Inhibition of RhoA-Subfamily GTPases Suppresses Schwann Cell Proliferation Through Regulating AKT Pathway Rather Than ROCK Pathway

Inhibiting RhoA-subfamily GTPases by C3 transferase is widely recognized as a prospective strategy to enhance axonal regeneration. When C3 transferase is administered for treating the injured peripheral nerves, Schwann cells (SCs, important glial cells in peripheral nerve) are inevitably impacted and therefore SC bioeffects on nerve regeneration might be influenced. However, the potential role of C3 transferase on SCs remains elusive. Assessed by cell counting, EdU and water-soluble tetrazolium salt-1 (WST-1) assays as well as western blotting with PCNA antibody, herein we first found that CT04 (a cell permeable C3 transferase) treatment could significantly suppress SC proliferation. Unexpectedly, using Y27632 to inhibit ROCK (the well-accepted downstream signal molecule of RhoA subfamily) did not impact SC proliferation. Further studies indicated that CT04 could inactivate AKT pathway by altering the expression levels of phosphorylated AKT (p-AKT), PI3K and PTEN, while activating AKT pathway by IGF-1 or SC79 could reverse the inhibitory effect of CT04 on SC proliferation. Based on present data, we concluded that inhibition of RhoA-subfamily GTPases could suppress SC proliferation, and this effect is independent of conventional ROCK pathway but involves inactivation of AKT pathway

Ascorbic Acid Facilitates Neural Regeneration After Sciatic Nerve Crush Injury

Ascorbic acid (AA) is an essential micronutrient that has been safely used in the clinic for many years. The present study indicates that AA has an unexpected function in facilitating nerve regeneration. Using a mouse model of sciatic nerve crush injury, we found that AA can significantly accelerate axonal regrowth in the early stage [3 days post-injury (dpi)], a finding that was revealed by immunostaining and Western blotting for antibodies against GAP-43 and SCG10. On day 28 post-injury, histomorphometric assessments demonstrated that AA treatment increased the density, size, and remyelination of regenerated axons in the injured nerve and alleviated myoatrophy in the gastrocnemius. Moreover, the results from various behavioral tests and electrophysiological assays revealed that nerve injury-derived functional defects in motor and sensory behavior as well as in nerve conduction were significantly attenuated by treatment with AA. The potential mechanisms of AA in nerve regeneration were further explored by investigating the effects of AA on three types of cells involved in this process [neurons, Schwann cells (SCs) and macrophages] through a series of experiments. Overall, the data illustrated that AA treatment in cultured dorsal root ganglionic neurons resulted in increased neurite growth and lower expression of RhoA, which is an important inhibitory factor in neural regeneration. In SCs, proliferation, phagocytosis, and neurotrophin expression were all enhanced by AA. Meanwhile, AA treatment also improved proliferation, migration, phagocytosis, and anti-inflammatory polarization in macrophages. In conclusion, this study demonstrated that treatment with AA can promote the morphological and functional recovery of injured peripheral nerves and that this effect is potentially due to AA’s bioeffects on neurons, SCs and macrophages, three of most important types of cells involved in nerve injury and regeneration

Improving the Performance of Gd Addition on Catalytic Activity and SO2 Resistance over MnOx/ZSM-5 Catalysts for Low-Temperature NH3-SCR

SO2 poisoning is a great challenge for the practical application of Mn-based catalysts in low-temperature selective catalytic reduction (SCR) reactions of NOx with NH3. A series of Gadolinium (Gd)-modified MnOx/ZSM-5 catalysts were synthesized via a citric acid–ethanol dispersion method and evaluated by low-temperature NH3-SCR. Among them, the GdMn/Z-0.3 catalyst with the molar ratio of Gd/Mn of 0.3 presented the highest catalytic activity, in which a 100% NO conversion could be obtained in the temperature range of 120–240 °C. Furthermore, GdMn/Z-0.3 exhibited good SO2 resistance compared with Mn/Z in the presence of 100 ppm SO2. The results of Brunauer–Emmett–Teller (BET), X-ray photoelectron spectroscopy (XPS), temperature-programmed reduction of H2 (H2-TPR) and temperature-programmed desorption of NH3 (NH3-TPD) illustrated that such catalytic performance was mainly caused by large surface area, abundant Mn4+ and surface chemisorbed oxygen species, strong reducibility and the suitable acidity of the catalyst. The in situ diffuse reflectance infrared Fourier transform spectra (DRIFTS) results revealed that the addition of Gd greatly inhibited the reaction between the SO2 and MnOx active sites to form bulk manganese sulfate, thus contributing to high SO2 resistance. Moreover, in situ DRIFTS experiments also shed light on the mechanism of low-temperature SCR reactions over Mn/Z and GdMn/Z-0.3, which both followed the Langmuir–Hinshelwood (L–H) and Eley–Rideal (E–R) mechanism

Improving the Performance of Gd Addition on Catalytic Activity and SO₂ Resistance over MnO_x/ZSM-5 Catalysts for Low-Temperature NH₃-SCR

SO2 poisoning is a great challenge for the practical application of Mn-based catalysts in low-temperature selective catalytic reduction (SCR) reactions of NOx with NH3. A series of Gadolinium (Gd)-modified MnOx/ZSM-5 catalysts were synthesized via a citric acid–ethanol dispersion method and evaluated by low-temperature NH3-SCR. Among them, the GdMn/Z-0.3 catalyst with the molar ratio of Gd/Mn of 0.3 presented the highest catalytic activity, in which a 100% NO conversion could be obtained in the temperature range of 120–240 °C. Furthermore, GdMn/Z-0.3 exhibited good SO2 resistance compared with Mn/Z in the presence of 100 ppm SO2. The results of Brunauer–Emmett–Teller (BET), X-ray photoelectron spectroscopy (XPS), temperature-programmed reduction of H2 (H2-TPR) and temperature-programmed desorption of NH3 (NH3-TPD) illustrated that such catalytic performance was mainly caused by large surface area, abundant Mn4+ and surface chemisorbed oxygen species, strong reducibility and the suitable acidity of the catalyst. The in situ diffuse reflectance infrared Fourier transform spectra (DRIFTS) results revealed that the addition of Gd greatly inhibited the reaction between the SO2 and MnOx active sites to form bulk manganese sulfate, thus contributing to high SO2 resistance. Moreover, in situ DRIFTS experiments also shed light on the mechanism of low-temperature SCR reactions over Mn/Z and GdMn/Z-0.3, which both followed the Langmuir–Hinshelwood (L–H) and Eley–Rideal (E–R) mechanism

LoRa-Based Smart IoT Application for Smart City: An Example of Human Posture Detection

Scientists have explored the human body for hundreds of years, and yet more relationships between the behaviors and health are still to be discovered. With the development of data mining, artificial intelligence technology, and human posture detection, it is much more possible to figure out how behaviors and movements influence people’s health and life and how to adjust the relationship between work and rest, which is needed urgently for modern people against this high-speed lifestyle. Using smart technology and daily behaviors to supervise or predict people’s health is a key part of a smart city. In a smart city, these applications involve large groups and high-frequency use, so the system must have low energy consumption, a portable system, and a low cost for long-term detection. To meet these requirements, this paper proposes a posture recognition method based on multisensor and using LoRa technology to build a long-term posture detection system. LoRa WAN technology has the advantages of low cost and long transmission distances. Combining the LoRa transmitting module and sensors, this paper designs wearable clothing to make people comfortable in any given posture. Aiming at LoRa’s low transmitting frequency and small size of data transmission, this paper proposes a multiprocessing method, including data denoising, data enlarging based on sliding windows, feature extraction, and feature selection using Random Forest, to make 4 values retain the most information about 125 data from 9 axes of sensors. The result shows an accuracy of 99.38% of extracted features and 95.06% of selected features with the training of 3239 groups of datasets. To verify the performance of the proposed algorithm, three testers created 500 groups of datasets and the results showed good performance. Hence, due to the energy sustainability of LoRa and the accuracy of recognition, this proposed posture recognition using multisensor and LoRa can work well when facing long-term detection and LoRa fits smart city well when facing long-distance transmission

Peripheral Nerve Injury-Induced Astrocyte Activation in Spinal Ventral Horn Contributes to Nerve Regeneration

Accumulating evidences suggest that peripheral nerve injury (PNI) may initiate astrocytic responses in the central nervous system (CNS). However, the response of astrocytes in the spinal ventral horn and its potential role in nerve regeneration after PNI remain unclear. Herein, we firstly illustrated that astrocytes in the spinal ventral horn were dramatically activated in the early stage following sciatic nerve injury, and these profiles were eliminated in the chronic stage. Additionally, we found that the expression of neurotrophins, including brain-derived neurotrophic factor (BDNF), nerve growth factor (NGF), and neurotrophin-3 (NT-3), also accompanied with astrocyte activation. In comparison with the irreversible transected subjects, astrocyte activation and the neurotrophic upregulation in the early stage were more drastic in case the transected nerve was rebridged immediately after injury. Furthermore, administering fluorocitrate to inhibit astrocyte activation resulted in decreased neurotrophin expression in the spinal ventral horn and delayed axonal regeneration in the nerve as well as motor function recovery. Overall, the present study indicates that peripheral nerve injury can initiate astrocyte activation accompanied with neurotrophin upregulation in the spinal ventral horn. The above responses mainly occur in the early stage of PNI and may contribute to nerve regeneration and motor function recovery

Extracellular biosynthesis of monodispersed gold nanoparticles by a SAM capping route

Monodispersed gold nanoparticles capped with a self-assembled monolayer of dodecanethiol were biosynthesized extracellularly by an efficient, simple, and environmental friendly procedure, which involved the use of Bacillus megatherium D01 as the reducing agent and the use of dodecanethiol as the capping ligand at 26 A degrees C. The kinetics of gold nanoparticle formation was followed by transmission electron microscope (TEM) and UV-vis spectroscopy. It was shown that reaction time was an important parameter in controlling the morphology of gold nanoparticles. The effect of thiol on the shape, size, and dispersity of gold nanoparticles was also studied. The results showed that the presence of thiol during the biosynthesis could induce the formation of small size gold nanoparticles (< 2.5 nm), hold the shape of spherical nanoparticles, and promote the monodispersity of nanoparticles. Through the modulation of reaction time and the use of thiol, monodispersed spherical gold nanoparticles capped with thiol of 1.9 +/- A 0.8 nm size were formed by using Bacillus megatherium D01.National Natural Science Foundation of China [20433040, 20423002]; State Key Laboratory for Physical Chemistry of the Solid Surface, Xiamen University of China [200408

Larval Aggregation of <i>Heortia vitessoides</i> Moore (Lepidoptera: Crambidae) and Evidence of Horizontal Transfer of Avermectin

Aquilaria sinensis (Lour.) Gilg is an economically important tree species that produce the highly prized agarwood. In recent years, agarwood production has been seriously threatened by the outbreak of Heortia vitessoides Moore, a leaf-eating pest that shows gregariousness during the larval stage. However, little attention has been paid to the aggregation behavior of H. vitessoides larvae. In the present study, we collected 102 cohorts of H. vitessoides larvae (13,173 individuals in total) in the wild; 54 cohorts were comprised of the same-instar larvae, and 48 cohorts were comprised of larvae with different developmental stages (instars). In general, young larvae (&lt;third instar) tended to form large aggregations, whereas older-instar larvae were either solitary or formed small aggregations. Laboratory studies showed a strong aggregation tendency in the newly hatched and second-instar larvae of H. vitessoides, whenever the individuals originated from the same or different sibling cohorts. In addition, all newly hatched larvae died within two days after they were isolated. When newly hatched larvae were initially assigned in 10-larvae cohorts (containing sibling individuals) or 20-larvae cohorts (either containing individuals originating from the same or different sibling cohorts), their larval survivorship, duration of larval stage, and adult emergence were not significantly different. Interestingly, combining avermectin-treated larvae (donors) with untreated ones (receptors) significantly decreased larval survivorship and adult emergence of receptors, indicating a horizontal transfer of avermectin among H. vitessoides larvae. This study enhances our understanding of the population ecology of H. vitessoides, and may bring novel insights into the management strategies against this pest