Long-Term Low DO Enriches and Shifts Nitrifier Community in Activated Sludge

In the activated sludge process, reducing the operational dissolved oxygen (DO) concentration can improve oxygen transfer efficiency, thereby reducing energy use. The low DO, however, may result in incomplete nitrification. This research investigated the long-term effect of low DO on the nitrification performance of activated sludge. Results indicated that, for reactors with 10 and 40 day solids retention times (SRTs), complete nitrification was accomplished after a long-term operation with a DO of 0.37 and 0.16 mg/L, respectively. Under long-term low DO conditions, nitrite oxidizing bacteria (NOB) became a better oxygen competitor than ammonia oxidizing bacteria (AOB) and, as a result, no nitrite accumulated. Real-time PCR assays indicated that the long-term low DO enriched both AOB and NOB in activated sludge, increasing the sludge nitrification capacity and diminishing the adverse effect of low DO on the overall nitrification performance. The increase in the population size of nitrifiers was likely resulted from the reduced nitrifier endogenous decay rate by a low DO. Under long-term low DO conditions, <i>Nitrosomonas europaea/eutropha</i> remained as the dominant AOB, whereas the number of <i>Nitrospira</i>-like NOB became much greater than <i>Nitrobacter</i>-like NOB, especially for the 40 day SRT sludge. The enrichment and shift of the nitrifier community reduced the adverse effect of low DO on nitrification; therefore, low DO operation of a complete nitrification process is feasible

Differential gene expression, GO, KEGG, and GSEA analyses in Therapeutically Applicable Research to Generate (TARGET).

A heatmap depicting the top 10 upregulated and downregulated genes (5A). The KEGG analysis showed that protein digestion and absorption, the Hippo signaling pathway, and the Wnt signaling pathway were significantly enriched (5B). Genes involved significantly in biological process (BP): extracellular matrix organization (GO:0030198), molecular function (MF): histone deacetylase binding (GO:0042826), and cellular component (CC): collagen-containing extracellular matrix (GO:0062023) are shown in a circle graph (5C). The GSEA analysis revealed that these DEGs were predominantly enriched in olfactory transduction pathways (normalized enrichment scores [NES] = 1.6998, p < 0.0001) (5D).</p

Charged Polymer Brushes-Grafted Hollow Silica Nanoparticles as a Novel Promising Material for Simultaneous Joint Lubrication and Treatment

The fabrication of core/shell charged polymer brushes-grafted hollow silica nanoparticles (PSPMA-<i>g</i>-HSNPs) is reported. Because of the excellent hydration capability of the shells consisting of charged polymer brushes, the functional nanoparticles can achieve a good lubricating effect in aqueous media via hydration lubrication mechanism. The mesoporous hollow silica cores endow the nanoparticles with drug loading–release capability. Aspirin, as a useful drug for treating arthritis, was employed to carry out in vitro drug loading and release studies. It is clear that brushes-modified hollow silica exhibited long-term drug release performance. The combination of lubrication and drug loading capabilities results in the great clinical potential of new multifunctional nanoparticles as injectable joint lubricant fluid in arthritis treatment

Fig 2 -

Correlation between RAMP1 gene expression and immune checkpoint molecules in pan-cancer studies (2A); various immune cell populations infiltrating the tumor microenvironment (2B); and immune scores, including ESTIMATE Score, Immune Score, and Stromal Score (2C-2E).</p

Correlation between RAMP1 and its co-expressed genes.

The top five co-expressed genes that were upregulated or downregulated by the RAMP1 gene were identified using Pearson correlation analysis (6A). Upregulation and downregulation are shown by the red and green curves, respectively. The top five upregulated genes (CGREF1, LTK, RARRES1, RHBDL2, and WIF1) (6B - 6F) and downregulated genes (ACTN1, ARL4C, ITGA11, DNM1, and POSTN) (6G - 6K).</p

Prognostic value of RAMP1.

High expression of RAMP1 correlates with poor prognosis (p p p calibration curve of the nomogram (4G) were constructed to predict the 1-, 3-, and 5-year survival of each patient. The prognosis of OS patients with metastasis was substantially unfavorable in the group with high RAMP1 gene expression compared to the group with low expression (4F).</p

Receptor activity modifying protein 1 (RAMP1) expression and prognostic implications in pan-cancer.

There was an upregulation of RAMP1 in breast invasive carcinoma (BRCA), prostate adenocarcinoma (PRAD) and liver hepatocellular carcinoma (LIHC). Conversely, downregulation of RAMP1 was observed in bladder urothelial carcinoma (BLCA) and uterine corpus endometrial carcinoma (UCEC) (1A and 1B). High RAMP1 expression levels were associated with poor clinical outcomes in rectal adenocarcinoma (READ) (1C-1E).</p

Correlation between RAMP1 expression and tumor-infiltrating immune cells.

CD4+ memory-activated T cells and gamma-delta T cells varied considerably between the high and low RAMP1 expression groups (7A). Gamma-delta T cells, activated mast cells, and RAMP1 RNA levels were positively correlated (r > 0, p p = 0.017) (7D). The low RAMP1 expression group had significantly higher stromal scores than the high RAMP1 expression group (**p p < 0.05) (7H - 7J).</p

Prognostic value of RAMP1 in the GSE39058 dataset and Gene Ontology (GO) analysis.

A heatmap of differentially expressed genes (DEGs) showing the top 10 upregulated and downregulated genes (3A). A higher RAMP1 gene expression is substantially related to a poorer prognosis in the GSE39058 dataset (p = 0.021) (3B). GO and Kyoto Encyclopedia of Genes and Genomes (KEGG) analyses were performed to determine the GO terms and pathways (3C) and KEGG terms (3D) associated with the DEGs. A protein-protein interaction (PPI) network of RAMP1 was generated using GeneMANIA (3E). Gene Set Enrichment Analysis (GSEA) identified significantly enriched signaling pathways (3F).</p

Clinical characteristics of patients with OS.

Receptor activity modifying protein 1 (RAMP1) facilitates the localization of the calcitonin-like receptor (CLR) to the plasma membrane, but its role in osteosarcoma (OS) remains unclear. We evaluated the RAMP1 expression and prognostic value across different cancers, studying tumor immune infiltration. The prognostic value was analyzed using the GSE39058 and TARGET datasets. Differential gene expression was evaluated. a protein-protein interaction network was constructed, and gene set enrichment analysis was performed. The function of RAMP1 in the tumor microenvironment was analyzed, and its expression in OS cell lines was validated using quantitative real-time PCR. High RAMP1 expression correlated with poor prognosis relative to low RAMP1 expression (p p </div