Weedy plant species that have evolved resistance to herbicides due to enhanced metabolic capacity to detoxify herbicides (metabolic resistance) are a major issue. Metabolic herbicide resistance in ...weedy plant species first became evident in the 1980s in Australia (in Lolium rigidum) and the United Kingdom (in Alopecurus myosuroides) and is now increasingly recognized in crop-weed species as a looming threat to herbicide sustainability and thus world crop production. Metabolic resistance often confers resistance to herbicides of different chemical groups and sites of action and can extend to new herbicide(s). Cytochrome P450 monooxygenase, glycosyl transferase, and glutathione S-transferase are often implicated in herbicide metabolic resistance. However, precise biochemical and molecular genetic elucidation of metabolic resistance had been stalled until recently. Complex cytochrome P450 superfamilies, high genetic diversity in metabolic resistant weedy plant species (especially cross-pollinated species), and the complexity of genetic control of metabolic resistance have all been barriers to advances in understanding metabolic herbicide resistance. However, next-generation sequencing technologies and transcriptome-wide gene expression profiling are now revealing the genes endowing metabolic herbicide resistance in plants. This Update presents an historical review to current understanding of metabolic herbicide resistance evolution in weedy plant species.
Objective
Ischemic stroke is known as a neurodegenerative disorder, which induces long‐period tissue damage. Chemokine (C–X–C motif) ligand 8 (CXCL8) is involved in acute inflammation and tumor ...progression through the phosphoinositide‐3‐kinase/protein kinase B/nuclear factor‐κB (PI3K/Akt/NF‐κB)‐signaling pathway. In this study, we aimed to explore the mechanism of CXCL8 in ischemic stroke in relation to the PI3K/Akt/NF‐κB‐signaling pathway.
Methods
Microarray‐based gene expression profiling of peripheral blood mononuclear cells was used to identify ischemic stroke‐related differentially expressed genes and explore role of CXCL8 in ischemic stroke. Next, the ischemic mice model was successfully established, with transfection efficiency detected. After that, deflection index, recovery of nervous system, infarct sizes, ischemia‐induced apoptosis, and neuroinflammatory response in ischemic stroke were measured. At last, the content of inflammatory factors as well as the expression of CXCL8, caspase‐3, caspase‐9, Bad, interleukin‐6 (IL‐6), IL‐1β, tumor necrosis factor‐α (TNF‐α), Akt, PI3K, and NF‐κB were determined.
Results
Comprehensive gene expression profiling analysis identified that CXCL8 might affect the development of ischemic stroke through regulating the PI3K/Akt/NF‐κB‐signaling pathway. CXCL8 silencing significantly reduced deflection index and infarct size, improved neurological function, and suppressed neuroglial cell loss and apoptosis index. In addition, glial fibrillary acidic portein (GFAP) and ionized calcium‐binding adapter molecule 1 (IBA‐1) expressions were decreased following CXCL8 suppression, suggesting CXCL8 affected neuroglial activation. Importantly, we also found that CXCL8 silencing activated neuroglial cell and suppressed inflammatory cytokine production in ischemic stroke mice.
Conclusion
Taken together, these findings highlight that functional suppression of CXCL8 promotes neuroglial activation and inhibits neuroinflammation by regulating the PI3K/Akt/NF‐κB‐signaling pathway in mice with ischemic stroke, which might provide new insight for ischemic stroke treatment.
Oxygen evolution: A 3D nickel foam/porous carbon/anodized nickel electrode was designed for the oxygen evolution reaction (see picture). The conductive porous carbon membrane, which is derived from a ...zeolite imidazolate framework, plays a key role as an interlayer to both protect the inner instable Ni foam and support the outermost oxygen‐evolving Ni catalyst layer.
Abstract
Considering the problem of not providing energy model in OPNET, a modeling method in WSN is presented. First the modeling process of energy model and the way of its realization are analyzed. ...Then by introducing RM battery model with higher precision in describing the battery discharge, the energy model in OPNET is established. The results of simulation shows that the modeling method is valid and a better estimation of node lifetime can be achieved using RM model.
To confirm the relationship between sex and the progression of Coronavirus Disease-19 (COVID-19), and its potential mechanism, among severe patients. For this retrospective study, we included 168 ...consecutive severe patients with pathogen-confirmed COVID-19 who were hospitalized between January 16th and February 4th, 2020, at Tongji Hospital in Wuhan, China. Clinical characteristics, laboratory parameters, and outcomes were compared and analyzed between males and females. In the present study, we analyzed 168 severe patients with COVID-19, including 86 males and 82 females, and 48 patients (28.6%) were diagnosed as critically ill. Of 86 male patients, 12.8% (11/86) died and 75.6% (65/86) were discharged; of 82 female patients, 7.3% (6/82) died and 86.6% (71/82) were discharged. Eleven laboratory parameters showed significant differences between male and female patients, and six of them were higher during the whole clinical course in patients who died than in patients who were discharged. In adjusted logistic regression analysis, males with comorbidities presented a higher risk of being critically ill than males without comorbidities (OR = 3.824, 95% CI = 1.279-11.435). However, this association attenuated to null in female patients (OR = 2.992, 95% CI = 0.937-9.558). A similar sex-specific trend was observed in the relation between age and critically ill conditions. We highlighted sex-specific differences in clinical characteristics and prognosis. Male patients appeared to be more susceptible to age and comorbidities. Sex is an important biological variable that should be considered in the prevention and treatment of COVID-19.
In the work, defatted muscle proteins of monkfish (Lophius litulon) were separately hydrolyzed by pepsin, trypsin, and in vitro gastrointestinal (GI) digestion methods, and antioxidant peptides were ...isolated from proteins hydrolysate of monkfish muscle using ultrafiltration and chromatography processes. The antioxidant activities of isolated peptides were evaluated using radical scavenging and lipid peroxidation assays and H2O2-induced model of HepG2 cells. In which, the cell viability, reactive oxygen species (ROS) content, and antioxidant enzymes and malondialdehyde (MDA) levels were measured for evaluating the protective extent on HepG2 cells damaged by H2O2. The results indicated that the hydrolysate (MPTH) prepared using in vitro GI digestion method showed the highest degree of hydrolysis (27.24 ± 1.57%) and scavenging activity on a 2,2-diphenyl-1-picrylhydrazyl (DPPH) radical (44.54 ± 3.12%) and hydroxyl radical (41.32 ± 2.73%) at the concentration of 5 mg protein/mL among the three hydrolysates. Subsequently, thirteen antioxidant peptides (MMP-1 to MMP-13) were isolated from MPTH. According to their DPPH radical and hydroxyl radical scavenging activity, three peptides with the highest antioxidant activity were selected and identified as EDIVCW (MMP-4), MEPVW (MMP-7), and YWDAW (MMP-12) with molecular weights of 763.82, 660.75, and 739.75 Da, respectively. EDIVCW, MEPVW, and YWDAW showed high scavenging activities on DPPH radical (EC50 0.39, 0.62, and 0.51 mg/mL, respectively), hydroxyl radical (EC50 0.61, 0.38, and 0.32 mg/mL, respectively), and superoxide anion radical (EC50 0.76, 0.94, 0.48 mg/mL, respectively). EDIVCW and YWDAW showed equivalent inhibiting ability on lipid peroxidation with glutathione in the linoleic acid model system. Moreover, EDIVCW, MEPVW, and YWDAW had no cytotoxicity to HepG2 cells at the concentration of 100.0 µM and could concentration-dependently protect HepG2 cells from H2O2-induced oxidative damage through decreasing the levels of reactive oxygen species (ROS) and MDA and activating intracellular antioxidant enzymes of superoxide dismutase (SOD), catalase (CAT), and glutathione peroxidase (GSH-Px). These present results indicated that the protein hydrolysate and isolated antioxidant peptides from monkfish muscle, especially YWDAW could serve as powerful antioxidants applied in the treatment of some liver diseases and healthcare products associated with oxidative stress.
Midpalatal expansion (MPE) is routinely employed to treat transverse maxillary arch deficiency. Neutrophils are indispensable for recruiting bone marrow stromal cells (BMSCs) at the initial stage of ...bone regeneration. This study aimed to explore whether neutrophils participate in MPE and how they function during bone formation under mechanical stretching.
The presence and phenotype of neutrophils in the midpalatal suture during expansion were detected by flow cytometry and immunofluorescence staining. The possible mechanism of neutrophil recruitment and polarization was explored in vitro by exposing vascular endothelial cells (VECs) to cyclic tensile strain.
The number of neutrophils in the distracted suture peaked on Day 3, and N2-type neutrophils significantly increased on Day 5 after force application. The depletion of circulatory neutrophils reduced bone volume by 43.6% after 7-day expansion. The stretched VECs recruited neutrophils via a CXCR2 mechanism in vitro, which then promoted BMSC osteogenic differentiation through the VEGFA/VEGFR2 axis. Consistently, these neutrophils showed higher expression of canonical N2 phenotype genes, including CD206 and Arg1.
These results suggested that neutrophils participated in early bone formation during MPE. Based on these findings, we propose that stretched VECs recruited and polarized neutrophils, which, in turn, induced BMSC osteogenic differentiation.
High-entropy alloys (HEAs) are an intriguing new class of metallic materials due to their unique mechanical behavior. Achieving a detailed understanding of structure–property relationships in these ...materials has been challenged by the compositional disorder that underlies their unique mechanical behavior. Accordingly, in this work, we employ first-principles calculations to investigate the nature of local chemical order and establish its relationship to the intrinsic and extrinsic stacking fault energy (SFE) in CrCoNi medium-entropy solid-solution alloys, whose combination of strength, ductility, and toughness properties approaches the best on record. We find that the average intrinsic and extrinsic SFE are both highly tunable, with values ranging from −43 to 30 mJ·m−2 and from −28 to 66 mJ·m−2, respectively, as the degree of local chemical order increases. The state of local ordering also strongly correlates with the energy difference between the face-centered cubic (fcc) and hexagonal close-packed (hcp) phases, which affects the occurrence of transformation-induced plasticity. This theoretical study demonstrates that chemical short-range order is thermodynamically favored in HEAs and can be tuned to affect the mechanical behavior of these alloys. It thus addresses the pressing need to establish robust processing–structure–property relationships to guide the science-based design of new HEAs with targeted mechanical behavior.