110 research outputs found

    Excess caffeine exposure impairs eye development during chick embryogenesis

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    Caffeine has been an integral component of our diet and medicines for centuries. It is now known that over consumption of caffeine has detrimental effects on our health, and also disrupts normal foetal development in pregnant mothers. In this study, we investigated the potential teratogenic effect of caffeine over-exposure on eye development in the early chick embryo. Firstly, we demonstrated that caffeine exposure caused chick embryos to develop asymmetrical microphthalmia and induced the orbital bone to develop abnormally. Secondly, caffeine exposure perturbed Pax6 expression in the retina of the developing eye. In addition, it perturbed the migration of HNK-1(+) cranial neural crest cells. Pax6 is an important gene that regulates eye development, so altering the expression of this gene might be the cause for the abnormal eye development. Thirdly, we found that reactive oxygen species (ROS) production was significantly increased in eye tissues following caffeine treatment, and that the addition of anti-oxidant vitamin C could rescue the eyes from developing abnormally in the presence of caffeine. This suggests that excess ROS induced by caffeine is one of the mechanisms involved in the teratogenic alterations observed in the eye during embryogenesis. In sum, our experiments in the chick embryo demonstrated that caffeine is a potential teratogen. It causes asymmetrical microphthalmia to develop by increasing ROS production and perturbs Pax6 expression

    High salt-induced excess reactive oxygen species production resulted in heart tube malformation during gastrulation

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    An association has been proved between high salt consumption and cardiovascular mortality. In vertebrates, the heart is the first functional organ to be formed. However, it is not clear whether high‐salt exposure has an adverse impact on cardiogenesis. Here we report high‐salt exposure inhibited basement membrane breakdown by affecting RhoA, thus disturbing the expression of Slug/E‐cadherin/N‐cadherin/Laminin and interfering with mesoderm formation during the epithelial‐mesenchymal transition(EMT). Furthermore, the DiI+ cell migration trajectory in vivo and scratch wound assays in vitro indicated that high‐salt exposure restricted cell migration of cardiac progenitors, which was caused by the weaker cytoskeleton structure and unaltered corresponding adhesion junctions at HH7. Besides, down‐regulation of GATA4/5/6, Nkx2.5, TBX5, and Mef2c and up‐regulation of Wnt3a/ÎČ‐catenin caused aberrant cardiomyocyte differentiation at HH7 and HH10. High‐salt exposure also inhibited cell proliferation and promoted apoptosis. Most importantly, our study revealed that excessive reactive oxygen species(ROS)generated by high salt disturbed the expression of cardiac‐related genes, detrimentally affecting the above process including EMT, cell migration, differentiation, cell proliferation and apoptosis, which is the major cause of malformation of heart tubes

    Inequalities on Complex

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    Based on the notion of the complex Lp centroid body, we establish Brunn-Minkowski type inequalities and monotonicity inequalities for complex Lp centroid bodies in this article. Moreover, we obtain the affirmative form of Shephard type problem for the complex Lp centroid bodies and its negative form

    Analysis of Coordinated Development of Energy and Environment in China’s Manufacturing Industry under Environmental Regulation: A Comparative Study of Sub-Industries

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    In order to explore the impact of environmental regulation on the coordinated development of energy and the environment with the background of governance transition, we propose a three-stage integrated approach and use the panel data of China’s manufacturing industry 27 sub-sectors during the period of 2006–2015. In the first stage, according to the environmental pollution intensity, the manufacturing industry is divided into heavily polluting industry, moderately polluting industry, and lightly polluting industry. The second stage is employed the slacks-based measure (SBM)-undesirable method to study the sub-industries’ green energy-environmental efficiency under different environmental pollution intensities. Besides, the dynamic changes of technical innovation and efficiency among different industries are analyzed through the Malmquist productivity index. For the purpose of investigating the transmission mechanism of the Porter’s hypothesis and exploring the compound effects of environmental regulation and governance transition on green development, in the third stage, we use the panel data analysis to conduct more in-depth research on the relationship between environmental regulation, governance transition, and technical innovation. Results show that the highest average green energy-environmental efficiency is lightly polluting industry, which is 0.52, followed by the heavily polluting industry at 0.40, and the lowest is the moderately polluting industry, which is 0.32. By decomposing total factor productivity, heavily polluting industry is at the forefront of technical innovation. Panel data analysis results indicate that investment in research and development and governance transition could promote the growth of total factor productivity for manufacturing

    Exosome derived from tumor-associated macrophages: biogenesis, functions, and therapeutic implications in human cancers

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    Abstract Tumor-associated macrophages (TAMs), one of the most abundant immune cell types in the tumor microenvironment (TME), account for approximately 50% of the local hematopoietic cells. TAMs play an important role in tumorigenesis and tumor development through crosstalk between various immune cells and cytokines in the TME. Exosomes are small extracellular vesicles with a diameter of 50–150 nm, that can transfer biological information (e.g., proteins, nucleic acids, and lipids) from secretory cells to recipient cells through the circulatory system, thereby influencing the progression of various human diseases, including cancer. Recent studies have suggested that TAMs-derived exosomes play crucial roles in malignant cell proliferation, invasion, metastasis, angiogenesis, immune responses, drug resistance, and tumor metabolic reprogramming. TAMs-derived exosomes have the potential to be targeted for tumor therapy. In addition, the abnormal expression of non-coding RNAs and proteins in TAMs-derived exosomes is closely related to the clinicopathological features of patients with cancer, and these exosomes are expected to become new liquid biopsy markers for the early diagnosis, prognosis, and monitoring of tumors. In this review, we explored the role of TAMs-derived exosomes in tumorigenesis to provide new diagnostic biomarkers and therapeutic targets for cancer prevention
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