Optimization of Ultrasonic-Assisted Simultaneous Extraction of Three Active Compounds from the Fruits of Forsythia suspensa and Comparison with Conventional Extraction Methods

An efficient ultrasonic-assisted extraction (UAE) method was developed for simultaneous extraction of three active compounds, forsythiaside A (FSA), phillyrin (PHI) and rutin (RT), from the fruits of Forsythia suspensa. The effects of various factors including a binary mixed solvent of methanol/water and ethanol/water, the pH of the solvent, particle size, temperature, solvent to material ratio, ultrasonic input power and extraction time on UAE were investigated in detail. The mass transfer mechanism of UAE using different mixed solvents was further explained by comparison with the maceration extraction method. The response surface methodology was used to optimize the experimental variables including ethanol concentration, solvent to material ratio and extraction time. The optimized conditions for the simultaneous extraction of RT, FSA and PHI were: particle size 60–80 mesh, temperature 30 °C, ultrasonic power 200 W, ethanol concentration 50%, solvent to material ratio 32 mL/g and extraction time 37 min. Compared to conventional extraction methods, UAE provided the highest extraction efficiency and offered many advantages including the reduction of solvent, temperature and time for extraction

Identification Of Putative Gene Signatures Associated With Diagnosis And Prognosis Of Breast Cancer

Purpose: This study aimed to identify potential diagnostic and therapeutic biomakers for the development ofbreast cancer (BC). Methods: GSE86374 dataset containing 159 samples was acquired from the Gene Expression Omnibus (GEO) database followed by differentially expressed genes (DEGs) identification and cluster analysis. Corresponding functional enrichment and protein-protein interaction (PPI) network analyses were performed to identify hub genes. Prognostic evaluation using clinical information obtained from TCGA database and hub genes was conducted to screen for crucial indicators for BC progression. The risk model was established and validated. Results: In total, 186 DEGs were identified and grouped into four clusters: 96 in cluster 1; 69 in cluster 2; 16 in  cluster 3; and 5 in cluster 4. Functional enrichment analysis showed that DEGs, including ADH1B in cluster 1,  were dramatically enriched in the tyrosine and drug metabolism pathways, while genes in cluster 2, including  SPP1 and RRM2, played crucial roles in PI3K-Akt and p53 signalling pathway. SPP1 and RRM2 served as hub  genes in the PPI network, resulting in an support vector machine classifier with good accuracy and specificity.Ad ditionally, the results of prognostic analysis suggest that age, metastasis stage, SPP1 and ADH1B were correlated with risk of BC, which was validated by using the established risk model analysis. Conclusion: SPP1, RRM2 and ADH1B appear to play vital roles in the development of BC. Age and TNM stage  were also preferentially associated with risk of developing BC. Evaluation of the risk model based on larger sample size and further experimental validation are required

Identification of potential genes correlated with breast cancer metastasis and prognosis

We aimed to screen, via bioinformatics analyses, potential gene markers related to BC metastasis and prognosis. A gene expression dataset (GSE102818) and relevant clinical information were downloaded from the GEO database and TCGA, respectively. Then, differentially expressed genes (DEGs) were identified between primary and metastatic BC samples, followed by survival analyses. Subsequently, functional enrichment and protein–protein interaction (PPI) analyses were performed. Finally, transcriptional regulation analysis was performed to extract the pivotal genes. A total of 146 DEGs were screened. Of these, 56 downregulated DEGs were closely associated with the survival outcomes of BC. Furthermore, functional enrichment analysis showed that these survival-related genes, including CCR7, CD27, and IL2RB, played notable roles in pathways such as cytokine-cytokine receptor interaction and immune responses. Furthermore, PPI network and enriched sub-module network analyses revealed that CCR7, CD27, and IL2RB served as hub genes with a high degree of association. Accordingly, they were key players in BC-associated transcriptional regulatory networks. Notably, these genes exhibited strong relationships with miR-1908 and miR-663. CCR7, CD27, IL2RB, miR-1908, and miR-663 may participate in the molecular mechanisms underlying BC metastasis, probably by influencing cytokine-related pathways and immune responses; thus, they are potential, novel therapeutic targets for BC management

Inhibition of EED activity enhances cell survival of female germline stem cell and improves the oocytes production during oogenesis in vitro

Ovarian organoids, based on female germline stem cells (FGSCs), are nowadays widely applied for reproductive medicine screening and exploring the potential mechanisms during mammalian oogenesis. However, there are still key issues that urgently need to be resolved in ovarian organoid technology, one of which is to establish a culture system that effectively expands FGSCs in vitro, as well as maintaining the unipotentcy of FGSCs to differentiate into oocytes. Here, FGSCs were EED226 treated and processed for examination of proliferation and differentiation in vitro. According to the results, EED226 specifically increased FGSC survival by decreasing the enrichment of H3K27me3 on Oct4 promoter and exon, as well as enhancing OCT4 expression and inhibiting P53 and P63 expression. Notably, we also found that FGSCs with EED226 treatment differentiated into more oocytes during oogenesis in vitro, and the resultant oocytes maintained a low level of P63 versus control at early stage development. These results demonstrated that inhibition of EED activity appeared to promote the survival of FGSCs and markedly inhibited their apoptosis during in vitro differentiation. As a result of our study, we propose an effective culture strategy to culture FGSCs and obtain oocytes in vitro, which provides a new vision for oogenesis in vitro

An Immunosuppressant Peptide from the Hard Tick Amblyomma variegatum

Ixodid ticks are well known for spreading transmitted tick-borne pathogens while being attached to their hosts for almost 1–2 weeks to obtain blood meals. Thus, they must secrete many immunosuppressant factors to combat the hosts’ immune system. In the present work, we investigated an immunosuppressant peptide of the hard tick Amblyomma variegatum. This peptide, named amregulin, is composed of 40 residues with an amino acid sequence of HLHMHGNGATQVFKPRLVLKCPNAAQLIQPGKLQRQLLLQ. A cDNA of the precursor peptide was obtained from the National Center for Biotechnology Information (NCBI, Bethesda, MD, USA). In rat splenocytes, amregulin exerts significant anti-inflammatory effects by inhibiting the secretion of inflammatory factors in vitro, such as tumor necrosis factor-alpha (TNF-α), interleukin-1 (IL-1), interleukin-8 (IL-8) and interferon-gamma (IFN-γ). In rat splenocytes, treated with amregulin, compared to lipopolysaccharide (LPS) alone, the inhibition of the above inflammatory factors was significant at all tested concentrations (2, 4 and 8 µg/mL). Amregulin shows strong free radical scavenging and antioxidant activities (5, 10 and 20 µg/mL) in vitro. Amregulin also significantly inhibits adjuvant-induced paw inflammation in mouse models in vivo. This peptide may facilitate the ticks’ successful blood feeding and may lead to host immunotolerance of the tick. These findings have important implications for the understanding of tick-host interactions and the co-evolution between ticks and the viruses that they bear

Scalable Synthesis of Uniform Nanosized Microporous Carbon Particles from Rigid Polymers for Rapid Ion and Molecule Adsorption

Porous carbon materials are of great importance for many applications such as energy storage, catalysis, and adsorption. Rational design and low-cost synthesis of carbon structures that can simultaneously offer high surface area and rapid ion/molecule transport properties remain desired for target functions. Here, we report a cost-effective and scalable synthesis of high surface area, size-uniform microporous carbon nanoparticles. A combination of using rigid polymer nanoparticles as the precursor, precarbonization, and activation process leads to carbon nanoparticles with a high surface area (up to 2789 m² g^–1), a large pore volume (up to 1.85 cm³ g^–1), and a high packing density (0.5 g cm^–3), which is due to the existence of a large amount of highly accessible micropores. Such a unique carbon structure exhibits not only large capacity but also rapid adsorption for both ions and small molecules, demonstrated in high-performance supercapacitors and as an efficient sorbent for removal of pollutants from water. This study provides a new strategy that can be used to further design and tune nanostructured carbon and composite particles to explore many other applications