Cytarabine prevents neuronal damage by enhancing AMPK to stimulate PINK1 / Parkin-involved mitophagy in Parkinson's disease model.

Parkinson's disease (PD) is a common age-related neurodegenerative disorder, which may be largely due to the mitochondrial dysfunction and impaired mitophagy. Thus, it is of great importance to seek novel therapeutic strategies for PD targeting mitochondrial function and mitophagy. Cytarabine is a marine-derived antimetabolite used in the treatment of acute leukemia, which is also used in the study of the nervous system. In this study, we found that cytarabine pretreatment significantly inhibited the apoptosis and necrosis in the ROT-induced SH-SY5Y cell PD model and reduced the oxidative stress, as evidenced by the reduced MDA levels and the increased levels of SOD, GSH, and total antioxidant capacity. Cytarabine can also enhance mitochondrial vitality, improve mitochondrial respiratory function, and preserve mitochondrial morphology. Cytarabine also enhanced the expression of the mitophagy-related proteins PINK1, Parkin, VDAC1, and DJ-1, and its actions can be reversed by treatment with AMPK inhibitor - Compound C (CC), suggesting that AMPK activation may be involved in cytarabine-enhanced mitophagy. Furthermore, cytarabine can also ameliorate the motor symptoms in the MPTP-induced PD-like mice model, and attenuate the neuropathy in the substantia nigra (SN) of PD mice, while Compound C antagonized cytarabine's beneficial effects. In summary, marine-derived compound cytarabine could resist neurological damage both in vitro and in vivo by activating AMPK to increase PINK1/Parkin-induced mitophagy, serving as a promising disease modulator for treating neurodegenerative disease.

SIRT1-dependent mitochondrial biogenesis supports therapeutic effects of vidarabine against rotenone-induced neural cell injury.

Parkinson's disease (PD) is the second most common neurodegenerative disease in the world, which is distinguished by the loss of dopaminergic (DA) neurons in the substantia nigra and the formation of intraneuronal. Numerous studies showed that the damage and dysfunction of mitochondria may play key roles in DA neuronal loss. Thus, it is necessary to seek therapeutic measures for PD targeting mitochondrial function and biogenesis. In this study, through screening the purchased compound library, we found that marine derived vidarabine had significant neuroprotective effects against rotenone (ROT) induced SH-SY5Y cell injury. Further studies indicated that vidarabine pretreatment significantly protected ROT-treated SH-SY5Y cells from toxicity by preserving mitochondrial morphology, improving mitochondrial function, and reducing cell apoptosis. Vidarabine also reduced the oxidative stress and increased the expression levels of PGC-1α, NRF1, and TFAM proteins, which was accompanied by the increased mitochondrial biogenesis. However, the neuroprotective effects of vidarabine were counteracted in the presence of SIRT1-specific inhibitor Ex-527. Besides, vidarabine treatment attenuated the weight loss, alleviated the motor deficits and inhibited the neuronal injury in the MPTP induced mouse model. Thus, vidarabine may exert neuroprotective effects via a mechanism involving specific connections between the SIRT1-dependent mitochondrial biogenesis and its antioxidant capacity, suggesting that vidarabine has potential to be developed into a novel therapeutic agent for PD.

Inhibition Effects and Mechanisms of Marine Polysaccharide PSSD against Herpes Simplex Virus Type 2.

Genital herpes is a common sexually transmitted disease mainly caused by herpes simplex virus type 2 (HSV-2), which can increase the risk of HIV transmission and is a major health problem in the world. Thus, it is of great significance to develop new anti-HSV-2 drugs with high efficiency and low toxicity. In this study, the anti-HSV-2 activities of PSSD, a marine sulfated polysaccharide, was deeply explored both in vitro and in vivo. The results showed that PSSD had marked anti-HSV-2 activities in vitro with low cytotoxicity. PSSD can directly interact with virus particles to inhibit the adsorption of virus to the cell surface. PSSD may also interact with virus surface glycoproteins to block virus-induced membrane fusion. Importantly, PSSD can significantly attenuate the symptoms of genital herpes and weight loss in mice after gel smear treatment, as well as reducing the titer of virus shedding in the reproductive tract of mice, superior to the effect of acyclovir. In summary, the marine polysaccharide PSSD possesses anti-HSV-2 effects both in vitro and in vivo, and has potential to be developed into a novel anti-genital herpes agent in the future.

The correlation between physical inactivity and students' health based on data mining and related influencing factors.

The sedentary behavior among college students has become one of the most important factors affecting the development of physical and mental health. Chronic lack of physical activity may lead to health problems such as decreased physical fitness, and increased psychological disorders. In the post-epidemic era, it is necessary for college students to have a strong immune system, and a strong body cannot be achieved without regular leisure physical activity. Therefore, it is necessary to explore the relationship between relevant health factors and physical activity. This paper presents an optimized COM-B model. And the experimental results show that the optimized model is well applied in describing the current situation of physical activity participation among college students, analyzing the distribution characteristics of socio-demographic variables related to physical activity, and exploring the correlation between physical activity and the subhealth status of college students.

Anti-herpes simplex virus activities and mechanisms of marine derived compounds.

Herpes simplex virus (HSV) is the most widely prevalent herpes virus worldwide, and the herpetic encephalitis and genital herpes caused by HSV infection have caused serious harm to human health all over the world. Although many anti-HSV drugs such as nucleoside analogues have been ap-proved for clinical use during the past few decades, important issues, such as drug resistance, toxicity, and high cost of drugs, remain unresolved. Recently, the studies on the anti-HSV activities of marine natural products, such as marine polysaccharides, marine peptides and microbial secondary metabolites are attracting more and more attention all over the world. This review discusses the recent progress in research on the anti-HSV activities of these natural compounds obtained from marine organisms, relating to their structural features and the structure-activity relationships. In addition, the recent findings on the different anti-HSV mechanisms and molecular targets of marine compounds and their potential for therapeutic application will also be summarized in detail.

Filter paper-based colorimetric analysis: An instrument-free strategy for semiquantitative naked-eye detection of food colorants.

A filter paper-based colorimetric strategy for instrument-independent visual detection of artificial food colorants (FCs) was developed in this study. Indicator papers were prepared via the one-step polycondensation of silane coupling agents onto glass microfiber filter papers, and colorimetric cards with a fine one-to-one correspondence between their colors and FCs concentrations were straightforward obtained by the extraction of FCs with indicator papers by virtue of electrostatic interaction and hydrophobic effect. Filter papers post-modified via such a simple way were proved to be of improved binding class selectivity and colorimetric sensitivity, allowing for in-situ colorimetric assay of FCs in an unprecedently wide range of applicable pH (1.0-12.0) with high reliability and fine versatility. Finally, the semiquantitative naked-eye determination of FCs (Allura red, brilliant blue and sunset yellow) in real-world drink samples was experimentally confirmed to be feasible by comparison with the findings of UV-vis absorption spectra, HPLC and mass spectra.

Application of Lightweight Deep Learning Model in Vocal Music Education in Higher Institutions.

The aim is to improve the teaching quality of music majors and cultivate their innovative ability. This article takes Vocal Music Education (VME) method as the research object to explore the teaching reform of Music Major courses. Firstly, this article makes an in-depth study on Big Data Analytics (BDA) and Digital Twins (DTs) technology and constructs a DTs platform connecting real teaching space and virtual teaching space. Secondly, the DTs platform is divided into online learning feature analysis and virtual-real teaching space integration functional modules. This article explores the online immersive education process design and technology application of the DTs platform from the two aspects of teaching and technology. Afterward, it designs a student action and expression recognition network based on the Visual Geometry Group (VGG) Net model and Google Net model in teaching data collection and management. Finally, the proposed system is tested. The test results show that the active and passive interaction curves of the traditional VME system have no obvious fluctuation, indicating that the interaction of the traditional VME system is not strong, and the ability of active feedback information is poor. By contrast, the active and passive interaction curves in the proposed VME have large fluctuations, showing that the proposed VME has more frequent interaction, and the teaching information can get real-time and active feedback. Therefore, the proposed VME system can better stimulate students' learning desire. Meanwhile, the constructed Neural Network (NN) has the highest recognition accuracy of 99.07% on the student action and expression dataset. When tested with the image data taken by the research experiment, the highest accuracy is 89%, with an average of more than 85%. The proposed VME system provides ideas for applying DTs technology in the college of music education.

Selective extraction of myoglobin from human serum with antibody-biomimetic magnetic nanoparticles.

Myoglobin (Mb) is an ideal biochemical marker for the diagnosis of certain diseases caused by damage to heart muscle or skeletal muscle. Nevertheless, serum myoglobin levels are usually very low while the interference components in real sample are extremely abundent. Hence, it is of great clinical significance to establish an effective method for Mb targeting. To obtain desired selectivity, targeting biomolecules like antibody and aptamer are essential to 'the state of the art'. However, such biomolecules suffer from many disadvantages, such as hard to prepare, susceptible to protease degradation, and high cost. Thus, novel alternatives that can overcome these issues are highly desirable. Herein, we pioneered a template-anchored controllable surface imprinting strategy for selective extraction of Mb from human serum via combining with facile magnetic separation of magnetic nanoparticles (MNPs). Mb-imprinted MNPs, as antibody-biomimetic materials, were prepared using amino group-modified MNPs as substrates and water-soluble self-polymerizable dopamine as imprinting monomer. The optimized imprinting time was 70 min, giving an optimal performance with high practical imprinting efficiency (up to 41%), high imprinting factor (4.2), high binding affinity (Kd=(2.05 ± 0.09) × 10-5 M), as well as excellent recognition selectivity. Moreover, compared to bare MNPs, Mb-imprinted MNPs possessed markedly better pH tolerance. Finally, the selective extraction of Mb from human serum sample by Mb-imprinted MNPs was experimentally confirmed and the recoveries of Mb in spiked serum ranged from (91.12 ± 6.81)% to (107.99 ± 7.76)%, indicating that the Mb-imprinted MNPs could be competent for the selective analysis of Mb in real bio-samples like human serum with high precision and reliability.

Efficient Parameter Estimation for Sparse SAR Imaging Based on Complex Image and Azimuth-Range Decouple.

Sparse signal processing theory has been applied to synthetic aperture radar (SAR) imaging. In compressive sensing (CS), the sparsity is usually considered as a known parameter. However, it is unknown practically. For many functions of CS, we need to know this parameter. Therefore, the estimation of sparsity is crucial for sparse SAR imaging. The sparsity is determined by the size of regularization parameter. Several methods have been presented for automatically estimating the regularization parameter, and have been applied to sparse SAR imaging. However, these methods are deduced based on an observation matrix, which will entail huge computational and memory costs. In this paper, to enhance the computational efficiency, an efficient adaptive parameter estimation method for sparse SAR imaging is proposed. The complex image-based sparse SAR imaging method only considers the threshold operation of the complex image, which can reduce the computational costs significantly. By utilizing this feature, the parameter is pre-estimated based on a complex image. In order to estimate the sparsity accurately, adaptive parameter estimation is then processed in the raw data domain, combining with the pre-estimated parameter and azimuth-range decouple operators. The proposed method can reduce the computational complexity from a quadratic square order to a linear logarithm order, which can be used in the large-scale scene. Simulated and Gaofen-3 SAR data processing results demonstrate the validity of the proposed method.

Clinicopathological and prognostic significance of octamer-binding transcription factor 4 in patients with gastric cancer: a systematic review and meta-analysis.

AIM: The role of octamer-binding transcription factor 4 (Oct4) in gastric cancer (GC) progression is still under debate and reported results are inconsistent. Therefore, we conducted a meta-analysis to evaluate the clinicopathological and prognostic significance of Oct4 expression in patients with GC. MATERIALS & METHODS: Relevant articles were retrieved from a diverse number of databases, and meta-analysis was completed using STATA software 12.0. RESULTS: Total of 21 studies were included in this analysis (3209 samples). Expression of Oct4 was associated with incidence, tumor size, lymph node metastasis, histological differentiation, pTNM stage, tumor depth of infiltration, vascular invasion and distal metastasis. Additionally, Oct4 expression was correlated with poor overall survival rate. CONCLUSION: The Oct4 overexpression suggested aggressive biological behaviors and imply that Oct4 may be a useful prognostic biomarker in gastric cancers.

[Inhibiting effect and mechanism of Lactobacillus E6-1 on oral cancer cell line Cal-27].

PURPOSE: To study the effect of Lactobacillus E6-1 on proliferation and apoptosis of human oral cancer cell line Cal-27 in vitro. METHODS: MTT assay was carried out by different concentrations of Lactobacillus E6-1 on Cal-27 to detect the inhibitory effect on cell proliferation, and the effect on DNA was detected by agarose gel electrophoresis. The expression levels of cyt-c, caspase-9 and caspase-3 in each group was detected by Western blot. The data were analyzed with SPSS 21.0 software package. RESULTS: The results of MTT assay showed that E6-1 had obvious inhibitory effect on Cal-27 in a dose-dependent manner. DNA ladder in Cal-27 cells was induced by different concentrations of E6-1 (10, 20, 40 mg/mL). Compared with blank control group, Western blot results showed that the expression of cyt-c, caspase-9 and caspase-3 increased significantly(P<0.05). CONCLUSIONS: Lactobacillus E6-1 can inhibit the proliferation of Cal-27 and effectively induce apoptosis of tumor cells In vitro.

miR-503-3p promotes epithelial-mesenchymal transition in breast cancer by directly targeting SMAD2 and E-cadherin.

Although progress in clinical and basic research has significantly increased our understanding of breast cancer, little is known about the molecular mechanism underlying breast cancer metastasis. Identification of effective therapeutic targets to prevent breast cancer metastasis is urgently needed. The function of miR-503-3p has been investigated in other cancers, but its role in breast cancer remains undefined. Here, we found that miR-503-3p was overexpressed in breast cancer tissue and plasma compared with adjacent normal breast tissue and with plasma from healthy individuals. Moreover, we identified miR-503-3p to be an oncogene of breast cancer cell proliferation, migration and invasion. Upregulation of miR-503-3p in breast cancer cells inhibited expression of epithelial-mesenchymal transition (EMT)-related protein SMAD2 and the epithelial marker protein E-cadherin by directly binding to their mRNA 3' untranslated region, whereas increased expression of mesenchymal marker proteins, including vimentin and N-cadherin. Taken together, our findings support a critical role for miR-503-3p in induction of breast cancer EMT and suggest that plasma miR-503-3p may be a useful diagnostic biomarker for breast cancer.

Copper catalyzed decarboxylative alkynylation of quaternary α-cyano acetate salts.

Cu-catalyzed decarboxylative alkynylation of quaternary α-cyano acetate salts with alkynyl bromides and alkynyl chlorides is described. This new reaction can be used for preparing functionalized butynenitrile derivatives.