Adenosine monophosphate boosts the cryoprotection of ultrasound-assisted freezing to frozen surimi: Insights into protein structures and gelling behaviors.

Ultrasound-assisted freezing (UAF) is a clean technique for meat cryoprotections; however, its effectiveness is still limited compared to conventional cryoprotectants, e.g., sugars, polyols, especially at high dosages. To resolve this problem, a synergistic cryoprotection strategy was developed in this study. Adenosine monophosphate (AMP), an adenosine-type food additive, was introduced into frozen surimi at a considerably reduced content (0.08%), yet substantially enhanced the efficiency of UAF to comparable levels of commercial cryoprotectant (4% sucrose with 4% sorbitol). Specifically, UAF/AMP treatment retarded denaturation of surimi myofibrillar protein (MP) during 60-day frozen storage, as evidenced by its increased solubility, Ca2+-ATPase activity, sulfhydryl content, declined surface hydrophobicity, particle size, and stabilized protein conformation. Gels of UAF/AMP-treated surimi also demonstrated more stabilized microstructures, uniform water distributions, enhanced mechanical properties and water-holding capacities. This study provided a feasible approach to boost the cryoprotective performance of UAF, thus expanding its potential applications in frozen food industry.

High incidence of HPV infection in minors with oral squamous cell carcinoma.

BACKGROUND: Oral squamous cell carcinoma in minors is considered to be a distinct entity from OSCC in older patients, with an uncertain etiology. Human papillomavirus (HPV) infection may trigger the initiation and promote the progression of OSCC, but these roles have not been firmly established.We aimed to explore the correlation between HPV infection and the development of oral squamous cell carcinoma in minors and know the characteristics of OSCC in young patients more thoroughly. METHOD: From January 2013 to December 2022,6 cases of OSCC aged < 15 years were selected from the Department of Oral Pathology, Peking University School of Stomatology, Beijing, China. All cases underwent testing for high-risk HPV mRNA infection using the RNA scope technique, and immunohistochemical staining was performed to investigate the expression of p16, pan-cytokeratin (CK), CK5/6, CK7, CK8/18, epidermal growth factor receptor (EGFR), p53, and Ki-67. Furthermore, we reviewed the literature on OSCC in patients aged < 21 years. CONCLUSIONS: Minors OSCC is associated with HPV infection, and that p16 can serve as an immunohistochemical marker of HPV positivity.

Integrated analysis and validation reveal CYTH4 as a potential prognostic biomarker in acute myeloid leukemia.

Acute myeloid leukemia (AML) is a clonal hematological malignancy with high mortality rates. The identification of novel markers is urgent for AML. Cytohesins are a subfamily of guanine nucleotide exchange factors activating the ADP-ribosylation factor family GTPases. While the important roles of cytohesins have been reported in various cancers, their function in AML remains unclear. The present study aimed to explore the prognostic impact of cytohesin-4 (CYTH4) and the underlying molecular functions. RNA sequencing and AML clinical data were obtained from The Cancer Genome Atlas and Gene Expression Omnibus databases to investigate gene expression and survival. Using the R software, differentially expressed genes were identified between the high- and the low-CYTH4 group. Functional enrichment analysis was conducted by Gene Ontology, Kyoto Encyclopedia of Genes and Genomes, and Gene Set Enrichment Analyses. The CIBERSORTx tool was used to explore the proportions of different immune cell types. The molecular function of CYTH4 was also validated in vitro by examining cell growth, cell cycle, apoptosis and colony-forming ability. CYTH4 was significantly upregulated in AML compared with other cancers and normal tissues. High CYTH4 expression was associated with high white blood count (P=0.004) and higher risk status (P<0.001). Patients with high CYTH4 expression had poor overall survival (OS; HR=2.19; 95% CI, 1.40-3.44; P=0.0006; high vs. low) and event-free survival (EFS; HR=2.32; 95% CI, 1.43-3.75; P=0.0006; high vs. low), and these patients could benefit from transplantation (HR=0.29; 95% CI, 0.18-0.47; P<0.0001; transplantation vs. chemotherapy). Multivariate analysis showed that high CYTH4 expression was independently associated with inferior OS (HR=2.49; 95% CI, 1.28-4.83; P=0.007) and EFS (HR=2.56; 95% CI, 1.48-4.42; P=0.001). Functional analysis showed that CYTH4 was involved in immunoregulation. In vitro validation showed knockdown of CYTH4 adversely affected cell growth and induced cell apoptosis, while overexpression of CYTH4 enhanced cell growth. Taken together, CYTH4 is expressed at high levels in AML and can potentially function as a prognostic biomarker.

A novel AML1-ETO/FTO positive feedback loop promotes leukemogenesis and Ara-C resistance via stabilizing IGFBP2 in t(8;21) acute myeloid leukemia.

BACKGROUND: t(8;21)(q22;q22) is one of the most frequent chromosomal abnormalities in acute myeloid leukemia (AML), leading to the generation of the fusion protein AML1-ETO. Despite t(8;21) AML being considered as a subtype with a favorable prognosis, approximately 30-50% of patients experience drug resistance and subsequent relapse. N6-methyladenosine (m6A) is demonstrated to be involved in the development of AML. However, the regulatory mechanisms between AML1-ETO and m6A-related enzymes and the roles of dysregulated m6A modifications in the t(8;21)-leukemogenesis and chemoresistance remain elusive. METHODS: Chromatin immunoprecipitation, dual-luciferase reporter assay, m6A-qPCR, RNA immunoprecipitation, and RNA stability assay were used to investigate a regulatory loop between AML1-ETO and FTO, an m6A demethylase. Gain- and loss-of-function experiments both in vitro and in vivo were further performed. Transcriptome-wide RNA sequencing and m6A sequencing were conducted to identify the potential targets of FTO. RESULTS: Here we show that FTO is highly expressed in t(8;21) AML, especially in patients with primary refractory disease. The expression of FTO is positively correlated with AML1-ETO, which is attributed to a positive regulatory loop between the AML1-ETO and FTO. Mechanistically, AML1-ETO upregulates FTO expression through inhibiting the transcriptional repression of FTO mediated by PU.1. Meanwhile, FTO promotes the expression of AML1-ETO by inhibiting YTHDF2-mediated AML1-ETO mRNA decay. Inactivation of FTO significantly suppresses cell proliferation, promotes cell differentiation and renders resistant t(8;21) AML cells sensitive to Ara-C. FTO exerts functions by regulating its mRNA targets, especially IGFBP2, in an m6A-dependent manner. Regain of Ara-C tolerance is observed when IGFBP2 is overexpressed in FTO-knockdown t(8;21) AML cells. CONCLUSION: Our work reveals a therapeutic potential of targeting AML1-ETO/FTO/IGFBP2 minicircuitry in the treatment for t(8;21) patients with resistance to Ara-C.

Protective Effects of Danmu Extract Syrup on Acute Lung Injury Induced by Lipopolysaccharide in Mice through Endothelial Barrier Repair.

OBJECTIVE: To investigate the effects of Danmu Extract Syrup (DMS) on lipopolysaccharide (LPS)-induced acute lung injury (ALI) in mice and explore the mechanism. METHODS: Seventy-two male Balb/C mice were randomly divided into 6 groups according to a random number table (n=12), including control (normal saline), LPS (5 mg/kg), LPS+DMS 2.5 mL/kg, LPS+DMS 5 mL/kg, LPS+DMS 10 mL/kg, and LPS+Dexamethasone (DXM, 5 mg/kg) groups. After pretreatment with DMS and DXM, the ALI mice model was induced by LPS, and the bronchoalveolar lavage fluid (BALF) were collected to determine protein concentration, cell counts and inflammatory cytokines. The lung tissues of mice were stained with hematoxylin-eosin, and the wet/dry weight ratio (W/D) of lung tissue was calculated. The levels of tumor necrosis factor-α (TNF-α), interleukin (IL)-6 and IL-1 ß in BALF of mice were detected by enzyme linked immunosorbent assay. The expression levels of Claudin-5, vascular endothelial (VE)-cadherin, vascular endothelial growth factor (VEGF), phospho-protein kinase B (p-Akt) and Akt were detected by Western blot analysis. RESULTS: DMS pre-treatment significantly ameliorated lung histopathological changes. Compared with the LPS group, the W/D ratio and protein contents in BALF were obviously reduced after DMS pretreatment (P<0.05 or P<0.01). The number of cells in BALF and myeloperoxidase (MPO) activity decreased significantly after DMS pretreatment (P<0.05 or P<0.01). DMS pre-treatment decreased the levels of TNF-α, IL-6 and IL-1 ß (P<0.01). Meanwhile, DMS activated the phosphoinositide 3-kinase/protein kinase B (PI3K/Akt) pathway and reversed the expressions of Claudin-5, VE-cadherin and VEGF (P<0.01). CONCLUSIONS: DMS attenuated LPS-induced ALI in mice through repairing endothelial barrier. It might be a potential therapeutic drug for LPS-induced lung injury.

pLM4Alg: Protein Language Model-Based Predictors for Allergenic Proteins and Peptides.

The rising prevalence of allergy demands efficient and accurate bioinformatic tools to expedite allergen identification and risk assessment while also reducing wet experiment expenses and time. Recently, pretrained protein language models (pLMs) have successfully predicted protein structure and function. However, to our best knowledge, they have not been used for predicting allergenic proteins/peptides. Therefore, this study aims to develop robust models for allergenic protein/peptide prediction using five pLMs of varying sizes and systematically assess their performance through fine-tuning with a convolutional neural network. The developed pLM4Alg models have achieved state-of-the-art performance with accuracy, Matthews correlation coefficient, and area under the curve scoring 93.4-95.1%, 0.869-0.902, and 0.981-0.990, respectively. Moreover, pLM4Alg is the first model capable of handling prediction tasks involving residue-missed sequences and sequences containing nonstandard amino acid residues. To facilitate easy access, a user-friendly web server (https://f6wxpfd3sh.us-east-1.awsapprunner.com) has been established. pLM4Alg is expected to become the leading machine learning-based prediction model for allergenic peptides and proteins. Its collaboration with other predictors holds great promise for accelerating allergy research.

Engineering an Antifouling Electrochemical Sensing Platform Based on an All-in-One Peptide and a Hierarchical ß-Bi2O3-Au Microsphere for Vancomycin Detection in Food.

Challenges associated with interference aroused by nonspecific attachment of foulants in the food matrix steered the development of sensor surfaces capable of antifouling capacity. In this study, an antifouling electrochemical sensing platform based on an all-in-one peptide (DOPA3-PPPPEKDQDKKaa) with anchoring, antifouling, and recognition functions and a hierarchical ß-Bi2O3-Au microsphere was proposed for vancomycin (Van) detection in food. The ß-Bi2O3-Au with excellent conductivity was synthesized and introduced as an electrode modifier to accelerate electron transfer on the sensor surface, enhancing sensing response. Mussel organism-inspired oligo DOPA, that is, oligo 3,4-dihydroxyphenylalanine, was employed as the anchoring segment of the all-in-one peptide, which is versatile for surfaces with different materials. PPPPEKDQDK and Kaa as antifouling and recognition segments confer abilities to resist nonspecific adsorption of foulants and specifically bind Van on the sensor surface, respectively. Notably, the excellent antifouling performance of the proposed sensor has been verified in protein solutions, carbohydrate solutions, and even in diluted milk and honey. Molecular dynamics simulation was carried out to explain the antifouling mechanism of the all-in-one peptide. The proposed sensor can detect Van sensitively and selectively with a relatively wide linear range (0.1-100 ng mL-1) and a limit of detection (LOD) as low as 0.038 ng mL-1 and support the quantification of Van in milk, milk powder, and honey samples with satisfactory recoveries within 105.3-110.8%. This antifouling electrochemical sensing platform offers a feasible strategy to reduce matrix interference, which guarantees the accurate detection of Van in food samples.

Genome-wide identification of Apetala2 gene family in Hypericum perforatum L and expression profiles in response to different abiotic and hormonal treatments.

The Apetala2 (AP2) gene family of transcription factors (TFs) play important functions in plant development, hormonal response, and abiotic stress. To reveal the biological functions and the expression profiles of AP2 genes in Hypericum perforatum, genome-wide identification of HpAP2 family members was conducted. Methods: We identified 21 AP2 TFs in H. perforatum using bioinformatic methods; their physical and chemical properties, gene structures, conserved motifs, evolutionary relationships, cis-acting elements, and expression patterns were investigated. Results: We found that based on the structural characteristics and evolutionary relationships, the HpAP2 gene family can be divided into three subclasses: euANT, baselANT, and euAP2. A canonical HpAP2 TF shared a conserved protein structure, while a unique motif 6 was found in HpAP2_1, HpAP2_4, and HpAP2_5 from the euANT subgroup, indicating potential biological and regulatory functions of these genes. Furthermore, a total of 59 cis-acting elements were identified, most of which were associated with growth, development, and resistance to stress in plants. Transcriptomics data showed that 57.14% of the genes in the AP2 family were differentially expressed in four organs. For example, HpAP2_18 was specifically expressed in roots and stems, whereas HpAP2_17 and HpAP2_11 were specifically expressed in leaves and flowers, respectively. HpAP2_5, HpAP2_11, and HpAP2_18 showed tissue-specific expression patterns and responded positively to hormones and abiotic stresses. Conclusion: These results demonstrated that the HpAP2 family genes are involved in diverse developmental processes and generate responses to abiotic stress conditions in H. perforatum. This article, for the first time, reports the identification and expression profiles of the AP2 family genes in H. perforatum, laying the foundation for future functional studies with these genes.

Stimuli-responsive electrospun nanofibers for drug delivery, cancer therapy, wound dressing, and tissue engineering.

The stimuli-responsive nanofibers prepared by electrospinning have become an ideal stimuli-responsive material due to their large specific surface area and porosity, which can respond extremely quickly to external environmental incitement. As an intelligent drug delivery platform, stimuli-responsive nanofibers can efficiently load drugs and then be stimulated by specific conditions (light, temperature, magnetic field, ultrasound, pH or ROS, etc.) to achieve slow, on-demand or targeted release, showing great potential in areas such as drug delivery, tumor therapy, wound dressing, and tissue engineering. Therefore, this paper reviews the recent trends of stimuli-responsive electrospun nanofibers as intelligent drug delivery platforms in the field of biomedicine.

OsIPK2, a Rice Inositol Polyphosphate Kinase Gene, Is Involved in Phosphate Homeostasis and Root Development.

Phosphorus (P) is a growth-limiting nutrient for plants, which is taken up by root tissue from the environment as inorganic phosphate (Pi). To maintain an appropriate status of cellular Pi, plants have developed sophisticated strategies to sense the Pi level and modulate their root system architecture (RSA) under the ever-changing growth conditions. However, the molecular basis underlying the mechanism remains elusive. Inositol polyphosphate kinase (IPK2) is a key enzyme in the inositol phosphate metabolism pathway, which catalyzes the phosphorylation of IP3 into IP5 by consuming ATP. In this study, the functions of a rice inositol polyphosphate kinase gene (OsIPK2) in plant Pi homeostasis and thus physiological response to Pi signal were characterized. As a biosynthetic gene for phytic acid in rice, overexpression of OsIPK2 led to distinct changes in inositol polyphosphate profiles and an excessive accumulation of Pi levels in transgenic rice under Pi-sufficient conditions. The inhibitory effects of OsIPK2 on root growth were alleviated by Pi-deficient treatment compared with wild-type plants, suggesting the involvement of OsIPK2 in the Pi-regulated reconstruction of RSA. In OsIPK2-overexpressing plants, the altered acid phosphatase (APase) activities and misregulation of Pi-starvation-induced (PSI) genes were observed in roots under different Pi supply conditions. Notably, the expression of OsIPK2 also altered the Pi homeostasis and RSA in transgenic Arabidopsis. Taken together, our findings demonstrate that OsIPK2 plays an important role in Pi homeostasis and RSA adjustment in response to different environmental Pi levels in plants.

Mongolian medicine formulae Ruda-6 alleviates indomethacin-induced gastric ulcer by regulating gut microbiome and serum metabolomics in rats.

ETHNOPHARMACOLOGICAL RELEVANCE: Ruda-6 (RD-6), a typical traditional Mongolian medicine formulae consisting of 6 herbs, has been traditionally used in treating gastric disorders. Even though it has been shown to protect against gastric ulcers (GU) in animal models, the gut microbiome and serum metabololite-related mechanisms that prevent GU are not well understood. AIM OF THE STUDY: This study was conducted to evaluate the gastroprotective mechanism of RD-6 associated with the alteration of the gut microbiome and serum metabolic profiles in GU rats. MATERIALS AND METHODS: RD-6 (0.27, 1.35 and 2.7 g/kg) or ranitidine (40 mg/kg) were orally administered in rats for three weeks before the induction of gastric ulcer using indomethacin (30 mg/kg, single oral dose). The gastric ulcer index, ulcer area, H&E staining, and the levels of TNF-α, iNOS, MPO and MDA were quantified to evaluate the ulcer inhibitory effects of RD-6. Then, 16S rRNA gene sequencing combined with LC-MS metabolic profiling was performed to investigate the effect of RD-6 on the gut microbiota and serum metabolites in rats. Moreover, a spearman analysis was used to calculate the correlation coefficient between the different microbiota and the metabolites. RESULTS: RD-6 inhibited the gastric lesion damage caused by indomethacin in rats, decreased the ulcer index by 50.29% (p < 0.05), reduced the levels of TNF-α, iNOS, MDA and MPO in gastric tissue. Additionally, RD-6 reshaped the diversity and microbial composition, and reversed the reduced bacteria including [Eubacterium]_xylanophilum group, Sellimonas, Desulfovibrio, and UCG-009, and the increased bacteria Aquamicrobium caused by indomethacin induction. Furthermore, RD-6 regulated the levels of metabolites including amino acids and organic acids, and these affected metabolites were involved in taurine and hypotaurine metabolism and tryptophan metabolism. Spearman analysis revealed that the perturbed gut microbiota were closely related to the changes in differential serum metabolites. CONCLUSION: In view of the 16S rRNA gene sequencing and LC-MS metabolic results, the present study suggests the mechanism of RD-6 ameliorating GU via modulating intestinal microbiota and their metabolites.

Revision and validation of the prosocialness scale for adults (PSA) among chinese college students.

BACKGROUND: Although prosocial behavior plays an important role in the development of individuals, there are few prosocial measurements for college students. This study examines the applicability of the Prosocialness Scale for Adults to a sample of Chinese college students and provides a measurement tool for prosocial behavior among Chinese college students. METHODS: Three sub-studies were conducted in this study to revise the Prosocialness Scale for Adults (PSA) and verify its applicability in Chinese college students. In Study 1, the translated Prosocialness Scale for Adults (PSA) was used to test (N = 436). In Study 2, confirmatory factor analysis was carried out (N = 576). The Scale of School Adjustment for College Students, the Scale of Regulatory Emotional Self-Efficacy, the Prosocial Tendencies Measure, and the Chinese Big Five Personality Inventory were used to test the concurrent validity. And the internal consistency reliability of the scale was tested. In Study 3, the test-retest reliability of the scale was tested 4 weeks after the completion of Study 2. RESULTS: The results show that the scale has a good single-factor structure (χ2/df = 4.180, CFI = 0.936, TLI = 0.922, GFI = 0.937, IFI = 0.937, NFI = 0.919, AGFI = 0.907, RMSEA = 0.074, SRMR = 0.042). The total score was positively correlated with the scores of the Scale of Regulatory Emotional Self-Efficacy (r = 0.394, p < 0.001), the Scale of School Adjustment for College Students (r = 0.429, p < 0.001), the Chinese Big Five Personality Inventory (r = 0.456, p < 0.001) ,and the Prosocial Tendencies Measure (r = 0.619, p < 0.001). The internal consistency reliability was robust (α = 0.890) and the test-retest reliability was 0.801. CONCLUSION: These studies show that the Chinese version of the Prosocialness Scale for Adults (PSA) has good reliability and validity and can be used to measure the prosocial behavior of Chinese college students.

UniDL4BioPep: a universal deep learning architecture for binary classification in peptide bioactivity.

Identification of potent peptides through model prediction can reduce benchwork in wet experiments. However, the conventional process of model buildings can be complex and time consuming due to challenges such as peptide representation, feature selection, model selection and hyperparameter tuning. Recently, advanced pretrained deep learning-based language models (LMs) have been released for protein sequence embedding and applied to structure and function prediction. Based on these developments, we have developed UniDL4BioPep, a universal deep-learning model architecture for transfer learning in bioactive peptide binary classification modeling. It can directly assist users in training a high-performance deep-learning model with a fixed architecture and achieve cutting-edge performance to meet the demands in efficiently novel bioactive peptide discovery. To the best of our best knowledge, this is the first time that a pretrained biological language model is utilized for peptide embeddings and successfully predicts peptide bioactivities through large-scale evaluations of those peptide embeddings. The model was also validated through uniform manifold approximation and projection analysis. By combining the LM with a convolutional neural network, UniDL4BioPep achieved greater performances than the respective state-of-the-art models for 15 out of 20 different bioactivity dataset prediction tasks. The accuracy, Mathews correlation coefficient and area under the curve were 0.7-7, 1.23-26.7 and 0.3-25.6% higher, respectively. A user-friendly web server of UniDL4BioPep for the tested bioactivities is established and freely accessible at https://nepc2pvmzy.us-east-1.awsapprunner.com. The source codes, datasets and templates of UniDL4BioPep for other bioactivity fitting and prediction tasks are available at https://github.com/dzjxzyd/UniDL4BioPep.

Retrospective Analysis of Carotid Body Tumor Surgical Management: Roles of Preoperative Image Investigation and Preoperative Embolization.

BACKGROUND: Carotid body tumors (CBT) surgery is a challenging procedure, and the role of embolization (EMB) in CBT surgery has remained unclear. This study is performed to analyze the management of CBTs, particularly the use of preoperative EMB and image features in minimizing surgical complications. METHODS: A total of 200 CBTs were identified among 184 medical records involving CBT surgery. Regression analysis was used to explore the prognostic predictors of cranial nerve deficit (CND), including image features. In addition, blood loss, operation times, and complication rates were compared between patients who had surgery only versus patients who had surgery along with preoperative EMB. RESULTS: Overall, 96 males and 88 females were identified for inclusion in the study, with a median age of 37.0 years. Computed tomography angiography (CTA) showed the presence of a tiny gap adjacent to the encasement of carotid vessels, which could help minimize carotid arterial injury. High-lying tumors that encased the cranial nerve were usually managed with synchronous cranial nerve resection. Regression analysis revealed that the incidence of CND was positively associated with Shamblin Ⅲ, high-lying, and a maximal CBT diameter of ≥ 5 cm. Among 146 EMB cases, 2 cases of intracranial arterial EMB occurred. No statistical difference was found between the EBM and non-EBM groups in terms of bleeding volume, operation time, blood loss, blood transfusion requirement, stroke, and permanent CND. Subgroup analysis revealed that EMB decreased CND in Shamblin III and low-lying tumors. CONCLUSIONS: CBT surgery should be performed with preoperative CTA to identify favorable factors for minimizing surgical complications. Shamblin Ⅲ or high-lying tumors, as well as CBT diameter, are predictors of permanent CND. EBM does not reduce blood loss or shorten operation time.

Clinical factors affecting the long-term survival of breast cancer patients.

OBJECTIVE: The average 5-year survival rate of breast cancer (BC) patients has been significantly prolonged with new therapeutic methods. However, their effects on BC patient long-term survival rates are unclear. Therefore, this study aimed to analyze the specific clinical factors that can affect BC long-term survival. METHODS: Here, we conducted a retrospective study and analyzed long-term survival using data of 3,240 BC patients from 1977 to 2005 from the Genotype-Tissue Expression (GTEx) database using the Kaplan-Meier method. RESULTS: Breast tumor size and stage were negatively correlated with long-term survival, but age showed no significant correlation. Estrogen receptor (ER) and progesterone receptor (PR) expression were each positively correlated with patient survival time, while ERBB2 receptor (HER2) expression was negatively correlated with survival time. Patients with high Nottingham prognostic index (NPI) values did not benefit from available therapies. Furthermore, breast-conserving surgery is more conducive to BC patient long-term survival than mastectomy. CONCLUSIONS: Early detection and breast-conserving surgery may support long-term survival for BC patients. Elevated expression of ER and PR were both associated with longer patient survival time, while positive expression of HER2 showed the opposite trend. The long-term survival rates of patients with high NPI values can potentially be increased.

Metabolomics analysis reveals amelioration effects of yellowhorn tea extract on hyperlipidemia, inflammation, and oxidative stress in high-fat diet-fed mice.

Yellowhorn tea (YT) is traditionally used as a lipid-lowering beverage in Mongolian minorities. However, the pharmacological effects of YT extract and its specific metabolic changes in hyperlipidemia models are not fully understood. The aim of this study was to identify biomarkers using untargeted metabolomics techniques and to investigate the mechanisms underlying the changes in metabolic pathways associated with lipid lowering, anti-inflammation and anti-oxidant in hyperlipidemic mice. A high-fat diet (HFD)-induced hyperlipidemic mouse model was established. YT extract was administered as oral gavage at 0.15, 0.3, and 0.6 g/kg doses for 10 weeks. HFD-induced hyperlipidemia and the therapeutic effect of YT extract were evaluated based on histopathology and by assessing blood lipid levels. Liver inflammatory factors and oxidative stress indices were determined using enzyme-linked immunosorbent assays. Liver metabolites were evaluated using untargeted metabolomics. Biochemical and histological examinations showed that YT extract significantly reduced body-weight gain (p < 0.01) and fat deposition in tissues. YT extract significantly reduced the levels of serum and liver triglyceride and total cholesterol; inflammatory factors [interleukin (IL)-6, IL-1ß, and tumor necrosis factor-α]; malondialdehyde; and leptin (p < 0.05) in hyperlipidemic mice. YT extract also significantly increased the levels of oxidative stress indicators (superoxide dismutase, catalase, and glutathione peroxidase) and adiponectin. Metabolomics studies revealed several endogenous molecules were altered by the high-fat diet and recovery following intervention with YT extract. The metabolites that were significantly different in the liver after YT intake included citicoline, acetylcholine, pyridoxine, and NAD. Pathway analysis indicated that YT extract ameliorated HFD-induced hyperlipidemia in mice via three major metabolic pathways, namely, glycerophospholipid metabolism, vitamin B6 metabolism, and nicotinate and nicotinamide metabolism. This study demonstrates YT extract has profound effects on the alleviation of HFD-induced hyperlipidemia, inflammation and oxidative stress.

Antioxidant Properties of Hemp Proteins: From Functional Food to Phytotherapy and Beyond.

As one of the oldest plants cultivated by humans, hemp used to be banned in the United States but returned as a legal crop in 2018. Since then, the United States has become the leading hemp producer in the world. Currently, hemp attracts increasing attention from consumers and scientists as hemp products provide a wide spectrum of potential functions. Particularly, bioactive peptides derived from hemp proteins have been proven to be strong antioxidants, which is an extremely hot research topic in recent years. However, some controversial disputes and unknown issues are still underway to be explored and verified in the aspects of technique, methodology, characteristic, mechanism, application, caution, etc. Therefore, this review focusing on the antioxidant properties of hemp proteins is necessary to discuss the multiple critical issues, including in vitro structure-modifying techniques and antioxidant assays, structure-activity relationships of antioxidant peptides, pre-clinical studies on hemp proteins and pathogenesis-related molecular mechanisms, usage and potential hazard, and novel advanced techniques involving bioinformatics methodology (QSAR, PPI, GO, KEGG), proteomic analysis, and genomics analysis, etc. Taken together, the antioxidant potential of hemp proteins may provide both functional food benefits and phytotherapy efficacy to human health.