The Z-scheme MIL-100(Fe)/PANI composite photocatalysts were facilely prepared from MIL-100(Fe) and polyaniline (PANI) by ball-milling, and were characterized by powder X-ray diffraction (PXRD), ...Fourier transform infrared spectroscopy (FTIR), thermogravimetric analysis (TGA), transmission electron microscopy (TEM), UV–visible diffuse-reflectance spectrometry (UV–vis DRS), X-ray photoelectron spectroscopy (XPS) and photoluminescence emission spectrometry (PL). The photocatalytic activities of MIL-100(Fe)/PANI composites were investigated via tetracycline degradation and hexavalent chromium reduction in aqueous solution under the irradiation of white light. The results revealed that the MIL-100(Fe)/PANI composite photocatalysts exhibited outstanding photocatalytic activities toward Cr(VI) reduction and tetracycline decomposition. The effects of pH and coexisting ions on the photocatalytic Cr(VI) reduction were investigated. As well, the primary active species were identified via electron spin resonance (ESR) determination. A possible Z-scheme photocatalyst mechanism was proposed and verified. Finally, MIL-100(Fe)/PANI composites demonstrated good reusability and stability in water solution, implying potentially practical applications for real wastewater treatment.
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•The Z-scheme MIL-100(Fe)/PANI (MPx%) photocatalysts were facilely synthesized.•MP9% exhibited superior photocatalytic activity toward Cr(VI) and tetracycline.•MIL-100(Fe)/PANI composites demonstrated good reusability and stability.•Z-scheme mechanism was proposed to clarify the improved photocatalytic activity.
Polyaniline (PANI)/MIL‐88A(Fe) (Px@M88) composites were constructed through a simple one‐pot hydrothermal method. The photocatalytic and photo‐Fenton activities of Px@M88 composites toward reduction ...of Cr(VI) and degradation organic pollutants were explored by white light irradiation. PANI, as a conductive polymer, can improve MIL‐88A(Fe)’s conductivity and the efficiency of photogenerated e−–h+ pair separation. In the presence of H2O2, a photo‐Fenton reaction occured to boost the degradation efficiency of organic pollutants like bisphenol A. In addition, P9@M88 showed excellent recycling and stability in cycling experiments. Finally, a possible reaction mechanism for photocatalytic degradation was proposed and verified by X‐ray photoelectron spectroscopy and electron spin resonance determination and electrochemical characterizations.
PANI/MIL‐88A(Fe) composites exhibit outstanding photocatalytic activities for environmental remediation. In addition, the possible reaction mechanism is proposed and verified.
Background and Purpose
Tubulo‐interstitial fibrosis is the final pathway in the progression of chronic kidney disease (CKD) to kidney failure. The renin‐angiotensin system (RAS) plays a major role in ...CKD progression. Hence, we determined the efficacy of novel RAS inhibitors isolated from Poria cocos against renal fibrosis.
Experimental Approach
Effects of three novel tetracyclic triterpenoid compounds, poricoic acid ZC (PZC), poricoic acid ZD (PZD) and poricoic acid ZE (PZE), were investigated on TGFβ1‐ and angiotensin II (AngII)‐treated HK‐2 cells and unilateral ureteral obstruction (UUO) in mice. Immunofluorescence staining, quantitative real‐time PCR, siRNA, co‐immunoprecipitation and Western blot analyses were used to evaluate expression of key molecules in RAS, Wnt/β‐catenin and TGFβ/Smad pathways.
Key Results
Addition of the above compounds to culture media and their administration to UUO mice: (i) significantly attenuated epithelial‐to‐mesenchymal transition and extracellular matrix production in TGFβ1‐ and AngII‐treated HK‐2 cells and UUO mice by inhibiting Wnt/β‐catenin pathway activation and Smad3 phosphorylation; (ii) selectively inhibited Smad3 phosphorylation by blocking the interaction of TGFBR1 with Smad3; and (iii) specifically inhibited Smad3 activation. PZC and PZD showed a strong inhibitory effect on all RAS components, and PZE showed a strong inhibitory effect on renin. Furthermore, the secolanostane tetracyclic triterpenoids, PZC and PZD, showed a stronger inhibitory effect than the lanostane tetracyclic triterpenoid PZE. Therefore, compounds with secolanostance skeleton showed stronger bioactivity than those with lanostance skeleton.
Conclusion and Implications
The secolanostane tetracyclic triterpenoids effectively blocked RAS by simultaneously targeting multiple RAS components and lanostane tetracyclic triterpenoids inhibited renin and protected against tubulo‐interstitial fibrosis.
Government debt risk is an important factor affecting macroeconomic stability and public expectation. The key to its prevention and control lies in early warning and early prevention. This paper ...builds an effective government debt risk assessment system based on machine learning algorithm. According to forming the performance of local government debt risk and its internal and external influencing factors, this study applies the analytic hierarchy process, entropy method, and BP neural network method to construct the local government risk assessment index system, which includes the primary and secondary indexes including the explicit debt risk, the contingent implicit debt risk, and the financial and economic operation risk. Using this system, this study carries on the government debt risk comprehensive weight assignment, the fiscal revenue forecast, the default probability calculation, the safety scale forecast, and finally the government debt risk assessment of the validity analysis. The system can provide signal guidance and policy reference for finance to cope with risks in advance, arrange the priority order of debt repayment, optimize the structure of fiscal revenue and expenditure, etc.
Dysbiosis represents changes in composition and structure of the gut microbiome community (microbiome), which may dictate the physiological phenotype (health or disease). Recent technological ...advances and efforts in metagenomic and metabolomic analyses have led to a dramatical growth in our understanding of microbiome, but still, the mechanisms underlying gut microbiome-host interactions in healthy or diseased state remain elusive and their elucidation is in infancy. Disruption of the normal gut microbiota may lead to intestinal dysbiosis, intestinal barrier dysfunction, and bacterial translocation. Excessive uremic toxins are produced as a result of gut microbiota alteration, including indoxyl sulphate, p-cresyl sulphate, and trimethylamine-N-oxide, all implicated in the variant processes of kidney diseases development. This review focuses on the pathogenic association between gut microbiota and kidney diseases (the gut-kidney axis), covering CKD, IgA nephropathy, nephrolithiasis, hypertension, acute kidney injury, hemodialysis and peritoneal dialysis in clinic. Targeted interventions including probiotic, prebiotic and symbiotic measures are discussed for their potential of re-establishing symbiosis, and more effective strategies for the treatment of kidney diseases patients are suggested. The novel insights into the dysbiosis of the gut microbiota in kidney diseases are helpful to develop novel therapeutic strategies for preventing or attenuating kidney diseases and complications.
To solve the problems of fuzziness, nonlinearity and complexity of economic factors and environmental factors in the evaluation of ecological economic benefits of enterprises are studied. Based on ...the theory of environmental-economic benefits (EEB), this paper defines the value of environmental resources and economic benefits of enterprises, and puts forward the indicators of environmental and economic benefits. The evaluation model of enterprise EEB based on the analytic hierarchy process and fuzzy set algorithm is constructed. By establishing the hierarchical structure model of index system, the intuitive fuzzy judgement matrix is obtained, and the final score of enterprise environmental benefits is calculated by consistency test and weight analysis. After verifying the model, the evaluation method of enterprise EEB proposed in this paper is accurate and reliable, which is helpful to deeply analyse the hidden order and adaptation mechanism of complex adaptation system of enterprise environmental management.
The retinal vessel caliber (RVC) is an important biomarker of cardiovascular diseases, which can be semi-automatically measured by fundus photography. This review investigated the associations ...between the RVCs and the life styles of early life, such as physical activity (PA), sedentary behavior (SB), dietary and sleep, by summarizing the findings from studies on children and adolescents. Two databases (Medline and Embase) were searched from their inception to 30 June 2022. The selected studies were literatures on observational designs, fundus photographs, retinal vessels and lifestyles of children or adolescents. Correlation coefficients of unhealthy life styles and RVCs were transformed to Fisher's z-scores, and the random-effects model was applied to pool data. A total of 18 observational studies were selected; the lifestyles accessed include 9 studies for PA and SB, 8 studies for dietary and 1 study for sleep. The meta-analysis on the correlation coefficients of regression models found the high level of SB (qualified by screen time, ST) was associated the narrower central retinal arteriolar equivalent (CRAE) among children (r = -0.043, 95% confidence intervals CI -0.078 to -0.009). By comparing the first and fourth quartiles of PA, the meta-analysis showed that more indoor PA was associated with smaller venular calibers and more outdoor PA was associated with wider CRAE (r = 0.88, 95%CI -3.33 to 0). Unhealthy lifestyles might be harmful on the retinal microcirculation among children and adolescents but their health effect seems not to be as significant as those in adults.
Autophagy is a degradative pathway that delivers cellular components to the lysosome for degradation. The role of autophagy in cell differentiation is poorly understood. Here we show that CaMKII can ...directly phosphorylate Beclin 1 at Ser90 to promote K63-linked ubiquitination of Beclin 1 and activation of autophagy. Meanwhile, CaMKII can also promote K63-linked ubiquitination of inhibitor of differentiation 1/2 (Id-1/2) by catalyzing phosphorylation of Id proteins and recruiting TRAF-6. Ubiquitinated Id-1/Id-2 can then bind to p62 and be transported to autolysosomes for degradation. Id degradation promotes the differentiation of neuroblastoma cells and reduces the proportion of stem-like cells. Our study proposes a mechanism by which autophagic degradation of Id proteins can regulate cell differentiation. This suggests that targeting of CaMKII and the regulation of autophagic degradation of Id may be an effective therapeutic strategy to induce cell differentiation in neuroblastoma.
Tissue fibrosis and cancer both lead to high morbidity and mortality worldwide; thus, effective therapeutic strategies are urgently needed. Because drug resistance has been widely reported in ...fibrotic tissue and cancer, developing a strategy to discover novel targets for targeted drug intervention is necessary for the effective treatment of fibrosis and cancer. Although many factors lead to fibrosis and cancer, pathophysiological analysis has demonstrated that tissue fibrosis and cancer share a common process of epithelial‐mesenchymal transition (EMT). EMT is associated with many mediators, including transcription factors (Snail, zinc‐finger E‐box‐binding protein and signal transducer and activator of transcription 3), signaling pathways (transforming growth factor‐β1, RAC‐α serine/threonine‐protein kinase, Wnt, nuclear factor‐kappa B, peroxisome proliferator‐activated receptor, Notch, and RAS), RNA‐binding proteins (ESRP1 and ESRP2) and microRNAs. Therefore, drugs targeting EMT may be a promising therapy against both fibrosis and tumors. A large number of compounds that are synthesized or derived from natural products and their derivatives suppress the EMT by targeting these mediators in fibrosis and cancer. By targeting EMT, these compounds exhibited anticancer effects in multiple cancer types, and some of them also showed antifibrotic effects. Therefore, drugs targeting EMT not only have both antifibrotic and anticancer effects but also exert effective therapeutic effects on multiorgan fibrosis and cancer, which provides effective therapy against fibrosis and cancer. Taken together, the results highlighted in this review provide new concepts for discovering new antifibrotic and antitumor drugs.
Background and Purpose
Increasing evidence has indicated that the high risk of cardiovascular disease in chronic kidney disease (CKD) patients cannot be sufficiently explained by classic risk ...factors.
Experimental Approach
Based on the least absolute shrinkage and selection operator method, we identified significantly altered renal tissue metabolites during progressive CKD in a 5/6 nephrectomized rat model and in CKD patients.
Key Results
Six aryl‐containing metabolites (ACMs) were significantly increased from Week 1 to Week 20. They were associated with the activation of aryl hydrocarbon receptor (AhR) and its target genes including CYP1A1, CYP1A2 and CYP1B1, which were further validated by molecular docking. Our study further demonstrated that AhR signalling could be activated by ACM in patients with idiopathic membranous nephropathy, diabetic nephropathy and IgA nephropathy. Most importantly, 1‐aminopyrene (AP) showed strong positive and negative correlation with serum creatinine and creatinine clearance, respectively. AP significantly up‐regulated the mRNA expressions of AhR and its three target genes in both mice and NRK‐52E cells, while this effect was partially weakened in AhR small hairpin RNA‐treated mice and NRK‐52E cells. Furthermore, dietary flavonoid supplementation ameliorated CKD and renal fibrosis through partially inhibiting the AhR activity via lowering the ACM levels. The antagonistic effect of flavonoids on AhR was deeply influenced by the number and location of hydroxyl and glycosyl groups.
Conclusion and Implications
We uncovered that endogenous AP is a novel mediator of CKD progression via AhR activation; thus, AhR might serve as a promising target for CKD treatment.
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