Design, synthesis and anti-tumor evaluation of plinabulin derivatives as potential agents targeting ß-tubulin.

Plinabulin is a promising microtubule destabilizing agent in phase 3 clinical stage for treating non-small cell lung cancer. However, the high toxicity and the poor water solubility of plinabulin limited its use and more plinabulin derivatives need to be explored. Here, two series of 29 plinabulin derivatives were designed, synthesized and evaluated for their anti-tumor effect against three types of cancer cell lines. Most of derivatives exerted obvious inhibition to the proliferation of the cell lines tested. Among them, compound 11c exerted stronger efficiency than plinabulin, and the reason might be the additional hydrogen bond between the nitrogen atom of the indole ring in compound 11c and Gln134 of ß-tubulin. Immunofluorescence assay showed that compound 11c at 10 nM significantly disrupted tubulin structure. Compound 11c also significantly induced G2/M cell cycle arrest and apoptosis in dose dependent manner. These results suggest that compound 11c might be a potential candidate for cancer treatment as antimicrotubule agent.

Inpatient rehabilitation therapy in stroke patients with reperfusion therapy: a national prospective registry study.

BACKGROUND: Little is known about the rate of real-world inpatient rehabilitation therapy (IRT) after stroke. We aimed to determine the rate of inpatient rehabilitation therapy and its associated factors in patients who undergo reperfusion therapy in China. METHODS: This national prospective registry study included hospitalized ischemic stroke patients aged 14-99 years with reperfusion therapy between January 1, 2019, and June 30, 2020, collecting hospital-level and patient-level demographic and clinical data. IRT included acupuncture or massage, physical therapy, occupational therapy, speech therapy, and others. The primary outcome was the rate of patients receiving IRT. RESULTS: We included 209,189 eligible patients from 2191 hospitals. The median age was 66 years, and 64.2% were men. Four in five patients received only thrombolysis, and the rest 19.2% underwent endovascular therapy. The overall rate of IRT was 58.2% (95% CI, 58.0-58.5%). Differences in demographic and clinical variables existed between patients with and without IRT. The rates of acupuncture or massage, physical therapy, occupational therapy, speech therapy, and other rehabilitation interventions were 38.0%, 28.8%, 11.8%, 14.4%, and 22.9%, respectively. The rates of single and multimodal interventions were 28.3% and 30.0%, respectively. A lower likelihood of receiving IRT was associated with being 14-50 or 76-99 years old, female, from Northeast China, from Class-C hospitals, receiving only thrombolysis, having severe stroke or severe deterioration, a short length of stay, Covid-19 pandemic and having intracranial or gastrointestinal hemorrhage. CONCLUSION: Among our patient population, the IRT rate was low with limited use of physical therapy, multimodal interventions, and rehabilitation centers and varied by demographic and clinical features. The implementation of IRT remains a challenge for stroke care, warranting urgent and effective national programs to enhance post-stroke rehabilitation and the adherence to guidelines.

Clinical Efficacy of Posteromedial Approaches for Haraguchi Type II Fracture.

Objective: This study was to analyze and compare the clinical efficacy of open reduction and internal fixation through posterolateral and the posterior medial approach to treat Haraguchi Type II posterior malleolar fracture. Methods: The clinical data of 91 patients with trimalleolar fractures sent to our hospital from January 2018 to January 2020 were analyzed.All of the patients were the result of traumatic injuries, such as sprains or car accidents. All patients were treated with open reduction and internal fixation and divided into control group and observation group according to different surgical approaches. Forty-five cases were treated with the posterolateral approach(control group) and forty-six cases treated with the posteriormedial approach(observation group) . The operation status of the two groups (operating time, intraoperative blood loss, postoperative drainage, and hospital stay), postoperative status (visual analogue scale (VAS) before the operation, 1d, 3d and 7d after operation), the score of patient's American orthopedic foot and ankle society (AOFAS) at the time of discharge, fracture healing time and full weight-bearing time), efficacy and safety were recorded. Results: All cases underwent surgery, with no significant difference in the time from fracture to surgery between the control and observation groups (P > .05). Compared to the control group, the operating time, intraoperative blood loss, postoperative drainage, and hospital stay in the observation group were significantly reduced (P < .05). One day after the operation, no significant difference was shown in VAS between 2 groups (P > .05), while AOFAS score in the observation group was significantly increased (P < .05). Three and 7 days after the operation, VAS, fracture healing time, and full weight-bearing time were significantly decreased in both groups (P < .05). In the control group, the cases with excellent, good, fair, and poor efficacy were 26, 8, 5, 6, with an acceptable rate of 86.67% (39/45). In the observation group, the cases with excellent, good, fair, and poor efficacy were 29, 10, 5, and 2, with an acceptable rate of 95.65% (44/46). There was no significant difference in efficacy between the 2 groups (P > .05). During the follow-up time of 12~27 months (the median time of 18.5 months), all patients showed first-stage grade A healing, and osseous union with good fixation position and no fracture, deformation, loosening or prolapse, and no sural nerve injury or incision infection occurred. Conclusion: Both the posterolateral approach and posterior medial approach open reduction and internal fixation can be used to treat Haraguchi type II posterior malleolus fractures, with good efficacy and safety. The posterior medial approach showed faster recovery and less damage than the posterolateral approach.Overall, the posterolateral approach is more dominant in the treatment of Haraguchi Type II posterior malleolar fracture.

Viable Allogeneic Mitochondria Transplantation Improves Gas Exchange and Alveolar-Capillary Permeability in Rats with Endotoxin-Induced Acute Lung Injuries.

Background: Acute lung injuries (ALI) cause disruption of the alveolar-capillary barrier and is the leading cause of death in critically ill patients. This study tested the hypothesis that the administration of freshly isolated viable allogeneic mitochondria can prevent alveolar-capillary barrier injuries at the endothelial level, as mitochondrial dysfunction of the pulmonary endothelium is a critical aspect of ALI progression. Methods: ALI was induced by intratracheal lipopolysaccharide instillation (LPS, 1mg/kg) in anesthetized rats. Mitochondria (100 µg) were isolated from the freshly harvested soleus muscles of naïve rats and stained with a green fluorescence MitoTracker™ dyne. A mitochondria or placebo solution was randomly administered into the jugular veins of the rats at 2 h and 4 h after ALI induction. An arterial blood gas analysis was done 20 h later. The animals were then sacrificed and lung tissues were harvested for analysis. Results: An IVIS Spectrum imaging system was used to obtain ex vivo heart-lung block images and track the enhancement of MitoTracker™ fluorescence in the lungs. Mitochondria transplantation significantly improved arterial oxygen contents (PaO2 and SaO2) and reduced CO2 tension in rats with ALI. Animals with mitochondrial transplants had significantly higher ATP concentrations in their lung tissues. Allogeneic mitochondria transplantation preserved alveolar-capillary barrier function, as shown by a reduction in protein levels in the bronchoalveolar lavage fluid and decreased extravasated Evans blue dyne and hemoglobin content in lung tissues. In addition, relaxation responses to acetylcholine and eNOS expression were potentiated in injured pulmonary arteries and inflammatory cells infiltration into lung tissue was reduced following mitochondrial transplantation. Conclusions: Transplantation of viable mitochondria protects the integrity of endothelial lining of the alveolar-capillary barrier, thereby improving gas exchange during the acute stages of endotoxin-induced ALI. However, the long-term effects of mitochondrial transplantation on pulmonary function recovery after ALI requires further investigation.

Effect of ambient temperature on outpatient admission for osteoarthritis and rheumatoid arthritis in a subtropical Chinese city.

BACKGROUND: Current findings on the impact of weather conditions on osteoarthritis (OA) and rheumatoid arthritis (RA) are sparse and not conclusive. This study aimed to investigate the relationship between temperature change and OA/RA admission. METHODS: Daily OA/RA admission, meteorological data and pollutants from 1 January 2014 to 31 December 2017 in Hefei, China, were collected. We quantified the relationship between ambient temperature and OA/RA admission using a distributed lag nonlinear model (DLNM). Stratified analyses by gender and age were also examined. RESULTS: Temperature decrease was significantly associated with RA admission (25th percentile of temperature versus 50th percentile of temperature), with the acute and largest effect at current days lag (RR: 1.057, 95%CI: 1.005-1.111). However, no significant association between temperature and OA admission was observed. When conducting subgroup analyses by individual characteristics, we found that females and patients aged 41-65 years were more vulnerable to temperature decrease than males, patients aged 0-40 and ≧66 years, respectively. CONCLUSIONS: This study suggested that temperature decrease was a risk factor for increases in RA admission. Females and patients aged 41-65 years were particularly vulnerable to the effect of temperature decrease.

[Magnetic Resonance Imaging for Diagnosis of Idiopathic Pediatric Meningiomas].

Objective To analyze the radiological features of idiopathic pediatric meningiomas and explore their relationships with pathological grading,misdiagnoses,and blood loss during surgery.Methods We retrospectively reviewed 29 cases of pathologically confirmed pediatric meningiomas with pre-operative magnetic resonance imaging in Beijing Tiantan Hospital from November 2014 to July 2018.We assessed the imaging features to explore their relationships with pathological grading,misdiagnoses,and blood loss during surgery. Results Among the 29 cases,7 intraparenchymal meningiomas,5 extraparenchymal meningiomas,4 ventricular meningiomas,and 1 transcranial meningioma were misdiagnosed.Tumor location was significantly associated with possibility of misdiagnoses(P=0.021),and intraparenchymal tumors were most likely to be misdiagnosed.Twelve patients had positive dural tail sign,and 4 of them were misdiagnosed;16 patients did not have dural tail sign,and 12 of them were misdiagnosed.Fisher exact test showed that positive dural tail sign was associated with decreased possibility of misdiagnoses(one-sided P=0.034).Univariable regression analysis showed that the feature of tumor surrounding arteries or interfering with veins(P=0.020)and the tumor maximum diameter(P=0.001)had positively linear relationships with blood loss volume during surgery.Combining these two variables,the multivariable regression model showed better fitting performance($R_{ad}^2$=0.468).Conclusions Pediatric meningiomas are extremely rare,with scarce radiological characteristics.They are hard to diagnose,and the intraparenchymal meningiomas are very likely to be misdiagnosed and therefore should be treated with extra caution.Among all the radiological features,tumor surrounding arteries or interfering with veins and tumor maximum diameter were associated with increased blood loss during surgery.

Initial clinical features of suspected coronavirus disease 2019 in two emergency departments outside of Hubei, China.

With an increasing number of Coronavirus Disease 2019 (COVID-19) cases outside of Hubei, emergency departments (EDs) and fever clinics are facing challenges posed by the large number of admissions of patients suspected to have COVID-19. Therefore, it is of crucial importance to study the initial clinical features of patients, to better differentiate between infected and uninfected patients outside Hubei. A total of 116 patients suspected of having COVID-19 who presented to two emergency departments in Anhui for the first time between 24 January 2020 and 20 February 2020 were enrolled in the study. The initial clinical data of these patients, such as epidemiological features, symptoms, laboratory results, and chest computed tomography (CT) findings were collected using a standard case report form on admission. Thirty-two patients were diagnosed with COVID-19; the remaining 84 patients were referred to as negative cases. The median age of the diagnosed patients was 46 years, but only 35 years for negative cases. History of exposure to Wuhan or COVID-19 patients in the previous 2 weeks was observed in 63% of the diagnosed and 44% of negative cases. Median time from illness onset to ED admission was 5 days for all patients, diagnosed patients, and negative cases, respectively. Fever was observed in 27 (84%) and 57 (68%) diagnosed and negative cases, respectively. Nineteen (59%) diagnosed and 24 (29%) negative cases had lymphopenia on admission in ED. A chest CT scan on admission revealed the presence of pneumonia in the majority of the diagnosed patients (30 out of 32, 94%) and in 56 (67%) negative cases. Bilateral involvement and ground-glass opacity (GGO) were present in 91% and 47% of the diagnosed patients. Thirty-two patients were diagnosed with COVID-19; the remaining 84 patients were referred to as negative cases. The median age of the diagnosed patients was 46 years, but only 35 years for negative cases. History of exposure to Wuhan or COVID-19 patients in the previous 2 weeks was observed in 63% of the diagnosed and 44% of negative cases. Median time from illness onset to ED admission was 5 days for all patients, diagnosed patients, and negative cases, respectively. Fever was observed in 27 (84%) and 57 (68%) diagnosed and negative cases, respectively. Nineteen (59%) diagnosed and 24 (29%) negative cases had lymphopenia on admission in ED. A chest CT scan on admission revealed the presence of pneumonia in the majority of the diagnosed patients (30 out of 32, 94%) and in 56 (67%) negative cases. Bilateral involvement and GGO were present in 91% and 47% of the diagnosed patients.

Diagnosis of Klippel-Trenaunay syndrome and extensive heterotopic ossification in a patient with a femoral fracture: a case report and literature review.

BACKGROUND: Klippel-Trenaunay syndrome (KTS) is a rare complex vessel malformation syndrome characterized by venous varicosities, capillary malformations, and limb hypertrophy. However, extensive heterotopic ossification (HO) secondary to this syndrome is extremely rare. CASE PRESENTATION: We report the case of a patient with previously undiagnosed KTS and extensive HO who presented with a femoral fracture secondary to a motor vehicle accident. Extensive ossification, which leads to compulsive contracture deformity and dysfunction of the leg, was distributed on the flexor muscle side, as revealed by the radiograph. The diagnosis was finally established by combining imaging and histological analysis with classical clinical symptoms. Amputation was performed at the fracture site proximal to the infected necrotic foci. Open management of the fracture was challenging owning to the pervasive ossification and tendency for excessive bleeding. Gene sequencing analysis showed homozygous mutation of FoxO1 gene. CONCLUSIONS: Definitive diagnosis of a combination of KTS and extensive HO requires detailed imaging analysis and pathologic evidence. Mutation of the FoxO1 gene, which regulates bone formation by resistance to oxidative stress in osteoblasts, is a potential factor in the microenvironment of malformed vessels caused by KTS.

Effect of Sonication on the Properties of Flaxseed Gum Films Incorporated with Carvacrol.

Carvacrol is a natural compound known to be a highly effective antibacterial; however, it is a hydrophobic molecule, which is a limitation to its use within food packaging. Flaxseed gum (FG) films containing different contents of carvacrol (C) were produced by a film-casting method with sonication. The effects of sonication power and time on the properties of the FG-C films were investigated by measuring the film thickness, mechanical properties, contact angle, opacity, water vapor permeability (WVP), water sorption isotherm, Fourier transform infrared spectroscopy(FTIR), differential scanning calorimetry (DSC), antibacterial and antioxidant activities, and microstructure. The results showed that sonication power and time had significant effects on mechanical and barrier properties, film opacity, and degradability (p < 0.05). The tensile strength (TS) and elongation at break (EB) values exhibited an obvious improvement after sonication, and FG-0.5C-6030 had the lowest TS (33.40 MPa) and EB (4.46%) values. FG-C films formed a denser structure and the contact angle was improved as a result of sonication, which improved the integration of carvacrol into the FG matrix. In terms of microstructure, sonication resulted in a homogeneous and continuous crosssection of FG-C films, and regular surface and cross-sectional images were obtained through the highest acoustic intensity and longest time treatment. The FG films incorporated with carvacrol displayed antibacterial properties against Staphylococcus aureus, Vibrio parahaemolyticus, Shewanella putrefaciens, and Pseudomonas fluorescens, as well as increased antioxidant properties, and sonication was proven to enhance both of them.

Preservative Effects of Gelatin Active Coating Containing Eugenol and Higher CO2 Concentration Modified Atmosphere Packaging on Chinese Sea bass (Lateolabrax maculatus) during Superchilling (-0.9 °C) Storage.

The purpose of this research was to explore the fresh keeping effect of modified atmosphere packaging (MAP) with different gas ratios combined with gelatin active coatings containing eugenol on Chinese sea bass stored at -0.9 °C for 36 days. The results showed that MAP3 (60% CO2/10% O2/30% N2), together with gelatin active coatings containing eugenol, could prevent water loss, which maintained high field NMR, MRI, and organoleptic evaluation results. This hurdle technology could also effectively delay the bacterial reproduction, protein degradation, and alkaline accumulation, so it showed the lowest K value, total volatile basic nitrogen, free amino acids, total viable count, Pseudomonas spp., and H2S-producing bacteria, which better maintain the quality of sea bass.

High-CO2 Modified Atmosphere Packaging with Superchilling (-1.3 °C) Inhibit Biochemical and Flavor Changes in Turbot (Scophthalmus maximus) during Storage.

The effects of modified atmosphere packaging (MAP) in combination with superchilling (-1.3 °C) on the physicochemical properties, flavor retention, and organoleptic evaluation of turbot samples were investigated during 27 days storage. Results showed that high-CO2 packaging (70% or 60% CO2) combined with superchilling could reduce the productions of off-flavor compounds, including total volatile basic nitrogen (TVB-N) and ATP-related compounds. Twenty-four volatile organic compounds were determined by gas chromatography-mass spectrometry (GC/MS) during storage, including eight alcohols, 11 aldehydes, and five ketones. The relative content of off-odor volatiles, such as 1-octen-3-ol, 1-penten-3-ol, (E)-2-octenal, octanal, and 2,3-octanedione, was also reduced by high-CO2 packaging during superchilling storage. Further, 60% CO2/10% O2/30% N2 with superchilling (-1.3 °C) could retard the water migration on the basis of the water holding capacity, low field NMR, and MRI results, and maintain the quality of turbot according to organoleptic evaluation results during storage.

Resveratrol reduces store-operated Ca2+ entry and enhances the apoptosis of fibroblast-like synoviocytes in adjuvant arthritis rats model via targeting ORAI1-STIM1 complex.

BACKGROUND: Resveratrol was reported to trigger the apoptosis of fibroblast-like synoviocytes in adjuvant arthritis rats but the subcellular mechanism remains unclear. Since ER stress, mitochondrial dysfunction and oxidative stress were involved in the effects of resveratrol with imbalance of calcium bio-transmission, store operated calcium entry (SOCE), a novel intracellular calcium regulatory pathway, may also participate in this process. RESULTS: In the present study, Resveratrol was found to suppress ORAI1 expression of a dose dependent manner while have no evident effects on STIM1 expressive level. Besides, resveratrol had no effects on ATP or TG induced calcium depletion but present partly dose-dependent suppression of SOCE. On the one hand, microinjection of ORAI1 overexpressed vector in sick toe partly counteracted the therapeutic effects of resveratrol on adjuvant arthritis and serum inflammatory cytokine including IL-1, IL-6, IL-8, IL-10 and TNF-α. On the other hand, ORAI1 SiRNA injection provided slight relief to adjuvant arthritis in rats. In addition, ORAI1 overexpression partly diminished the alleviation of hemogram abnormality induced by adjuvant arthritis after resveratrol treatment while ORAI1 knockdown presented mild resveratrol-like effect on hemogram in rats model. CONCLUSION: These results indicated that resveratrol reduced store-operated Ca2+ entry and enhanced the apoptosis of fibroblast-like synoviocytes in adjuvant arthritis rats model via targeting ORAI1-STIM1 complex, providing a theoretical basis for ORAI1 targeted therapy in future treatment with resveratrol on rheumatoid arthritis.

Antimicrobial Carvacrol Incorporated in Flaxseed Gum-Sodium Alginate Active Films to Improve the Quality Attributes of Chinese Sea bass (Lateolabrax maculatus) during Cold Storage.

The objective of this research was to explore the antimicrobial activity and mechanism of carvacrol against Vibrio Parahemolyticus, Shewanella putrefaciens, Staphylococcus aureus and Pseudomonas fluorescens and evaluate the effect of the addition of carvacrol/ß-cyclodextrin emulsions to flaxseed gum (FSG)-sodium alginate (SA) edible films on the preservation of Chinese sea bass (Lateolabrax maculatus) fillets during refrigerated storage. The minimum inhibitory concentration (MIC) of carvacrol against V. parahemolyticus, S. putrefaciens, S. aureus and P. fluorescens were 0.5, 0.5, 0.125, and 0.5 mg/mL, respectively. Alkaline phosphatase activity assay, nucleotide and protein leakage, and scanning electron microscope demonstrated that carvacrol damaged the external structure of the tested bacterial cells causing leakage of cytoplasmic components. At the same time, when FSG-SA films containing carvacrol used as coating agents for Chinese sea bass fillets cold storage, FSG-SA films containing 1.0 or 2.0 mg/mL carvacrol could significantly reduce TVB-N content, K-value, the degree of microbial deterioration and maintain quality of sea bass fillets according to organoleptic evaluation results.

Impact of Predicting Health Care Utilization Via Web Search Behavior: A Data-Driven Analysis.

BACKGROUND: By recent estimates, the steady rise in health care costs has deprived more than 45 million Americans of health care services and has encouraged health care providers to better understand the key drivers of health care utilization from a population health management perspective. Prior studies suggest the feasibility of mining population-level patterns of health care resource utilization from observational analysis of Internet search logs; however, the utility of the endeavor to the various stakeholders in a health ecosystem remains unclear. OBJECTIVE: The aim was to carry out a closed-loop evaluation of the utility of health care use predictions using the conversion rates of advertisements that were displayed to the predicted future utilizers as a surrogate. The statistical models to predict the probability of user's future visit to a medical facility were built using effective predictors of health care resource utilization, extracted from a deidentified dataset of geotagged mobile Internet search logs representing searches made by users of the Baidu search engine between March 2015 and May 2015. METHODS: We inferred presence within the geofence of a medical facility from location and duration information from users' search logs and putatively assigned medical facility visit labels to qualifying search logs. We constructed a matrix of general, semantic, and location-based features from search logs of users that had 42 or more search days preceding a medical facility visit as well as from search logs of users that had no medical visits and trained statistical learners for predicting future medical visits. We then carried out a closed-loop evaluation of the utility of health care use predictions using the show conversion rates of advertisements displayed to the predicted future utilizers. In the context of behaviorally targeted advertising, wherein health care providers are interested in minimizing their cost per conversion, the association between show conversion rate and predicted utilization score, served as a surrogate measure of the model's utility. RESULTS: We obtained the highest area under the curve (0.796) in medical visit prediction with our random forests model and daywise features. Ablating feature categories one at a time showed that the model performance worsened the most when location features were dropped. An online evaluation in which advertisements were served to users who had a high predicted probability of a future medical visit showed a 3.96% increase in the show conversion rate. CONCLUSIONS: Results from our experiments done in a research setting suggest that it is possible to accurately predict future patient visits from geotagged mobile search logs. Results from the offline and online experiments on the utility of health utilization predictions suggest that such prediction can have utility for health care providers.

Ultrasound microbubbles enhance human ß-defensin 3 against biofilms.

BACKGROUND: The infection of orthopedic implantation devices with Staphylococcus has been a serious concern within the biomaterial community. Treatments are not always successful because of antibiotic-resistant bacteria biofilm infection. Recent studies have shown that combination of antibiotics with low-frequency ultrasound (US) can enhance the bactericidal activity effectively against the formation of biofilms in vitro pilot study. Meanwhile, microbubbles evolved as targeted drug-delivery agents can provide nuclei for inertial cavitation and lower the threshold for US-induced cavitation. Human ß-defensin 3 (HBD-3) is a cationic antimicrobial peptide considered particularly promising for future bactericidal employment and has effect on antibiotic-resistant Staphylococcus biofilms. But the effect has not been reported when combined with US-targeted microbubble destruction (UTMD) in vivo. METHODS: In this study, we evaluated the effect of HBD-3 combined with UTMD on two tested Staphylococcus by the spread plate method, crystal violet staining, confocal laser scanning microscopy, scanning electron microscopy, and real-time polymerase chain reaction. RESULTS: In the study, we found that the biofilm densities, the percentage of live cells, and the viable counts of two tested Staphylococcus that recovered from the biofilm on the titanium surface in mice were significantly decreased in the group of the HBD-3 combined with UTMD, compared with those of other groups. Furthermore, in the experiment, we found out that UTMD could enhance HBD-3 activity, which inhibits the biofilm-associated genes expression of icaAD and the methicillin-resistance genes expression of MecA by promoting the icaR expression simultaneously. CONCLUSIONS: The combination of HBD-3 with UTMD can play a significant role on the elimination of the antibiotic-resistant Staphylococcus biofilms in vivo.

Effective adsorption of As(V) from aqueous solution by quaternary ammonium and Zn2+ decorated lignin-based sorbent.

Arsenic poses a serious harm to the natural environment and human health. Lignin decorated with quaternary ammonium and metal ion can effectively adsorb arsenic from aqueous solution. Zn2+/quaternary ammonium lignin was synthesized by quaternization and metallization from lignin with 3-Chloro-2-hydroxypropyl trimethylammonium chloride and ZnCl2. The morphology, functional groups and chemical compositions of adsorbent were identified by SEM-EDS, FTIR and XRD. The effects such as pH, initial As(V) concentration, contact time and adsorbent dosage on the adsorption capacity were investigated in batch system. The adsorption mechanism was explored by SEM-EDS, FTIR and XPS. It was shown that the adsorbent was rough and contained a large amount of quaternary ammonium and Zn2+. Zn2+/quaternary ammonium lignin exhibited much strong affinity towards As(V) with the maximum adsorption capacity of 70.38 mg·g-1 at 25 °C, oscillation rate of 180 r·min-1, pH of 5, initial As(V) concentration of 100 mg·L-1, contact time of 30 min and 1 g·L-1 Zn2+/quaternary ammonium lignin. The adsorption could be well described by Langmuir model and quasi-second-order kinetic model, indicating the monolayer homogeneous chemisorption nature. As(V) was adsorbed through electrostatic attraction of Zn2+ and ion exchange between H2AsO4- and Cl-.

Vascular Endothelial Growth Factor and Ischemic Stroke Risk: A Mendelian Randomization Study.

INTRODUCTION: Previous studies have reported controversial relationships between circulating vascular endothelial growth factors (VEGF) and ischemic stroke (IS). This study aims to demonstrate the causal effect between VEGF and IS using Mendelian randomization (MR). METHODS: Summary statistics data from two large-scale genome-wide association studies (GWAS) for 16,112 patients with measured VEGF levels and 40,585 patients with IS were downloaded from public databases and included in this study. A published calculator was adopted for MR power calculation. The primary outcome was any ischemic stroke, and the secondary outcomes were large-artery stroke, cardioembolic stroke, and small-vessel stroke. We used the inverse variance-weighted (IVW) method for primary analysis, supplemented by MR-Egger regression and the weighted median method. RESULTS: Nine SNPs were included to represent serum VEGF levels. The IVW method revealed no strong causal association between VEGF and any ischemic stroke (odds ratio [OR] 1.01, 95% CI 0.99-1.04, p = 0.39), cardioembolic stroke (OR 1.04, 95% CI 0.97-1.12, p = 0.28), large-artery stroke (OR 1.02, 95% CI 0.95-1.09, p = 0.62), and small-vessel stroke (OR 0.98, 95% CI 0.91-1.04, p = 0.46). These findings remained robust in sensitivity analyses. MR-Egger regression suggested no horizontal pleiotropy. CONCLUSIONS: This Mendelian randomization study found no relationship between genetically predisposed serum VEGF levels and risks of IS or its subtypes.