Customizing Metal-Organic Frameworks by Lego-Brick Strategy for One-Step Purification of Ethylene from a Quaternary Gas Mixture.

One-step purification of ethylene (C2 H4 ) from a quaternary gas mixture of C2 H6 /C2 H4 /C2 H2 /CO2 by adsorption is a promising separation process, yet developing adsorbents that synergistically capture various gas impurities remains challenging. Herein, a Lego-brick strategy is proposed to customize pore chemistry in a unified framework material. The ethane-selective MOF platform is further modified with customized binding sites to specifically adsorb acetylene and carbon dioxide, thus one-step purification of C2 H4 with high productivity of polymer-grade product (134 mol kg-1 ) is achieved on the assembly of porous coordination polymer-2,5-furandicarboxylic acid (PCP-FDCA) and PCP-5-aminoisophthalic acid (IPA-NH2 ). Computational studies verify that the low-polarity surface of this MOFs-based platform provides a delicate environment for C2 H6 recognition, and the specific binding sites (FDCA and IPA-NH2 ) exhibit favorable trapping of C2 H2 and CO2 via CHδ+ ···Oδ- and Cδ+ ···Nδ- electrostatic interactions, respectively. The proposed Lego-brick strategy to customize binding sites within the MOFs structure provides new ideas for the design of adsorbents for compounded separation tasks.

Integrating Metabolomics and Network Pharmacology to Explore the Protective Effect of Ginsenoside Re against Radiotherapy Injury in Mice.

Ionizing radiation (IR) can cause radiation damage, mutagenesis, or carcinogenesis in the irradiated subject. It is manifested as metabolic disorders of the body and damage to the immune system, nervous system, and endocrine system, which can lead to physiological and pathological changes and endogenous metabolic disorders. Ginsenoside Re (G-Re), a single component of traditional Chinese medicine, has a certain ameliorating effect on radiation damage. However, its mechanism of action in the treatment of radiotherapy injury remains unclear. With this purpose, the hematopoietic function of mice damaged by X-ray radiation was studied, and the protective effect of G-Re on mice damaged by radiation was preliminarily evaluated. Network pharmacology and metabolomics analysis are used to further reveal the mechanism of G-Re to improve radiation damage through metabolomics research. Results of metabolomics analysis showed that 16 potential biomarkers were identified as participating in the therapeutic effect of G-Re on IR. Most of these metabolites are adjusted to recover after G-Re treatment. The pathways involved included glycerophospholipid metabolism, sphingolipid metabolism, and linoleic acid metabolism. According to network pharmacology analysis, we found 10 hub genes, which is partly consistent with the findings of metabolomics. Further comprehensive analysis focused on 4 key targets, including SRC, EGFR, AKT1, and MAPK8, and their related core metabolites and pathways. This study combines metabolomics and network pharmacology analysis to explore the key targets and mechanisms of G-Re in the treatment of IR, in order to provide new strategies for clinical treatment of radiotherapy injury.

Shaping of gallate-based metal-organic frameworks for adsorption separation of ethylene from acetylene and ethane.

Shaping metal-organic frameworks (MOFs) powders into formed bodies plays a crucial role in opening up the excellent properties of MOFs to a broad range of applications. Gallate-based MOFs, termed as M-gallate (M = Co, Mg, Ni), have shown excellent performance for adsorption separation of C2 hydrocarbons. However, the industrial applications of MOF powders will inevitably confront problems of high pressure drop, pipe blockage, and dust pollution. Herein, we use hydroxypropyl cellulose (HPC) as a binder to produce gallate-based MOFs pellets. The crystal structure of the well-shaped materials after molding remained intact, and the surface area of the materials hardly decreases after shaping. Adsorption isotherms of C2 hydrocarbons including ethylene, ethane and acetylene on the activated powders and pellets of M-gallate were recorded and compared with the outperformers. The shaped pellets were also examined by breakthrough experiments on the fixed-bed separation of C2H2/C2H4 (1:99, v/v) and C2H4/C2H6 (50:50, v/v) gas mixtures. These results proved that M-gallate pellets was promising candidates for the practical industrial realization of C2 hydrocarbons separation.

UPLC-MS-based serum metabolomics reveals protective effect of Ganoderma lucidum polysaccharide on ionizing radiation injury.

ETHNOPHARMACOLOGICAL RELEVANCE: Ganoderma lucidum Polysaccharide (GLP),traditional Chinese medicine (TCM) active ingredient, has a long history and has good curative effects on radiation injury. However, the mechanism of GLP treating radiation injury has not been clearly elucidated. THE AIM OF THE STUDY: This study was aimed to investigate the preventive effects of GLP on mice with radiation injury and to explore its mechanisms by serum metabolomics. MATERIALS AND METHODS: Thirty mice were randomly divided into three groups,and namely 10 per group. The normal control group and the radiation model with normal saline and GLP group with GLP treatment (96 mg·kg-1) for 14 days. 2 h after 7th day after the intragastric administration, the model group and GLP group were subjected to whole body irradiation by X-rays except the normal control group. The peripheral blood WBC, RBC, HGB, PLT indicators.UPLC-Q-TOF-MS technique was used to analyze the serum of normal group, model group and GLP group, and to explore its potential key biomarkers and corresponding related metabolic pathways. RESULTS: The number of peripheral blood leukocytes (WBC) in the radiation model group was lower than that in the GLP group and the number of platelets (PLT) in the GLP group was significantly higher than that in the model group.Combined with the methods of principal component analysis (PCA), projection to latent structure-discrimination analysis (PLS-DA), three group were clearly distinguished from each other and 18 metabolites were identified as the potential biomarkers in the GLP treated mice. The identified biomarkers indicated that there were perturbations of the taurine and hypotaurine metabolism and glycerophospholipid metabolism. CONCLUSION: GLP can play a role in radiation protection by improving the expression of related potential biomarkers and related metabolic pathways in serum of radiation-induced mice.

Adsorptive Separation of Acetylene from Ethylene in Isostructural Gallate-Based Metal-Organic Frameworks.

The separation of acetylene from ethylene is of paramount importance in the purification of chemical feedstocks for industrial manufacturing. Herein, an isostructural series of gallate-based metal-organic frameworks (MOFs), M-gallate (M=Ni, Mg, Co), featuring three-dimensionally interconnected zigzag channels, the aperture size of which can be finely tuned within 0.3 Šby metal replacement. Controlling the aperture size of M-gallate materials slightly from 3.69 down to 3.47 Šcould result in a dramatic enhancement of C2 H2 /C2 H4 separation performance. As the smallest radius among the studied metal ions, Ni-gallate exhibits the best C2 H2 /C2 H4 adsorption separation performance owing to the strongest confinement effect, ranking after the state-of-the-art UTSA-200a with a C2 H4 productivity of 85.6 mol L-1 from 1:99 C2 H2 /C2 H4 mixture. The isostructural gallate-based MOFs, readily synthesized from inexpensive gallic acid, are demonstrated to be a new top-performing porous material for highly efficient adsorption of C2 H2 from C2 H4 .

Engineering the Pore Size of Pillared-Layer Coordination Polymers Enables Highly Efficient Adsorption Separation of Acetylene from Ethylene.

The pore size of adsorbents plays a vital role in determining the overall separation performance of gas separation and purification by adsorption. In this work, the pore apertures of the coordination pillared layer (CPL) was systematically controlled by adjusting the length of pillared ligands. We used pyrazine, 4,4'-bipyridine, and 1,2-di(4-pyridyl)-ethylene with increased length to synthesize CPL-1 (L = pyrazine), CPL-2 (L = 4,4'-bipyridine), and CPL-5 [L = 1,2-di(4-pyridyl)-ethylene], respectively. The aperture size of these CPLs varies from 4 to 11 Å: CPL-1 (4 × 6 Å2), CPL-2 (9 × 6 Å2), and CPL-5 (11 × 6 Å2). Among the three frameworks, CPL-2 exhibits the highest C2H2 uptake at ambient conditions as it has moderate pore size and porosity. However, CPL-1 has the best separation performance in the breakthrough experiments with binary gas mixture of C2H2/C2H4, thanks to the optimal pore size nearly excluding C2H4, which is only observed in the state-of-the-art UTSA-300a so far. The DFT calculations were carried out to elucidate the specific adsorption sites for both acetylene and ethylene among these frameworks. The modeling results suggest that binding strength is highly related to aperture size and that CPL-1 shows the highest adsorption selectivity owing to the optimal pore size. This work demonstrates that engineering pore size enables us to fabricate the highly efficient metal-organic framework (MOF)-based adsorbents for specific gas separation on the basis of the isoreticular chemistry.

Probiotic properties of Enterococcus strains isolated from traditional naturally fermented cream in China.

The purpose of this study was to evaluate the probiotic properties of Enterococcus strains isolated from traditional naturally fermented cream in China. Four Enterococcus isolates showed high cholesterol removal ability in media were identified as Enterococcus durans (KLDS 6.0930 and 6.0933) and Enterococcus faecalis (KLDS 6.0934 and 6.0935) by 16S rRNA and pheS gene sequences, respectively, and selected for further evaluation. In order to assess the probiotic potential and safety of these strains, the property of four Enterococcus strains were examined, including acid and bile tolerance, adherence to Caco-2 cells and antibiotics susceptibility. All four strains showed potential cholesterol assimilation, de-conjugation of bile salts and/or cholesterol degradation to remove cholesterol in vitro. In addition, the potential effect of E. durans KLDS 6.0930 on serum cholesterol levels was evaluated in Sprague-Dawley rats. After 4 weeks administration, compared with rats fed a high-cholesterol diet without lactic acid bacteria supplementation, there was a significant (P < 0.05) decrease in the total cholesterol and low-density lipoprotein cholesterol levels in the serum of rats treated with KLDS 6.0930. Furthermore, total bile acid level in the feces was significantly (P < 0.05) increased after KLDS 6.0930 administration. These observations suggested that the strain E. durans KLDS 6.0930 may be used in the future as a good candidate for lowering human serum cholesterol levels.

In vitro assessment of the multifunctional bioactive potential of Alaska pollock skin collagen following simulated gastrointestinal digestion.

BACKGROUND: Dietary mineral deficiency, hypertension and diabetes have become serious human health problems. Dietary approaches are increasingly being investigated to address these issues. Identification of food-derived biological peptides has become an important approach to control such diseases. Peptides generated from aquatic byproducts have been shown to possess biological activities. RESULTS: Significantly higher copper-chelating activity was observed on simulated hydrolysis of intact collagen. The collagen hydrolysate generated in the gastric stage exhibited moderate angiotensin-converting enzyme (ACE)-inhibitory activity with an IC50 value of 2.92 ± 0.22 mg mL(-1), which significantly decreased to 0.49 ± 0.02 mg mL(-1) after intestinal digestion. The dipeptidyl peptidase (DPP) IV-inhibitory potency of the collagen hydrolysate generated directly following simulated gastrointestinal digestion (SGID) (IC50 2.59 ± 0.04 mg mL(-1)) was significantly lower than that of the collagen tryptic hydrolysate (CTH) (IC50 1.53 ± 0.01 mg mL(-1)). The antioxidant activities of collagen and CTH using the ferric-reducing antioxidant power (FRAP) assay were 0.87 ± 0.10 and 1.27 ± 0.03 µmol Trolox equivalent (TE) g(-1) respectively after SGID. CONCLUSION: This study identifies collagen as a good and inexpensive substrate for the generation of biologically active peptides with potential applications as functional ingredients in the management of chronic illness and mineral deficiency problems.

Fractionation and identification of Alaska pollock skin collagen-derived mineral chelating peptides.

Peptides with the ability to chelate dietary minerals have been reported to have potential as functional food ingredients. A collagen tryptic hydrolysate (CTH), previously shown to chelate iron, was further investigated for the presence of Ca, Fe and Cu chelating peptides. Sequential purification steps, including immobilised metal affinity chromatography (IMAC) and gel permeation chromatography (GPC) were employed for the separation of chelating peptides. GPC analysis showed that the mineral chelating peptides were mainly between 500 and 2000 Da. Subsequent identification was carried out using UPLC-ESI-QTOF MS/MS. Overall, 10 sequences were identified as potential chelating peptides. The Ca, Fe and Cu chelating activity of GPAGPHGPPG was 11.52±2.23 nmol/µmol, 1.71±0.17 nmol/µmol and 0.43±0.02 µmol/µmol, respectively. This study identifies collagen as a good source of peptides with potential applications as functional ingredients in the management of mineral deficiencies.