2,784 research outputs found
Association of obesity with the development of end stage renal disease in IgA nephropathy patients
Background and aimImmunoglobulin A nephropathy (IgAN) is the most common primary glomerulonephritis worldwide. We aimed to evaluate whether obesity is a risk factor for IgAN patients.MethodsA total of 1054 biopsy-proven IgAN patients were analyzed in this retrospective study. Patients were divided into four groups according to their body weight index (BMI) at the period of renal biopsy: underweight group (BMI< 18.5, N=75), normal weight group (18.5â¤BMI<24, N=587), overweight group (24â¤BMI<28, N=291) and obesity group (28â¤BMI, N=101). The endpoint of our study was end stage renal disease (ESRD: eGFR <15 mL/min/1.73 m2 or having renal replacement treatment). Kaplan-Meier analyses and Cox proportional hazard models were performed to evaluate renal survival. Propensity-score matching (PSM) was performed to get the matched cohort to evaluate the role of obesity in IgAN patients. Besides, the effect modification of obesity and hypertension in IgAN patients was clarified by the synergy index.ResultsIgAN patients complicated with obesity had more severe renal dysfunction at the time of renal biopsy than those with optimal body weight. In addition, patients with obesity tended to have higher risk of metabolic disorders, such as hyperuricemia (64.4% vs 37%, p<0.001), hypertriglyceridemia (71.3% vs 32.5%, p<0.001) and hypercholesterolemia (46.5% vs 35.6%, p=0.036). It was observed that obesity patients had higher rate of unhealthy behaviors, such as smoking (27.7% vs 16.4%, p=0.006) and alcohol drinking (29.7% vs 19.9%, p=0.027). Although obesity was not confirmed as an independent risk factor for IgAN patients, we found that IgAN patients with obesity presented with higher incidence of hypertension, as well as lower event-free renal survival rate (log-rank p < 0.001), especially in patients with 24-h urine protein ⼠1g (log-rank p =0.002). In addition, the synergy index showed that there was positive interaction between obesity and hypertension in IgAN.ConclusionObesity is an important risk factor for IgAN patients when combined with hypertension. Hypertension appears to be common in obese IgAN patients
Abietane Diterpenoids and a Lignan from Pinus yunnanensis
Two new abietane diterpene acids, pinyunins A (1) and B (2), a new lignan, 2-[2-hydroxy-5-(3-hydroxypropyl)-3-methoxyphenyl]-1-(2,3-dihydroxyphenyl)propane-1,3-diol (3), and eight known diterpenoids (4 -11) were isolated from the bark of Pinus yunnanensis Franch. Their structures were elucidated by spectroscopic methods. Compounds 1 -3 exhibited high inhibitions on Cox-2 (> 80 %) and low inhibitions on Cox-1 (< 50 %), showing the trend of selective inhibition of Cox-2, while the positive controls NS-398 (Cox-2) and SC-560 (Cox-1) gave inhibitions of 97.09 % and 61.30 %, respectively. Compounds 1 -11 were evaluated for their cytotoxicity against five human cancer cell lines with Cisplatin as a positive control
Major Population Expansion of East Asians Began before Neolithic Time: Evidence of mtDNA Genomes
It is a major question in archaeology and anthropology whether human populations started to grow primarily after the advent of agriculture, i.e., the Neolithic time, especially in East Asia, which was one of the centers of ancient agricultural civilization. To answer this question requires an accurate estimation of the time of lineage expansion as well as that of population expansion in a population sample without ascertainment bias. In this study, we analyzed all available mtDNA genomes of East Asians ascertained by random sampling, a total of 367 complete mtDNA sequences generated by the 1000 Genome Project, including 249 Chinese (CHB, CHD, and CHS) and 118 Japanese (JPT). We found that major mtDNA lineages underwent expansions, all of which, except for two JPT-specific lineages, including D4, D4b2b, D4a, D4j, D5a2a, A, N9a, F1a1'4, F2, B4, B4a, G2a1 and M7b1'2'4, occurred before 10 kya, i.e., before the Neolithic time (symbolized by Dadiwan Culture at 7.9 kya) in East Asia. Consistent to this observation, the further analysis showed that the population expansion in East Asia started at 13 kya and lasted until 4 kya. The results suggest that the population growth in East Asia constituted a need for the introduction of agriculture and might be one of the driving forces that led to the further development of agriculture
The Mesozoic magmatic, metamorphic, and tectonic evolution of the eastern Gangdese magmatic arc, southern Tibet
Magmatic arcs are natural laboratories for studying the growth of continental crusts. The Gangdese arc, southern Tibet, is an archetypal continental magmatic arc that formed due to Mesozoic subduction of the Neo-Tethyan oceanic lithosphere; however, its formation and evolution remain controversial. In this contribution, we combine newly reported and previously published geochemical and geochronological data for Mesozoic magmatic rocks in the eastern Gangdese arc to reveal its magmatic and metamorphic histories and review its growth, thickening, and fractionation and mineralization processes. Our results show that: (1) the Gangdese arc consists of multiple Mesozoic arc-type magmatic rocks and records voluminous juvenile crustal growth. (2) The Mesozoic magmatic rocks experienced Late Cretaceous granulite-facies metamorphism and partial melting, thus producing hydrous and metallogenic element-rich migmatites that form a major component of the lower arc crust and are a potential source for the Miocene ore-hosting porphyries. (3) The Gangdese arc witnessed crustal thickening and reworking during the Middle to Late Jurassic and Late Cretaceous. (4) Crystallization-fractionation of mantle-derived magmas and partial melting of thickened juvenile lower crust induced intracrustal chemical differentiation during subduction. We suggest that the Gangdese arc underwent the following main tectonic, magmatic, and metamorphic evolution processes: normal subduction and associated mantle-derived magmatism during the Late Triassic to Jurassic; shallow subduction during the Early Cretaceous and an associated magmatic lull; and mid-oceanic ridge subduction, high-temperature metamorphism and an associated magmatic flare-up during the early Late Cretaceous, and flat subduction, high-temperature and high-pressure metamorphism, partial melting, and associated crust-derived magmatism during the late Late Cretaceous. Key issues for further research include the temporal and spatial distributions of Mesozoic magmatic rocks, the evolution of the components and compositions of arc crust over time, and the metallogenic processes that occur in such environments during subduction
Efficient organic solar cells enabled by simple non-fused electron donors with low synthetic complexity
Abstract Fusedâring electron donors boost the efficiency of organic solar cells (OSCs), but they suffer from high cost and low yield for their large synthetic complexity (SC > 30%). Herein, the authors develop a series of simple nonâfusedâring electron donors, PF1 and PF2, which alternately consist of furanâ3âcarboxylate and 2,2â˛âbithiophene. Note that PF1 and PF2 present very small SC of 9.7% for their inexpensive raw materials, facile synthesis, and high synthetic yield. Compared to their allâthiopheneâbackbone counterpart PTâE, two new polymers feature larger conjugated plane, resulting in higher hole mobility for them, especially a value up to â10 â4 cm 2 V â1 ¡s for PF2 with longer alkyl side chain. Meanwhile, PF1 and PF2 exhibit larger dielectric constant and deeper electronic energy level versus PTâE. Benefiting from the better physicochemical properties, the efficiencies of PF1â and PF2âbased devices are improved by â16.7% and â71.3% relative to that PTâEâbased devices, respectively. Furthermore, the optimized PF2âbased devices with introducing PC 71 BM as the third component deliver a higher efficiency of 12.40%. The work not only indicates that furanâ3âcarboxylate is a simple yet efficient building block for constructing nonâfusedâring polymers but also provides a promising electron donor PF2 for the lowâcost production of OSCs.A simple structure nonâfusedâring electron donor PF2 alternately consisting of furanâ3âcarboxylate and 2,2â˛âbithiophene presents very small synthetic complexity of 9.7% as well as low material cost of â19.0 $ g â1 . More importantly, PF2 delivers a high efficiency of 12.4% coupled with strong operational stability. imag
The Physical Properties of Star-Forming Galaxies with Strong [O III] Lines at z=3.25
We present an analysis of physical properties of 34 [O III] emission-line
galaxies (ELGs) at z=3.2540.029 in the Extended Chandra Deep Field South
(ECDFS). These ELGs are selected from deep narrow H2S(1) and broad Ks imaging
of 383 arcmin obtained with CFHT/WIRCam. We construct spectral energy
distributions (SEDs) from U to Ks to derive the physical properties of ELGs.
These [O III] ELGs are identified as starburst galaxies with strong [O III]
lines of L([O III]) ~ 10 - 10 erg s, and have stellar
masses of M* ~ 10-10 M and star formation rates of ~
10-210 M yr. Our results show that 24% of our sample galaxies
are dusty with Av > 1 mag and EW(OIII) ~ 70-500 , which are often
missed in optically selected [O III] ELG samples. Their rest-frame UV and
optical morphologies from HST/ACS and HST/WFC3 deep imaging reveal that these
[O III] ELGs are mostly multiple-component systems (likely mergers) or compact.
And 20% of them are nearly invisible in the rest-frame UV owing to heavy dust
attenuation. Interestingly, we find that our samples reside in an overdensity
consisting of two components: one southeast (SE) with an overdensity factor of
~ 41 over a volume of 13 cMpc and the other
northwest (NW) with ~ 38 over a volume of 10 cMpc.
The two overdense substructures are expected to be virialized at z=0 with a
total mass of ~ 1.1 x 10 M and ~ 4.8 x 10 M, and
probably merge into a Coma-like galaxy cluster.Comment: 22 pages, 11 figures, 3 tables. Accepted for publication in Ap
Identification of potential key genes associated with severe pneumonia using mRNA-seq
This study aimed to identify the potential key genes associated with severe pneumonia using mRNA-seq. Nine peripheral blood samples from patients with severe pneumonia alone (SP group, n=3) and severe pneumonia accompanied with chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD; CSP group, n=3), as well as volunteers without pneumonia (control group, n=3) underwent mRNA-seq. Based on the sequencing data, differentially expressed genes (DEGs) were identified by Limma package. Following the pathway enrichment analysis of DEGs, the genes that were differentially expressed in the SP and CSP groups were selected for pathway enrichment analysis and coexpression analysis. In addition, potential genes related to pneumonia were identified based on the information in the Comparative Toxicogenomics Database. In total, 645 and 528 DEGs were identified in the SP and CSP groups, respectively, compared with the normal controls. Among these DEGs, 88 upregulated genes and 80 downregulated genes were common between the two groups. The functions of the common DEGs were similar to those of the DEGs in the SP group. In the coexpression network, the commonly downregulated genes (including ND1, ND3, ND4L, and ND6) and the commonly upregulated genes (including TSPY6P and CDY10P) exhibited a higher degree. In addition, 131 DEGs (including ND1, ND3, ND6, MIR449A and TAS2R43) were predicted to be potential pneumonia-related genes. In conclusion, the present study demonstrated that the common DEGs may be associated with the progression of severe pneumonia
Systematic biases in determining dust attenuation curves through galaxy SED fitting
While the slope of the dust attenuation curve () is found to
correlate with effective dust attenuation () as obtained through spectral
energy distribution (SED) fitting, it remains unknown how the fitting
degeneracies shape this relation. We examine the degeneracy effects by fitting
SEDs of a sample of local star-forming galaxies (SFGs) selected from the Galaxy
And Mass Assembly survey, in conjunction with mock galaxy SEDs of known
attenuation parameters. A well-designed declining starburst star formation
history is adopted to generate model SED templates with intrinsic UV slope
() spanning over a reasonably wide range. The best-fitting
for our sample SFGs shows a wide coverage, dramatically differing from the
limited range of for a starburst of constant star formation. Our
results show that strong degeneracies between , , and in
the SED fitting induce systematic biases leading to a false --
correlation. Our simulation tests reveal that this relationship can be well
reproduced even when a flat -- relation is taken to build the
input model galaxy SEDs. The variations in best-fitting are dominated
by the fitting errors. We show that assuming a starburst with constant star
formation in SED fitting will result in a steeper attenuation curve, smaller
degeneracy errors, and a stronger -- relation. Our findings
confirm that the -- relation obtained through SED fitting is
likely driven by the systematic biases induced by the fitting degeneracies
between , , and .Comment: 21 pages, 13 figures, accepted for publication in the MNRAS, Comments
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