Pterostilbene, an active constituent of blueberries, enhances innate immune activation and restricts enterovirus D68 infection.

Enterovirus D68 (EV-D68) is a globally re-emerging respiratory pathogen implicated in outbreaks of severe respiratory illnesses and associated with acute flaccid myelitis. However, effective vaccines or treatments for EV-D68 infections remain scarce. We demonstrated that the active constituent of blueberries, pterostilbene (Pte), and its major metabolite, pinostilbene (Pin), facilitated innate immune responses in EV-D68-infected human respiratory cells. Pte and Pin treatment clearly relieved EV-D68-triggered cytopathic effects. Importantly, both Pte and Pin disrupted viral RNA replication (EC50 rank from 1.336 to 4.997 µM) and infectious virion production in a dose-dependent manner, without cytotoxicity at virucidal concentrations. Pte- or Pin-treated respiratory cells did not show any influences on EV-D68 entry but showed substantially decreased viral RNA replication and protein synthesis. Finally, we showed that Pte and Pin broadly suppressed the replication capacity of circulating EV-D68 strains isolated from recent pandemics. In summary, our results suggest that Pte and its derivative, Pin, enhance host immune recognition of EV-D68 and suppress EV-D68 replication, which represents a promising strategy for antiviral drug development.

Anomalous amplification in almost-balanced weak measurement for measuring spin Hall effect of light.

In this paper, a method to measure the tiny spin splitting of the spin Hall effect of light (SHEL) using the almost-balanced weak measurement (ABWM) is presented. The ABWM technique uses two orthogonal post-selected states to record all of the information, which is a precise measurement method being different from the standard weak measurement (SWM). The theory model to describe the SHEL measurement based on ABWM is established. As results, the ABWM scheme has a larger amplification factor, reaching ∼105, which is nearly one order of magnitude higher than that of the SWM. When the post-selected angle is less than a certain value, the sensitivity and amplification factor of the ABWM scheme are higher than those of the SWM scheme, while the measurement precision and SNR of the ABWM technique are comparable to those of the SWM scheme. This research may have great potential for the precision metrology or sensing field based on the SHEL measurement.

Measurement of hysteresis loop based on weak measurement.

In this Letter, we propose a technique for hysteresis loop measurement based on weak measurement. By using the photonic spin Hall effect (PSHE) as a probe and combining the quantum weak measurement, the technique's noise can be suppressed greatly. A theoretical model to describe the numerical relation between the amplified shift and Kerr rotation angle is established. Through detecting the amplified shift of the PSHE based on weak measurement, we experimentally measure the hysteresis loops of Ni-Fe alloy film, iron-phthalocyanine (FePc) monolayer film, and Co/FePc double-layer film. The results show that the precision can reach about $ \sim {10^{ - 6}} \;{\rm rad} $∼10-6rad under ordinary experimental conditions, which may have an important application prospect in magneto-optic parameters measurement.

System Prediction and Validation of TCM for Chronic Myeloid Leukemia Treatment from the Perspective of Low-Toxicity Chemotherapy: A Stilbene α-Viniferin Has a Proapoptotic Effect on K562 Cells via the Mitochondrial Pathway.

OBJECTIVE: In traditional Chinese medicine (TCM), chronic myeloid leukemia (CML) has been attributed to "poisoned bone marrow," which is viewed as a loss of Qi or blood, a deficiency in Yin or Yang that causes a complex imbalance between cell growth and death. Malignant myeloid progenitor cells display excessive growth that is difficult to control without toxicity. More than 60 herbs in TCM have shown efficacy against CML. However, the key molecules and mechanisms involved in the holistic-level characterization, as well as the effective target associations, are still unknown. METHODS: The present study employed a computational approach with filtering potential compounds via admetSAR, systems biology-based functional data prediction, and biochemical and molecular biological validation. RESULTS: We generated 118 bioactive compounds from 11 herbs within four dialectical therapy groups that are most commonly used to treat CML and predicted 141 potential targets. The stilbene resveratrol and its derivatives were found to be highly related to these targets. Among them, α-viniferin was predicted to target Bcl-2, caspase-3, 8, and 9, MAPK14, CDK2, HSP90AA1, and others, reflecting CML therapeutic strategies. In vitro, experimental data showed a nonnecrotic growth limitation of K562 cells caused by α-viniferin was predicted to target Bcl-2, caspase-3, 8, and 9, MAPK14, CDK2, HSP90AA1, and others, reflecting CML therapeutic strategies. µg·mL-1 at 24 h. Finally, we validated the chemotherapeutic effect of α-viniferin was predicted to target Bcl-2, caspase-3, 8, and 9, MAPK14, CDK2, HSP90AA1, and others, reflecting CML therapeutic strategies. CONCLUSIONS: Our work sheds light on the mechanism of the efficacy of the stilbene α-viniferin in TCM for the prevention of CML. This work also predicts and validates targets in the mitochondrial signaling pathway, providing a novel strategy for CML treatment.α-viniferin was predicted to target Bcl-2, caspase-3, 8, and 9, MAPK14, CDK2, HSP90AA1, and others, reflecting CML therapeutic strategies.

Unveiling the spin Hall effect of light in Imbert-Fedorov shift at the Brewster angle with weak measurements.

The Imbert-Fedorov (IF) shift is defined as the transverse shift of barycenter of the entire beam when a circular or elliptically polarized incident beam is reflected. In this work, we examine the IF shift of Gaussian beam at the Brewster angle. Interestingly, the spin Hall effect of light takes place in the IF shift at the same time. Furthermore, this interesting phenomenon is experimentally observed using weak measurements. These findings may have useful applications in spin optics.

Precision improvement of surface plasmon resonance sensors based on weak-value amplification.

In this paper, a method to improve the precision of prism-coupler-based surface plasmon resonance (SPR) sensors using weak-value amplification (WVA) is presented. A general theory model to describe the post-selected SPR sensing system is established and the polarization-dependent amplitude and phase evolutions induced by the SPR are regarded as the weak interactions in the WVA formalism. As a consequence of WVA, the detected signal can be enhanced with respect to the technical noise which is dependent on the post-selected light intensity. The precision of our method reaches 2.9 × 10-7RIU, which is improved nearly one order of magnitude compared to the conventional sensing technique.

Land ecological security evaluation of Guangzhou, China.

As the land ecosystem provides the necessary basic material resources for human development, land ecological security (LES) plays an increasingly important role in sustainable development. Given the degradation of land ecological security under rapid urbanization and the urgent LES requirements of urban populations, a comprehensive evaluation method, named Double Land Ecological Security (DLES), has been introduced with the city of Guangzhou, China, as a case study, which evaluates the LES in regional and unit scales for reasonable and specific urban planning. In the evaluation process with this method, we have combined the material security with the spiritual security that is inevitably associated with LES. Some new coefficients of land-security supply/demand distribution and technology contribution for LES evaluation have also been introduced for different spatial scales, including the regional and the unit scales. The results for Guangzhou indicated that, temporally, the LES supply indices were 0.77, 0.84 and 0.77 in 2000, 2006 and 2009 respectively, while LES demand indices for the city increased in 2000, 2006 and 2009 from 0.57 to 0.95, which made the LES level decreased slowly in this period. Spatially, at the regional scale, the urban land ecological security (ULES) level decreased from 0.2 (marginal security) to -0.18 (marginal insecurity) as a whole; in unit scale, areas in the north and in parts of the east were relatively secure and the security area was shrinking with time, but the central and southern areas turned to be marginal insecurity, especially in 2006 and 2009. This study proposes that DLES evaluation should be conducted for targeted and efficient urban planning and management, which can reflect the LES level of study area in general and in detail.