Network pharmacology strategy to investigate the pharmacological effects of Suanzaoren Decoction on insomnia

Suanzaoren Decoction (SZRD) is an ancient prescription used in the treatment of insomnia. This study aimed to investigate the components and targets of SZRD in treating insomnia. First, the compounds of five herbs in SZRD were collected from the Traditional Chinese Medicine Systems Pharmacology Database and Analysis Platform (TCMSP), and the putative targets for treating insomnia were obtained from DrugBank to construct the herb-compound-target- disease network. A protein-protein interaction (PPI) network was constructed in the STRING database, and then Gene Ontology functional enrichment and Kyoto Encyclopedia of Genes and Genomes (KEGG) pathway enrichment analysis were performed to predict the mechanism of action of intersection target. Finally, 30 mice were divided into five groups: control, model, and quercetin groups (100, 50, 25 mg/kg). The sleep latency and duration of pentobarbital-induced sleeping were measured. The production of interleukin-6 (IL-6) and γ-aminobutyric acid (γ-GABA) was detected by using an enzyme-linked immunosorbent assay kit (ELISA), and Gamma-aminobutyric acid type a receptor subunit alpha1 (GABRA1) was tested by Reverse Transcription-Polymerase Chain Reaction (RT-PCR). A total of 152 active ingredients, including 80 putative targets of SZRD, were obtained. The main active compounds included quercetin and kaempferol, and the key targets involved IL-6 and nitric oxide synthase 3 (NOS3). The results of pathway enrichment analysis indicated that the putative targets of SZRD mainly participated in Neuroactive ligand-receptor interaction. The experiment of P-chlorophenylalanine (PCPA)-induced insomnia model showed that quercetin obviously shortened the sleep latency and prolonged the sleep duration of the insomnia model. The production of IL-6, γ-GABA, and GABRA1 mRNA was significantly increased in mice treated with quercetin. This study predicted the active ingredients and potential targets of SZRD on insomnia on the basis of a systematic network pharmacology approach and illustrated that SZRD might exert hypnotic effects via regulating IL-6, γ-GABA, and GABRA1

Optimizing the thermoelectric performance of zigzag and chiral carbon nanotubes

Using nonequilibrium molecular dynamics simulations and nonequilibrium Green's function method, we investigate the thermoelectric properties of a series of zigzag and chiral carbon nanotubes which exhibit interesting diameter and chirality dependence. Our calculated results indicate that these carbon nanotubes could have higher ZT values at appropriate carrier concentration and operating temperature. Moreover, their thermoelectric performance can be significantly enhanced via isotope substitution, isoelectronic impurities, and hydrogen adsorption. It is thus reasonable to expect that carbon nanotubes may be promising candidates for high-performance thermoelectric materials

Holographic Charged Fluid with Anomalous Current at Finite Cutoff Surface in Einstein-Maxwell Gravity

The holographic charged fluid with anomalous current in Einstein-Maxwell gravity has been generalized from the infinite boundary to the finite cutoff surface by using the gravity/fluid correspondence. After perturbing the boosted Reissner-Nordstrom (RN)-AdS black brane solution of the Einstein-Maxwell gravity with the Chern-Simons term, we obtain the first order perturbative gravitational and Maxwell solutions, and calculate the stress tensor and charged current of the dual fluid at finite cutoff surfaces which contains undetermined parameters after demanding regularity condition at the future horizon. We adopt the Dirichlet boundary condition and impose the Landau frame to fix these parameters, finally obtain the dependence of transport coefficients in the dual stress tensor and charged current on the arbitrary radical cutoff $r_c$. We find that the dual fluid is not conformal, but it has vanishing bulk viscosity, and the shear viscosity to entropy density ratio is universally $1/4\pi$. Other transport coefficients of the dual current turns out to be cutoff-dependent. In particular, the chiral vortical conductivity expressed in terms of thermodynamic quantities takes the same form as that of the dual fluid at the asymptotic AdS boundary, and the chiral magnetic conductivity receives a cutoff-dependent correction which vanishes at the infinite boundary.Comment: 19 pages, v2: references added, v3: typos corrected, v5: typos corrected, version accepted for publication in JHE

Search for decays of B-0 -> e(+)e(-), B-0 -> mu(+)mu(-), B-0 -> e(+/-)mu(-/+)

We present a search for the decays B-0 -> e(+)e(-), B-0 ->mu(+)mu(-), and B-0 -> e(+/-)mu(-/+) in data collected at the Upsilon(4S) resonance with the BABAR detector at the SLAC B Factory. Using a data set of 111 fb(-1), we find no evidence for a signal in any of the three channels investigated and set the following branching fraction upper limits at the 90% confidence level: B(B-0 -> e(+)e(-))mu(+)mu(-)) e(+/-)mu(-/+))< 18x10(-8)

Editorial: Neuro-inspired sensing and computing: Novel materials, devices, and systems

Non peer reviewe

Inhibitory Effect of r-Hirudin Variant III on Streptozotocin-Induced Diabetic Cataracts in Rats

The in vivo inhibitory effect of r-hirudin variant III (rHV3) on streptozotocin (STZ)-induced diabetic cataracts in rats was investigated. SD-rats were firstly made diabetic by a single intraperitoneal injection of 2% (W/V) STZ (65 mg/kg). Two weeks later, cataract formation was examined by slit lamp microscope, and the cataracted animals were randomly grouped. The animals in the treated groups received rHV3 drops administration to the eyes with various doses. After 4 weeks treatment, the animals were sacrificed to evaluate the biochemical changes of aldose reductase (AR), superoxide dismutase (SOD), glutathione peroxidase (GSH-Px), and malondialdehyde (MDA) levels in the eye lens. Meanwhile, the cataract progression was monitored by slit lamp microscope. As a result, rHV3 drops treatment significantly increased the activities of SOD and GSH-Px in the lens in a dose-dependent manner, whereas AR activity and MDA level in the lens were dramatically decreased. Also, the morphological observation further confirmed the inhibition of the development of STZ-induced diabetic cataracts by the rHV3 drops treatment. Thus, our data suggest that rHV3 drops are pharmacologically effective for the protection against STZ-induced diabetic cataracts in rats

Manipulating the Ge Vacancies and Ge Precipitates through Cr Doping for Realizing the High-Performance GeTe Thermoelectric Material

GeTe alloy is a promising medium-temperature thermoelectric material but with highly intrinsic hole carrier concentration by thermodynamics, making this system to be intrinsically off-stoichiometric with Ge vacancies and Ge precipitations. Generally, an intentional increase of formation energy of Ge vacancy by element substitution will lead to an effective dissolution of Ge precipitates for reduction in hole concentration. Here, an opposite direction of decreasing the formation energy of Ge vacancies is demonstrated by substituting Cr at Ge site. This strategy produces more but nearly homogenously distributed Ge precipitations and Ge vacancies, which provides enhanced phonon scattering and effectively reduces the lattice thermal conductivity. Furthermore, Cr atom carries one more electron than Ge and serves as an electron donor for decreasing the hole carrier concentrations. Further optimization incorporates the effect of Bi substitution for facilitating band convergence. A maximum figure of merit (ZT) of 2.0 at 600 K with average ZT of over 1.2 is achieved in the sample of Ge0.92Cr0.03Bi0.05Te, making it one of the best thermoelectric materials for medium-temperature application