Beneficial effects of oxymatrine from Sophora flavescens on alleviating Ulcerative colitis by improving inflammation and ferroptosis.

ETHNOPHARMACOLOGICAL RELEVANCE: Sophora flavescens is often used in traditional Chinese medicine for skin issues, diarrhea, and vaginal itching (Plant names have been checked with http://www.the/plant/list.org on Feb 22nd, 2024). Oxymatrine (OY), a major bioactive compound from Sophora flavescens, is commonly used in China to treat ulcerative colitis, but its mechanisms are still unclear. AIM OF THE STUDY: Recent studies have found that the crosstalk between ferroptosis and inflammation is an important mechanism in the pathogenesis of UC. The aim of this study was to investigate the potential underlying mechanisms of OY treatment on DSS-induced ulcerative colitis, specifically focusing on the processes of ferroptosis and inflammation. MATERIALS AND METHODS: Bioinformatics methods were used to identify key targets of OY for ferroptosis and inflammation in ulcerative colitis, based on GEO data and FerrDb database. Then, 4% DSS solution was used to induce UC model. OY's impact on morphological changes was assessed using colon views, Hematoxylin and eosin (HE) staining, and transmission electron microscopy (TEM). Ferroptosis phenotype index and inflammations factors were detected by ELISA or chem-bio detection kits. The screen out hub related genes about ferroptosis and inflammation were verified by RT-PCR, immunohistochemistry (IHC), and western blotting (WB) respectively. RESULTS: Bioinformatics results show that there are 16 key target genes involved in ferroptosis and inflammation interaction of OY treatment for UC, such as IL6, NOS2, IDO1, SOCS1, and DUOX. The results of animal experiments show that OY could depress inflammatory factors (IL-1ß, IL-6, TNF-α, HMGB1, and NLRP3) and reduce iron deposition (Fe2+, GSH). Additionally, OY suppressed the hub genes or proteins expression involved in ferroptosis and inflammation, including IL-1ß, IL-6, NOS2, HIF1A, IDO1, TIMP1, and DUOX2. CONCLUSION: This present study combines bioinformatics, molecular biology, and animal experimental research evidently demonstrated that OY attenuates UC by improving ferroptosis and inflammation, mainly target to the expression of IL-1ß, IL-6, NOS2, HIF1A, IDO1, TIMP1, and DUOX2.

Preoperative vascular heterogeneity and aggressiveness assessment of pituitary macroadenoma based on dynamic contrast-enhanced MRI texture analysis.

PURPOSE: To assess the vascular heterogeneity and aggressiveness of pituitary macroadenomas (PM) using texture analysis based on Dynamic Contrast-Enhanced MRI (DCE-MRI). METHOD: Fifty patients with pathologically confirmed PM, including 32 patients with aggressive PM (aggressive group) and 18 patients with non-aggressive PM (non-aggressive group), were included in this study. The preoperative DCE-MRI and clinical data were collected from all patients. The features based on Ktrans, Ve, and Kep were generated using Omni-Kinetics software. Independent-samples t-test and Mann-Whitney U test were used for comparison between two groups. Logistic regression analysis was used to determine the optimal model for distinguishing aggressive and non-aggressive PM. RESULTS: Six features related to tumor morphology, 24 features in Ktrans, 20 features in Ve, and 3 features in Kep were significantly different between the aggressive and non-aggressive groups. Volume count, gray-level non-uniformity in Ktrans, voxel value sum in Ve and run-length non-uniformity in Kep (AUC = 0.816, 0.903, 0.785, 0.813) were considered the best feature for tumor diagnosis. After modeling, the diagnosis efficiency of mean model and total model was desirable (AUC = 0.859 and 0.957), and the diagnostic efficiency of morphological, Ktrans, Ve and Kep features model was improved (AUC = 0.845, 0.951, 0.847, 0.804). CONCLUSIONS: Texture analysis based on DCE-MRI elucidates the vascular heterogeneity and aggressiveness of pituitary adenoma. The total model could be used as a new noninvasive method for predicting the aggressiveness of pituitary macroadenoma.

Multifunctional Wearable Sensing Devices Based on Functionalized Graphene Films for Simultaneous Monitoring of Physiological Signals and Volatile Organic Compound Biomarkers.

In this study, a multifunctional wearable sensing device based on two different graphene films is fabricated and can achieve the simultaneous detection of physiological signals and volatile organic compound (VOC) biomarkers without mutual signal interference. The wearable device was designed with two sensing components: on the upper layer of the device, four kinds of porphyrin-modified reduced graphene oxide (rGO) films were prepared and used for a sensor array that could sufficiently react with VOC vapors to achieve highly sensitive detection. A porous rGO film was designed on the underlayer of the device and used as a strain-sensing matrix, which could be closely attached to the skin to achieve a highly sensitive detection of the physiological signal. A polyimide film between the two sensing components was used not only as a flexible substrate, but also as a protective layer to avoid the porous rGO film's response to VOC molecules. Investigation of the detection ability showed that the porous rGO strain-sensing matrix can achieve a higher gauge factor (282.28) than the unstructured rGO counterpart (8.96) and is more desirable for the detection of physiological motion. In contrast, the porphyrin-modified rGO sensor array displayed a superior response to VOC vapors, and eight different VOC biomarkers could be detected and discriminated using the as-prepared sensor array together with a pattern recognition approach. The multifunctional sensing devices displayed excellent ability for the detection of a variety of human physiological signals, such as pulse and respiration rates. Simultaneous analysis of simulated diabetic breath samples, simulated nephrotic breath samples, and breath samples exhaled by healthy individuals using our wearable device exhibited clear identification and discrimination. Our study provides new insights into fabrication and design of multifunctional sensing devices without signal interference, and the application of the proposed devices are promising in preventive medicine and health care.

Transplanted hUCB-MSCs migrated to the damaged area by SDF-1/CXCR4 signaling to promote functional recovery after traumatic brain injury in rats.

Transplanted human umbilical cord mesenchymal stem cells (hUC-MSCs) have exhibited considerable therapeutic potential for traumatic brain injury (TBI). However, how hUC-MSCs migrating to the injury region and the mechanism of hUC-MSCs promoting functional recovery after TBI are still unclear. In this study, we investigated whether stromal cell-derived factor-1 (SDF-1) was involved in the hUC-MSCs migration and the possible mechanisms that might be involved in the beneficial effect on functional recovery. In vitro experiments demonstrated that SDF-1 induces a concentration-dependent migration of hUC-MSCs. Furthermore, pre-treatment with the CXCR4-specific antagonist AMD3100 significantly prevented the migration of hUC-MSCs in vitro. We found that the expression of SDF-1 increased significantly around the damaged area. Transplanted hUC-MSCs were localized to regions where SDF-1 was highly expressed. Additionally, our results showed that hUC-MSCs-treated animals showed significantly improved functional recovery compared with controls. In hUC-MSCs-transplanted group, terminal deoxynucleotidyl transferase-mediated dUTP nick end-labeling (TUNEL)-positive cells were decreased and BrdU-positive cells were significantly increased compared with control group, more of BrdU-positive cells co-localized with GFAP. These suggest that SDF-1 plays an important role in the migration of hUC-MSCs to the damaged area and hUC-MSCs are beneficial for functional recovery after TBI.

Physiological and biochemical responses of Ulva prolifera and Ulva linza to cadmium stress.

Responses of Ulva prolifera and Ulva linza to Cd(2+) stress were studied. We found that the relative growth rate (RGR), Fv/Fm, and actual photochemical efficiency of PSII (Yield) of two Ulvaspecies were decreased under Cd(2+) treatments, and these reductions were greater in U. prolifera than in U. linza. U. prolifera accumulated more cadmium than U. linza under Cd(2+) stress. While U. linza showed positive osmotic adjustment ability (OAA) at a wider Cd(2+) range than U. prolifera. U. linza had greater contents of N, P, Na(+), K(+), and amino acids than U. prolifera. A range of parameters (concentrations of cadmium, Ca(2+), N, P, K(+), Cl(-), free amino acids (FAAs), proline, organic acids and soluble protein, Fv/Fm, Yield, OAA, and K(+)/Na(+)) could be used to evaluate cadmium resistance in Ulva by correlation analysis. In accordance with the order of the absolute values of correlation coefficient, contents of Cd(2+) and K(+), Yield, proline content, Fv/Fm, FAA content, and OAA value of Ulva were more highly related to their adaptation to Cd(2+) than the other eight indices. Thus, U. linza has a better adaptation to Cd(2+) than U. prolifera, which was due mainly to higher nutrient content and stronger OAA and photosynthesis in U. linza.

[Physiological responses of Enteromorpha linza and Enteromorpha prolifera to seawater salinity stress].

To investigate the physiological responses and adaptation mechanisms of Enteromorpha to seawater salinity stress, a laboratory experiment with Enteromorpha linza and E. prolifera was conducted to study their fresh mass (FM), relative growth rate (RGR), relative electrical conductivity (REC), chlorophyll (Chl) and carotenoid (Car) contents, Chl a/Chl b, Chl/Car, chlorophyll fluorescence parameters, and osmotic adjustment ability (OAA) under the stress of different salinity levels of diluted and concentrated seawater for 10 days. Compared with the control, 10%-200% salinity seawater increased the FM and RGR of the two Enteromorpha species obviously, 100% and 50% salinity seawater made the FM and RGR of E. linza and E. prolifera peaked, respectively, while 300% salinity seawater decreased the FM and RGR of E. linza and E. prolifera significantly, with the decrement being larger for E. linza. The biomass of E. linza and E. prolifer only had an increase in 50% and 100% sanity seawater and in 10%, 50%, 100%, and 200% salinity seawater, respectively. The Chl and Car contents and Chl a/Chl b of E. linza and E. prolifera had a significant increase in 10% salinity seawater, but decreased after an initial increase with the increasing salinity level of seawater. The Chl and Car contents and Chl a/Chl b of E. linza and E. prolifera peaked in 100% and 50% salinity seawater, respectively. With increasing salinity of seawater, the light use efficiency (alpha), maximal photochemical efficiency of PS II (F(v)/F(m)), actual photochemical efficiency of PS II in the light (Yield), maximal relative electron transport rate (rETR(max)), and half-saturation light intensity (I(k)) of E. linza and E. prolifera all showed the same variation trend as Chl. 10% -300% salinity seawater enabled E. linza and E. prolifera to express certain osmotic adjustment ability (OAA), and the OAA of E. linza and E. prolifer peaked in 100% and 50% salinity seawater, respectively. The growth of Enteromorpha had no correlation with Chl/Car, but was significantly negatively correlated with REC and positively correlated with Chl, Car, Chl a/ Chl b, F(v)/F(m), Yield, rETR(max), alpha, I(k), and OAA. To sum up, 100% salinity was the optimal salt concentration for the growth of E. linza, and 50% salinity was optimal for E. prolifera. E. prolifera could adapt to a wider range of salinity than E. linza. The parameters REC, Chl, Car, Chl a/Chl b, F(v)/F(m), Yield, rETR(max), alpha, I(k), and OAA could be used to evaluate the salt adaptation of Enteromorpha.