Effects of Fermented Milk with Live Bifidobacterium lactis Y6 on Intestinal Health in People with Digestive Dysfunction

To investigate the effects of administering fermented milk with live Bifidobacterium lactis Y6 on intestinal health in people with digestive dysfunction, a dietary intervention experiment was conducted. Volunteers with digestive problems were selected to consume 200 mL Y6 fermented milk daily for 4 weeks. Clinical scores were performed before and after the intervention, the Illumina PE300 sequencing platform was used to perform high-throughput sequencing of 16S rDNA PCR product fragments of fecal microorganisms in volunteers, the content of short-chain fatty acids (SCFAs) in feces was determined using gas chromatography. The results showed that drinking Y6 fermented milk had a significant improvement on clinical symptoms caused by digestive dysfunction (P<0.01). High-throughput sequencing results showed that drinking Y6 fermented milk had significant effect on the composition of gut microbiota rather than the diversity and richness. The relative abundance of beneficial bacteria Akkermansia, Collinse and Erysipelotrichaceae_UCG_003 genera increased while the harmful bacteria Lachnoclostridium genera reduced. The contents of intestinal SCFAs (acetic acid, propionic acid and butyric acid) increased significantly (P<0.05). The intervention of fermented milk with live Bifidobacterium lactis Y6 can significantly improve the intestinal health of people with digestive dysfunction, providing a theoretical basis for the application of Y6 strains

Hypoxia-Regulated miR-146a Targets Cell Adhesion Molecule 2 to Promote Proliferation, Migration, and Invasion of Clear Cell Renal Cell Carcinoma

Background/Aims: miR-146a has recently been shown to promote cell proliferation, migration, and invasion in many cancers, but the role of miR-146a in clear cell renal cell carcinoma (ccRCC) remains unclear. Methods: Reverse transcription quantitative PCR (RT-qPCR) was performed to investigate the mRNA expression of miR-146a and CADM2 in ccRCC tissues. The luciferase reporter assay, Western blotting, and ChIP assay were carried out to explore the promoter and the transcription factor of miR-146a. Moreover, the effect of miR-146a and CADM2 on ccRCC cells was explored using methyl thiazolyl tetrazolium, colony formation, and migration and invasion assays. The luciferase reporter assay, RT-qPCR, western blotting, and immunofluorescence assay were carried out to investigate whether CADM2 is directly regulated by miR-146a. A tumor xenograft model and immunohistochemical staining were used to examine the carcinogenic effect of miR-146a and CADM2 in vivo. Results: miR-146a has been shown to promote cell proliferation, migration, and invasion. Here, we found that miR-146a is highly expressed in ccRCC tissues, whereas CADM2 is down-regulated. Hypoxia can induce the expression of miR-146a by stimulating its promoter. In addition, we demonstrated that miR-146a promoted and CADM2 inhibited proliferation, migration, and invasion of ccRCC cells. The 3’ untranslated region (UTR) luciferase reporter assay identified that miR-146a targeted the 3’ UTR of CADM2 and negatively regulated its expression. Ectopic expression of CADM2 counteracted the promoting effect of miR-146a on cell proliferation, migration, invasion, and the epithelial–mesenchymal transition process. Conclusion: Together, the finding of down-regulation of CADM2 by miR-146a can provide new insights into ccRCC pathogenesis and might contribute to the development of novel therapeutic strategies

Vertical Interface Induced Dielectric Relaxation in Nanocomposite (BaTiO3)1-x:(Sm2O3)x Thin Films

Vertical interfaces in vertically aligned nanocomposite thin films have been approved to be an effective method to manipulate functionalities. However, several challenges with regard to the understanding on the physical process underlying the manipulation still remain. In this work, because of the ordered interfaces and large interfacial area, heteroepitaxial (BaTiO(3))(1-x):(Sm(2)O(3))(x) thin films have been fabricated and used as a model system to investigate the relationship between vertical interfaces and dielectric properties. Due to a relatively large strain generated at the interfaces, vertical interfaces between BaTiO(3) and Sm(2)O(3) are revealed to become the sinks to attract oxygen vacancies. The movement of oxygen vacancies is confined at the interfaces and hampered by the misfit dislocations, which contributed to a relaxation behavior in (BaTiO(3))(1-x):(Sm(2)O(3))(x) thin films. This work represents an approach to further understand that how interfaces influence on dielectric properties in oxide thin films

Oxygen-vacancy-mediated dielectric property in perovskite Eu0.5Ba0.5TiO3-δ epitaxial thin films

Dielectric relaxation in ABO3 perovskite oxides can result from many different charge carrier-related phenomena. Despite a strong understanding of dielectric relaxations, a detailed investigation of the relationship between the content of oxygen vacancies (VO) and dielectric relaxation has not been performed in perovskite oxide films. In this work, we report a systematic investigation of the influence of the VO concentration on the dielectric relaxation of Eu0.5Ba0.5TiO3-δ epitaxial thin films. Nuclear resonance backscattering spectrometry was used to directly measure the oxygen concentration in Eu0.5Ba0.5TiO3-δ films. We found that dipolar defects created by VO interact with the off-centered Ti ions, which results in the dielectric relaxation in Eu0.5Ba0.5TiO3-δ films. Activation energy gradually increases with the increasing content of VO. The present work significantly extends our understanding of relaxation properties in oxide films

Pseudo-relaxor behavior in 0.35La(2)O(3)-0.65Nb(2)O(5) glass prepared by aerodynamic levitation method

0.35La(2)O(3)-0.65Nb(2)O(5) glasses were prepared by aerodynamic levitation method. The dielectric properties of the sample were investigated as a function of temperature (30-700 degrees C) in the frequency range from 100 Hz to 1 MHz. The glasses show a temperature and frequency-independent dielectric constant of 40 below 200 degrees C. A relaxor-like behavior was observed above 200 degrees C, which was found to be composed of two relaxations with the activation energy of 1.32 eV and 1.3 eV for the low- and high temperature relaxations, respectively. Impedance analysis reveals that the low-temperature relaxation is a conduction relaxation associated with hopping motion of oxygen ions and the high-temperature one is a Maxwell-Wagner relaxation associated with phase boundary. The relaxor-like behavior is attributed to the combining effect of both relaxations. (C) d2016 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved

Boosting the Humidity Performances of Na0.5BixTiO3 by Tuning Bi Content

In the field of humidity sensors, a major challenge is how to improve the sensing performance of existing materials. Based on our previous work on Na0.5Bi0.5TiO3, a facile strategy of tuning the Bi content in the material was proposed to improve its sensing performance. Na0.5BixTiO3 (x = 0.3, 0.35, 0.4, 0.45) nanocomposites were synthesized by a hydrothermal method. Humidity sensing properties of these nanocomposites were investigated in the relative humidity range of 11% to 95%. Our results show that, compared to the sensor based on nominally pure sample (Na0.5Bi0.5TiO3), the sensor based on Na0.5Bi0.35TiO3 exhibits boosted sensing performance of excellent linear humidity response in the humidity range of 11&ndash;75% relative humidity, lower hysteresis value, and faster response/recovery time. The improvement of the sensing performance was argued to be the reason that the proper reduction in Bi content leads to a minimum value of oxygen-vacancy concentrations, thereby weakening the chemical adsorption but enhancing the physical adsorption. These results indicate that the proper underdose of the Bi content in Na0.5Bi0.5TiO3 can greatly boost the sensing performance

Synergistic Piezo-Photocatalysis of BiOCl/NaNbO₃ Heterojunction Piezoelectric Composite for High-Efficient Organic Pollutant Degradation

Piezo-photocatalytic technique is a new-emerging strategy to alleviate photoinduced charge recombination and thus enhance catalytic performance. The heterojunction construction engineering is a powerful approach to improve photocatalytic performance. Herein, the BiOCl/NaNbO3 with different molar ratios piezoelectric composites were successfully synthesized by hydrothermal methods. The piezo/photodegradation rate (k value) of Rhodamine B (RhB) for BiOCl/NaNbO3 (BN-3, 0.0192 min−1) is 2.2 and 5.2 times higher than that of BiOCl (0.0089 min−1) and NaNbO3 (0.0037 min−1), respectively. The enhanced performance of BN-3 composite can be attributed to the heterojunction construction between BiOCl and NaNbO3. In addition, the piezo/photodecomposition ratio of RhB for BN-3 (87.4%) is 8.8 and 2.2 times higher than that of piezocatalysis (9.9%) and photocatalysis (40.4%), respectively. We further investigated the mechanism of piezocatalysis, photocatalysis, and their synergy effect of BN-3 composite. This study favors an in-depth understanding of piezo-photocatalysis, providing a new strategy to improve the environmental pollutant remediation efficiency of piezoelectric composites

A Flexible, Wearable, Humidity‐Resistant and Self‐Powered Sensor Fabricated by Chitosan‐Critic Acid Film and its Applications in Human Motion Monitoring and Energy Harvesting

Abstract Being a resource‐abundant natural material, chitosan shows good frictional electrical properties and has become one of the most used materials for triboelectric nanogenerators (TENGs). To improve water resistance and mechanical properties, herein, a strategy is proposed to modify the chitosan film by citric acid. The results show that both humidity‐resistant and mechanical properties of the modified films can be notably enhanced due to the formation of a network structure between chitosan molecular chains. Excellent output performance of 77.5 V and 2.66 µA is achieved in the TENG based on the modified film with a mass ratio of chitosan/citric acid = 3:1. Under a relative humidity (RH) of 80%RH, it can output 70.16% of the voltage compared to that under 20%RH. Self‐powered tactile sensor based on the TENG exhibits a sensitive response to pressure and bending and humidity resistance, giving the sensor tremendous promise for a wider range of human motion monitoring and energy harvesting