Protons intercalation induced hydrogen bond network in δ-MnO2 cathode for high-performance aqueous zinc-ion batteries.

Birnessite-type MnO2 (δ-MnO2) exhibits great potential as a cathode material for aqueous zinc-ion batteries (AZIBs). However, the structural instability and sluggish reaction kinetics restrict its further application. Herein, a unique protons intercalation strategy was utilized to simultaneously modify the interlayer environment and transition metal layers of δ-MnO2. The intercalated protons directly form strong O  H bonds with the adjacent oxygens, while the increased H2O molecules also establish a hydrogen bond network (O  H···O) between H2O molecules or bond with adjacent oxygens. Based on the Grotthuss mechanism, these bondings ultimately enhance the stability of layered structures and facilitate the rapid diffusion of protons. Moreover, the introduction of protons induces numerous oxygen vacancies, reduces steric hindrance, and accelerates ion transport kinetics. Consequently, the protons intercalated δ-MnO2 (H-MnO2-x) demonstrates exceptional specific capacity of 401.7 mAh/g at 0.1 A/g and a fast-charging performance over 1000 cycles. Density functional theory analysis confirms the improved electronic conductivity and reduced diffusion energy barrier. Most importantly, electrochemical quartz crystal microbalance tests combining with ex-situ characterizations verify the inhibitory effect of the interlayer proton environment on basic zinc sulfate formation. Protons intercalation behavior provides a promising avenue for the development of MnO2 as well as other cathodes in AZIBs.

Macrophage polarization in spinal cord injury repair and the possible role of microRNAs: A review.

The prevention, treatment, and rehabilitation of spinal cord injury (SCI) have always posed significant medical challenges. After mechanical injury, disturbances in microcirculation, edema formation, and the generation of free radicals lead to additional damage, impeding effective repair processes and potentially exacerbating further dysfunction. In this context, inflammatory responses, especially the activation of macrophages, play a pivotal role. Different phenotypes of macrophages have distinct effects on inflammation. Activation of classical macrophage cells (M1) promotes inflammation, while activation of alternative macrophage cells (M2) inhibits inflammation. The polarization of macrophages is crucial for disease healing. A non-coding RNA, known as microRNA (miRNA), governs the polarization of macrophages, thereby reducing inflammation following SCI and facilitating functional recovery. This study elucidates the inflammatory response to SCI, focusing on the infiltration of immune cells, specifically macrophages. It examines their phenotype and provides an explanation of their polarization mechanisms. Finally, this paper introduces several well-known miRNAs that contribute to macrophage polarization following SCI, including miR-155, miR-130a, and miR-27 for M1 polarization, as well as miR-22, miR-146a, miR-21, miR-124, miR-223, miR-93, miR-132, and miR-34a for M2 polarization. The emphasis is placed on their potential therapeutic role in SCI by modulating macrophage polarization, as well as the present developments and obstacles of miRNA clinical therapy.

Perspective of Neuroimaging-Based on Epilepsy Monitoring Technology.

Epilepsy is a long-standing illness defined by short episodes of aberrant brain activity caused by abrupt cell discharges. The illness is not communicable and might linger for a long period. Epilepsy affects roughly 50 million individuals worldwide, making it a prevalent neurological illness. Epilepsy monitoring is the most significant element of epilepsy diagnosis and also plays an important role in diagnosing the origin of epilepsy, assessing prognosis, and directing therapy. This paper details the principles and basic algorithmic models of commonly used neuroimaging techniques and describes the role of different monitoring techniques in the diagnosis and treatment of epilepsy. The paper compares the advantages and disadvantages of different monitoring techniques in their application and explores a comprehensive and less restrictive epilepsy monitoring protocol for readers and relevant researchers. Currently, electroencephalography (EEG) is the most common technique for monitoring epilepsy, and its most basic algorithmic models are independent component analysis (ICA) and discrete wavelet analysis (DWA), which are used for aspects such as noise removal and feature extraction. This article is dedicated to helping the reader or relevant researcher to gain a more comprehensive and systematic understanding of current neuroimaging techniques and medical devices. Furthermore, it seeks to forecast future research directions based on current difficulties in the area. The purpose of this study is to give a useful reference for future research in the field of epilepsy monitoring.

Oxygen vacancies in MnOx regulating reaction kinetics for aqueous zinc-ion batteries.

MnO2 cathode materials have presented challenges due to their poor conductivity, unstable structure, and sluggish diffusion kinetics for aqueous zinc-ion batteries (AZIBs). In this study, a nanostructured MnOx cathode material was synthesized using an acid etching method, Which introduced abundant Mn(III) sites, resulting in the formation of numerous oxygen vacancies. Comprehensive characterizations revealed that these oxygen vacancies facilitated the reversible adsorption/desorption of Zn2+ ions and promoted efficient electron transfer. In addition, the designed mesoporous structure offered ample active sites and shortened the diffusion path for Zn2+ and H+ ions. Consequently, the nanosized MnOx cathode exhibited enhanced reaction kinetics, achieving a considerable reversible specific capacity of 388.7 mAh/g at 0.1 A/g and superior durability with 72.0% capacity retention over 2000 cycles at 3.0 A/g. The material delivered a maximum energy density of 639.7 Wh kg-1 at 159.94 W kg-1. Furthermore, a systematic analysis of the zinc storage mechanism was performed. This work demonstrates that engineering oxygen vacancies with nanostructure regulation provides valuable insights into optimizing MnO2 cathode materials for AZIBs.

miR-31 ameliorates type 2 diabetic vascular damage through up-regulation of hypoxia-inducible factor-1α/vascular endothelial growth factor-A.

AIMS: microRNA may be a new therapeutic direction for diabetes. As a typical tumor marker, miR-31 is involved in a variety of metabolic diseases, but the specific role is still unclear. This study aimed to investigate the effect of miR-31 on type 2 diabetes mellitus and its accompanying vascular injury, as well as on the effects of hypoxia-inducible factor-1α inhibitor (HIF1AN), hypoxia-inducible factor (HIF)-1α, and vascular endothelial growth factor (VEGF)-A expression in vitro and in vivo. MATERIALS AND METHODS: In vitro, a model of high-fat and high-glucose-induced human aortic endothelial cell (HAEC) injury was established to simulate diabetes mellitus (DM). Cell functions were compared between the control group, the DM damage group, and the group transfected with miR-31 after DM damage. In vivo, overexpressing miR-31 FVB mice and FVB mice were divided into the control and induced type 2 diabetes mellitus groups. Type 2 diabetes mellitus models were induced by a high-fat diet combined with streptozotocin. The lipid metabolism levels, viscera, and vascular damage were compared between the control and type 2 diabetes mellitus groups. RESULTS: In vitro, miR-31 improved the proliferation ability of damaged cells by targeting HIF1AN and up-regulating the expression of HIF-1α and VEGF-A. In vivo, miR-31 ameliorated the development of type 2 diabetes mellitus, disturbance of glucose and lipid metabolism, and damage to some organs. Meanwhile, miR-31 had a protective effect on vascular damage complicated by type 2 diabetes mellitus by increasing the levels of HIF-1α and VEGF-A. CONCLUSION: Our experiments show that miR-31 can delay the progression of type 2 diabetes mellitus and ameliorate diabetic vascular injury.

MiR-31 improves spinal cord injury in mice by promoting the migration of bone marrow mesenchymal stem cells.

BACKGROUND: Stem cell transplantation therapy is a potential approach for the repair of spinal cord injuries and other neurodegenerative diseases, but its effectiveness is hampered by the low rate of targeted migration of cells to the area of injury. The aim of this study was to investigate the effects of miR-31 on the migration of bone marrow mesenchymal stem cells (BMSCs) and the regulation of MMP-2 and CXCR4 expression in vitro and in vivo. METHODS: eGFP-expressing BMSCs were isolated and cultured for subsequent experiments. The experiments were divided into three groups: control group, miR-31agomir group, and miR-31antagomir group. Proliferation was analyzed using CCK-8 and flow cytometry; cell migration in vitro was analyzed using wound-healing and transwell assays. The mouse SCI model was prepared by the impact method, and cells were transplanted (3 groups, 12 per group). Relevant inflammatory factors were detected by ELISA. The BMS score was used to evaluate the functional recovery of the mouse spinal cord and the frozen section was used to analyze the cell migration ability in vivo. The in vitro and in vivo expression levels of MMP-2 and CXCR4 were evaluated by Western blot and immunohistochemical staining. RESULTS: In vitro experiments showed that cells in the miR-31agomir group exhibited enhanced cell proliferation (P<0.05, P<0.001) and migration (P<0.001) and upregulated protein expression levels of CXCR4 (P<0.01) and MMP-2 (P<0.001) compared with cells in the control group. The results of in vivo experiments showed that the expression of pro-inflammatory factors was reduced after cell transplantation treatment. Cells in the miR-31agomir group showed enhanced cell-targeted migration ability (P<0.001), improved the function of damaged tissues (P<0.001), and upregulated CXCR4 and MMP-2 expression compared to the control group (P<0.001). CONCLUSION: Our experiment demonstrated that miR-31 could promote the migration of BMSCs and miR-31 could repair and improve the function of damaged tissues in SCI.

Structure prediction and function characterization of WC-2 proteins in Blakeslea trispora.

Blakeslea trispora is known for its potential to produce an excess of carotenoids in mixed cultures of strains of opposite sex. The biosynthesis of ß-carotene in B. trispora is activated not only by sex hormone trisporic acid but also by light, especially blue light. In fungi, the most intensively investigated blue-light reception proteins are WC-1 and WC-2, and the two proteins form a transcription factor complex which is called WCC by their PAS domains. Notably, multiple genes similar to wc-1 and wc-2 have been identified and characterized in Phycomyces, Mucor, and Rhizopus. Here we report that there are four members of wc-2-like gene family in B. trispora genome: Btwc-2a, Btwc-2b, Btwc-2c, and Btwc-2d. When the mycelia were exposed to blue light, their transcription levels are regulated differentially. Except for BtWC-2b, which only has a PAS domain, the other three proteins contain both a PAS domain and a ZnF domain. BtWC-2a interacts with either BtWC-1a or BtWC-1c to form different photoreceptor complexes in yeast two-hybrid assays, which is the unique situation not yet described in other fungi. In addition, the protein-protein docking analysis by the predicted 3D structures showed that the two complexes are structurally different. These results suggested that WC proteins of B. trispora are still involved in light regulation by forming WCC and the regulation mechanism of the photobiology appears to be more complex.

miR-31 promotes neural stem cell proliferation and restores motor function after spinal cord injury.

This study aims to examine whether miR-31 promotes endogenous NSC proliferation and be used for spinal cord injury management. In the present study, the morpholino knockdown of miR-31 induced abnormal neuronal apoptosis in zebrafish, resulting in impaired development of the tail. miR-31 agomir transfection in NSCs increased Nestin expression and decreased ChAT and GFAP expression levels. miR-31 induced the proliferation of mouse NSCs by upregulating the Notch signaling pathway, and more NSCs entered G1; Notch was inhibited by miR-31 inactivation. Injection of a miR-31 agomir into mouse models of spinal cord injury could effectively restore motor functions after spinal cord injury, which was achieved by promoting the proliferation of endogenous NSCs. After the injection of a miR-31 agomir in spinal cord injury mice, the expression of Nestin and GFAP increased, while GFAP expression decreased. In conclusion, the zebrafish experiments prove that a lack of miR-31 will block nervous system development. In spinal cord injury mouse models, miR-31 overexpression might promote spinal cord injury repair.

MicroRNA-31 Can Positively Regulate the Proliferation, Differentiation and Migration of Keratinocytes.

In the past decades, the key roles of most microRNA in dermatosis and skin development have been explored one after another. Among them, microRNA-31 (miR-31) has a prominent role in the regulation of keratinocytes. Numerous studies show that miR-31 can positively regulate the proliferation, differentiation and cell activity of keratinocytes via regulating the NF-κB, RAS/MAPK, Notch signaling pathways, and some cytokines. At present, the interaction between miR-31 and the NF-κB signaling pathway in keratinocytes is a hot research topic. The positive feedback loop formed by miR-31 and NF-κB signaling may bring new ideas for the prevention of psoriasis. The abnormal state of keratinocytes is usually the pathological basis of many skin and immune system diseases. Therefore, strengthening the ability to regulate keratinocytes may be a breakthrough for a variety of diseases. At the same time, miR-31's capacity to accelerate wound healing via positively regulating keratinocytes should be further investigated in the treatment of chronic ulcers and trauma.

Age-related intestinal monosaccharides transporters expression and villus surface area increase in broiler and layer chickens.

In the chicken small intestine, glucose is mainly transported by the apically located sodium/glucose cotransporter 1 (SGLT1) and the basolaterally located glucose transporter 2 (GLUT2). Fructose is transported by the apically located glucose transporter 5 (GLUT5) and similarly by GLUT2. During the early post-hatching period, the intestinal villus surface area (VSA) should be considered as an important factor related to the monosaccharide absorption capacity. Our objective here was to study intestinal monosaccharide absorption by analyzing the effects of age, diet, and breed on monosaccharide transporters and the VSA. The mRNA expression patterns of SGLT1, GLUT2 and GLUT5 genes in broiler and layer chickens were measured from the day of hatching to day 28 using the absolute quantitative real-time PCR. Both the intestinal mRNA expression levels of these genes and the VSA were affected by age. The mRNA expression levels of SGLT1 and GLUT2 were significantly increased from day 1 to day 3 and then decreased from day 3 to day 28. The expression levels of GLUT5 decreased from day 1 to day 7. The broiler chickens VSAs were significantly larger than those of the layer chickens from days 7 to 28. The effect of diet on the gene expression patterns of these monosaccharide transporters and the VSA were not significant. Our results suggest that the expression levels of these monosaccharide transporters are increased rapidly at the beginning of intestinal growth to meet the demands for monosaccharides to support the fast growth of the chick before day 7. As intestinal maturation and VSA increased, the expression levels of these monosaccharide genes decreased to a certain expression level to maintain the intestinal transport capacity and the absorption balance of all other nutrients.

Use of Unmanned Aerial Vehicle Imagery and Deep Learning UNet to Extract Rice Lodging.

Rice lodging severely affects harvest yield. Traditional evaluation methods and manual on-site measurement are found to be time-consuming, labor-intensive, and cost-intensive. In this study, a new method for rice lodging assessment based on a deep learning UNet (U-shaped Network) architecture was proposed. The UAV (unmanned aerial vehicle) equipped with a high-resolution digital camera and a three-band multispectral camera synchronously was used to collect lodged and non-lodged rice images at an altitude of 100 m. After splicing and cropping the original images, the datasets with the lodged and non-lodged rice image samples were established by augmenting for building a UNet model. The research results showed that the dice coefficients in RGB (Red, Green and Blue) image and multispectral image test set were 0.9442 and 0.9284, respectively. The rice lodging recognition effect using the RGB images without feature extraction is better than that of multispectral images. The findings of this study are useful for rice lodging investigations by different optical sensors, which can provide an important method for large-area, high-efficiency, and low-cost rice lodging monitoring research.

MicroRNA-31 regulating apoptosis by mediating the phosphatidylinositol-3 kinase/protein kinase B signaling pathway in treatment of spinal cord injury.

Apoptosis is a highly conservative energy demand program for non-inflammatory cell death, which is extremely significant in normal physiology and disease. There are many techniques used for studying apoptosis. MicroRNA (miRNA) is closely related to cell apoptosis, and especially microRNA-31 (miR-31) is involved in apoptosis by regulating a large number of target genes and signaling pathways. In many neurological diseases, cell apoptosis or programmed cell death plays an important role in the reduction of cell number, including the reduction of neurons in spinal cord injuries. In recent years, the phosphoinositol 3-kinase/AKT (PI3K/AKT) signal pathway, as a signal pathway involved in a variety of cell functions, has been studied in spinal cord injury diseases. The PI3K/AKT pathway directly or indirectly affects whether apoptosis occurs in a cell, thereby affecting a significant intracellular event sequence. This paper reviewed the interactions of miR-31 target sites in the PI3K/AKT signaling pathway, and explored new ways to prevent and treat spinal cord injury by regulating the effect of miR-31 on apoptosis.

Interferon-γ acts as a regulator in the trade-off between phagocytosis and production performance in dwarf chickens.

BACKGROUND: Interferon-γ (IFN-γ) is critical for innate and adaptive immunity against viral and bacterial infections. IFN-γ reportedly affects the phagocytic ability of monocytes and macrophages as well as regulates pituitary function in humans and mice. The present study analyzed the impact of IFN-γ on monocyte and macrophage phagocytosis, production performance, and pituitary function in vivo and in vitro (in dwarf chickens). IFN-γ was injected into dwarf chickens through a vein, and then, the laying rate, average egg weight, and levels of follicle-stimulating hormone (FSH) and IFN-γ were measured in treatment and control groups. For the in vitro experiment, the pituitary tissues were supplemented with IFN-γ, and the mRNA expression levels of follicle-stimulating hormone beta subunit (FSH-ß), interferon gamma receptor 1 (IFNGR1), and interferon gamma receptor 2 (IFNGR2) in the pituitary were assessed. RESULTS: Monocyte and macrophage phagocytosis product (PP) was decreased by IFN-γ treatment in a dose-dependent manner in vitro. In the in vivo experiment, the level of IFN-γ in the treatment group was higher than that in the control group at 7 d (P < 0.05), 14 d (P < 0.01), and 21 d (P < 0.01) post-injection. Compared with the control group, monocyte and macrophage PP was lower in the treatment group after injection (P < 0.01). The laying rate was higher in the treatment group than in the control group at 2 and 3 wk post-injection (P < 0.05). There was a significant difference between the treatment and control groups in the levels of FSH at 1, 3, 7, and 14 d post-injection (P < 0.01). In the in vitro experiment, increased mRNA expression levels of FSH-ß, IFNGR1, and IFNGR2 were observed in the treatment group after stimulation with 100 U/mL IFN-γ for 24 h compared to those in the control group (P < 0.05). CONCLUSIONS: IFN-γ inhibited the phagocytosis of monocytes and macrophages; up-regulated the mRNA expression levels of the FSH-ß, IFNGR1, and IFNGR2; enhanced the secretion of FSH; and improved the laying rate. IFN-γ might be an important regulator in the trade-off between the immune effect and production performance in dwarf chickens.

Dwarf chickens with low monocytes/macrophages phagocytic activity show low antibody titers but greater performance.

Monocytes/macrophages phagocytosis has key roles in inflammatory responses. However, systematic research on the effects of monocytes/macrophages phagocytosis on production and reproductive performance in dwarf chickens is lacking. In this study, we developed the HCT-8-MTT method to detect monocytes/macrophages phagocytosis product (PP) which was accuracy, flexible, and saving time. Based on PP in 990 dwarf chickens (890 hens and 100 cocks), chickens were divided into high phagocytosis product group (HPPG) and low phagocytosis product group (LPPG). In production performance, chickens in LPPG have higher laying rate at 24 wk and 71 wk and higher average egg weight at 23 wk and 24 wk than in HPPG (P < 0.05). The levels of follicle-stimulating hormone and luteinizing hormone were higher in LPPG than in HPPG at 58 wk (P < 0.01). In the reproductive performance, the fertilization rate in LPPG was higher than that in HPPG at 45 wk, 49 wk, and 53 wk (P < 0.05). Chickens in LPPG have higher hatchability than HPPG at 45 wk and 49 wk (P < 0.05). In LPPG, the mRNA expression levels of follicle-stimulating hormone receptor and CD9 in the follicle were higher than HPPG (P < 0.05). In the immune response, chickens with higher PP levels showed higher antibody titers for the avian influenza virus H9 inactivated vaccine (P < 0.01). Therefore, monocytes/macrophages PP was positively associated with antibody titers and negatively related to production and reproductive performance, and these findings have practical applications for the optimization of production in the poultry industry.