A Marek's Disease Virus Messenger RNA-Based Vaccine Modulates Local and Systemic Immune Responses in Chickens.

Marek's disease (MD), caused by the Marek's disease virus, is a lymphoproliferative disease in chickens that can be controlled by vaccination. However, the current vaccines can limit tumor growth and death but not virus replication and transmission. The present study aimed to evaluate host responses following intramuscular injection of an mRNA vaccine encoding gB and pp38 proteins of the MDV within the first 36 h. The vaccine was injected in low and high doses using prime and prime-boost strategies. The expression of type I and II interferons (IFNs), a panel of interferon-stimulated genes, and two key antiviral cytokines, IL-1ß and IL-2, were measured in spleen and lungs after vaccination. The transcriptional analysis of the above genes showed significant increases in the expression of MDA5, Myd88, IFN-α, IFN-ß, IFN-γ, IRF7, OAS, Mx1, and IL-2 in both the spleen and lungs within the first 36 h of immunization. Secondary immunization increased expression of all the above genes in the lungs. In contrast, only IFN-γ, MDA5, MyD88, Mx1, and OAS showed significant upregulation in the spleen after the secondary immunization. This study shows that two doses of the MDV mRNA vaccine encoding gB and pp38 antigens activate innate and adaptive responses and induce an antiviral state in chickens.

Potentials of dietary fiber and polyphenols in whole grain wheat flour to release the liver function and intestinal tract injury in lead-induced mice.

The presence of lead as an environmental pollutant is widespread. However, safe and effective treatments for the resulting intestinal and liver damage from high levels of lead exposure remain limited. The study aimed to investigate the protective effects of dietary fiber and polyphenols in whole grain wheat flour on lead-induced mice. The results indicated that the daily intake of 12 mg of polyphenols, 0.5 g of dietary fiber, and their combination effectively reduced blood and liver lead accumulation by approximately 50 % in mice exposed to lead, while also mitigating lead-induced oxidative stress though a reduction in malondialdehyde levels and an enhancement in antioxidant enzyme activities including superoxide dismutase, catalase, and glutathione peroxidase. Furthermore, all three treatments enhanced cytokine secretion with the combined treatment exhibiting the highest efficacy. Specifically, the combination treatment decreased tumor necrosis factor-α and interleukin 1ß by 56.78 %, 47.86 % in intestinal tissue while increasing increased interleukin 4 and interleukin 10 by 81.84 %, 145.14 %. Additionally, it promoted the expression of tight junction proteins like Zonula occludens-1, Occludin and Claudin-1. The study presented a potential strategy for alleviating liver and intestinal tract damage from high-dose lead exposure.

Effect of pretreatment with electron beam irradiation on the deacetylation efficiency of konjac glucomannan and its structural, physicochemical and gel properties.

Due to its emulsifying and thickening properties, konjac glucomannan (KGM) is widely used in the food, medicine, and materials industries. Nevertheless, its high viscosity and significant water absorption limit its application range. Therefore, electron beam (e-beam) irradiation pretreatment was carried out to improve the deacetylation efficiency of KGM, and the physicochemical and gel properties of KGM were investigated. The results show that e-beam irradiation and deacetylation decrease the water absorption, solubility, transparency, molecular weight, and viscosity of KGM. Conversely, the moisture content, thermal stability, and water-binding capacity increase. FTIR and X-ray diffraction analysis revealed no significant changes in the chemical and crystalline structure of KGM before and after modification. However, modification weakens the intermolecular interaction of KGM hydrosols, which affects their rheology. Furthermore, deacetylation improves the mechanical properties and water retention capacity of KGM gels. Overall, the e-beam irradiation pretreatment provides a method to increase the efficiency of KGM deacetylation and improve the physical and chemical properties of KGM, thus expanding its potential applications in the food and chemical industries, among others.

Replenishment of TCA cycle intermediates and long-noncoding RNAs regulation in breast cancer.

The tricarboxylic acid (TCA) cycle is an essential interface that coordinates cellular metabolism and is as a primary route determining the fate of a variety of fuel sources, including glucose, fatty acid and glutamate. The crosstalk of nutrients replenished TCA cycle regulates breast cancer (BC) progression by changing substrate levels-induced epigenetic alterations, especially the methylation, acetylation, succinylation and lactylation. Long non-coding RNAs (lncRNA) have dual roles in inhibiting or promoting energy reprogramming, and so altering the metabolic flux of fuel sources to the TCA cycle, which may regulate epigenetic modifications at the cellular level of BC. This narrative review discussed the central role of the TCA cycle in interconnecting numerous fuels and the induced epigenetic modifications, and the underlying regulatory mechanisms of lncRNAs in BC.

Sequential effects of autoclaved heat treatment and electron beam irradiation on acorn starch: Multiscale structural differences and related mechanisms.

In this study, the differences in the modification effects and related mechanisms of different times (20 and 40 min) of autoclaved heat (AH) treatment and different doses (2 and 4 kGy) of electron beam irradiation (EBI) in different sequences of effects on acorn starch were investigated. The results showed that both AH and EBI reduced the amylose content (22.70 to 19.59%) and enthalpy (10.28 to 1.84%) of starch but increased the resistant starch content (53.69 to 64.11%). AH treatment made the crystalline regions of the residual starch granules denser, which was resistant to the action of amylase enzymes. EBI degraded the long chain of starch, which increased the solubility. Notably, EBI pretreatment improves the reactive sites by inducing depolymerization and disorder in starch internal structure, thus increasing the modification extent of AH-modified starch, forming starch with lower viscosity, better hydration, and digestibility resistance, therefore being used as an ingredient for functional foods.

Co-LSTM-based fiber link modeling with ASE noise tracking for long-haul coherent optical transmission.

In this Letter, a novel, to the best of our knowledge, channel modeling scheme based on cascading chromatic dispersion-nonlinearity feature decoupling modules is proposed with the center-oriented long short-term memory (Co-LSTM) network structure adopted for modeling nonlinearity of each optical fiber span. By tracking the amplified spontaneous emission (ASE) noise at the output of each fiber span, the Co-LSTM-based channel modeling scheme achieves high waveform accuracy for long-haul coherent optical transmission compared with the conventional split-step Fourier transform method (SSFM) while saving calculation time by almost one order of magnitude.

Responses of keratinocytes to Trichophyton mentagrophyte infection based on whole transcriptome analysis.

BACKGROUND: Dermatophytosis is an intractable superficial mycosis in humans and animals mainly caused by Trichophyton mentagrophytes (T. mentagrophytes), with a global prevalence of about 20%. Keratinocytes are the most abundant participants in skin immunity, and they also play a role in the first-line defence against T. mentagrophytes. However, no studies of keratinocyte responses against T. mentagrophytes infection based on the whole transcriptome have been reported. OBJECTIVES: Here, we systematically analysed changes in keratinocytes infected with T. mentagrophytes using whole transcriptome sequencing technology. METHODS: The phenotypic changes in keratinocytes after infection with 1 × 105 conidia/mL T. mentagrophytes were observed by light microscopy, scanning electron microscopy, transmission electron microscopy and terminal deoxynucleotidyl transferase dUTP nick end labeling. RNA-sequencing (RNA-seq), small RNA-seq technology and related bioinformatics methods were used to systematically analyse the whole transcriptome changes in keratinocytes upon T. mentagrophytes stimulation. RESULTS: We found that T. mentagrophytes infection caused morphological changes, membrane damage, the formation of irregular organelles and keratinocyte apoptosis. A total of 204 differentially expressed (DE) circular RNAs (circRNAs), 868 DE long noncoding RNAs (lncRNAs), 2973 DE mRNAs and 209 DE micro RNAs (miRNAs) were identified between noninfected and T. mentagrophytes-infected keratinocytes. The expression level of selected RNAs was validated by quantitative real-time polymerase chain reaction (qRT-PCR). Functional enrichment analysis revealed that the parental genes of DE circRNAs were related to cell response, cell death and establishment of the skin barrier. Genes targeted by miRNA were involved in regulating the initiation of the immune response. Based on the expression level of circRNAs, lncRNAs, mRNAs and miRNAs, circRNA-miRNA-mRNA competing endogenous (ceRNA) networks comprised of 159 DE miRNAs, 141 DE circRNAs and 2307 DE mRNAs, and lncRNA-miRNA-mRNA ceRNA networks comprised of 790 DE lncRNAs, 190 DE miRNAs and 2663 DE mRNAs were constructed. The reliability of two selected ceRNA networks was verified using qRT-PCR. Further functional enrichment analysis revealed that the DE mRNAs interacting with circRNAs and lncRNAs in the ceRNA network mainly participated in fungal recognition, inflammation, the innate immune response and the death of keratinocytes. CONCLUSIONS: Our findings might provide new evidence on the pathogenesis of T. mentagrophytes-induced dermatophytosis, which is essential for identifying new therapeutic targets for dermatophytosis treatment.

Simultaneous determination of subspecies and geographic origins of 110 rice cultivars by microsatellite markers.

Rice varieties of different subspecies types (indica rice and japonica rice) across various geographical origins (Hunan, Jiangsu, and Northeast China) were monitored using microsatellite markers (simple sequence repeats, SSR). 110 representative rice cultivars were collected from the main crop areas. Multiple methods including clustering analysis (neighbor-joining (NJ) method, unweighted pair-group method with arithmetic mean (UPGMA) method), principal component analysis (PCA) and model-based grouping were applied. The study revealed that 25 pairs of SSR markers exhibited a broad range of polymorphism information content (PIC) values, ranging from 0.240 to 0.830. Furthermore, our study successfully achieved a higher overall mean correct rate of 99.09% in determining the geographical origin of rice. Simultaneously, it accurately classified indica rice and japonica rice. These findings are significant as they provide an SSR fingerprint of 110 high-quality rice cultivars, serving as a valuable scientific resource for the detection of rice adulteration and traceability of its origin.

Investigating enzyme kinetics and fluorescence sensing strategy of CRISPR/Cas12a for foodborne pathogenic bacteria.

Foodborne pathogenic bacteria are widespread in various foods, whose cross-contamination and re-contamination are critical influences on food safety. Rapid, accurate, and sensitive detection of foodborne pathogenic bacteria remains a topic of concern. CRISPR/Cas12a can recognize double-stranded DNA directly, showing great potential in nucleic acid detection. However, few studies have investigated the cleavage properties of CRISPR/Cas12a. In this study, the trans-cleavage properties of LbCas12a and AsCas12a were investigated to construct the detection methods for foodborne pathogenic bacteria. The highly sensitive fluorescent strategies for foodborne pathogens were constructed by analyzing the cleavage rates and properties of substrates at different substrate concentrations. Cas12a was activated in the presence of foodborne pathogenic target sequence was present, resulting in the cleavage of a single-stranded reporter ssDNA co-labelled by fluorescein quencher and fluorescein. The sensitivity and specificity of the Cas12a fluorescent strategy was investigated with Salmonella and Staphylococcus aureus as examples. The results showed that AsCas12a was slightly more capable of trans-cleavage than LbCas12a. The detection limits of AsCas12a for Salmonella and Staphylococcus aureus were 24.9 CFU mL-1 and 1.50 CFU mL-1, respectively. In all the seven bacteria, Staphylococcus aureus and Salmonella were accurately discriminated. The study provided a basis for constructing and improving the CRISPR/Cas12a fluorescence strategies. The AsCas12a-based detection strategy is expected to be a promising method for field detection.

Insight into how E-beam pretreatment promotes sodium hypochlorite oxidation for structure-property improvement of cassava starch: A molecular-level modulation mechanism.

To investigate the role of E-beam treatment on the structure-properties of oxidized starch, this study investigated the influence of E-beam (1, 3, 6 kGy) pretreatment combined with NaClO oxidation (1% and 3%) on the multi-scale structural, physicochemical, and digestive properties of cassava starch. Results showed that E-beam treatment did not affect the starch surface, but the oxidative modification increased granule surface roughness. Also, the synergistic modification preserved starch growth rings, FT-IR patterns and crystal types. Further investigations revealed that E-beam induced starch molecular degradation, leading to decreased molecular weight, depolymerization of long chains, and a loss of short-range order. Moreover, oxidation treatment exacerbated the disruption in starch molecular structure, as evidenced by crystallinity loss, viscosity, and enthalpy reduction. Notably, E-beam induces starch yellowing; however, oxidative modification increases starch whiteness. Additionally, the synergistic modification improved native starch's lower solubility and enhanced the resistant starch content. Results suggest that E-beam pretreatment can enhance oxidative modification by promoting the exposure of active sites of starch molecules without destroying starch structure and can be considered an advanced, green, and efficient pretreatment for modified starch in the future.

Recent Progress on Moisture Absorption Aging of Plant Fiber Reinforced Polymer Composites.

Plant fiber reinforced polymer matrix composites have attracted much attention in many industries due to their abundant resources, low cost, biodegradability, and lightweight properties. Compared with synthetic fibers, various plant fibers are easy to obtain and have different characteristics, making them a substitute for synthetic fiber composite materials. However, the aging phenomenon of composite materials has been a key issue that hinders development. In natural environments, moisture absorption performance leads to serious degradation of the mechanical properties of composite materials, which delays the use of composite materials in humid environments. Therefore, the effects of moisture absorption performance of plant fiber composite materials on their mechanical properties have been summarized in this article, as well as various treatment methods to reduce the water absorption of composite materials.

Spotlight on the Multiscale Structural and Physicochemical Properties of Red Adzuki Bean Starch through Partial Amylose Removal Combined with Hydrochloric Acid.

To explore the effect of amylose within starch granules on the efficiency of starch hydrolysis by acid, we chose the warm water extraction method to treat red adzuki bean starch to obtain different degrees of amylose removal granule models and to prepare samples in combination with acid hydrolysis. The amylose content was reduced after acid hydrolysis, reducing the peak viscosity (2599-1049 cP), while the solubility was significantly increased. In contrast, the short-chain content of the deamylose-acid hydrolysis samples was reduced considerably, exacerbating the trend towards reduced starch orderliness and increased solubility. This work reveals the granular structure of starch from the point of view of deamylose and contributes to a thorough understanding of the mechanisms of acid hydrolysis. It might add to knowledge in starch science research and industrial applications for the acid processing of starch-based foods, particularly with regard to the most important factors controlling the structure and function of starch.

Novel PPFIA1-ALK, ALK-C2orf91(intergenic) double-fusion responded well to alectinib in an advanced lung adenocarcinoma patient: a case report.

Non-small cell lung cancers (NSCLCs) with anaplastic lymphoma kinase (ALK)-rearrangement have favorable responses to ALK inhibitors. However, ALK fusion mutations harbored approximately 90 distinct fusion partners. Patients with different ALK fusions might respond distinctly to different-generation ALK inhibitors. In this case report, we identified a novel non-reciprocal ALK fusion, ALK-C2orf91(intergenic) (A19: intergenic) and PPFIA1-ALK (P2:A20), by next-generation DNA sequencing in an advanced lung adenocarcinoma patient. After 2 months of alectinib, the targeted lung lesion regressed significantly, and evaluation of therapeutic efficiency indicated partial response. To date, the patient had achieved 12 months of progression-free survival from alectinib treatment. Our study extended the spectrum of ALK fusion partners in ALK-positive NSCLC, and we reported a new ALK fusion, PPFIA1-ALK and ALK-C2orf91(intergenic), and its sensitivity to alectinib firstly in lung cancer. We believe that this case report has an important clinical reference.

Electron beam irradiation-assisted prepare pea starch nanocrystals and characterization of their molecular structure, physicochemical and rheological properties.

Electron beam irradiation (EBI) is an environmentally friendly physical modification technology. In this study, pea starch nanocrystals (SNC) were prepared by EBI-assisted pretreatment, and investigated the effects of EBI on the multiscale structure and physicochemical properties of SNC. EBI-assisted pretreatment didn't change the particle morphology, crystalline type and FT-IR spectra of SNC. However, EBI-SNC's relative crystallinity and short-range orderliness index (R1047/1022) significantly increased with increasing irradiation dose (5 KGy-20 KGy). In addition, EBI-assisted pretreatment caused the long chains of SNC's amylopectin to break into short chains. Moreover, EBI-assisted treatment significantly reduced the mean size, molecular weight, apparent amylose content, swelling power and SDS + RS content of SNC, while increasing the solubility, zeta potential and RDS content. Furthermore, the flow properties of the EBI-SNC samples were increased. The results show that EBI effectively changed the structural and functional properties of SNC, and the excellent functional properties are expected to broaden the application range of SNC.

Effect of electron beam irradiation on granular cold-water swelling chestnut starch: Improvement of cold-water solubility, multiscale structure, and rheological properties.

In this study, granular cold-water swelling (GCWS) starch was prepared from chestnut starch by ethanol-alkali method, after which it was further modified by electron beam irradiation (EBI) technique to investigate the effect of EBI on GCWS chestnut starch. It was shown that the alcohol-alkali treatment disrupted the starch double helix structure and the starch crystalline form had been changed from "C" to "V" type. On this basis, EBI continued to act on the disrupted starch chains and further cleaved the long chains into short chains, which significantly improved the solubility of starch to 90.08 % in cold water at a 24 kGy irradiation dose. Therefore, this study can broaden the application scope of starch and provide new ideas for GCWS starch applications in food and water-soluble pharmaceutical industries.

The role and mechanism of electron beam irradiation in glutaric anhydride esterified proso millet starch: Multi-scale structure and physicochemical properties.

To investigate the effect of electron beam irradiation (EBI) pretreatment on the multiscale structure and physicochemical properties of esterified starch, this study used EBI pretreatment to prepare glutaric anhydride (GA) esterified proso millet starch. GA starch did not show the corresponding distinct thermodynamics peaks. However, it had a high pasting viscosity and transparency (57.46-74.25 %). EBI pretreatment increased the degree of glutaric acid esterification (0.0284-0.0560) and changed its structure and physicochemical properties. EBI pretreatment disrupted its short-range ordering structure, reducing the crystallinity, molecular weight and pasting viscosity of glutaric acid esterified starch. Moreover, it produced more short chains and increased the transparency (84.28-93.11 %) of glutaric acid esterified starch. This study could offer a rationale for using EBI pretreatment technology to maximize the functional properties of GA modified starch and enlarge its implementation in modified starch.

Influence of pre- or post-electron beam irradiation on heat-moisture treated maize starch for multiscale structure, physicochemical properties and digestibility.

Electron beam irradiation (EBI) as a green technological method for starch modification can generate starch-based materials with new functions. This study modified maize starch by heat-moisture treatment (HMT) for 1 h and 3 h, and EBI with various intensities (5 kGy and 10 kGy), and their effects of treatment sequence on the multiscale structure, physicochemical properties and in vitro digestibility were investigated. EBI or HMT alone did not change the granule morphology and crystalline type, but reduced the crystallinity and molecular weight and increased the resistant starch content. HMT alone had no significant effect on the solubility of starch, while EBI led to a considerable increase in the solubility of maize starch. The combined treatment of EBI and HMT aggravated apparent viscosity reduction, and the HMT starch pretreated with EBI had a smaller molecular weight and lower viscosity. In contrast, post-EBI samples had higher solubility and RS content. Primarily, it has excellent potential for producing low-viscosity and high-solubility starch foods.

Multi-omics analysis reveals a macrophage-related marker gene signature for prognostic prediction, immune landscape, genomic heterogeneity, and drug choices in prostate cancer.

Introduction: Macrophages are components of the innate immune system and can play an anti-tumor or pro-tumor role in the tumor microenvironment owing to their high heterogeneity and plasticity. Meanwhile, prostate cancer (PCa) is an immune-sensitive tumor, making it essential to investigate the value of macrophage-associated networks in its prognosis and treatment. Methods: Macrophage-related marker genes (MRMGs) were identified through the comprehensive analysis of single-cell sequencing data from GSE141445 and the impact of macrophages on PCa was evaluated using consensus clustering of MRMGs in the TCGA database. Subsequently, a macrophage-related marker gene prognostic signature (MRMGPS) was constructed by LASSO-Cox regression analysis and grouped based on the median risk score. The predictive ability of MRMGPS was verified by experiments, survival analysis, and nomogram in the TCGA cohort and GEO-Merged cohort. Additionally, immune landscape, genomic heterogeneity, tumor stemness, drug sensitivity, and molecular docking were conducted to explore the relationship between MRMGPS and the tumor immune microenvironment, therapeutic response, and drug selection. Results: We identified 307 MRMGs and verified that macrophages had a strong influence on the development and progression of PCa. Furthermore, we showed that the MRMGPS constructed with 9 genes and the predictive nomogram had excellent predictive ability in both the TCGA and GEO-Merged cohorts. More importantly, we also found the close relationship between MRMGPS and the tumor immune microenvironment, therapeutic response, and drug selection by multi-omics analysis. Discussion: Our study reveals the application value of MRMGPS in predicting the prognosis of PCa patients. It also provides a novel perspective and theoretical basis for immune research and drug choices for PCa.

Octreotide and Octreotide-derived delivery systems.

Pharmaceutical peptide Octreotide is a somatostatin analog with targeting and therapeutic abilities. Over the last decades, Octreotide has been developed and approved to treat acromegaly and neuroendocrine tumours, and Octreotide-based radioactive conjugates have been leveraged clinically to detect small neuroendocrine tumour sites. Meanwhile, variety of Octreotide-derived delivery strategies have been proposed and explored for tumour targeted therapeutics or diagnostics in preclinical or clinical settings. In this review, we especially focus on the preclinical development and applications of Octreotide-derived drug delivery systems, diagnostic nanosystems, therapeutic nanosystems and multifunctional nanosystems, we also briefly discuss challenges and prospects of these Octreotide-derived delivery systems.

The EEG Oscillations and Psychology Propensities of Autonomous Sensory Meridian Response.

Autonomous sensory meridian response is believed as a perceptual phenomenon to specific sensory stimuli. To explore the underlying mechanism and emotional effect, the EEG under video and audio triggers of autonomous sensory meridian response was analyzed. The differential entropy and power spectral density by Burg method on δ, θ, α, ß, γ and high γ frequencies were employed as quantitative features. The results indicate that the modulation of autonomous sensory meridian response on brain activities is broadband. Video trigger owns better performance of autonomous sensory meridian response than other triggers. Moreover, the results also reveal that autonomous sensory meridian response has a close relationship with neuroticism and its three sub-dimensions, anxiety, self-consciousness and vulnerability, with the scores of self-rating depression scale, but without emotions, happiness, sadness, or fear. This suggests that the responders of autonomous sensory meridian response may have the tendencies of neuroticism and depressive disorder.