Large-scale and cost-effective production of recombinant human serum albumin (rHSA) in transgenic Bombyx mori cocoons.

HSA is considered a versatile natural cargo carrier with multiple bio-functions and applications. However, insufficient supply of HSA has limited widespread use. Although various recombinant expression systems had been applied to produce the rHSA to overcome the limited resource, cost-effective and large scale production of rHSA remains a challenge. Herein, we provide a strategy for the large-scale and cost-effective production of rHSA in cocoons of transgenic silkworms, achieving a final 13.54 ± 1.34 g/kg of rHSA yield in cocoons. rHSA was efficiently synthesized and stable over the long-term in the cocoons at room temperature. Artificial control of silk crystal structure during silk spinning significantly facilitated rHSA extraction and purification, with 99.69 ± 0.33 % purity and a productivity of 8.06 ± 0.17 g rHSA from 1 kg cocoons. The rHSA had the same secondary structure to natural HSA, along with effective drug binding capacity, biocompatibility, and bio-safe. The rHSA was successfully evaluated as a potential substitute in serum-free cell culture. These findings suggest the silkworm bioreactor is promising for large-scale and cost-effective production of high quality rHSA to meet the increased worldwide demand.

Downregulation of Sirt6 by CD38 promotes cell senescence and aging.

Decreased nicotinamide adenine dinucleotide (NAD+) levels accompany aging. CD38 is the main cellular NADase. Cyanidin-3-O-glucoside (C3G), a natural inhibitor of CD38, is a well-known drug that extends the human lifespan. We investigated mechanisms of CD38 in cell senescence and C3G in antiaging. Myocardial H9c2 cells were induced to senescence with D-gal. CD38 siRNA, C3G and UBCS039 (a chemical activator of Sirt6) inhibited D-gal-induced senescence by reducing reactive oxygen species, hexokinase 2 and SA-ß-galactosidase levels. These activators also stimulated cell proliferation and telomerase reverse transcriptase levels, while OSS-128167 (a chemical inhibitor of Sirt6) and Sirt6 siRNA exacerbated the senescent process. H9c2 cells that underwent D-gal-induced cell senescence increased CD38 expression and decreased Sirt6 expression; CD38 siRNA and C3G decreased CD38 expression and increased Sirt6 expression, respectively; and Sirt6 siRNA stimulated cell senescence in the presence of C3G and CD38 siRNA. In D-gal-induced acute aging mice, CD38 and Sirt6 exhibited increased and decreased expression, respectively, in myocardial tissues, and C3G treatment decreased CD38 expression and increased Sirt6 expression in the tissues. C3G also reduced IL-1ß, IL-6, IL-17A, TNF-α levels and restored NAD+ and NK cell levels in the animals. We suggest that CD38 downregulates Sirt6 expression to promote cell senescence and C3G exerts an antiaging effect through CD38-Sirt6 signaling.

Exploring the impact of energy factor prices and environmental regulation on China's green innovation efficiency.

This study adopts super-DEA model to measure the current level of green innovation efficiency in Chinese provinces. At the same time, Tobit model is used to analyze the impact of energy factor prices and environmental regulation on its efficiency, the results are as follows: (1) Chinese green innovation efficiency average is 0.545, which is at a low level, but shows a steady upward trend. The results have shown that large differences exist in different provinces. Average value of efficiency is highest in the eastern and lowest in the western, and low green innovation efficiency is focus on main provinces of producing coal-based mineral resources. (2) The price change of energy factors inhibits the national green innovation efficiency. The impact on the eastern part of China is positive, but did not pass the significance test, and in central region is negative and also did not pass test, but in the western, it inhibits green innovation efficiency significantly. Environmental regulation has a negative effect on the national green innovation efficiency, the impact coefficient of east is positive, and also positive in the central part, but it fails to pass significance test, while in the west is negative. It can be seen that there are significant regional differences in the impact of the two on the efficiency of green innovation. This paper proposes that we can pay attention to the promotion of environmental regulation, encourages enterprises to actively carry out green innovation activities, continues to deepen the market-oriented reform of energy prices, and increases credit support and introduce financial resources for corporate R&D activities to explore policies to improve the efficiency of regional green innovation.

Esketamine alleviates postoperative depression-like behavior through anti-inflammatory actions in mouse prefrontal cortex.

The rising incidence of postoperative depression (POD) in recent years has placed a heavy burden on patients' physical and mental health. At this point in time, however, POD pathogenesis remains poorly understood and novel therapeutic strategies are being sought. The present study aimed to clarify esketamine's protective effects and possible mechanisms of action in POD. To this avail, we used an animal model of postoperative depression to analyze behavioral, parameters, plus the inflammatory response in serum and in the medial prefrontal cortex (mPFC). Using immunofluorescence staining, we detected the number of microglia and parvalbumin (PV) in mPFC, and determined changes in neuronal dendritic spine density via Golgi staining. Expression of Iba1, PSD95 and NF-κB was examined by Western blot analysis. Our results show that esketamine can significantly improve depression-like symptoms caused by anesthesia and surgery. In addition, esketamine administration reversed the decrease in the density of PV neurons and restored synaptogenesis in mPFC which had been perturbed by inflammation. The evidence obtained suggests esketamine's anti-inflammatory effects may be mediated by the BDNF/TrkB signaling pathway and possibly by attenuation of the nuclear factor κB (NF-κB) pathway. These data warrant further investigations into the interplay of esketamine, and microglia in the modulation of POD symptomatology.

DFT study on the gold(I)-catalyzed cycloaddition and rearrangement reactions of allene-containing allylic silyl ether.

The DFT calculation at the B3LYP/B3LYP-D3(BJ) level was carried out to explore the reaction mechanism of the synthesis of spirocyclo[4,5]decane skeleton by gold-catalyzed allenyl compounds. The more accurate energy under the CH3CN solvent in the experiment is calculated by the single-point energy of the SMD model. Computational studies have shown that the reaction consists of three main steps: intramolecular cycloaddition of the end group carbon atoms of allenyl and vinyl groups, the semipinacol rearrangement process in which the four-membered ring is reconstructed into the five-membered ring, the elimination reaction releases the catalyst and obtains the product. The calculation results show that Zheng et al. reported that the gold-catalyzed synthesis reaction can easily occur under the experimental conditions due to its low activation free energy (12.07-15.49 kcal/mol). Furthermore, it was found that the MOMO(CH2)2 substituent has higher reactivity than the corresponding reactant of the phenyl substituent.

[Raman Characterization of Hydrate Crystal Structure Influenced by Mine Gas Concentration].

CH4 /C2H6/N2 mixed hydrate formation experiments were performed at 2 degrees C and 5 MPa for three different mine gas concentrations (CH4/C2H6/N2, G1 = 54 : 36 : 10, G2 = 67.5 : 22.5 : 10, G3 = 81 : 9 : 10). Raman spectra for hydration products were obtained by using Microscopic Raman Spectrometer. Hydrate structure is determined by the Raman shift of symmetric C-C stretching vibration mode of C2H6 in the hydrate phase. This work is focused on the cage occupancies and hydration numbers, calculated by the fitting methods of Raman peaks. The results show that structure I (s I) hydrate forms in the G1 and G2 gas systems, while structure II (s II) hydrate forms in the G3 gas system, concentration variation of C2H6 in the gas samples leads to a change in hydrate structure from s I to s II; the percentages of CH4 and C2H6 in s I hydrate phase are less affected by the concentration of gas samples, the percentages of CH4 are respectively 34.4% and 35.7%, C2H6 are respectively 64.6% and 63.9% for gas systems of G1 and G2, the percentages of CH4 and 2 H6 are respectively 73.5% and 22.8% for gas systems of G3, the proportions of object molecules largely depend on the hydrate structure; CH4 and C2H6 molecules occupy 98%, 98% and 92% of the large cages and CH4 molecules occupy 80%, 60% and 84% of the small cages for gas systems of G1, G2 and G3, respectively; additionally, N2 molecules occupy less than 5% of the small cages is due to its weak adsorption ability and the lower partial pressure.