Simultaneous determination of advanced glycation end products and heterocyclic amines in roast/grilled meat by UPLC-MS/MS.

Advanced glycation end products (AGEs) and heterocyclic amines (HAs) are main harmful Maillard reaction products of meat products. Simultaneous quantification of both with high sensitivity, selectivity and accuracy remains a major challenge due to inconsistencies in their pre-treatment and instrumental methods and the different polarity of AGEs and HAs. We developed a method for the simultaneous determination of AGEs and HAs in roast/grilled meat by ultra-performance liquid chromatography coupled to tandem mass spectrometry (UPLC-MS/MS) using dynamic multiple reaction monitoring (D-MRM). The instrument parameters and pre-treatment method were optimized to achieve reasonably good separation and high response for the 11 target analytes within 8 min. From 10 to 200 ng/mL, the limits of detection (LODs) and limits of quantitation (LOQs) ranged from 0.3 to 5.5 µg/L and 0.9 to 6.3 µg/L, respectively, and the correlation coefficient (R2) was >0.99. It was acceptable to recoveries, standard deviations (RSDs), and matrix effects. Six types of roast/grilled meat samples were then tested using the developed method.

Development and validation of a prognostic prediction model for iron metabolism-related genes in patients with pancreatic adenocarcinoma.

Background: Pancreatic adenocarcinoma (PAAD) is one of the most aggressive tumors of the digestive tract, with low surgical resection rate and insensitivity to radiotherapy and chemotherapy. Existing evidence suggests that regulation of ferroptosis can induce PAAD cell death, inhibit tumor growth, and may synergistically improve the sensitivity of other antitumor drugs. However, there is little of systematic research on iron metabolism-related genes in PAAD. In this study, a risk-score system of PAAD iron metabolism-related genes was designed and tested, and verified to be robust. Materials and Methods: The TCGA database was used to download 177 PAAD patients' message RNA (mRNA) expression profiles and clinical characteristics. By identifying dysregulated iron metabolism-related genes between PAAD related tissues and adjacent normal tissues, univariate Cox proportional hazards regression and LASSO regression algorithm were used to establish prognostic risk-score system and construct nomogram to estimate the 1-, 2-, 3-year survival in PAAD patients. Finally, selected genes were validated by quantitative PCR (q-PCR). Results: A 9-gene related to iron metabolism risk-score system of PAAD was constructed and validated. The clinicopathological characteristics of age, histologic grade, pathologic stage, T stage, residual tumor, and primary therapy outcome were all worse in patients with a higher risk-score. Further, immunohistochemistry results of SLC2A1, MBOAT2, XDH, CTSE, MOCOS, and ATP6V0A4 confirmed that patients with higher expression are more malignant. Then, a nomogram with 9-gene risk score system as a separate clinical factor was utilized to foretell the 1-, 2-, 3-year overall survival rate of PAAD patients. Results of q-PCR showed that 8 of the 9 genes screened were significantly up-regulated in at least one PAAD cell line, and one gene was significantly down-regulated in three PAAD cell lines. Conclusion: To conclude, we generated a nine-gene system linked to iron metabolism as an independent indicator for predicting PAAD prognosis, therefore presenting a possible prognostic biomarker and potential treatment targets for PAAD.

Emotional Responses to the Visual Patterns of Urban Streets: Evidence from Physiological and Subjective Indicators.

Despite recent progress in the research of people's emotional response to the environment, the built-rather than natural-environment's emotional effects have not yet been thoroughly examined. In response to this knowledge gap, we recruited 26 participants and scrutinized their emotional response to various urban street scenes through an immersive exposure experiment using virtual reality. We utilized new physiological monitoring technologies that enable synchronized observation of the participants' electroencephalography, electrodermal activity, and heart rate, as well as their subjective indicators. With the newly introduced measurement for the global visual patterns of the built environment, we built statistical models to examine people's emotional response to the physical element configuration and color composition of street scenes. We found that more diverse and less fragmented scenes inspired positive emotional feelings. We also found (in)consistency among the physiological and subjective indicators, indicating a potentially interesting neural-physiological interpretation for the classic form-function dichotomy in architecture. Besides the practical implications on promoting physical environment design, this study combined objective physiology-monitoring technology and questionnaire-based research techniques to demonstrate a better approach to quantify environment-emotion relationships.