Dynapenic abdominal obesity and incident functional disability: Results from a nationwide longitudinal study of middle-aged and older adults in China.

BACKGROUND: There is little epidemiological evidence on the relationship of dynapenic abdominal obesity (DAO) and the development of functional disability, particularly in Asian populations. We aimed to investigate the association of DAO with new-onset functional disability in Chinese adults. METHODS: A total of 7881 participants aged ≥45 years from China Health and Retirement Longitudinal Study (CHARLS) in 2011 and 2015 were included in the study. Dynapenia and abdominal obesity were respectively defined based on handgrip strength (<28 kg for male and <18 kg for female) and waist circumference (≥ 90 cm for male and ≥85 cm for female). The sample was divided into four groups: non-dynapenic/non-abdominal obesity (ND/NAO), non-dynapenic/abdominal obesity (ND/AO), dynapenic/non-abdominal obesity (D/NAO) and dynapenic/abdominal obesity (D/AO). Functional status was assessed by basic activities of daily living (BADL) or instrumental activities of daily living (IADL). Logistic regression model was used to explore the longitudinal association between dynapenic abdominal obesity and incident functional disability. RESULTS: After a 4-year follow-up, 1153 (14.6 %) developed BADL disability and 1335 (16.9 %) developed IADL disability. The multivariable-adjusted odds ratios (95 % CIs) for the D/AO versus ND/NAO were 2.21 (1.61-3.03) for BADL disability, and 1.68 (1.23-2.30) for IADL disability. In addition, DAO was associated with an increased risk for functional dependency severity (odds ratio, 2.08 [95 % CI, 1.57-2.75]). CONCLUSIONS: DAO was significantly associated with greater risk of functional disability among Chinese middle-aged and older adults. Our findings indicated that interventions targeted DAO might be effective in the primary prevention of functional disability.

Dynapenic abdominal obesity and the risk of depressive symptoms in middle-aged and older Chinese adults: Evidence from a national cohort study.

BACKGROUND: Population-based evidence on the relationship between dynapenic abdominal obesity and depressive symptoms is rare. We aimed to prospectively investigate the relationship between dynapenic abdominal obesity and depressive symptoms among middle-aged and older Chinese adults. METHODS: A total of 9322 participants free of depressive symptoms in the China Health and Retirement Longitudinal Study were included. The participants were divided into four groups: non-dynapenic/non-abdominal obesity (ND/NAO), non-dynapenic/abdominal obesity (ND/AO), dynapenic/non-abdominal obesity (D/NAO) and dynapenic/abdominal obesity (D/AO) according to the sex-specific grip strength (<28 kg for men and <18 kg for women) and waist circumference (≥85 cm for men and ≥80 cm for women) that in line with the Chinese criteria. Depressive symptoms was defined as a score of ≥12 for the 10-item Center for Epidemiological Studies Depression Scale. Logistic regression model was used to explore the association between dynapenic abdominal obesity and depressive symptoms. RESULTS: After an approximately 3-year of follow-up, 1810 participants (19.4 %) developed depressive symptoms. The multivariable-adjusted odds ratio for the D/AO versus ND/NAO was 1.61 (95 % CI: 1.31-1.98) for depressive symptoms. In addition, this relationship was more profound in participants aged<60 years (OR = 2.27, 95 % CI: 1.60-3.22) than participants aged ≥60 (OR = 1.36, 95 % CI: 1.05-1.77; P-interaction = 0.04). However, dynapenic obesity (defined by body mass index) was not linked to depressive symptoms. LIMITATIONS: Causal link and residual confounding were not addressed because of the observational study design. CONCLUSIONS: Dynapenic abdominal obesity was associated with an increased risk of depressive symptoms, especially among those aged<60 years.

High Serum Brain-Derived Neurotrophic Factor Is Associated With Decreased Risks of Poor Prognosis After Ischemic Stroke.

BACKGROUND: BDNF (brain-derived neurotrophic factor) has been implicated in cardiovascular homeostasis and ischemic stroke pathogenesis. We aimed to prospectively investigate the associations between serum BDNF levels and the prognosis of ischemic stroke in a multicenter cohort study. METHODS: This prospective study follows the STROBE reporting guideline. Serum BDNF concentrations were measured in 3319 ischemic stroke patients from the China Antihypertensive Trial in Acute Ischemic Stroke between August 2009 and May 2013 in 26 hospitals across China. The primary outcome was the composite outcome of death and major disability (modified Rankin Scale score ≥3) at 3 months after stroke onset. Multivariate logistic regression or Cox proportional hazards regression analysis was used to assess the associations between serum BDNF levels and adverse clinical outcomes. RESULTS: During the 3-month follow-up period, 827 (24.92%) patients experienced a primary outcome, including 734 major disabilities and 93 deaths. After adjusting for age, sex, and other important prognostic factors, elevated serum BDNF levels were associated with decreased risks of primary outcome (odds ratio, 0.73 [95% CI, 0.58-0.93]), major disability (odds ratio, 0.78 [95% CI, 0.62-0.99]), death (hazard ratio, 0.55 [95% CI, 0.32-0.97]), and the composite outcome of death and vascular events (hazard ratio, 0.61 [95% CI, 0.40-0.93]) when 2 extreme tertiles were compared. Multivariable-adjusted spline regression analyses showed a linear association between serum BDNF levels and the primary outcome (P value for linearity=0.005). The addition of BDNF to conventional risk factors slightly improved reclassification for the primary outcome (net reclassification improvement: 19.33%; P<0.001; integrated discrimination index: 0.24%; P=0.011). CONCLUSIONS: Elevated serum BDNF concentrations were independently associated with decreased risks of adverse outcomes after ischemic stroke, suggesting that serum BDNF may be a potential biomarker for prognosis after ischemic stroke. Further studies are warranted to investigate the potential therapeutic benefit of BDNF for ischemic stroke.

ZIF-90-Derived Porous ZnO Coated Optical Microfiber Interferometer Sensor for Enhanced Humidity Sensing and Breath Monitoring.

Humidity plays an important role in many fields, and the realization of high sensitivity and fast response simultaneously for humidity detection is a great challenge in practical application. In this work, we demonstrated a high-performance relative humidity (RH) sensor made by supporting zeolitic imidazolate framework-90 (ZIF-90)-derived porous zinc oxide (ZnO) onto an optical microfiber Sagnac interferometer (OMSI). The ZIF-90-modified OMSI (ZIF-90-OMSI) sensor was in situ heated at different temperatures to obtain porous ZnO, and their humidity-sensing properties were investigated ranging from 25 to 80% RH. The experimental results showed that the porous ZnO fiber sensor prepared at 500 °C (Z500-OMSI) exhibited best humidity-sensing performance with a high sensitivity of 96.2 pm/% RH (25-45% RH) and 521 pm/% RH (50-80% RH) and ultrafast response/recovery time (62.37/206.67 ms) at 22.3% RH. These performances were attributed to the complete transformation of ZIF-90 to ZnO at 500 °C. The obtained Z500 not only retained the high porosity and specific surface area of ZIF-90 but also exhibited the exceptional hydrophilicity of ZnO. In addition, the signals of the proposed Z500-OMSI sensor changed with different breathing patterns, indicating the possibility for human respiration monitoring. This work provided a reliable candidate for an effective RH monitoring system with potential application in medical diagnoses, industrial production, environmental detection, and human health monitoring.

Nanoscale Adsorption, Assembly, and Deionization Dynamics Recorded by Optical Fiber Sensors.

Capacitive deionization in environmental decontamination has been widely studied and now requires intensive development to support large-scale deployment. Porous nanomaterials have been demonstrated to play pivotal roles in determining decontamination efficiency and manipulating nanomaterials to form functional architecture has been one of the most exciting challenges. Such nanostructure engineering and environmental applications highlight the importance of observing, recording, and studying basically electrical-assisted charge/ion/particle adsorption and assembly behaviors localized at charged interfaces. In addition, it is generally desirable to increase the sorption capacity and reduce the energy cost, which increase the requirement for recording collective dynamic and performance properties that stem from nanoscale deionization dynamics. Herein, we show how a single optical fiber can serve as an in situ and multifunctional opto-electrochemical platform for addressing these issues. The surface plasmon resonance signals allow the in situ spectral observation of nanoscale dynamic behaviors at the electrode-electrolyte interface. The parallel and complementary optical-electrical sensing signals enable the single probe but multifunctional recording of electrokinetic phenomena and electrosorption processes. As a proof of concept, we experimentally decipher the interfacial adsorption and assembly behaviors of anisotropic metal-organic framework nanoparticles at a charged surface and decouple the interfacial capacitive deionization within an assembled metal-organic framework nanocoating by visualizing its dynamic and energy consumption properties, including the adsorptive capacity, removal efficiency, kinetic properties, charge, specific energy consumption, and charge efficiency. This simple "all-in-fiber" opto-electrochemical platform offers intriguing opportunities to provide in situ and multidimensional insights into interfacial adsorption, assembly, and deionization dynamics information, which may contribute to understanding the underlying assembly rules and the exploring structure-deionization performance correlations for the development of tailor-made nanohybrid electrode coatings for deionization applications.

CPT1C-mediated fatty acid oxidation facilitates colorectal cancer cell proliferation and metastasis.

Fatty acid oxidation (FAO) has been proven to be an accomplice in tumor progression. Carnitine palmitoyltransferase 1C (CPT1C), a rate-limiting enzyme in FAO, mainly functions to catalyze fatty acid carnitinylation and guarantee subsequent entry into the mitochondria for FAO in colorectal cancer (CRC). Gene expression data and clinical information extracted from The Cancer Genome Atlas (TCGA) database show significantly higher expression of CPT1C in patients with metastatic CRC ( P=0.005). Moreover, overexpression of CPT1C is correlated with worse relapse-free survival in CRC (HR 2.1, P=0.0006), while no statistical significance is indicated for CPT1A and CPT1B. Further experiments demonstrate that downregulation of CPT1C expression leads to a decrease in the FAO rate, suppression of cell proliferation, cell cycle arrest and repression of cell migration in CRC, whereas opposite results are obtained when CPT1C is overexpressed. Furthermore, an FAO inhibitor almost completely reverses the enhanced cell proliferation and migration induced by CPT1C overexpression. In addition, analysis of TCGA data illustrates a positive association between CPT1C expression and HIF1α level, suggesting that CPT1C is a transcriptional target of HIF1α. In conclusion, CPT1C overexpression indicates poor relapse-free survival of patients with CRC, and CPT1C is transcriptionally activated by HIF1α, thereby promoting the proliferation and migration of CRC cells.

A High-Throughput Sequencing Data-Based Classifier Reveals the Metabolic Heterogeneity of Hepatocellular Carcinoma.

Metabolic heterogeneity plays a key role in poor outcomes in malignant tumors, but its role in hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC) remains largely unknown. In the present study, we aim to disentangle the metabolic heterogeneity features of HCC by developing a classification system based on metabolism pathway activities in high-throughput sequencing datasets. As a result, HCC samples were classified into two distinct clusters: cluster 1 showed high levels of glycolysis and pentose phosphate pathway activity, while cluster 2 exhibited high fatty acid oxidation and glutaminolysis status. This metabolic reprogramming-based classifier was found to be highly correlated with several clinical variables, including overall survival, prognosis, TNM stage, and 𝛼-fetoprotein (AFP) expression. Of note, activated oncogenic pathways, a higher TP53 mutation rate, and increased stemness were also observed in cluster 1, indicating a causal relationship between metabolic reprogramming and carcinogenesis. Subsequently, distinct metabolism-targeted therapeutic strategies were proven in human HCC cell lines, which exhibit the same metabolic properties as corresponding patient samples based on this classification system. Furthermore, the metabolic patterns and effects of different types of cells in the tumor immune microenvironment were explored by referring to both bulk and single-cell data. It was found that malignant cells had the highest overall metabolic activities, which may impair the anti-tumor capacity of CD8+ T cells through metabolic competition, and this provided a potential explanation for why immunosuppressive cells had higher overall metabolic activities than those with anti-tumor functions. Collectively, this study established an HCC classification system based on the gene expression of energy metabolism pathways. Its prognostic and therapeutic value may provide novel insights into personalized clinical practice in patients with metabolic heterogeneity.

An Ant Colony Optimization-Based Multiobjective Service Replicas Placement Strategy for Fog Computing.

In recent years, fog computing has emerged as a new paradigm for the future Internet-of-Things (IoT) applications, but at the same time, ensuing new challenges. The geographically vast-distributed architecture in fog computing renders us almost infinite choices in terms of service orchestration. How to properly arrange the service replicas (or service instances) among the nodes remains a critical problem. To be specific, in this article, we investigate a generalized service replicas placement problem that has the potential to be applied to various industrial scenarios. We formulate the problem into a multiobjective model with two scheduling objectives, involving deployment cost and service latency. For problem solving, we propose an ant colony optimization-based solution, called multireplicas Pareto ant colony optimization (MRPACO). We have conducted extensive experiments on MRPACO. The experimental results show that the solutions obtained by our strategy are qualified in terms of both diversity and accuracy, which are the main evaluation metrics of a multiobjective algorithm.

DEAD-Box RNA Helicase 42 Plays a Critical Role in Pre-mRNA Splicing under Cold Stress.

Low temperature is an important environmental stress that adversely affects rice (Oryza sativa) growth and productivity. Splicing of pre-mRNA is a crucial posttranscriptional regulatory step in gene expression in plants and is sensitive to temperature. DEAD-box RNA helicases belong to an RNA helicase family involved in the rearrangement of ribonucleoprotein complexes and the modification of RNA structure and are therefore involved in all aspects of RNA metabolism. In this study, we demonstrate that the rate of pre-mRNA splicing is reduced in rice at low temperatures and that the DEAD-box RNA Helicase42 (OsRH42) is necessary to support effective splicing of pre-mRNA during mRNA maturation at low temperatures. OsRH42 expression is tightly coupled to temperature fluctuation, and OsRH42 is localized in the splicing speckles and interacts directly with U2 small nuclear RNA. Retarded pre-mRNA splicing and plant growth defects were exhibited by OsRH42-knockdown transgenic lines at low temperatures, thus indicating that OsRH42 performs an essential role in ensuring accurate pre-mRNA splicing and normal plant growth under low ambient temperature. Unexpectedly, our results show that OsRH42 overexpression significantly disrupts the pre-mRNA splicing pathway, causing retarded plant growth and reducing plant cold tolerance. Combined, these results indicate that accurate control of OsRH42 homeostasis is essential for rice plants to respond to changes in ambient temperature. In addition, our study presents the molecular mechanism of DEAD-box RNA helicase function in pre-mRNA splicing, which is required for adaptation to cold stress in rice.

Ultrasensitive sensing in air based on Sagnac interferometer working at group birefringence turning point.

In this paper, a gas refractometer based on microfiber Sagnac interferometer is demonstrated, which can achieve an ultrahigh sensitivity when operating at the group birefringence turning point. We undertake a theoretical analysis and a simulated calculation to study the device characteristics and obtain the specific parameters of ellipticity and long axis of the elliptic microfiber for the group birefringence turning point. In the experiment, we obtain a positive sensitivity of 0.295 nm/KPa and a negative sensitivity of -0.219 nm/KPa during gas pressure and refractive index (RI) sensing, the obtained highest RI sensitivity can reach 160,938.9 nm/RIU. To further reveal its practical potential in gas detection, we conduct CO2 gas concentration detection and the device also demonstrates ultrahigh sensitivity and good repeatability. Besides, temperature sensing is performed to explore its temperature response wherein it shows a sensitivity of 486.7 pm/ °C. These results show its potential for use in gas- and acoustic-sensing applications.

Optical Microfiber Reader for Enzyme-Linked Immunosorbent Assay.

In clinical diagnosis, accurate and reliable measurement technologies for the detection of disease biomarkers at ultralow concentrations can provide guidance for the initiation of treatment and potentially improve survival for patients. Here, we demonstrate an optical microfiber reader for enhanced analytical sensitivity in enzyme-linked immunosorbent assays (ELISA) that enables the detection of tiny changes of the refractive index (RI) induced by the catalyzed oxidation of substrate, owing to the strong interaction between the evanescent field and surrounding medium. By employing the microfiber reader for the C-reaction protein (CRP) and interleukin-6 (IL-6) assays after the enzymatic signal amplification in ELISA, we experimentally investigate the biosensing capacity of the device. As a result, log-linear relations of CRP and IL-6 detection in PBS and human serum between the concentration and spectral response were obtained at both nanogram and picogram levels, respectively, and anti-CRP/HRP detection as low as 9.75 pg/mL was achieved, which was undetectable by the conventional spectrophotometry. With a stable, accurate, and color-free detection capacity, this optical microfiber reader has a promising prospect in early disease diagnosis and clinical treatment.

Ultra-high sensitivity of dual dispersion turning point taper-based Mach-Zehnder interferometer.

We present here a detailed investigation into the sensitivity of the taper-based Mach-Zehnder interferometer as a function of external refractive index, with particular attention to the dispersion turning point (DTP) and possibilities for ultra-sensitive sensors. Our numerical simulation revealed that two DTPs exist with a decrease in the microfiber waist diameter; given this relationship, it is possible to obtain an ultra-sensitive operation. We then conducted experiments with fabricated devices with different waist diameters to achieve both positive and negative sensitivities at two DTPs. In particular, we achieved an ultrahigh refractive index sensitivity of approximately 95,832 nm/RIU at the second DTP when working with a diameter of 1.87 µm around the RI of air. These results show its potential for use in acoustic sensing and biochemical detection.

Two highly similar DEAD box proteins, OsRH2 and OsRH34, homologous to eukaryotic initiation factor 4AIII, play roles of the exon junction complex in regulating growth and development in rice.

BACKGROUND: The exon junction complex (EJC), which contains four core components, eukaryotic initiation factor 4AIII (eIF4AIII), MAGO/NASHI (MAGO), Y14/Tsunagi/RNA-binding protein 8A, and Barentsz/Metastatic lymph node 51, is formed in both nucleus and cytoplasm, and plays important roles in gene expression. Genes encoding core EJC components have been found in plants, including rice. Currently, the functional characterizations of MAGO and Y14 homologs have been demonstrated in rice. However, it is still unknown whether eIF4AIII is essential for the functional EJC in rice. RESULTS: This study investigated two DEAD box RNA helicases, OsRH2 and OsRH34, which are homologous to eIF4AIII, in rice. Amino acid sequence analysis indicated that OsRH2 and OsRH34 had 99 % identity and 100 % similarity, and their gene expression patterns were similar in various rice tissues, but the level of OsRH2 mRNA was about 58-fold higher than that of OsRH34 mRNA in seedlings. From bimolecular fluorescence complementation results, OsRH2 and OsRH34 interacted physically with OsMAGO1 and OsY14b, respectively, which indicated that both of OsRH2 and OsRH34 were core components of the EJC in rice. To study the biological roles of OsRH2 and OsRH34 in rice, transgenic rice plants were generated by RNA interference. The phenotypes of three independent OsRH2 and OsRH34 double-knockdown transgenic lines included dwarfism, a short internode distance, reproductive delay, defective embryonic development, and a low seed setting rate. These phenotypes resembled those of mutants with gibberellin-related developmental defects. In addition, the OsRH2 and OsRH34 double-knockdown transgenic lines exhibited the accumulation of unspliced rice UNDEVELOPED TAPETUM 1 mRNA. CONCLUSIONS: Rice contains two eIF4AIII paralogous genes, OsRH2 and OsRH34. The abundance of OsRH2 mRNA was about 58-fold higher than that of OsRH34 mRNA in seedlings, suggesting that the OsRH2 is major eIF4AIII in rice. Both OsRH2 and OsRH34 are core components of the EJC, and participate in regulating of plant height, pollen, and seed development in rice.