Background: Neurodevelopmental abnormalities in fetal alcohol spectrum disorder (FASD) are linked to brain insulin resistance and oxidative stress. However, the role of thiamine deficiency as a distinct or additive fa...Background: Neurodevelopmental abnormalities in fetal alcohol spectrum disorder (FASD) are linked to brain insulin resistance and oxidative stress. However, the role of thiamine deficiency as a distinct or additive factor in the pathogenesis of the neurodevelopmental and metabolic derangements in FASD has not been determined. Methods: Control and ethanol-exposed human PNET2 cerebellar neuronal cells and rat cerebellar slice cultures were treated with vehicle or pyrithiamine (Pyr) to assess independent and additive effects of thiamine deficiency on ethanol-mediated neurotoxicity, mitochondrial dysfunction, insulin resistance, inhibition of neuronal and glial genes, and oxidative stress. Results: Pyr treatments (0 - 200 µM) caused dose-dependent cell loss (Crystal Violet assay) and reduced mitochondrial function (MTT assay) in PNET2 neuronal cultures. Ethanol alone (100 mM) significantly reduced PNET2 neuronal viability, MTT activity, and ATP production. Over the broad dose range of Pyr treatment, ethanol significantly reduced ATP content and cell number and increased mitochondrial mass (MitoTracker Green). Ex vivo cerebellar slice culture studies revealed ethanol-induced developmental architectural disruption that was substantially worsened by Pyr. The adverse effects of ethanol were linked to increased lipid peroxidation and inhibition of asparatyl-asparaginyl-β-hydroxylase (ASPH) expression. The independent and additive effects of Pyr were associated with increased cytotoxicity, lipid peroxidation, Caspase 3 activation, and Tau accumulation. Conclusions: During development, alcohol exposure and thiamine deficiency exert distinct but overlapping molecular pathologies that ultimately impair the structure and function of cerebellar neurons. While both insults drive cell loss and mitochondrial dysfunction with increased lipid peroxidation, ethanol’s additional inhibitory effects on ASPH reflect impairments in insulin and IGF signaling. In contrast, Pyr’s main adverse effects were likely due to neurotoxicity and the activation of apoptosis cascades. The findings suggest that FASD severity may be reduced by thiamine supplementation, but without additional support for insulin/IGF signaling networks, FASD would not be prevented.展开更多
Background and Objective: Chronic heavy alcohol consumption and daily cigarette smoking are the most prevalent substance use problems in the U.S., including Veterans. Excessive alcohol use causes neurocognitive and be...Background and Objective: Chronic heavy alcohol consumption and daily cigarette smoking are the most prevalent substance use problems in the U.S., including Veterans. Excessive alcohol use causes neurocognitive and behavioral deficits that can be linked to neurodegeneration. Similarly, preclinical and clinical data suggest that smoking also leads to brain atrophy. This study examines the differential and additive effects of alcohol and cigarette smoke (CS) exposures on cognitive-behavioral function. Methods: A 4-way experimental model of chronic alcohol and CS exposures was generated using 4-week-old male and female Long Evans rats that were pair-fed with Lieber-deCarli isocaloric liquid diets containing 0% or 24% ethanol for 9 weeks. Half of the rats in the control and ethanol groups were exposed to CS for 4 hours/day and 4 days/week for 9 weeks. All rats were subjected to Morris Water Maze, Open Field, and Novel Object Recognition testing in the last experimental week. Results: Chronic alcohol exposure impaired spatial learning as shown by significantly increased latency to locate the platform, and it caused anxiety-like behavior marked by the significantly reduced percentage of entries to the center of the arena. Chronic CS exposure impaired recognition memory as suggested by significantly less time spent at the novel object. Combined exposures to alcohol and CS did not show any significant additive or interactive effect on cognitive-behavioral function. Conclusion: Chronic alcohol exposure was the main driver of spatial learning, while the effect of secondhand CS exposure was not robust. Future studies need to mimic direct CS exposure effects in humans.展开更多
Background & Objective: Chronic excessive alcohol consumption causes white matter degeneration with myelin loss and impaired neuronal conductivity. Subsequent rarefaction of myelin accounts for the sustained defic...Background & Objective: Chronic excessive alcohol consumption causes white matter degeneration with myelin loss and impaired neuronal conductivity. Subsequent rarefaction of myelin accounts for the sustained deficits in cognition, learning, and memory. Correspondingly, chronic heavy or repeated binge alcohol exposures in humans and experimental models alter myelin lipid composition leading to build-up of ceramides which can be neurotoxic and broadly inhibitory to brain functions. Methods: This study examined the effects of chronic + binge alcohol exposures (8 weeks) and intervention with myriocin, a ceramide inhibitor, on neurobehavioral functions (Open Field, Novel Object Recognition, and Morris Water Maze tests) and frontal lobe white matter myelin lipid biochemical pathology in an adult Long-Evans rat model. Results: The ethanol-exposed group had significant deficits in executive functions with increased indices of anxiety and impairments in spatial learning acquisition. Myriocin partially remediated these effects of ethanol while not impacting behavior in the control group. Ethanol-fed rats had significantly smaller brains with broadly reduced expression of sulfatides and reduced expression of two of the three sphingomyelins detected in frontal white matter. Myriocin partially resolved these effects corresponding with improvements in neurobehavioral function. Conclusion: Therapeutic strategies that support cerebral white matter myelin expression of sulfatide and sphingomyelin may help remediate cognitive-behavioral dysfunction following chronic heavy alcohol consumption in humans.展开更多
Firstly, the nonnegative matrix factorization with sparseness constraints on parts of the basis matrix (NMFSCPBM) method is proposed in this paper. Secondly, the encrypted watermark is embedded into the big coefficien...Firstly, the nonnegative matrix factorization with sparseness constraints on parts of the basis matrix (NMFSCPBM) method is proposed in this paper. Secondly, the encrypted watermark is embedded into the big coefficients of the basis matrix that the host video is decomposed into by NMFSCPBM. At the same time, the watermark embedding strength is adaptively adjusted by the video motion characteristic coefficients extracted by NMFSCPBM method. On watermark detection, as long as the residual video contains the numbers of the least remaining sub-blocks, the complete basis matrix can be completely recovered through the decomposition of the nonnegative matrix of the least remaining sub-blocks in residual videos by NMFSCPBM, and then the complete watermark can be extracted. The experimental results show that the average intensity resistant to the various regular cropping of this scheme is up to 95.97% and that the average intensity resistant to the various irregular cropping of this scheme is up to 95.55%. The bit correct rate (BCR) values of the extracted watermark are always 100% under all of the above situations. It is proved that the watermark extraction is not limited by the cropping position and type in this scheme. Compared with other similar methods, the performance of resisting strong cropping is improved greatly.展开更多
Cardiac fibrosis is one of the crucial pathological factors in the heart,and various cardiac conditions associated with excessive fibrosis can eventually lead to heart failure.However,the exact molecular mechanism of ...Cardiac fibrosis is one of the crucial pathological factors in the heart,and various cardiac conditions associated with excessive fibrosis can eventually lead to heart failure.However,the exact molecular mechanism of cardiac fibrosis remains unclear.In the present study,we show that a novel lnc RNA that we named cardiac fibrosis-associated regulator(CFAR)is a profibrotic factor in the heart.CFAR was upregulated in cardiac fibrosis and its knockdown attenuated the expression of fibrotic marker genes and the proliferation of cardiac fibroblasts,thereby ameliorating cardiac fibrosis.Moreover,CFAR acted as a ce RNA sponge for mi R-449a-5p and derepressed the expression of LOXL3,which we experimentally established as a target gene of mi R-449a-5p.In contrast to CFAR,mi R-449a-5p was found to be significantly downregulated in cardiac fibrosis,and artificial knockdown of mi R-449a-5p exacerbated fibrogenesis,whereas overexpression of mi R-449a-5p impeded fibrogenesis.Furthermore,we found that LOXL3 mimicked the fibrotic factor TGF-β1 to promote cardiac fibrosis by activating m TOR.Collectively,our study established CFAR as a new profibrotic factor acting through a novel mi R-449a-5p/LOXL3/m TOR axis in the heart and therefore might be considered as a potential molecular target for the treatment of cardiac fibrosis and associated heart diseases.展开更多
文摘Background: Neurodevelopmental abnormalities in fetal alcohol spectrum disorder (FASD) are linked to brain insulin resistance and oxidative stress. However, the role of thiamine deficiency as a distinct or additive factor in the pathogenesis of the neurodevelopmental and metabolic derangements in FASD has not been determined. Methods: Control and ethanol-exposed human PNET2 cerebellar neuronal cells and rat cerebellar slice cultures were treated with vehicle or pyrithiamine (Pyr) to assess independent and additive effects of thiamine deficiency on ethanol-mediated neurotoxicity, mitochondrial dysfunction, insulin resistance, inhibition of neuronal and glial genes, and oxidative stress. Results: Pyr treatments (0 - 200 µM) caused dose-dependent cell loss (Crystal Violet assay) and reduced mitochondrial function (MTT assay) in PNET2 neuronal cultures. Ethanol alone (100 mM) significantly reduced PNET2 neuronal viability, MTT activity, and ATP production. Over the broad dose range of Pyr treatment, ethanol significantly reduced ATP content and cell number and increased mitochondrial mass (MitoTracker Green). Ex vivo cerebellar slice culture studies revealed ethanol-induced developmental architectural disruption that was substantially worsened by Pyr. The adverse effects of ethanol were linked to increased lipid peroxidation and inhibition of asparatyl-asparaginyl-β-hydroxylase (ASPH) expression. The independent and additive effects of Pyr were associated with increased cytotoxicity, lipid peroxidation, Caspase 3 activation, and Tau accumulation. Conclusions: During development, alcohol exposure and thiamine deficiency exert distinct but overlapping molecular pathologies that ultimately impair the structure and function of cerebellar neurons. While both insults drive cell loss and mitochondrial dysfunction with increased lipid peroxidation, ethanol’s additional inhibitory effects on ASPH reflect impairments in insulin and IGF signaling. In contrast, Pyr’s main adverse effects were likely due to neurotoxicity and the activation of apoptosis cascades. The findings suggest that FASD severity may be reduced by thiamine supplementation, but without additional support for insulin/IGF signaling networks, FASD would not be prevented.
文摘Background and Objective: Chronic heavy alcohol consumption and daily cigarette smoking are the most prevalent substance use problems in the U.S., including Veterans. Excessive alcohol use causes neurocognitive and behavioral deficits that can be linked to neurodegeneration. Similarly, preclinical and clinical data suggest that smoking also leads to brain atrophy. This study examines the differential and additive effects of alcohol and cigarette smoke (CS) exposures on cognitive-behavioral function. Methods: A 4-way experimental model of chronic alcohol and CS exposures was generated using 4-week-old male and female Long Evans rats that were pair-fed with Lieber-deCarli isocaloric liquid diets containing 0% or 24% ethanol for 9 weeks. Half of the rats in the control and ethanol groups were exposed to CS for 4 hours/day and 4 days/week for 9 weeks. All rats were subjected to Morris Water Maze, Open Field, and Novel Object Recognition testing in the last experimental week. Results: Chronic alcohol exposure impaired spatial learning as shown by significantly increased latency to locate the platform, and it caused anxiety-like behavior marked by the significantly reduced percentage of entries to the center of the arena. Chronic CS exposure impaired recognition memory as suggested by significantly less time spent at the novel object. Combined exposures to alcohol and CS did not show any significant additive or interactive effect on cognitive-behavioral function. Conclusion: Chronic alcohol exposure was the main driver of spatial learning, while the effect of secondhand CS exposure was not robust. Future studies need to mimic direct CS exposure effects in humans.
文摘Background & Objective: Chronic excessive alcohol consumption causes white matter degeneration with myelin loss and impaired neuronal conductivity. Subsequent rarefaction of myelin accounts for the sustained deficits in cognition, learning, and memory. Correspondingly, chronic heavy or repeated binge alcohol exposures in humans and experimental models alter myelin lipid composition leading to build-up of ceramides which can be neurotoxic and broadly inhibitory to brain functions. Methods: This study examined the effects of chronic + binge alcohol exposures (8 weeks) and intervention with myriocin, a ceramide inhibitor, on neurobehavioral functions (Open Field, Novel Object Recognition, and Morris Water Maze tests) and frontal lobe white matter myelin lipid biochemical pathology in an adult Long-Evans rat model. Results: The ethanol-exposed group had significant deficits in executive functions with increased indices of anxiety and impairments in spatial learning acquisition. Myriocin partially remediated these effects of ethanol while not impacting behavior in the control group. Ethanol-fed rats had significantly smaller brains with broadly reduced expression of sulfatides and reduced expression of two of the three sphingomyelins detected in frontal white matter. Myriocin partially resolved these effects corresponding with improvements in neurobehavioral function. Conclusion: Therapeutic strategies that support cerebral white matter myelin expression of sulfatide and sphingomyelin may help remediate cognitive-behavioral dysfunction following chronic heavy alcohol consumption in humans.
文摘Firstly, the nonnegative matrix factorization with sparseness constraints on parts of the basis matrix (NMFSCPBM) method is proposed in this paper. Secondly, the encrypted watermark is embedded into the big coefficients of the basis matrix that the host video is decomposed into by NMFSCPBM. At the same time, the watermark embedding strength is adaptively adjusted by the video motion characteristic coefficients extracted by NMFSCPBM method. On watermark detection, as long as the residual video contains the numbers of the least remaining sub-blocks, the complete basis matrix can be completely recovered through the decomposition of the nonnegative matrix of the least remaining sub-blocks in residual videos by NMFSCPBM, and then the complete watermark can be extracted. The experimental results show that the average intensity resistant to the various regular cropping of this scheme is up to 95.97% and that the average intensity resistant to the various irregular cropping of this scheme is up to 95.55%. The bit correct rate (BCR) values of the extracted watermark are always 100% under all of the above situations. It is proved that the watermark extraction is not limited by the cropping position and type in this scheme. Compared with other similar methods, the performance of resisting strong cropping is improved greatly.
基金supported by the National Natural Science Foundation of China(82070240,82073844,82070236,82270246)University Nursing Program for Young Scholars with Creative Talents in Heilongjiang Province(UNPYSCT-2020169)Harbin Medical University Marshal Initiative Funding(HMUMIF-21026)。
文摘Cardiac fibrosis is one of the crucial pathological factors in the heart,and various cardiac conditions associated with excessive fibrosis can eventually lead to heart failure.However,the exact molecular mechanism of cardiac fibrosis remains unclear.In the present study,we show that a novel lnc RNA that we named cardiac fibrosis-associated regulator(CFAR)is a profibrotic factor in the heart.CFAR was upregulated in cardiac fibrosis and its knockdown attenuated the expression of fibrotic marker genes and the proliferation of cardiac fibroblasts,thereby ameliorating cardiac fibrosis.Moreover,CFAR acted as a ce RNA sponge for mi R-449a-5p and derepressed the expression of LOXL3,which we experimentally established as a target gene of mi R-449a-5p.In contrast to CFAR,mi R-449a-5p was found to be significantly downregulated in cardiac fibrosis,and artificial knockdown of mi R-449a-5p exacerbated fibrogenesis,whereas overexpression of mi R-449a-5p impeded fibrogenesis.Furthermore,we found that LOXL3 mimicked the fibrotic factor TGF-β1 to promote cardiac fibrosis by activating m TOR.Collectively,our study established CFAR as a new profibrotic factor acting through a novel mi R-449a-5p/LOXL3/m TOR axis in the heart and therefore might be considered as a potential molecular target for the treatment of cardiac fibrosis and associated heart diseases.
