Social-ecological vulnerability and risk of China's marine capture fisheries to climate change.

Climate change is a new disrupter to global fisheries systems and their governance frameworks. It poses a pressing management challenge, particularly in China, which is renowned as the world's largest fishing country and seafood producer. As climate change continues to intensify in the region and climate awareness grows within the country's national policy, the need to understand China's fisheries' resilience to the escalating climate crisis becomes paramount. In this study, we conduct an interdisciplinary analysis to assess the vulnerability and risk of China's marine capture fisheries in response to climate change. This study employs a spatially explicit, indicator-based approach with a coupled social-ecological framework, focusing on 67 species and 11 coastal regions. By integrating diverse sets of climatic, ecological, economic, societal, and governance indicators and information, we elucidate the factors that could hinder climate adaptation, including a limited understanding of fish early life stages, uncertainty in seafood production, unequal allocation and accessibility of resources, and inadequate consideration of inclusive governance and adaptive management. Our results show that species, which have managed to survive the stress of overfishing, demonstrate a remarkable ability to adapt to climate change. However, collapsing stocks such as large yellow croaker face a high risk due to the synergistic effects of inherent biological traits and external management interventions. We emphasize the imperative to build institutional, scientific, and social capacity to support fisheries adaptation. The scientific insights provided by this study can inform fisheries management decisions and promote the operationalization of climate-resilient fisheries in China and other regions.

Metallothionein 3 Potentiates Pulmonary Artery Smooth Muscle Cell Proliferation by Promoting Zinc-MTF1-ATG5 Axis-mediated Autophagosome Formation.

Abnormal proliferation of pulmonary artery smooth muscle cells (PASMCs) is one of the critical pathological mechanisms of pulmonary hypertension (PH), and therefore is gradually being adopted as an important direction for the treatment of PH. Metallothioneins (MTs) have been reported to be associated with PH, but the underlying mechanisms are not fully understood. Here, we demonstrated that the expression level of metallothionein 3 (MT3) was significantly increased in pulmonary arterioles from PH patients and chronic hypoxia-induced rat and mouse PH models, as well as in hypoxia-treated human PASMCs. Knockdown of MT3 significantly inhibited the proliferation of human PASMCs by arresting the cell cycle in the G1 phase, while overexpression of MT3 had the opposite effect. Mechanistically, we found that MT3 increased the intracellular zinc (Zn2+) concentration to enhance the transcriptional activity of metal-regulated transcription factor 1 (MTF1), which promoted the expression of autophagy-related gene 5 (ATG5), facilitating autophagosome formation. More importantly, MT3-induced autophagy and proliferation of human PASMCs were largely prevented by knockdown of MTF1 and ATG5. Therefore, in this study, we identified MT3-Zinc-MTF1-ATG5 as a novel pathway that affects PASMC proliferation by regulating autophagosome formation, suggesting that MT3 may be a novel target for the treatment of PH.

The epigenetic regulatory mechanisms of ferroptosis and its implications for biological processes and diseases.

Ferroptosis is a form of regulated cell death triggered by the iron-dependent peroxidation of phospholipids. Interactions of iron and lipid metabolism factors jointly promote ferroptosis. Ferroptosis has been demonstrated to be involved in the development of various diseases, such as tumors and degenerative diseases (e.g., aortic dissection), and targeting ferroptosis is expected to be an effective strategy for the treatment of these diseases. Recent studies have shown that the regulation of ferroptosis is affected by multiple mechanisms, including genetics, epigenetics, posttranscriptional modifications, and protein posttranslational modifications. Epigenetic changes have garnered considerable attention due to their importance in regulating biological processes and potential druggability. There have been many studies on the epigenetic regulation of ferroptosis, including histone modifications (e.g., histone acetylation and methylation), DNA methylation, and noncoding RNAs (e.g., miRNAs, circRNAs, and lncRNAs). In this review, we summarize recent advances in research on the epigenetic mechanisms involved in ferroptosis, with a description of RNA N6-methyladenosine (m6A) methylation included, and the importance of epigenetic regulation in biological processes and ferroptosis-related diseases, which provides reference for the clinical application of epigenetic regulators in the treatment of related diseases by targeting ferroptosis.