Baicalin Downregulates RLRs Signaling Pathway to Control Influenza A Virus Infection and Improve the Prognosis

The objective of this study is to investigate the effects of baicalin on controlling the pulmonary infection and improving the prognosis in influenza A virus (IAV) infection. PCR and western blot were used to measure the changes of some key factors in RLRs signaling pathway. MSD electrochemiluminescence was used to measure the expression of pulmonary inflammatory cytokines including IFN-γ, TNF-α, IL-1β, IL-2, IL-4, IL-5, IL-6, IL-10, IL-12p70, and KC/GRO. Flow cytometry was used to detect the proportion of Th1, Th2, Th17, and Treg. The results showed that IAV infection led to low body weight and high viral load and high expression of RIG-I, IRF3, IRF7, and NF-κB mRNA, as well as RIG-I and NF-κB p65 protein. However, baicalin reduced the rate of body weight loss, inhibited virus replication, and downregulated the key factors of the RLRs signaling pathway. Besides, baicalin reduced the high expression inflammatory cytokines in lung and decreased the ratios of Th1/Th2 and Th17/Treg to arouse a brief but not overviolent inflammatory response. Therefore, baicalin activated a balanced host inflammatory response to limit immunopathologic injury, which was helpful to the improvement of clinical and survival outcomes

Adsorption of Per- and Polyfluoroalkyl Substances (PFAS) and Microcystins by Virgin and Weathered Microplastics in Freshwater Matrices

Microplastics and per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances (PFAS) both represent persistent groups of environmental contaminants that have been associated with human health risks. Microcystin toxins are produced and stored in the cells of cyanobacteria and may be released into sources of drinking water. Recent concerns have emerged regarding the ability of microplastics to adsorb a range of organic contaminants, including PFAS and microcystins. This study examined the adsorption of two long-chain and two short-chain PFAS, as well as two common microcystins, by both virgin and weathered microplastics in freshwater. Natural weathering of microplastic surfaces may decrease adsorption by introducing hydrophilic oxygen-containing functional groups. Up to 50% adsorption of perfluorooctanesulfonic acid (PFOS) was observed for virgin PVC compared to 38% for weathered PVC. In contrast, adsorption capacities for microcystins by virgin LDPE were approximately 5.0 µg/g whereas no adsorption was observed following weathering. These results suggest that adsorption is driven by specific polymer types and dominated by hydrophobic interactions. This is the first known study to quantify PFAS and microcystins adsorption when considering environmentally relevant concentrations as well as weathered microplastics

Mining Software Repositories for Automatic Interface Recommendation

There are a large number of open source projects in software repositories for developers to reuse. During software development and maintenance, developers can leverage good interfaces in these open source projects and establish the framework of the new project quickly when reusing interfaces in these open source projects. However, if developers want to reuse them, they need to read a lot of code files and learn which interfaces can be reused. To help developers better take advantage of the available interfaces used in software repositories, we previously proposed an approach to automatically recommend interfaces by mining existing open source projects in the software repositories. We mainly used the LDA (Latent Dirichlet Allocation) topic model to construct the Feature-Interface Graph for each software project and recommended the interfaces based on the Feature-Interface Graph. In this paper, we improve our previous approach by clustering the recommending interfaces on the Feature-Interface Graph, which can recommend more accurate interfaces for developers to reuse. We evaluate the effectiveness of the improved approach and the results show that the improved approach can be more efficient to recommend more accurate interfaces for reuse over our previous work

Potential Molecular Mechanisms of Plantain in the Treatment of Gout and Hyperuricemia Based on Network Pharmacology

Background. The incidence of gout and hyperuricemia is increasing year by year in the world. Plantain is a traditional natural medicine commonly used in the treatment of gout and hyperuricemia, but the molecular mechanism of its active compounds is still unclear. Based on network pharmacology, this article predicts the targets and pathways of effective components of plantain for gout and hyperuricemia and provides effective reference for clinical medication. Method. Traditional Chinese medicine systems pharmacology database and analysis platform (TCMSP) and SymMap databases were used to screen out the active compounds and their targets in plantain. GeneCards, Therapeutic Target Database (TTD), and Online Mendelian Inheritance in Man (OMIM) databases were used to find the targets corresponding to gout and hyperuricemia. Venn diagram was used to obtain the intersection targets of plantain and diseases. The interaction network of the plantain active compounds-targets-pathways-diseases was constructed by using Cytoscape 3.7.2 software. Finally, Gene Ontology (GO) and Kyoto Encyclopedia of Genes and Genomes (KEGG) enrichment analyses were carried out. Result. Seven active compounds were identified by network pharmacological analysis, including dinatin, baicalein, baicalin, sitosterol, 6-OH-luteolin, stigmasterol, and luteolin. Plantain plays a role in gout and hyperuricemia diseases by regulating various biological processes, cellular components, and molecular functions. The core targets of plantain for treating gout are MAPK1, RELA, TNF, NFKBIA, and IFNG, and the key pathways are pathways in cancer, hypoxia-inducible factor-1 (HIF-1) signaling pathway, interleukin (IL)-17 signaling pathway, Chagas disease (American trypanosomiasis), and relaxin signaling pathway. The core targets of plantain for hyperuricemia are RELA, MAPK1, NFKBIA, CASP3, CASP8, and TNF, and the main pathways are pathways in cancer, apoptosis, hepatitis B, IL-17 signaling pathway, and toxoplasmosis. Conclusion. This study explored the related targets and mechanisms of plantain for the treatment of gout and hyperuricemia from the perspective of network pharmacological analysis, reflecting the characteristics of multiple components, multiple targets, and multiple pathways, and it provides a good theoretical basis for the clinical application of plantain

Prediction Model of Hemorrhage Transformation in Patient with Acute Ischemic Stroke Based on Multiparametric MRI Radiomics and Machine Learning

Intravenous thrombolysis is the most commonly used drug therapy for patients with acute ischemic stroke, which is often accompanied by complications of intracerebral hemorrhage transformation (HT). This study proposed to build a reliable model for pretreatment prediction of HT. Specifically, 5400 radiomics features were extracted from 20 regions of interest (ROIs) of multiparametric MRI images of 71 patients. Furthermore, a minimal set of all-relevant features were selected by LASSO from all ROIs and used to build a radiomics model through the random forest (RF). To explore the significance of normal ROIs, we built a model only based on abnormal ROIs. In addition, a model combining clinical factors and radiomics features was further built. Finally, the models were tested on an independent validation cohort. The radiomics model with 14 All-ROIs features achieved pretreatment prediction of HT (AUC = 0.871, accuracy = 0.848), which significantly outperformed the model with only 14 Abnormal-ROIs features (AUC = 0.831, accuracy = 0.818). Besides, combining clinical factors with radiomics features further benefited the prediction performance (AUC = 0.911, accuracy = 0.894). So, we think that the combined model can greatly assist doctors in diagnosis. Furthermore, we find that even if there were no lesions in the normal ROIs, they also provide characteristic information for the prediction of HT

Research progress on the role of endoplasmic reticulum stress in osteoarthritis

Osteoarthritis is a common degenerative disease in which endoplasmic reticulum stress(ER stress) plays an important role in the pathogenesis of chondrocyte apoptosis. To limit the adverse effects of endoplasmic reticulum stress, cells activate the unfolded protein response (UPR). However, when endoplasmic reticulum stress persists beyond the maximum tolerance of UPR, cells may trigger endoplasmic reticulum dysfunction through three pathways of UPR leading to chondrocyte apoptosis

Hydrogeochemical Characteristic of Geothermal Water and Precursory Anomalies along the Xianshuihe Fault Zone, Southwestern China

Hydrogeochemical changes in association with earthquakes are considered as a potential means of identifying earthquake precursors. The Xianshuihe fault zone (XSHF) is considered one of the most active seismic fault zones in China; 43 hot springs were sampled and analysed in the laboratory for major elements, silica, stable isotopes (δD and δ18O) and strontium isotopes were investigated from 2008 to 2021. The meteoric water acted as the primary water source of the hot spring in the XSHF, and recharged elevations ranged from 1.9 to 4.8 km. The geothermometers method was used to estimate the region of thermal storage temperature and its temperature between 8 and 142 °C. And the circulation depth ranged from 0.1 to 6.9 km. Most of the hot spring water was immature water with a weak degree of water-rock reaction. However, the degree of water-rock reaction and the depth of hot spring water circulation were high in part of the Kangding and Daufu segments, which also had the highest reservoir temperature and the most frequent strong earthquakes. Temporal variations of hydrogeochemical showed that Na+, Cl− and SO42− decreased obviously following the 12 May 2008 Wenchuan Ms8.0 and existed abnormal value fluctuations from the 20 April 2013 Lushan Ms7.0 to 22 November 2014 Kangding Ms6.3 occurred and after 20 July 2017 returned to the normal levels. And the ion concentrations in hot springs increased by 5% to 35% three months before 22 November 2014 Kangding Ms6.3 with the obvious precursor anomaly. Hydrogeochemical anomalies could be useful for predicting an earthquake in the study area

Active Control of Electromagnetically Induced Transparency Analogy in Spoof Surface Plasmon Polariton Waveguide

Metamaterial analogues of electromagnetically induced transparency (EIT) enable a unique avenue to endow a coupled resonator system with quantum interference behavior, exhibiting remarkable properties in slow-wave and highly sensitive sensing. In particular, tunable and ultracompact-chip-integrated EIT-like effects reveal fantastic application prospects in plasmonic circuits and networks. Here, we demonstrate an electrically tuned on-chip EIT analogue by means of dynamic EIT modules side-coupled to ultrathin corrugated metallic strips supporting spoof surface plasmon polaritons (SSPPs). By embedding PIN diodes into the subradiant mode, on-to-off control of the destructive coupling between the radiative and subradiant modes results in dynamic chip-scale EIT-like behavior under the change of the bias voltage, allowing for an electrically tunable group delay of the surface waves. The physical mechanism of the active modulation is elucidated with the coupled mode theory. In addition, the cascaded capacity performed by installing multiple EIT modules with an interval of equivalent wavelength are also characterized on a planar plasmonic waveguide. The proposed system will pave a versatile route toward dynamic control in chip-scale functional devices