FABP3 Induces Mitochondrial Autophagy to Promote Neuronal Cell Apoptosis in Brain Ischemia-Reperfusion Injury.

This study elucidates the molecular mechanisms by which FABP3 regulates neuronal apoptosis via mitochondrial autophagy in the context of cerebral ischemia-reperfusion (I/R). Employing a transient mouse model of middle cerebral artery occlusion (MCAO) established using the filament method, brain tissue samples were procured from I/R mice. High-throughput transcriptome sequencing on the Illumina CN500 platform was performed to identify differentially expressed mRNAs. Critical genes were selected by intersecting I/R-related genes from the GeneCards database with the differentially expressed mRNAs. The in vivo mechanism was explored by infecting I/R mice with lentivirus. Brain tissue injury, infarct volume ratio in the ischemic penumbra, neurologic deficits, behavioral abilities, neuronal apoptosis, apoptotic factors, inflammatory factors, and lipid peroxidation markers were assessed using H&E staining, TTC staining, Longa scoring, rotation experiments, immunofluorescence staining, and Western blot. For in vitro validation, an OGD/R model was established using primary neuron cells. Cell viability, apoptosis rate, mitochondrial oxidative stress, morphology, autophagosome formation, membrane potential, LC3 protein levels, and colocalization of autophagosomes and mitochondria were evaluated using MTT assay, LDH release assay, flow cytometry, ROS/MDA/GSH-Px measurement, transmission electron microscopy, MitoTracker staining, JC-1 method, Western blot, and immunofluorescence staining. FABP3 was identified as a critical gene in I/R through integrated transcriptome sequencing and bioinformatics analysis. In vivo experiments revealed that FABP3 silencing mitigated brain tissue damage, reduced infarct volume ratio, improved neurologic deficits, restored behavioral abilities, and attenuated neuronal apoptosis, inflammation, and mitochondrial oxidative stress in I/R mice. In vitro experiments demonstrated that FABP3 silencing restored OGD/R cell viability, reduced neuronal apoptosis, and decreased mitochondrial oxidative stress. Moreover, FABP3 induced mitochondrial autophagy through ROS, which was inhibited by the free radical scavenger NAC. Blocking mitochondrial autophagy with sh-ATG5 lentivirus confirmed that FABP3 induces mitochondrial dysfunction and neuronal apoptosis by activating mitochondrial autophagy. In conclusion, FABP3 activates mitochondrial autophagy through ROS, leading to mitochondrial dysfunction and neuronal apoptosis, thereby promoting cerebral ischemia-reperfusion injury.

Analysis of the competitiveness and complementarity of China-Vietnam bilateral agricultural commodity trade.

Vietnam's agricultural exports to China have remained strong, with the country maintaining its position as the top destination for Agri-products. This article primarily utilizes the Revealed Comparative Advantage (RCA) Index, and Trade Complementarity (TC) index to examine the trade comparative advantage, and the complementary of twenty major agricultural products between China and Vietnam from 2012 to 2021. The study results showed that Vietnam and China frequently exchange agricultural products. Vietnam has more stronger competitiveness than China in terms of agricultural products. China's exports to Vietnam were highly complementary to Vietnam's imports in category 0 whiles Vietnam's exports to China showed strong complementarity with China's imports in category 2. This paper analyzes the complementarity and comparative advantages of agricultural trade between China and Vietnam, and proposes informed suggestions for policy-making to promote agricultural trade between the countries. The proposed suggestions aim to expand agricultural trade between the two countries, reduce the trade imbalance, and achieve mutual benefit and win-win results.

From local to global gene co-expression estimation using single-cell RNA-seq data.

In genomics studies, the investigation of gene relationships often brings important biological insights. Currently, the large heterogeneous datasets impose new challenges for statisticians because gene relationships are often local. They change from one sample point to another, may only exist in a subset of the sample, and can be nonlinear or even nonmonotone. Most previous dependence measures do not specifically target local dependence relationships, and the ones that do are computationally costly. In this paper, we explore a state-of-the-art network estimation technique that characterizes gene relationships at the single cell level, under the name of cell-specific gene networks. We first show that averaging the cell-specific gene relationship over a population gives a novel univariate dependence measure, the averaged Local Density Gap (aLDG), that accumulates local dependence and can detect any nonlinear, nonmonotone relationship. Together with a consistent nonparametric estimator, we establish its robustness on both the population and empirical levels. Then, we show that averaging the cell-specific gene relationship over mini-batches determined by some external structure information (eg, spatial or temporal factor) better highlights meaningful local structure change points. We explore the application of aLDG and its minibatch variant in many scenarios, including pairwise gene relationship estimation, bifurcating point detection in cell trajectory, and spatial transcriptomics structure visualization. Both simulations and real data analysis show that aLDG outperforms existing ones.

Interface engineering in a nitrogen-rich COF/BiOBr S-scheme heterojunction triggering efficient photocatalytic degradation of tetracycline antibiotics.

Tetracycline (TC) antibiotics, extensively utilized in livestock farming and aquaculture, pose significant environmental challenges. Photocatalysis, leveraging renewable sunlight and reusable photocatalysts, offers a promising avenue for mitigating TC pollution. However, identifying robust photocatalysts remains a formidable challenge. This study introduces a novel hollow-flower-ball-like nanoheterojunction composed of a nitrogen-rich covalent organic framework (N-COF) coupled with BiOBr (BOB), a semiconductor with a higher Fermi level. The synthesized N-COF/BOB S-scheme nanoheterojunction features an expanded contact interface, strengthened chemical bonding, and unique band topologies. The N-COF/BOB composites showcased exceptional TC degradation performance, achieving an 81.2% removal of 60 mg/L TC within 2 h, markedly surpassing the individual efficiencies of N-COF and BOB by factors of 3.80 and 5.96, respectively. Furthermore, the total organic carbon (TOC) removal efficiency highlights a superior mineralization capacity in the N-COF/BOB composite compared to the individual components, N-COF and BOB. The toxicity assessment revealed that the degradation intermediates possess diminished environmental toxicity. This enhanced performance is ascribed to the robust S-scheme nanoheterojunction structure, which promotes efficient photoinduced electron transfer from BOB to N-COF. This process also augments the separation of photogenerated charge carriers, resulting in an increased yield of superoxide radicals (∙O2-) and hydroxyl radicals (∙OH). These reactive species significantly contribute to the degradation and mineralization of TC. Consequently, this study introduces a sustainable approach for addressing emerging antibiotic contaminants, employing COF-based photocatalysts.

Research on India-China agriculture trade dynamics: A comparative advantage analysis.

This paper presents a comprehensive analysis of the agriculture trade dynamic between India and China from 2002-2021. It employed the Revealed Comparative Advantage (RCA) and Revealed Symmetric Comparative Advantage (RSCA) indices and various statistical analyses to assess the trade performance and provide an enhanced comprehension of the specialization pattern. The study has selected 45 agricultural commodities, categorized into seven sections according to the HS Nomenclature 2017. The findings revealed that India boasts a more diversified export portfolio compared to China, with a more significant number of agriculture chapters demonstrating a comparative advantage. Conversely, China's export basket is more concentrated, featuring fewer chapters with a comparative advantage but higher values of RCA and RSCA. The paper also identified the prospective areas for agriculture-trade cooperation and collaboration between the two countries and put forward recommendations. This research aims to offer valuable insights for policymakers, researchers, and traders to enhance bilateral ties and mutual benefits in the agriculture sector.

Leaching characteristics and pollution risk assessment of potentially harmful elements from coal gangue exposed to weathering for different periods of time.

To explore the leaching behavior and potential degree of pollution that can result from the backfilling of goafs with different types of coal gangue (CG), fresh CG from the Hongqi Coal Mine goaf and surface CG (weathered for 1 year) were selected as the research objects in this study. A series of leaching experiments were carried out using the Ordovician limestone karst waters of the mining areas as the soaking solution. A comparative study on the dissolution characteristics of Fe3+, Mn2+, and SO42- and on the traditional water quality parameters of the two types of CG was conducted. The results showed that the soaked, weathered CG displayed a higher ion dissolution value than fresh CG. The ratio of each ion was as follows: Fe3+ was 1, Mn2+ was 2.86 ~ 68.18, and SO42- was 1.34 ~ 2.09. Over time, the ion concentration of water samples that initially contained high ion concentration values showed a decreasing trend after CG was soaked in these waters, but the values were still in the range of high ion release concentrations. The pH and oxidation‒reduction potential (ORP) values of the leachate of both CG types indicated that the leachates were weakly alkaline and weakly oxidizing, and the overall change in total dissolved solids (TDS) was small and consistent with the SO42- trend. SO42- in the leachate of the weathered CG showed a more significant correlation with the pH and TDS of the soaking solution, and it was the major pollutant. According to the geoaccumulation index evaluation, weathered CG had higher pollution potential than fresh CG. Fe3+ presented a slight and moderate risk for contamination.

An Artificial Photosystem of Metal-Insulator-CTF Nanoarchitectures for Highly Efficient and Selective CO2 Conversion to CO.

It is of pivotal significance to explore robust photocatalysts to promote the photoreduction of CO2 into solar fuels. Herein, an intelligent metal-insulator-semiconductor (MIS) nano-architectural photosystem was constructed by electrostatic self-assembly between cetyltrimethylammonium bromide (CTAB) insulator-capped metal Ni nanoparticles (NPs) and covalent triazine-based frameworks (CTF-1). The metal-insulator-CTF composites unveiled a substantially higher CO evolution rate (1254.15 µmol g-1 h-1 ) compared with primitive CTF-1 (1.08 µmol g-1 h-1 ) and reached considerable selectivity (98.9 %) under visible-light irradiation. The superior photocatalytic CO2 conversion activity over Ni-CTAB-CTF nanoarchitecture could be attributed to the larger surface area, reinforced visible-light response, and CO2 capture capacity. More importantly, the Ni-CTAB-CTF nanoarchitecture endowed the photoexcited electrons on CTF-1 with the ability to tunnel across the thin CTAB insulating layer, directionally migrating to Ni NPs and thereby leading to the efficient separation of photogenerated electrons and holes in the photosystem. In addition, isotope-labeled (13 CO2 ) tracer results verified that the reduction products come from CO2 rather than the decomposition of the photocatalysts. This study opens a new avenue for establishing a highly efficient and selective artificial photosystem for CO2 conversion.

Rational Design of Novel COF/MOF S-Scheme Heterojunction Photocatalyst for Boosting CO2 Reduction at Gas-Solid Interface.

Solar-driven photoreduction of CO2 into valuable fuels offers a sustainable technology to relieve the energy crisis as well as the greenhouse effect. Yet the exploration of highly efficient, selective, stable, and environmental benign photocatalysts for CO2 reduction remains a major issue and challenge. The interfacial engineering of heterojunction photocatalysts could be a valid approach to boost the efficiency of the catalytic process. Herein, we propose a novel covalent organic framework/metal organic framework (COF/MOF) heterojunction photocatalyst, using olefin (C═C) linked covalent organic framework (TTCOF) and NH2-UiO-66 (Zr) (NUZ) as representative building blocks, for enhanced CO2 reduction to CO. The optimized TTCOF/NUZ exhibited a superior CO yield (6.56 µmol g-1 h-1) in gas-solid system when irradiated by visible light and only with H2O (g) as weak reductant, and it was 4.4 and 5 times higher than pristine TTCOF and NUZ, respectively. The photogenerated electrons transfer route was proposed to follow the typical step-scheme (S-scheme), which was affirmed by XPS, in situ XPS and EPR characterizations. The boosting CO2 photoreduction activity could be credited to the special charge carrier separation in S-scheme heterojunction, which can accelerate photogenerated electrons transportation and improve the redox ability at the interface. This work paves the way for the design and preparation of novel COF/MOF S-scheme heterostructure photocatalysts for CO2 reduction.

Polypyrrole-based nanotheranostic agent for MRI guided photothermal-chemodynamic synergistic cancer therapy.

Polypyrrole (PPy) nanoparticles have been widely studied in tumor photothermal therapy (PTT) for their significant photostability, good biocompatibility, and excellent photothermal performance. Herein, we report bovine serum albumin (BSA) stabilized PPy that were mineralized by MnO2 nanozyme on the surface (PPy@BSA-MnO2) to achieve synergistic photothermal and chemodynamic therapy (CDT) for breast cancer. In this multifunctional nanoplatform, the surface-loaded MnO2 undergoes a redox reaction with glutathione (GSH) to generate glutathione disulfide (GSSG) and Mn2+. Then, Mn2+ can convert H2O2 into a highly cytotoxic ˙OH to achieve chemodynamic therapy (CDT) and possess good magnetic resonance (MR) T1-weighted imaging capabilities to realize contrast imaging of the 4T1 tumor-bearing mouse models. In addition, PPy nanoparticles can efficiently convert near-infrared light energy into heat and achieve PTT. Most importantly, PPy@BSA-MnO2 nanoprobes have excellent in vitro 4T1 cell-killing effect and in vivo tumor-suppressive properties. The acute toxicity assessment results indicate that PPy@BSA-MnO2 nanoprobes have good biological safety. Therefore, the as-prepared multifunctional PPy@BSA-MnO2 nanoprobes possess excellent performance to promote MRI-guided PTT/CDT synergistic therapy for breast cancer treatment and have extensive clinical transformation and application prospects.

ESCO: single cell expression simulation incorporating gene co-expression.

MOTIVATION: Gene-gene co-expression networks (GCN) are of biological interest for the useful information they provide for understanding gene-gene interactions. The advent of single cell RNA-sequencing allows us to examine more subtle gene co-expression occurring within a cell type. Many imputation and denoising methods have been developed to deal with the technical challenges observed in single cell data; meanwhile, several simulators have been developed for benchmarking and assessing these methods. Most of these simulators, however, either do not incorporate gene co-expression or generate co-expression in an inconvenient manner. RESULTS: Therefore, with the focus on gene co-expression, we propose a new simulator, ESCO, which adopts the idea of the copula to impose gene co-expression, while preserving the highlights of available simulators, which perform well for simulation of gene expression marginally. Using ESCO, we assess the performance of imputation methods on GCN recovery and find that imputation generally helps GCN recovery when the data are not too sparse, and the ensemble imputation method works best among leading methods. In contrast, imputation fails to help in the presence of an excessive fraction of zero counts, where simple data aggregating methods are a better choice. These findings are further verified with mouse and human brain cell data. AVAILABILITY AND IMPLEMENTATION: The ESCO implementation is available as R package ESCO. Users can either download the development version via github (https://github.com/JINJINT/ESCO) or the archived version via Zenodo (https://zenodo.org/record/4455890). SUPPLEMENTARY INFORMATION: Supplementary data are available at Bioinformatics online.

Online control of the familywise error rate.

Biological research often involves testing a growing number of null hypotheses as new data are accumulated over time. We study the problem of online control of the familywise error rate, that is testing an a priori unbounded sequence of hypotheses (p-values) one by one over time without knowing the future, such that with high probability there are no false discoveries in the entire sequence. This paper unifies algorithmic concepts developed for offline (single batch) familywise error rate control and online false discovery rate control to develop novel online familywise error rate control methods. Though many offline familywise error rate methods (e.g., Bonferroni, fallback procedures and Sidak's method) can trivially be extended to the online setting, our main contribution is the design of new, powerful, adaptive online algorithms that control the familywise error rate when the p-values are independent or locally dependent in time. Our numerical experiments demonstrate substantial gains in power, that are also formally proved in an idealized Gaussian sequence model. A promising application to the International Mouse Phenotyping Consortium is described.

Tetraphenylethene-Modified Colorimetric and Fluorescent Chemosensor for Hg2+ With Aggregation-Induced Emission Enhancement, Solvatochromic, and Mechanochromic Fluorescence Features.

A tetraphenylethene (TPE)-modified rhodanine derivative was successfully designed and prepared, and this luminophor showed intramolecular charge transfer nature from the TPE unit to the rhodanine-3-acetic acid unit. Interestingly, this luminogen not only exhibited typical aggregation-induced emission enhancement (AIEE) behavior but also showed good cell imaging performance. Remarkably, this AIEE-active TPE-containing rhodanine derivative possessed noticeable solvatochromic fluorescence effect involving multiple fluorescent colors of green, yellow-green, yellow, orange, and red. Meanwhile, this fluorescigenic compound displayed reversible mechanochromic fluorescence behavior based on the mutual transformation of between stable crystalline and metastable amorphous states. On the other hand, this multifunctional fluorophor could selectively and sensitively detect Hg2+ in an acetonitrile solution. Furthermore, this chemosensor could also be used to detect Hg2+ on test paper strips.

Hyperspectral Imaging for the Nondestructive Quality Assessment of the Firmness of Nanguo Pears Under Different Freezing/Thawing Conditions.

Firmness changes in Nanguo pears under different freezing/thawing conditions have been characterized by hyperspectral imaging (HSI). Four different freezing/thawing conditions (the critical temperatures, numbers of cycles, holding time and cooling rates) were set in this experiment. Four different pretreatment methods were used: multivariate scattering correction (MSC), standard normal variate (SNV), Savitzky-Golay standard normal variate (S-G-SNV) and Savitzky-Golay multiplicative scattering correction (S-G-MSC). Combined with competitive adaptive reweighted sampling (CARS) to identify characteristic wavelengths, firmness prediction models of Nanguo pears under different freezing/thawing conditions were established by partial least squares (PLS) regression. The performance of the firmness model was analyzed quantitatively by the correlation coefficient (R), the root mean square error of calibration (RMSEC), the root mean square error of prediction (RMSEP) and the root mean square error of cross validation (RMSECV). The results showed that the MSC-PLS model has the highest accuracy at different cooling rates and holding times; the correlation coefficients of the calibration set (Rc) were 0.899 and 0.927, respectively, and the correlation coefficients of the validation set (Rp) were 0.911 and 0.948, respectively. The accuracy of the SNV-PLS model was the highest at different numbers of cycles, and the Rc and the Rp were 0.861 and 0.848, respectively. The RMSEC was 65.189, and the RMSEP was 65.404. The accuracy of the S-G-SNV-PLS model was the highest at different critical temperatures, with Rc and Rp values of 0.854 and 0.819, respectively, and RMSEC and RMSEP values of 74.567 and 79.158, respectively.

Development and application of a T7 RNA polymerase-dependent expression system for antibiotic production improvement in Streptomyces.

OBJECTIVE: To develop a reliable and easy to use expression system for antibiotic production improvement of Streptomyces. RESULTS: A two-compound T7 RNA polymerase-dependent gene expression system was developed to fulfill this demand. In this system, the T7 RNA polymerase coding sequence was optimized based on the codon usage of Streptomyces coelicolor. To evaluate the functionality of this system, we constructed an activator gene overexpression strain for enhancement of actinorhodin production. By overexpression of the positive regulator actII-ORF4 with this system, the maximum actinorhodin yield of engineered strain was 15-fold higher and the fermentation time was decreased by 48 h. CONCLUSION: The modified two-compound T7 expression system improves both antibiotic production and accelerates the fermentation process in Streptomyces. This provides a general and useful strategy for strain improvement of important antibiotic producing Streptomyces strains.

Long-term results of pediatric cataract surgery after delayed diagnosis.

PURPOSE: To report the long-term rates of visual impairment in children who underwent cataract surgery after late diagnosis. METHODS: The records of children who underwent cataract surgery in northern China between January 1994 and December 2009 were retrospectively reviewed. Age at surgery, surgical approach, postoperative best-corrected visual acuity, and compliance with amblyopia treatment were evaluated. Visual impairment was defined as best-corrected visual acuity <20/60. RESULTS: Of 486 children included in this study, 2 (0.4%) had surgery by age 3 months and 68 (14%) by age 6 months. Of the 536 eyes of 331 patients with visual acuity recorded at final follow-up, 151 eyes (37%) had bilateral cataract and 82 (65%) had unilateral cataract, with a total of 233 (45%) considered visually impaired. In children who had surgery before 36 months of age for bilateral cataracts, there was no significant difference in rates of visual impairment with versus without primary IOL implantation. In patients with unilateral cataract, visual impairment occurred regardless of age at surgery or whether IOL was primarily implanted. Postoperatively, compliance with amblyopia treatment was good in 30% of patients, fair in 45%, and poor in 31%. CONCLUSIONS: The long-term visual acuity was unfavorable in approximately half of children diagnosed and treated for pediatric cataracts after 3 months of age. Contributing factors included age at presentation and absence of effective training for postoperative vision rehabilitation.