Berberine Influences Blood Glucose via Modulating the Gut Microbiome in Grass Carp

Berberine (BBR), an isoquinoline alkaloid, is a major pharmacological component of the Chinese herb Coptis chinensis, which has been listed in the Chinese Fisheries Pharmacopeia as a common drug for the control of bacterial fish diseases. However, BBR is poorly absorbed into the systemic circulation but is significantly accumulated in the intestine. It is difficult to explain the mechanism of clinical effects of BBR based on systemic genes and pathways; it has been proved that the function of BBR in mammals is associated with the host metabolic phenotypes mediated by the structural modulation of gut microbiota. The mechanism of pharmacological effects of BBR in fish remains unclear. Here, we fed grass carp (Ctenopharyngodon idellus) a diet supplemented with BBR at a dose of 30 mg/Kg body weight daily and compared them with grass carp fed a regular fish feed diet. Biochemical analysis revealed that fish fed BBR had significantly reduced serum glucose, total cholesterol (TC), and triglyceride (TG) levels, and increased TC (p < 0.05) and TG (p < 0.01) levels in the liver. Deep amplicon sequencing of the V4 region of 16S rRNA genes of the gut microbiota revealed: (i) the composition of gut microbiota after BBR feeding was more diverse than that in the control group; (ii)before fish were fed BBR, the enriched operational taxonomic units (OTUs) mainly belonged to Firmicutes while most enriched OTUs came from Proteobacteria, Planctomycetes, Bacteroidetes, and Firmicutes during BBR feeding and after BBR feeding stopped; (iii) the ratio of Firmicutes to Bacteroidetes was significantly decreased in fish fed BBR. Spearman’s rank correlation showed that 32 berberine-OTUs were significantly negative correlated with glucose (p < 0.05). It indicates that BBR may affect the levels of serum glucose by the structural modulation of gut microbiota. Our results provide insight into the effect of BBR on fish metabolism and gut microbiomes, which would be beneficial for the fish welfare

Identification and validation of IgG N-glycosylation biomarkers of esophageal carcinoma

Introduction: Altered Immunoglobulin G (IgG) N-glycosylation is associated with aging, inflammation, and diseases status, while its effect on esophageal squamous cell carcinoma (ESCC) remains unknown. As far as we know, this is the first study to explore and validate the association of IgG N-glycosylation and the carcinogenesis progression of ESCC, providing innovative biomarkers for the predictive identification and targeted prevention of ESCC. Methods: In total, 496 individuals of ESCC (n=114), precancerosis (n=187) and controls (n=195) from the discovery population (n=348) and validation population (n=148) were recruited in the study. IgG N-glycosylation profile was analyzed and an ESCC-related glycan score was composed by a stepwise ordinal logistic model in the discovery population. The receiver operating characteristic (ROC) curve with the bootstrapping procedure was used to assess the performance of the glycan score. Results: In the discovery population, the adjusted OR of GP20 (digalactosylated monosialylated biantennary with core and antennary fucose), IGP33 (the ratio of all fucosylated monosyalilated and disialylated structures), IGP44 (the proportion of high mannose glycan structures in total neutral IgG glycans), IGP58 (the percentage of all fucosylated structures in total neutral IgG glycans), IGP75 (the incidence of bisecting GlcNAc in all fucosylated digalactosylated structures in total neutral IgG glycans), and the glycan score are 4.03 (95% CI: 3.03-5.36, P \u3c 0.001), 0.69 (95% CI: 0.55-0.87, P \u3c 0.001), 0.56 (95% CI: 0.45-0.69, P \u3c 0.001), 0.52 (95% CI: 0.41-0.65, P \u3c 0.001), 7.17 (95% CI: 4.77-10.79, P \u3c 0.001), and 2.86 (95% CI: 2.33-3.53, P \u3c 0.001), respectively. Individuals in the highest tertile of the glycan score own an increased risk (OR: 11.41), compared with those in the lowest. The average multi-class AUC are 0.822 (95% CI: 0.786-0.849). Findings are verified in the validation population, with an average AUC of 0.807 (95% CI: 0.758-0.864). Discussion: Our study demonstrated that IgG N-glycans and the proposed glycan score appear to be promising predictive markers for ESCC, contributing to the early prevention of esophageal cancer. From the perspective of biological mechanism, IgG fucosylation and mannosylation might involve in the carcinogenesis progression of ESCC, and provide potential therapeutic targets for personalized interventions of cancer progression

Entry strategies of foreign real estate investors in China - Case study of Hutchison Whampoa, ING and CapitaLand

Foreign investment in China's real estate market has lasted the two decades and many Chinese academics focus on the appropriate policy to regulate the foreign real estate investment. The aim of this study is to investigate the entry strategies by the foreign real estate investors and attempt to analyse the reasons of their entry modes in China. In the range of legalization, the permitted entry modes in China for foreign real estate investors include Wholly Foreign-owned Enterprise (WFOE), Equity Joint Venture (EJV) and Cooperative Joint Venture (CJV). Although foreign investors may use the direct and indirect investment vehicles to invest in Chinese real estate projects, their entry strategies are very different because there are some reasons behind their choice. It may be the cultural difference or legal restrictions or other reasons. The study agrees the foreign investors may be classified into three groups according the geographic differentiation by a few Chinese academics. For the sake of in-depth study, the research takes three representative cases which stand for these groups. Three subjected foreign investors are Hutchison Whampoa Property from Hong Kong, ING from the Netherland and CapitaLand from Singapore. During the investigation in these three companies, it helps to configure the entry models of three companies and discover the differences of them. The analysis framework for the subjected companies is based on Comparative Advantages theory and Ownership, Internalization and Location Advantages theory (or OLI model). After the qualitative analysis of available evidence and interview with the interrelated people, it reveals the reasons of foreign investors investing by their entry modes. Considered the trade-off of the risk and the benefit, cultural distance, legal stability and preferential policy are the important external factors for foreign investors to choose the appropriate entry modes. But the real estate fund investors, the internal factors such as the nature of the investors decides the firm tending to apply CJV rather other modes

Effects of ultrasonic treatment on the microstructures and hardening of Al–Cu–Mg–Ag alloys

The influence of ultrasonic treatment (UT) on the microstructure morphology and hardness of Al–Cu–Mg–Ag alloy is systematically investigated by a combination of electron backscatter diffraction (EBSD), x-ray diffraction (XRD), scanning electron microscope (SEM) and transmission electron microscope (TEM) analysis. Our results show that the hardness of as-cast and T6-tempered alloys becomes higher by UT. TEM analysis indicates that UT greatly accelerates the precipitation of θ precipitates and prohibits its rapid coarsening during exposing at 225 °C. This positive effect is ascribed to the combined results of the increasing Cu content in matrix, reduced dendritic segregation and more uniform distribution of Cu solutes by UT. Besides, UT is found to affect the precipitation kinetics of Ω phase because the higher number density of Ω plates is detected in UT alloys. This feature ensures a greater precipitation strengthening contribution to hardening in T6-termperd alloy with UT. Although the grain sizes of as-cast and T6-tempered alloys are reduced by UT, the grain boundary strengthening effect is very limited in UT alloys. This work also reveals that the solute content within the matrix increases by UT and therefore favors a stronger solid solution strengthening effect, leading to the higher hardness of as-cast UT alloys. After exposing at 225 °C for 100 h, all the T6-tempered alloys with and without UT exhibit a similar hardness despite the exposed microstructures exhibit clear differences. The absence of the enhanced hardening by UT in exposed alloys is arising from the fact that Ω and θ precipitates significantly coarsen during exposing

Mechanically Strong and Tailorable Polyimide Aerogels Prepared with Novel Silicone Polymer Crosslinkers

Polyimide (PI) aerogels were prepared using self-designed silicone polymer cross-linkers with multi-amino from low-cost silane coupling agents to replace conventional small-molecule cross-linkers. The long-chain structure of silicone polymers provides more crosslinking points than small-molecule cross-linkers, thus improving the mechanical properties of polyimide. To investigate the effects of amino content and degree of polymerization on the properties of silicone polymers, the different silicone polymers and their cross-linked PI aerogels were prepared. The obtained PI aerogels exhibit densities as low as 0.106 g/cm3 and specific surface areas as high as 314 m2/g, and the maximum Young’s modulus of aerogel is up to 20.9 MPa when using (T-20) as cross-linkers. The cross-linkers were an alternative to expensive small molecule cross-linkers, which can improve the mechanical properties and reduce the cost of PI aerogels

Improvement of the Thermal Insulation Performance of Silica Aerogel by Proper Heat Treatment: Microporous Structures Changes and Pyrolysis Mechanism

A simple heat treatment method was used to optimize the three-dimensional network structure of the hydrophobic aerogel, and during the heat treatment process at 200–1000 °C, the thermal conductivity of the aerogel reached the lowest to 0.02240 W/m·K between 250 °C and 300 °C, which was mainly due to the optimization of microstructure and pyrolysis of surface groups. Further Fluent heat-transfer simulation also confirmed the above results. Synchrotron vacuum ultraviolet photoionization mass spectrometry (SVUV-PIMS) was used to finely measure the pyrolysis process of aerogels, and the pyrolysis process of aerogel was divided into four stages. (I) Until 419 °C, as the temperature continued to rise, surface methyl groups were oxidized to form hydroxyl. (II) As the temperature reached to 232 °C, the oxidation proceeded. In addition, inside the aerogel, because of lacking oxygen, the reaction produced CH4 and C–Si bonds would form. (III) After 283 °C, Si–OH groups began to condense to form Si–O–Si, which optimized the three-dimensional network structures to be beneficial to improve the thermal insulation performance of silica aerogel. (IV) When it reached 547 °C, the chemical reaction was terminated, and all the primary particles gradually fused into secondary particles and sintered to form clusters