Inhibitory Effects of Jiuzao Polysaccharides on Alcoholic Fatty Liver Formation in Zebrafish Larvae and Their Regulatory Impact on Intestinal Microbiota.

The liver is critical in alcohol metabolism, and excessive consumption heightens the risk of hepatic damage, potentially escalating to hepatitis and cirrhosis. Jiuzao, a by-product of Baijiu production, contains a rich concentration of naturally active polysaccharides known for their antioxidative properties. This study investigated the influence of Laowuzeng Jiuzao polysaccharide (LJP) on the development of ethanol-induced alcoholic fatty liver. Zebrafish larvae served as the model organisms for examining the LJPs hepatic impact via liver phenotypic and biochemical assays. Additionally, this study evaluated the LJPs effects on gene expression associated with alcoholic fatty liver and the composition of the intestinal microbiota through transcriptomic and 16 S rRNA gene sequencing analyses, respectively. Our findings revealed that LJP markedly mitigated morphological liver damage and reduced oxidative stress and lipid peroxidation in larvae. Transcriptome data indicated that LJP ameliorated hepatic fat accumulation and liver injury by enhancing gene expression involved in alcohol and lipid metabolism. Furthermore, LJP modulated the development of alcoholic fatty liver by altering the prevalence of intestinal Actinobacteriota and Firmicutes, specifically augmenting Acinetobacter while diminishing Chryseobacterium levels. Ultimately, LJP mitigated alcohol-induced hepatic injury by modulating gene expression related to ethanol metabolism, lipid metabolism, and inflammation and by orchestrating alterations in the intestinal microbiota.

Unravelling Metabolic Heterogeneity of Chinese Baijiu Fermentation in Age-Gradient Vessels.

Fermentation vessels affect the characteristics of food fermentation; however, we lack an approach to identify the biomarkers indicating fermentation. In this study, we applied metabolomics and high-throughput sequencing analysis to reveal the dynamic of metabolites and microbial communities in age-gradient fermentation vessels for baijiu production. Furthermore, we identified 64 metabolites during fermentation, and 19 metabolites significantly varied among the three vessels (p < 0.05). Moreover, the formation of these 19 metabolites were positively correlated with the core microbiota (including Aspergillus, Saccharomyces, Lactobacillus, and Bacillus). In addition, ethyl lactate or ethyl acetate were identified as the biomarkers for indicating the metabolism among age-gradient fermentation vessels by BP-ANN (R2 > 0.40). Therefore, this study combined the biological analysis and predictive model to identify the biomarkers indicating metabolism in different fermentation vessels, and it also provides a potential approach to assess the profiling of food fermentations.

Boron Nitride Microspheres via Pyrolysis of Polymerized Precursors.

Microspheric BN materials have high application potential because they have better fluidity and dispersion ability to endow hexagonal boron nitride (h-BN) ceramics and h-BN/polymer composites with highly desired performance. In this work, a novel synthetic route to the BN microspheres has been developed by means of a controllable pyrolysis of polymerized spherical precursors. The precursor formation mechanism is proposed to be the F-127-induced self-assembling polymerization of a boric acid-melamine-formaldehyde (MF) colloid. It is found that ammonia-annealing of an air-pyrolysis (700 °C) intermediate causes higher BN phase transformation within final BN microspheres with more uniform diameter distribution compared to those of direct ammonia-pyrolysis of spherical precursors at the same temperatures of 1100 and 1500 °C. After ammonia-annealing and ammonia-pyrolyzed treatment at 1100 and 1500 °C, the obtained BN microspheres have a low specific surface area (SSA) property, but replacing part of melamine with dicyandiamide could increase their SSAs to more than 1000 m2/g. We believe that this new microspherical BN preparation with more facile and controllable operation would be well suited for industrialization.

Highly Multifunctional Performances of Boron Nitride Nanosheets/Polydimethylsiloxane Composite Foams.

Although this kind of hexagonal boron nitride (h-BN)-filled polydimethylsiloxane (PDMS) multifunctional composite foam has been greatly expected, its development is still relatively slow as a result of the limitation of synthetic challenge. In this work, a new foaming process of BNNSs-PDMS, alcohol, and water three-phase emulsion system is employed to synthesize a series of high-quality BNNSs/PDMS composite foams (BSFs) filled with highly functional and uniformly distributed BNNSs. As a result of well-bonded interfaces between the BNNSs and PDMS, enhanced multiple functions of BSFs appeared. The BSFs can show complete resilience at a compressive strain of 90% and only 3.99% irreversible deformation after 100,000 compressing-releasing hyperelastic cycles at a strain of 60%. On the basis of their outstanding shape-memory properties, the maximum voltage value of compression-driven piezo-triboelectric (CDPT) responses of the BSFs is up to ∼20 V. Depending on the remarkable super-elastic and CDPT performances, the BSFs can be used for sensitive sensing of temperature difference and electromechanical responses. Also, in the range of 12-40 GHz, the BSF materials display ultralow dielectric constants between 1.1 and 1.4 with proper dielectric loss tangent values of <0.3 and exhibit an enhanced and broadened sound adsorption capacity ranging from 500 to 6500 Hz. Although BSFs have high porosities of >65%, their thermal conductivities can still reach up to 0.407 ± 0.039 W m-1 K-1. Moreover, the BSF materials display favorable thermal stability, obviously reduced coefficient of thermal expansion, and good flame retardancy. All of these properties render the BSFs as a new category of excellent multifunctional material.

Enhanced Performance of Li-S Batteries due to Synergistic Adsorption and Catalysis Activity within a Separation Coating Made of Hybridized BNNSs/N-Doping Porous Carbon Fibers.

Lithium-sulfur (Li-S) batteries with high theoretical energy density are considered as the most promising devices for rechargeable energy-storage systems. However, their actual applications are rather limited by the shuttle effect of lithium polysulfides (LiPSs) and the sluggish redox kinetics. Here, the boron nitride nanosheets are homodispersedly embedded into N-doping porous carbon fibers (BNNSs/CHFs) by an electrospinning technique and a subsequent in situ pyrolysis process. The hybridized BNNSs/CHFs can be smartly designed as a multifunctional separation coating onto the commercial PP membrane to enhance the electrochemical performance of Li-S batteries. As a result, the Li-S batteries with extra BNNSs/CHF modification deliver a highly reversible discharge capacity of 830.4 mA h g-1 at a current density of 1 C. Even under 4 C, the discharge specific capacity can reach up to 609.9 mA h g-1 and maintain at 553.9 mA h g-1 after 500 cycles, showing a low capacity decay of 0.01836% per cycle. It is considered that the excellent performance is attributed to the synergistic effect of adsorption and catalysis of the BNNSs/CHF coating used. First, this coating can efficiently reduce the charge transfer resistance and enhance Li-ion diffusion, due to increased catalytic activity from strong electronic interactions between BNNSs and N-doping CHFs. Second, the combination of polar BNNSs and abundant pore structures within the hybridized BNNSs/CHF networks can highly facilitate an adsorption for LiPSs. Here, we believed that this work would provide a promising strategy to increase the Li-S batteries' performance by introducing hybridized BNNSs/N-doping carbon networks, which could efficiently suppress the LiPSs' shuttle effect and improve the electrochemical kinetics of Li-S batteries.

Evaluation of the Perceptual Interaction among Ester Odorants and Nonvolatile Organic Acids in Baijiu by GC-MS, GC-O, Odor Threshold, and Sensory Analysis.

By applying the aroma extract dilution analysis, 13 esters were found to have high FD factors in the Laobaigan flavor type of Baijiu. These were then quantified using GC-MS. In addition, 35 nonvolatile organic acids were quantified by a derivatization method combined with GC-MS. The perceptual interactions of lactic acid and ethyl lactate and that of lactic acid and ethyl acetate were studied through the olfactory threshold. The S curve was used to evaluate the changes in the olfactory thresholds. After adding lactic acid (1142, 20 000, and 53 703 mg/L), the olfactory thresholds of ethyl lactate (1000, 724, and 295 mg/L) and ethyl acetate (398, 324, and 257 mg/L) decreased obviously, which revealed that lactic acid gave additive or synergistic odor effects for the two esters. Furthermore, it was discovered that as the concentrations of lactic acid increased, the extent of the interaction among these compounds was also greater in the mixture.

A locked nucleic acid (LNA)-based real-time PCR assay for the rapid detection of multiple bacterial antibiotic resistance genes directly from positive blood culture.

Bacterial strains resistant to various antibiotic drugs are frequently encountered in clinical infections, and the rapid identification of drug-resistant strains is highly essential for clinical treatment. We developed a locked nucleic acid (LNA)-based quantitative real-time PCR (LNA-qPCR) method for the rapid detection of 13 antibiotic resistance genes and successfully used it to distinguish drug-resistant bacterial strains from positive blood culture samples. A sequence-specific primer-probe set was designed, and the specificity of the assays was assessed using 27 ATCC bacterial strains and 77 negative blood culture samples. No cross-reaction was identified among bacterial strains and in negative samples, indicating 100% specificity. The sensitivity of the assays was determined by spiking each bacterial strain into negative blood samples, and the detection limit was 1-10 colony forming units (CFU) per reaction. The LNA-qPCR assays were first applied to 72 clinical bacterial isolates for the identification of known drug resistance genes, and the results were verified by the direct sequencing of PCR products. Finally, the LNA-qPCR assays were used for the detection in 47 positive blood culture samples, 19 of which (40.4%) were positive for antibiotic resistance genes, showing 91.5% consistency with phenotypic susceptibility results. In conclusion, LNA-qPCR is a reliable method for the rapid detection of bacterial antibiotic resistance genes and can be used as a supplement to phenotypic susceptibility testing for the early detection of antimicrobial resistance to allow the selection of appropriate antimicrobial treatment and to prevent the spread of resistant isolates.

The role of miR-205 in the VEGF-mediated promotion of human ovarian cancer cell invasion.

OBJECTIVE: Our objective was to investigate a miRNA pathway that acts downstream of VEGF-induced invasion of ovarian cancer cells. METHOD: We used two paired high and low metastatic serous ovarian cancer cells to demonstrate the role of miR-205 in VEGF-induced invasion of ovarian cancer cells and to investigate the gene targets of miR-205. RESULTS: Our previous comparative proteomics studies showed that VEGF decreased the expression of Ezrin and Lamin A/C, and this result was validated in the present study using qPCR and Western blotting. Then we found that VEGF enhanced the invasiveness of and inhibited apoptosis in ovarian cancer cells as assessed by transwell invasion assays and Annexin V-FITC immunostaining, respectively. VEGFR was also expressed in ovarian cancer cells, as assessed by immunocytochemical staining. Furthermore, using the dual-luciferase report assay system, we demonstrated that miR-205 targeted Ezrin and Lamin A/C. MiR-205 was up-regulated in ovarian cancer cells exposed to VEGF, as determined by miRNA microarray analysis and verified by qPCR. MiR-205 promoted the invasion and proliferation of ovarian cancer cells. CONCLUSION: Our data reveal a new potential pathway in which VEGF promotes the invasion of ovarian cancer cells, partially via the down-regulation of Ezrin and Lamin A/C caused by increased expression of miR-205.

Universal Probe Library based real-time PCR for rapid detection of bacterial pathogens from positive blood culture bottles.

A set of real-time PCR based assays using the locked nucleic acid probes from Roche Universal ProbeLibrary were developed for rapid detection of eight bacterial species from positive blood culture bottles. Four duplex real-time PCR reactions targeting to one Gram-positive bacterium and one Gram-negative bacterium were optimized for species identification according to Gram stain results. We also included mecA-specific primers and probes in the assays to indicate the presence of methicillin resistance in the bacterial species. The analytical sensitivity was in the range of 1-10 CFU per PCR reaction mixture. The specificity and cross reactivity of the assay was validated by 28 ATCC reference strains and 77 negative blood culture specimens. No cross-reactivity was observed in these samples thus demonstrating 100 % specificity. 72 previously characterized clinical isolates were tested by the real-time PCR assay and validated the accuracy and feasibility of the real-time PCR assay. Furthermore, 55 positive blood culture samples were tested using real-time PCR and 50 (90.9 %) of them were identified as the same species as judged by biochemical analysis. In total, real-time PCR showed 98.2 % consistent to that of traditional methods. Real-time PCR can be used as a supplement for early detection of the frequently-occurred pathogens from the positive blood cultures.

Effect of shRNA mediated down-regulation of Annexin A2 on biological behavior of human lung adencarcinoma cells A549.

In the previous study, we found that Annexin A2 was significantly up-regulated in lung cancer and could induce related-antigen in lung cancer patients' serum. To further study the function of Annexin A2, the short hairpin RNA plasmid targeting Annexin A2 was constructed in vitro and transfected into human lung adencarcinoma A549 cells. Knocking down Annexin A2 expression by shRNA, the mRNA level of Annexin A2 was investigated by semi-quantitative RT-PCR. The expression of Annexin A2 protein was examined by Western Blotting and Immuocytochemistry. MTT assay and Transwell chamber model were used to evaluate proliferation and invasion of A549 cells in vitro. The concentration of matrix metalloproteinase-2 (MMP-2) and cathepsin B (CB) in the supernatant was evaluated by ELISA. At 48 h after transfection, the expression of Annexin A2 mRNA and protein was down-regulated significantly, respectively (p < 0.05).The proliferation and invasion capability of A549 cells also decreased significantly (p < 0.05). The concentration of MMP-2 and CB was down-regulated obviously, respectively (p < 0.05). This study implies that Annexin A2 might play an important role in the progression and invasion of human lung cancer cells, and could promote progression of lung cancer by regulating the expression of MMP-2 and CB.