Triclosan-loaded aged microplastics exacerbate oxidative stress and neurotoxicity in Xenopus tropicalis tadpoles via increased bioaccumulation.

Microplastics and chlorine-containing triclosan (TCS) are widespread in aquatic environments and may pose health risks to organisms. However, studies on the combined toxicity of aged microplastics and TCS are limited. To investigate the toxic effects and potential mechanisms associated with co-exposure to TCS adsorbed on aged polyethylene microplastics (aPE-MPs) at environmentally relevant concentrations, a 7-day chronic exposure experiment was conducted using Xenopus tropicalis tadpoles. The results showed that the overall particle size of aPE-MPs decreased after 30 days of UV aging, whereas the increase in specific surface area improved the adsorption capacity of aPE-MPs for TCS, resulting in the bioaccumulation of TCS under dual-exposure conditions in the order of aPE-TCS > PE-TCS > TCS. Co-exposure to aPE-MPs and TCS exacerbated oxidative stress and neurotoxicity to a greater extent than a single exposure. Significant upregulation of pro-symptomatic factors (IL-ß and IL-6) and antioxidant enzyme activities (SOD and CAT) indicated that the aPE-TCS combination caused more severe oxidative stress and inflammation. Molecular docking revealed the molecular mechanism of the direct interaction between TCS and SOD, CAT, and AChE proteins, which explains why aPE-MPs promote the bioaccumulation of TCS, causing increased toxicity upon combined exposure. These results emphasize the need to be aware of the combined toxicity caused by the increased ability of aged microplastics to carry contaminants.

Immunodiagnosis - the promise of personalized immunotherapy.

Immunotherapy showed remarkable efficacy in several cancer types. However, the majority of patients do not benefit from immunotherapy. Evaluating tumor heterogeneity and immune status before treatment is key to identifying patients that are more likely to respond to immunotherapy. Demographic characteristics (such as sex, age, and race), immune status, and specific biomarkers all contribute to response to immunotherapy. A comprehensive immunodiagnostic model integrating all these three dimensions by artificial intelligence would provide valuable information for predicting treatment response. Here, we coined the term "immunodiagnosis" to describe the blueprint of the immunodiagnostic model. We illustrated the features that should be included in immunodiagnostic model and the strategy of constructing the immunodiagnostic model. Lastly, we discussed the incorporation of this immunodiagnosis model in clinical practice in hopes of improving the prognosis of tumor immunotherapy.

Surface-driven fast sodium storage enabled by Se-doped honeycomb-like macroporous carbon.

Selenium (Se) is an ideal doping agent to modulate the structure of carbon materials to improve their sodium storage performance but has been rarely investigated. In the present study, a novel Se-doped honeycomb-like macroporous carbon (Se-HMC) is prepared by a surface crosslinking method using diphenyl diselenide as the carbon source and SiO2 nanospheres as the template. Se-HMC has a high Se weight percentage above 10%, with a large surface area of 557 m2 g-1. Owing to the well-developed porous structure in combination with Se-assisted capacitive redox reactions, Se-HMC exhibits surface-dominated Na storage behaviors, thus presenting large capacity and fast Na storage capability. To be specific, Se-HMC delivers a high reversible capacity of 335 mA h g-1 at 0.1 A g-1, and after an 800-cycle repeated charge/discharge test at 1 A g-1, the capacity is stable with no dramatic loss. Remarkably, the capacity remains 251 mA h g-1 under a very large current density of 5 A g-1 (≈20 C), demonstrating an ultrafast Na storage process. As far as we know, such a good rate performance has been rarely achieved for carbon anodes before.

Construction of Mixed Ionic-Electronic Conducting Scaffolds in Zn Powder: A Scalable Route to Dendrite-Free and Flexible Zn Anodes.

Zn powder (Zn-P)-based anodes are considered ideal candidates for Zn-based batteries because they enable a positive synergistic integration of safety and energy density. However, Zn-P-based anodes still experience easy corrosion, uncontrolled dendrite growth, and poor mechanical strength, which restrict their further application. Herein, a mixed ionic-electronic conducting scaffold is introduced into Zn-P to successfully fabricate anti-corrosive, flexible, and dendrite-free Zn anodes using a scalable tape-casting strategy. The as-established scaffold is characterized by robust flexibility, facile scale-up synthesis methodology, and exceptional anti-corrosive characteristics, and it can effectively homogenize the Zn2+ flux during Zn plating/stripping, thus allowing stable Zn cycling. Benefiting from these comprehensive attributes, the as-prepared Zn-P-based anode provides superior electrochemical performance, including long-life cycling stability and high rate capability in practical coin and flexible pouch cells; thus, it holds great potential for developing advanced Zn-ion batteries. The findings of this study provide insights for a promising scalable pathway to fabricate highly efficient and reliable Zn-based anodes and will aid in the realization of advanced flexible energy-storage devices.

The role of absolute humidity in respiratory mortality in Guangzhou, a hot and wet city of South China.

BACKGROUND: For the reason that many studies have been inconclusive on the effect of humidity on respiratory disease, we examined the association between absolute humidity and respiratory disease mortality and quantified the mortality burden due to non-optimal absolute humidity in Guangzhou, China. METHODS: Daily respiratory disease mortality including total 42,440 deaths from 1 February 2013 to 31 December 2018 and meteorological data of the same period in Guangzhou City were collected. The distributed lag non-linear model was used to determine the optimal absolute humidity of death and discuss their non-linear lagged effects. Attributable fraction and population attributable mortality were calculated based on the optimal absolute humidity, defined as the minimum mortality absolute humidity. RESULTS: The association between absolute humidity and total respiratory disease mortality showed an M-shaped non-linear curve. In total, 21.57% (95% CI 14.20 ~ 27.75%) of respiratory disease mortality (9154 deaths) was attributable to non-optimum absolute humidity. The attributable fractions due to high absolute humidity were 13.49% (95% CI 9.56 ~ 16.98%), while mortality burden of low absolute humidity were 8.08% (95% CI 0.89 ~ 13.93%), respectively. Extreme dry and moist absolute humidity accounted for total respiratory disease mortality fraction of 0.87% (95% CI - 0.09 ~ 1.58%) and 0.91% (95% CI 0.25 ~ 1.39%), respectively. There was no significant gender and age difference in the burden of attributable risk due to absolute humidity. CONCLUSIONS: Our study showed that both high and low absolute humidity are responsible for considerable respiratory disease mortality burden, the component attributed to the high absolute humidity effect is greater. Our results may have important implications for the development of public health measures to reduce respiratory disease mortality.

Methods of health risk and impact assessment at industrially contaminated sites: a systematic review.

BACKGROUND: this paper is based upon work from COST Action ICSHNet. Industrially contaminated sites (ICSs) are a serious problem worldwide and there is growing concern about their impacts on the environment and public health. Health risk assessment methods are used to characterize and quantify the health impacts on nearby populations and to guide public health interventions. However, heterogeneous methods and inconsistent reporting practices compromise comparability risk and impact estimates. OBJECTIVES: to review the literature on assessment of the adverse health effects of ICSs. Specifically, we: - collect published, peer-reviewed literature addressing health assessment of ICSs; - identified and evaluated the methods and tools for the assessment of health impacts related to ICSs; - analysed the methods and tools used in different conditions; - discussed the strengths and weaknesses of the identified approaches; - presented an up-to-date understanding of the available health risk and impact assessment in ICSs. In addition, the terminologies were described and harmonization was proposed. METHODS: we systematically searched PubMed and Web of Science to identify peer-reviewed reviews and original studies from January 1989 to December 2017. We used a qualitative approach for analysing the different elements (type of ICSs, Country of research, active years of working, distance from sources, pollutants, affected population, methods and tools, health outcomes, main founding, method stage, dose-response assessment, risk characterization) of included studies. We divided risk assessment methods used in the papers into four stages: semi-quantitative, quantitative, health impact, and health burden stage. RESULTS: a total of 92 relevant original papers at ICSs were found and analysed. In current practice, the health risks have been characterized mainly as hazard quotients or hazard indexes (23 studies), and as cancer risk probabilities (60 studies). Only 8 studies estimated the number of cases and one study evaluated years of life lost. CONCLUSION: hazard quotients and cancer probabilities are suitable for semi-quantitative and quantitative personal risk estimation, respectively. More comparable risk characterization on public health level requires specificity on the type of outcome and corresponding number of cases. Such data is needed for prioritization of action at low to medium risk sites. We found limited amount of studies that have quantified the health impact at industrially contaminated sites. Most of the studies have used semi-quantitative risk characterization approaches and the adopted methods are mostly of toxicological origin, while epidemiological analysis is almost lacking. There is a need to improve quantitative risk assessment and include health impact and environmental burden of disease assessments at ICSs.

Functional nanonetwork-structured polymers and carbons with silver nanoparticle yolks for antibacterial application.

Functional nanonetwork-structured polymers and carbons with silver nanoparticle yolks (∼20 nm) were successfully fabricated via hypercrosslinking chemistry. Benefiting from the hierarchical porous nanonetwork structure and high surface areas (up to 566 m2 g-1), the as-prepared nanocomposites demonstrated superior long-term antibacterial performances (e.g., 6 days).

[Applying randomized terminal linker-dependent PCR to detect the DNA damage of p53 gene in rat].

In order to use the technique of Randomized Terminal Linker-dependent PCR(RDPCR) to detect DNA lesions of specific gene in vivo, rats were administered with potassium dichromate by i.p. injection and genomic DNA of lung were extracted. Single-stranded products were made by repeated primer extension, these products were ligated to a linker and thus amplified by primer P2 and PL. The final PCR products were detected by electrophoresis and Southern hybridization with DIG-labeled probe. The results showed that two hybridization bands for extron 7 of p53 gene were found with dosage of 20.0 mg/kg and 40.0 mg/kg indicating the DNA lesions of extron 7 of p53 gene, by potassium dichromate and there were two DNA lesion cites. The findings from this study provide evidences both for further investigation of mutational mechanism of hexavalent chromium and expansion on using RDPCR in toxicology.