474 research outputs found
Short-term dietary choline supplementation alters the gut microbiota and liver metabolism of finishing pigs
Choline is an essential nutrient for pig development and plays a role in the animal's growth performance, carcass characteristics, and reproduction aspects in weaned pigs and sows. However, the effect of choline on finishing pigs and its potential regulatory mechanism remains unclear. Here, we feed finishing pigs with 1% of the hydrochloride salt of choline, such as choline chloride (CHC), under a basic diet condition for a short period of time (14 days). A 14-day supplementation of CHC significantly increased final weight and carcass weight while having no effect on carcass length, average backfat, or eye muscle area compared with control pigs. Mechanically, CHC resulted in a significant alteration of gut microbiota composition in finishing pigs and a remarkably increased relative abundance of bacteria contributing to growth performance and health, including Prevotella, Ruminococcaceae, and Eubacterium. In addition, untargeted metabolomics analysis identified 84 differently abundant metabolites in the liver between CHC pigs and control pigs, of which most metabolites were mainly enriched in signaling pathways related to the improvement of growth, development, and health. Notably, there was no significant difference in the ability of oxidative stress resistance between the two groups, although increased bacteria and metabolites keeping balance in reactive oxygen species showed in finishing pigs after CHC supplementation. Taken together, our results suggest that a short-term supplementation of CHC contributes to increased body weight gain and carcass weight of finishing pigs, which may be involved in the regulation of gut microbiota and alterations of liver metabolism, providing new insights into the potential of choline-mediated gut microbiota/metabolites in improving growth performance, carcass characteristics, and health
Cell metabolism-based optimization strategy of CAR-T cell function in cancer therapy
Adoptive cell therapy (ACT) using chimeric antigen receptor (CAR)-modified T cells has revolutionized the field of immune-oncology, showing remarkable efficacy against hematological malignancies. However, its success in solid tumors is limited by factors such as easy recurrence and poor efficacy. The effector function and persistence of CAR-T cells are critical to the success of therapy and are modulated by metabolic and nutrient-sensing mechanisms. Moreover, the immunosuppressive tumor microenvironment (TME), characterized by acidity, hypoxia, nutrient depletion, and metabolite accumulation caused by the high metabolic demands of tumor cells, can lead to T cell “exhaustion” and compromise the efficacy of CAR-T cells. In this review, we outline the metabolic characteristics of T cells at different stages of differentiation and summarize how these metabolic programs may be disrupted in the TME. We also discuss potential metabolic approaches to improve the efficacy and persistence of CAR-T cells, providing a new strategy for the clinical application of CAR-T cell therapy
Searching for the nano-Hertz stochastic gravitational wave background with the Chinese Pulsar Timing Array Data Release I
Observing and timing a group of millisecond pulsars (MSPs) with high
rotational stability enables the direct detection of gravitational waves (GWs).
The GW signals can be identified from the spatial correlations encoded in the
times-of-arrival of widely spaced pulsar-pairs. The Chinese Pulsar Timing Array
(CPTA) is a collaboration aiming at the direct GW detection with observations
carried out using Chinese radio telescopes. This short article serves as a
`table of contents' for a forthcoming series of papers related to the CPTA Data
Release 1 (CPTA DR1) which uses observations from the Five-hundred-meter
Aperture Spherical radio Telescope (FAST). Here, after summarizing the time
span and accuracy of CPTA DR1, we report the key results of our statistical
inference finding a correlated signal with amplitude \log A_{\rm c}= -14.4
\,^{+1.0}_{-2.8} for spectral index in the range of
assuming a GW background (GWB) induced quadrupolar correlation. The search for
the Hellings-Downs (HD) correlation curve is also presented, where some
evidence for the HD correlation has been found that a 4.6- statistical
significance is achieved using the discrete frequency method around the
frequency of 14 nHz. We expect that the future International Pulsar Timing
Array data analysis and the next CPTA data release will be more sensitive to
the nHz GWB, which could verify the current results.Comment: 18 pages, 6 figures, submitted to "Research in astronomy and
astrophysics" 22nd March 202
Effects of dietary L-Citrulline supplementation on growth performance, meat quality, and fecal microbial composition in finishing pigs
Gut microbiota play an important role in the gut ecology and development of pigs, which is always regulated by nutrients. This study investigated the effect of L-Citrulline on growth performance, carcass characteristics, and its potential regulatory mechanism. The results showed that 1% dietary L-Citrulline supplementation for 52 days significantly increased final weight, liveweight gain, carcass weight, and average backfat and markedly decreased drip loss (p < 0.05) of finishing pigs compared with the control group. Microbial analysis of fecal samples revealed a marked increase in α-diversity and significantly altered composition of gut microbiota in finishing pigs in response to L-Citrulline. In particular, these altered gut microbiota at the phylum and genus level may be mainly involved in the metabolic process of carbohydrate, energy, and amino acid, and exhibited a significant association with final weight, carcass weight, and backfat thickness. Taken together, our data revealed the potential role of L-Citrulline in the modulation of growth performance, carcass characteristics, and the meat quality of finishing pigs, which is most likely associated with gut microbiota
Changes of proteins induced by anticoagulants can be more sensitively detected in urine than in plasma
Multidifferential study of identified charged hadron distributions in -tagged jets in proton-proton collisions at 13 TeV
Jet fragmentation functions are measured for the first time in proton-proton
collisions for charged pions, kaons, and protons within jets recoiling against
a boson. The charged-hadron distributions are studied longitudinally and
transversely to the jet direction for jets with transverse momentum 20 GeV and in the pseudorapidity range . The
data sample was collected with the LHCb experiment at a center-of-mass energy
of 13 TeV, corresponding to an integrated luminosity of 1.64 fb. Triple
differential distributions as a function of the hadron longitudinal momentum
fraction, hadron transverse momentum, and jet transverse momentum are also
measured for the first time. This helps constrain transverse-momentum-dependent
fragmentation functions. Differences in the shapes and magnitudes of the
measured distributions for the different hadron species provide insights into
the hadronization process for jets predominantly initiated by light quarks.Comment: All figures and tables, along with machine-readable versions and any
supplementary material and additional information, are available at
https://cern.ch/lhcbproject/Publications/p/LHCb-PAPER-2022-013.html (LHCb
public pages
Study of the decay
The decay is studied
in proton-proton collisions at a center-of-mass energy of TeV
using data corresponding to an integrated luminosity of 5
collected by the LHCb experiment. In the system, the
state observed at the BaBar and Belle experiments is
resolved into two narrower states, and ,
whose masses and widths are measured to be where the first uncertainties are statistical and the second
systematic. The results are consistent with a previous LHCb measurement using a
prompt sample. Evidence of a new
state is found with a local significance of , whose mass and width
are measured to be and , respectively. In addition, evidence of a new decay mode
is found with a significance of
. The relative branching fraction of with respect to the
decay is measured to be , where the first
uncertainty is statistical, the second systematic and the third originates from
the branching fractions of charm hadron decays.Comment: All figures and tables, along with any supplementary material and
additional information, are available at
https://cern.ch/lhcbproject/Publications/p/LHCb-PAPER-2022-028.html (LHCb
public pages
Measurement of the ratios of branching fractions and
The ratios of branching fractions
and are measured, assuming isospin symmetry, using a
sample of proton-proton collision data corresponding to 3.0 fb of
integrated luminosity recorded by the LHCb experiment during 2011 and 2012. The
tau lepton is identified in the decay mode
. The measured values are
and
, where the first uncertainty is
statistical and the second is systematic. The correlation between these
measurements is . Results are consistent with the current average
of these quantities and are at a combined 1.9 standard deviations from the
predictions based on lepton flavor universality in the Standard Model.Comment: All figures and tables, along with any supplementary material and
additional information, are available at
https://cern.ch/lhcbproject/Publications/p/LHCb-PAPER-2022-039.html (LHCb
public pages
Insights into Synergy of Copper and Acid Sites for Selective Catalytic Reduction of NO with Ammonia over Zeolite Catalysts
Herein, we report the function of copper sites in Cu-SSZ-13, Cu-ZSM-5 and Cu-Beta catalysts with the same Si/Al ratio (14) and Cu/Al ratio (0.4) on selective catalytic reduction of NO with NH3 (NH3-SCR) and reveal the relationship between active sites (Cu sites, acid sites) and catalytic activity. The results show that the amount of isolated Cu2+ ions in the catalysts directly determines the formation of strong Lewis acid sites and reaction intermediate NO3− ions, thus affecting the low-temperature SCR performance, while the amount of highly stable Cu+ ions and Brønsted acid sites is related to the high-temperature SCR performance of the catalysts. Consequently, it contains enough isolated Cu2+ ions, highly stable Cu+ ions and Brønsted acid sites, which endows Cu-SSZ-13 with excellent NH3-SCR activity
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