Comparative transcriptome analysis reveals immune-related genes involved in allograft and xenograft transplantation in Pinctada fucata

BackgroundThe marine pearl culture industry is a key industry in the Beibu Gulf of China that achieves large-scale pearl production by artificial nucleus insertion in pearls. High-quality pearls can produced by xenotransplantation, but allotransplantation or xenotransplantation can lead to various immune responses, resulting in nucleus rejection or even the recipient shell death and thereby causing significant losses in pearl production.MethodsFew studies have investigated the immune defenses of oysters related to allografts and xenografts. In this study, transcriptomic comparisons of allograft and xenograft Pinctada fucata haemocytes were conducted to identify genes associated with immune responses.ResultsA total of 33.11 Gbp of clean reads were generated from five P. fucata haemocytes. De-novo assembly of quality-filtered reads generated a total of 26,526 unigenes, with 22,002 known genes and 4,524 predicted novel genes. In addition, 34,904 novel transcripts were detected, with 15,620 novel alternative splicing isoforms of known protein coding genes and 4,605 belonging to novel protein coding genes, with the remaining 14,679 comprising long non-coding RNA transcripts. Functional enrichment analysis of immune-related differentially expressed genes (DEGs) using the Gene Ontology (GO) and Kyoto Encyclopedia of Genes and Genomes (KEGG) databases revealed 36–44 significantly enriched GO terms and 34 significantly enriched KEGG pathways. Ten DEGs were subjected to validation of expression levels using RT-q PCR analysis, revealing generally consistent values as the high-throughput sequencing data.ConclusionOyster haemocytes were comprehensively evaluated in this study using transcriptomic comparisons and with a focus on immune-related functional genes and pathways. The results revealed numerous DEGs related to immune function that can serve as the basis for subsequent immune response analysis of allotransplantation and xenotransplantation

Research Progress of Non-destructive Testing Technology in Beef Quality

Beef is rich in nutrients and is one of the favored meats among consumers. Market price, consumer willingness to buy and satisfaction are affected by the quality of beef, so it is important to test the quality of beef. At present, traditional beef quality testing methods have the problems of time-consuming, sample damage and complex operation. Recently, non-destructive testing technology has been widely used in beef quality testing because of its advantages of rapidity, high efficiency, non-destructive and environment-friendly. This paper summarises the progress of non-destructive testing technology in beef quality analysis (sensory quality, nutritional quality and other quality), and systematically describes the principles of non-destructive testing techniques such as near-infrared spectroscopy, Raman spectroscopy, hyperspectral imaging, E-tongue and E-nose. The progress of non-destructive testing techniques in beef quality analysis within the last five years is discussed in detail. The existing problems of non-destructive testing technology in beef quality analysis are put forward, and the future application prospect is prospected. It hopes to provide a reference for the research and application of non-destructive testing technology for beef quality

Optical service unit (OSU)-based next generation optical transport network (NG OTN) technology and verification

With the development of transmission technologies, optical transport network (OTN) has evolved from a digital encapsulation technology to a network technology that supports multi-service transport. As the OTN gradually expands to the edge of the metropolitan area network (MAN) and enterprise users have higher quality requirements on bandwidth and service security, more and more private line services are provided via OTN network. Therefore, the OTN container is transformed from an optical data unit (ODU) to an optical service unit (OSU). The OTN industry has studied several OSU technologies to fit the development trends of NG OTN, aiming at transporting 2 Mbit/s to 100 Gbit/s constant bit rate (CBR) services and Ethernet services with high efficiency and more flexibilities, as well as reducing OTN network deployment and operation and maintenance (O&M) costs. In this work, several key technologies in NG OTN are introduced including NG OTN technical architecture, OSU frame format, client mapping and OSU multiplexing. Based on these technologies, we (China Mobile) took the lead in conducting the industry's first NG OTN test in Qingdao, which verified the service transport capability and lower latency performance of OSUs and promoted the maturity of the NG OTN industry chain

Protective Effects of Resveratrol on Cytotoxicity of Mouse Hepatic Stellate Cells Induced by PM_2.5

The atmosphere’s fine particulate matter (PM2.5) can enter the liver through the circulatory system, leading to hepatic inflammation and fibrosis. As a non-flavonoid polyphenolic compound, resveratrol (RES) has anti-oxidant, anti-inflammatory and hepatoprotective effects, but the molecular mechanisms of liver fibrosis induced by PM2.5 exposure are still limited. In this study, we established an in vitro cell model to investigate the intervention effect of RES with different concentrations (5 and 20 μmol/mL) on mouse hepatic stellate cells (mHSCs) injury induced by PM2.5 (100 μg/mL). We determined the cell viability in mHSCs after treatment with PM2.5 or/and RES for 24 h. We investigated the intracellular oxidative stress by detecting the changes in reactive oxygen species (ROS), malondialdehyde (MDA), superoxide dismutase (SOD) and lactate dehydrogenase (LDH) levels. We also measured the protein expressions of fibrosis-related genes (α-SMA, Collagen I and Collagen III) and key genes (SIRT1, NF-κB, NLRP3, Cleaved-Caspase1, IL-1β) in the NLRP3 pathway in mHSCs exposed to PM2.5 with or without RES. The results showed that (1) PM2.5 has cytotoxic effects on mHSCs, whereas RES (5 μmol/L and 20 μmol/L) inhibited PM2.5-induced cytotoxicity and LDH leakage; (2) RES effectively reduces ROS and MDA production caused by PM2.5 while concurrently enhancing SOD levels, thereby improving cellular anti-oxidant capacity; (3) the expression of α-SMA, Collagen I and Collagen III were notably downregulated in the PM2.5 plus RES treatment group compared to the PM2.5-exposed group; (4) RES significantly increased SIRT1 expression and decreased the expression of NF-κB, NLRP3, Cleaved-Caspase1 and IL-1β in mHSCs exposure to PM2.5 compared to the PM2.5 group. These results demonstrate that RES can up-regulate SIRT1 and mitigate PM2.5-induced fibrosis by suppressing oxidative stress in mHSCs and the SIRT1/NF–κB/NLRP3 pathway activated by PM2.5

Melatonin Suppresses LPS-Induced Oxidative Stress in Dendritic Cells for Inflammatory Regulation via the Nrf2/HO-1 Axis

Melatonin, an indoleamine synthesized in the pineal gland of mammals, is a natural bioactive compound with powerful antioxidant and anti-inflammatory properties. Here, we evaluated whether melatonin has the capacity to moderate the oxidative stress of dendritic cells (DCs) for inflammatory control in an acute lung injury (ALI) model. Our findings showed that melatonin remarkably inhibited total nitric oxide synthase (T-NOS) activity, nitric oxide (NO) production, intracellular reactive oxygen species (ROS) levels, and lipid peroxidation (MDA detection) levels in both an LPS-induced murine ALI model and LPS-induced DCs. Meanwhile, the reduced glutathione (GSH) level and the GSH/GSSG ratio were recovered. In addition, antioxidant enzymes, such as glutathione peroxidase (GPx), catalase (CAT), and superoxide dismutase (SOD), were increased in these processes. Moreover, melatonin also inhibited the LPS-induced secretions of IL-1β, IL-6, and TGF-β in vivo and in vitro. Finally, we found that the nuclear factor erythroid 2-related factor 2 (Nrf2)/heme oxygenase 1 (HO-1) axis was required in the inhibition of LPS-induced oxidative stress in DCs by melatonin. Altogether, these data indicate that melatonin strongly suppresses the LPS-induced oxidative stress in DCs, which is a promising DC-targeted strategy via inflammatory control for ALI treatment

Efficient industrial-current-density acetylene to polymer-grade ethylene via hydrogen-localization transfer over fluorine-modified copper

International audienceAbstract Electrocatalytic acetylene semi-hydrogenation to ethylene powered by renewable electricity represents a sustainable pathway, but the inadequate current density and single-pass yield greatly impedes the production efficiency and industrial application. Herein, we develop a F-modified Cu catalyst that shows an industrial partial current density up to 0.76 A cm −2 with an ethylene Faradic efficiency surpass 90%, and the maximum single-pass yield reaches a notable 78.5%. Furthermore, the Cu-F showcase the capability to directly convert acetylene into polymer-grade ethylene in a tandem flow cell, almost no acetylene residual in the production. Combined characterizations and calculations reveal that the Cu δ+ (near fluorine) enhances the water dissociation, and the generated active hydrogen are immediately transferred to Cu 0 (away from fluorine) and react with the locally adsorbed acetylene. Therefore, the hydrogen evolution reaction is surpassed and the overall acetylene semi-hydrogenation performance is boosted. Our findings provide new opportunity towards rational design of catalysts for large-scale electrosynthesis of ethylene and other important industrial raw

Cohesion Intensive Deep Hashing for Remote Sensing Image Retrieval

Recently, the demand for remote sensing image retrieval is growing and attracting the interest of many researchers because of the increasing number of remote sensing images. Hashing, as a method of retrieving images, has been widely applied to remote sensing image retrieval. In order to improve hashing performance, we develop a cohesion intensive deep hashing model for remote sensing image retrieval. The underlying architecture of our deep model is motivated by the state-of-the-art residual net. Residual nets aim at avoiding gradient vanishing and gradient explosion when the net reaches a certain depth. However, different from the residual net which outputs multiple class-labels, we present a residual hash net that is terminated by a Heaviside-like function for binarizing remote sensing images. In this scenario, the representational power of the residual net architecture is exploited to establish an end-to-end deep hashing model. The residual hash net is trained subject to a weighted loss strategy that intensifies the cohesiveness of image hash codes within one class. This effectively addresses the data imbalance problem normally arising in remote sensing image retrieval tasks. Furthermore, we adopted a gradualness optimization method for obtaining optimal model parameters in order to favor accurate binary codes with little quantization error. We conduct comparative experiments on large-scale remote sensing data sets such as UCMerced and AID. The experimental results validate the hypothesis that our method improves the performance of current remote sensing image retrieval

<i>Holarrhena pubescens</i> Wall. ex G. Don Extracts Inhibit LPS-Irritated Oxidative Stress in Dendritic Cells

Holarrhena pubescens Wall. ex G. Don (H. pubescens), belonging to the Apocynaceae family, is distributed in deciduous forests of the tropical Himalayas. H. pubescens is an important traditional medicinal plant, especially its seeds and barks. Therefore, we assessed the antioxidant capacity of H. pubescens extracts in Lipopolysaccharide (LPS)-induced dendritic cells (DCs) for sepsis treatment. Our results indicated that H. pubescens extracts with different doses (25 μg/mL, 50 μg/mL, 100 μg/mL) reduced the reactive oxygen species (ROS) level, and weakened the nitric oxide synthases (NOS) activity and nitric oxide (NO) level in LPS (100 ng/mL)-irritated DCs. In addition, H. pubescens extracts decreased the oxidized glutathione (GSSG) production but increased the reduced glutathione (GSH) production, thereby preserving the cellular reductive status owing to the raised GSH/GSSG ratio. Furthermore, H. pubescens extracts strengthened the antioxidant enzymes activity in LPS-induced DCs, such as glutathione peroxidase (GPx), catalase (CAT), and superoxide dismutase (SOD). Finally, we found that H. pubescens extracts significantly improved the expression of the nuclear factor erythroid 2-related factor 2 (Nrf2) and the heme oxygenase 1 (HO–1) in LPS-irritated DCs. These results indicated that H. pubescens extracts suppressed the LPS-irritated oxidative stress in DCs via Nrf2/HO–1 signaling pathway, providing a potential strategy for sepsis therapy

Holarrhena pubescens Wall. ex G. Don Extracts Inhibit LPS-Irritated Oxidative Stress in Dendritic Cells

Holarrhena pubescens Wall. ex G. Don (H. pubescens), belonging to the Apocynaceae family, is distributed in deciduous forests of the tropical Himalayas. H. pubescens is an important traditional medicinal plant, especially its seeds and barks. Therefore, we assessed the antioxidant capacity of H. pubescens extracts in Lipopolysaccharide (LPS)-induced dendritic cells (DCs) for sepsis treatment. Our results indicated that H. pubescens extracts with different doses (25 &mu;g/mL, 50 &mu;g/mL, 100 &mu;g/mL) reduced the reactive oxygen species (ROS) level, and weakened the nitric oxide synthases (NOS) activity and nitric oxide (NO) level in LPS (100 ng/mL)-irritated DCs. In addition, H. pubescens extracts decreased the oxidized glutathione (GSSG) production but increased the reduced glutathione (GSH) production, thereby preserving the cellular reductive status owing to the raised GSH/GSSG ratio. Furthermore, H. pubescens extracts strengthened the antioxidant enzymes activity in LPS-induced DCs, such as glutathione peroxidase (GPx), catalase (CAT), and superoxide dismutase (SOD). Finally, we found that H. pubescens extracts significantly improved the expression of the nuclear factor erythroid 2-related factor 2 (Nrf2) and the heme oxygenase 1 (HO&ndash;1) in LPS-irritated DCs. These results indicated that H. pubescens extracts suppressed the LPS-irritated oxidative stress in DCs via Nrf2/HO&ndash;1 signaling pathway, providing a potential strategy for sepsis therapy

Paraquat induces different programmed cell death patterns in Microcystis aeruginosa and Chlorella luteoviridis

Although programmed cell death (PCD) has been reported in phytoplankton, knowledge of the characterization of the PCD pathway and cascade process in different phytoplankton species is still limited. In this study, PCD progression in cyanobacterium Microcystis aeruginosa and green algae Chlorella luteoviridis by paraquat-induced oxidative stress was monitored. The results showed that paraquat-induced PCD in the two species belonged to the caspase-dependent pathway. Dose- and time-dependent PCD characteristics in the two strains under paraquat included the increase in caspase-like activity, DNA fragmentation, and chromatin condensation. However, the signaling pathway and cascade events of PCD in M. aeruginosa and C. luteoviridis differed. In M. aeruginosa, the free Ca2+ concentration was rapidly increased at 8 h, followed by a significant elevation of the reactive oxygen species (ROS) level at 24 h, and eventual cell death. In C. luteoviridis, the mitochondrial apoptosis pathway, revealed by the depolarization of the mitochondrial membrane potential at 1 h and increase in the ROS level and caspase-like activity at 8 h, might contribute to cell death. In addition, the dynamics of ROS levels and metacaspase activity were synchronized, suggesting that paraquat-triggered PCD was ROS-mediated in both M. aeruginosa and C. luteoviridis. These results provide insights into PCD patterns in prokaryotic cyanobacteria and eukaryotic green algae under similar stress