Prevalence of overweight and obesity and their associations with sleep duration among primary and secondary school students in Gansu Province / 中国学校卫生

Objective@#To investigate the prevalence of overweight/obesity and its associations with sleep duration among children and adolescents aged 6-17 in Gansu Province, so as to formulate tailored prevention and control strategies and intervention measures.@*Methods@#Using a multi stage stratified cluster random sampling method, a questionnaire survey and physical examination were conducted among 2 172 students aged 6-17 from 2 monitoring points in Gansu Province from May to July 2022. Using Chi square test to analyze the inter group differences in the detection rates of overweight and obesity and the composition of sleep duration, and using Logistic regression model to analyze the correlation between overweight and obesity and sleep duration.@*Results@#The prevalence of overweight and obesity were 10.45% and 6.86%, respectively. The average sleep duration was ( 8.28 ±1.66)h/d. The detection rate of overweight was high among high school students aged 16-17 and those with sleep duration<8 h/d ( χ 2=12.51, 19.32, 14.96), while the detection rate of obesity was high among male and non residential students ( χ 2= 5.89 , 9.59)( P ＜0.05). For both boys and girls, the rates of overweight and obesity among primary school students increased with the decrease in sleep duration ( χ 2=38.84, 9.80, 19.61, 41.60, P <0.05). The rates of obesity in boys were higher than girls across varying sleep durations among the general population (sleep duration <8 h/d: 6.07%, 11.11%, 8~<9 h/d: 5.76%, 6.09 %, 9~<10 h/d: 6.02%, 8.19 %, ≥10 h/d: 4.04%, 6.90%). Multivariate Logistic regression analysis showed that insufficient sleep duration among primary school students was positively associated with the risk of overweight and obesity, and adequate sleep duration among high school students was negatively associated with the risk of overweight and obesity (sleep duration 8~<9 h/d: OR primary school students = 1.89 , 9~< 10 h/d: OR primary school students =1.54, 8~<9 h/d: OR high school students =0.30, P <0.05).@*Conclusions@#Insufficient sleep is a risk factor for overweight and obesity among primary and secondary school students at monitoring sites in Gansu Province. Prevention strategies and interventions should be developed for different populations to ensure adequate sleep duration and reduce the risk of overweight and obesity among primary and secondary school students.

Engineering microbial consortia through synthetic biology approach / 生物工程学报

There are a large number of natural microbial communities in nature. Different populations inside the consortia expand the performance boundary of a single microbial population through communication and division of labor, reducing the overall metabolic burden and increasing the environmental adaptability. Based on engineering principles, synthetic biology designs or modifies basic functional components, gene circuits, and chassis cells to purposefully reprogram the operational processes of the living cells, achieving rich and controllable biological functions. Introducing this engineering design principle to obtain structurally well-defined synthetic microbial communities can provide ideas for theoretical studies and shed light on versatile applications. This review discussed recent progresses on synthetic microbial consortia with regard to design principles, construction methods and applications, and prospected future perspectives.

Application of gelatin microspheres in bone tissue engineering / 生物工程学报

Gelatin microspheres were discussed as a scaffold material for bone tissue engineering, with the advantages of its porosity, biodegradability, biocompatibility, and biosafety highlighted. This review discusses how bone regeneration is aided by the three fundamental components of bone tissue engineering-seed cells, bioactive substances, and scaffold materials-and how gelatin microspheres can be employed for in vitro seed cell cultivation to ensure efficient expansion. This review also points out that gelatin microspheres are advantageous as drug delivery systems because of their multifunctional nature, which slows drug release and improves overall effectiveness. Although gelatin microspheres are useful for bone tissue creation, the scaffolds that take into account their porous structure and mechanical characteristics might be difficult to be created. This review then discusses typical techniques for creating gelatin microspheres, their recent application in bone tissue engineering, as well as possible future research directions.

Mechanism Study on Active Ingredients of Danggui Shaoyao San for Treating Alzheimer's Disease Based on Biological Network / 世界科学技术-中医药现代化

Objective: To study the mechanism of action of Danggui Shaoyao San (DSS) in the treatment of Alzheimer'sdisease (AD) from a systematic network level using network pharmacology. Methods: The active ingredients of DSS intreating AD was screened from the Traditional Chinese Medicine System Pharmacology Database (TCSMP), and thedrugs-targets-disease network was built. Target organ localization network, GO analysis and Pathway enrichmentanalysis were used for bioinformatics analysis. Results: 51 kinds of DSS active ingredients were screened by networkpharmacology, showing 377 predicted targets of active compounds. Among them, 197 targets were associated with AD, and the pharmacodynamic targets of DSS active compounds were highly enriched with AD-related signals. The pathwaywas closely related to the reduction of Aβ aggregation and inhibition of tau hyperphosphorylation and biological processessuch as anti-inflammatory and anti-apoptosis, and the mRNA expression of the targeted gene was mainly enriched in theliver, heart, and brain. Conclusion: DSS active compounds interact with multiple targets in multiple ways in a synergisticmanner, mainly to produce important therapeutic effects on AD with anti-inflammatory, anti-apoptotic, enhancingmetabolism and immune system.