LCN2 aggravates diabetic cataracts by promoting ferroptosis in lens epithelial cells

Background:Cataracts are the leading cause of reversible blindness worldwide.Diabetic cataract(DC),a prevalent complication of diabetes mellitus,is characterized by its high occurrence,rapid progression,and severe impact.The prevalence of diabetes varies greatly between the northern and southern regions,with higher rates observed among northern residents.DC-induced lens opacity is mainly attributed to oxidative stress.However,it remains unclear whether ferroptosis,a form of regulated cell death,occurs in crystalline epithelial cells during the pathogenesis,which may represent a novel mechanism contributing to DC.Methods:Transmission electron microscopy,quantitative assays for iron levels and reactive oxygen species(ROS),real-time quantitative polymerase chain reaction(RT-qPCR),western blotting,immunofluorescence,and immunohistochemistry were used to detect ferroptosis.Gene editing techniques were utilized to study the regulatory relationships among lipocalin 2(LCN2),glutathione peroxidase 4(GPX4),and ferritin heavy chain(FTH).Local knockdown of the LCN2 gene in B-3 cells and the eyes of Sprague Dawley(SD)rats was performed to verify and further explore the role and regulatory mechanisms of LCN2 in DC-associated ferroptosis.Results:An in vitro model using high glucose levels and an in vivo model with streptozotocin-induced diabetes in SD rats were successfully established.Ferroptosis was observed in both in vitro and in vivo experiments.LCN2 protein was normally expressed in human and rat lens epithelial cells,but its expression significantly increased during ferroptosis.The ferroptosis inhibitor,ferrostatin-1(Fer-1)effectively inhibited ferroptosis and reduced LCN2 protein expression.Notably,local knockdown of LCN2 via gene editing protected lens epithelial cells from ferroptosis in vitro and slowed the progression of DC in SD rats in vivo.Conclusion:Our findings underscore the significant role of ferroptosis in the pathogenesis of DC,suggesting that selectively targeting LCN2 activation and enhancing ferroptosis resistance may offer a novel therapeutic approach for treating DC.

Preliminary Study on the Treatment Efficiency of Pasteurized Lime Thermal Alkaline Hydrolysis for Excess Activated Sludge and Reduction of Tetracycline Resistance Genes

Thermal alkaline hydrolysis is a common pretreatment method for the utilization of excess activated sludge(EAS).Owing to strict environment laws and need for better energy utilization,new methods were developed in this study to improve the efficiency of pretreatment method.Direct thermal hydrolysis(TH),pasteurized thermal hydrolysis(PTH),and alkaline pasteurized thermal hydrolysis(PTH+CaO and PTH+NaOH)methods were used to treat EAS.Each method was compared and analyzed in terms of dissolution in ammonium nitrogen(NH_(4)^(+)-N)and soluble COD(SCOD)in EAS.Furthermore,the removal of tetracycline resistance genes(TRGs)and class 1 transposon gene intI1 from EAS was investigated.The NH_(4)^(+)-N and SCOD concentrations in EAS treated by PTH were 1.24 and 2.58 times higher than those of TH.However,the removal efficiency of total TRGs and intI1 between the groups was comparable.The SCOD concentration of the PTH+NaOH group was 4.37 times higher than that of the PTH group,and the removal efficiency of total TRGs was increased by 9.52%compared with that by PTH.The NH_(4)^(+)-N and SCOD concentrations of the PTH+CaO group could reach 85.04%and 92.14%of the PTH+NaOH group,but the removal efficiency of total TRGs by PTH+CaO was 19.78%lower than that by PTH+NaOH.Thus,to reduce the financial cost in actual operation,lime(CaO)can be used instead of a strong alkali(NaOH),and pasteurized steam at 70℃ instead of conventional high-temperature heating to treat EAS.This study provides a reference for the development of alkaline hydrolysis under moderate temperatures along with the removal of TRGs in EAS.

具有可逆形变的弹性气凝胶研究进展

具有可逆形变的弹性气凝胶通常被称之为柔性气凝胶,这类材料具有优异的压缩回弹性、可弯折性、疏水性及溶剂中结构稳定性,克服了传统气凝胶力学性能差的缺点,近年来受到广泛关注。文中综述了氧化硅、碳质、陶瓷及生物质柔性气凝胶材料的最新研究进展,重点介绍了上述几类柔性气凝胶的制备方法、结构控制、性能特点及潜在应用,总结了实现气凝胶柔性的几种方法,并展望了柔性气凝胶材料的发展与应用前景。

Research progress on etiology of gestational diabetes mellitus

As a metabolic disorder during pregnancy,gestational diabetes mellitus (GDM) has an important effects on fetal development,neonatal health and maternal long-term health,and is one of the pregnancy complications with high incidence.It is of great significance that we have an accurate understanding of the etiology and risk factors of GDM for its prevention and control.GDM is a complex disease with multiple etiologies.Current studies have shown that the occurrence of GDM may be the result of combined effect of heredity and environment,but the exact etiology is still unclear.In this paper,we summarized the possible etiologies and risk factors of GDM,so as to understand the occurrence and development of GDM better and to provide possible references for prevention and further etiological studies of GDM.

Semi-GSGCN: Social Robot Detection Research with Graph Neural Network

Malicious social robots are the disseminators of malicious information on social networks,which seriously affect information security and network environments.Efficient and reliable classification of social robots is crucial for detecting information manipulation in social networks.Supervised classification based on manual feature extraction has been widely used in social robot detection.However,these methods not only involve the privacy of users but also ignore hidden feature information,especially the graph feature,and the label utilization rate of semi-supervised algorithms is low.Aiming at the problems of shallow feature extraction and low label utilization rate in existing social network robot detection methods,in this paper a robot detection scheme based on weighted network topology is proposed,which introduces an improved network representation learning algorithm to extract the local structure features of the network,and combined with the graph convolution network(GCN)algorithm based on the graph filter,to obtain the global structure features of the network.An end-to-end semi-supervised combination model(Semi-GSGCN)is established to detect malicious social robots.Experiments on a social network dataset(cresci-rtbust-2019)show that the proposed method has high versatility and effectiveness in detecting social robots.In addition,this method has a stronger insight into robots in social networks than other methods.

Electrical conductivity of REF3-LiF(RE=La and Nd) molten salts

The electrical conductivity of REF3-LiF(RE=La and Nd) molten salts(xREF3=5 mol%-40 mol%) was systematically measured over the temperature range from 1223 to 1423 K by using continuously varying cell constant(CVCC) method.Electrical conductivity values of LaF3-LiF and NdF3-LiF molten salts within the studied ranges are 4.11-9.39 and 3.62-9.51 S/cm,respectively.The composition and temperature dependences of electrical conductivity and the factor of RE2 O3 on electrical conductivity were investigated.The electrical conductivity nonlinearly decreases with the increasing mole percent of REF3 for the changing of structural ion in molten salts.A good linear relationship between the natural logarithm of electrical conductivity(lnκ) and the reciprocal of the absolute temperature(T-1) can be interpreted by the trend that electrical conductivity linearly increases with increasing temperature.Although it is an important factor of RE2 O3 on electrical conductivity,the influence of RE2 O3 on conductivity is small for the very limited solubility of RE2 O3 in REF3-LiF molten salts.The results of this work supplement the present electrical conductivity data of rare earth fluoride electrolyte.

Effect of loading rate on shear strength parameters of mechanically and biologically treated waste

Mechanical biological treatment(MBT)technology has attracted increasing attention because it can reduce the volume of waste produced.To deal with the current trend of increasing waste,MBT practices are being adopted to address waste generated in developing urban societies.In this study,a total of 20 specimens of consolidated undrained triaxial tests were conducted on waste obtained from the Hangzhou Tianziling landfill,China,to evaluate the effect of loading rate on the shear strength parameters of MBT waste.The MBT waste samples exhibited an evident strain-hardening behavior,and no peak was observed even when the axial strain exceeded 25%.Further,the shear strength increased with an increase in the loading rate;the effect of loading rate on shear strength under a low confining pressure was greater than that under a high confining pressure.Furthermore,the shear strength parameters of MBT waste were related to the loading rate.The relationship between the cohesion,internal friction angle,and logarithm of the loading rate could be fitted to a linear relationship,which was established in this study.Finally,the ranges of shear strength parameters cohesion c and effective cohesion c′were determined as 1.0–8.2 kPa and 2.1–14.9 kPa,respectively;the ranges of the internal friction angleφand effective internal friction angleφ’were determined as 16.2°–29°and 19.8°–43.9°,respectively.These results could be used as a valuable reference for conducting stability analyses of MBT landfills.