Integrative epigenome profiling of 47XXY provides insights into whole genomic DNA hypermethylation and active chromatin accessibility

Klinefelter syndrome (KS, 47XXY) is a disorder characterized by sex chromosomal aneuploidy, which may lead to changes in epigenetic regulations of gene expression. To define epigenetic architectures in 47XXY, we annotated DNA methylation in euploid males (46XY) and females (46XX), and 47XXY individuals using whole genome bisulfite sequencing (WGBS) and integrated chromatin accessbilty, and detected abnormal hypermethylation in 47XXY. Furthermore, we detected altered chromatin accessibility in 47XXY, in particular in chromosome X, using Assay for Transposase-Accessible Chromatin sequencing (ATAC-seq) in cultured amniotic cells. Our results construct the whole genome-wide DNA methylation map in 47XXY, and provide new insights into the early epigenomic dysregulation resulting from an extra chromosome X in 47XXY

Surface passivation for highly active, selective, stable, and scalable CO2 electroreduction

Electrochemical conversion of CO2 to formic acid using Bismuth catalysts is one the most promising pathways for industrialization. However, it is still difficult to achieve high formic acid production at wide voltage intervals and industrial current densities because the Bi catalysts are often poisoned by oxygenated species. Herein, we report a Bi3S2 nanowire-ascorbic acid hybrid catalyst that simultaneously improves formic acid selectivity, activity, and stability at high applied voltages. Specifically, a more than 95% faraday efficiency was achieved for the formate formation over a wide potential range above 1.0 V and at ampere-level current densities. The observed excellent catalytic performance was attributable to a unique reconstruction mechanism to form more defective sites while the ascorbic acid layer further stabilized the defective sites by trapping the poisoning hydroxyl groups. When used in an all-solid-state reactor system, the newly developed catalyst achieved efficient production of pure formic acid over 120 hours at 50 mA cm–2 (200 mA cell current)

The Use of Integrative Therapies in Patients with Amyotrophic Lateral Sclerosis in Shanghai, China

Objective. To investigate the current use of integrative therapies (IT) in the treatment of patients with amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS). Methods. A cross-sectional, multicenter clinical epidemiological survey was conducted in 12 hospitals in Shanghai. We investigated the type and frequency of IT use and determined whether the use of IT correlated with demographic, social, or disease-specific characteristics in our patient population. Results. A total of 231 (89.5%) of 258 patients with ALS were eligible for the study and 229 (99% of all) of 231 reported the use of at least one IT for the treatment of ALS. Vitamins and Chinese herb decoctions, Chinese herb compounds, massage therapy, and acupuncture were the 5 most commonly used therapies. There was a strong association between education level, income, and use of IT. A household income of more than 75,000 RMB ($49,995) correlated with multiple IT use, and married patients used IT more often than single individuals. The main reasons for using IT were to treat weakness and fatigue, muscle atrophy, the development of ALS, depression, insomnia, limb pain or numbness, and side effects associated with Riluzole. Conclusion. The use of IT is common in patients with ALS in Shanghai. Vitamins and TCM are the most used additional therapies and the widespread and largely unexamined use of IT for ALS requires more attention

A phase separation method for analyses of fluoroquinones in meats based on ultrasound-assisted salt-induced liquid–liquid microextraction and a new integrated device

Herein, we developed a novel integrated device to perform phase separation based on ultrasound-assisted, salt-induced, liquid-liquid microextraction for determination of five fluoroquinones in meats by HPLC analysis. The novel integrated device consisted of three simple HDPE (high density polyethylene) parts that were used to separate the solvent from the aqueous solution prior to retrieving the extractant. The extraction parameters were optimized using the response surface method based on central composite design: 589μL of acetone solvent, pH2.1, 4.1min extraction time and 3.5g of Na2SO4. The limits of detection were 0.056-0.64 μgkg(-1) and recoveries were 87.2-110.6% for the five fluoroquinones in muscle tissue from fish, chicken, pork and beef. This method is easily constructed from inexpensive materials, extraction efficiency is high, and the approach is compatible with HPLC analysis. Thus, it has excellent prospects for sample pre-treatment and analysis of fluoroquinones in meat samples

Role of Alpha-Synuclein Protein Levels in Mitochondrial Morphology and Cell Survival in Cell Lines

α-Synuclein is highly associated with some neurodegeneration and malignancies. Overexpressing wild-type or mutant α-synuclein promotes neuronal death by mitochondrial dysfunction, the underlying mechanisms of which remain poorly defined. It was recently reported that α-synuclein expression could directly lead to mitochondrial fragmentation in vitro and in vivo, which may be due to α-synuclein localization on mitochondria. Here, we applied a double staining method to demonstrate mitochondrial morphogenetic changes in cells overexpressed with α-synuclein. We show that mitochondrial localization of α-synuclein was increased following its overexpression in three distinct cell lines, including HeLa, SH-SY5Y, and PC12 cells, but no alteration in mitochondrial morphology was detected. However, α-synuclein knockdown prevents MPP+-induced mitochondrial fragmentation in SH-SY5Y and PC12 cells. These data suggest that α-synuclein protein levels hardly affect mitochondrial morphology in normal cell lines, but may have some influence on that under certain environmental conditions

Role of TGF- β

Antisense Smad3 adenoviral vectors were used to transfect vascular smooth muscle cells (VSMCs) from rats with balloon injury or infused into the rat balloon-catheter injured carotid arteries, and the role of TGF-β1/Smad3 signaling pathway in the secretion of type I and III collagen by VSMCs following balloon injury was investigated. Antisense Smad3 adenoviral vectors were used to transfect these VSMCs (antisense Smad3 group). A total 90 rats were randomly assigned into blank control group, experiment group, negative control group. In the in vitro study, the expression of type I and III collagen was markedly reduced in the antisense Smad3 group when compared with the control groups (P<0.05). In the in vivo study, the expression of type I and III collagen was significantly lower than that in the negative control group at 3 days, 1 week and 2 weeks after injury (P<0.05). At 2 weeks and 3 months after injury, the lumen area in the antisense Smad3 group was markedly increased but the intimal area dramatically reduced when compared with the negative control (P<0.05). We conclude that transfection of VSMCs with antisense Smad3 can reduce the secretion of type I and III collagen which then inhibit intimal hyperplasia

Research Advance in the Regulatory Mechanism of Phytohormone for Plant Responses to Aluminum Toxicity Stress

Aluminum is the most abundant metal element in the crust. Soil acidification will cause great increase of the aluminum solubility to produce a large number of Al3+, which is toxic to plants. The activated aluminum will inhibit root growth, affect nutrient absorption and many physiological and biochemical metabolism processes, and further reduce crop yield. Aluminum toxicity has been the most important limiting factor for crop growth in acid soils which account for about 40% of cultivated land in the world. Phytohormones are the key endogenous factors that regulate plant responses to various environmental stresses, and are crucial to the improvement of plant resistance and plant survival under various stresses. It is well known that abscisic acid, auxin, ethylene, cytokinin, jasmonic acid and other major plant hormones play an important role in regulating plant responses to aluminum toxicity stress. A large number of studies have shown that plant hormones can also improve the adaptability of plants to aluminum stress by regulating the activities of cell wall-modifying enzymes, reactive oxygen species metabolism and organic acid secretion. In addition, there are complex interactions between different plant hormone signals, which jointly mediate and regulate the adaptive response of plants to aluminum stress. In order to have a more comprehensive and in-depth understanding of the mechanism of plant hormones in aluminum toxicity response, and to provide new ideas for molecular genetic improvement of plants tolerance to aluminum toxicity, in the study, the signal transduction and regulation of plant hormone signals in the process of plant response to aluminum toxicity stress are reviewed, and the future research direction of plant hormones under aluminum toxicity stress is prospected

An Unsupervised Multi-Dimensional Representation Learning Model for Short-Term Electrical Load Forecasting

The intelligent electrical power system is a comprehensive symmetrical system that controls the power supply and power consumption. As a basis for intelligent power supply control, load demand forecasting in power system operation management has attracted considerable research attention in energy management. In this study, we proposed a novel unsupervised multi-dimensional feature learning forecasting model, named MultiDBN-T, based on a deep belief network and transformer encoder to accurately forecast short-term power load demand and implement power generation planning and scheduling. In the model, the first layer (pre-DBN), based on a deep belief network, was designed to perform unsupervised multi-feature extraction feature learning on the data, and strongly coupled features between multiple independent observable variables were obtained. Next, the encoder layer (D-TEncoder), based on multi-head self-attention, was used to learn the coupled features between various locations, times, or time periods in historical data. The feature embedding of the original multivariate data was performed after the hidden variable relationship was determined. Finally, short-term power load forecasting was conducted. Experimental comparison and analysis of various sequence learning algorithms revealed that the forecasting results of MultiDBN-T were the best, and its mean absolute percentage error and root mean square error were improved by more than 40% on average compared with other algorithms. The effectiveness and accuracy of the model were experimentally verified