Effects of Umbilical Cord Milking on Anemia in Preterm Infants: A Multicenter Randomized Controlled Trial.

OBJECTIVE: This study aimed to investigate whether umbilical cord milking (UCM) prevents and controls anemia in preterm infants, as compared with immediate cord clamping (ICC). STUDY DESIGN: Pregnant women delivering at <34 weeks' gestation in four hospitals were randomly assigned to undergo UCM or ICC from July 2017 to June 2019. Hematological parameters and iron status were collected and analyzed as primary outcomes at 24 hours, 1 week, 2 weeks, and 6 months after delivery. RESULTS: Neonates receiving UCM had significant higher levels of hemoglobin (Hb), hematocrit, and serum iron (p < 0.05). Lower prevalence of anemia and lower need for transfusions were noted in UCM group. Although UCM was associated with prolonged duration of phototherapy, the maximum levels of bilirubin were similar between two groups (p > 0.05). CONCLUSION: UCM is an effective intervention to help preterm infants experience less anemia with the potential to increase blood volume, as seen by higher Hb levels and more enhanced iron stores.

Oat ß-glucan repairs the epidermal barrier by upregulating the levels of epidermal differentiation, cell-cell junctions and lipids via Dectin-1.

BACKGROUND AND PURPOSE: Oat ß-glucan could ameliorate epidermal hyperplasia and accelerate epidermal barrier repair. Dectin-1 is one of the receptors of ß-glucan and many biological functions of ß-glucan are mediated by Dectin-1. Dectin-1 promotes wound healing through regulating the proliferation and migration of skin cells. Thus, this study aimed to investigate the role of oat ß-glucan and Dectin-1 in epidermal barrier repair. EXPERIMENTAL APPROACH: To investigate the role of Dectin-1 in the epidermal barrier, indicators associated with the recovery of a damaged epidermal barrier, including histopathological changes, keratinization, proliferation, apoptosis, differentiation, cell-cell junctions and lipid content were compared between WT and Dectin-1-/- mice. Further, the effect of oat ß-glucan on the disruption of the epidermal barrier was also compared between WT and Dectin-1-/- mice. KEY RESULTS: Dectin-1 deficiency resulted in delayed recovery and marked keratinization, as well as abnormal levels of keratinocyte differentiation, cell-cell junctions and lipid synthesis during the restoration of the epidermal barrier. Oat ß-glucan significantly reduces epidermal hyperplasia, promotes epidermal differentiation, increases cell-cell junction expression, promotes lipid synthesis and ultimately accelerates the recovery of damaged epidermal barriers via Dectin-1. Oat ß-glucan could promote CaS receptor expression and activate the PPAR-γ signalling pathway via Dectin-1. CONCLUSION AND IMPLICATIONS: Oat ß-glucan promote the recovery of damaged epidermal barriers through promoting epidermal differentiation, increasing the expression of cell-cell junctions and lipid synthesis through Dectin-1. Dectin-1 deficiency delay the recovery of epidermal barriers, which indicated that Dectin-1 may be a potential target in epidermal barrier repair.

Immunogenicity of meningococcal polysaccharide conjugate vaccine as a replacement for meningococcal polysaccharide vaccine in children in Guangzhou, China.

To assess the durability of antibody persistence after substitution of the MPCV vaccine for the MPSV-A vaccine in children, an observational study was conducted in children who voluntarily received two doses of MPCV-AC instead of MPSV-A between March 2017 and March 2018 in Guangzhou, China. In total, 131 and 47 participants were enrolled in the 3-year-old and 6-year-old groups, respectively. In the 3-year-old group, the seroprotection rate and GMT values for Men A and Men C were raised significantly after 1-month post- dose 1 MPSV booster vaccination. All immune indicators were significantly lower in pre- dose 1 MPSV booster vaccination in the 3-year-old group than after pre- dose 2 MPSV booster vaccination in the 6-year-old group. While no significant differences were found in most immune indicators between the 1-month post- dose 1 MPSV booster vaccination in the 3-year-old group and pre- dose 2 MPSV booster vaccination in 6-year-old group. The substitute meningococcal immunization schedule showed a good immunogenicity in young children, and good sequential immunogenicity with MPSV booster immunization.

Preliminary study on the effect of catabolite repression gene knockout on p-nitrophenol degradation in Pseudomonas putida DLL-E4.

P-nitrophenol (PNP) is a carcinogenic, teratogenic, and mutagenic compound that can cause serious harm to the environment. A strain of Pseudomonas putida DLL-E4, can efficiently degrade PNP in a complex process that is influenced by many factors. Previous studies showed that the expression level of pnpA, a key gene involved in PNP degradation, was upregulated significantly and the degradation of PNP was obviously accelerated in the presence of glucose. In addition, the expression of crc, crcY, and crcZ, key genes involved in catabolite repression, was downregulated, upregulated, and upregulated, respectively. To investigate the effect of the carbon catabolite repression (CCR) system on PNP degradation, the crc, crcY, and crcZ genes were successfully knocked out by conjugation experiments. Our results showed that the knockout of crc accelerated PNP degradation but slowed down the cell growth. However, the knockout of crcY or crcZ alone accelerated PNP degradation when PNP as the sole carbon source, but that knockout slowed down PNP degradation when glucose was added. The results indicate that the CCR system is involved in the regulation of PNP degradation, and further work is required to determine the details of the specific regulatory mechanism.

Isolation, identification, and whole genome sequence analysis of the alginate-degrading bacterium Cobetia sp. cqz5-12.

Alginate-degrading bacteria or alginate lyases can be used to oligomerize alginate. In this study, an alginate-degrading bacterium with high alginolytic activity was successfully screened by using Sargassum fusiforme sludge. When the strain was grown on a plate containing sodium alginate, the transparent ring diameter (D) was 2.2 cm and the ratio (D/d) of transparent ring diameter to colony diameter (d) was 8.8. After 36 h in culture at a temperature of 28 °C shaken at 150 r/min, the enzymatic activity of the fermentation supernatant reached 160 U/mL, and the enzymatic activity of the bacterial precipitate harvested was 2,645 U/mL. The strain was named Cobetia sp. cqz5-12. Its genome is circular in shape, 4,209,007 bp in size, with a 62.36% GC content. It contains 3,498 predicted coding genes, 72 tRNA genes, and 21 rRNA genes. The functional annotations for the coding genes demonstrated that there were 181 coding genes in the genome related to carbohydrate transport and metabolism and 699 coding genes with unknown functions. Three putative coding genes, alg2107, alg2108 and alg2112, related to alginate degradation were identified by analyzing the carbohydrate active enzyme (CAZy) database. Moreover, proteins Alg2107 and Alg2112 were successfully expressed and exhibited alginate lyase activity.

BNIP3 upregulation by ERK and JNK mediates cadmium-induced necrosis in neuronal cells.

Cadmium (Cd) is a toxic heavy metal that may cause neurological disorders. We studied the mechanism underlying Cd-mediated cell death in neuronal cells. In Cd-induced neurotoxicity, caspase-3 was only modestly activated, and accordingly, zVAD-fmk, a pan-caspase inhibitor, partially attenuated cell death. However, pretreatment with Necrox-2 or Necrox-5, two novel necrosis inhibitors, suppressed cell death more markedly compared with pretreatment with zVAD-fmk. Moreover, the necrosis inhibitors did not prevent cleavage of caspase-3. These results indicate that caspase-independent necrosis is more prevalent in Cd-induced neurotoxicity. Bcl-2 and adenovirus E1B-19 kDa-interacting protein 3 (BNIP3) has been reported to be related to caspase-independent cell death. Cd treatment caused a dramatic upregulation of BNIP3 mRNA and protein levels in vitro and in vivo. Furthermore, knockdown of BNIP3 greatly inhibited Cd-induced cell death. Importantly, BNIP3 RNAi decreased lactate dehydrogenase release and the percentage of propidium iodide-positive cells, two markers of necrotic cell death due to rupture of the cell membrane, whereas it had no effect on activation of caspase-3 in Cd-treated cells. These data suggest that BNIP3 mediates caspase-independent necrosis, but not apoptosis. Moreover, our results indicate that induction of BNIP3 by Cd may not be related to HIF-1 which is generally regarded as a mediator responsible for BNIP3 expression. Finally, we show that mitogen-activated protein kinases (MAPKs) are activated by Cd in vitro and in vivo; ERK and JNK promote BNIP3 upregulation and subsequent necrosis. Taken together, our results suggest BNIP3, upregulated by activation of ERK and JNK, mediates Cd-induced necrosis in neuronal cells.

Studies on the extraction of chromium(III) by emulsion liquid membrane.

This paper presents a comprehensive study on removal of chromium(III) from aqueous waste solution using emulsion liquid membrane (ELM). The study has highlighted the importance of emulsion stability for maximizing the removal of chromium(III). The ELM consists of tri-n-butyl phosphate (TBP) as a carrier, commercial kerosene as organic solvent, sulfonated liquid polybutadiene (LYF) as surfactant agent, sulfuric acid, deionized water or sodium hydroxide as stripping phase. The important factors studied which affected the ELM stability and removal of chromium(III) were the concentrations of surfactant (2-8% w/w), carrier (2-10% w/w), internal phase H(2)SO(4) [pH 0-6], deionized water [pH 6.65] and NaOH (0-0.8% w/w), transfer time (5-35 min) and the effect of volume ratio of the feed solution to the emulsion phase (Rf) (5:1-9:1). At the optimum condition it was possible to remove 99.71-99.83% of chromium(III) by using ELM. LYF was not only the surfactant but also played a key auxiliary effect for TBP combining with chromium(III) by studying on the transport mechanism.