Fasting, a Potential Intervention in Alzheimer's Disease.

Alzheimer's disease (AD) is a neurodegenerative disorder characterized by the onset of symptoms, typically occurring later in life, and significant deficits in cognitive functions including learning, memory, speech, and behavior. Ongoing research endeavors seek to explore methods for preventing and treating AD, as well as delving into the molecular mechanisms underlying existing and novel therapeutic approaches encompassing exercise, diet, and drug regimens for individuals with AD or those at risk of developing AD. Among these interventions, dietary interventions have garnered increasing attention due to their potential in addressing the disease. Eating is among the most fundamental of human daily activities, and controlled dietary practices, such as fasting, have gained prominence as essential clinical methods for disease prevention and treatment. Research findings indicate that fasting holds promise in effectively alleviating and improving the cognitive decline associated with age or as consequence of disease. The clinical efficacy of fasting in addressing AD and related disorders might be grounded in its influence on various molecular mechanisms, including neuroinflammation, glial cell activation, insulin resistance, autophagy regulation, nerve regeneration, the gut microbiome, and accumulations of amyloid-ß and tau proteins. The present study reviews possible molecular mechanisms underpinning the therapeutic effects of fasting in patients with AD, as well as in models of the disorder, to establish a theoretical basis for using fasting as a viable approach to treat AD.

Pathological Functions of Lysosomal Ion Channels in the Central Nervous System.

Lysosomes are highly dynamic organelles that maintain cellular homeostasis and regulate fundamental cellular processes by integrating multiple metabolic pathways. Lysosomal ion channels such as TRPML1-3, TPC1/2, ClC6/7, CLN7, and TMEM175 mediate the flux of Ca2+, Cl-, Na+, H+, and K+ across lysosomal membranes in response to osmotic stimulus, nutrient-dependent signals, and cellular stresses. These ion channels serve as the crucial transducers of cell signals and are essential for the regulation of lysosomal biogenesis, motility, membrane contact site formation, and lysosomal homeostasis. In terms of pathophysiology, genetic variations in these channel genes have been associated with the development of lysosomal storage diseases, neurodegenerative diseases, inflammation, and cancer. This review aims to discuss the current understanding of the role of these ion channels in the central nervous system and to assess their potential as drug targets.

The Effect of Triptolide in Rheumatoid Arthritis: From Basic Research towards Clinical Translation.

Triptolide (TP), a major extract of the herb Tripterygium wilfordii Hook F (TWHF), has been shown to exert potent pharmacological effects, especially an immunosuppressive effect in the treatment of rheumatoid arthritis (RA). However, its multiorgan toxicity prevents it from being widely used in clinical practice. Recently, several attempts are being performed to reduce TP toxicity. In this review, recent progress in the use of TP for RA, including its pharmacological effects and toxicity, is summarized. Meanwhile, strategies relying on chemical structural modifications, innovative delivery systems, and drug combinations to alleviate the disadvantages of TP are also reviewed. Furthermore, we also discuss the challenges and perspectives in their clinical translation.

Potential molecular mechanism of exercise reversing insulin resistance and improving neurodegenerative diseases.

Neurodegenerative diseases are debilitating nervous system disorders attributed to various conditions such as body aging, gene mutations, genetic factors, and immune system disorders. Prominent neurodegenerative diseases include Alzheimer's disease, Parkinson's disease, Huntington's disease, amyotrophic lateral sclerosis, and multiple sclerosis. Insulin resistance refers to the inability of the peripheral and central tissues of the body to respond to insulin and effectively regulate blood sugar levels. Insulin resistance has been observed in various neurodegenerative diseases and has been suggested to induce the occurrence, development, and exacerbation of neurodegenerative diseases. Furthermore, an increasing number of studies have suggested that reversing insulin resistance may be a critical intervention for the treatment of neurodegenerative diseases. Among the numerous measures available to improve insulin sensitivity, exercise is a widely accepted strategy due to its convenience, affordability, and significant impact on increasing insulin sensitivity. This review examines the association between neurodegenerative diseases and insulin resistance and highlights the molecular mechanisms by which exercise can reverse insulin resistance under these conditions. The focus was on regulating insulin resistance through exercise and providing practical ideas and suggestions for future research focused on exercise-induced insulin sensitivity in the context of neurodegenerative diseases.

Morinda Officinalis-derived extracellular vesicle-like particles: Anti-osteoporosis effect by regulating MAPK signaling pathway.

BACKGROUND: Postmenopausal osteoporosis (PMOP) is a systemic bone disease characterized by low bone mass and microstructural damage. Morinda Officinalis (MO) contains various components with anti-PMOP activities. Morinda Officinalis-derived extracellular vesicle-like particles (MOEVLPs) are new active components isolated from MO, and no relevant studies have investigated their anti-osteoporosis effect and mechanism. PURPOSE: To investigate the alleviating effect of MOEVLPs on PMOP and the underlying mechanism. METHODS: Differential centrifugation and ultracentrifugation were used to isolate MOEVLPs from MO. Transmission electron microscopy (TEM), flow nano analyzer, sodium dodecyl sulfate-polyacrylamide gel electrophoresis (SDS-PAGE), agarose gel electrophoresis, and thin-layer chromatography were employed to characterize MOEVLPs. PMOP mouse models were utilized to examine the anti-PMOP effect of MOEVLPs. H&E and immunohistochemical staining were used for drug safety and osteogenic effect assessment. Mouse embryo osteoblast precursor cells (MC3T3-E1) were used in vitro experiments. CCK-8 kit, alizarin red staining, proteomic, bioinformatic analyses, and western blot were used to explore the mechanism of MOEVLPs. RESULTS: In this study, MOEVLPs from MO were successfully isolated and characterized. Animal experiments demonstrated that MOEVLPs exhibited specific femur targeting, were non-toxic to the heart, liver, spleen, lung, kidney, and aorta, and possessed anti-PMOP properties. The ability of MOEVLPs to strengthen bone formation was better than that of alendronate. In vitro experiments, results revealed that MOEVLPs did not significantly enhance osteogenic differentiation in MC3T3-E1 cells. Instead, MOEVLPs promoted the proliferation of MC3T3-E1 cells. Proteomic and bioinformatic analyses suggested that the proliferative effect of MOEVLPs was closely associated with the mitogen-activated protein kinase (MAPK) signaling pathway, particularly the altered expression of cAMP response element-binding protein (CREB) and ribosomal S6 kinase 1 (RSK1). Western blot results further confirmed these findings. CONCLUSION: Our studies successfully isolated high-quality MOEVLPs and demonstrated that MOEVLPs can alleviate PMOP by promoting osteoblast proliferation through the MAPK pathway. MOEVLPs have the potential to become a novel and natural anti-PMOP drug.

Metabolic engineering of glycolysis in Escherichia coli for efficient production of patchoulol and τ-cadinol.

Glucose metabolism suppresses the microbial synthesis of sesquiterpenes with a syndrome of "too much of a good thing can be bad". Here, patchoulol production in Escherichia coli was increased 2.02 times by engineering patchoulol synthase to obtain an initial strain. Knocking out the synthetic pathway for cyclic adenosine monophosphate relieved glucose repression and improved patchoulol titer and yield by 27.7 % and 43.1 %, respectively. A glycolysis regulation device mediated by pyruvate sensing was constructed which effectively alleviated overflow metabolism in a high-glucose environment with 10.2 % greater patchoulol titer in strain 070QA. Without fine-tuning the glucose-feeding rate, patchoulol titer further increased to 1675.1 mg/L in a 5-L bioreactor experiment, which was the highest level reported in E. coli. Using strain 070QA as a chassis, the τ-cadinol titer reached 15.2 g/L, representing the first report for microbial production of τ-cadinol. These findings will aid in the industrial production of sesquiterpene.

Activity-Based Imaging of Macrophage Migration Inhibitory Factor with a Two-Photon Fluorescent Probe.

Macrophage migration inhibitory factor (MIF), as a cytokine, plays an important role in the pathogenesis of cancer and some other diseases, and it is also one of the potential drug targets for disease treatment. However, due to the lack of simple and effective MIF imaging detection tools, the fluctuation and distribution of MIF in living cells or at lesion sites remain difficult to track precisely and in real time. Here, we report activity-based fluorescent probes, named MIFP1-MIFP3, which are used for real-time imaging and tracking of intracellular MIF, thus establishing a relationship between the fluctuation of MIF and the change of fluorescence signal during the cancer disease process. With the excellent optical properties of two-photon probe imaging, we can easily distinguish multiple cancer cells from normal cells with the representative probe, MIFP3. Moreover, MIFP3 has also been successfully used to directly identify the pathological tissues of patients with clinical liver cancer. These potential MIF probes could provide powerful tools for further study of the physiological function of MIF and will be helpful to promote the accurate diagnosis and therapeutic evaluation of MIF-associated malignancies.

A pH-applicative fluorescent probe with long measuring range for monitoring hydrazine in water samples and Arabidopsis thaliana.

In this work, a fluorescent probe, RhodCl-Hz, with pH-applicative capability and long measuring range, was developed to serve the topic on the enrichment process of hydrazine. It was practical due to the clear acid-base boundary and the sectioned linear ranges. With the excitation wavelength of 515 nm and the emission peak at 565 nm, the detecting system was steady. It exhibited a clear cut-off point at pH 7.0 and steady fluorescence signals within the range of 7.0-10.0. As a whole, the linear range of 10.0-500 µM (1.0-50.0 equivalent) was long. The Limit of Detection value was calculated as 0.64 µM. With high selectivity, RhodCl-Hz was applied to suit water samples and biological imaging in both Arabidopsis Thaliana root tips and living MCF-7 cells. The information here might be helpful for revealing the enrichment process of hydrazine.

A three-channel fluorescent probe for selective detection of ONOO- and its application to cell imaging.

The fluorescent probe, GXY-ADP-2, with xanthene structure as the fluorescent core was designed and prepared for the selective detection of peroxynitrite (ONOO-). ONOO- can be produced endogenously and exogenously and is a strong oxidant with a short half-life. Oxidative modifications of biomolecules, that can be attributed to the formation of ONOO-, occur in the reactions of biomolecules with secondary ONOO--derived radical oxidants. Therefore, it is very important to develop a specific fluorescent probe for detecting ONOO- to monitor oxidative stress state. The excitation wavelength and emission wavelength of the probe are 689 nm and 739 nm respectively. In the process of co-incubation with ONOO-, generate a new substance with two internal conjugated structures through a special reaction mechanism, one giving the fluorescence with the excitation wavelength of 347 nm and the emission wavelength of 484 nm with the detection limit of 0.12 µM, and the other that with the excitation wavelength of 433 nm and the emission wavelength of 583 nm with the detection limit of 0.077 µM. The linear dynamic range of the probe is 0-5 µM. Its response is not affected by the other reactive oxygen species, thus can sensitively detect ONOO-. In bioimaging experiments with HepG2 cells, the green and blue cell fluorescence signals (583 nm and 433 nm, respectively) were increased, while the red one (739 nm) was significantly reduced, under lipopolysaccharide (LPS) induced oxidative stress, proving that the probe could sensitively detect ONOO- in living cells. This work provides a new tool for the dynamic changes of ONOO- and oxidative stress processes in biological systems.

Physiological changes and growth behavior of Corynebacterium glutamicum cells in biofilm.

Biofilm cells are well-known for their increased survival and metabolic capabilities and have been increasingly implemented in industrial and biotechnological processes. Corynebacterium glutamicum is one of the most widely used microorganisms in the fermentation industry. However, C. glutamicum biofilm has been rarely reported and little is known about its cellular basis. Here, the physiological changes and characteristics of C. glutamicum biofilm cells during long-term fermentation were studied for the first time. Results showed that the biofilm cells maintained stable metabolic activity and cell size was enlarged after repeated-batch of fermentation. Cell division was slowed, and chromosome content and cell proliferation efficiency were reduced during long-term fermentation. Compared to free cells, more biofilm cells were stained by the apoptosis indicator dyes Annexin V-FITC and propidium iodide (PI). Overall, these results suggested slow-growing, long-lived cells of C. glutamicum biofilm during fermentation, which could have important industrial implications. This study presents first insights into the physiological changes and growth behavior of C. glutamicum biofilm cell population, which would be valuable for understanding and developing biofilm-based processes.

Hei-Gu-Teng Zhuifenghuoluo Granule Modulates IL-12 Signal Pathway to Inhibit the Inflammatory Response in Rheumatoid Arthritis.

Rheumatoid arthritis (RA) is a type of chronic systemic inflammatory disease; it has a very complicated pathogenesis, and multiple pathological changes are implicated. Traditional Chinese medicine (TCM) like Tripterygium wilfordii Hook. F. or Sinomenium acutum (Thunb.) Rehd et Wils. has been extensively used for centuries in the treatment of arthritic diseases and been reported effective for relieving the severity of RA. Hei-Gu-Teng Zhuifenghuoluo granule (HGT) which contains Periploca forrestii Schltr., Sinomenium acutum (Thunb.) Rehd et Wils., and Lysimachia paridiformis Franch. var. stenophylla Franch. was a representative natural rattan herb formula for the treatment of RA in China, but the mechanism has not been elucidated. This study aimed at exploring the mechanism of HGT on RA using the bioinformatics analysis with in vivo and in vitro experiment validation. The potential action mechanism was first investigated by bioinformatics analysis via Ingenuity Pathway Analysis (IPA) software. After that, we use experimental validation such as collagen-induced arthritis (CIA) mice model in vivo and U937 cell model in vitro. The bioinformatics results suggested that HGT may have anti-inflammatory characteristic on RA and IL-12 signaling pathway could be the potential key trigger. In vivo experiments demonstrated that HGT ameliorated the symptoms in CIA mice and decreased the production of inflammatory cytokines in both mice ankle joints and serum. Furthermore, HGT effectively inhibited the activation of IL-12R and STAT4 on IL-12 signaling pathway. In vitro experiments showed that HGT inhibited the production of IL-12R and STAT4 induced by IL-12 in lipopolysaccharide- (LPS-) stimulated U937 cells. Moreover, IL-12R knockdown was able to interfere with the inhibition effects of HGT on the production of these cytokines. Our results confirmed the anti-inflammatory property of HGT, which was attributed to its inhibition on IL-12 signaling pathway.

Therapeutic Potential of Pien Tze Huang on Experimental Autoimmune Encephalomyelitis Rat.

Multiple sclerosis (MS) is a chronic inflammatory demyelinating disease of the central nervous system (CNS). There is still lack of commercially viable treatment currently. Pien Tze Huang (PZH), a traditional Chinese medicine, has been proved to have anti-inflammatory, neuroprotective, and immunoregulatory effects. This study investigated the possible therapeutic effects of PZH on experimental autoimmune encephalomyelitis (EAE) rats, a classic animal model of MS. Male Lewis rats were immunized with myelin basic protein (MBP) peptide to establish an EAE model and then treated with three doses of PZH. Clinical symptoms, organ coefficient, histopathological features, levels of proinflammatory cytokines, and chemokines as well as MBP and Olig2 were analyzed. The results indicated that PZH ameliorated the clinical severity of EAE rats. It also remarkably reduced inflammatory cell infiltration in the CNS of EAE rats. Furthermore, the levels of IL-17A, IL-23, CCL3, and CCL5 in serum and the CNS were significantly decreased; the p-P65 and p-STAT3 levels were also downregulated in the CNS, while MBP and Olig2 in the CNS of EAE rats had a distinct improvement after PZH treatment. In addition, PZH has no obvious toxicity at the concentration of 0.486 g/kg/d. This study demonstrated that PZH could be used to treat MS.

Yupingfeng San Inhibits NLRP3 Inflammasome to Attenuate the Inflammatory Response in Asthma Mice.

Yupingfeng San (YPFS) is a representative Traditional Chinese Medicine (TCM) formula with accepted therapeutic effect on Asthma. However, its action mechanism is still obscure. In this study, we used network pharmacology to explore potential mechanism of YPFS on asthma. Nucleotide-binding oligomerization domain (NOD)-like receptor pathway was shown to be the top one shared signaling pathway associated with both YPFS and asthma. In addition, NOD-like receptor family pyrin domain-containing 3 (NLRP3) inflammasome was treated as target protein in the process of YPFS regulating asthma. Further, experimental validation was done by using LPS-stimulated U937 cells and ovalbumin (OVA)-sensitized BALB/c mice model. In vitro experiments showed that YPFS significantly decreased the production of TNF-α and IL-6, as well as both mRNA and protein levels of IL-1ß, NLRP3, Caspase-1 and ASC in LPS-stimulated U937 cells. In vivo experiment indicated that YPFS treatment not only attenuated the clinical symptoms, but also reduced inflammatory cell infiltration, mucus secretion and MUC5AC production in lung tissue of asthmatic mice. Moreover, YPFS treatment remarkably decreased the mRNA and protein levels of IL-1ß, NLRP3, Caspase-1 and ASC in lung tissue of asthmatic mice. In conclusion, these results demonstrated that YPFS could inhibit NLRP3 inflammasome components to attenuate the inflammatory response in asthma.

Vacancy-induced dislocations within grains for high-performance PbSe thermoelectrics.

To minimize the lattice thermal conductivity in thermoelectrics, strategies typically focus on the scattering of low-frequency phonons by interfaces and high-frequency phonons by point defects. In addition, scattering of mid-frequency phonons by dense dislocations, localized at the grain boundaries, has been shown to reduce the lattice thermal conductivity and improve the thermoelectric performance. Here we propose a vacancy engineering strategy to create dense dislocations in the grains. In Pb1-xSb2x/3Se solid solutions, cation vacancies are intentionally introduced, where after thermal annealing the vacancies can annihilate through a number of mechanisms creating the desired dislocations homogeneously distributed within the grains. This leads to a lattice thermal conductivity as low as 0.4 Wm-1 K-1 and a high thermoelectric figure of merit, which can be explained by a dislocation scattering model. The vacancy engineering strategy used here should be equally applicable for solid solution thermoelectrics and provides a strategy for improving zT.

Tellurium as a high-performance elemental thermoelectric.

High-efficiency thermoelectric materials require a high conductivity. It is known that a large number of degenerate band valleys offers many conducting channels for improving the conductivity without detrimental effects on the other properties explicitly, and therefore, increases thermoelectric performance. In addition to the strategy of converging different bands, many semiconductors provide an inherent band nestification, equally enabling a large number of effective band valley degeneracy. Here we show as an example that a simple elemental semiconductor, tellurium, exhibits a high thermoelectric figure of merit of unity, not only demonstrating the concept but also filling up the high performance gap from 300 to 700 K for elemental thermoelectrics. The concept used here should be applicable in general for thermoelectrics with similar band features.