N-acetylcysteine in the Donor, Recipient, or Both Donor and Recipient in Liver Transplantation: A Systematic Review With Meta-analysis and Trial Sequential Analysis.

BACKGROUND: N-acetylcysteine (NAC) is a potentially effective drug for treating ischemia-reperfusion injury in transplanted livers, but its effect remains controversial. METHODS: A systematic review and meta-analysis of relevant clinical trials published and registered in the Cochrane Library, MEDLINE, EMBASE, ClinicalTrial.gov , WHO ICTRP, etc, before March 20, 2022 were conducted and registered with PROSPERO (CRD42022315996). Data were pooled using a random effects model or a fixed effects model based on the amount of heterogeneity. RESULTS: Thirteen studies with 1121 participants, 550 of whom received NAC, were included. Compared with the control, NAC significantly reduced the incidence of primary graft nonfunction (relative risk [RR], 0.27; 95% confidence interval [CI], 0.08-0.96), the incidence of postoperative complications (RR, 0.52; 95% CI, 0.41-0.67), the peak postoperative aspartate transferase level (mean difference [MD], -267.52; 95% CI, -345.35 to -189.68), and the peak alanine transferase level (MD, -293.29; 95% CI, -370.39 to -216.20). NAC also improved 2-y (RR, 1.18; 95% CI, 1.01-1.38) graft survival rate. However, NAC increased the intraoperative cryoprecipitate (MD, 0.94; 95% CI, 0.42-1.46) and red blood cell (MD, 0.67; 95% CI, 0.15-1.19) requirements. Moreover, NAC was administered in various modes in these studies, including to the donor, recipient, or both. Subgroup analysis and network meta-analysis showed that NAC administration to recipients could play a more significant role than the other 2 administration modes. CONCLUSIONS: Our study supports the protective effect of NAC against LT-induced ischemia-reperfusion injury and shows better clinical outcomes of NAC administration to recipients.

Immunization against inhibin DNA vaccine as an alternative therapeutic for improving follicle development and reproductive performance in beef cattle.

The objective of the present study was to investigate the potential role of immunization against INH on follicular development, serum reproductive hormone (FSH, E2, and P4) concentrations, and reproductive performance in beef cattle. A total of 196 non-lactating female beef cattle (4-5 years old) with identical calving records (3 records) were immunized with 0.5, 1.0, 1.5, or 2.0 mg [(T1, n = 58), (T2, n = 46), (T3, n = 42) and (T4, n = 36), respectively] of the pcISI plasmid. The control (C) group (n = 14) was immunized with 1.0 mL 0.9% saline. At 21d after primary immunization, all beef cattle were boosted with half of the primary immunization dose. On day 10 after primary immunization, the beef cattle immunized with INH DNA vaccine evidently induced anti-INH antibody except for the T1 group. The T3 group had the greatest P/N value peak among all the groups. The anti-INH antibody positive rates in T2, T3 and T4 groups were significantly higher than that in C and T1 groups. RIA results indicated that serum FSH concentration in T2 group increased markedly on day 45 after booster immunization; the E2 amount in T3 group was significantly increased on day 10 after primary immunization, and the levels of E2 also improved in T2 and T3 groups after booster immunization; the P4 concentration in T2 group was significantly improved on day 21 after primary immunization. Ultrasonography results revealed that the follicles with different diameter sizes were increased, meanwhile, the diameter and growth speed of ovulatory follicle were significantly increased. Furthermore, the rates of estrous, ovulation, conception, and twinning rate were also significantly enhanced. These findings clearly illustrated that INH DNA vaccine was capable of promoting the follicle development, thereby improving the behavioral of estrous and ovulation, eventually leading to an augment in the conception rates and twinning rate of beef cattle.

On What Could Chinese Mining Enterprises Achieve High-Level Environmental Performance?-Based on the fsQCA Method.

Enterprise environmental performance has causal complexity. The purpose of this paper is to discover the possible combination of conditions for enterprises to achieve high environmental performance. Based on the resource dependence theory, stakeholder theory, and externality theory, this paper constructs the theoretical framework of enterprise environmental performance evaluation and applies the fsQCA method to study the major influencing factors and mechanism of the environmental performance of listed enterprises in the Chinese mining industry. Based on the data from 2016 to 2019, the results show that there are four configurations of multiple factors leading to high environmental performance. Based on these configurations, three possible paths, internally driven, internally-externally driven, and externally driven, are established to improve environmental performance. Further, we also find that, between profitability and government regulation and between enterprise size and board independence are interchangeable condition variables; public attention outweighs other factors for Chinese mining enterprises. Countermeasures and suggestions from perspectives of government supervision, public concern, and enterprise internal governance are proposed at the end the study.

An improved force-based impedance control method for the HDU of legged robots.

Hydraulic drive mode enables legged robots to have excellent characteristics, such as greater power-to-weight ratios, higher load capacities, and faster response speeds than other robots. Nowadays, highly integrated valve-controlled cylinder, called hydraulic drive unit (HDU), is employed to drive the joints of these robots. However, various robot control issues exist. For example, during the walking process of legged robots, different obstacles are encountered, making it difficult to control such robots because the load characteristics of the ends of their feet change with the environment. Furthermore, although the adoption of HDU has resulted in high-performance robot control, the hydraulic systems of these robots still have problems, such as strong nonlinearity, and time-varying parameters. Consequently, robot control is very difficult and complex. This paper proposes an improved second-order dynamic compliance control system, impedance control, for HDU. The control system is designed to rectify the issues affecting the impedance control accuracy of the dynamic compliance serial-parallel composition between the HDU force control inner loop and the impedance control outer loop. Specifically, it consists of a compliance-enhanced controller and a feedforward compensation controller for the force control inner loop. Furthermore, the dynamic compliance composition of the inner and outer HDU control loops is rearranged. The results of experiments conducted indicate that the proposed method significantly improves the control accuracy compared to that of traditional force-based impedance control.

Candidate Genes Involved in the Biosynthesis of Triterpenoid Saponins in Platycodon grandiflorum Identified by Transcriptome Analysis.

BACKGROUND: Platycodon grandiflorum is the only species in the genus Platycodon of the family Campanulaceae, which has been traditionally used as a medicinal plant for its lung-heat-clearing, antitussive, and expectorant properties in China, Japanese, and Korean. Oleanane-type triterpenoid saponins were the main chemical components of P. grandiflorum and platycodin D was the abundant and main bioactive component, but little is known about their biosynthesis in plants. Hence, P. grandiflorum is an ideal medicinal plant for studying the biosynthesis of Oleanane-type saponins. In addition, the genomic information of this important herbal plant is unavailable. PRINCIPAL FINDINGS: A total of 58,580,566 clean reads were obtained, which were assembled into 34,053 unigenes, with an average length of 936 bp and N50 of 1,661 bp by analyzing the transcriptome data of P. grandiflorum. Among these 34,053 unigenes, 22,409 unigenes (65.80%) were annotated based on the information available from public databases, including Nr, NCBI, Swiss-Prot, KOG, and KEGG. Furthermore, 21 candidate cytochrome P450 genes and 17 candidate UDP-glycosyltransferase genes most likely involved in triterpenoid saponins biosynthesis pathway were discovered from the transcriptome sequencing of P. grandiflorum. In addition, 10,626 SSRs were identified based on the transcriptome data, which would provide abundant candidates of molecular markers for genetic diversity and genetic map for this medicinal plant. CONCLUSION: The genomic data obtained from P. grandiflorum, especially the identification of putative genes involved in triterpenoid saponins biosynthesis pathway, will facilitate our understanding of the biosynthesis of triterpenoid saponins at molecular level.

Genome-Wide Transcriptional Excavation of Dipsacus asperoides Unmasked both Cryptic Asperosaponin Biosynthetic Genes and SSR Markers.

BACKGROUND: Dipsacus asperoides is a traditional Chinese medicinal crop. The root is generally used as a medicine and is frequently prescribed by Chinese doctors for the treatment of back pain, limb paralysis, flutter trauma, tendon injuries, and fractures. With the rapid development of bioinformatics, research has been focused on this species at the gene or molecular level. For purpose of fleshing out genome information about D. asperoides, in this paper we conducted transcriptome analysis of this species. PRINCIPAL FINDINGS: To date, many genes encoding enzymes involved in the biosynthesis of triterpenoid saponins in D.asperoides have not been elucidated. Illumina paired-end sequencing was employed to probe D. asperoides's various enzymes associated with the relevant mesostate. A total of 30, 832,805 clean reads and de novo spliced 43,243 unigenes were obtained. Of all unigenes, only 8.27% (3578) were successfully annotated in total of seven public databases: Nr, Nt, Swiss-Prot, GO, KOG, KEGG, and Pfam, which might be attributed to the poor studies on D. asperoides. The candidate genes encoding enzymes involved in triterpenoid saponin biosynthesis were identified and experimentally verified by reverse transcription qPCR, encompassing nine cytochrome P450s and 17 UDP-glucosyltransferases. Specifically, unearthly putative genes involved in the glycosylation of hederagenin were acquired. Simultaneously, 4490 SSRs from 43,243 examined sequences were determined via bioinformatics analysis. CONCLUSION: This study represents the first report on the use of the Illumina sequence platform on this crop at the transcriptome level. Our findings of candidate genes encoding enzymes involved in Dipsacus saponin VI biosynthes is provide novel information in efforts to further understand the triterpenoid metabolic pathway on this species. The initial genetics resources in this study will contribute significantly to the genetic breeding program of D. asperoides, and are beneficial for clinical diagnosis and treatment.