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AIMS: The aims of this study are to discover dysregulated adipocytokine signaling pathway and pyroptosis-related genes to predict neonatal hypoxic-ischemic encephalopathy (HIE) occurrence. BACKGROUND: HIE is an important cause of infant death and long-term neurological sequelae. Current treatment options for HIE are relatively limited and the pathogenesis of HIE remains to be fully explored. This study investigated the alterations of adipocytokine signaling pathway and pyroptosis in neonatal HIE. OBJECTIVE: To reveal the alterations of adipocytokine signaling pathway and pyroptosis relevant to HIE occurrence. METHODS: Data on neonatal HIE were downloaded from the Gene Expression Omnibus (GEO) database. Pathway analyses of single-sample gene set enrichment analysis (ss- GSEA) and GSEA were performed on the adipocytokine signaling pathway and pyroptosis. Proportions of immune cells in a single sample were also calculated by ssGSEA and CIBERSORT algorithm. The relationship between the adipocytokine signaling pathway and pyroptosis was analyzed according to Pearson correlation analysis. RESULTS: The activities of KEGG pathways changed after the occurrence of HIE, and adipocytokine signaling pathway was activated with related overexpressed genes. For the three energy metabolisms, carbohydrate metabolism was enhanced; lipid metabolism showed increased fatty acids metabolism and decreased ability of fatty acids synthesis; metabolic levels of phosphate and phenylalanine in amino acid metabolism were elevated. Enhanced pyroptosis and relevant overexpressed genes were accompanied by increased immune cells. A positive connection between adipocytokine signaling pathway and pyroptosis was observed. CONCLUSION: These results indicated that the adipocytokine signaling pathway may promote HIE occurrence by upregulating the expression of pyroptosis-related genes, providing a novel mechanism for HIE.
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BACKGROUND: It is a very rare form of ocular motility characterized by alternating strabismus and orthotropia. We report a patient with a 48-h cycle of esohypotropia associated with axial high myopia that resolved by Yokoyama procedure. CASE PRESENTATION: A 43-year-old female patient who underwent left medial rectus muscle recession and lateral rectus muscle resection elsewhere due to highly myopic strabismus 2 years ago. The patient experienced a recurrence of left esohypotropia 12 months after undergoing surgery, exhibiting a 48-hour cycle. The cycle is one full day of esohypotropia and one day of orthotropia. The patient exhibited a case of high myopia in the left eye, characterized by a diopter measurement of -24.00DS and an eye axis measurement of 28.43 mm. Orbital CT showed supertemporal dislocation of the posterior portion of the elongated globe out from the muscle cone. Based on these observations, we performed Yokoyama procedure by uniting the muscle bellies of the superior rectus(SR) and lateral rectus (LR) muscles to restoring the dislocated globe back into the muscle cone. CONCLUSIONS: When cyclic strabismus is combined with axial high myopia, the Yokoyama procedure was effective and cycles are successfully terminated without overcorrection on no squint days. The purpose of this procedure is to put the dislocated globe back into its muscle cone by uniting the muscle bellies of the superior rectus and lateral rectus.
Subject(s)
Esotropia , Myopia , Strabismus , Female , Humans , Adult , Esotropia/surgery , Ophthalmologic Surgical Procedures/methods , Strabismus/etiology , Strabismus/surgery , Myopia/complications , Myopia/surgery , Oculomotor Muscles/surgeryABSTRACT
Climate warming can increase soil temperature and lead to soil carbon release, but it can also increase soil organic carbon by increasing primary productivity. Cropland soils are considered to have a huge potential to sequester carbon; however, direct observations for the responses of cropland soil organic carbon to climate warming over broad geographic scales are rarely documented. Paddy soil is one of the important cultivated soils in China. Based on the data of 2217 sampling points obtained during the second national soil survey and the data of 2382 sampling points collected during 2017-2019, this study analyzed the change characteristics of soil organic carbon content of paddy surface soil in Sichuan Basin of China and explored the relationships between the soil organic carbon change of paddy soil and temperature, precipitation, cropland use type, fertilization intensity, and grain yield. The results showed that the content of soil organic carbon of paddy soil changed from 13.33 g·kg-1to 15.96 g·kg-1, with an increase of 2.63 g·kg-1, suggesting that soils in the Sichuan Basin have acted as a carbon sink over past 40 years. The soil organic carbon increment of paddy soil varied with different geomorphic regions and different secondary basins. The increase in SOC content in paddy soil was positively correlated with annual average temperature; negatively correlated with annual average precipitation; and initially increased and then decreased with annual average fertilizer application, annual average increase rate of fertilizer application, annual average grain yield, and annual average grain yield growth rate. The relationship between the increase in SOC content and the annual average temperature growth rate was different under different farmland utilizations, and the increase in the annual average temperature growth rate had significant effects with the increase in SOC content only on paddy-dryland rotation. These results indicate that the paddy soil organic carbon change in Sichuan Basin was co-affected by various factors, but climate warming was an important factor leading to the paddy soil organic carbon change, and its influence was controlled by the water conditions determined by farmland use.
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BACKGROUND: Psoriasis is a chronic inflammatory skin disease, the pathogenesis of which is more complicated and often requires long-term treatment. In particular, moderate to severe psoriasis usually requires systemic treatment. Psoriasis is also associated with many diseases, such as cardiometabolic diseases, malignant tumors, infections, and mood disorders. Psoriasis can appear at any age, and lead to a substantial burden for individuals and society. At present, psoriasis is still a treatable, but incurable, disease. Previous studies have found that microRNAs (miRNAs) play an important regulatory role in the progression of various diseases. Currently, miRNAs studies in psoriasis and dermatology are relatively new. Therefore, the identification of key miRNAs in psoriasis is helpful to elucidate the molecular mechanism of psoriasis. AIM: To identify key molecular markers and signaling pathways to provide potential basis for the treatment and management of psoriasis. METHODS: The miRNA and mRNA data were obtained from the Gene Expression Omnibus database. Then, differentially expressed mRNAs (DEmRNAs) and differentially expressed miRNAs (DEmiRNAs) were screened out by limma R package. Subsequently, DEmRNAs were analyzed for Gene Ontology and Kyoto Encyclopedia of Genes and Genomics functional enrichment. The "WGCNA" R package was used to analyze the co-expression network of all miRNAs. In addition, we constructed miRNA-mRNA regulatory networks based on identified hub miRNAs. Finally, in vitro validation was performed. All experimental procedures were approved by the ethics committee of Chinese PLA General Hospital (S2021-012-01). RESULTS: A total of 639 DEmRNAs and 84 DEmiRNAs were identified. DEmRNAs screening criteria were adjusted P (adj. P) value < 0.01 and |logFoldChange| (|logFC|) > 1. DEmiRNAs screening criteria were adj. P value < 0.01 and |logFC| > 1.5. KEGG functional analysis demonstrated that DEmRNAs were significantly enriched in immune-related biological functions, for example, toll-like receptor signaling pathway, cytokine-cytokine receptor interaction, and chemokine signaling pathway. In weighted gene co-expression network analysis, turquoise module was the hub module. Moreover, 10 hub miRNAs were identified. Among these 10 hub miRNAs, only 8 hub miRNAs predicted the corresponding target mRNAs. 97 negatively regulated miRNA-mRNA pairs were involved in the miRNA-mRNA regulatory network, for example, hsa-miR-21-5p-claudin 8 (CLDN8), hsa-miR-30a-3p-interleukin-1B (IL-1B), and hsa-miR-181a-5p/hsa-miR-30c-2-3p-C-X-C motif chemokine ligand 9 (CXCL9). Real-time polymerase chain reaction results showed that IL-1B and CXCL9 were up-regulated and CLDN8 was down-regulated in psoriasis with statistically significant differences. CONCLUSION: The identification of potential key molecular markers and signaling pathways provides potential research directions for further understanding the molecular mechanisms of psoriasis. This may also provide new research ideas for the prevention and treatment of psoriasis in the future.
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The East Asian Summer Monsoon (EASM) is the most important and active atmospheric circulation system in Asia. However, its evolution during the Early Pleistocene, and that evolution's associated drivers, remain controversial. Here, for the first time, a high resolution pollen record was obtained from a loess-paleosol sequence located in the Lanzhou Basin, western Chinese Loess Plateau (CLP), and used to reconstruct the evolution of EASM intensity during the Early Pleistocene (2.2-1.7 Ma). The type of vegetation indicated by analysis of the pollen assemblage is comparable to the forest-steppe vegetation type currently distributed on the eastern CLP. This area's present-day mean annual temperature (MAT) and mean annual precipitation (MAP) are ~6-10 °C and ~400-550 mm, respectively, implying the existence of a stronger EASM intensity during the 2.2-1.7 Ma period. When the auxiliary function of the diversity index was applied, the Early Pleistocene EASM, as recorded by the vegetation successions identified within the loess-paleosol sequence, showed a generally stronger intensity during the 2.2-2.06 Ma period, a relatively weak intensity between 2.06 Ma and 1.97 Ma, and then a gradual intensification from 1.97 Ma until 1.7 Ma. Further comparisons demonstrated that the zonal thermal gradient in the Equatorial Pacific may have played an important role in driving the evolution of the EASM over a tectonic timescale during the Early Pleistocene. In contrast, over a sub-orbital or orbital timescale, the EASM intensity appears to have been closely correlated to global temperature variations, given that the MATs of the Early Pleistocene were higher than today's. This would imply that both low-latitude forcing and global temperature change were important drivers influencing variations in precipitation in Northern China, against a background of ongoing global warming.
Subject(s)
Asian People , Pollen , Asia , China , Humans , SeasonsABSTRACT
A continuous peat sequence collected in the southern Altai Mountains provides a new opportunity to reconstruct the Holocene vegetation and moisture history in the Arid Central Asia. Based on pollen data of 190 samples with a chronologic support of eight AMS dates from a 380-cm core at Tuolehaite (TLHT) Peat, the Holocene moisture variations in the southern Altai Mountains of China were reconstructed. The reconstruction revealed a wet early Holocene (~10,600-~8500cal. yr BP), a considerably dry middle Holocene (~8500-~4000 cal. yr BP) and a resumed wet late Holocene (~4000-0 cal. yr BP). The Holocene moisture reconstruction is generally corroborated by other reviewed sequences from the southern Altai Mountains and the surrounding areas. According to the analysis of modern sources of precipatable water vapor for the southern Altai Mountains, the Holocene moisture variations in the southern Altai Mountains were proposed to have been causally associated with the variations in the sea surface temperature (SST) in the North Atlantic Ocean and also with the variations in the strength of Siberian High Pressure in the core of the Eurasian continent.
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Microbial communities can survive in complex and variable environments by using different cooperative strategies. However, the behaviors of these mutuality formed communities remain poorly understood, particularly with regard to the characteristics of spatial cooperation. Here, we selected two Escherichia coli strains, designated as the nutrition provider and the antibiotic protector, respectively, for construction of a mutually beneficial bacterial community that could be used to study these behaviors. We found that in addition to the functional mutualism, the two strains also cooperated through their spatial distribution. Under antibiotic pressure, the bacterial distribution changed to yield different spatial distributions, which resulted in community growth advantages beyond functional cooperation. The mutualistic behavior of these two strains suggested that similar communities could also use variations in spatial distribution to improve their survival rates in a natural environment or under the action of antibiotics.
Subject(s)
Anti-Bacterial Agents/pharmacology , Drug Resistance, Bacterial , Escherichia coli/drug effects , Microbiota , Drug Resistance, Bacterial/genetics , Escherichia coli/classification , Escherichia coli/genetics , Escherichia coli/growth & development , Evolution, Molecular , Microbial Viability , Symbiosis , Time FactorsABSTRACT
BACKGROUND: Lower health literacy is associated with poor quality of life (QOL) among patients with chronic disease; little is known about this relationship among the general population, especially for child and adolescent. To fill this gap, this paper aimed to investigate the association between health literacy and QOL in junior middle school students, and explore how QOL varies by health literacy. METHODS: An anonymous cross-sectional survey was conducted among junior middle school students (aged 12-15) from Shapingba district, Chongqing in China, and participants were recruited using stratified cluster sampling. Health literacy and QOL were measured using two validated scales, and quantified using a five-point Likert scale with health literacy classified as low, medium, or high. We used multivariable logistic regression to test adjusted association between health literacy and QOL. RESULTS: A total of 1774 junior middle school students were evaluated, with the mean age was 13.8 ± 1.0 and of whom 905 (51.0%) were male. About 25.5% of the research subjects had a low health literacy. When controlling for age, grade, family structure and other covariates, highest discrimination was found among participants with low to high health literacy. Overall, Students who equipped with higher health literacy was associated with greater QOL (P < 0.01), and this discrimination remained significant in subscales: physiological well-being (P < 0.01), mental well-being (P < 0.01), social well-being (P < 0.01) and pubertal well-being (P < 0.01). CONCLUSIONS: The prevalence of low health literacy among junior middle school students in Chongqing area was relatively high, and inadequate health literacy may contribute to poorer QOL among junior middle school students. It merits further longitudinal studies to confirm the impact of health literacy on QOL. Overall, to improve students' QOL, public health efforts for further improving awareness and enhancing effective promotion and education are urgently needed in junior middle school students, especially for low health literacy populations.
Subject(s)
Health Literacy/statistics & numerical data , Quality of Life , Students , Adolescent , Child , China , Cross-Sectional Studies , Female , Humans , Male , Students/statistics & numerical dataABSTRACT
Antibiotic susceptibility testing is very important in antibiotic therapy. Traditional methods to determine antibiotic susceptibility include disk diffusion and broth dilution. However, these tests are always labor intensive, time-consuming, and need large amounts of reagents. In this paper, we demonstrated a novel pump-free micro-device that enables quantitative and high-throughput bacterial growth inhibition analysis. This device consists of a series of wells and diffusion-based antibiotic gradient channels. The wells serve as antibiotic sources and buffer sinks, and we could easily observe the bacterial growth in the gradient channels .The design of the multi-wells is adapted to the commercialized multi-channel pipette, which makes it very convenient for loading reagents into the wells. For each assay, only about 20 µL antibiotic solution is needed. As a demonstration, we used both fluorescence images and dark-field images to quantify the bacterial growth inhibition effect under different antibiotics. The quantitative data of bacterial growth inhibition under different antibiotics can be obtained within 3 to 4 h. Considering the simple operation process and the high-throughput and quantitative result this device can offer, it has great potential to be widely used in clinics and may be useful for the study of the kinetics of bacterial growth.
Subject(s)
Escherichia coli/drug effects , Escherichia coli/growth & development , High-Throughput Screening Assays/methods , Lab-On-A-Chip Devices , Microbial Sensitivity Tests/instrumentation , Anti-Bacterial Agents/pharmacology , Calibration , Microbial Sensitivity Tests/methodsABSTRACT
Drug resistance involves many biological processes, including cell growth, cell communication, and cell cooperation. In the last few decades, bacterial drug resistance studies have made substantial progress. However, a major limitation of the traditional resistance study still exists: most of the studies have concentrated on the average behavior of enormous amounts of cells rather than surveying single cells with different phenotypes or genotypes. Here, we report our study of beta-lactamase bacterial drug resistance in a well-designed microfluidic device, which allows us to conduct more controllable experiments, such as controlling the nutrient concentration, switching the culture media, performing parallel experiments, observing single cells, and acquiring time-lapse images. By using GFP as a beta-lactamase indicator and acquiring time-lapse images at the single-cell level, we observed correlations between the bacterial heterogeneous phenotypes and their behavior in different culture media. The feedback loop between the growth rate and the beta-lactamase production suggests that the beta-lactamase bacteria are more resistant in a rich medium than in a relatively poor medium. In the poorest medium, the proportion of dormant cells may increase, which causes a lower death rate in the same generation. Our work may contribute to assaying the antibiotic resistance of pathogenic bacteria in heterogeneous complex media.
Subject(s)
Bacteria/metabolism , Culture Media/pharmacology , Drug Resistance, Bacterial/drug effects , Single-Cell Analysis , beta-Lactamases/metabolism , Bacteria/drug effects , Bacteria/growth & development , Fluorescence , Image Processing, Computer-Assisted , Microbial Viability/drug effects , PhenotypeABSTRACT
Paecilomyces sinclairiis (PS) is known as a functional food or human health supplement. However concerns have been raised about its kidney toxicity. This study was performed to investigate the kidney toxicity of PS by 13 week-oral administration to rats. Blood urea nitrogen (BUN), serum creatinine, and kidney damage biomarkers including beta-2-microglobulin (beta2m), glutathione S-transferase alpha (GST-alpha), kidney injury molecule 1 (KIM-1), tissue inhibitor of matrix metalloproteinase 1 (TIMP-1), vascular endothelial growth factor (VEGF), calbindin, clusterin, cystatin C, neutrophil gelatinase-associated lipocalin (NGAL) and osteopontin were measured during or after the treatment of PS. BUN, creatinine and kidney damage biomarkers in serum were not changed by PS. However, kidney cell karyomegaly and tubular hypertrophy were observed dose-dependently with higher severity in males. KIM-1, TIMP-1 and osteopontin in kidney and urine were increased dose dependently in male or at the highest dose in female rats. Increased urinary osteopontin by PS was not recovered at 2 weeks of post-exposure in both genders. Cystatin C in kidney was decreased at all treatment groups but inversely increased in urine. The changes in kidney damage biomarkers were more remarkable in male than female rats. These data indicate that the PS may provoke renal cell damage and glomerular filtration dysfunction in rats with histopathological lesions and change of kidney damage biomarkers in kidney or urine. Kidney and urinary KIM-1 and cystatin C were the most marked indicators, while kidney weight, BUN and creatinine and kidney damage biomarkers in serum were not influenced.
