22 research outputs found
Dried tea residue can alter the blood metabolism and the composition and functionality of the intestinal microbiota in Hu sheep
Ruminant animals face multiple challenges during the rearing process, including immune disorders and oxidative stress. Green tea by-products have gained widespread attention for their significant immunomodulatory and antioxidant effects, leading to their application in livestock production. In this study, we investigated the effects of Dried Tea Residue (DTR) as a feed additive on the growth performance, blood biochemical indicators, and hindgut microbial structure and function of Hu sheep. Sixteen Hu sheep were randomly divided into two groups and fed with 0 and 100 g/d of DTR, respectively. Data were recorded over a 56-day feeding period. Compared to the control group, there were no significant changes in the production performance of Hu sheep fed with DTR. However, the sheep fed with DTR showed a significant increase in IgA (p < 0.001), IgG (p = 0.005), IgM (p = 0.003), T-SOD (p = 0.013), GSH-Px (p = 0.005), and CAT (p < 0.001) in the blood, along with a significant decrease in albumin (p = 0.019), high density lipoprotein (p = 0.050), and triglyceride (p = 0.021). DTR supplementation enhanced the fiber digestion ability of hindgut microbiota, optimized the microbial community structure, and increased the abundance of carbohydrate-digesting enzymes. Therefore, DTR can be used as a natural feed additive in ruminant animal production to enhance their immune and antioxidant capabilities, thereby improving the health status of ruminant animals
Real-time tracking and in vivo visualization of β-galactosidase activity in colorectal tumor with a ratiometric near-infrared fluorescent probe
Development of “smart”
noninvasive bioimaging probes
for trapping specific enzyme activities is highly desirable for cancer
therapy in vivo. Given that β-galactosidase (β-gal) is
an important biomarker for cell senescence and primary ovarian cancers,
we design an enzyme-activatable ratiometric near-infrared (NIR) probe
(DCM-βgal) for the real-time fluorescent quantification and
trapping of β-gal activity in vivo and in situ. DCM-βgal
manifests significantly ratiometric and turn-on NIR fluorescent signals
simultaneously in response to β-gal concentration, which makes
it favorable for monitoring dynamic β-gal activity in vivo with
self-calibration in fluorescent mode. We exemplify DCM-βgal
for the ratiometric tracking of endogenously overexpressed β-gal
distribution in living 293T cells via the <i>lacZ</i> gene
transfection method and OVCAR-3 cells, and further realize real-time
in vivo bioimaging of β-gal activity in colorectal tumor-bearing
nude mice. Advantages of our system include light-up ratiometric NIR
fluorescence with large Stokes shift, high photostability, and pH
independency under the physiological range, allowing for the in vivo
real-time evaluation of β-gal activity at the tumor site with
high-resolution three-dimensional bioimaging for the first time. Our
work provides a potential tool for in vivo real-time tracking enzyme
activity in preclinical applications
Intratracheal administration of endotoxin and cytokines: VIII. LPS induces E-selectin expression; anti-E-selectin and soluble E-selectin inhibit acute inflammation
E-selectin is an inducible endothelial adhesion molecule that binds neutrophils. E-selectin mRNA is not constitutively detectable in the lungs of rats. Intratracheal injection of LPS induces pulmonary E-selectin mRNA expression at 2–4 h. Intratracheal injection of LPS followed at 2 and 4 h by intravenous injection of mouse F(ab′) 2 or F(ab′)) anti-E-selectin monoclonal antibody inhibits the emigration of neutrophils into the bronchoalveolar space at 6 h by 50–70%. TNF and IL-6 bioactivity are not decreased in bronchoalveolar lavage fluid after treatment with anti-E-selectin antibody as compared to controls, suggesting that the anti-E-selectin does not affect the magnitude of the LPS-initiated cytokine cascade. Intratracheal injection of LPS followed at 2 and 4 h by intravenous injection of soluble E-selectin inhibits neutrophilic emigration at 6 h by 64%, suggesting that endogenous soluble E-selectin shed from activated endothelium may play a role in the endogenous down-regulation of acute inflammation. E-selectin-mediated adhesion of neutrophils to endothelium appears crucial to the full development of the acute inflammation response.Peer Reviewedhttp://deepblue.lib.umich.edu/bitstream/2027.42/44513/1/10753_2005_Article_BF01534436.pd
NNNPE: non-neighbourhood and neighbourhood preserving embedding
Manifold learning is an important class of methods for nonlinear dimensionality reduction. Among them, the LLE optimisation goal is to maintain the relationship between local neighbourhoods in the original embedding manifold to reduce dimensionality, and NPE is a linear approximation to LLE. However, these two algorithms only consider maintaining the neighbour relationship of samples in low-dimensional space and ignore the global features between non-neighbour samples, such as the face shooting angle. Therefore, in order to simultaneously consider the nearest neighbour structure and global features of samples in nonlinear dimensionality reduction, it can be linearly calculated. This work provides a novel linear dimensionality reduction approach named non-neighbour and neighbour preserving embedding (NNNPE). First, we rewrite the objective function of the algorithm LLE based on the principle of our novel algorithm. Second, we introduce the linear mapping to the objective function. Finally, the mapping matrix is calculated by the method of the fast learning Mahalanobis metric. The experimental results show that the method proposed in this paper is effective
Carbon Dioxide Conversion with High-Performance Photocatalysis into Methanol on NiSe2/WSe2
Climate change has been recognized as a threatening environmental problem around the world. CO2 is considered to be the main component of greenhouse gas. By using solar energy (light energy) as the energy source, photocatalytic conversion is one of the most effective technologies to reveal the clean utilization of CO2. Herein, using sodium tungstate, nickel nitrate, and selenium powder as the main raw materials, the high absorption and utilization of WSe2 for light energy and the high intrinsic conductivity of NiSe2 were combined by a hydrothermal method to prepare NiSe2/WSe2 and hydrazine hydrate as the reductant. Then, high-performance NiSe2/WSe2 photocatalytic material was prepared. The characterization results of XRD, XPS, SEM, specific surface area, and UV-visible spectroscopy show that the main diffraction peak of synthesized NiSe2/WSe2 is sharp, which basically coincides with the standard card. After doping NiSe2, the morphology of WSe2 was changed from a flake shape to smaller and more trivial crystal flakes, which demonstrates richer exposed edges and more active sites; the specific surface area increased from 3.01 m2 g−1 to 8.52 m2 g−1, and the band gap becomes wider, increasing from 1.66 eV to 1.68 eV. The results of a photocatalytic experiment show that when the prepared NiSe2/WSe2 catalyst is used to conduct photocatalytic reduction of CO2, the yield of CH3OH is significantly increased. After reaction for 10 h, the maximum yield could reach 3.80 mmol g−1, which presents great photocatalytic activity
Intratracheal injection of LPS and cytokines. V. LPS induces expression of LIF and LIF inhibits acute inflammation
Lipopolysaccharide (LPS) injected into the trachea of rats was found to induce the secretion of leukemia inhibitory factor (LIF) into bronchoalveolar lavage (BAL) fluid with a maximum expression of LIF after 2-12 h. The acute pulmonary neutrophilic inflammation caused by the intratracheal injection of bacterial endotoxin (LPS) could be inhibited by the intratracheal coinjection of recombinant LIF. Compared with intratracheal injection of LPS alone, intratracheal coinjection of LIF and LPS decreases the number of BAL neutrophils obtained 6 h later by approximately 50% (P < 0.0001). LIF decreased the amount of the proinflammatory cytokine tumor necrosis factor (TNF), but not the amount of the anti-inflammatory cytokine interleukin (IL)-6, in the BAL fluid of LPS-injected rats. Similarly, intravenous LIF was found to decrease TNF expression, but increase IL-6 expression, in the serum of rats receiving intravenous LPS. Intravenous LIF, even in the absence of LPS, was found to cause IL-6 expression. In conclusion, intratracheal LPS initiates the secretion of endogenous LIF into the alveolar space where LIF may contribute to the downregulation of LPS-initiated acute neutrophilic inflammation by downregulating expression of TNF. LIF may down-regulate LPS-initiated TNF expression at least in part indirectly by upregulating expression of IL-6, a cytokine known to downregulate LPS-initiated TNF expression
Facile Preparation of AIE-Active Fluorescent Nanoparticles through Flash Nanoprecipitation
Flash
nanoprecipitation (FNP) is an easily scalable and fast processing
method for the preparation of nanoparticles (NPs) with simple vortex
equipment. By using the FNP method, fluorescent NPs are prepared in
less than 1 s in a multi-inlet vortex mixer, in which hydrophobic
aggregation-induced emission (AIE)-active dye of EDP is incorporated
within the biocompatible block copolymer poly(ethylene glycol)-<i>b</i>-poly(ε-caprolactone) for EDP NP assembly. The formulation
parameters of stream velocity, dyes, and loading and concentration
in FNP are optimized. The sizes of the NPs ranged from 20 to 60 nm
with a ratio change of mixed solvents. As a control, an aggregation-caused
quenching (ACQ) molecule of BDP was also synthesized for BDP NPs.
To gain insight into the effect of the polymer on the aggregation
state of hydrophobic dyes, the preparation of EDP and BDP NPs without
block copolymer was also investigated. Apparently, the sizes of the
NPs display large distributions without an amphiphilic block copolymer
as the engineering template, suggesting that the block of polymers
plays a key role in tuning the aggregation state of encapsulated dyes
in FNP processes. Moreover, the peak shifts of dye with different
microenvironments also confirmed the successful encapsulation of fluorescent
dye in the NP cores. Finally, by externally applied forces in the
FNP method, the engineered assembly of AIE-active fluorescent NPs
possessing a narrow size distribution with desirable fluorescence
properties was obtained. These features provide the possibility of
rapidly constructing controllable AIE-active fluorescent NPs as biomedical
tracers