Protective effect of Camellia oleifera Abel. on silica-induced pulmonary fibrosis in rats

Background:  Camellia oleifera Abel. belongs to the family Theaceae and genus Camellia. It is commonly cultivated in southern China. The seeds of C. oleifera have been reported to exhibit a diversity of pharmacological activities which include, but are not limited to, antioxidant, anti-cancer and antimicrobial. Pulmonary fibrosis is one of lethal causes of mortality across the globe and accretion of considerable amount of reactive oxygen species (ROS) in lungs have been implicated in the onset of this disease. Given the known antioxidant activity of C. oleifera seed extract (CSE), the present study was designed to evaluate the influence of CSE on the silica-induced pulmonary fibrosis rat models.Materials and Methods: Protective effect of CSE was determined in silica-induced pulmonary fibrosis rat models. Malondialdehyde (MDA), hydroxyproline (HP) and superoxide dismutase 2 (SOD-2) activity were determined by standard biochemical assays. Histopathological analysis was carried out by H and E staining. Phyto-constituents of CSE were identified by LC/MS analysis.Results: The results of this study indicated that CSE lowered the MDA and hydroxyproline content in silica-treated rats. Additionally, CSE also caused a significant increase in the expression of SOD-2 leading to scavenging of ROS. Hematoxylin and eosin (H and E) staining of lung tissue sections revealed that CSE maintained the integrity of parenchymatous cells of lungs and prevented the development of pulmonary fibrosis. To gain insights about the phytochemical constituents of CSE, LC/MS analysis was carried out and several antioxidant phenolics and flavonoids were tentatively identified.Conclusion: Taken together, we conclude that CSE prevents development of pulmonary fibrosis and the protective effect of CSE may be due to its ability to induce SOD-2 expression and due to the presence antioxidant phytoconstituents.Keywords: Pulmonary fibrosis, Silica, Camellia oleifera, Reactive oxygen species, Superoxide dismutas

Suppression of long non-coding RNA H19 inhibits proliferation, cell migration and invasion in human cervical cancer cells

Purpose: To determine the expression profile of lncRNA H19 in different cervical cancers, and to decipher its function in the growth and metastasis of cervical cancer.Methods: The analysis LncRNA H19 expression was performed using quantitative real timepolymerase chain reaction (qRT-PCR). Cell counting kit 8 (CCK8) assay was used to assess the viability of the cells. The cells were transfected with Si-H19 using Lipofectamine 2000 and the metastasis of cells was determined by cell migration and invasion assay. Immunoblotting was used to evaluate the protein expression.Results: The lncRNA H19 expression was considerably enhanced in cervical cancer cells, and was about 2.6 to 5.3 times more in cervical cancer cells relative to non-cancer cells. Inhibition of lncRNA caused significant reduction in cervical cancer cell growth in a time-dependent manner. In addition while silencing of lncRNA inhibited the metastasis of HeLa cells. Cell migration and invasion was about 26 % in Si-H19 transfected cervical cancer cells, relative to 65 % in Si-NC cervical HeLa cells. Similarly, cell invasion was 45 % in Si-H19 cervical HeLa cells relative to the negative control (Si-NC). Inhibition of HeLa cell metastasis was also concomitant with decline of metalloproteinases (MMP)-2 and 9expression.Conclusion: lncRNA regulates the growth and metastasis of cervical cancer cells. Thus, IncRNA may be an important therapeutic agent for cervical cancer.Keywords: Cervical cancer, lncRNA, Proliferation, Invasio

PROTECTIVE EFFECT OF CAMELLIA OLEIFERA ABEL. ON SILICA-INDUCED PULMONARY FIBROSIS IN RATS

Background: Camellia oleifera Abel. belongs to the family Theaceae and genus Camellia. It is commonly cultivated in southern China. The seeds of C. oleifera have been reported to exhibit a diversity of pharmacological activities which include, but are not limited to, antioxidant, anti-cancer and antimicrobial. Pulmonary fibrosis is one of lethal causes of mortality across the globe and accretion of considerable amount of reactive oxygen species (ROS) in lungs have been implicated in the onset of this disease. Given the known antioxidant activity of C. oleifera seed extract (CSE), the present study was designed to evaluate the influence of CSE on the silica-induced pulmonary fibrosis rat models. Materials and Methods: Protective effect of CSE was determined in silica-induced pulmonary fibrosis rat models. Malondialdehyde (MDA), hydroxyproline (HP) and superoxide dismutase 2 (SOD-2) activity were determined by standard biochemical assays. Histopathological analysis was carried out by H and E staining. Phyto-constituents of CSE were identified by LC/MS analysis. Results: The results of this study indicated that CSE lowered the MDA and hydroxyproline content in silica-treated rats. Additionally, CSE also caused a significant increase in the expression of SOD-2 leading to scavenging of ROS. Hematoxylin and eosin (H and E) staining of lung tissue sections revealed that CSE maintained the integrity of parenchymatous cells of lungs and prevented the development of pulmonary fibrosis. To gain insights about the phytochemical constituents of CSE, LC/MS analysis was carried out and several antioxidant phenolics and flavonoids were tentatively identified. Conclusion: Taken together, we conclude that CSE prevents development of pulmonary fibrosis and the protective effect of CSE may be due to its ability to induce SOD-2 expression and due to the presence antioxidant phytoconstituent

Insights into the metabolic profiling of Polygonati Rhizoma fermented by Lactiplantibacillus plantarum under aerobic and anaerobic conditions using a UHPLC-QE-MS/MS system

IntroductionPolygonati Rhizoma is a multi-purpose food with medicinal uses. Fermentation of Polygonati Rhizoma by lactic acid bacteria could provide new insights into the development of Polygonati Rhizoma products.MethodsIn this study, Lactiplantibacillus plantarum was fermented with Polygonati Rhizoma extracts in a bioreactor under aerobic and anaerobic conditions with pH and DO real-time detection. Metabolic profiling was determined by UHPLC-QE-MS/MS system. Principal component analysis and orthogonal partial least-squares discriminant analysis were used to perform multivariate analysis.ResultsA total of 98 differential metabolites were identified in broth after fermentation, and 36 were identified between fermentation under aerobic and anaerobic conditions. The main metabolic pathways in the fermentation process are ABC transport and amino acid biosynthesis. Most of the compounds such as L-arginine, L-aspartic acid, leucine, L-lysine, citrate, inosine, carnitine, betaine, and thiamine were significantly increased during fermentation, playing a role in enhancing food flavor. Compared with anaerobic fermentation, aerobic conditions led to a significant rise in the levels of some compounds such as valine, isoleucine, and glutamate; this increase was mainly related to branched-chain amino acid transaminase, isocitrate dehydrogenase, and glutamate dehydrogenase.DiscussionAerobic fermentation is more beneficial for the fermentation of Polygonati Rhizoma by L. plantarum to produce flavor and functional substances. This study is the first report on the fermentation of Polygonati Rhizoma by L. plantarum and provides insights that would be applicable in the development of Polygonati Rhizoma fermented products

Protecting public’s wellbeing against COVID-19 infodemic: The role of trust in information sources and rapid dissemination and transparency of information over time

ObjectivesThis study examined how trust in the information about COVID-19 from social media and official media as well as how the information was disseminated affect public’s wellbeing directly and indirectly through perceived safety over time.MethodsTwo online surveys were conducted in China, with the first survey (Time1, N = 22,718) being at the early stage of the pandemic outbreak and the second one (Time 2, N = 2,901) two and a half years later during the zero-COVID policy lockdown period. Key measured variables include trust in official media and social media, perceived rapid dissemination and transparency of COVID-19-related information, perceived safety, and emotional responses toward the pandemic. Data analysis includes descriptive statistical analysis, independent samples t-test, Pearson correlations, and structural equation modeling.ResultsTrust in official media, perceived rapid dissemination and transparency of COVID-19-related information, perceived safety, as well as positive emotional response toward COVID-19 increased over time, while trust in social media and depressive response decreased over time. Trust in social media and official media played different roles in affecting public’s wellbeing over time. Trust in social media was positively associated with depressive emotions and negatively associated with positive emotion directly and indirectly through decreased perceived safety at Time 1. However, the negative effect of trust in social media on public’s wellbeing was largely decreased at Time 2. In contrast, trust in official media was linked to reduced depressive response and increased positive response directly and indirectly through perceived safety at both times. Rapid dissemination and transparency of COVID-19 information contributed to enhanced trust in official media at both times.ConclusionThe findings highlight the important role of fostering public trust in official media through rapid dissemination and transparency of information in mitigating the negative impact of COVID-19 infodemic on public’s wellbeing over time

Hunting imaging biomarkers in pulmonary fibrosis: Benchmarks of the AIIB23 challenge

Airway-related quantitative imaging biomarkers are crucial for examination, diagnosis, and prognosis in pulmonary diseases. However, the manual delineation of airway structures remains prohibitively time-consuming. While significant efforts have been made towards enhancing automatic airway modelling, current public-available datasets predominantly concentrate on lung diseases with moderate morphological variations. The intricate honeycombing patterns present in the lung tissues of fibrotic lung disease patients exacerbate the challenges, often leading to various prediction errors. To address this issue, the 'Airway-Informed Quantitative CT Imaging Biomarker for Fibrotic Lung Disease 2023' (AIIB23) competition was organized in conjunction with the official 2023 International Conference on Medical Image Computing and Computer Assisted Intervention (MICCAI). The airway structures were meticulously annotated by three experienced radiologists. Competitors were encouraged to develop automatic airway segmentation models with high robustness and generalization abilities, followed by exploring the most correlated QIB of mortality prediction. A training set of 120 high-resolution computerised tomography (HRCT) scans were publicly released with expert annotations and mortality status. The online validation set incorporated 52 HRCT scans from patients with fibrotic lung disease and the offline test set included 140 cases from fibrosis and COVID-19 patients. The results have shown that the capacity of extracting airway trees from patients with fibrotic lung disease could be enhanced by introducing voxel-wise weighted general union loss and continuity loss. In addition to the competitive image biomarkers for mortality prediction, a strong airway-derived biomarker (Hazard ratio>1.5, p < 0.0001) was revealed for survival prognostication compared with existing clinical measurements, clinician assessment and AI-based biomarkers

Kinetics of MgO Reduction in CaO-Al2O3-MgO Slag by Al in Liquid Fe

Kinetics analysis without fully taking into account the effect of mass transport in slag phase on MgO reduction by Al in liquid steel would lead to overestimation of Mg pickup by steel and driving force of the reaction. Two rate models considering mass transport in (a) steel melt phase only (single control model) and (b) steel and slag melt phases (mixed control model) were developed for evaluating the thermodynamic equilibria between CaO-Al2O3-MgO slags and Al-killed steels. Calculated results from the two models were compared and then validated by equilibrium experiments between a CaO-Al2O3-MgO slag (Al2O3-saturated) and Al-killed steels with different Al levels at 1873 K (1600 °C). Results showed that the calculated reaction rate in the mixed control model was always lower than that in the single control model due to the slow mass transport in the slag phase. The mass transfer coefficient of [Mg] in the steel was computed to be 6.2 × 10−5 m/s from the equilibrium experiment results between an Fe-1.0 mass% Al steel and 51 mass% CaO-39 mass% Al2O3-10 mass% MgO slag at 1873 K (1600 °C), with which the mixed control model was validated at different initial Al levels in the steels

Evolution of Chatbots in Nursing Education: Narrative Review

Abstract BackgroundThe integration of chatbots in nursing education is a rapidly evolving area with potential transformative impacts. This narrative review aims to synthesize and analyze the existing literature on chatbots in nursing education. ObjectiveThis study aims to comprehensively examine the temporal trends, international distribution, study designs, and implications of chatbots in nursing education. MethodsA comprehensive search was conducted across 3 databases (PubMed, Web of Science, and Embase) following the PRISMA (Preferred Reporting Items for Systematic Reviews and Meta-Analyses) flow diagram. ResultsA total of 40 articles met the eligibility criteria, with a notable increase of publications in 2023 (n=28, 70%). Temporal analysis revealed a notable surge in publications from 2021 to 2023, emphasizing the growing scholarly interest. Geographically, Taiwan province made substantial contributions (n=8, 20%), followed by the United States (n=6, 15%) and South Korea (n=4, 10%). Study designs varied, with reviews (n=8, 20%) and editorials (n=7, 18%) being predominant, showcasing the richness of research in this domain. ConclusionsIntegrating chatbots into nursing education presents a promising yet relatively unexplored avenue. This review highlights the urgent need for original research, emphasizing the importance of ethical considerations