Association between social support and mutual-support needs among the rural adults in China: a cross-sectional study

BackgroundIn rural China, there is now a huge gap between the supply and demand for old-age care. To close the gap, developing rural mutual old-age services is extremely important. The purpose of this study is to clarify the relationship among social support, mutual support need, and mutual support willingness.MethodsWe conducted an online questionnaire survey using a Chinese Internet research company; 2,102 valid responses were received. The measures comprised the Social Support Rating Scale, the Mutual Support Willingness Questionnaire, and the Mutual Support Needs Scale. We calculated Pearson correlations to explore the association of social support with mutual-support need and mutual-support-need willingness. Multivariate analyses were also conducted using these factors as dependent variables.ResultsThe total score for the mutual support need for the adults in rural areas was 58.0 ± 12.1 and 36.96 ± 6.40 for social support, approximately 86.8% of the participants were willing to participate in mutual support. Furthermore, mutual support needs were positively correlated with subjective support (p < 0.01) and support utilization (p < 0.01), but negatively correlated with willingness to support each other (p < 0.05). The need for mutual support was also associated with age, sex, education level, dissatisfaction with the current economic situation, health status, and so on.ConclusionIt is necessary for government and health care providers to assess the different needs of rural older people and encourage individuals and organizations to provide mutual support for older people, especially to enhance emotional care for older people and improve their use of support. This is of great significance for developing mutual support services in rural China

A Butterfly-Shaped Pyrene Derivative Of Cholesterol And Its Uses As A Fluorescent Probe

A butterfly-shaped pyrene derivative of cholesterol, namely, N,N′-(ethane-1,2-diyl)-bis(N-(2-(chol-amino)ethyl)pyrene-1-sulfonamide) (ECPS), has been designed and synthesized. Solvent effect studies revealed that in good solvents such as n-hexane, benzene, and 1,4-dioxane, the profile of the fluorescence emission of the compound is characterized by pyrene monomer emission, but in poor solvent such as water, the emission is dominated by pyrene excimer emission. Quantitatively speaking, the ratio of the excimer emission to monomer emission changes from 50 to 0 when ECPS is dissolved in water and n-hexane, respectively. In contrast, for a commonly used polarity probe pyrene, the ratio of I3/I1 varies only from ∼0.6 to ∼1.7, where I3 and I1 stand for the intensities of the fluorescence emission at peak 3 and peak 1, respectively. This value suggests that a more powerful discriminating ability of the new compound in polarity sensing. Furthermore, unlike the main components of the compound, pyrene and cholesterol, its main chain is composed of multiple hydrophilic structures, and it is this structure that makes the emission of the compound in organic solvents sensitive to the presence of water. Accordingly, the applicability of the compound in determination of the trace amount of water in some organic solvents was evaluated. As expected, the detection limit of the compound toward water in acetonitrile reaches 7 ppm, a result never reached before. Furthermore, the fluorescence emission of the compound is also sensitive to viscosity variation. Therefore, it is assumed that ECPS may be used both as a polarity probe and a viscosity probe. On the bases of a series of steady-state and time-resolved fluorescence, as well as dynamic light scattering studies, a structural model was proposed to rationalize the fluorescence behavior of the compound in different solvents and its polarity and viscosity probing performances. © 2013 American Chemical Society

Improvement of ACK1-targeted therapy efficacy in lung adenocarcinoma using chloroquine or bafilomycin A1

Abstract Background Activated Cdc42-associated kinase 1 (ACK1) is a promising druggable target for cancer, but its inhibitors only showed moderate effects in clinical trials. The study aimed to investigate the underlying mechanisms and improve the antitumor efficacy of ACK1 inhibitors. Methods RNA-seq was performed to determine the downstream pathways of ACK. Using Lasso Cox regression analysis, we built a risk signature with ACK1-related autophagy genes in the lung adenocarcinoma (LUAD) patients from The Cancer Genome Atlas (TCGA) project. The performance of the signature in predicting the tumor immune environment and response to immunotherapy and chemotherapy were assessed in LUAD. CCK8, mRFP-GFP-LC3 assay, western blot, colony formation, wound healing, and transwell migration assays were conducted to evaluate the effects of the ACK1 inhibitor on lung cancer cells. A subcutaneous NSCLC xenograft model was used for in vivo study. Results RNA-seq revealed the regulatory role of ACK1 in autophagy. Furthermore, the risk signature separated LUAD patients into low- and high-risk groups with significantly different prognoses. The two groups displayed different tumor immune environments regarding 28 immune cell subsets. The low-risk groups showed high immune scores, high CTLA4 expression levels, high immunophenoscore, and low DNA mismatch repair capacity, suggesting a better response to immunotherapy. This signature also predicted sensitivity to commonly used chemotherapy and targeted drugs. In vitro, the ACK1 inhibitors (AIM-100 and Dasatinib) appeared to trigger adaptive autophagy-like response to protect lung cancer cells from apoptosis and activated the AMPK/mTOR signaling pathway, partially explaining its moderate antitumor efficacy. However, blocking lysosomal degradation with chloroquine/Bafilamycine A1 or inhibiting AMPK signaling with compound C/shPRKAA1 enhanced the ACK1 inhibitor’s cytotoxic effects on lung cancer cells. The efficacy of the combined therapy was also verified using a mouse xenograft model. Conclusions The resulting signature from ACK1-related autophagy genes robustly predicted survival and drug sensitivity in LUAD. The lysosomal degradation inhibition improved the therapeutic effects of the ACK1 inhibitor, suggesting a potential role for autophagy in therapy evasion

Effects of Solar Radiation on Dry Matter Distribution and Root Morphology of High Yielding Maize Cultivars

The root system connects the plant with the soil, which is a key factor in determining the utilization of soil resources and plant growth potential. Solar radiation can change maize shoot and root growth and affect grain formation. In this study, the effects of different solar radiation conditions on root morphology of three maize cultivars XY335, ZD958 and DH618 and their quantitative relationships were studied by conducting shading experiments. This study was conducted in maize high yield region of Qitai and Yinchuan, China, in 2018 and 2019. The planting densities were 7.5 × 104 (D1) and 12 × 104 (D2) plants ha−1. The shading levels were natural light (CK), shading 15% (S1), 30% (S2) and 50% (S3). The results showed that maize responded to the decreased solar radiation through the increase in ratio of shoot dry weight (SWR) to whole plant dry weight and the decrease in ratio of root dry weight (RWR) to whole plant dry weight. As the solar radiation decreased, the root length density (RLD), root surface area (RSA), average root diameter (ARD) and root length ratio (RLR) decreased, while the specific root length (SRL) increased. With 100 MJ m−2 decrease in solar radiation, the RWR, RLD, RSA and RLR each decreased by 1.47%, 0.5 mm cm−3,0.4 m m−2 and 0. 19 m g−1, respectively. Among the cultivars, the changes of DH618 were the fastest followed by XY335 and ZD958 but DH618 maintained the largest root system under any solar radiation condition. After the decrease of solar radiation, RWR, RLD and RLR were significantly positively correlated with the yield. This indicated that large root systems were conducive to the rapid response to decreased solar radiation and important for achieving stable and high yield. Maize cultivars with these type of root systems should be recommended to better adapt low solar radiation induced by regional variation or climate change

A Butterfly-Shaped Pyrene Derivative of Cholesterol and Its Uses as a Fluorescent Probe

A butterfly-shaped pyrene derivative of cholesterol, namely, <i>N</i>,<i>N</i>′-(ethane-1,2-diyl)-bis­(<i>N</i>-(2-(chol-amino)­ethyl)­pyrene-1-sulfonamide) (ECPS), has been designed and synthesized. Solvent effect studies revealed that in good solvents such as <i>n</i>-hexane, benzene, and 1,4-dioxane, the profile of the fluorescence emission of the compound is characterized by pyrene monomer emission, but in poor solvent such as water, the emission is dominated by pyrene excimer emission. Quantitatively speaking, the ratio of the excimer emission to monomer emission changes from 50 to 0 when ECPS is dissolved in water and <i>n</i>-hexane, respectively. In contrast, for a commonly used polarity probe pyrene, the ratio of I₃/I₁ varies only from ∼0.6 to ∼1.7, where I₃ and I₁ stand for the intensities of the fluorescence emission at peak 3 and peak 1, respectively. This value suggests that a more powerful discriminating ability of the new compound in polarity sensing. Furthermore, unlike the main components of the compound, pyrene and cholesterol, its main chain is composed of multiple hydrophilic structures, and it is this structure that makes the emission of the compound in organic solvents sensitive to the presence of water. Accordingly, the applicability of the compound in determination of the trace amount of water in some organic solvents was evaluated. As expected, the detection limit of the compound toward water in acetonitrile reaches 7 ppm, a result never reached before. Furthermore, the fluorescence emission of the compound is also sensitive to viscosity variation. Therefore, it is assumed that ECPS may be used both as a polarity probe and a viscosity probe. On the bases of a series of steady-state and time-resolved fluorescence, as well as dynamic light scattering studies, a structural model was proposed to rationalize the fluorescence behavior of the compound in different solvents and its polarity and viscosity probing performances