Effects of Manshenkangning Prescription on Adenine-induced Renal Interstitial Fibrosis in Rats

[Objectives]To study the protective effects of Manshenkangning Prescription on adenine-induced renal interstitial fibrosis in rats,and explore the possible mechanism.[Methods]Sixty Wistar male rats were divided into normal group,model group,control group(administered with 10 mg/(kg·d)losartan)and high,medium and low dose experimental groups(30,15,7.5 mg/(kg·d)Manshenkangning).The rat models of renal interstitial fibrosis were induced by intragastric administration of adenine(250 mg/(kg·d)).After 2 h,the above drugs were administered intragastrically for 21 consecutive days and the administration time was 30 consecutive days.Serum creatinine(SCr),blood urea nitrogen(BUN),24 h urinary protein(24 h MTP)and glomerular filtration rate(eGFR)were measured by biochemical method;renal histopathological changes were observed by hematoxylin-eosin(HE)staining.Renal collagen deposition in rats was observed by Masson staining.[Results]The SCr in model group and the high,medium and low dose experimental groups were(340.00±22.99),(176.80±18.60),(234.75±13.59),(266.11±14.78)μmol/L,and BUN were(23.74±2.51),(14.53±2.25),(18.78±0.88),(18.90±2.14)mmol/L;24 h MTP were(675.86±74.58),(323.81±41.83),(438.84±34.69),(493.76±37.04)mg/d;eGFR were(19.30±2.48),(49.96±10.95),(32.61±10.75),(27.18±5.98)mL/min,and the difference was statistically significant compared with the normal group(all P<0.05).HE staining and Masson staining showed that compared with normal group,the renal interstitial lesions in model group were severe and the renal interstitial collagen material was deposited in a large amount.The renal interstitial tubule injury was relieved and the renal interstitial collagen deposition was reduced in experimental groups.And the difference was statistically significant(all P<0.01).[Conclusions]Manshenkangning can significantly protect the kidney against the progress of interstitial fibrosis in rats.Its possible mechanism is to regulate the activity of SIRT1 and inhibit the expression of COX-2 in order to resist the inflammatory reaction of kidney and improve the ability of anti-oxidative stress of kidney,thus delaying the occurrence and development of chronic renal failure.

Analysis of the Factors Influencing Breeding Record Establishment of Sheep-raising Households or Farms Based on Logit-ISM:Based on 849 Questionnaires from 17 Cities in Shandong Province

Breeding record is an important way to implement standardized sheep raising,trace major sheep raising epidemic information and ensure the quality and safety of products for sheep-raising households or farms.Based on 849 questionnaires from 17 cities of Shandong Province,the paper firstly used the binary discrete model of Logit to analyze the factors influencing the establishing behavior of breeding records of sheep-raising households or farms and then used the ISM model to explain the relationship and hierarchy of each influencing factor.The result showed that seven factors including the education level of the deciders,farming scale,fixed number of farming years,degree of specialization,support of the government,whether to join the industrialization organization and the recognition of the breeding records have a significant impact on the establishing behavior of breeding records of the sheep-raising households or farms.Among them,the support of the government and the recognition of breeding records are the surface direct factors,degree of specialization and whether to join the industrialization organization are the middle indirect factors,the education level of the deciders,the farming scale and the fixed number of farming years are deep source factors.

Selenized liposomes with ameliorative stability that achieve sustained release of emodin but fail in bioavailability

Stability of liposomes plays a crucial role in drug delivery,especially in oral aspect.The structural modification of liposomes has been the orientation of efforts to improve their stability and enable the controllability of payload release.This study reported a selenylation strategy to optimize the liposomal structure in an attempt to enhance the nanocarrier’s stability,hence the bioavailability of emodin(EM),an active compound with poor water-solubility.EM-loaded selenized liposomes(EM-Se@LPs)were prepared by thin film dispersion followed by in situ reduction technique.The results showed that EM-Se@LPs were provided with enhancive gastrointestinal stability and exhibited sustained release of drug compared with EM-loaded liposomes(EM-LPs).However,the modified liposomes with Se depositing onto the interior and exterior bilayers did not substantially facilitate absorption of EM.The reinforced structure of liposomes irrelevant to absorption was affirmed to be due to good stability and absorbability of EM itself.Nevertheless,the present work provides an alternative option for stabilization of liposomes instead of conventional methods,which may be promising for oral delivery of physiologically unstable and/or poorly absorbed drugs and systemic drug delivery.

Constructing cactus-like mixed dimensional MOF@MOF as sorbent for extraction of bisphenols from environmental water

Metal-organic frameworks(MOFs)received considerable attention to adsorption and removal of various environmental pollutants because of some inherent advantages.However,it is challenging but meaningful to design and fabricate hierarchical mixed-dimensional MOFs with synergistic effects to enhance the performance for removal and preconcentration of environmental pollutants.Herein,a new hierarchical two-dimensional(2D)-three-dimensional(3D)mixed-dimensional cactus-like MOF@MOF hybrid material(PCN-134@Zr-BTB)was prepared by in-situ growth of 2D MOF nanosheets(Zr-BTB)on the surface of 3D MOF(PCN-134).The PCN-134@Zr-BTB composites combine the advantages of 2D and 3D MOFs with extensive mesoporous structures and large surface area for effective removal and enrichment of bisphenols(BPs).In comparison with pristine PCN-134 and Zr-BTB materials,the PCN-134@Zr-BTB hybrid material presented excellent adsorption performance for BPs.The adsorption isotherms are consistent with the Langmuir model,and the maximum adsorption capacity of four bisphenols(BPs)ranged from 135.1 mg/g to 628.9 mg/g.The adsorption kinetics are in accordance with the pseudo-second-order model.The recoveries ranged from 72.8%to 108%.The limits of detection were calculated at 0.02-0.03 ng/mL.The enrichment factors were calculated in the range of 310-374.According to FT-IR and XPS analysis,the main adsorption mechanisms are hydrogen bonding and π-π stacking.Nevertheless,this work provides a new and convenient strategy for the preparation of new hierarchical mixed-dimensional MOF@MOF(PCN-134@Zr-BTB)hybrid material for extraction and enrichment of BPs from aqueous matrix.

CA-YOLOv5: Detection model for healthy and diseased silkworms in mixed conditions based on improved YOLOv5

The accurate identification and localization of diseased silkworms is an important task in the research of disease precision control technology and equipment development in the sericulture industry. However, the existing deep learning-based methods for this task are mainly based on image classification, which fails to provide the location information of diseased silkworms. To this end, this study proposed an object detection-based method for identifying and locating healthy and diseased silkworms. Images of mixed healthy and diseased silkworms were collected using a mobile phone, and the category and location of each silkworm were labeled using LabelImg as a labeling tool to construct an image dataset for object detection. Based on the one-step detection model YOLOv5s, the ConvNeXt-Attention-YOLOv5 (CA-YOLOv5) model was designed in which the large kernel with depth-wise separable convolution (7×7 dw-conv) of ConvNeXt was adopted to expand receptive fields and the channel attention mechanism ECANet was added to enhance the capability of feature extraction. Experiments showed that the mean average precision (mAP) values of CA-YOLOv5 for healthy and diseased silkworms reached 96.46%, which is 1.35% better than that achieved via YOLOv5s. At the same time, the overall performance of CA-YOLOv5 was significantly better than state-of-the-art one-step models, such as Single Shot MultiBox Detector (SSD), CenterNet, and EfficientDet, and even improved YOLOv5 using image attention mechanism and a lightweight backbone, like SENet-YOLOv5 and MobileNet-YOLOv5. The results of this study can provide an important basis for the accurate positioning of diseased silkworms in precision disease control technology and equipment development.

Bioinformatics Analysis of the Regulatory lncRNA–miRNA–mRNA Network and Drug Prediction in Patients with Pulmonary Arterial Hypertension

Objective:Pulmonary arterial hypertension(PAH)is a cardiovascular disease caused by primary proliferative lesions in pulmonary arterioles.Competing endogenous RNAs(ceRNAs)have been reported to act as sponges for microRNAs(miRNAs).To date,however,the mechanisms underlying ceRNA involvement in PAH have not been investigated.This study aimed to construct a PAH-related ceRNA network to further explore the mechanisms of PAH.Methods:A probe reannotation was conducted to identify the long non-coding RNAs(lncRNAs)and messenger RNAs(mRNAs)involved in PAH.Based on the reannotation results,the“limma”package was used to identify the differentially expressed genes(DEGs)and lncRNAs.The miRcode database was used to predict the lncRNA–miRNA interactions.Then,the mRNAs targeted by the miRNAs were predicted by using TargetScan,miRTarBase,and miRDB.Based on the above interactions,a ceRNA network was constructed,which was mapped and visualized with Cytoscape 3.6.1 software.Gene Ontology and Kyoto Encyclopedia of Genes and Genomes pathway enrichment analyses were performed using the database.To predict possible drugs or molecules that may mitigate PAH,C-Map analysis was applied to find relevant molecular compounds that can reverse the expression of DEGs in cell lines.Results:The ceRNA network consisted of 174 nodes and 304 links,which included 10 lncRNAs,23 miRNAs,and 53 mRNAs.The hub genes of the ceRNA network for PAH included hsa-miR-17-5p,hsa-miR-20b-5p,MEG3,HCP5,hsa-miR-27a-3p,hsa-miR-107,hsa-miR-142-3p,hsa-miR-363-3p,hsa-miR-301b-3p,and hsa-miR-23b-3p.Calprotectin,irinotecan,and medrysone were found to be the 3 significant compounds.Conclusion:This study found that hsa-miR-17-5p,hsa-miR-20b-5p,MEG3,HCP5,hsa-miR-27a-3p,hsa-miR-107,hsa-miR-142-3p,hsa-miR-363-3p,hsa-miR-301b-3p,and hsa-miR-23b-3p maybe the underlying biomarkers and targets for diagnosis and treatment of PAH.

Unusual switching of ionic conductivity in ionogels enabled by water-induced phase separation

Developing smart iontronic materials is highly desired for eradicating the widely occurring potential short-circuit hazard and subsequent safety problems caused by high ambient humidity.In this work,a humidity-responsive ionogel(HRIG)based on a poly(benzyl methacrylate)matrix swollen by hydrophobic ionic liquid and hygroscopic lithium salt is reported.The HRIG exhibits an anomalous decrease in ionic conductivity upon hydration by increased humidity,totally differing from traditional ionic conductors,which are usually more conductive due to the plasticizing effect of water molecules.This unique ionogel shows a dramatic decrease in ionic conductivity(as much as 10^(2))when exposed to humidity.The conductive pathway within the HRIG would be shut down spontaneously above a critical relative humidity due to water-induced phase separation.Moreover,this transition can be perfectly reversed when the ambient humidity drops.A humidity-responsive smart supercapacitor that can be switched on and off by capturing humidity changes is designed for demonstration.It is believed that such unusual HRIG material will provide new insights into the development and applications of smart iontronics.

Fabrication of metal-organic framework-based nanofibrous separator via one-pot electrospinning strategy

Metal-organic framework(MOF)/polymer composites have attracted extensive attention in the recent years.However,it still remains challenging to efficiently and effectively fabricate these composite materials.In this study,we propose a facile one-pot electrospinning strategy for preparation of HKUST-1/polyacrylonitrile(PAN)nanofibrous membranes from a homogeneous stock solution containing HKUST-1 precursors and PAN.MOF crystallization and polymer solidification occur simultaneously during the electrospinning process,thus avoiding the issues of aggregation and troublesome multistep fabrication of the conventional approach.The obtained HKUST-1/PAN electrospun membranes show uniform MOF distribution throughout the nanofibers and yield good mechanical properties.The membranes are used as separators in Li-metal full batteries under harsh testing conditions,using an ultrathin Li-metal anode,a high mass loading cathode,and the HKUST-1/PAN nanofibrous separator.The results demonstrate significantly improved cycling performance(capacity retention of 83.1%after 200 cycles)under a low negative to positive capacity ratio(N/P ratio of 1.86).The improvement can be attributed to an enhanced wettability of the separator towards electrolyte stemmed from the nanofibrous structure,and a uniform lithium ion flux stabilized by the open metal sites of uniformly distributed HKUST-1 particles in the membrane during cycling.

Direct transformation of ZIF-8 into hollow porous carbons and hollow carbon composites

Hollow porous carbons(HPCs)are a class of porous materials with advantages of high surface to volume ratio,large interior cavities,low density,and short diffusion length,which are promising in various applications.Direct carbonization of carbon precursors is the simplest and the most cost-effective method to prepare porous carbons,however,it often leads to non-hollow structures.Herein,we demonstrate the preparation of HPCs through a direct carbonization method with a two-step heating process of zeolitic imidazolate framework-8(ZIF-8)and tetrafluoroterephthalonitrile(TFTPN).During the carbonization,ZIF-8 nanoparticles first react with TFTPN at low temperature to create polymer coatings on the surface,which are then converted into HPCs at elevated temperature.The obtained HPCs show hierarchically porous structure with high specific surface areas and pore volumes.Additionally,this method has been adopted to fabricate Au@HPCs yolk–shell composites,exhibiting good catalytic performance in nitrobenzene reduction.The developed synthesis strategy can enrich the toolbox for the preparation of novel HPCs and their composites.

Feasibility of terahertz spectroscopy for hybrid purity verification of rice seeds

The purity of hybrid rice seeds reflects the typical consistency of seed varieties in characteristics.The accuracy and reliability of seed purity detecting are of great significance to ensure the quality of seeds.In this study,the feasibility of identifying the purity of hybrid rice seeds,Xinong 1A/89,by terahertz(THz)time-domain spectroscopy system combined with chemometrics was explored.Three quantitative identification models for testing the purity of Xinong 1A/89 hybrid rice seed were developed and compared by THz absorption spectroscopy with extreme learning algorithm(ELM),Principal cComponent Regression(PCR)and Partial Least Squares Regression(PLSR).Experimental results showed that comparing with classical PLSR and PCR models,ELM presents a better feasibility and stability.For the testing set,the quantitative prediction result of ELM(ELoo=2.005×10^(-5),R^(2)=96.75%)is significantly better than those of PCR(ELoo=7.346×10^(-5),R^(2)=88.10%)and PLSR(ELoo=8.007×10^(-5),R^(2)=87.03%).The results highlight the feasibility of THz spectroscopy combined with ELM as an efficient and reliable method for verification of hybrid rice seeds.