Hepatoprotective Effect of Tea Composite Solid Beverage on Alcohol-Caused Rat Liver Injury.

Alcoholic liver disease (ALD) remains a major cause of liver-related morbidity and mortality worldwide. Tea polyphenols (TPs) possess strong antioxidant activity; cassia seed extract (CSE) has the effect of brightening the eyes; and Ampelopsis grossedentata extract (AGE) has the function of protecting the liver. However, the synergistic hepatoprotective effect of TP, AGE and CSE as a joint formulation is unknown. This study aimed to investigate the role of a tea solid beverage, composed of TP, AGE and CSE, on chronic alcoholic liver injury in rats and its underlying mechanisms via the analysis of transcriptomics and gut microbiota. The histopathological findings revealed that the tea solid beverage could reduce the production of fat vacuoles and inflammatory cell infiltration. Additionally, the tea solid beverage was found to effectively relieve the increase in the AST (from 424.85 U/L to 180.17 U/L), ALT (from 139.95 U/L to 85.88 U/L) and LDH (from 21.16 U/L to 13.35 U/L) enzyme activities and the expression of the inflammatory factors TNF-α (from 394.02 pg/mL to 214.44 pg/mL) and IL-6 (from 208.46 pg/mL to 116.59 pg/mL) caused by alcohol consumption. Further, it significantly enhanced the GSH concentration (from 4.53 pg/mL to 8.08 pg/mL) and SOD activity (from 84.70 U/mL to 156.94 U/mL) and decreased the MDA (from 58.61 mmol/mL to 36.58 mmol/mL) and TG (from 7.07 mmol/L to 3.43 mmol/L)) concentrations in the liver of rats. The analysis and identification of transcriptomics showed that the tea solid beverage intervention primarily protected the liver of rats with chronic alcoholic injury by up-regulating the differential gene Hmgcs1 in order to increase the synthesis of ketone bodies and by down-regulating the differential gene Pfkfb1 for the purpose of decreasing the glucose metabolism. Additionally, it was found that the tea solid beverage could significantly change the composition of intestinal flora in drinking rats by regulating mineral absorption, the pathways of bile secretion, the adipocytokine signaling pathway and the peroxisome balance of the intestinal flora, in order to protect alcohol-drinking rats' livers. In conclusion, the tea solid beverage, consisting of TP, AGE and CSE, is a functional drink that prevents ketone metabolism, glucose metabolism and microbiome disorders induced by alcohol intake.

Heterostructured CoFeP/CoP as an Electrocatalyst for Hydrogen Evolution in Alkaline Media.

Developing highly efficient and persistent transition-metal-phosphide (TMP)-based electrocatalysts is critical for the hydrogen evolution reaction (HER) via water splitting in alkaline media. Herein, we constructed a unique heterostructured CoFeP/CoP grown on a nickle foam (NF) via hydrothermal and dipping methods followed by phosphorization at different temperatures for HER. The experimental results exhibit that the HER activity of CoFeP/CoP-400 is accelerated after the construction of heterostructures. The unique heterostructure provides plentiful active sites and a large surface area, which are beneficial for HER in 1.0 M KOH. CoFeP/CoP-400 displays a small overpotential of 78 mV at a current density of 10 mA cm-2 and a smaller Tafel slope of 55.5 mV dec-1. Moreover, CoFeP/CoP-400 shows excellent stability with a long-term operating time of 12 h. This work provides an effective method for the construction of TMPs with heterostructures for promoting energy conversion.

Quantifying the weekly cycle effect of air pollution in cities of China.

The weekend effect, i.e., the concentration of air pollutants is different from weekends to weekdays, has been explored since the 1970 s. In most studies, the weekend effect is referred to the change of O 3 , i.e., lower emission of NO x on weekends leads to a higher concentration of O 3 . Determining whether it is true can provide insight into the strategy of air pollution controlling. In this study, we explore the weekly cycle of cities of China based on the weekly cycle anomaly (WCA), which is proposed in this paper. The advantage of using WCA is that we can avoid the influence of other change components such as the daily cycle and the seasonal cycle. The p values of the significant tests from all cities are analyzed for obtaining a whole picture of the weekly cycle of air pollution. The result shows that the concept of the weekend effect is not proper for cities in China, as many cities reach the valley phase of the emission on weekdays but not weekends. Thus, researches should not pre-assume that the weekend is the low emission scenario. We focus on the anomaly of O 3 on the peak and the valley of the emission scenario estimated by the NO 2 concentration. Through the analysis of the distribution of the p values of all cities, we show that almost all cities in China have weekly cycle of O 3 corresponding to the weekly cycle emission of NO x , i.e., O 3 of the peak time of NO 2 is less than valley time. The cities of the strong weekly cycle are located in four regions, i.e., the Beijing-Tianjing-Hebei region, the Shandong Peninsula Delta, the Yangtze River Delta, and the Pearl River Delta, and these regions are also the regions with relatively severe pollution levels.

Expression of CD123 Related Long Non-coding RNA in Acute Myeloid Leukemia Bone Marrow Mononuclear Cells and Its Clinical Significance.

Acute myelogenous leukemia (AML) is a very common hematopoietic malignancy. Hematopoietic stem cell transplantation can improve the therapeutic effect of AML, but the 5-year survival rate is very low. CD123 imbalance, abnormal gene expression, and epigenetics play an important role in the pathogenesis of AML. This research was to explore the differential expression of CD123-related long non-coding RNA (lncRNA) in AML bone marrow mononuclear cells and provide a theoretical basis for targeted therapy of AML. High-throughput sequencing was performed to screen differentially expressed lncRNA in bone marrow mononuclear immunophenotypes of CD123+ and CD123- from patients with primary AML, and real-time quantitative PCR was adopted for screening and validation. There were 933 differentially expressed lncRNAs in the CD123+ group and the CD123- group, 407 lncRNAs were up-regulated and 463 lncRNAs were down-regulated in the CD123+ group. 14 lncRNAs with more than 2 times of difference were screened for identification, and it was found that compared with CD123- group, there was no substantial difference in the expression of JHDM1D-AS1, LINC01355, CASC15, FAM13A-AS1, HSPC324, LOC339803, LINC00877, and MAG12-AS3 in CD123+ group (P>0.05). The expressions of LOC101929698, BaALC-AS2, BOLA3-AS1, and FBX19-AS1 were considerably up-regulated (P<0.05), while the expressions of LOC100132249 and LINC02085 were considerably down-regulated (P<0.05). In summary, differentially expressed lncRNAs in bone marrow samples of CD123+ and CD123- group of newly diagnosed AML patients may be involved in the process of AML and seriously affect the prognosis of patients.

Sparse Space Shift Keying Modulation with Enhanced Constellation Mapping.

For reducing the switching frequency between the radio frequency (RF) chain and transmit antennas, a class of new sparse space shift keying modulation (SSSK) schemes are presented. This new class is proposed to simplify hardware implementation, through carefully designing the spatial constellation mapping pattern. Specifically, different from traditional space shift keying modulation (SSK), the proposed SSSK scheme utilizes more time slots to construct a joint design of time and spatial domain SSK modulation, while maintaining the special structure of single RF chain. Since part of the multi-dimension constellations of SSSK concentrate the energy in less time slots, the RF-switching frequency is effectively reduced due to the sparsity introduced in the time domain. Furthermore, through theoretical analysis, we obtain the closed-form expression of the bit error probability for the SSSK scheme, and demonstrate that slight performance gain can be achieved compared to traditional SSK with reduced implementation cost. Moreover, we integrate transmit antenna selection (TAS) to achieve considerable performance gain. Finally, simulation results confirm the effectiveness of the proposed SSSK scheme compared to its traditional counterpart.

[Variation of water quality and trophic state of Lake Tianmu, China].

Water quality survey was carried out in 2006 and 2007 in Lake Tianmu (Shahe Reservoir) of China in order to make clear the eutrophication reasons of urban lake-type reservoirs in the middle and lower reaches of Yangtze River, and then put forward the corresponding control measures for such reservoirs. The survey frequency was once a month in 2006 and once two months from May 2007 to Dec. 2007. The results indicate that total nitrogen (TN) and total phosphorus (TP) average concentrations were 1.49 mg/L and 0.06 mg/L respectively in 2006, which are 2.7 and 2 times those of 2001-2002. The average permanganate index was 3.68 mg/L in 2006 and it is a little higher than that of 2001-2002. Secchi disk depth (SD) was 1.2 m in 2006 and it is 25 cm lower than that of 2001-2002. The average algal biomass of 2006 was 46.39 mg/L. All of these show that Lake Tianmu has been situated meso-eutrophication in 2006 from the meso to meso-eutrophication in 2001-2002. Control measures of Lake Tianmu were put forward according to the joint survey results of water quality, sediments, fishery, plankton, benthos etc. in 2006, which considered exogenous, endogenesis and substance cycle of the lake ecosystem in together. The measures pointed out that it was needed to control the pollution of agriculture, river, tourism, soil and water erosion as well as fishery etc. in order to increase SD of the reservoirs. TN and TP average concentrations in 2007 were 1.25 mg/L and 0.05 mg/L respectively, and the average algal biomass of 2007 was 22.56 mg/L. Water quality variation between 2006 and 2007 showed that the control measures had effect on reducing nutrients contents and phytoplankton biomass of the lake.