Ganoderma Lucidum Polysaccharide Peptide Alleviates Hepatoteatosis via Modulating Bile Acid Metabolism Dependent on FXR-SHP/FGF

Background/Aims: Non-alcoholic fatty liver disease (NAFLD) encompasses a series of pathologic changes ranging from steatosis to steatohepatitis, which may progress to cirrhosis and hepatocellular carcinoma. The purpose of this study was to determine whether ganoderma lucidum polysaccharide peptide (GLPP) has therapeutic effect on NAFLD. Methods: Ob/ ob mouse model and ApoC3 transgenic mouse model were used for exploring the effect of GLPP on NAFLD. Key metabolic pathways and enzymes were identified by metabolomics combining with KEGG and PIUmet analyses and key enzymes were detected by Western blot. Hepatosteatosis models of HepG2 cells and primary hepatocytes were used to further confirm the therapeutic effect of GLPP on NAFLD. Results: GLPP administrated for a month alleviated hepatosteatosis, dyslipidemia, liver dysfunction and liver insulin resistance. Pathways of glycerophospholipid metabolism, fatty acid metabolism and primary bile acid biosynthesis were involved in the therapeutic effect of GLPP on NAFLD. Detection of key enzymes revealed that GLPP reversed low expression of CYP7A1, CYP8B1, FXR, SHP and high expression of FGFR4 in ob/ob mice and ApoC3 mice. Besides, GLPP inhibited fatty acid synthesis by reducing the expression of SREBP1c, FAS and ACC via a FXR-SHP dependent mechanism. Additionally, GLPP reduced the accumulation of lipid droplets and the content of TG in HepG2 cells and primary hepatocytes induced by oleic acid and palmitic acid. Conclusion: GLPP significantly improves NAFLD via regulating bile acid synthesis dependent on FXR-SHP/FGF pathway, which finally inhibits fatty acid synthesis, indicating that GLPP might be developed as a therapeutic drug for NAFLD

NCH Sleep DataBank: A Large Collection of Real-world Pediatric Sleep Studies

Despite being crucial to health and quality of life, sleep -- especially pediatric sleep -- is not yet well understood. This is exacerbated by lack of access to sufficient pediatric sleep data with clinical annotation. In order to accelerate research on pediatric sleep and its connection to health, we create the Nationwide Children's Hospital (NCH) Sleep DataBank and publish it at Physionet and the National Sleep Research Resource (NSRR), which is a large sleep data common with physiological data, clinical data, and tools for analyses. The NCH Sleep DataBank consists of 3,984 polysomnography studies and over 5.6 million clinical observations on 3,673 unique patients between 2017 and 2019 at NCH. The novelties of this dataset include: 1) large-scale sleep dataset suitable for discovering new insights via data mining, 2) explicit focus on pediatric patients, 3) gathered in a real-world clinical setting, and 4) the accompanying rich set of clinical data. The NCH Sleep DataBank is a valuable resource for advancing automatic sleep scoring and real-time sleep disorder prediction, among many other potential scientific discoveries.Comment: Dataset is available at https://sleepdata.org/datasets/nchsdb and https://physionet.org/content/nch-slee

Dynamic analysis of industrial solid waste metabolism at aggregated and disaggregated levels

Greater efforts should be made for the prevention and treatment of industrial solid waste (ISW). This study models an integrated ISW metabolism framework to explore socio-economic factors of ISW production changes for a case study of Guangdong province, China during 2002–2015. In detail, index decomposition analysis is innovatively conducted to quantify the relative contribution of socio-economic factors to ISW production changes. Waste metabolism input-output analysis is used to reveal internal structure of the system. More specifically, based on a new four-way classification method, components' dependence on the system are determined by linkage analysis. Using environmental responsibility analysis, their environmental responsibilities are assessed. The results show that decreasing ISW generation intensity and further optimizing industrial structure is the only way to Guangdong's ISW reduction at an aggregated sector-level. At a disaggregated sector-level, mining (M) is a key sector and should focus on income-based ISW regulations. Energy and materials transformation (ET) roles as a direct producer and has strong linkages to other sectors. As the largest final consumer, the others (OS) sector should consider consuming less ISW-intensive commodities

Metabolism of urban wastewater: Ecological network analysis for Guangdong Province, China

Wastewater discharge is a burden on environmentally sustainable development, especially in the water-deficient area. Existing Studies on wastewater discharge is not comprehensive for lacking analysis of mutual flow and necessary components. In this study, a wastewater metabolism input-output model is developed to achieve sustainable development through a novel perspective to depict the industrial wastewater flow among sectors. Since chemical oxygen demand and ammonia nitrogen are indicators for studying the degree of wastewater pollution, this paper also considers their wastewater to make the research synthetic and systematic. A case study of Guangdong Province, China, is conducted to further illustrate the potential benefits of the model in investigation of the sectors interactions. The results show that the wastewater discharge of Guangdong Province is considerable, with industrial wastewater, chemical oxygen demand wastewater and ammonia-nitrogen wastewater being 7.53 billion tons, 852 thousand tons and 69 thousand tons respectively. Some typical sectors have been distinguished based on ecological network analysis and input-output analysis for mitigating wastewater discharge, such as electronic equipment manufacture, chemical materials and paper manufacture, and tertiary industry. The implementation of the “Replace Subsidies with Rewards” policy is conducive to the discharge reduction of the system

Network analysis of different types of food flows: Establishing the interaction between food flows and economic flows

Food security is performed as an important issue, which is directly related to human survival, social progress and environmental protection. The aim of this paper is to establish a holistic and new food network model that is capable of exploring the nature of food flows in response to the regulation of sectoral activities from a practical perspective. A case study for Guangdong Province, China is conducted to illustrate the influence of different food types on urban food system by combining Input Output Analysis and Ecological Network Analysis. In detail, the applicability of these methods is first extended to food element. The study on complex food system involving ecology, society, and the environment is the first time to use network analysis to quantify the urban metabolic processes. In addition, the Value intensity of flow (VIF) is first introduced to re-establish the relationship between food flows and economic flows. The results show that the indirect food flows have a huge impact on food system. Food processing (FO) and Accommodation and catering services (AC) are the most important sectors to promote and support the development of other sectors. The food type has great impacts on pulling force and the level of commercial value, while it does not affect the flows of commercial value. As a raw material in many industries, sugarcane affects the metabolic relationships between sector

Two-pathway perspective for heavy metal emission mitigation: A case study of Guangdong Province, China

Heavy metal emissions have attracted much worldwide attention for its recalcitrance and persistence. In this study, a two-pathway environmental simulation model is developed to uncover heavy metal emissions as induced by intra-provincial production and extra-provincial investments, filling the gap of mitigating heavy metal emissions from separate pathway. This developed model is applied to Guangdong Province, China targeting on the mitigation of Hg, As, Cd, Cr, and Pb emissions. Additionally, emission reduction simulations are implemented on the basis of key sector identification. The effects of intra-provincial production reduction are more notable than those of extra-provincial investment reduction. In addition, mitigation of Hg and As emissions can be achieved through the reduction in both intra-provincial production and extra-provincial investment. In the contrast, it is not expected that the reduction of extra-provincial investment be duo to the emission mitigation of Cd, Cr and Pb. Moreover, an examination of five optimized scenarios reveals that the most remarkable emission mitigation pathway is the reduction of intra- and extra-provincial activities. This study is an indispensable reference for multi-pathway emission mitigation for heavy metals

Dynamic wastewater-induced research based on input-output analysis for Guangdong Province, China

Large amounts of wastewater discharge have emerged as a burden in the process of industrialization and urbanization. In this study, a dynamic wastewater-induced input-output model is developed to systematically analyze the related situation. The developed model is applied to Guangdong Province, China to analyze its prominent characteristics from 2002 to 2015. Combining input-output analysis, ecological network analysis and structural decomposition analysis, the developed model reveals issues of direct and indirect discharges, relationships among various discharges, and driving forces of wastewater discharges. It is uncovered that Primary Manufacturing and Advanced Manufacturing dominate the system because of significant temporal and spatial variations in wastewater discharge. In addition, Manufacturing of paper, computer and machinery and Services are the key industries responsible for large amounts of wastewater discharge and unhealthy source-discharge relationships. The largest wastewater discharge occurred in 2005 and indirect wastewater discharge is the main form. Furthermore, final demand is found to be the biggest driving force of wastewater discharge. Finally, a three-phase policy implementation system implemented in stages proposes solutions to wastewater problems

Inter-regional carbon flows embodied in electricity transmission: network simulation for energy-carbon nexus

Energy use and CO2 emissions are inextricably linked. Energy utilization leads to an increase in CO2 emissions, which will in turn limit the formulation of energy policies and stability of energy systems. A provincial-scale Energy-Carbon Nexus Model is established to shed insight into the complicated system interactions among provinces. Specifically, different power generation types are considered to quantify the inter-provincial transfers of CO2 embodied in electricity transmission through the Multiregional Input-Output Analysis. Ecological Network Analysis is used to describe the integral mutual relationships between provinces and distinguish the control intensity of each province from different CO2 flows directions. Five new Energy-carbon emission factors are first performed to provide a more accurate assessment of the province's emissions capacity from different perspectives. Based on the theoretical basis of energy-carbon nexus, the emission reduction simulations considering energy substitution policy can be conducted to forecast the changes of provincial responsibility under different interventions. Results show that some provinces (e.g., Beijing) depend heavily on the supply of other provinces because of their low self-sufficiency rate in electricity, while some provinces (e.g., Guangdong) have high self-sufficiency rate and still emit more CO2 to other provinces to promote their own development. The importance of East China to the system cannot be ignored, but it should also undertake more responsibility for reducing emissions. However, the pace of development in Shandong will slow down because it mainly relies on coal power generation to indirectly promote the development of other provinces. What's more, importing electricity to achieve emission reduction may result in a rebound in indirect emissions and have a negative impact on the region's use of its own energy resources. This paper offers a new way to reveal details of energy-carbon interrelations across provinces and the achievements could provide references for formulating CO2 reduction policies of China electricity trading

TRIM25 Suppresses Rabies Virus Fixed HEP-Flury Strain Production by Activating RIG-1-Mediated Type I Interferons

Rabies remains a great threat to public health worldwide. So far, the mechanism of rabies virus (RABV) infection is not fully understood, and there is no effective treatment for rabies. Identifying more host restriction factors of RABV will spur the development of novel therapeutic interventions against rabies. Accumulating studies suggest that tripartite motif-containing (TRIM) proteins have great effects on virus replication. TRIMs control the antiviral responses through either direct interaction with viral proteins or indirect regulation of innate immune signaling molecules in the host. The role of TRIM25 in rabies virus (RABV) infection is poorly understood. Using next-generation sequencing, we found that TRIM25 is upregulated during HEP-Flury infection. Knockdown of TRIM25 enhances HEP-Flury production, while overexpression of TRIM25 suppresses HEP-Flury replication. Knockdown of interferon α and interferon β weakens the anti-RABV response induced by TRIM25 overexpression, and potentiates RABV production. Furthermore, we found that TRIM25 regulates type-I interferon response by targeting retinoic acid-inducible gene I (RIG-I) during HEP-Flury infection. Knockdown of RIG-I weakens the anti-HEP-Flury response induced by TRIM25 overexpression, indicating that TRIM25 regulates RABV production via the RIG-I-IFN axis. In addition, we observed that TRIM25 does not directly interact with HEP-Flury structural proteins, suggesting that TRIM25 regulates HEP-Flury production indirectly. Taken together, our work identifies TRIM25 as a new host factor involved in HEP-Flury infection, which may be a potential target for the development of antiviral drugs against RABV

Comparison of the Indicators of Psychological Stress in the Population of Hubei Province and Non-Endemic Provinces in China During Two Weeks During the Coronavirus Disease 2019 (COVID-19) Outbreak in February 2020

BACKGROUND: During February 2020, the coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) epidemic in Hubei Province, China, was at its height, requiring isolation of the population. This study aimed to compare the emotional state, somatic responses, sleep quality, and behavior of people in Hubei Province with non-endemic provinces in China during two weeks in February 2020. MATERIAL/METHODS: Questionnaires were completed by 939 individuals (357 men; 582 women), including 33 from Hubei and 906 from non-endemic provinces. The Stress Response Questionnaire (SRQ) determined the emotional state, somatic responses, and behavior. The Pittsburgh Sleep Quality Index (PSQI) was used to measure the duration of sleep and sleep quality. RESULTS: There were 939 study participants, aged 18–24 years (35.89%) and 25–39 years (35.57%); 65.92% were university students. During a two week period in February 2020, the emotional state and behavior of participants in Hubei improved, but the quality of sleep did not. Health workers and business people became increasingly anxious, but other professionals became less anxious. The data showed that most people in Hubei Province developed a more positive attitude regarding their risk of infection and the chances of surviving the COVID-19 epidemic. CONCLUSIONS: During a two-week period, front-line health workers and people in Hubei Province became less anxious about the COVID-19 epidemic, but sleep quality did not improve. Despite public awareness, levels of anxiety exist that affect the quality of life during epidemics, including periods of population quarantine. Therefore, health education should be combined with psychological counseling for vulnerable individuals