Therapeutic effects of Saikosapoin D on bleomycininduced pulmonary fibrosis in mice via regulation of IL- 33/ST2 pathway

Purpose: To investigate the therapeutic effects of saikosapoin D (SSD) on bleomycin (BLM)-induced pulmonary fibrosis (PF) in mice and its probable mechanisms.Methods: PF mice were prepared by intraperitoneal (i.p.) injection of BLM (5 mg/kg). Twenty-four hours later, 72 mice in SSD group were administered SSD (1.8 mg/kg, ip). After 3, 7, 14 and 28 days of injection, the mice were sacrificed. Blood samples and lung tissues were collected from 6 mice in each group. The lung tissues were subjected to histological examination. In addition, expressions of MyD88, TRAF6, IL-33 and ST2 in lung tissue were determined by western blotting assay. Serum levels of hydroxyproline (HYP), interleukin (IL)-4, IL-13 and interferon (IFN)-γ were measured by enzyme-linked immunosorbent assay (ELISA).Results: Pathological results showed that SSD treatment alleviated alveolitis and lung fibrosis (p < 0.05) in lung tissues of PF mice at 14 and 28 days post-BLM injection. HYP and IL-13 levels of mice in SSD group were significantly lower than that in BLM group at days 14 and 28 post-BLM injection (p < 0.05). Levels of IL-4 and IFN-γ were significantly lower when compared with values in BLM group on day 28 (p < 0.05). Western blotting results revealed that expressions of MyD88, TRAF6, IL-33 and ST2 proteins were significantly decreased by SSD treatment (p < 0.05).Conclusion: SSD exerts therapeutic effects on BLM-induced experimental PF in mice via regulation ofIL-33/ST2 pathway.Keywords: Saikosapoin D, Idiopathic pulmonary fibrosis, Myeloid differentiation factor, Hydroxyproline, Interleukin, Interferon, IL-33/ST2 pathwa

Bioconversion of wastewater from sweet potato starch production to Paenibacillus polymyxa biofertilizer for tea plants

Wastewater from the sweet potato starch industry is a large source of nutrient-rich substrates. We assessed whether this wastewater could be used to produce Paenibacillus polymyxa biofertilizer for foliar application to tea trees. Using the central composite design methods we experientially determined that the optimal culture conditions for P. polymyxa were pH, 6.5; temperature, 29.06C; and incubation time, 16 h. Under these conditions, a maximum biomass of 9.7 3 109 cfu/mL was achieved. We then conducted a yearlong field investigation to determine the effect of P. polymyxa biofertilizer on the growth of tea plants (Camellia sinensis). Tea yield, quantity of water extract, and tea polyphenol levels were significantly higher after foliar application of the biofertilizer compared to that in the controls by an average of 16.7%, 6.3%, and 10.4%, respectively. This approach appears to be technically feasible for organic tea production, and is an environmentally friendly way to utilize wastewater.Shengjun Xu, Zhihui Bai, Bo Jin3 Runlin Xiao & Guoqiang Zhuan

A high-throughput FRET-based assay for determination of Atg4 activity

Atg4 is required for cleaving Atg8, allowing it to be conjugated to phosphatidylethanolamine on phagophore membranes, a key step in autophagosome biogenesis. Deconjugation of Atg8 from autophagosomal membranes could be also a regulatory step in controlling autophagy. Therefore, the activity of Atg4 is important for autophagy and could be a target for therapeutic intervention. In this study, a sensitive and specific method to measure the activity of two Atg4 homologs in mammalian cells, Atg4A and Atg4B, was developed using a fluorescence resonance energy transfer (FRET)-based approach. Thus LC3B and GATE-16, two substrates that could be differentially cleaved by Atg4A and Atg4B, were fused with CFP and YFP at the N- and C-terminus, respectively, allowing FRET to occur. The FRET signals decreased in proportion to the Atg4-mediated cleavage, which separated the two fluorescent proteins. This method is highly efficient for measuring the enzymatic activity and kinetics of Atg4A and Atg4B under in vitro conditions. Applications of the assay indicated that the activity of Atg4B was dependent on its catalytic cysteine and expression level, but showed little changes under several common autophagy conditions. In addition, the assays displayed excellent performance in high throughput format and are suitable for screening and analysis of potential modulators. In summary, the FRET-based assay is simple and easy to use, is sensitive and specific, and is suitable for both routine measurement of Atg4 activity and high-throughput screening

DCQA: Document-Level Chart Question Answering towards Complex Reasoning and Common-Sense Understanding

Visually-situated languages such as charts and plots are omnipresent in real-world documents. These graphical depictions are human-readable and are often analyzed in visually-rich documents to address a variety of questions that necessitate complex reasoning and common-sense responses. Despite the growing number of datasets that aim to answer questions over charts, most only address this task in isolation, without considering the broader context of document-level question answering. Moreover, such datasets lack adequate common-sense reasoning information in their questions. In this work, we introduce a novel task named document-level chart question answering (DCQA). The goal of this task is to conduct document-level question answering, extracting charts or plots in the document via document layout analysis (DLA) first and subsequently performing chart question answering (CQA). The newly developed benchmark dataset comprises 50,010 synthetic documents integrating charts in a wide range of styles (6 styles in contrast to 3 for PlotQA and ChartQA) and includes 699,051 questions that demand a high degree of reasoning ability and common-sense understanding. Besides, we present the development of a potent question-answer generation engine that employs table data, a rich color set, and basic question templates to produce a vast array of reasoning question-answer pairs automatically. Based on DCQA, we devise an OCR-free transformer for document-level chart-oriented understanding, capable of DLA and answering complex reasoning and common-sense questions over charts in an OCR-free manner. Our DCQA dataset is expected to foster research on understanding visualizations in documents, especially for scenarios that require complex reasoning for charts in the visually-rich document. We implement and evaluate a set of baselines, and our proposed method achieves comparable results

Lithium manganese(II) diaqua­boro­phosphate monohydrate

The title compound, LiMn(H2O)2[BP2O8]·H2O, is built up of an open framework of helical borophosphate ribbons inter­connected by MnO4(H2O)2 octa­hedra, forming one-dimensional channels along [001] occupied by Li+ cations and disordered H2O mol­ecules (site occupancy 0.5). The Li cations reside in two partially occupied sites [occupancies = 0.42 (3) and 0.289 (13)] near the helices

A radiomics-based study of deep medullary veins in infants: Evaluation of neonatal brain injury with hypoxic-ischemic encephalopathy via susceptibility-weighted imaging

ObjectiveThe deep medullary veins (DMVs) can be evaluated using susceptibility-weighted imaging (SWI). This study aimed to apply radiomic analysis of the DMVs to evaluate brain injury in neonatal patients with hypoxic-ischemic encephalopathy (HIE) using SWI.MethodsThis study included brain magnetic resonance imaging of 190 infants with HIE and 89 controls. All neonates were born at full-term (37+ weeks gestation). To include the DMVs in the regions of interest, manual drawings were performed. A Rad-score was constructed using least absolute shrinkage and selection operator (LASSO) regression to identify the optimal radiomic features. Nomograms were constructed by combining the Rad-score with a clinically independent factor. Receiver operating characteristic curve analysis was applied to evaluate the performance of the different models. Clinical utility was evaluated using a decision curve analysis.ResultsThe combined nomogram model incorporating the Rad-score and clinical independent predictors, was better in predicting HIE (in the training cohort, the area under the curve was 0.97, and in the validation cohort, it was 0.95) and the neurologic outcomes after hypoxic-ischemic (in the training cohort, the area under the curve was 0.91, and in the validation cohort, it was 0.88).ConclusionBased on radiomic signatures and clinical indicators, we developed a combined nomogram model for evaluating neonatal brain injury associated with perinatal asphyxia

A data analysis method for isochronous mass spectrometry using two time-of-flight detectors at CSRe

The concept of isochronous mass spectrometry (IMS) applying two time-of-flight (TOF) detectors originated many years ago at GSI. However, the corresponding method for data analysis has never been discussed in detail. Recently, two TOF detectors have been installed at CSRe and the new working mode of the ring is under test. In this paper, a data analysis method for this mode is introduced and tested with a series of simulations. The results show that the new IMS method can significantly improve mass resolving power via the additional velocity information of stored ions. This improvement is especially important for nuclides with Lorentz factor $\gamma$-value far away from the transition point $\gamma _t$ of the storage ring CSRe.Comment: published in Chinese Physics C Vol. 39, No. 10 (2015) 10620

Left and right ventricular myocardial deformation and late gadolinium enhancement:incremental prognostic value in amyloid light-chain amyloidosis

Background: Previous cardiac magnetic resonance (CMR) studies have shown that both late gadolinium enhancement (LGE) and left ventricular (LV) strain have prognostic value in amyloid light-chain (AL) amyloidosis, but the right ventricular (RV) strain has not yet been studied. We aim to determine the incremental prognostic value of LV and RV LGE and strain in AL amyloidosis. Methods: This prospective study recruited 87 patients (age, 56.9 +/- 9.1 years; M/F, 56/31) and 20 healthy subjects (age, 52.7 +/- 8.1 years; M/F, 11/9) who underwent CMR. The LV LGE was classified into no, patchy and global groups. The RV LGE was classified into negative and positive groups. Myocardial deformation was measured using a dedicated software. Follow-up was performed for all-cause mortality using Cox proportional hazards regression and Kaplan-Meier curves. Results: During a median follow-up of 21 months, 34 deaths occurred. Presence of LV LGE [HR 2.44, 95% confidence interval (CI), 1.10-5.45, P=0.029] and global longitudinal strain (GLS) (HR 1.13 per 1% absolute decrease, 95% CI, 1.02-1.25, P=0.025) were independent LV predictors. RV LGE (HR 4.07, 95% CI, 1.09-15.24, P=0.037) and GLS (HR 1.10 per 1% absolute decrease, 95% CI, 1.00-1.21, P=0.047) were independent RV predictors. Complementary to LV LGE, LV GLS impairment or RV LGE further reduced survival (both log rank P Conclusions: This study confirms the incremental prognostic value of LV GLS and RV LGE in AL amyloidosis, which refines the conventional risk evaluation based on LV LGE. GLS based on non-contrast-enhanced CMR are promising new predictors