Effect of L-arabinose and lactulose combined with Lactobacillus plantarum on obesity induced by a high-fat diet in mice.

L-Arabinose, lactulose, and Lactobacillus plantarum (L. plantarum) have been reported to have glucolipid-lowering effects. Here, the effects of L-arabinose and lactulose combined with L. plantarum on obesity traits were investigated. According to the experimental results, the combination of L-arabinose, lactulose, and L. plantarum was more effective at reducing body weight, regulating glucolipid metabolism, and improving insulin resistance. Besides, this combination showed immunomodulatory activity by adjusting the T lymphocyte subsets and reduced the immune-related cytokine production. Moreover, it improved the gut barrier, ameliorated the disorder of gut microbiota, and upregulated the levels of SCFAs. More importantly, the AL group, LP group, and ALLP group showed different regulatory effects on the abundance of Bifidobacterium and Lactobacillus due to the presence of lactulose and L. plantarum. These findings elucidate that the combination of L-arabinose, lactulose, and L. plantarum constitutes a new synbiotic combination to control obesity by modulating glucolipid metabolism, immunomodulatory activity, inflammation, gut barrier, gut microbiota and production of SCFAs.

MSIS: Multispectral Instance Segmentation Method for Power Equipment.

Infrared image of power equipment is widely used in power equipment fault detection, and segmentation of infrared images is an important step in power equipment thermal fault detection. Nevertheless, since the overlap of the equipment, the complex background, and the low contrast of the infrared image, the current method still cannot complete the detection and segmentation of the power equipment well. To better segment the power equipment in the infrared image, in this paper, a multispectral instance segmentation (MSIS) based on SOLOv2 is designed, which is an end-to-end and single-stage network. First, we provide a novel structure of multispectral feature extraction, which can simultaneously obtain rich features in visible images and infrared images. Secondly, a module of feature fusion (MARFN) has been constructed to fully obtain fusion features. Finally, the combination of multispectral feature extraction, the module of feature fusion (MARFN), and instance segmentation (SOLOv2) realize multispectral instance segmentation of power equipment. The experimental results show that the proposed MSIS model has an excellent performance in the instance segmentation of power equipment. The MSIS based on ResNet-50 has 40.06% AP.

Effects of two contrasting dietary polysaccharides and tannic acid on the digestive and physicochemical properties of wheat starch.

In this study, konjac glucomannan, κ-carrageenan, and tannic acid were selected to study the effects of different combinations on the in vitro digestibility and physicochemical properties of wheat starch. Results showed that the addition of konjac glucomannan, κ-carrageenan, and tannic acid could decrease the digestion of starch and increase the content of resistant starch. Besides, the two polysaccharides weakened the extent of tannic acid on starch digestion. Moreover, although the two polysaccharides had different effects on the in vitro digestion of starch, they had no significant increase in the content of resistant starch. DSC and XRD results demonstrated that the polysaccharides and tannic acid showed synergistic effects on the rebuilding of starch microstructure. FTIR results further manifested that κ-carrageenan and konjac glucomannan could significantly increase the strength of hydrogen bonds in starch. At the same time, the addition of tannic acid would weaken the molecular interaction between polysaccharides and starch. SEM and CLSM results showed that tannic acid added to the polysaccharide-starch mixture not only interacted with starch but also influenced the structure of polysaccharide gel.

Immune-related expression profiles of bisphosphonates-related osteonecrosis of the jaw in multiple myeloma.

Objective: To investigate the immune cellular and genomic profiles of bisphosphonates-related osteonecrosis (BRONJ) of the jaw and excavate potential small molecule drugs. Methods and materials: The genomic profile of a multiple myeloma (MM) patient with BRONJ was downloaded from Gene Expression Omnibus (GEO). The 22 immune cell subsets infiltration in the patient were predicted by cell-type identification by estimating relative subsets of RNA transcripts. In addition, the differently expressed immune-related genes (DEMGs) of BRONJ were identified, followed by Gene Ontology and Kyoto Encyclopedia of Genes and Genomes (KEGG) enrichment analyses for functional annotation. Then, potential drugs for BRONJ treatment were predicted by Connectivity Map (CMAP) based on DEGs. Results: High proportions of native CD4+T cells and M0 macrophages were observed while resting mast cells, NK cells, and eosinophils were downregulated in the BRONJ patient (P< 0.05). Resting dendritic cells and gamma delta T cells were positively correlated (r=0.93). Additionally, 36 DEMGs were screened from 336 DEGs in BRONJ expression profiles. GO enrichment analysis revealed that DEMGs were most associated with peptidyl-tyrosine modification, myeloid leukocyte migration, leukocyte chemotaxis and regulation of chemokine production(P<0.05). KEGG analysis indicated that DEMGs were mainly related to cytokine-cytokine receptor interaction, IL-17 signaling pathway and NF-Kappa B signaling pathway(P<0.05). Besides, 12 small molecule drugs were screened in MM patient with ONJ. Conclusion: The discovery of different composition of immune cell types and immune-related transcriptomes in BRONJ helps to explain the onset and development of MRONJ, which provides a novel target for BRONJ therapy.

The influence of Konjac glucomannan on the functional and structural properties of wheat starch.

The aim of this study was to characterize the influence of Konjac glucomannan (KGM) on the functional and structural properties of wheat starch. Results showed that KGM significantly decreased the starch hydrolysis rate, with a lower level of rapidly digestible starch (RDS), and a higher content of slowly digestible starch (SDS). Besides, KGM decreased the content of leached amylose, while enhanced the swelling power, water-holding capacity, freeze-thaw stability, and paste clarity of wheat starch, which indicated a good improvement on the functional properties. Differential scanning calorimetry (DSC) and X-ray diffraction patterns (XRD) manifested that the addition of KGM disrupted the original crystalline structures of wheat starch, which may result in the increased hydrolysis rate of starch. Interestingly, this did not consist with the decreased starch hydrolysis rate showed in the study. Moreover, FTIR results showed the existence of the interaction between KGM and starch. The morphological characterization demonstrated that the addition of KGM contributed to a more compact structure of freeze-dried wheat starch. And KGM inhibited the expansion of starch granules and formed a barrier around the gelatinized starch. Therefore, the barrier around the starch granules and the interaction between KGM and starch were considered to be the important reasons that affected the starch digestibility.

Identification and Expression Analysis of Stress-Associated Proteins (SAPs) Containing A20/AN1 Zinc Finger in Cucumber.

Stress-associated proteins (SAPs) are a class of zinc finger proteins that confer tolerance to a variety of abiotic and biotic stresses in diverse plant species. However, in cucumber (Cucumis sativus L.), very little is known about the roles of SAP gene family members in regulating plant growth, development, and stress responses. In this study, a total of 12 SAP genes (named as CsSAP1-CsSAP12) were identified in the cucumber genome, which were unevenly distributed on six chromosomes. Gene duplication analysis detected one tandem duplication and two segmental duplication events. Phylogenetic analysis of SAP proteins from cucumber and other plants suggested that they could be divided into seven groups (sub-families), and proteins in the same group generally had the same arrangement of AN1 (ZnF-AN1) and A20 (ZnF-A20) domains. Most of the CsSAP genes were intronless and harbored a number of stress- and hormone-responsive cis-elements in their promoter regions. Tissue expression analysis showed that the CsSAP genes had a broad spectrum of expression in different tissues, and some of them displayed remarkable alteration in expression during fruit development. RT-qPCR results indicated that all the selected CsSAP genes displayed transcriptional responses to cold, drought, and salt stresses. These results enable the first comprehensive description of the SAP gene family in cucumber and lay a solid foundation for future research on the biological functions of CsSAP genes.