Oral microbiome and risk of malignant esophageal lesions in a high-risk area of China: A nested case-control study.

OBJECTIVE: We aimed to prospectively evaluate the association of oral microbiome with malignant esophageal lesions and its predictive potential as a biomarker of risk. METHODS: We conducted a case-control study nested within a population-based cohort with up to 8 visits of oral swab collection for each subject over an 11-year period in a high-risk area for esophageal cancer in China. The oral microbiome was evaluated with 16S ribosomal RNA (rRNA) gene sequencing in 428 pre-diagnostic oral specimens from 84 cases with esophageal lesions of severe squamous dysplasia and above (SDA) and 168 matched healthy controls. DESeq analysis was performed to identify taxa of differential abundance. Differential oral species together with subject characteristics were evaluated for their potential in predicting SDA risk by constructing conditional logistic regression models. RESULTS: A total of 125 taxa including 37 named species showed significantly different abundance between SDA cases and controls (all P0.84. CONCLUSIONS: The oral microbiome may play an etiological and predictive role in esophageal cancer, and it holds promise as a non-invasive early warning biomarker for risk stratification for esophageal cancer screening programs

Serum Starvation Induced Cell Cycle Synchronization Facilitates Human Somatic Cells Reprogramming

Human induced pluripotent stem cells (iPSCs) provide a valuable model for regenerative medicine and human disease research. To date, however, the reprogramming efficiency of human adult cells is still low. Recent studies have revealed that cell cycle is a key parameter driving epigenetic reprogramming to pluripotency. As is well known, retroviruses such as the Moloney murine leukemia virus (MoMLV) require cell division to integrate into the host genome and replicate, whereas the target primary cells for reprogramming are a mixture of several cell types with different cell cycle rhythms. Whether cell cycle synchronization has potential effect on retrovirus induced reprogramming has not been detailed. In this study, utilizing transient serum starvation induced synchronization, we demonstrated that starvation generated a reversible cell cycle arrest and synchronously progressed through G2/M phase after release, substantially improving retroviral infection efficiency. Interestingly, synchronized human dermal fibroblasts (HDF) and adipose stem cells (ASC) exhibited more homogenous epithelial morphology than normal FBS control after infection, and the expression of epithelial markers such as E-cadherin and Epcam were strongly activated. Futhermore, synchronization treatment ultimately improved Nanog positive clones, achieved a 15–20 fold increase. These results suggested that cell cycle synchronization promotes the mesenchymal to epithelial transition (MET) and facilitates retrovirus mediated reprogramming. Our study, utilization of serum starvation rather than additional chemicals, provide a new insight into cell cycle regulation and induced reprogramming of human cells

Characteristics of ancient trees in different urbanization rates areas of Yi nationality in Yunnan Province

The urbanization undoubtedly has a significant impact on minority cultures and the natural environment from which minority cultures are born, and they are closely intertwined in the birth and preservation of cultural diversity. Ancient trees, known as green cultural relics, are the resources retained by human cultures, which form important bases for studying regional vegetation and national cultures, since it can yield valuable insights into the intricate connections between nature and human societies, shedding light on how the natural environment both shapes and is influenced by cultural expressions. In the present study, we surveyed the ancient trees of seven towns with different urbanization rates in Chuxiong City, the main habitation area of Yi nationality in Yunnan Province, in order to explore the influence of urbanization development on minority cultures reflected by the characteristics of ancient trees. The results were as follows: (1) A total of 301 ancient trees were recorded, belonging to 26 species, 22 genera, and 16 families. Pistacia chinensis, Platycladus orientalis and Camellia reticulata were dominant species, accounting for more than 75% of the total number of ancient tree individuals. (2) Although Lucheng Town and Donggua Town were with the highest urbanization rate, while Ziwu Town was with the lowest urbanization rate, they all exhibited a high level of ancient tree diversity, with most of such ancient trees aggregatedly distributed around temples, parks and schools. (3) The species composition and distribution of ancient trees in Lucheng Town and Donggua Town with the highest urbanization rate reflected the foreign culture influence, while Ziwu Town with the lowest rate had more native species from the “God forests” of Yi nationality. (4) Towns with a high proportion of Yi nationality had neither higher diversity of ancient trees nor more “God forests” species. To sum up, in the process of urbanization development, ethnic minority cultures are faced with the dilemma of gradual loss, which further affects the composition and spatial distribution characteristics of regional ancient trees. Enhancing the safeguarding of ancient trees and fostering the preservation of national cultures are mutually reinforcing endeavors

Variations of Performance and Pressure Pulsation During Cavitation in Centrifugal Pumps with Entrained Air

Most of the research on the cavitation with entrained air has focused on the military direction, but it ,about centrifugal pumps, which is relevant to people's livelihood, is still relatively lacking. In order to study the basic law of the development of cavitation inside centrifugal pumps under aeration conditions, a test bench suitable for cavitation experiments with incoming flow containing gas was obtained. Furthermore, a single-stage single-suction 6-blade centrifugal pump was used as the research object to conduct pressure pulsation experiments under cavitation condition when the incoming flow was 1.0% air viod fraction at 2900r/min-50m3/h. The results showed that: After cavitation happened, the greater aeration content will deteriorate the pump's anti-cavitation performance, but the head curve is more gentle in falling down compared to natural cavitation. Hence aeration has a beneficial effect on the performance degradation of the pump under the cavitation condition. At the same time, before the cavitation number drops to the fracture cavitation number of the pump, aeration has improvement in the efficiency of the pump in different degrees , especially in the situation with the ventilated rate of 1.0%. The main frequency of pressure pulsation at the inlet and outlet of the test pump after aeration is dominated by the blade frequency. The shaft frequency signal at the outlet gradually decreases with the cavitation number lessened. Moreover the amplitude of the blade frequency grows slightly with the reduction of the cavitation number. But it tends to soar when the cavitation number is less than the fracture cavitation number

Genome-wide identification, molecular evolution, and expression analysis of auxin response factor (ARF) gene family in Brachypodium distachyon L

Abstract Background The auxin response factor (ARF) gene family is involved in plant development and hormone regulation. Although the ARF gene family has been studied in some plant species, its structural features, molecular evolution, and expression profiling in Brachypodium distachyon L. are still not clear. Results Genome-wide analysis identified 19 ARF genes in B. distachyon. A phylogenetic tree constructed with 182 ARF genes from seven plant species revealed three different clades, and the ARF genes from within a clade exhibited structural conservation, although certain divergences occurred in different clades. The branch-site model identified some sites where positive selection may have occurred, and functional divergence analysis found more Type II divergence sites than Type I. In particular, both positive selection and functional divergence may have occurred in 241H, 243G, 244 L, 310 T, 340G and 355 T. Subcellular localization prediction and experimental verification indicated that BdARF proteins were present in the nucleus. Transcript expression analysis revealed that BdARFs were mainly expressed in the leaf and root tips, stems, and developing seeds. Some BdARF genes exhibited significantly upregulated expression under various abiotic stressors. Particularly, BdARF4 and BdARF8 were significantly upregulated in response to abiotic stress factors such as salicylic acid and heavy metals. Conclusion The ARF gene family in B. distachyon was highly conserved. Several important amino acid sites were identified where positive selection and functional divergence occurred, and they may play important roles in functional differentiation. BdARF genes had clear tissue and organ expression preference and were involved in abiotic stress response, suggesting their roles in plant growth and stress resistance

Phospholipid-Membrane-Based Nanovesicles Acting as Vaccines for Tumor Immunotherapy: Classification, Mechanisms and Applications

Membrane vesicles, a group of nano- or microsized vesicles, can be internalized or interact with the recipient cells, depending on their parental cells, size, structure and content. Membrane vesicles fuse with the target cell membrane, or they bind to the receptors on the cell surface, to transfer special effects. Based on versatile features, they can modulate the functions of immune cells and therefore influence immune responses. In the field of tumor therapeutic applications, phospholipid-membrane-based nanovesicles attract increased interest. Academic institutions and industrial companies are putting in effort to design, modify and apply membrane vesicles as potential tumor vaccines contributing to tumor immunotherapy. This review focuses on the currently most-used types of membrane vesicles (including liposomes, bacterial membrane vesicles, tumor- and dendritic-cell-derived extracellular vesicles) acting as tumor vaccines, and describes the classification, mechanism and application of these nanovesicles

Superpixel-Based Regional-Scale Grassland Community Classification Using Genetic Programming with Sentinel-1 SAR and Sentinel-2 Multispectral Images

Grasslands are one of the most important terrestrial ecosystems on the planet and have significant economic and ecological value. Accurate and rapid discrimination of grassland communities is critical to the conservation and utilization of grassland resources. Previous studies that explored grassland communities were mainly based on field surveys or airborne hyperspectral and high-resolution imagery. Limited by workload and cost, these methods are typically suitable for small areas. Spaceborne mid-resolution RS images (e.g., Sentinel, Landsat) have been widely used for large-scale vegetation observations owing to their large swath width. However, there still keep challenges in accurately distinguishing between different grassland communities using these images because of the strong spectral similarity of different communities and the suboptimal performance of models used for classification. To address this issue, this paper proposed a superpixel-based grassland community classification method using Genetic Programming (GP)-optimized classification model with Sentinel-2 multispectral bands, their derived vegetation indices (VIs) and textural features, and Sentinel-1 Synthetic Aperture Radar (SAR) bands and the derived textural features. The proposed method was evaluated in the Siziwang grassland of China. Our results showed that the addition of VIs and textures, as well as the use of GP-optimized classification models, can significantly contribute to distinguishing grassland communities, and the proposed approach classified the seven communities in Siziwang grassland with an overall accuracy of 84.21% and a kappa coefficient of 0.81. We concluded that the classification method proposed in this paper is capable of distinguishing grassland communities with high accuracy at a regional scale

Folium crataegi boosts skin regeneration for burn injury in rats through multiple ways

Appropriate topical dressings for burn treatments are important to accelerate skin wound recovery and prevent external infections. This study aimed to evaluate the effect and investigate the mechanism of folium crataegi (Crataegus pinnatifida Bge.) for the treatment of burn wounds, as well as to compare the therapeutic effects of aqueous extracts (HLW) and alcoholic extracts (HLE) from folium crataegi. The results demonstrated that both HLW and HLE groups exhibited a higher wound contraction rate than the silver sulfadiazine (SSD) ointment group. Moreover, HLW showed more significant wound repair effects than HLE. HLW significantly increased levels of EGF and FGF-2 in wound tissue, as well as TGF-β1, VEGF, CAT and IL-10 in serum. Folium crataegi extract, especially aqueous extracts, exerted good anti-inflammatory, anti-oxidant and anti-bacterial effects by upregulating the expression of lag3, txn1 and slpi, respectively. Folium crataegi extract significantly inhibits the expression of npas2, a key gene in the circadian rhythm pathway. In conclusion, this research illustrated that the folium crataegi extract, especially aqueous extracts, had better therapeutic effects on skin burns through multiple ways, possibly including a novel mechanism related to circadian rhythm pathway. These findings suggest that folium crataegi could be a valuable source of compounds for enhancing skin regeneration through multiple ways