The effect of polystyrene nanoplastics on arsenic-induced apoptosis in HepG2 cells.

Microplastics are detrimental to the environment. However, the combined effects of microplastics and arsenic (As) remain unclear. In this study, we investigated the combined effects of polystyrene (PS) microplastics and As on HepG2 cells. The results showed that PS microplastics 20, 50, 200, and 500 nm in size were taken up by HepG2 cells, causing a decrease in cellular mitochondrial membrane potential. The results of lactate dehydrogenase release and flow cytometry showed that PS microplastics, especially those of 50 nm, enhanced As-induced apoptosis. In addition, transcriptome analysis revealed that TP53, AKT1, CASP3, ACTB, BCL2L1, CASP8, XIAP, MCL1, NFKBIA, and CASP7 were the top 10 hub genes for PS that enhanced the role of As in HepG2 cell apoptosis. Our results suggest that nano-PS enhances As-induced apoptosis. Furthermore, this study is important for a better understanding of the role of microplastics in As-induced hepatotoxicity.

Mechanisms of Antitumor Invasion and Metastasis of the Marine Fungal Derivative Epi-Aszonalenin A in HT1080 Cells.

Epi-aszonalenin A (EAA) is an alkaloid that is isolated and purified from the secondary metabolites of coral symbiotic fungi and has been shown to have good atherosclerotic intervention activity and anti-angiogenic activity in our previous studies. In the present study, antiangiogenic activity was used as a basis of an intensive study of its mechanism of action against tumor metastasis and invasion. Invasive metastatic pairs are a hallmark of malignancy, and the dissemination of tumor cells is the most dangerous process in the development of tumors. The results of cell wound healing and the Transwell chamber assay showed that EAA interfered well with PMA-induced migration and invasion of HT1080 cells. Western blot and the ELISA assay showed that EAA decreased MMPs and vascular endothelial growth factor (VEGF) activity and inhibited the expression of N-cadherin and hypoxia-inducible factor-1α (HIF-1α) by regulating the phosphorylation of downstream mitogen-activated protein kinase (MAPK), PI3K/AKT, and NF-κB pathways. Simultaneous molecular docking results revealed that the mimic coupling between the EAA and MMP-2/-9 molecules formed a stable interaction. The results of this study provide a research basis for the inhibition of tumor metastasis by EAA, and together with previous studies, confirm the potential pharmacology and drug potential for this class of compound for application in angiogenesis-related diseases and further improve the availability of coral symbiotic fungi.

Plastic wastes and surface antibiotic resistance genes pollution in mangrove environments.

Mangroves are located at the intersection of land and sea and are also heavily affected by plastic wastes. Biofilms of plastic wastes in mangroves are reservoirs for antibiotic resistance genes (ARGs). In this study, plastic wastes and ARG pollution were investigated from three typical mangrove areas in Zhanjiang, South China. Transparent was the dominant colors of plastic wastes in three mangroves. Fragment and film shape accounted for 57.73-88.23% of plastic waste samples in mangroves. In addition, 39.50% of plastic wastes in protected area mangroves are PS. The metagenomic results shows that the 175 ARGs were found on plastic wastes of the three mangroves, the abundance accounting for 91.11% of the total ARGs. The abundance of Vibrio accounted for 2.31% of the total bacteria genera in aquaculture pond area mangrove. Correlation analysis shows that a microbe can carry multiple ARGs that may improve resistance to antibiotics. Microbes are the potential hosts of most ARGs, suggesting that ARGs can be transmitted by microbes. Because the mangroves are closely related to human activities and the high abundance of ARGs on plastic increases the ecological risks, people should improve plastic waste management and prevent the spread of ARGs by reducing plastic pollution.

Design of integrated searching and tracking optical systems based on freeform mirrors.

Target searching and tracking photoelectric systems are widely used in civil and military fields. Achieving both efficient search and fine-observation imaging while minimizing the volume and weight of the system is the most concerning problem. In this paper, a dual-mode integrated optical system is proposed, which shares large size components between large field of view (FOV) search module and high-resolution tracking module by using the Biconic Zernike freeform mirrors. Compared with the traditional searching and tracking system utilizing multi-camera matching, this scheme significantly reduces the volume and weight of the remote sensing payload. At the orbit altitude of 500 km, this proposed system has a swath of 87.5 km with a ground resolution of 10 m in search mode. In tracking mode, it can observe an area of 19 km2 with a ground resolution of 1 m. It can meet the requirements of wide-area search and focus tracking simultaneously, providing a feasible scheme for the lightweight design of space optical cameras.

Mid-long wavelength infrared absorptance of hyperdoped silicon via femtosecond laser microstructuring.

Hyperdoped silicon (hSi) fabricated via femtosecond laser irradiation has emerged as a promising photoelectric material with strong broadband infrared (IR) absorption. In this work, we measured the optical absorptance of the hSi in the wavelength of 0.3-16.7 µm. Unlike the near to mid wavelength IR absorption, the mid-long wavelength IR (M-LWIR) absorption is heavily dependent on the surface morphology and the dopants. Furthermore, calculations based on coherent potential approximation (CPA) reveal the origin of free carrier absorption, which plays an important role in the M-LWIR absorption. As a result, a more comprehensive picture of the IR absorption mechanism is drawn for the optoelectronic applications of the hSi.

Detection system of the lobster eye telescope with large field of view.

The lobster eye telescope is promising for large-field x ray imaging in astronomy. The special structure of the lobster eye system makes the focal plane a sphere, resulting in detector defocus when the field is large. In this study, we established a model based on the principle of lobster eye imaging and simulated the imaging at different image distances. The results reveal the relationship between the defocus and position accuracy and angular resolution. To ensure the optical performance of the large field lobster eye telescope, we propose a detection system design method using multiple detectors stitched together to form a spherical-like surface and apply it to the development of the Einstein Probe/wide-field x ray telescope (EP/WXT) submodule. About 70% of the detection area is out of focus within 0.5 mm. The scanning image of the integrated WXT submodule shows good uniformity of the point spread function (PSF) for various incident angles, and the effect of defocus on imaging is acceptable.

The Inhibition Effect of the Seaweed Polyphenol, 7-Phloro-Eckol from Ecklonia Cava on Alcohol-Induced Oxidative Stress in HepG2/CYP2E1 Cells.

The liver is vulnerable to oxidative stress-induced damage, which leads to many diseases, including alcoholic liver disease (ALD). Liver disease endanger people's health, and the incidence of ALD is increasing; therefore, prevention is very important. 7-phloro-eckol (7PE) is a seaweed polyphenol, which was isolated from Ecklonia cava in a previous study. In this study, the antioxidative stress effect of 7PE on HepG2/CYP2E1 cells was evaluated by alcohol-induced cytotoxicity, DNA damage, and expression of related inflammation and apoptosis proteins. The results showed that 7PE caused alcohol-induced cytotoxicity to abate, reduced the amount of reactive oxygen species (ROS) and nitric oxide (NO), and effectively inhibited DNA damage in HepG2/CYP2E1 cells. Additionally, the expression levels of glutathione (GSH), superoxide dismutase (SOD), B cell lymphoma 2 (Bcl-2), and Akt increased, while γ-glutamyltransferase (GGT), Bcl-2 related x (Bax), cleaved caspase-3, cleaved caspase-9, nuclear factor-κB (NF-κB), and JNK decreased. Finally, molecular docking proved that 7PE could bind to BCL-2 and GSH protein. These results indicate that 7PE can alleviate the alcohol-induced oxidative stress injury of HepG2 cells and that 7PE may have a potential application prospect in the future development of antioxidants.

Nanoplastics aggravate the toxicity of arsenic to AGS cells by disrupting ABC transporter and cytoskeleton.

The coexistence of nanoplastics (NPs) and pollutants such as arsenic (As) has become an unignorable environmental problem. However, there is still a considerable knowledge gap about the impact of NPs and pollutants on human health risks. In this study, the human gastric adenocarcinoma (AGS) cells were used as a model to investigate the toxicity of NPs with different particle sizes and As by MTT assay, western blotting, immunofluorescence and so on. The results showed that 20 nm (8 µg/mL), 50 nm (128 µg/mL), 200 nm (128 µg/mL), 500 nm (128 µg/mL), 1000 nm (128 µg/mL) polystyrene (PS) did not affect cell viability, ROS, intracellular calcium and activate apoptosis pathway in AGS cells. However, noncytotoxic concentration of NPs enhanced the cytotoxicity and intracellular accumulation of As. NPs destroys the fluidity of cell membrane and cytoskeleton, inhibits the activity of ABC transporter, and leads to the accumulation of As in cells. This work highlights that the damage caused by NPs, especially at the level of noncytotoxicity, joint with As cannot be ignored and provides a specific toxicological mechanism of NPs accompanied by exposure to As.

STAC: Spatial-Temporal Attention on Compensation Information for Activity Recognition in FPV.

Egocentric activity recognition in first-person video (FPV) requires fine-grained matching of the camera wearer's action and the objects being operated. The traditional method used for third-person action recognition does not suffice because of (1) the background ego-noise introduced by the unstructured movement of the wearable devices caused by body movement; (2) the small-sized and fine-grained objects with single scale in FPV. Size compensation is performed to augment the data. It generates a multi-scale set of regions, including multi-size objects, leading to superior performance. We compensate for the optical flow to eliminate the camera noise in motion. We developed a novel two-stream convolutional neural network-recurrent attention neural network (CNN-RAN) architecture: spatial temporal attention on compensation information (STAC), able to generate generic descriptors under weak supervision and focus on the locations of activated objects and the capture of effective motion. We encode the RGB features using a spatial location-aware attention mechanism to guide the representation of visual features. Similar location-aware channel attention is applied to the temporal stream in the form of stacked optical flow to implicitly select the relevant frames and pay attention to where the action occurs. The two streams are complementary since one is object-centric and the other focuses on the motion. We conducted extensive ablation analysis to validate the complementarity and effectiveness of our STAC model qualitatively and quantitatively. It achieved state-of-the-art performance on two egocentric datasets.

LncRNA CCAT2 promotes angiogenesis in glioma through activation of VEGFA signalling by sponging miR-424.

Glioma is characterized by high morbidity, high mortality and poor prognosis. Recent studies exhibited that lncRNA CCAT2 is overexpressed in glioma and promotes glioma progression, but the specific molecular biological mechanism remains to be determined. We performed qRT-PCR to evaluate the expression of related genes, Western blotting analysis to measure protein levels, colony formation assay to detect the proliferative ability of glioma cells, flow cytometry to measure cell apoptosis, bioinformatics analysis and dual luciferase assay to verify the binding sites and the targeted regulatory relationship in A172 and U251 cell lines and tube formation assay to determine endothelial angiogenesis. LncRNA CCAT2 and VEGFA were highly expressed, while miR-424 was expressed at low levels in NHA cells. Furthermore, knockdown of lncRNA CCAT2 decreased cell proliferation, increased cell apoptosis and inhibited endothelial angiogenesis in glioma. Moreover, lncRNA CCAT2 shared a complementary sequence with miR-424 which in turn directly bound to the 3'-UTR of VEGFA. Further investigation indicated that lncRNA CCAT2 promoted cell proliferation and endothelial angiogenesis by inducing the PI3K/AKT signalling pathway in glioma. The oncogenic lncRNA CCAT2 is highly associated with the development of glioma and exerts its function by upregulating VEGFA via miR-424.

Hierarchical Optimization of 3D Point Cloud Registration.

Rigid registration of 3D point clouds is the key technology in robotics and computer vision. Most commonly, the iterative closest point (ICP) and its variants are employed for this task. These methods assume that the closest point is the corresponding point and lead to sensitivity to the outlier and initial pose, while they have poor computational efficiency due to the closest point computation. Most implementations of the ICP algorithm attempt to deal with this issue by modifying correspondence or adding coarse registration. However, this leads to sacrificing the accuracy rate or adding the algorithm complexity. This paper proposes a hierarchical optimization approach that includes improved voxel filter and Multi-Scale Voxelized Generalized-ICP (MVGICP) for 3D point cloud registration. By combining traditional voxel sampling with point density, the outlier filtering and downsample are successfully realized. Through multi-scale iteration and avoiding closest point computation, MVGICP solves the local minimum problem and optimizes the operation efficiency. The experimental results demonstrate that the proposed algorithm is superior to the current algorithms in terms of outlier filtering and registration performance.

The Protective Effect of the Polysaccharide Precursor, D-Isofloridoside, from Laurencia undulata on Alcohol-Induced Hepatotoxicity in HepG2 Cells.

Alcoholic liver disease (ALD) threatens human health, so it is imperative that we find ways to prevent or treat it. In recent years, the study of polysaccharides has shown that they have different kinds of bioactivities. Among them are many biological effects that have been attributed to polysaccharide precursors. D-Isofloridoside (DIF) is one of the polysaccharide precursors from the marine red alga Laurencia undulata. This study evaluated the effect of DIF on alcohol-induced oxidative stress in human hepatoma cells (HepG2). As a result, DIF attenuated alcohol-induced cytotoxicity, reduced the amount of intracellular reactive oxygen species (ROS), and effectively reduced alcohol-induced DNA damage in HepG2 cells. In addition, a western blot showed that, after DIF treatment, the expression levels of glutathione (GSH), superoxide dismutase (SOD), and B-cell lymphoma-2 (bcl-2) increased, while the expression levels of γ-glutamyl transferase (GGT), BCL2-associated X (bax), cleaved caspase-3, and mitogen-activated protein kinase (p38 and c-Jun N-terminal kinase ) signal transduction proteins reduced. This showed that DIF may protect cells by reducing the amount of intracellular ROS and inhibiting intracellular oxidative stress and apoptotic processes. Finally, molecular docking demonstrated that DIF can bind to SOD, GGT, B-cell lymphoma-2, and bax proteins. These results indicated that DIF can protect HepG2 cells from alcohol-induced oxidative stress damage, making it an effective potential ingredient in functional foods.

In Situ Growth of Ultrasmall Nanochannels in Porous Anodized Aluminum Membrane and Applied in Detection of Lead Ion.

The transport of ions in nanochannels has received considerable interest owing to the unique transport properties and potential applications. In this study, ultrasmall nanochannels (0.8-1.2 nm) were fabricated in porous anodized aluminum (PAA) membrane in situ growth. 2-Methylimidazole and zinc nitrate were used as the reaction precursor solkution, and then zeolitic imidazolate framework (ZIF-8) nanoparticles were sufficiently filled in PAA nanochannels to form a ZIF-8/PAA nanochannels composite membrane. Because ZIF-8 is a microporous material and has a strong ability to adsorb heavy metals, the composite membrane was used as a biosensor to detect lead ion (Pb2+) by the coordination interaction between Pb2+ and nitrogen atoms. The detection limit reached to 0.03 nM due to the enrichment of nanochannels under electric field. The sensor has a good linear range for Pb2+ from 10 nM to 10 µM.

In Vitro Vascular-Protective Effects of a Tilapia By-Product Oligopeptide on Angiotensin II-Induced Hypertensive Endothelial Injury in HUVEC by Nrf2/NF-κB Pathways.

Angiotensin II (Ang II) is closely involved in endothelial injury during the development of hypertension. In this study, the protective effects of the tilapia by-product oligopeptide Leu-Ser-Gly-Tyr-Gly-Pro (LSGYGP) on oxidative stress and endothelial injury in Angiotensin II (Ang II)-stimulated human umbilical vein endothelial cells (HUVEC) were evaluated. LSGYGP dose-dependently suppressed the fluorescence intensities of nitric oxide (NO) and reactive oxygen species (ROS), inhibited the nuclear factor-kappa B (NF-κB) pathway, and reduced inducible nitric oxide synthase (iNOS), cyclooxygenase-2 (COX-2), and endothelin-1 (ET-1) expression, as shown by western blot. In addition, it attenuated the expression of gamma-glutamyltransferase (GGT) and heme oxygenase 1 (HO-1), as well as increasing superoxide dismutase (SOD) and glutathione (GSH) expression through the nuclear factor erythroid 2-related factor 2 (Nrf2) pathway. Other experiments revealed that LSGYGP increased the apoptotic inhibition ratio between cleaved-caspase-3/procaspase-3, reduced expressions of pro-apoptotic ratio between Bcl-2/Bax, inhibited phosphorylation of mitogen-activated protein kinases (MAPK), and increased phosphorylation of the serine/threonine kinase (Akt) pathway. Furthermore, LSGYGP significantly decreased Ang II-induced DNA damage in a comet assay, and molecular docking results showed that the steady interaction between LSGYGP with NF-κB may be attributed to hydrogen bonds. These results suggest that this oligopeptide is effective in protecting against Ang II-induced HUVEC injury through the reduction of oxidative stress and alleviating endothelial damage. Thus, it has the potential for the therapeutic treatment of hypertension-associated diseases.

A Novel Peptide from Abalone (Haliotis discus hannai) to Suppress Metastasis and Vasculogenic Mimicry of Tumor Cells and Enhance Anti-Tumor Effect In Vitro.

Vasculogenic mimicry (VM) formed by tumor cells plays a vital role in the progress of tumor, because it provides nutrition for tumor cells and takes away the metabolites. Therefore, the inhibition of VM is crucial to the clinical treatment of tumors. In this study, we investigated the anti-tumor effect of a novel peptide, KVEPQDPSEW (AATP), isolated from abalone (Haliotis discus hannai) on HT1080 cells by migration, invasion analysis and the mode of action. The results showed that AATP effectively inhibited MMPs by blocking MAPKs and NF-κB pathways, leading to the downregulation of metastasis of tumor cells. Moreover, AATP significantly inhibited VM and pro-angiogenic factors, including VEGF and MMPs by suppression of AKT/mTOR signaling. In addition, molecular docking was used to study the interaction of AATP and HIF-1α, and the results showed that AATP was combined with an active site of HIF-1α by a hydrogen bond. The effect of AATP on anti-metastatic and anti-vascular in HT1080 cells revealed that AATP may be a potential lead compound for treatment of tumors in the future.

System design for a "checkerboard" imager.

In order to solve the problem of uneven spatial frequency sampling and lack of zero frequency sampling in the segmented planar imaging detector for electro-optical reconnaissance (SPIDER), we propose a "checkerboard" imaging system design using a square grid aperture arrangement, show its aperture matching method, and demonstrate that it can achieve the uniform sampling of all integer multiples of fundamental frequency in the highest frequency range with zero frequency in the direction of two orthogonal arrays. Through computer simulation, it is verified that the imaging effect of the "checkerboard" imaging system is superior to that of the SPIDER imaging system and the traditional single aperture imaging system at the same system diameter.

Electrochemical Determination of Nitrite by Au Nanoparticle/Graphene-Chitosan Modified Electrode.

A highly sensitive nitrite (NO2−) electrochemical sensor is fabricated using glassy carbon electrode modified with Au nanoparticle and grapheme oxide. Briefly, this electrochemical sensor was prepared by drop-coating graphene oxide-chitosan mixed film on the surface of the electrode and then electrodepositing a layer of Au nanoparticle using cyclic voltammetry. The electrochemical behavior of NO2− on the sensor was investigated by cyclic voltammetry and amperometric i-t curve. The results showed that the sensor exhibited better electrocatalytic activity for NO2− in 0.1 mol/L phosphate buffer solution (PBS) (pH 5.0). The oxidation peak current was positively correlated with NO2− concentration in the ranges of 0.9 µM to 18.9 µM. The detection limit was estimated to be 0.3 µM. In addition, the interference of some common ions (e.g., NO3−, CO32−, SO42−, Cl−, Ca2+ and Mg2+) and oxidizable compound including sodium sulfite and ascorbic acid in the detection of nitrite was also studied. The results show that this sensor is more sensitive and selective to NO2−. Therefore, this electrochemical sensor provided an effective tool for the detection of NO2−.

Utility of Faster R-CNN in methodological comparison and evaluation of reticulocytes.

Objective: The purpose of this study was to evaluate the methodological comparison of reticulocytes by using the intelligent learning system Faster R-CNN, a set of reticulocyte image detection systems developed using deep neural networks. Methods: We selected 59 EDTA-K2 anticoagulated whole blood samples and calculated the RET% using seven different Sysmex XN full-automatic hematology analyzers with Faster R-CNN in the laboratory. We compared and evaluated the methods and statistically analyzed the correlation between the various test results. Results: The results indicated a high degree of consistency between the seven Sysmex XN full-automatic hematology analyzers and Faster R-CNN in detecting RET%. The correlation coefficients were 0.987, 0.984, 0.986, 0.987, 0.987, 0.988, and 0.986, respectively. Conclusion: We found that the Sysmex XN full-automatic hematology analyzers in our laboratory using the Faster R-CNN system met the requirements of the methodological comparison of reticulocyte detection and this intelligent learning system can be a useful clinical tool.

Genetic polymorphisms of BACH2, a key gene regulating Th2 immune response, increasing risk of allergic rhinitis.

BACKGROUND: Allergic rhinitis (AR) is an allergic disease characterized by the dominant differentiation of T helper cell 2 (Th2). BACH2 plays a key role in regulating Th2 immune response. This study aimed to explore the association between BACH2 single nucleotide polymorphism (SNPs) and susceptibility to AR. METHODS: Han population from northern Shaanxi, China was chosen as subjects. After the DNA extraction from the peripheral blood of subjects, genotyping was completed through the Agena MassARRAY platform. Logistic regression analysis was used to assess the association. Multivariate dimensionality reduction (MDR) was used to evaluate the effect of the interaction between 'SNP-SNP' on susceptibility to AR. Using false-positive report probability (FPRP) analysis to test whether the significant results obtained in this study were noteworthy. RESULTS: BACH2-rs905670 and -rs2134814 were significantly associated with increased risk of AR. The mutant allele 'A' of rs905670 (OR = 1.36, p = 0.018) and mutant allele 'G' of rs2134814 (OR = 1.34, p = 0.027) were risk genetic factors for AR. The above genetic association was further observed in the stratified analysis: BACH2-rs905670 and-rs2134814 were significantly associated with an increased risk of AR in females, aging older than 43 years, and participants working and living in the loess hills (OR > 1, p < 0.05). CONCLUSION: BACH2-rs905670 and -rs2134814 are significantly associated with increasing AR risk.

Prevalence and factors associated with overweight, obesity and central obesity among adults in Shenmu City, Shaanxi Province, China.

Objectives: This research aimed to explore the prevalence and determinants of overweight, obesity, and central obesity in Shenmu City, Shaanxi Province, China and to offer guidance for preventative health measures. Methods: We conducted a multi-stage, stratified random sampling survey among 4,565 residents of Shenmu City. Data collection included questionnaires and anthropometric assessments to gather socio-demographic data and to identify cases of overweight, obesity, and central obesity. Multivariable logistic regression analysis was utilized to assess the association between various factors and these conditions. Results: The observed prevalence rates for overweight, obesity, central obesity, and the combination of overweight/obesity with central obesity were 39.9%, 18.2%, 48.0%, 32.8%, and 22.8%, respectively. Notably, the incidence of these conditions was significantly higher in men compared to women. The prevalence of overweight and obesity initially increased and then decreased with age, whereas the prevalence of central obesity consistently rose. Furthermore, a higher educational level correlated with lower prevalence rates. Additionally, our analysis indicated that hypertension, dyslipidemia, and hyperuricemia are risk factors for these conditions. Conclusions: The findings of this study offer crucial insights for formulating effective strategies to prevent and manage obesity in Shenmu City.