血浆D-二聚体水平在急性Stanford A型主动脉夹层与非ST段抬高型心肌梗死鉴别中的意义

目的分析血浆D-二聚体(D-D)水平在急性Stanford A型主动脉夹层和非ST段抬高型心肌梗死(NSTEMI)患者中的差别,探讨D-D在两者鉴别诊断中的实际临床意义。方法回顾性分析2013年1月-2018年9月在郑州大学第一附属医院就诊的107例急性NSTEMI患者(NSTEMI组)和104例急性Stanford A型主动脉夹层患者(主动脉夹层组)。比较两组患者血浆D-D水平,通过ROC曲线分析血浆D-D水平对急性Stanford A型主动脉夹层的鉴别意义。结果主动脉夹层组血浆D-D水平高于NSTEMI组(P<0.05)。ROC曲线分析显示,血浆D-D水平对2种疾病的鉴别有意义(P<0.05)。结论急诊检测血浆D-D对区分2种疾病有临床意义。对急性胸痛伴D-D水平升高的患者,当其他常规入院检查难以与急性NSTEMI鉴别时,可高度怀疑急性Stanford A型主动脉夹层。

Application of Gray Metabolic GM (1,1) Model in Prediction of Annual Total Yields of Chinese Aquatic Products

To predict the annual total yields of Chinese aquatic products in future five years ( 2011-2015) ,based on the theory and method of gray system,this paper firstly establishes a conventional GM ( 1,1) model and a gray metabolic GM ( 1,1) model respectively to predict the annual total yields of Chinese aquatic products in 2006-2009 and compare the prediction accuracy between these two models. Then,it selects the model with higher accuracy to predict the annual total yields of Chinese aquatic products in future five years. The comparison indicates that gray metabolic GM ( 1,1) model has higher prediction accuracy and smaller error,thus it is more suitable for prediction of annual total yields of aquatic products. Therefore,it adopts the gray metabolic GM ( 1,1) model to predict annual total yields of Chinese aquatic products in 2011-2015. The prediction results of annual total yields are 55. 32,57. 46,59. 72,62. 02 and 64. 43 million tons respectively in future five years with annual average increase rate of about 3. 7% ,much higher than the objective of 2. 2% specified in the Twelfth Five-Year Plan of the National Fishery Development ( 2011 to 2015) . The results of this research show that the gray metabolic GM ( 1,1) model is suitable for prediction of yields of aquatic products and the total yields of Chinese aquatic products in 2011-2015 will totally be able to realize the objective of the Twelfth Five-Year Plan.

Host defense peptide-mimickingβ-peptide polymer displaying strong antibacterial activity against cariogenic Streptococcus mutans

Cariogenic Streptococcus mutans(S.mutans)is a leading cause of bacterial-induced oral diseases.Current strategies to kill bacteria based on Host defense peptide(HDP)mimicking polymers hold promise to treat oral bacterial infection.Here,we explore the impact of hydrophobic subunit and chain length variation on the antibacterial and antibiofilm activity ofβ-peptide polymers.The physicochemical and biological prop-erties,such as the toxicity,the antibacterial activity,and the effect on bacterial transcription ofβ-peptide polymers,were systematically investigated with numerous techniques.The results exhibited that the op-timalβ-peptide polymer has low toxicity towards human periodontal ligament fibroblasts,andβ-peptide polymers(especially P3)have more excellent antibacterial activity against S.mutans than metronidazole.In addition,β-peptide polymers inhibited the reversible and irreversible bacterial adhesion during the formation of biofilms.The polymer can promote biofilm dispersion by decreasing the hydrophobicity of bacterial cells after adhering to cell surfaces.Analysis of the transcriptome for S.mutans treated withβ-peptide polymers demonstrated thatβ-peptide polymers could reduce the cariogenicity of S.mutans by impacting the transcription of the energy and acid metabolism-related genes.β-peptide polymers are promising antimicrobial agents in clinical dentistry due to their high antibacterial efficiency and low tox-icity.

Exfoliated Mg–Al–Fe layered double hydroxides/polyether sulfone mixed matrix membranes for adsorption of phosphate and fluoride from aqueous solutions

Mg–Al–Fe layered double hydroxides（LDHs） were exfoliated and incorporated in polyether sulfone membranes for the removal of phosphate and fluoride for the first time. The exfoliation methods, coagulation bath, LDH amount, interfering ions, adsorption isotherm,desorption and reuse of the membranes were investigated. It was found that LDHs could be quickly exfoliated in formamide/N,N-dimethylformamide（DMF） solvent mixtures with sodium carboxymethyl cellulose as a stabilizer. The membranes displayed much higher adsorption capacity for phosphate（5.61 mg/g） and faster adsorption rate than the unexfoliated materials. With increased DMF content in the coagulation bath, the static and dynamic adsorption capacity rose. Interference from Cl-and SO4^（2-）（50 mg/L） on adsorption of phosphates was not apparent. The membranes displayed excellent reusability in dynamic adsorption/desorption. The membranes also showed high adsorption capacity for fluorides（1.61 mg/g）.

PROTACs:great opportunities for academia and industry (an update from 2020 to 2021)

PROteolysis TArgeting Chimeras(PROTACs)technology is a new protein-degradation strategy that has emerged in recent years.It uses bifunctional small molecules to induce the ubiquitination and degradation of target proteins through the ubiquitin–proteasome system.PROTACs can not only be used as potential clinical treatments for diseases such as cancer,immune disorders,viral infections,and neurodegenerative diseases,but also provide unique chemical knockdown tools for biological research in a catalytic,reversible,and rapid manner.In 2019,our group published a review article“PROTACs:great opportunities for academia and industry”in the journal,summarizing the representative compounds of PROTACs reported before the end of 2019.In the past 2 years,the entire field of protein degradation has experienced rapid development,including not only a large increase in the number of research papers on protein-degradation technology but also a rapid increase in the number of small-molecule degraders that have entered the clinical and will enter the clinical stage.In addition to PROTAC and molecular glue technology,other new degradation technologies are also developing rapidly.In this article,we mainly summarize and review the representative PROTACs of related targets published in 2020–2021 to present to researchers the exciting developments in the field of protein degradation.The problems that need to be solved in this field will also be briefly introduced.

Common Postzygotic Mutational Signatures in Healthy Adult Tissues Related to Embryonic Hypoxia

Postzygotic mutations are acquired in normal tissues throughout an individual’s lifetime and hold clues for identifying mutagenic factors.Here,we investigated postzygotic mutation spectra of healthy individuals using optimized ultra-deep exome sequencing of the time-series samples from the same volunteer as well as the samples from different individuals.In blood,sperm,and muscle cells,we resolved three common types of mutational signatures.Signatures A and B represent clocklike mutational processes,and the polymorphisms of epigenetic regulation genes influence the proportion of signature B in mutation profiles.Notably,signature C,characterized by C>T transitions at GpCpN sites,tends to be a feature of diverse normal tissues.Mutations of this type are likely to occur early during embryonic development,supported by their relatively high allelic frequencies,presence in multiple tissues,and decrease in occurrence with age.Almost none of the public datasets for tumors feature this signature,except for 19.6%of samples of clear cell renal cell carcinoma with increased activation of the hypoxia-inducible factor 1(HIF-1)signaling pathway.Moreover,the accumulation of signature C in the mutation profile was accelerated in a human embryonic stem cell line with drug-induced activation of HIF-1α.Thus,embryonic hypoxia may explain this novel signature across multiple normal tissues.Our study suggests that hypoxic condition in an early stage of embryonic development is a crucial factor inducing C>T transitions at GpCpN sites;and individuals’genetic background may also influence their postzygotic mutation profiles.

Cloud repository as a malicious service:challenge,identification and implication

The popularity of cloud hosting services also brings in new security chal-lenges:it has been reported that these services are increasingly utilized by miscreants for their malicious online activities.Mitigating this emerging threat,posed by such“bad repositories”(simply Bar),is challenging due to the different hosting strategy to traditional hosting service,the lack of direct observations of the repositories by those outside the cloud,the reluctance of the cloud provider to scan its customers’repositories without their consent,and the unique evasion strategies employed by the adversary.In this paper,we took the first step toward understanding and detecting this emerging threat.Using a small set of“seeds”(i.e.,confirmed Bars),we identified a set of collective features from the websites they serve(e.g.,attempts to hide Bars),which uniquely characterize the Bars.These features were utilized to build a scanner that detected over 600 Bars on leading cloud platforms like Amazon,Google,and 150 K sites,including popular ones like groupon.com,using them.Highlights of our study include the pivotal roles played by these repositories on malicious infrastructures and other important discoveries include how the adversary exploited legitimate cloud repositories and why the adversary uses Bars in the first place that has never been reported.These findings bring such malicious services to the spotlight and contribute to a better understanding and ultimately eliminating this new threat.