The association between subclinical hypothyroidism (SCH) and metabolic syndrome (MetS) has been widely discussed. This study aimed to conduct an update and comprehensive meta-analysis to reveal the ...risk of MetS and its components in SCH. PubMed, Embase and ISI Web of Knowledge were searched to identify relevant studies through February 20th, 2020. Review Manager 5.3 and Stata 14.0 were used to conduct the meta-analysis. Both fixed-effects and random-effects models were used. In total, 18 articles (19 studies) incorporating 79,727 participants were included. The pooled OR for MetS comparing subjects with SCH with euthyroid subjects was 1.28 (95% CI: 1.19 to 1.39, p = 0.04, I2 = 40%). Subgroup analysis results showed significant associations of SCH and MetS in the adult subgroup (OR = 1.28, 95% CI: 1.18–1.40), Asian population subgroup (OR = 1.30, 95% CI: 1.19–1.42) and cross-sectional study design subgroup (OR = 1.31, 95% CI: 1.16–1.47). Significant associations of SCH and MetS also existed in all MetS definition criteria subgroups except the Chinese Diabetes Society (CDS) subgroup. SCH was correlated with MetS and was not affected by the subgroup analysis stratified by the proportion of females in the total population, the TSH cutoff value in SCH diagnostic criteria, or the adjustment for confounding factors. SCH was identified to be associated with an increased risk of obesity, hypertension, high triglyceride (TG) levels and low high-density lipoprotein cholesterol (HDL-C) levels. In conclusion, SCH is significantly associated with an increased risk of MetS and four out of five components of MetS.
Ultrathin, lightweight, and flexible electromagnetic interference (EMI) shielding materials are urgently demanded to address EM radiation pollution. Efficient design to utilize the shields' ...microstructures is crucial yet remains highly challenging for maximum EMI shielding effectiveness (SE) while minimizing material consumption. Herein, novel cellular membranes are designed based on a facile polydopamine‐assisted metal (copper or silver) deposition on electrospun polymer nanofibers. The membranes can efficiently exploit the high‐conjunction cellular structures of metal and polymer nanofibers, and their interactions for excellent electrical conductivity, mechanical flexibility, and ultrahigh EMI shielding performance. EMI SE reaches more than 53 dB in an ultra‐broadband frequency range at a membrane thickness of merely 2.5 µm and a density of 1.6 g cm−3, and an SE of 44.7 dB is accomplished at the lowest thickness of 1.2 µm. The normalized specific SE is up to 232 860 dB cm2 g−1, significantly surpassing that of other shielding materials ever reported. More, integrated functionalities are discovered in the membrane, such as antibacterial, waterproof properties, excellent air permeability, high resistance to mechanical deformations and low‐voltage uniform heating performance, offering strong potential for applications in aerospace and portable and wearable smart electronics.
A designed scalable, ultrathin, and flexible cellular membrane, composed of high‐conjunction metal‐wrapped polymer nanofibers, exhibits excellent electromagnetic interference shielding performance. Moreover, the membranes effectively integrate multifunctionalities such as antibacterial and waterproof properties, air permeability, and low‐voltage uniform heating performance, offering strong potential for applications in aerospace and portable and wearable smart electronics.
Due to the DNA repair defect, BRCA1/2 deficient tumor cells are more sensitive to PARP inhibitors (PARPi) through the mechanism of synthetic lethality. At present, several PAPRi targeting poly ...(ADP-ribose) polymerase (PARP) have been approved for ovarian cancer and breast cancer indications. However, PARPi resistance is ubiquitous in clinic. More than 40% BRCA1/2-deficient patients fail to respond to PARPi. In addition, lots of patients acquire PARPi resistance with prolonged oral administration of PARPi. Homologous recombination repair deficient (HRD), as an essential prerequisite of synthetic lethality, plays a vital role in killing tumor cells. Therefore, Homologous recombination repair restoration (HRR) becomes the predominant reason of PARPi resistance. Recently, it was reported that DNA replication fork protection also contributed to PARPi resistance in BRCA1/2-deficient cells and patients. Moreover, various factors, such as reversion mutations, epigenetic modification, restoration of ADP-ribosylation (PARylation) and pharmacological alteration lead to PARPi resistance as well. In this review, we reviewed the underlying mechanisms of PARP inhibitor resistance in detail and summarized the potential strategies to overcome PARPi resistance and increase PARPi sensitivity.
Novel nonthermal inactivation technologies have been increasingly popular over the traditional thermal food processing methods due to their capacity in maintaining microbial safety and other quality ...parameters. Plasma‐activated water (PAW) is a cutting‐edge technology developed around a decade ago, and it has attracted considerable attention as a potential washing disinfectant. This review aims to offer an overview of the fundamentals and potential applications of PAW in the agri‐food sector. A detailed description of the interactions between plasma and water can help to have a better understanding of PAW, hence the physicochemical properties of PAW are discussed. Further, this review elucidates the complex inactivation mechanisms of PAW, including oxidative stress and physical effect. In particular, the influencing factors on inactivation efficacy of PAW, including processing factors, characteristics of microorganisms, and background environment of water are extensively described. Finally, the potential applications of PAW in the food industry, such as surface decontamination for various food products, including fruits and vegetables, meat and seafood, and also the treatment on quality parameters are presented. Apart from decontamination, the applications of PAW for seed germination and plant growth, as well as meat curing are also summarized. In the end, the challenges and limitations of PAW for scale‐up implementation, and future research efforts are also discussed. This review demonstrates that PAW has the potential to be successfully used in the food industry.
Earth‐abundant Sn/Cu catalysts are highly selective for the electrocatalytic reduction of CO2 to CO in aqueous electrolytes. However, CO2 mass transport limitations, resulting from the low solubility ...of CO2 in water, so far limit the CO partial current density for Sn/Cu catalysts to about 10 mA cm−2. Here, a freestanding gas diffusion electrode design based on Sn‐decorated Cu‐coated electrospun polyvinylidene fluoride nanofibers is demonstrated. The use of gaseous CO2 as a feedstock alleviates mass transport limitations, resulting in high CO partial current densities above 100 mA cm−2, while maintaining high CO faradaic efficiencies above 80%. These results represent an important step toward an economically viable pathway to CO2 reduction.
Earth‐abundant Sn/Cu‐nanofiber electrodes are fabricated by Cu coating on electrospun polymer nanofibers and electrochemical Sn underpotential deposition on the Cu surface. The Sn/Cu‐nanofiber based gas diffusion electrodes are highly selective for electrocatalytic reduction of gaseous CO2 to CO, and achieve CO partial current densities of up to 104 mA cm−2, representing the highest reported value for a Sn/Cu‐based catalysts.
In this paper, I examine the iconography, religious function and text–image relationship of one of the earliest illustrations of the apocryphal Visualization Sūtra, namely, the mural painting on the ...left (south) wall of Cave 20 at the Toyok Grottoes in Turfan created in the late sixth century. I study this mural with a structuralist approach to situate it within the overall pictorial program of the cave temple. I argue that this wall painting was designed as a set of visual and verbal cues to assist the meditating monks in situ to separately visualize the different individual visions constituting the “Thirteen Visualizations” taught in the sutra, excluding the five visions directly related to the Amitāyus Triad, namely, the eighth, ninth, tenth, eleventh and thirteenth visualizations. These five visualizations were likely facilitated by icons of the Amitāyus Triad placed in the center of the cave. The meditators started from the contemplations of the impure represented on the right (north) wall as preparatory practices to eliminate their sins, improve their karma and thereby enhance their spiritual purity to a level appropriate for performing the Pure Land visualizations. They then turned to the left wall to perform the Pure Land visualizations represented there that end with the twelfth visualization: imagining oneself being reborn in Sukhāvatī. Continuing from the twelfth visualization, the meditators facing the rear wall entered the Western Pure Land via the lotus ponds represented on the rear wall while in a state of meditational concentration.
COVID-19 is highly contagious, and the crude mortality rate could reach 49% in critical patients. Inflammation concerns on disease progression. This study analyzed blood inflammation indicators among ...mild, severe and critical patients, helping to identify severe or critical patients early.
In this cross-sectional study, 100 patients were included and divided into mild, severe or critical groups according to disease condition. Correlation of peripheral blood inflammation-related indicators with disease criticality was analyzed. Cut-off values for critically ill patients were speculated through the ROC curve.
Significantly, disease severity was associated with age (R = -0.564, P < 0.001), interleukin-2 receptor (IL2R) (R = -0.534, P < 0.001), interleukin-6 (IL-6) (R = -0.535, P < 0.001), interleukin-8 (IL-8) (R = -0.308, P < 0.001), interleukin-10 (IL-10) (R = -0.422, P < 0.001), tumor necrosis factor α (TNFα) (R = -0.322, P < 0.001), C-reactive protein (CRP) (R = -0.604, P < 0.001), ferroprotein (R = -0.508, P < 0.001), procalcitonin (R = -0.650, P < 0.001), white cell counts (WBC) (R = -0.54, P < 0.001), lymphocyte counts (LC) (R = 0.56, P < 0.001), neutrophil count (NC) (R = -0.585, P < 0.001) and eosinophil counts (EC) (R = 0.299, P < 0.001). With IL2R > 793.5 U/mL or CRP > 30.7 ng/mL, the progress of COVID-19 to critical stage should be closely observed and possibly prevented.
Inflammation is closely related to severity of COVID-19, and IL-6 and TNFα might be promising therapeutic targets.
Abstract
Gene set enrichment (GSE) analysis plays an essential role in extracting biological insight from genome-scale experiments. ORA (overrepresentation analysis), FCS (functional class scoring), ...and PT (pathway topology) approaches are three generations of GSE methods along the timeline of development. Previous versions of KOBAS provided services based on just the ORA method. Here we presented version 3.0 of KOBAS, which is named KOBAS-i (short for KOBAS intelligent version). It introduced a novel machine learning-based method we published earlier, CGPS, which incorporates seven FCS tools and two PT tools into a single ensemble score and intelligently prioritizes the relevant biological pathways. In addition, KOBAS has expanded the downstream exploratory visualization for selecting and understanding the enriched results. The tool constructs a novel view of cirFunMap, which presents different enriched terms and their correlations in a landscape. Finally, based on the previous version's framework, KOBAS increased the number of supported species from 1327 to 5944. For an easier local run, it also provides a prebuilt Docker image that requires no installation, as a supplementary to the source code version. KOBAS can be freely accessed at http://kobas.cbi.pku.edu.cn, and a mirror site is available at http://bioinfo.org/kobas.
Graphical Abstract
Graphical Abstract
Framework of KOBAS.
Since the creation of first man-made plastic, the global production and consumption of plastics have been continuously increasing. However, because plastic materials are durable and very slow to ...degrade, they become waste with high staying power. The over-consumption, disposal, and littering of plastics result in pollution, thus causing serious environmental consequences. To date, only a fraction of waste plastics is reused and recycled. In fact, recycling plastics remains a great challenge because of technical challenges and relatively insufficient profits, especially in mixed plastics. This review focuses on an environmentally friendly and potentially profitable method for plastics separation and recovery and solvents extraction. It includes the dissolution/reprecipitation method and supercritical fluid extraction, which produce high-quality recovered plastics comparable to virgin materials. These methods are summarized and discussed taking mass-produced plastics (PS, PC, Polyolefins, PET, ABS, and PVC) as examples. To exploit the method, the quality and efficiency of solvent extraction are elaborated. By eliminating these technical challenges, the solvent extraction method is becoming more promising and sustainable for plastic issues and polymer markets.
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•Solvent extraction is a promising method to separate waste mixed plastics.•The method is potentially applied for recycling mass-produced plastics.•The method is environmentally benign and is potentially profitable.
Prevailing wisdom is that estrogen receptor (ER)-α mediated genomic estrogen signaling is responsible for estrogen-stimulated cell proliferation and development of ER-positive breast cancer. However, ...accumulating evidence indicates that another estrogen signaling pathway, non-genomic or rapid estrogen signaling, also plays an important role in mitogenic estrogen signaling. Previously, our laboratory cloned a 36 kDa variant of ER-α, ER-α36, and found that ER-α36 is mainly expressed in the cytoplasm and at the plasma membrane. ER-α36 mediates rapid estrogen signaling and inhibits genomic estrogen signaling. In this review, we review and update the biological function of ER-α36 in ER-positive and -negative breast cancer, breast cancer stem/progenitor cells and tamoxifen resistance, potential interaction and cross-talk of ER-α36 with other ERs and growth factor receptors, and intracellular pathways of ER-α36-mediated rapid estrogen signaling. The potential function and underlying mechanism of ER-α in development of ER-positive breast cancer will also be discussed.
•ER-α36 is a novel variant of ER-α that is expressed in breast cancer.•ER-α36 is primarily localized in the cytoplasm and at the plasma membrane.•ER-α36 mediates rapid estrogen signaling.•ER-α36 is involved in antiestrogen resistance of human breast cancer.•ER-α36 is a novel player in breast cancer stem/progenitor cells.
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