Offspring of rats with cerebral hypoxia-ischemia manifest cognitive dysfunction in learning and memory abilities

Neonatal hypoxic-ischemic encephalopathy is a serious neurological disease,often resulting in long-term neurodevelopmental disorders among surviving children.However,whether these neurodevelopmental issues can be passed to offspring remains unclear.The right common carotid artery of 7-day-old parental-generation rats was subjected to permanent ligation using a vessel electrocoagulator.Neonatal hypoxic-ischemic rat models were established by subjecting the rats to 8%O2–92%N2 for 2 hours.The results showed that 24 hours after hypoxia and ischemia,pathological damage,cerebral atrophy,liquefaction,and impairment were found,and Zea-Longa scores were significantly increased.The parental-generation rats were propagated at 3 months old,and offspring were obtained.No changes in the overall brain structures of these offspring rats were identified by magnetic resonance imaging.However,the escape latency was longer and the number of platform crossings was reduced among these offspring compared with normal rats.These results indicated that the offspring of hypoxic-ischemic encephalopathy model rats displayed cognitive impairments in learning and memory.This study was approved by the Animal Care&Welfare Committee of Kunming Medical University,China in 2018(approval No.kmmu2019072).

Single-nucleotide polymorphism screening and RNA sequencing of key messenger RNAs associated with neonatal hypoxic-ischemia brain damage

A single-nucleotide polymorphism(SNP)is an alteration in one nucleotide in a certain position within a genome.SNPs are associated with disease susceptibility.However,the influences of SNPs on the pathogenesis of neonatal hypoxic-ischemic brain damage remain elusive.Seven-day-old rats were used to establish a hypoxic ischemic encephalopathy model.SNPs and expression profiles of mRNAs were analyzed in hypoxic ischemic encephalopathy model rats using RNA sequencing.Genes exhibiting SNPs associated with hypoxic ischemic encephalopathy were identified and studied by gene ontology and pathway analysis to identify their possible involvement in the disease mechanism.We identified 89 up-regulated genes containing SNPs that were mainly located on chromosome 1 and 2.Gene ontology analysis indicated that the up-regulated genes containing SNPs are mainly involved in angiogenesis,wound healing and glutamatergic synapse and biological processing of calcium-activated chloride channels.Signaling pathway analysis indicated that the differentially expressed genes play a role in glutamatergic synapses,long-term depression and oxytocin signaling.Moreover,intersection analysis of high throughput screening following PubMed retrieval and RNA sequencing for SNPs showed that CSRNP1,DUSP5 and LRRC25 were most relevant to hypoxic ischemic encephalopathy.Significant up-regulation of genes was confirmed by quantitative real-time polymerase chain reaction analysis of oxygen-glucose-deprived human fetal cortical neurons.Our results indicate that CSRNP1,DUSP5 and LRRC25,containing SNPs,may be involved in the pathogenesis of hypoxic ischemic encephalopathy.These findings indicate a novel direction for further hypoxic ischemic encephalopathy research.This animal study was approved on February 5,2017 by the Animal Care and Use Committee of Kunming Medical University,Yunnan Province,China(approval No.kmmu2019038).Cerebral tissue collection from a human fetus was approved on September 30,2015 by the Ethics Committee of Kunming Medical University,China(approval No.2015-9).

"Solid-Liquid" Vitrimers Based on Dynamic Boronic Ester Networks

The"solid-liquid"behavior of vitrimers have not been systematically investigated.Herein,a series of"solid-liquid"vitrimers bearing varying contents of dynamic boronic ester bonds were synthesized via thiol-ene click reactions.These vitrimers allow for flexibile modulation of their network structures and thus show a range of intriguing properties including high stretchability,flexible transition from elasticity to plasticity,strong strain rate dependence,and solid-liquid performance.The dynamic association rate of boronic ester bonds within these vitrimers could be apparently accelerated via increasing the content of boronic ester,which could be used to shape-program the flat vitrimer films into various complex 3D structures just with external force.Materials with such versatile dynamic behavior may open up a range of new applications.

In Situ Variation of Interpenetrating Polymer Network Topology using a Photolabile Connector

A photo-controlled approach is developed to regulate the interpenetrating polymer network(IPN)topology by varying the connecting structure between the first and second networks.The approach is based on multifunctional inimer(Vinyl-o NB-Br)possessing three moieties,i.e.,an acrylate-based double bond for incorporation within a polymer network,a Br group for grafting polymerization to get connectIPN(c-IPN),and an o-nitrobenzyl spacer for photocleaving to convert the c-IPN to disconnected-IPN(d-IPN)with UV light irradiation.Such design allows for finely controlling the connection degree between two networks.A systematic study on the mechanical property of a series of samples with different connection degrees thus can be conducted.The results reveal that decreasing the connecting degree between two networks of IPN made a negligible contribution to materials'mechanical properties.