Relationship Between Severity of Gastrointestinal Symptoms and Anxiety Symptoms in Patients with Chronic Gastrointestinal Disease: The Mediating Role of Illness Perception.

Purpose: Anxiety, as an important public health issue, may frequently trouble the chronic GI patients with severe symptoms. In this study, we aimed to investigate the relationship between the severity of GI symptoms and anxiety symptoms and further examine whether this relationship was mediated through illness perception. Patients and Methods: A total of 295 patients with chronic GI disease from the affiliated hospital of Xuzhou Medical University were enrolled in this cross-sectional study. They were interviewed with self-reported questionnaires containing demographic variables, clinical variables, and several self-rating scales. Multivariable linear regression models were established to explore the relationship between the severity of GI symptoms and anxiety symptoms. Finally, we performed the mediation analysis to test the mediating effect of illness perception. Results: After adjustments for key demographic and clinical covariates, the severity of GI symptoms was positively associated with anxiety symptoms (ß=0.214, 95% CI: 0.009-0.028, P < 0.001). Additionally, the results of the mediation analysis suggested that illness perception partially mediated the association between the severity of GI symptoms and anxiety symptoms with a mediating ratio of 25.3%. Conclusion: Our findings indicated that chronic GI patients with more severe GI symptoms were more likely to have anxiety symptoms and this effect is partially mediated by illness perception. Therefore, illness perception is recommended to be integrated into the routine assessment of chronic GI patients, and perception-based interventions may be beneficial in relieving anxiety symptoms among patients with severe chronic GI diseases.

Microalgal glycerol-3-phosphate acyltransferase role in galactolipids and high-value storage lipid biosynthesis.

Glycerolipids are the most abundant lipids in microalgae, and glycerol-3-phosphate:acyl-CoA acyltransferase (GPAT) plays an important role in their biosynthesis. However, the biochemical and biological functions of algal GPAT remain poorly characterized. Here, we characterized the endoplasmic reticulum (ER)-associated GPAT of the model unicellular green alga Chlamydomonas reinhardtii (CrGPATer). Enzymatic assays indicated that CrGPATer is an sn-1 acyltransferase using a variety of acyl-CoAs as the acyl donor. Subcellular localization revealed that CrGPATer was associated with ER membranes and lipid droplets. We constructed overexpression (OE) and knockdown (KD) transgenic C. reinhardtii lines to investigate the in vivo function of CrGPATer. Lipidomic analysis indicated that CrGPATer OE enhanced the cellular content of galactolipids, especially monogalactosyldiacylglycerol, under nitrogen deficiency stress. Correspondingly, CrGPATer KD lines contained lower contents of galactolipids than the control. Feeding experiments with labeled phosphatidic acid revealed that the intermediate of the eukaryotic Kennedy pathway could be used for galactolipid biosynthesis in the chloroplasts. These results provided multiple lines of evidence that the eukaryotic Kennedy pathway mediated by CrGPATer may be involved in galactolipid biosynthesis in C. reinhardtii. OE of CrGPATer significantly increased the content of triacylglycerol and the yield of biomass. Moreover, the content and yield of 1, 3-olein-2-palmitin, a high-value lipid that can be used as an alternative for human milk fat in infant formula, were significantly enhanced in the OE transgenic lines. Taken together, this study provided insights into the biochemical and biological functions of CrGPATer and its potential as a genetic engineering target in functional lipid manufacturing.