Microbes play key roles in maintaining soil ecological functions. Petroleum hydrocarbon contamination is expected to affect microbial ecological characteristics and the ecological services they ...provide. In this study, the multifunctionalities of contaminated and uncontaminated soils in an aged petroleum hydrocarbon-contaminated field and their correlation with soil microbial characteristics were analyzed to explore the effect of petroleum hydrocarbons on soil microbes.
Soil physicochemical parameters were determined to calculate soil multifunctionalities. In addition, 16S high-throughput sequencing technology and bioinformation analysis were used to explore microbial characteristics.
The results indicated that high concentrations of petroleum hydrocarbons (565-3,613 mg•kg
, high contamination) reduced soil multifunctionality, while low concentrations of petroleum hydrocarbons (13-408 mg•kg
, light contamination) might increase soil multifunctionality. In addition, light petroleum hydrocarbon contamination increased the richness and evenness of microbial community (
< 0.01), enhanced the microbial interactions and widened the niche breadth of keystone genus, while high petroleum hydrocarbon contamination reduced the richness of the microbial community (
< 0.05), simplified the microbial co-occurrence network, and increased the niche overlap of keystone genus.
Our study demonstrates that light petroleum hydrocarbon contamination has a certain improvement effect on soil multifunctionalities and microbial characteristics. While high contamination shows an inhibitory effect on soil multifunctionalities and microbial characteristics, which has significance for the protection and management of petroleum hydrocarbon-contaminated soil.
Cold exposure has been considered an essential risk factor for the global disease burden, while its role in cardiovascular diseases is still underappreciated. The increase in frequency and duration ...of extreme cold weather events like cold spells makes it an urgent task to evaluate the effects of ambient cold on different types of cardiovascular disease and to understand the factors contributing to the population's vulnerability.
In the present systematic review and meta-analysis, we searched PubMed, Scopus, and Cochrane. We included original research that explored the association between cold exposure (low temperature and cold spell) and cardiovascular disease outcomes (mortality and morbidity). We did a random-effects meta-analysis to pool the relative risk (RR) of the association between a 1°C decrease in temperature or cold spells and cardiovascular disease outcomes.
In total, we included 159 studies in the meta-analysis. As a result, every 1°C decrease in temperature increased cardiovascular disease-related mortality by 1.6% (RR 1.016; 95% CI 1.015-1.018) and morbidity by 1.2% (RR 1.012; 95% CI 1.010-1.014). The most pronounced effects of low temperatures were observed in the mortality of coronary heart disease (RR 1.015; 95% CI 1.011-1.019) and the morbidity of aortic aneurysm and dissection (RR 1.026; 95% CI 1.021-1.031), while the effects were not significant in hypertensive disease outcomes. Notably, we identified climate zone, country income level and age as crucial influential factors in the impact of ambient cold exposure on cardiovascular disease. Moreover, the impact of cold spells on cardiovascular disease outcomes is significant, which increased mortality by 32.4% (RR 1.324; 95% CI 1.2341.421) and morbidity by 13.8% (RR 1.138; 95% CI 1.015-1.276).
Cold exposure could be a critical risk factor for cardiovascular diseases, and the cold effect varies between disease types and climate zones.
https://www.crd.york.ac.uk/PROSPERO, identifier: CRD42022347247.
This work focused on the effects of laser energy density on the relative density, microstructure, and microhardness of Inconel 718 alloy manufactured by selective laser melting (SLM). The ...microstructural architectures, element segregation behavior in the interdendritic region and the evolution of laves phases of the as-SLMed IN718 samples were analyzed by optical metallography (OM), scanning electron microscopy (SEM), energy dispersive spectrometer (EDS), and electron probe microanalysis (EPMA). The results show that with an increase in the laser volume energy density, the relative density and the microhardness firstly increased and then decreased slightly. It also facilitates the precipitation of Laves phase. The variation of mechanical properties of the alloy can be related to the densification degree, microstructure uniformity, and precipitation phase content of Inconel 718 alloy.
Purpose of Review
Heart failure is a severe clinical syndrome with complex and unclarified mechanisms, and it poses a serious threat to human health. MicroRNA, a non-coding RNA, can directly bind to ...target genes and regulate their expression. The important role of microRNAs in the development of HF has become a hot topic of research in recent years. This paper summarizes and prospects the mechanisms of microRNAs in regulating cardiac remodeling during heart failure to provide reference ideas for further research and clinical treatment.
Recent Findings
With extensive research, more target genes for microRNAs have been clarified. By modulating various molecules, microRNAs affect the contractile function of the myocardium and alter the process of myocardial hypertrophy, myocyte loss, and fibrosis, thereby interfering with the process of cardiac remodeling and exerting an important effect in the process of heart failure. Based on the above mechanism, microRNAs have promising applications in the diagnosis and treatment of heart failure.
Summary
MicroRNAs form a complex post-transcriptional control mechanism of gene expression, and the increase or decrease of their content during heart failure largely alters the course of cardiac remodeling. By continuously identifying their target genes, it is expected to achieve more precise diagnosis and treatment of this important topic of heart failure.
In this paper, lithium rich manganese based cathode materials were successfully modified by MgF2 and the corresponding function mechanism was studied in detail. The MgF2 coating inhibits the ...activation of Li2MnO3 and induces the formation of spinel phase. The MgF2-3 shows an enhanced initial discharge capacity of 282.6 m Ah g-1 and an improved coulombic efficiency of 87.15% compared to 267.8 m Ah g-1 and 74.41% for the pristine sample, respectively. The MgF2 modification can effectively inhibit HF corrosion, reduce side effects and improve cycle performance. The MgF2-3 shows a discharge capacity of 205.6 m Ah g-1 with a retention of 80.03% and a voltage of 442.2mV after 200 cycles, while for the pristine is only 147.9 m Ah g-1, 66.71%, 672.3 mV, respectively.
Glioma progression is accompanied with increased tumor tissue stiffness, yet the underlying mechanisms are unclear. Herein, we employed atomic force microscopy analysis to show that tissue stiffness ...was higher in isocitrate dehydrogenase (IDH)-wild type gliomas than IDH-mutant gliomas. Bioinformatic analyses revealed that tissue inhibitor of metalloproteinase-1 (TIMP1) was one of the preferentially upregulated genes in IDH-wild type gliomas as compared to IDH-mutant gliomas, and its higher expression indicated worse prognosis of glioma patients. TIMP1 intensity determined by immunofluorescence staining on glioma tissues positively correlated with glioma tissue stiffness. Mechanistically, TIMP1 expression was positively correlated with the gene expression of two predominant extracellular matrix components, tenascin C and fibronectin, both of which were also highly expressed in IDH-wild type gliomas. By introducing IDH1-R132H-containing vectors into human IDH1-wild type glioma cells to obtain an IDH1-mutant cell line, we found that IDH1 mutation increased the TIMP1 promoter methylation through methylation-specific PCR. More importantly, IDH1-R132H mutation decreased both the expression of TIMP1, fibronectin, tenascin C, and the tumor tissue stiffness in IDH1-mutant glioma xenografts in contrast to IDH1-wild type counterparts. Moreover, TIMP1 knockdown in IDH-wild type glioma cells inhibited the expression of tenascin C and fibronectin, and decreased tissue stiffness in intracranial glioma xenografts. Conclusively, we revealed an IDH mutation status-mediated mechanism in regulating glioma tissue stiffness through modulating TIMP1 and downstream extracellular matrix components.
Glioma stem cells (GSCs) are self-renewing tumor cells with multi-lineage differentiation potential and the capacity of construct glioblastoma (GBM) heterogenicity. Mitochondrial morphology is ...associated with the metabolic plasticity of GBM cells. Previous studies have revealed distinct mitochondrial morphologies and metabolic phenotypes between GSCs and non-stem tumor cells (NSTCs), whereas the molecules regulating mitochondrial dynamics in GBM cells are largely unknown. Herein, we report that carnitine palmitoyltransferase 1A (CPT1A) is preferentially expressed in NSTCs, and governs mitochondrial dynamics and GSC differentiation. Expressions of CPT1A and GSC marker CD133 were mutually exclusive in human GBMs. Overexpression of CPT1A inhibited GSC self-renewal but promoted mitochondrial fusion. In contrast, disruption of CPT1A in NSTCs promoted mitochondrial fission and reprogrammed NSTCs toward GSC feature. Mechanistically, CPT1A overexpression increased the phosphorylation of dynamin-related protein 1 at Ser-637 to promote mitochondrial fusion. In vivo, CPT1A overexpression decreased the percentage of GSCs, impaired GSC-derived xenograft growth and prolonged tumor-bearing mice survival. Our work identified CPT1A as a critical regulator of mitochondrial dynamics and GSC differentiation, indicating that CPT1A could be developed as a molecular target for GBM cell-differentiation strategy.
BACKGROUND: Nitrogen limitation can induce neutral lipid accumulation in microalgae, as well as inhibiting their growth. Therefore, to obtain cultures with both high biomass and high lipid contents, ...and explore the lipid accumulation mechanisms, we implemented nitrogen deprivation in a model diatom Phaeodactylum tricornutum at late exponential phase. RESULTS: Neutral lipid contents per cell subsequently increased 2.4-fold, both the number and total volume of oil bodies increased markedly, and cell density rose slightly. Transcriptional profile analyzed by RNA-Seq showed that expression levels of 1213 genes (including key carbon fixation, TCA cycle, glycerolipid metabolism and nitrogen assimilation genes) increased, with a false discovery rate cut-off of 0.001, under N deprivation. However, most light harvesting complex genes were down-regulated, extensive degradation of chloroplast membranes was observed under an electron microscope, and photosynthetic efficiency declined. Further identification of lipid classes showed that levels of MGDG and DGDG, the main lipid components of chloroplast membranes, dramatically decreased and triacylglycerol (TAG) levels significantly rose, indicating that intracellular membrane remodeling substantially contributed to the neutral lipid accumulation. CONCLUSIONS: Our findings shed light on the molecular mechanisms of neutral lipid accumulation and the key genes involved in lipid metabolism in diatoms. They also provide indications of possible strategies for improving microalgal biodiesel production.
The photocatalyzed water splitting reaction in aqueous methanol solution is an efficient preparation method for hydrogen and methanal under mild conditions. In this work, metal sulfide-loaded TiO2 ...photocatalysts for hydrogen and methanol production were synthesized by hydrothermal method (180°C/12 h) and characterized by X-ray diffraction (XRD), UV-visible diffuse reflectance spectroscopy (DRS), scanning electron microscopy (SEM), and energy-dispersive X-ray spectroscopy (EDX). The crystal structures of the samples are the typical anatase phase of TiO2 and exhibit a spherical morphology. When TiO2 was loaded with CoS, ZnS, and Bi2S3, respectively, the resulting catalysts showed photocatalytic activities for water decomposition to hydrogen in aqueous methanol solution under 300 W Xe lamp irradiation. Among the photocatalysts with various compositions, the 20 wt% CoS/TiO2 sample with a 2.1 eV band gap showed the maximum photocatalytic activity for the photocatalytic reaction, which indicated that CoS improved the separation ratio of photoexcited electrons and holes. The enhanced activity can be attributed to the intimate junctions that are formed between CoS and TiO2, which can reduce the electron-hole recombination. The production rate of hydrogen with 20 wt% CoS/TiO2 photocatalyst was about 5.6 mmol/g/h, which was 67 times higher than that of pure TiO2. The formation rate of HCHO was 1.9 mmol/g/h with 98.7% selectivity. Moreover, the CoS/TiO2 photocatalyst demonstrated good reusability and stability. In the present study, it is demonstrated that CoS can act as an effective cocatalyst to enhance the photocatalytic hydrogen and methanal production activity of TiO2. The highly improved performance of the CoS/TiO2 composite was mainly ascribed to the efficient charge separation.
The coordination of cell proliferation and programmed death (apoptosis) is essential for normal physiology, and imbalance in these two opposing processes is implicated in various diseases. Objective ...and quantitative noninvasive imaging of apoptosis would significantly facilitate rapid screening as well as validation of therapeutic chemicals. Herein, we molecularly engineered an apoptosis switch-on PET-based cyclic herpes simplex virus type 1–thymidine kinase reporter (cTK266) containing a caspase-3 recognition domain as the switch. Translation of the reporter and protein splicing in healthy mammalian cells produce an inactive cyclic chimera. Upon apoptosis, caspase-3–specific cleavage of the circular product occurs, resulting in the restoration of the thymidine kinase activity, which can be detected in living cells and animals by noninvasive PET imaging. Our results showed the high sensitivity of this reporter in dynamic and quantitative imaging of apoptosis in living subjects. This reporter could be applied as a valuable tool for high-throughput functional screening of proapoptotic and antiapoptotic compounds in preclinical models in drug development, and monitoring the destination of therapeutic cells in clinical settings.
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