Synergistic Effect of Ferulic Acid and Z-Ligustilide, Major Components of A. sinensis

Angelica sinensis has been used to attenuate cold-induced cutaneous vasospasm syndrome, such as Raynaud’s disease and frostbite, in China for many years. Ferulic acid (PubChem CID: 445858) and Z-ligustilide (PubChem CID: 529865), two major components extracted from Angelica sinensis, had been reported to inhibit vasoconstriction induced by vasoconstrictors. In this study, the pharmacological interaction in regulating cold-induced vascular smooth muscle cell contraction via cold-sensing protein TRPM8 and TRPA1 was analyzed between ferulic acid and Z-ligustilide. Pharmacological interaction on inhibiting [Ca2+]i influx evoked by TRPM8 agonist WS-12 or TRPA1 agonist ASP 7663 as well as cold-induced upregulation of TRPM8 was determined using isobolographic analysis. The isobolograms demonstrated that the combinations investigated in this study produced a synergistic interaction. Combination effect of two components in inhibiting RhoA activation and phosphorylation of MLC20 induced by WS-12 or ASP 7663 was also being quantified. These findings suggest that the therapeutic effect of Angelica sinensis on cold-induced vasospasm may be partially attributed to combinational effect, via TRPM8 and TPRA1 way, between ferulic acid and Z-ligustilide

Temperature-dependent structure of an intermetallic ErPd2_2Si2_2 single crystal: A combined synchrotron and in-house X-ray diffraction study

We have grown intermetallic ErPd$_2$Si$_2$ single crystals employing laser-diodes with the floating-zone method. The temperature-dependent crystallography was determined using synchrotron and in-house X-ray powder diffraction measurements from 20 to 500 K. The diffraction patterns fit well with the tetragonal $I$4/$mmm$ space group (No. 139) with two chemical formulas within one unit cell. Our synchrotron X-ray powder diffraction study shows that the refined lattice constants are $a$ = 4.10320(2) {\AA}, $c$ = 9.88393(5) {\AA} at 298 K and $a$ = 4.11737(2) {\AA}, $c$ = 9.88143(5) {\AA} at 500 K, resulting in the unit-cell volume $V$ = 166.408(1) {\AA}$^3$ (298 K) and 167.517(2) {\AA}$^3$ (500 K). In the whole studied temperature range, we did not find any structural phase transition. Upon cooling, the lattice constants a and c are shortened and elongated, respectively.Comment: 5 Figures, 4 Table

A Reliability-Oriented Local-Area Model for Large-Scale Wireless Sensor Networks

Large-scale wireless sensor networks (WSNs) have demonstrated some complex features which are similar to those of other types of complex networks, such as social networks. Based on these complex features, evolution process and characteristic of WSNs, we represent a WSN topologically by building a suitable model, which is named as the reliability-oriented local-area model (ROLM) and aimed at improving the performance of WSNs. For analyzing the performance of the ROLM, we define the reliability as the probability of that the relative error between the measurement and the true value is equal to or less than ε  (ε≥0) and proposed a parameter η to measure the reliability of the network. Based on them, we use η to analyze the influence of network structure on the reliability, and compared the reliabilities of the ROLM and the existing WSNs. Experiment results prove that the large-scale WSN follows a power-law distribution, and it has scale-free characteristic and small world characteristic. And it also shows that, comparing with existing model, ROLM not only balances energy consumption by limiting the connectivity of each node to prolong the lifetime of the network, but also improves the reliability substantially. And the ROLM can be used to express the topology of reliability-oriented WSNs and analyze the structure preferably

In vitro evaluation of anticancer nanomedicines based on doxorubicin and amphiphilic Y-shaped copolymers

Four monomethoxy poly(ethylene glycol)-poly(L-lactide-co-glycolide)2 (mPEG-P( LA-co-GA)2) copolymers were synthesized by ring-opening polymerization of L-lactide and glycolide with double hydroxyl functionalized mPEG (mPEG-(OH)2) as macroinitiator and stannous octoate as catalyst. The copolymers self-assembled into nanoscale micellar/vesicular aggregations in phosphate buffer at pH 7.4. Doxorubicin (DOX), an anthracycline anticancer drug, was loaded into the micellar/vesicular nanoparticles, yielding micellar/vesicular nanomedicines. The in vitro release behaviors could be adjusted by content of hydrophobic polyester and pH of the release medium. In vitro cell experiments showed that the intracellular DOX release could be adjusted by content of P(LA-co-GA), and the nanomedicines displayed effective proliferation inhibition against Henrietta Lacks’s cells with different culture times. Hemolysis tests indicated that the copolymers were hemocompatible, and the presence of copolymers could reduce the hemolysis ratio of DOX significantly. These results suggested that the novel anticancer nanomedicines based on DOX and amphiphilic Y-shaped copolymers were attractive candidates as tumor tissular and intracellular targeting drug delivery systems in vivo, with enhanced stability during circulation and accelerated drug release at the target sites

Enhancement of bacteriolysis of Shuffled phage PhiX174 gene E

Bacterial ghosts that are generated using the regulated PhiX174 lysis gene E offer a new avenue for the study of inactivated vaccines. Here, we constructed a library of mutant gene E using a gene-shuffling technique. After screening and recombination with the prokaryotic non-fusion expression vector pBV220, two lysis plasmids were selected. Among which, a novel mutant E gene (named mE), consisting of a 74-bp non-encoding sequence at 5'-end and a 201-bp gene ΔE, significantly increased the lysis effect on prokaryotic Escherichia coli and Salmonella enteritidis. Moreover, lysis efficiency, as measured by the OD600 value, reached 1.0 (109 CFU), avoiding the bottleneck problem observed with other bacterial lysis procedures, which results in a low concentration of bacteria in suspension, and consequent low production of bacterial ghosts. Our results may provide a promising avenue for the development of bacterial ghost vaccines

MgF2_2 as an effective additive for improving ionic conductivity of ceramic solid electrolytes

As typical solid-state electrolytes (SSEs), {Na}$_{1+x}${Zr}$_2${Si}$_{x}${P}$_{3-x}${O}$_{12}$ NASICONs provide an ideal platform for solid-state batteries (SSBs) that display higher safety and accommodate higher energy densities. The critical points for achieving SSBs with higher efficiencies are to improve essentially the ionic conductivity and to reduce largely the interfacial resistance between SSEs and cathode materials, which would necessitate extremely high level of craftsmanship and high-pressure equipment. An alternative to higher-performance and lower-cost SSBs is additive manufacturing. Here, we report on an effective additive, MgF$_2$, which was used in synthesizing NASICONs, resulting in SSEs with fewer defects and higher performance. With an addition of mere 1 wt$\%$ MgF$_2$ additive, the total room-temperature ionic conductivity of the NASICON electrolyte reaches up to 2.03 mS cm$^{-1}$, improved up to $\sim$ 181.3$\%$, with an activation energy of 0.277 eV. Meanwhile, the stability of the Na plating/stripping behavior in symmetric cells increases from 236 to 654 h. We tried to reveal the microscopic origins of the higher ionic conductivity of MgF$_2$-doped NASICONs by comprehensive in-house characterizations. Our study discovers a novel MgF$_2$ additive and provides an efficient way to prepare higher-performance SSEs, making it possible to fabricate lower-cost SSBs in industries.Comment: 16 pages, 7 figure

Cardiac Involvement in COVID-19: A Global Bibliometric and Visualized Analysis

ObjectiveCoronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19), which was caused by severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus-2 (SARS-CoV-2), had already resulted in widespread epidemics worldwide and millions of people's deaths since its outbreak in 2019. COVID-19 had also been demonstrated to affect people's cardiac function. However, the specific mechanism and influence of this damage were not clear yet. The purpose of the present study was to provide a bibliometric analysis of the current studies related to cardiac involvement after SARS-CoV-2 infection.MethodsA bibliometric literature search was performed on the web of science. The number and type of publications, countries, institutional sources, journals, and citation patterns were analyzed. In addition, qualitative and quantitative evaluations were carried out to visualize the scientific achievements in this field by using the VOSviewer software.ResultsWeb of science had recorded 2,24,097 documents on COVID-19 at the time of data collection (May 12, 2022). A total of 2,025 documents related to cardiac involvement were recorded at last. The countries with the most published articles were the United States of America (USA) (n =747, 36.9%), Italy (n =324, 16%), and England (n =213, 10.5%). Although the countries and institutions that published the most articles were mainly from the USA, the top three authors were from Germany, England, and Poland. Frontiers in Cardiovascular Medicine was the journal with the most studies (65 3.2%), followed by ESC Heart Failure (59 2.9%) and Journal of Clinical Medicine (56 2.8%). We identified 13,739 authors, among which Karin Klingel and Amer Harky had the most articles, and Shaobo Shi was co-cited most often. There existed some cooperation between different authors, but the scope was limited. Myocarditis and heart failure (HF) were the main research hotspots of COVID-19 on cardiac dysfunction and may be crucial to the prognosis of patients.ConclusionsIt was the first bibliometric analysis of publications related to COVID-19-associated cardiac disorder. This study provided academics and researchers with useful information on the most influential articles of COVID-19 and cardiac dysfunction. Cooperation between countries and institutions must be strengthened on myocarditis and HF during COVID-19 pandemic