DOCK5 regulates energy balance and hepatic insulin sensitivity by targeting mTORC1 signaling.

The dedicator of cytokinesis 5 (DOCK5) is associated with obesity. However, the mechanism by which DOCK5 contributes to obesity remains completely unknown. Here, we show that hepatic DOCK5 expression significantly decreases at a state of insulin resistance (IR). Deletion of DOCK5 in mice reduces energy expenditure, promotes obesity, augments IR, dysregulates glucose metabolism, and activates the mTOR (Raptor)/S6K1 pathway under a high-fat diet (HFD). The overexpression of DOCK5 in hepatocytes inhibits gluconeogenic gene expression and increases the level of insulin receptor (InsR) and Akt phosphorylation. DOCK5 overexpression also inhibits mTOR/S6K1 phosphorylation and decreases the level of raptor protein expression. The opposite effects were observed in DOCK5-deficient hepatocytes. Importantly, in liver-specific Raptor knockout mice and associated hepatocytes, the effects of an adeno-associated virus (AAV8)- or adenovirus-mediated DOCK5 knockdown on glucose metabolism and insulin signaling are largely eliminated. Additionally, DOCK5-Raptor interaction is indispensable for the DOCK5-mediated regulation of hepatic glucose production (HGP). Therefore, DOCK5 acts as a regulator of Raptor to control hepatic insulin activity and glucose homeostasis.

Attributing Global Land Carbon Loss to Regional Agricultural and Forestry Commodity Consumption.

One of the critical components in climate change mitigation lies in meeting the challenge of reducing global land carbon loss, as human demand increases. Yet, it is unclear which region and which form of commodity consumption were responsible for the greatest loss of land carbon. Here we assumed a uniform lifespan (20-year) for managed land and took the managed land in 2010 as a reference to estimate the land carbon loss for region-commodity on a global scale. The estimates and multi-region input-output table were then combined to identify the regions and commodities that contributed the most to global land carbon loss from the consumption side. The results show that during the lifespan, global consumption for agricultural and forestry commodities excluding wood fuel lost a total of 15.6 Pg in land carbon annually, of which 29% and 25% were attributed to beef and wood consumption, respectively. Land carbon loss per capita consumption was highest in high-income regions (Australia, the United States, Canada, Japan, and Europe) primarily due to the high consumed quantity for commodities per capita in these areas. Further, the net importers for land carbon were usually high-income regions (they held lower land carbon loss per unit of production), which was not conducive to reducing global land carbon loss. The research could contribute to discussions of climate responsibility and then inform climate mitigation policies.

Association of circulating BMP9 with coronary heart disease and hypertension in Chinese populations.

BACKGROUND: Bone morphogenetic protein9 (BMP9) has been reported to have a role in vascular development. However, there is still a lack of information regarding the association between circulating BMP9 levels and cardiovascular disease in humans. The goal of this study is to measure circulating BMP9 concentrations in patients with essential hypertension (HTN), coronary heart disease (CHD) and HTN + CHD, and evaluates the relationship between circulating BMP9 and these cardiovascular diseases. METHODS: A total of 417 individuals were recruited for this cross-sectional study from June 2015 to December 2017. These subjects were screened for HTN and CHD. Circulating BMP9 concentrations were measured by ELISA. RESULTS: Circulating BMP9 concentrations were significantly low in HTN, CHD and HTN + CHD individuals relative to those of the healthy individuals. Circulating BMP9 correlated negatively with SBP, FIns and HOMA-IR in HTN patients and correlated negatively with FBG and 2 h-BG in CHD patients. In both HTN and CHD patients, circulating BMP9 correlated negatively with BMI, WHR, FAT%, BP and TG. Multivariate logistic regression analysis showed that circulating BMP9 levels were associated with HTN, HTN + CHD and CHD. Individuals with low quartile of circulating BMP9 had a significantly high risk of HTN or/and CHD as compared with those in high quartile. CONCLUSIONS: BMP9 is likely to be a biomarker for cardiovascular disease in humans, and it may play a role in the progression of cardiovascular disease. TRIAL REGISTRATION: ChiCTR-OPC-14005324 .

Increase in economic efficiency of water use caused by crop structure adjustment in arid areas.

The Heihe River is located in the arid zone of northwestern China. In its middle-reach region, irrigation agriculture is well developed. With rapid population growth and expansion of the cultivated land in this region, effective water resource use is vital for the sustainable development of the river basin and the increase of incomes from farming practices. In this study, based on farmer survey data, the input parameters of the CROPWAT model were modified, the water use amount was simulated after deducting the influences of climate, seeds, and irrigation systems, and the variation of economic efficiency of water use (EEWU) induced by crop structure adjustment from 2001 to 2012 was analyzed. The results show that simulations for evapotranspiration of maize based on the CROPWAT model are in accord with the observed data. From 2001 to 2012, due to changes in the regional crop structure, EEWU in the study area increased by about 40%. In the arid areas in northwest China, crop structure adjustment has a huge potential for improving EEWU and increasing incomes from farming practices.

Spatial differences of specialty agriculture development in the mountainous areas of China -- "one village, one product" as an example.

With the rapid development of urbanization, the rate of abandonment of arable land in China's mountainous areas has accelerated. Solving the phenomenon of abandonment of arable land has become an important issue in managing the use of China's arable land, the key to which lies in the development of specialty agriculture using the unique natural environment of mountainous areas. This paper scrutinizes both the horizontal and vertical distribution of specialty agriculture in these areas, drawing upon the "One Village, One Product" dataset provided by the Chinese Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Development. The findings reveal that the horizontal distribution pattern of specialty agriculture exhibits the formation of eight primary clusters. It is intriguing to observe that a majority of these clusters are situated at the intersection of two or three provincial administrative units, with the largest cluster occurring at the border of Chengdu and Chongqing. In terms of the vertical distribution pattern, the specialty agriculture in China's mountainous areas are mainly distributed at low altitudes, i.e., below 500 m, and at gentle slopes of 4°-8°, and with increases in altitude or slope, the overall amount of specialty agriculture declines rapidly.

Circulating CTRP7 Is a Potential Predictor for Metabolic Syndrome.

Background: Previous animal studies have revealed that CTRP7 is related to energy metabolism. However, little is known regarding the relationship between CTRP7 and metabolic diseases in humans. Hence, this study was designed to explore the association between CTRP7 and MetS through a cross-sectional study and multiple intervention studies. Methods: A total of 624 individuals were enrolled in this study. The levels of CTRP7 and APN were determined by ELISA kit. HEC, OGTT and lipid infusion were performed in heathy individuals to investigate the association of CTRP7 and glucose, insulin and FFA. Bioinformatics analysis was then undertaken to identify genes and signaling pathways associated with CTRP7. The relationship between CTRP7 with MetS components was also evaluated. Results: In MetS patients, serum CTRP7 concentrations were significantly higher than in healthy controls, and was positively correlated with WC, BP, FBG, 2h-BG and TG, but negatively correlated with HDL-C and APN. Multivariate logistic regression analysis uncovered that CTRP7 was strongly correlated with the occurrence of MetS. In addition, circulating levels of CTRP7 in patients with two or more MetS components were higher than those with one MetS component. In the intervention studies, OGTTs resulted in a significant reduction in serum CTRP7 concentration. However, the increase in insulin levels caused by EHC and the increase of FFA caused by lipid-infusion led to the significant increase of serum CTRP7 concentration. Meanwhile, bioinformatics analysis revealed that CTRP7 was strongly associated with metabolism-related genes and signal pathways, which further illustrate the association of CTRP7 with whole-body metabolism. Conclusions: Serum CTRP7 is increased in MetS patients, which may be a biomarker related to metabolic diseases. Clinical Trial Registration Number: ChiCTR2000032878.

Farmland marginalization and its drivers in mountainous areas of China.

The marginalization phenomenon characterized by devaluation and abandonment of farmland began to appear in mountainous areas. The purpose of this study was to reveal the extent of farmland marginalization and its drivers, and a two-stage tracking survey involving 7045 plots from 1012 households from the southwest mountainous areas of China in 2011 and 2018 by employing a variety of metrics and binary Logit model. The results showed that the average profit and rent of cultivated land per mu (1 mu = 666.67 m2) presented a significant downward trend in study areas. With the continuous decline of farmland profit, the utilization of land has undergone a significant transformation, such as the transformation of crops from labour-intensive to machine-intensive. The ratio of plots transferred out with free rent increased from 3/5 to 4/5 and the rate of abandonment increased from 21.6% to 27.2% during the study period. Farmland marginalization characterized by land devaluation and abandonment is intensifying in mountainous areas of China in recent years. Plot levels such as distance from the residence, damaged by wild boar, low plot quality and labour famine are the key factors of farmland marginalization such as abandonment, while the rising cost of farming is the root cause. The driver of marginalization was that urbanization increased labour cost, farming profits declined until they became losses, and the farmland was finally abandoned. Nowadays, farmland marginalization is not an unique phenomenon in mountain areas of China and it is more common all over the world. The government should stop large-scale farmland reclamation projects in mountainous areas of China and we can compensate for the loss of farmland by improving the quality and utilization efficiency of the remaining farmland.

Impact of spatiotemporal change of cultivated land on food-water relations in China during 1990-2015.

The spatiotemporal change of cultivated land can exert significant effects on food production and the associated water consumption. The quantification of these effects is meaningful for guiding relevant policies. However, few studies have explored systematic methods assessing changes of food production and water consumption and the relations between them, caused by cultivated land change. This study developed new spatially explicit datasets for constant food crop yield and constant food crop water consumption, combining agricultural statistical data, the China-AEZ model, and the GIS spatial analysis method, and estimated the impact of cultivated land change on food crop production, food crop water consumption and food-water relations characterized by two major indicators, i.e., crop water productivity (CWP) and green water proportion (GWP), in China during 1990-2015. The results showed that the increase of approximately 0.80% in cultivated land area in China resulted in a decrease of approximately 0.37% in average food crop yield per unit area, an increase of approximately 1.97% in blue water consumption per unit area (ETblue), and continuous decreases in both total water consumption per unit area (ETa) and green water consumption per unit area (ETgreen), with overall rates of 2.41% and 3.11%, respectively, at the national scale from 1990 to 2015. Concurrently, the average CWP continuously increased with an overall rate of 2.06%, while the average GWP continuously decreased with an overall rate of 0.86% at the national scale. A low-level coupling trend of food-water relations was concluded, together with a negative environmental effect. The food-water relations were getting even worse in major cultivated land expansion areas and during the later period of 2000-2015. The findings of this study can be useful for providing a deep understanding of food-water relations corresponding to cultivated land change and giving suggestions for the sustainable development of cultivated land and the integrated management of water resources.

Response of net primary production to land use and climate changes in the middle-reaches of the Heihe River Basin.

Net primary production (NPP) supplies matter, energy, and services to facilitate the sustainable development of human society and ecosystem. The response mechanism of NPP to land use and climate changes is essential for food security and biodiversity conservation but lacks a comprehensive understanding, especially in arid and semi-arid regions. To this end, taking the middle-reaches of the Heihe River Basin (MHRB) as an example, we uncovered the NPP responses to land use and climate changes by integrating multisource data (e.g., MOD17A3 NPP, land use, temperature, and precipitation) and multiple methods. The results showed that (a) land use intensity (LUI) increased, and climate warming and wetting promoted NPP. From 2000 to 2014, the LUI, temperature, and precipitation of MHRB increased by 1.46, 0.58°C, and 15.76 mm, respectively, resulting in an increase of 14.62 gC/m2 in annual average NPP. (b) The conversion of low-yield cropland to forest and grassland increased NPP. Although the widespread conversion of unused land and grassland to cropland boosted both LUI and NPP, it was not conducive to ecosystem sustainability and stability due to huge water consumption and human-appropriated NPP. Urban sprawl occupied cropland, forest, and grassland and reduced NPP. (c) Increase in temperature and precipitation generally improved NPP. The temperature decreasing <1.2°C also promoted the NPP of hardy vegetation due to the simultaneous precipitation increase. However, warming-induced water stress compromised the NPP in arid sparse grassland and deserts. Cropland had greater NPP and NPP increase than natural vegetation due to the irrigation, fertilizers, and other artificial inputs it received. The decrease in both temperature and precipitation generally reduced NPP, but the NPP in the well-protection or less-disturbance areas still increased slightly.

Influences of vertical differences in population emigration on mountainous vegetation greenness: A case study in the Taihang Mountains.

With the rapid advance of urbanization, rural population emigration has become a key factor that affects the man-land relationship in China's mountainous areas and may have a huge impact on ecological restoration. This study used the NDVI in the growing seasons to analyze the variation trend of vegetation greenness at different elevations in the Taihang Mountains during 2000-2010, employing trend analysis method. Then, we selected 990 samples, each of which was a circular area with a radius of 3 km. On this basis, we quantitatively analyzed the contribution degree of population emigration to this variation trend after eliminating the influences of precipitation, temperature, and other factors. The results showed that rural population emigration was significant in the Taihang Mountains in the past 10 years, with a rural population emigration rate of up to 16.3%; The vegetation in the Taihang Mountains presented a trend of overall improvement, but local deterioration; The results of the regression analysis showed that population emigration had significantly impacts on vegetation greenness at 1% significance level and 1% of population emigration can increase the NDVI variation trend by 0.06%. Furthermore, the impact gradually weakened with increasing elevation.

Influences of population pressure change on vegetation greenness in China's mountainous areas.

Mountainous areas in China account for two-thirds of the total land area. Due to rapid urbanization, rural population emigration in China's mountainous areas is very significant. This raises the question to which degree such population emigration influences the vegetation greenness in these areas. In this study, 9,753 sample areas (each sample measured about 64 square kilometers) were randomly selected, and the influences of population emigration (population pressure change) on vegetation greenness during 2000-2010 were quantitatively expressed by the multivariate linear regression (MLR) model, using census data under the condition of controlling the natural elements such as climatic and landform factors. The results indicate that the vegetation index in the past 10 years has presented an increasing overall trend, albeit with local decrease in some regions. The combined area of the regions with improved vegetation accounted for 81.7% of the total mountainous areas in China. From 2000 to 2010, the rural population significantly decreased, with most significant decreases in the northern and central areas (17.2% and 16.8%, respectively). In China's mountainous areas and in most of the subregions, population emigration has significant impacts on vegetation change. In different subregions, population decrease differently influenced vegetation greenness, and the marginal effect of population decrease on vegetation change presented obvious differences from north to south. In the southwest, on the premise of controlling other factors, a population decrease by one unit could increase the slope of vegetation change by 16.4%; in contrast, in the southeastern, northern, northeastern, and central area, the proportion was about 15.5%, 10.6%, 9.7%, and 7.5%, respectively, for improving the trend of NDVI variation.

Circulating bone morphogenetic protein-9 in relation to metabolic syndrome and insulin resistance.

Our objective is to determine circulating Bone morphogenetic protein-9(BMP-9) levels in subjects with Metabolic Syndrome (MetS) and examine the relationship between BMP-9 and conventional markers for MetS and insulin resistance (IR). A total of 362 newly diagnosed patients with MetS along with healthy controls were recruited for this cross-sectional study. Circulating BMP-9 levels were measured by ELISA. Circulating BMP-9 levels were significantly lower in MetS patients compared to those of the healthy controls. BMP-9 was associated negatively with Waist hip ratio (WHR), fasting blood glucose (FBG), 2-hour blood glucose after glucose overload (2h-OGTT), HbA1c, triglyceride (TG) levels and HOMA-IR and positively with free fatty acid (FFA) and HDL after control for age and sex. In a multiple linear regression, BMP-9 was independently associated with type 2 diabetes mellitus (T2DM), HOMA-IR and FFA. Binary logistic regression showed that plasma BMP-9 concentrations were significantly associated with MetS even after controlling for anthropometric variables and lipid profiles. In addition, circulating BMP-9 levels reduced progressively with an increasing number of MetS components. The best cutoff values for circulating BMP-9 to predict MetS was 56.6 ng/L. Circulating BMP-9 levels were associated with the key components of MetS and IR.

Effects of antihypertensive drugs losartan and levamlodipine besylate on insulin resistance in patients with essential hypertension combined with isolated impaired fasting glucose.

The objective of this study was to observe the antihypertensive effect of losartan and levamlodipine besylate on insulin resistance in patients with essential hypertension (EH) combined with isolated impaired fasting glucose (i-IFG). Patients (n=244) were randomly assigned to losartan potassium tablets (50-100 mg per day) or levamlodipine besylate tablets (2.5-5.0 mg per day) for intensive antihypertensive treatment with no lifestyle interventions for 3 years. The changes in fasting plasma glucose, fasting insulin (FINS) and insulin sensitivity index (ISI) from before to after treatment were observed. Blood pressure (BP) in each group was significantly reduced by treatment (P<0.05). After 12 months of treatment, the FINS level in the losartan potassium group was significantly decreased and ISI was significantly increased compared with before treatment (P<0.05) and compared with the levamlodipine besylate group (P<0.05). After 24 and 36 months of treatment, FINS was significantly decreased and ISI was significantly improved in both groups compared with baseline (P<0.05), and there was no difference between the groups (P>0.05). The incidence of new-onset diabetes mellitus was not significantly different between two groups. The antihypertensive effect of losartan and levamlodipine besylate could amoliorate insulin resistance in patients with EH combined with i-IFG. The improvement of insulin resistance by losartan potassium at 12 months might be better than that by levamlodipine besylate; however, after 24 and 36 months of follow-up, both agents significantly alleviated insulin resistance. These results suggest that the effects of these two drugs on insulin resistance are not significantly different.