Overexpressing NeuroD1 reprograms Müller cells into various types of retinal neurons.

The onset of retinal degenerative disease is often associated with neuronal loss. Therefore, how to regenerate new neurons to restore vision is an important issue. NeuroD1 is a neural transcription factor with the ability to reprogram brain astrocytes into neurons in vivo. Here, we demonstrate that in adult mice, NeuroD1 can reprogram Müller cells, the principal glial cell type in the retina, to become retinal neurons. Most strikingly, ectopic expression of NeuroD1 using two different viral vectors converted Müller cells into different cell types. Specifically, AAV7m8 GFAP681::GFP-ND1 converted Müller cells into inner retinal neurons, including amacrine cells and ganglion cells. In contrast, AAV9 GFAP104::ND1-GFP converted Müller cells into outer retinal neurons such as photoreceptors and horizontal cells, with higher conversion efficiency. Furthermore, we demonstrate that Müller cell conversion induced by AAV9 GFAP104::ND1-GFP displayed clear dose- and time-dependence. These results indicate that Müller cells in adult mice are highly plastic and can be reprogrammed into various subtypes of retinal neurons.

Identification of LTF as a Prognostic Biomarker for Osteosarcoma.

Osteosarcoma remains a major health problem in teenagers. However, its pathogenesis mechanism remains not fully elucidated. This study aims to identify the prognostic biomarkers for osteosarcoma. In this study, we selected genes with a median absolute deviation (MAD) value of the top 5000 in the GSE32981 dataset for subsequent analysis. Weighted correlation network analysis (WGCNA) was used to construct a coexpression network. WGCNA showed that the tan module and midnight blue module were highly correlated with origin and metastases of osteosarcoma, respectively. Enrichment analysis was conducted using genes in the tan module and midnight blue module. A gene coexpression network was constructed by calculating the Spearman correlation coefficients. Four key genes (LTF, C10orf107, HIST1H2AK, and NEXN) were identified to be correlated with the prognosis of osteosarcoma patients. LTF has the highest AUC value, and its effect on osteosarcoma cells was then evaluated. The effect of LTF overexpression on proliferation, migration, and invasion of MG63 and 143B cells was detected by the CCK-8 assay, transwell cell migration assay, and transwell invasion assay, respectively. The overexpression of LTF promoted the proliferation, migration, and invasion of MG63 and 143B cells. In conclusion, LTF may serve as a prognostic biomarker for osteosarcoma.

Lignin-based nanoparticles for recovery and separation of phosphate and reused as renewable magnetic fertilizers.

In this work, magnetic lignin-based nanoparticles (M/ALFe) were developed and used to adsorb phosphorus to obtain phosphorus-saturated nanoparticles (M/ALFeP). The nanoparticles were then used as renewable slow-release compound fertilizers. First, aminated lignin was synthesized via Mannich reaction, and then Fe3O4 nanoparticles were loaded and Fe3+ was chelated on the aminated lignin to prepare M/ALFe. Finally, M/ALFeP were obtained after adsorption of phosphorus. The effects of nanoparticle dosage, solution pH and adsorption time on adsorption efficiency were determined. Adsorption isotherm and adsorption kinetics results suggested that the adsorption was coincided with the pseudo-second-order and Temkin model, respectively. The cumulative release of Fe and phosphorus from M/ALFeP increased gradually and reached to 67.2% and 69.1% in soil after 30 days, respectively. After the release of nutrients, M/ALFeP can be separated by a magnet with a high recovery ratio from water or soil and regenerated for phosphate recovery again. Therefore, the magnetic lignin-based nanoparticles have a promising application potential as an efficiently separated and renewable nanomaterial for removal of low concentration phosphate in wastewater treatment and as a slow-release fertilizer in sustainable agriculture.

Noncovalent Muscle-Inspired Hydrogel with Rapid Recovery and Antifatigue Property under Cyclic Stress.

Designing muscle-inspired hydrogels that possess structure and bioactivity similar to muscles is an eternal pursuit in material sciences and tissue engineering. However, the development of a muscle-inspired hydrogel via the formation of noncovalent interactions remains challenging, and its application in sustained loading situations such as cyclic stresses is limited. Herein, H-bonds and microcrystalline domains were introduced, and a noncovalent muscle-inspired hydrogel was developed to mimic both the physical structure and functionality of muscles at the macroscopic level. The hydrogel exhibited excellent mechanical properties (a fracture strength of 2.16 ± 0.08 MPa, fracture strain of 830 ± 23%, elastic modulus of 275 ± 9 KPa, and toughness of 7.04 ± 0.80 MJ/m3), a large energy dissipation (2.00 ± 0.27 MJ/m3 at 600% elongation), and a rapid self-recovery (92 ± 1% toughness recovery within 20 min). Antifatigue behavior of the muscle-inspired hydrogel was observed upon successive tensile and compressive cyclic loadings. Under 100 cycles of loadings, the robustness of the hydrogel has been maintained and even improved, which are achieved due to strain-induced orientation. Furthermore, the hydrogel was found to be self-healed. This hydrogel promises to be among the most relevant drivers for the development of new-generation muscle-inspired hydrogels in the next decade.

A polysaccharide-based micelle-hydrogel synergistic therapy system for diabetes and vascular diabetes complications treatment.

Various glucose-sensitive drug delivery platforms have been developed recently to treat diabetes. However, there is much less work has been reported on treatment of diabetes and vascular diabetes complications simultaneously. In this work, a novel polysaccharide-based micelle-hydrogel synergistic therapy system was fabricated to address this limitation. Zwitterionic dialdehyde starch-based micelles (SB-DAS-VPBA) were synthesized via single electron transfer-living radical polymerization (SET-LRP). Hydrophilic segment sulfobetaine (SB) and hydrophobic segment 4­vinylphenylboronic acid (VPBA) were grafted to the dialdehyde starch (DAS) backbones. Then, chitosan/dialdehyde starch derivatives (CS/SB-DAS-VPBA) micelle-hydrogel was synthesized by Schiff-base bonds. Insulin and nattokinase were loaded to obtain the micelle-hydrogel synergistic therapy system. In vitro drug delivery and blood clots dissolution behaviors were determined. Results suggest that the micelle-hydrogel synergistic therapy system not only possesses glucose-responsive insulin delivery property, but also provides good thrombolytic capacity. Thus, this micelle-hydrogel synergistic therapy system can be used as a platform for diabetes and vascular diabetes complications treatment.

Polysaccharides based injectable hydrogel compositing bio-glass for cranial bone repair.

Bone disease is a public health problem around the word, and it is urgent to develop novel tissue engineering scaffolds for the complicated cranial bone regeneration. The present work developed a novel triple crosslinked polysaccharides based injectable hydrogel to composite bio-glass (BG) for cranial bone repair. Dynamic mechanical analysis showed the storage modulus (G') of the hydrogel reached to ∼4000Pa. While after compositing BG, G' exceeded 4500Pa. The degradation behavior of the hydrogel is influenced by hydrogel composition, crosslinking methods and degradation environment. Through compositing BG for rat cranial bone repair, excellent bone regeneration effect was achieved (chunks of "white" new tissue was detected in the defected site, HE histopathological analysis confirmed the new tissue was bone tissue). Thus, the hydrogel is suitable as the carrier of BG for bone repair, demonstrating the prepared triple crosslinked hydrogel is potential for bone tissue engineering applications.

An injectable and self-healing hydrogel with covalent cross-linking in vivo for cranial bone repair.

Current hydrogels based on chondroitin sulfate (ChS) generally lack the necessary strength and precise mechanical tunability. Addressing these limitations, covalent cross-linking has evolved to produce hydrogels with desirable properties. However, such a methodology always precludes injection and self-healing. In this study, we employ DA click chemistry and dynamic acylhydrazone bond cross-linking for hydrogel formation that overcomes the limitations of current ChS hydrogels. Dynamic acylhydrazone bonds afford the hydrogel injectability and self-healing ability, while DA click chemistry facilitates the employment of covalent crosslinking for stabilization in vivo and modulating hydrogel properties in vivo. The study reveals that the obtained hydrogel possesses highly tunable viscoelastic and rheological properties, swelling and degradation behavior, and injectability and self-healing ability compared with ChS hydrogels cross-linked by single DA click chemistry or acylhydrazone bonds. Meanwhile, this hydrogel shows increased viability and reduced apoptosis of rat mesenchymal stem cells, and excellent tissue adhesive ability in vivo. The hydrogel was loaded with BMP-4 and used as a scaffold for rat cranial bone tissue engineering. The results demonstrated that new bone tissue was detected in the defected area of the cranial bone. Thus, this cytocompatible, injectable and self-healing hydrogel with tunable properties can be used as a scaffold for cranial bone tissue engineering and promote bone formation.

[Comparison of three HIV antibody confirmatory assay kits in confirming early HIV infection].

OBJECTIVE: This study was to compare the performance of three HIV antibody confirmatory assay kits in confirming early HIV infection. METHODS: Five HIV antibody-positive plasma specimens were ten-fold serially diluted and then detected by ELISA. The above diluted specimens were detected with the following three HIV antibody confirmatory assay kits to analyze their sensitivity, including Wantai-RIBA (Recombinant immunoblot assay, Beijing Wantai Biological Pharmacy, China), MP-WB (HIV Blot 2.2 WB, MP Biomedicals Asia Pacific Pte. Ltd., Singapore) and INNO-LIA (INNO-LIA(TM) HIV I/II Score, Innogenetics N.V., Belgium), respectively. These kits were further used to detect 48 ELISA-reactive specimens from 11 sets of HIV seroconversion specimens (a total of 48 samples) which were previously detected as HIV antibody-positive by ELISA. RESULTS: When 5 samples were diluted to 100 fold, Wantai-RIBA still can detect them positive. Among the 48 HIV antibody-positive specimens detected with ELISA, the confirmation positive rate for Wantai-RIBA, MP-WB and INNO-LIA were 97.92% (47/48), 81.25% (39/48) and 91.67% (44/48), respectively. There was statistically significant difference between the confirmatory results of Wantai-RIBA and MP-WB (χ(2) = 6.13, P < 0.05), as well as between those of INNO-LIA and MP-WB (χ(2) = 5.48, P < 0.05); however, there was no statistically significant difference between those of Wantai-RIBA and INNO-LIA (χ(2) = 1.33, P > 0.05). For other six HIV seroconversion panels containing indeterminate specimens, the average seroconversion period of time for Wantai-RIBA, MP-WB and INNO-LIA were 0.7, 13.3 and 3.7 days, respectively. CONCLUSION: Compared with MP-WB, Wantai-RIBA and INNO-LIA could reduce the window period to confirm early HIV infection.

[Study of plasma temperature measurements for oxygen discharge].

A radio-frequency discharge setup was constructed by two shell-shaped copper electrodes and a 30 cm long pyrex glass tube (i. d. = 1.65 cm) to examine the gas temperature of oxygen plasma in electric discharge oxygen iodine laser. The discharge was supplied by a 500 watt, 13.56 MHz radio-frequency power. The gas pressure in the discharge cavity was 1 330 Pa. The temperature of oxygen discharge plasma was measured by using the P branch of O2 (b, v = 0) rotational emission spectrum. Two methods were used to deduce the oxygen gas temperature. They are Boltzman plotting method and computer simulating spectrum method, respectively. Gauss fitting method was used to distinguish spectrum peaks for lower resolution spectrum. The spectrum peak area was used to characterize the optical emission intensity. The gas temperature of oxygen discharge plasma was obtained by Boltzmann plotting method. Alternatively, the optical emission spectrum was simulated by computer modeling with spectrometer slit function which was obtained by He-Ne laser. Consequently, the gas temperature of oxygen plasma was obtained by comparing the computer simulating spectrum and the experimentally observed spectrum according to the least square fitting rule. The measurement results with the two methods agree well. It was concluded that the simple optical technique can be used conveniently in the temperature diagnostics of oxygen radio-frequency discharge plasma.