Effect of combined treatment with linezolid and ulinastatin on respiratory function and serum inflammatory factors in elderly patients with severe pneumonia

Purpose: To investigate the clinical effect of linezolid in combination with ulinastatin on respiratory function and serum inflammatory factors in elderly patients with severe pneumonia. Methods: Ninety-eight (98) elderly patients with severe pneumonia in Nuclear Industry 416 Hospital (January 2019 - January 2020) were equally randomized into group M and group N. Group M patients received linezolid alone, while those in group N received linezolid in combination with ulinastatin. Indices related to respiratory function such as maximal mid-expiratory flow (MMF), peak expiratory flow (PEF), maximal expiratory pressure (PEmax), maximal inspiratory pressure (Pimax), as well as serum inflammatory factors such as C-reactive protein (CRP), procalcitonin (PCT), interleukin-6 (IL-6) and tumor necrosis factor-α (TNF-α), were determined. Results: Total treatment effectiveness, pulmonary function indexes and arterial blood gas indices were higher in group N, while serum inflammatory factors and CPIS and APACHE II scores were lower, when compared with group M (p < 0.05). The incidence of adverse reactions in both groups was comparable (p > 0.05). Conclusion: Combined use of linezolid and ulinastatin produces marked therapeutic effect in elderly patients with severe pneumonia. It effectively lowers serum inflammatory factor levels, elevates arterial blood gas indices and improves pulmonary function. However, further clinical trials are required prior to its introduction in clinical practice. Keywords: Severe pneumonia; Respiratory function; Serum inflammatory factor; Linezolid; Ulinastati

Evaluation of the Biogenic Amines and Microbial Contribution in Traditional Chinese Sausages

Biogenic amines (BAs) in sausages represent a health risk for consumers, and thus investigating the BAs accumulation mechanism is important to control the BAs. In this study, the BAs profiles of 16 typical Chinese sausage samples were evaluated, and 8 kinds of common BAs were detected from different samples. As a whole, the BAs contents of the majority of Chinese sausage samples were within the safe dosage range, except that the total BAs and histamine concentrations of sample HBBD were above the toxic dosage levels. Furthermore, the bacterial and fungal communities of the Chinese sausage samples were investigated by high-throughput sequencing analysis, and Staphylococcus, Bacillus, Lactococcus, Lactobacillus, Debaryomyces, and Aspergillus were identified as the predominant genera. Accordingly, 13 representative strains were selected from the dominant genera, and their BAs formation and degradation properties were evaluated. Finally, the results of fermented meats model experiment indicated that the Staphylococcus isolates including Staphylococcus pasteuri Sp, Staphylococcus epidermidis Se, Staphylococcus carnosus Sc1, Staphylococcus carnosus Sc2, and Staphylococcus simulans Ss could significantly reduce BAs, possessing the potential as the starter cultures to control the BAs in fermented meat products. The present study not only helped to explain the BAs accumulation mechanism in Chinese sausage, but also developed the candidates for potential BAs control in fermented meat products

Image-based concrete crack detection in tunnels using deep fully convolutional networks

Abstract(#br)Automatic detection and segmentation of concrete cracks in tunnels remains a high-priority task for civil engineers. Image-based crack segmentation is an effective method for crack detection in tunnels. With the development of deep learning techniques, especially the development of image segmentation based on convolutional neural networks, new opportunities have been brought to crack detection. In this study, an improved deep fully convolutional neural network, named as CrackSegNet, is proposed to conduct dense pixel-wise crack segmentation. The proposed network consists of a backbone network, dilated convolution, spatial pyramid pooling, and skip connection modules. These modules can be used for efficient multiscale feature extraction, aggregation, and resolution reconstruction which greatly enhance the overall crack segmentation ability of the network. Compared to the conventional image processing and other deep learning-based crack segmentation methods, the proposed network shows significantly higher accuracy and generalization, making tunnel inspection and monitoring highly efficient, low cost, and eventually automatable

Association between Single Nucleotide Polymorphisms in SIRT1 and SIRT2 Loci and Growth in Tibetan Sheep

Silent information regulator 1 and 2 (SIRT1, 2) were NAD+-dependent histone or non-histone deacetylase, which emerged as key metabolic sensors in several tissues of mammals. In the present study, the search for polymorphisms within the ovine SIRT1 and SIRT2 loci as well as association analyses between SNPs and growth-related traits were performed in Tibetan sheep. To determine the expression pattern of SIRT1 and SIRT2 genes in Tibetan sheep, the quantitative real-time polymerase chain reaction (qPCR) analysis revealed that those two genes were widely expressed in diverse tissues. Expression of SIRT1 was less in abomasum of lamb, whereas it was greater in duodenum within adult stage. In the case of SIRT2, the greatest expression was observed in reticulum (lamb) and in muscle (adult), whereas the least expression was in liver for lamb and in kidney for adult animals. The association analysis demonstrated that g.3148 C \u3e T polymorphism of SIRT1 affected heart girth (p = 0.002). The g.8074 T \u3e A SNP of SIRT2 had a significant correlation with body weight (p = 0.011) and body length (p = 0.008). These findings suggested that the SIRT1 and SIRT2 polymorphism was involved in growth-related traits in Tibetan sheep, which may be considered to be genetic markers for improving the growth traits of Tibetan sheep

Targeting the tubulin C-terminal tail by charged small molecules

10 p.-6 fig.The disordered tubulin C-terminal tail (CTT), which possesses a higher degree of heterogeneity, is the target for the interaction of many proteins and cellular components. Compared to the seven well-described binding sites of microtubule-targeting agents (MTAs) that localize on the globular tubulin core, tubulin CTT is far less explored. Therefore, tubulin CTT can be regarded as a novel site for the development of MTAs with distinct biochemical and cell biological properties. Here, we designed and synthesized linear and cyclic peptides containing multiple arginines (RRR), which are complementary to multiple acidic residues in tubulin CTT. Some of them showed moderate induction and promotion of tubulin polymerization. The most potent macrocyclic compound 1f was found to bind to tubulin CTT and thus exert its bioactivity. Such RRR containing compounds represent a starting point for the discovery of tubulin CTT-targeting agents with therapeutic potential.This research was funded by the CAMS Innovation Fund for Medical Sciences (Grant No. 2016-I2M-1-010), State Key Lab Grant type C (Grant No. GTZC201709) (W.-S. F.), Ministerio de Ciencia e Innovación (Grant No. PID2021-123399OB-I00 /AEI/10.13039/501100011033) (M. Á. O.), Ministerio de Ciencia e Innovacion (Grant No. PID2019-104545RB-I00 /AEI/10.13039/501100011033), European Commission-NextGenerationsEU (Regulation EU 2020/2094, through CSIC's Global Health Platform (PTI Salud Global)), Proyecto de Investigación en Neurociencia Fundacion Tatiana Pérez de Guzmán el Bueno 2020 (J. F. D.), the Voelcker Fund (A. R.), the Natural Science Foundation of Guangdong Province of China (Grant No. 2022A1515011419), and the Key Project in Higher Education of Guangdong, China (Grant No. 2022ZDZX2029) (Z. Y.).Peer reviewe

Evaluation of the Biogenic Amines Formation and Degradation Abilities of Lactobacillus curvatus From Chinese Bacon

Control of biogenic amines (BAs) is critical to guarantee the safety of fermented meat products. The aim of this study is to evaluate the BAs formation and degradation abilities of lactic acid bacteria from Chinese bacon to obtain the beneficial candidate for BAs control. Seven lactic acid bacteria were selected from the typical Chinese bacon products, identified as Lactobacillus curvatus by 16S rDNA analysis. Then, genes analysis and high-performance liquid chromatography (HPLC) analysis were performed to evaluate the BAs formation and degradation abilities of as-selected strains. All L. curvatus strains were confirmed to harbor the genes encoding the tyrosine decarboxylase and ornithine decarboxylase, and they could produce tyramine, β-phenethylamine, putrescine, and cadaverine. In comparison, the lowest concentration of total BAs was obtained in L. curvatus G-1. Meanwhile, all L. curvatus strains were positive in amines oxidase gene analysis, and they could also degrade six common BAs, especially the L. curvatus G-1 with the highest degradation percentage (above 40%) for each BA. Furthermore, fermented meat model analysis verified that the L. curvatus G-1 could significantly reduce BAs. In conclusion, L. curvatus G-1 shows a low BAs-producing ability, as well as a high BAs-degrading ability, and this study provides a promising candidate for potential BAs control in fermented meat products

Assembly and comparative analysis of the complete mitochondrial genome of Isopyrum anemonoides (Ranunculaceae).

Ranunculaceae is a large family of angiosperms comprising 2500 known species-a few with medicinal and ornamental values. Despite this, only two mitochondrial genomes (mitogenomes) of the family have been released in GenBank. Isopyrum anemonoides is a medicinal plant belonging to the family Ranunculaceae, and its chloroplast genome has recently been reported; however, its mitogenome remains unexplored. In this study, we assembled and analyzed the complete mitochondrial genome of I. anemonoides and performed a comparative analysis against different Ranunculaceae species, reconstructing the phylogenetic framework of Isopyrum. The circular mitogenome of I. anemonoides has a length of 206,722 bp, with a nucleotide composition of A (26.4%), T (26.4%), C (23.6%), and G (23.6%), and contains 62 genes, comprising 37 protein-coding genes (PCGs), 22 transfer RNA (tRNA) genes, and three ribosomal RNA (rRNA) genes. Abundantly interspersed repetitive and simple sequence repeat (SSR) loci were detected in the I. anemonoides mitogenome, with tetranucleotide repeats accounting for the highest proportion of SSRs. By detecting gene migration, we observed gene exchange between the chloroplast and mitogenome in I. anemonoides, including six intact tRNA genes, six PCG fragments, and fragments from two rRNA genes. Comparative mitogenome analysis of three Ranunculaceae species indicated that the PCG contents were conserved and the GC contents were similar. Selective pressure analysis revealed that only two genes (nad1 and rpl5) were under positive selection during their evolution in Ranunculales, and two specific RNA editing sites (atp6 and mttB) were detected in the I. anemonoides mitogenome. Moreover, a phylogenetic analysis based on the mitogenomes of I. anemonoides and the other 15 taxa accurately reflected the evolutionary and taxonomic status of I. anemonoides. Overall, this study provides new insights into the genetics, systematics, and evolution of mitochondrial evolution in Ranunculaceae, particularly I. anemonoides

d<i>N</i>/d<i>S</i> ratios of 32 PCGs in <i>Isopyrum anemonoides</i>, <i>Anemone maxima</i>, <i>and Aconitum kusnezoffii</i>.

dN/dS ratios of 32 PCGs in Isopyrum anemonoides, Anemone maxima, and Aconitum kusnezoffii.</p