Three Chinese pedigrees of A20 haploinsufficiency: clinical, cytokine and molecular characterization

ObjectiveHaploinsufficiency of A20 (HA20) is a newly described rare autoinflammatory disease caused by TNFAIP3 gene mutations. HA20 has seldom been documented in the Chinese population. Herein, we report eight patients with HA20 from three unrelated families in China.MethodsEight Chinese Han patients were diagnosed with HA20 in our department from 2018 to 2021. Their clinical data and genotypes were carefully documented and studied. The newly identified variants were functionally verified. We also conducted a systematic literature review of HA20, and the clinical characteristics and genotype of HA20 between the Chinese population and other populations were compared.ResultsEight HA20 patients from three families comprised six adults and two children. There was one man and seven women. The clinical characteristics included recurrent oral ulcers (8/8, 100%), fever (4/8, 50%), perianal ulcer (3/8, 38%), skin lesions (2/8, 25%), arthritis (1/8, 13%), and uveitis (1/8, 13%). Three TNFAIP3 variants, A547T, c.1906+2T>G, and R271X, were identified. Two novel variants, A547T and c.1906+2T>G, were validated to be pathogenic in our study. In a literature review a total of 126 patients with HA20 reported by 35 articles were included. The clinical phenotype of Chinese HA20 patients was similar to that of patients from other populations except for a lower frequency of genital ulcers (16.7% vs. 54.4%, p < 0.01). Autoantibodies were detectable in approximately one-third of the 126 patients, among which ANA and anti-thyroid antibodies were commonly seen.ConclusionThe rarity and diversity of phenotypes make the diagnosis of HA20 a huge challenge to physicians. HA20 should be considered in child-onset patients with manifestations that resemble Behçet’s syndrome, especially those whose family members have similar symptoms. Gene testing is critically helpful for the diagnosis of HA20. Two novel TNFAIP3 variants, A547T and c.1906+2T>G, were identified in this study

Water environmental stress, rebound effect, and economic growth of China’s textile industry

The rapid development of China’s textile industry (TI) has led to severe water environmental stress. Water environmental stress of China’s TI mainly comes from large quantities of discharged wastewater and chemical oxygen demand (COD). The sustainable development of the TI is realized to achieve the decoupling between economic growth and water environmental stress. This study analyzes the decoupling elasticity results from wastewater discharge and COD discharge, respectively. Decoupling results show that TI’s wastewater has strong decoupling from economic growth for three years (2002, 2013–2014) while COD has strong decoupling for six years (2002–2003, 2008, 2010, 2013–2014). The paper further calculates the decoupling elasticity results of the TI’s three sub-sectors (manufacture of textile sector, manufacture of textile wearing and apparel sector, and manufacture of chemical fibers (MCF) sector), and calculates the factors that affect wastewater discharge. The decrement and rebound effects of wastewater discharge are analyzed based on calculated results. Decomposition results show that the scale factor is the most significant contributor to wastewater discharge, the intensity factor inhibits wastewater discharge, and the effect of the structure factor is not evident. The decrement effect of TI increases yearly, but the rebound effect shows that the absolute amount of wastewater discharge also increases. The rebound effect has declined since 2012. In the three sub-sectors, MCF’s decrement effect is the strongest, and its rebound effect is the weakest, which indicate that MCF is the biggest contributor to the discharge reduction of China’s TI

A cell-based fluorescent glucose transporter assay for SGLT2 inhibitor discovery

The sodium/glucose cotransporter 2 (SGLT2) is responsible for the majority of glucose reabsorption in the kidney, and currently, SGLT2 inhibitors are considered as promising hypoglycemic agents for the treatment of type 2 diabetes mellitus. By constructing CHO cell lines that stably express the human SGLT2 transmembrane protein, along with a fluorescent glucose transporter assay that uses 2-[N-(7-nitrobenz-2-oxa-1,3-diazol-4-yl)amino]2-deoxyglucose (2-NBDG) as a glucose analog, we have developed a nonradioactive, cell-based assay for the discovery and characterization of SGLT2 inhibitors

Carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions from the service industry, traffic, and secondary industry as revealed by the remotely sensed nighttime light data

Exploring carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions from human activities is essential for urban energy conservation and resource management. Remotely sensed nighttime lights from the Suomi NPP-VIIRS provide spatial consistency in and a low-cost way of revealing CO2 emissions. Although many researches have documented the feasibility of the Suomi NPP-VIIRS data for assessing CO2 emissions, few have systematically revealed the ability of nighttime lights for evaluating CO2 emissions from different industries, such as service industry CO2 emissions (SC), traffic CO2 emissions (TC), and secondary industry CO2 emissions (IC). Here, China was selected as the experimental subject, and we comprehensively explored the relationships between the nighttime lights and SC, TC, and IC, and investigated the factors mediating these relationships. We found that without considering other factors, the nighttime lights only revealed up to 51.2% of TC, followed by 41.7% of IC and 22.7% of SC. When controlling for city characteristic variables, the models showed that there were positive correlations between the Suomi NPP-VIIRS data and SC, IC, and TC, and that nighttime lights have an Inverted-U relationship with SC. The Suomi NPP-VIIRS data are more suitable for revealing SC, TC, and IC in medium-sized and large-sized cities than in small-sized cities and megacities

Investigation of environmental burden for waste plastic flotation recovery

For the target of reaching carbon peak and neutrality, plastic recycling is essential nowadays. Flotation is a novel technique but has been proven efficient. The core mechanism of plastic flotation is modifying the surface characteristic to be hydrophobic. Thus, diverse methods are tried for high recovery and purity. Since the initiative of plastic recycling is to protect the environment, it is necessary to explore the environmental footprint of different methods and ensure that recycling could benefit the environment rather than the opposite way. Through the life cycle assessment, this study evaluated the environmental footprint eight methods of polyvinyl chloride (PVC) flotation. The results of the eight methods could be separated into three groups, with high, middle, and low environmental burdens, respectively. Although all methods provided a similar recovery and purity, their performance differed significantly. In climate change, for recovering 1 kg PVC, method 1 needs to emit 5.28 kg CO2-eq, while method 5 would emit only 0.18 kg CO2-eq. Methods 1 and 7 further show the highest environmental burden in climate change, eutrophication, water use, and ozone depletion. Meanwhile, methods 4 and 5 show the lowest environmental in all impacts. Therefore, on the premise of similar recovery, methods 4 and 5 are recommended for recovering the PVC, while methods 1 and 7 are not suggested. In the future, an ideal PVC flotation could be designed based on this study

Maintaining Inducibility of Dermal Follicle Cells on Silk Fibroin/Sodium Alginate Scaffold for Enhanced Hair Follicle Regeneration

The extracellular matrix (ECM) is important for maintaining cell phenotype and promoting cell proliferation and differentiation. In order to better solve the problem of skin appendage regeneration, a combination of mechanical/enzymatic digestion methods was used to self-extract dermal papilla cells (DPCs), which were seeded on silk fibroin/sodium alginate scaffolds as seed cells to evaluate the possibility of skin regeneration/regeneration of accessory organs. Scanning electron microscopy (SEM) graphs showed that the interconnected pores inside the scaffold had a pore diameter in the range of 153–311 μm and a porosity of 41–82%. Immunofluorescence (IF) staining and cell morphological staining proved that the extracted cells were DPCs. The results of a Cell Counting Kit-8 (CCK-8) and Calcein-AM/PI live-dead cell staining showed that the DPCs grew well in the composite scaffold extract. Normal cell morphology and characteristics of aggregation growth were maintained during the 3-day culture, which showed that the silk fibroin/sodium alginate (SF/SA) composite scaffold had good cell-compatibility. Hematoxylin-eosin (H&E) staining of tissue sections further proved that the cells adhered closely and aggregated to the pore wall of the scaffold, and retained the ability to induce differentiation of hair follicles. All these results indicate that, compared with a pure scaffold, the composite scaffold promotes the adhesion and growth of DPCs. We transplanted the SF/SA scaffolds into the back wounds of SD rats, and evaluated the damage model constructed in vivo. The results showed that the scaffold inoculated with DPCs could accelerate the repair of the skin and promote the regeneration of the hair follicle structure

Acetonitrile as a Cyanating Reagent: Cu-Catalyzed Cyanation of Arenes

A novel approach to the Cu-catalyzed cyanation of simple arenes using acetonitrile as an attractive cyano source has been documented. The C–H functionalization of arenes without directing groups involves a sequential iodination/cyanation to give the desired aromatic nitriles in good yields. A highly efficient Cu/TEMPO system for acetonitrile C–CN bond cleavage has been discovered. TEMPO is used as a cheap oxidant and enables the reaction to be catalytic in copper. Moreover, TEMPOCH₂CN <b>6</b> has been identified as the active cyanating agent and shows high reactivity for forming the −CN moiety

Effects of tillage management on cbbL-carrying bacteria and soil organic carbon dynamics across aggregate size classes in the farmland of North China Plain

Calvin-Benson-Bassham cycle (cbbL)-carrying bacteria in soil are essential to renew and circulate organic matter. However, the relation between cbbL-carrying bacteria and soil carbon dynamics under tillage managements, especially across the aggregate size remains unclear. Thus, in our study, soil organic carbon (SOC) storages, mineralization, and the cbbL-carrying bacterial community across five soil aggregate sizes were thoroughly investigated under four tillage treatments: conventional rotary tillage (CT), deep plowing (DP), subsoiling (SS), no-tillage (NT). We found macroaggregates (>2 mm) contributed most with regard to SOC stocks, whereas microaggregates (1 mm) with the highest cumulative SOC mineralization were found in subsoiling, whereas microaggregates had the lowest cumulative mineralization under no-tillage. By physically protecting, no-tillage specifically inhibited carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions in macroaggregates (>1 mm), whereas increased SOC levels and encouraged CO2 releases across microaggregates. Shifts in the co-occurrence network demonstrated that subsoiling promoted the joint symbiotic function between cbbL-carrying bacteria, the efficiency of matter and energy, and information transfer. And the keystone species, the enhanced cooperation and stochastic processes of autotrophic microorganisms under subsoiling lead to increased carbon fixation and reduced CO2 emissions in microaggregates with limited oxygen and nutrients. Overall, our work verified physical protection of large aggregates under no-tillage and improvement of microbial interaction efficiency under subsoiling. This may offer a theoretical foundation for the choice of tillage practices in fluvo-aquic soil regions

Hierarchical Porous LiNi1/3Co1/3Mn1/3O2 nano-/micro spherical cathode material : minimized cation mixing and improved Li+ mobility for enhanced electrochemical performance

Although being considered as one of the most promising cathode materials for Lithium-ion batteries (LIBs), LiNi1/3Co1/3Mn1/3O2 (NCM) is currently limited by its poor rate performance and cycle stability resulting from the thermodynamically favorable Li+/Ni2+ cation mixing which depresses the Li+ mobility. In this study, we developed a two-step method using fluffy MnO2 as template to prepare hierarchical porous nano-/microsphere NCM (PNM-NCM). Specifically, PNM-NCM microspheres achieves a high reversible specific capacity of 207.7 mAh g−1 at 0.1 C with excellent rate capability (163.6 and 148.9 mAh g−1 at 1 C and 2 C), and the reversible capacity retention can be well-maintained as high as 90.3% after 50 cycles. This excellent electrochemical performance is attributed to unique hierarchical porous nano-/microsphere structure which can increase the contact area with electrolyte, shorten Li+ diffusion path and thus improve the Li+ mobility. Moreover, as revealed by XRD Rietveld refinement analysis, a negligible cation mixing (1.9%) and high crystallinity with a well-formed layered structure also contribute to the enhanced C-rates performance and cycle stability. On the basis of our study, an effective strategy can be established to reveal the fundamental relationship between the structure/chemistry of these materials and their properties.Published versio