potential of intra-pulmonary miR-146a delivery.
Summary
The increased expression of programmed death‐ligands 1 and 2 (PD‐L1 and PD‐L2, respectively) on tumour cells contributes to immune evasion, suggesting that these proteins are attractive ...therapeutic targets. This study aimed to evaluate the validity of cerebrospinal fluid (CSF) soluble PD‐L1 (sPD‐L1) and soluble PD‐L2 (sPD‐L2) as biomarkers for primary central nervous system lymphoma (PCNSL). We determined the CSF concentrations of sPD‐L1 and sPD‐L2 in 46 patients with PCNSL using enzyme‐linked immunosorbent assays (ELISAs). A control group comprised 153 patients with other brain tumours, inflammatory/infectious status, or neurodegenerative diseases. Only CSF sPD‐L1 levels were significantly higher in patients with PCNSL relative to the controls. CSF sPD‐L1 also exhibited superior overall discrimination performance compared to CSF sPD‐L2 in diagnosing PCNSL. Compared with patients with PCNSL with low CSF sPD‐L1 levels, more patients with high levels had high serum lactate dehydrogenase levels, leptomeningeal involvement, and deep‐brain involvement. Furthermore, CSF sPD‐L1 could predict poor survival in PCNSL but CSF sPD‐L2 could not. Intriguingly, CSF sPD‐L1 levels were correlated with disease status and their dynamic changes post treatment could predict time to relapse. In conclusion, this study identified CSF sPD‐L1 as a promising prognostic biomarker, indicating a therapeutic potential of PD‐L1 blockade in PCNSL.
(Nees) Kuntze is a Chinese herbal medicine used in the treatment of respiratory virus infections. The methanol extract of
leaf contains chemical components such as β-sitosterol, indirubin, ...tryptanthrin, betulin, indigodole A, and indigodole B that have diverse biological activities. However, the antiviral action of
leaf and its components against human coronavirus remains to be elucidated. Human coronavirus NL63 infection is frequent among immunocompromised individuals, young children, and in the elderly. This study investigated the anti-Human coronavirus NL63 (HCoV-NL63) activity of the methanol extract of
leaf and its major components. The methanol extract of
leaf effectively inhibited the cytopathic effect (CPE) and virus yield (IC
= 0.64 μg/mL) in HCoV-NL63-infected cells. Moreover, this extract potently inhibited the HCoV-NL63 infection in a concentration-dependent manner. Among the six components identified in the methanol extract of
leaf, tryptanthrin and indigodole B (5a
-ethyltryptanthrin) exhibited potent antiviral activity in reducing the CPE and progeny virus production. The IC
values against virus yield were 1.52 μM and 2.60 μM for tryptanthrin and indigodole B, respectively. Different modes of time-of-addition/removal assay indicated that tryptanthrin prevented the early and late stages of HCoV-NL63 replication, particularly by blocking viral RNA genome synthesis and papain-like protease 2 activity. Notably, tryptanthrin (IC
= 0.06 μM) and indigodole B (IC
= 2.09 μM) exhibited strong virucidal activity as well. This study identified tryptanthrin as the key active component of
leaf methanol extract that acted against HCoV-NL63 in a cell-type independent manner.
against HCoV-NL63 infection.
Previous studies suggested that dengue was associated with an increased risk of several autoimmune diseases. However, this association still needs to be explored due to the limitations of these ...studies. A population-based cohort study was conducted using national health databases in Taiwan and included 63,814 newly diagnosed, laboratory-confirmed dengue patients between 2002 and 2015 and 1:4 controls (n = 255,256) matched by age, sex, area of residence and symptom onset time. Multivariate Cox proportional hazard regression models were used to investigate the risk of autoimmune diseases after dengue infection. Dengue patients had a slightly higher risk of overall autoimmune diseases than non-dengue controls (aHR 1.16; P = 0.0002). Stratified analyses by specific autoimmune diseases showed that only autoimmune encephalomyelitis remained statistically significant after Bonferroni correction for multiple testing (aHR 2.72; P < 0.0001). Sixteen (0.025%) dengue patients and no (0%) controls developed autoimmune encephalomyelitis in the first month of follow-up (HR >9999, P < 0.0001), but the risk between groups was not significantly different thereafter. Contrary to previous studies, our findings showed that dengue was associated with an increased short-term risk of a rare complication, autoimmune encephalomyelitis, but not associated with other autoimmune diseases.
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