Baicalein inhibits acinar-to-ductal metaplasia of pancreatic acinal cell AR42J via improving the inflammatory microenvironment

Pancreatic ductal adenocarcinoma (PDAC) is one of the most aggressive cancers. Recent research has demonstrated that chronic pancreatitis (CP) is associated with an increased risk of PDAC, partly due to acinar-to-ductal metaplasia (ADM). Baicalein has been shown to exert anti-inflammatory and anti-tumor effects for CP or PDAC, respectively. The aim of our study was to investigate the effect of baicalein, and the putative underlying mechanism, on inflammatory cytokines-induced ADM of rat pancreatic acinar cell line AR42J. To investigate ADM and baicalein effects in vitro, AR42J were treated with recombinant rat Tumor Necrosis Factor alpha (rTNFα) with or without baicalein for 5 days. Results showed that rTNFα-induced AR42J cells switched their phenotype from dominantly amylase-positive acinar cells to dominantly cytokeratin 19-positive ductal cells. Moreover, expression of the transcripts for TNFα or Hes-1, a Notch target, was up-regulated in these cells. Interestingly, baicalein reduced the population of ADM as well as cytokines gene expression but not Hes-1. Baicalein inhibited NF-κB activation induced by rTNFα in AR42J, but no effect on Notch 1activation. Moreover, baicalein suppressed the secretion of TNFα and Nitric Oxide (NO) in macrophages stimulated with LPS and further inhibited ADM of conditional medium-treated AR42J cells. Baicalein also suppressed the inflammatory response of LPS-activated macrophages, thereby inhibited ADM of AR42J by altering their microenvironment. Taken together, our study indicates that baicalein reduces rTNFα-induced ADM of AR42J cells by inhibiting NF-κB activation. It also sheds new light on Chinese material medica therapy of pancreatitis and thereby prevention of PDAC

Investigation of preoperative physical activity level in kidney transplant recipients and its impact on early postoperative recovery: A retrospective cohort study

ObjectiveTo retrospectively investigate the preoperative physical activity (PA) level in kidney transplant recipients (KTRs) and its impact on early postoperative recovery.MethodsA total of 113 patients who received kidney transplantation at West China Hospital of Sichuan University were enrolled in this retrospective cohort study. According to the PA level measured by the Chinese version of the International Physical Activity Questionnaire—Long Version, the patients were allocated into the low PA level group (Group L, n = 55) and medium to high PA level group (Group MH, n = 58). The kidney function recovery indicators, including estimated glomerular filtration rate (eGFR), postoperative complications, postoperative length of stay (LOS), and unscheduled readmission within three months of discharge, were evaluated and documented. A association analysis was applied to analyze and compare the association between indicators.ResultsThe median PA levels of the KTRs were 1701.0 MTEs * min/week. Regarding the postoperative recovery indicators, the KTRs spent a mean time of 19.63 h to achieve transfer out of bed after the operation (Group L: 19.67 h; Group MH: 19.53 h; P = 0.952) and reached a mean distance of 183.10 m as the best ambulatory training score within two days after the operation (Group L: 134.91 m; Group MH: 228.79 m; P < 0.001). The preoperative PA level showed a moderate positive association with early postoperative ambulation distance (ρ = 0.497, P < 0.001). However, no significant between-group difference in eGFR on postoperative days 1, 3, and 5 (P = 0.913, 0.335, and 0.524) or postoperative complications, including DGF (P = 0.436), infection (P = 0.479), postoperative LOS (P = 0.103), and unscheduled readmission (P = 0.698), was found.ConclusionsThe preoperative PA level of KTRs is lower than that of the general population. KTRs with moderate or high preoperative PA levels showed higher ambulatory function in the early postoperative period than those with low preoperative PA levels, but no between-group differences in other early recovery indicators were observed

A SWAP Gate for Spin Qubits in Silicon

With one- and two-qubit gate fidelities approaching the fault-tolerance threshold for spin qubits in silicon, how to scale up the architecture and make large arrays of spin qubits become the more pressing challenges. In a scaled-up structure, qubit-to-qubit connectivity has crucial impact on gate counts of quantum error correction and general quantum algorithms. In our toolbox of quantum gates for spin qubits, SWAP gate is quite versatile: it can help solve the connectivity problem by realizing both short- and long-range spin state transfer, and act as a basic two-qubit gate, which can reduce quantum circuit depth when combined with other two-qubit gates. However, for spin qubits in silicon quantum dots, high fidelity SWAP gates have not been demonstrated due to the requirements of large circuit bandwidth and a highly adjustable ratio between the strength of the exchange coupling J and the Zeeman energy difference Delta E_z. Here we demonstrate a fast SWAP gate with a duration of ~25 ns based on quantum dots in isotopically enriched silicon, with a highly adjustable ratio between J and Delta E_z, for over two orders of magnitude in our device. We are also able to calibrate the single-qubit local phases during the SWAP gate by incorporating single-qubit gates in our circuit. By independently reading out the qubits, we probe the anti-correlations between the two spins, estimate the operation fidelity and analyze the dominant error sources for our SWAP gate. These results pave the way for high fidelity SWAP gates, and processes based on them, such as quantum communication on chip and quantum simulation by engineering the Heisenberg Hamiltonian in silicon.Comment: 25 pages, 5 figures

Single spin qubit geometric gate in a silicon quantum dot

Preserving qubit coherence and maintaining high-fidelity qubit control under complex noise environment is an enduring challenge for scalable quantum computing. Here we demonstrate an addressable fault-tolerant single spin qubit with an average control fidelity of 99.12% via randomized benchmarking on a silicon quantum dot device with an integrated micromagnet. Its dephasing time T2* is 1.025 us and can be enlarged to 264 us by using the Hahn echo technique, reflecting strong low-frequency noise in our system. To break through the noise limitation, we introduce geometric quantum computing to obtain high control fidelity by exploiting its noise-resilient feature. However, the control fidelities of the geometric quantum gates are lower than 99%. According to our simulation, the noise-resilient feature of geometric quantum gates is masked by the heating effect. With further optimization to alleviate the heating effect, geometric quantum computing can be a potential approach to reproducibly achieving high-fidelity qubit control in a complex noise environment.Comment: 10 pages, 8 figures

Transcriptome sequencing reveals the effects of circRNA on testicular development and spermatogenesis in Qianbei Ma goats

Circular RNAs (circRNAs) play an important role in regulating the mammalian reproductive system, especially testicular development and spermatogenesis. However, their functions in testicular development and spermatogenesis in the Qianbei Ma goat, the Guizhou endemic breed are still unclear. In this study, tissue sectioning and circRNAs transcriptome analysis were conducted to compare the changes of morphology and circular RNAs gene expression profile at four different developmental stages (0Y, 0-month-old; 6Y, 6-month-old; 12Y, 12-month-old; 18Y, 18-month-old). The results showed that the circumferences and area of the seminiferous tubule gradually increased with age, and the lumen of the seminiferous tubule in the testis differentiated significantly. 12,784 circRNAs were detected from testicular tissues at four different developmental stages by RNA sequencing, and 8,140 DEcircRNAs (differentially expressed circRNAs) were found in 0Y vs. 6Y, 6Y vs. 12Y, 12Y vs. 18Y and 0Y vs. 18Y, 0Y vs. 12Y, 6Y vs. 18Y Functional enrichment analysis of the source genes showed that they were mainly enriched in testicular development and spermatogenesis. In addition, the miRNAs and mRNAs associated with DECircRNAs in 6 control groups were predicted by bioinformatics, and 81 highly expressed DECircRNAs and their associated miRNAs and mRNAs were selected to construct the ceRNA network. Through functional enrichment analysis of the target genes of circRNAs in the network, some candidate circRNAs related to testicular development and spermatogenesis were obtained. Such as circRNA_07172, circRNA_04859, circRNA_07832, circRNA_00032 and circRNA_07510. These results will help to reveal the mechanism of circRNAs in testicular development and spermatogenesis, and also provide some guidance for goat reproduction

ICMC-ASR: The ICASSP 2024 In-Car Multi-Channel Automatic Speech Recognition Challenge

To promote speech processing and recognition research in driving scenarios, we build on the success of the Intelligent Cockpit Speech Recognition Challenge (ICSRC) held at ISCSLP 2022 and launch the ICASSP 2024 In-Car Multi-Channel Automatic Speech Recognition (ICMC-ASR) Challenge. This challenge collects over 100 hours of multi-channel speech data recorded inside a new energy vehicle and 40 hours of noise for data augmentation. Two tracks, including automatic speech recognition (ASR) and automatic speech diarization and recognition (ASDR) are set up, using character error rate (CER) and concatenated minimum permutation character error rate (cpCER) as evaluation metrics, respectively. Overall, the ICMC-ASR Challenge attracts 98 participating teams and receives 53 valid results in both tracks. In the end, first-place team USTCiflytek achieves a CER of 13.16% in the ASR track and a cpCER of 21.48% in the ASDR track, showing an absolute improvement of 13.08% and 51.4% compared to our challenge baseline, respectively.Comment: Accepted at ICASSP 202

Protective Effects of Total Glycoside From Rehmannia glutinosa Leaves on Diabetic Nephropathy Rats via Regulating the Metabolic Profiling and Modulating the TGF-β1 and Wnt/β-Catenin Signaling Pathway

Rehmannia glutinosa Libosch (RG), is officially listed in the Chinese Pharmacopoeia and is widely used in China. The leaves of RG (LR) is an important vegetative organ of the plant. At present, the total glycosides of RG (TLR) were extracted from RG, and developed a national second class of new drugs to the Dihuangye total glycoside capsule (DTG). Additionally, DTG has the effect of nourishing yin and tonifying kidney, promoting blood circulation and blood cooling, and applicable to chronic glomerulonephritis mild to Qi and Yin Deficiency. Moreover, diabetic nephropathy (DN) rats model was induced by intraperitoneal injection of a small dose of streptozotocin (45 mg/kg) and high-fat diet and plus 5% glucose drinking water. Over 15 days, after oral administration TLR and DTG in DN rats, samples from serum, urine and kidney were collected for biochemical indicators measurements, pathological analysis, western blotting and metabolomics. Therefore, the analytical results of biochemical indicators, histopathological observations and western blotting showed that TLR and DTG exhibited a significant effect in renal protection. And 27 endogenous metabolites (12 in serum and 15 in urine) could be tentatively identified in the process of DN in rats using metabolomics method. Those endogenous metabolites were chiefly involved in sphingolipid metabolism; pentose, glucuronate interconversion; terpenoid backbone biosynthesis; purine metabolism and retinol metabolism. After drug intervention, these endogenous metabolites turned back to normal level some extent (P < 0.05). Furthermore, TLR and DTG prevent high glucose-induced glomerular mesangial cells (GMCs) by inhibiting TGF-β1 and Wnt/β-catenin signaling pathway, providing a powerful supports to develop a new therapeutic agent for DN. This study paved the way for further exploration of the pathogenesis of DN, early diagnosis and the evaluation of curative effect

Optical Fibre Sensors for Monitoring Phase Transitions in Phase Changing Materials

A platinum coated singlemode-multimode (SM) structure is investigated in this paper as an optical fibre sensor (OFS) to monitor the phase transition of a phase change material (PCM). Paraffin wax has been used as an example to demonstrate the sensor\u27s performance and operation. Most materials have the same temperature but different thermal energy levels during the phase change process, therefore, sole dependency on temperature measurement may lead to an incorrect estimation of the stored energy in PCM. The output spectrum of the reflected light from the OFS is very sensitive to the bend introduced by the PCM where both liquid and solid states exist during the phase transition. The measurement of strain experienced by the OFS during the phase change of the PCM is utilized for identifying the phase transition of paraffin wax between the solid and liquid states. The experimental results presented in this paper show that the OFS with a shorter multimode fibre section has better performance for monitoring the phase transition of paraffin wax with a measured phase transition temperature range of 41.5 °C–57.7 °C for the SM based OFS with a 5 mm long multimode fibre section