Inhibition of highly productive HIV-1 infection in T cells, primary human macrophages, microglia, and astrocytes by Sargassum fusiforme

BACKGROUND: The high rate of HIV-1 mutation and increasing resistance to currently available antiretroviral (ART) therapies highlight the need for new antiviral agents. Products derived from natural sources have been shown to inhibit HIV-1 replication during various stages of the virus life cycle, and therefore represent a potential source of novel therapeutic agents. To expand our arsenal of therapeutics against HIV-1 infection, we investigated aqueous extract from Sargassum fusiforme (S. fusiforme) for ability to inhibit HIV-1 infection in the periphery, in T cells and human macrophages, and for ability to inhibit in the central nervous system (CNS), in microglia and astrocytes. RESULTS: S. fusiforme extract blocked HIV-1 infection and replication by over 90% in T cells, human macrophages and microglia, and it also inhibited pseudotyped HIV-1 (VSV/NL4-3) infection in human astrocytes by over 70%. Inhibition was mediated against both CXCR4 (X4) and CCR5 (R5)-tropic HIV-1, was dose dependant and long lasting, did not inhibit cell growth or viability, was not toxic to cells, and was comparable to inhibition by the nucleoside analogue 2', 3'-didoxycytidine (ddC). S. fusiforme treatment blocked direct cell-to-cell infection spread. To investigate at which point of the virus life cycle this inhibition occurs, we infected T cells and CD4-negative primary human astrocytes with HIV-1 pseudotyped with envelope glycoprotein of vesicular stomatitis virus (VSV), which bypasses the HIV receptor requirements. Infection by pseudotyped HIV-1 (VSV/NL4-3) was also inhibited in a dose dependant manner, although up to 57% less, as compared to inhibition of native NL4-3, indicating post-entry interferences. CONCLUSION: This is the first report demonstrating S. fusiforme to be a potent inhibitor of highly productive HIV-1 infection and replication in T cells, in primary human macrophages, microglia, and astrocytes. Results with VSV/NL4-3 infection, suggest inhibition of both entry and post-entry events of the virus life cycle. Absence of cytotoxicity and high viability of treated cells also suggest that S. fusiforme is a potential source of novel naturally occurring antiretroviral compounds that inhibit HIV-1 infection and replication at more than one site of the virus life cycle

Clinical application of superselective transarterial embolization of renal tumors in zero ischaemia robotic-assisted laparoscopic partial nephrectomy

ObjectiveTo assess the feasibility and safety of zero ischaemia robotic-assisted laparoscopic partial nephrectomy (RALPN) after preoperative superselective transarterial embolization (STE) of T1 renal cancer.MethodsWe retrospectively analyzed the data of 32 patients who underwent zero ischaemia RALPN after STE and 140 patients who received standard robot-assisted laparoscopic partial nephrectomy (S-RALPN). In addition, we selected 35 patients treated with off-clamp RALPN (O-RALPN) from September 2017 to March 2022 for comparison. STE was performed by the same interventional practitioner, and zero ischaemia laparoscopic partial nephrectomy (LPN) was carried out by experienced surgeon 1-12 hours after STE. The intraoperative data and postoperative complications were recorded. The postoperative renal function, routine urine test, urinary Computed Tomography (CT), and preoperative and postoperative glomerular filtration rate (GFR) data were analyzed.ResultsAll operations were completed successfully. There were no cases of conversion to opening and no deaths. The renal arterial trunk was not blocked. No blood transfusions were needed. The mean operation time was 91.5 ± 34.28 minutes. The mean blood loss was 58.59 ± 54.11 ml. No recurrence or metastasis occurred.ConclusionFor patients with renal tumors, STE of renal tumors in zero ischaemia RALPN can preserve more renal function, and it provides a safe and feasible surgical method

On the Reliability of Alternating Group Graph-Based Networks

The probability of having faults in a multiprocessor computer system increases as the size of system grows. One way to quantify the reliability of a system is using the probability that a fault-free subsystem of a certain size still exists with the presence of individual faults. The higher the probability is, the more reliable the system is. In this paper, we establish the reliability for networks based on AGn, the n-dimensional alternating group graph. More specifically, we calculate the probability of a subnetwork (or subgraph) AGn n−1 being fault-free, when given a single node\u27s fault probability. Since subnetworks of AGn intersect in highly complex manners, our scheme is to use the Principle of Inclusion–Exclusion to obtain a lower-bound of the probability, by considering intersections of up to four subgraphs. We show that the lower-bound derived this way is very close to the upper-bound obtained in a previous result, which means the lower-bound we get is a very tight one. Therefore, both lower-bound and upper-bound are close approximations of the accurate probability

Layered malicious nodes detection with graph attention network in human-cyber-physical networks

With the advancement of network information technology and smart device technology, cyberspace is gradually evolved into Human-Cyber-Physical Networks (HCPNs). At the same time, the security problems caused by malicious nodes are becoming more and more serious. It is urgent to propose an efficient approach for malicious node detection. In this paper, we apply graph attention network (GAT) to detect malicious nodes layer by layer in HCPN. In addition, we investigate the influence of graph structure features on the detection performance in terms of accuracy, precision, recall, F1-score by comparing with graph convolutional network-based approach. Experimental results show that our approach has better performance as well as stronger generalizability than graph convolutional network-based approach in general. © 2022 IEEE

Change characteristics and influencing factors of grassland degradation in adjacent areas of the Qinghai–Tibet Plateau and suggestions for grassland restoration

Natural grasslands are being progressively degraded around the world due to climate change and socioeconomic factors. Most of the drivers, processes, and consequences of grassland degradation are studied separately, and it is not yet clear whether the change characteristics and influence factors of adjacent areas of grassland are identical. We analyzed changes in grassland area and quality, and the influences of climate changes and socioeconomic factors from 1980–2018 in Maqu County, Xiahe County and Luqu County on the eastern Qinghai-Tibet Plateau (QTP). We found that areas with high and medium coverage grassland in Maqu County and Luqu County decreased continuously with time, while low coverage grassland areas increased in three counties. In Xiahe County, the medium coverage grassland area reduced with time (except for 2010), while the high and low coverage grassland areas increased. The actual net primary productivity of the three counties showed a downward trend. In Maqu County, the total grassland area had an extremely significant positive correlation with number of livestock going to market, commodity rate, gross domestic product (GDP), primary industry, tertiary industry, household density, and levels of junior middle school education and university education in the area. In Luqu County, the total grassland area high coverage grassland area were significantly negatively correlated with total number of livestock, secondary industry, levels of primary school education, and temperature. Ecological education was positively correlated with high coverage grassland, and negatively correlated with low coverage grassland in all three areas. The results of this study suggest that the best ways to restore the area and quality of grasslands in these areas would be to reduce the local cultivated land area and slow down the development of the primary and tertiary industries in Maqu County, and to control industry development and the total number of livestock in Luqu County. This study also suggests that improving education level and strengthening the level of ecological education are conducive to the restoration of grasslands

Minimum Neighborhood of Alternating Group Graphs

The minimum neighborhood and combinatorial property are two important indicators of fault tolerance of a multiprocessor system. Given a graph G , θ G (q) is the minimum number of vertices adjacent to a set of q vertices of G (1 ≤|V(G)| ). It is meant to determine θ G (q), the minimum neighborhood problem (MNP). In this paper, we obtain θ AGn (q) for an independent set with size q in an n -dimensional alternating group graph AG n , a well-known interconnection network for multiprocessor systems. We first propose some combinatorial properties of AG n . Then, we study the MNP for an independent set of two vertices and obtain that θ AGn (2)=4n-10. Next, we prove that θ AGn (3)=6n-16. Finally, we propose that θ AGn (4)=8n-24

Heterogeneous Hollow Multi-Shelled Structures with Amorphous-Crystalline Outer-Shells for Sequentially Photoreduction of CO2

Constructing delicate nano-/microreactors with tandem active sites in hierarchical architectures is a promising strategy for designing photocatalysts to realize the challenging but attractive CO2 reduction. Herein, hollow multi-shelled structure (HoMS) based microreactors with spatial ordered hetero-shells are fabricated, which achieve two-step CO2-to-CH4 photoreduction. The multiple inner CeO2 shells increase the number of active catalytic sites to ensure efficient first-step reaction for generating CO, along with enriching the local CO concentration. The second-step CO-to-CH4 reaction is consequently induced by amorphous TiO2 (A-TiO2) composites on the adjacent outer-most shell, thus realizing the CO2-to-CH4 conversion capability using one CeO2@CeO2/A-TiO2 HoMS. In-depth explorations in the microreactors provide compositional, structural, and interfacial guidance for engineering HoMS-based microreactors with temporally-spatially ordered shells toward efficient tandem catalysis

Heterogeneous Hollow Multi-Shelled Structures with Amorphous-Crystalline Outer-Shells for Sequentially Photoreduction of CO2

Constructing delicate nano-/microreactors with tandem active sites in hierarchical architectures is a promising strategy for designing photocatalysts to realize the challenging but attractive CO2 reduction. Herein, hollow multi-shelled structure (HoMS) based microreactors with spatial ordered hetero-shells are fabricated, which achieve two-step CO2-to-CH4 photoreduction. The multiple inner CeO2 shells increase the number of active catalytic sites to ensure efficient first-step reaction for generating CO, along with enriching the local CO concentration. The second-step CO-to-CH4 reaction is consequently induced by amorphous TiO2 (A-TiO2) composites on the adjacent outer-most shell, thus realizing the CO2-to-CH4 conversion capability using one CeO2@CeO2/A-TiO2 HoMS. In-depth explorations in the microreactors provide compositional, structural, and interfacial guidance for engineering HoMS-based microreactors with temporally-spatially ordered shells toward efficient tandem catalysis