Insights into the roles of IL-10-producing regulatory B cells in cardiovascular disorders: recent advances and future perspectives.

Interleukin-10-producing regulatory B (B10) cells mediate the immunomodulatory functions of biosystems by secreting anti-inflammatory factors, thus playing vital roles in cardiovascular diseases such as viral myocarditis, myocardial infarction, and ischemia-reperfusion injury. However, several challenges hinder B10 cells from regulating the immunoreactivity of organisms in specific cardiovascular diseases, such as atherosclerotic disease. Regarding the regulatory mechanisms of B10 cells, the interplay between B10 cells and the cardiovascular and immune systems is complex and requires clarification. In this study, we summarize the roles of B10 cells in bacterial and aseptic heart injuries, address their regulatory functions in different stages of cardiovascular disorders, and discuss their challenges and opportunities in addressing cardiovascular diseases from bench to bedside.

Analysis of Differences in User Groups and Post Sentiment of COVID-19 Vaccine Hesitators in Chinese Social-Media Platforms.

(1) Background: The COVID-19 epidemic is still global and no specific drug has been developed for COVID-19. Vaccination can both prevent infection and limit the spread of the epidemic. Eliminating hesitation to the COVID-19 vaccine and achieving early herd immunity is a common goal for all countries. However, efforts in this area have not been significant and there is still a long way to go to eliminate vaccine hesitancy. (2) Objective: This study aimed to uncover differences in the characteristics and sentiments of COVID-19 vaccine hesitators on Chinese social-media platforms and to achieve a classification of vaccine-hesitant groups. (3) Methods: COVID-19-vaccine-hesitation posts and user characteristics were collected on the Sina Microblog platform for posting times spanning one year, and posts were identified for hesitation types. Logistic regression was used to conduct user-group analysis. The differences in user characteristics between the various types of COVID-19 vaccine posts were analysed according to four user characteristics: gender, address type, degree of personal-information disclosure, and whether they followed health topics. Sentiment analysis was conducted using sentiment analysis tools to calculate the sentiment scores and sentiment polarity of various COVID-19 vaccine posts, and the K-W test was used to uncover the sentiment differences between various types of COVID-19-vaccine-hesitation posts. (4) Results: There are differences in the types of COVID-19-vaccine-hesitation posts posted by users with different characteristics, and different types of COVID-19-vaccine-hesitation posts differ in terms of sentiment. Differences in user attributes and user behaviors are found across the different COVID-19-vaccine-hesitation types. Ultimately, two COVID-19-vaccine-hesitant user groups were identified: Body-related and Non-bodily-related. Users who posted body-related vaccine-hesitation posts are more often female, disclose more personal information and follow health topics on social-media platforms. Users who posted non-bodily-related posts are more often male, disclose less personal information, and do not follow health topics. The average sentiment score for all COVID-19-vaccine-hesitant-type posts is less than 0.45, with negative-sentiment posts outweighing positive- and neutral-sentiment posts in each type, among which the "Individual rights" type is the most negative. (5) Conclusions: This paper complements the application of user groups in the field of vaccine hesitation, and the results of the analysis of group characteristics and post sentiment can help to provide an in-depth and comprehensive analysis of the concerns and needs of COVID-19 vaccine hesitators. This will help public-health agencies to implement more targeted strategies to eliminate vaccine hesitancy and improve their work related to the COVID-19 vaccine, with far-reaching implications for COVID-19-vaccine promotion and vaccination.

Photocatalyst-free visible-light-induced highly selective acylation of purine nucleosides at the C6 position.

A protocol for visible-light-induced C-H acylation selectively at the C6 position of purine nucleosides with aldehydes under photocatalyst-free conditions was established herein. This protocol allows the green, mild, and efficient functionalization of various purine nucleosides with a broad range of alkyl and aryl aldehydes.

Research progress on the association between screen exposure and autism spectrum disorder in preschool children / 中国学校卫生

Abstract@#Autism spectrum disorder (ASD) is a lifelong neurodevelopmental disorder. Early life social experience assessment before symptoms of ASD might be helpful for determining the causal link between social experiences and early childhood ASD. Younger children are exposed to excessive screen time in recent years. This paper summarizes the association between screen exposure with ASD in preschool children, and proposes future research directions and provides evidencebased guidance to optimize and support children s early media experiences.

Effective conversion of maize straw wastes into bio-hydrogen by two-stage process integrating H2 fermentation and MECs.

The enhanced H2 production from maize straw had been achieved through the two-stage process of integrating H2 fermentation and microbial electrolysis cells (MECs) in the present work. Several key parameters affecting hydrolysis of maize straw through subcritical H2O were optimized by orthogonal design for saccharification of maize straw followed by H2 production through H2 fermentation. The maximum reducing sugar (RS) content of maize straw reached 469.7 mg/g-TS under the optimal hydrolysis condition with subcritical H2O combining with dilute HCl of 0.3% at 230 °C. The maximum H2 yield, H2 production rate, and H2 content was 115.1 mL/g-TVS, 2.6 mL/g-TVS/h, and 48.9% by H2 fermentation, respectively. In addition, the effluent from H2 fermentation was used as feedstock of MECs for additional H2 production. The maximum H2 yield of 1060 mL/g-COD appeared at an applied voltage of 0.8 V, and total COD removal reached about 35%. The overall H2 yield from maize straw reached 318.5 mL/g-TVS through two-stage processes. The structural characterization of maize straw was also carefully investigated by scanning electron microscopy (SEM), Fourier transform infrared spectroscopy (FTIR), and X-ray diffraction (XRD) spectra.

Direct degradation of cellulosic biomass to bio-hydrogen from a newly isolated strain Clostridium sartagoforme FZ11.

A mesophilic hydrogen-producing strain, Clostridium sartagoforme FZ11, had been newly isolated from cow dung compost acclimated using microcrystalline cellulose (MCC) for at least 30 rounds in an anaerobic bioreactor, and identified by the 16S rDNA gene sequencing, which could directly utilized various carbon sources, especially cellulosic biomass, to produce hydrogen. The maximum hydrogen yields from MCC (10 g/l) and carboxymethyl cellulose (CMC, 10 g/l) were 77.2 and 64.6 ml/g, separately. Furthermore, some key parameters of affecting hydrogen production from raw corn stalk were also optimized. The maximal hydrogen yield and substrate degradation rate from raw corn stalk were 87.2 ml/g and 41.2% under the optimized conditions with substrate concentration of 15 g/l, phosphate buffer of 0.15 M, urea of 6 g/l and initial pH of 6.47 at 35 °C. The result showed that the strain FZ11 would be an ideal candidate to directly convert cellulosic biomass into bio-hydrogen without substrate pretreatment.

Highly efficient iodide/triiodide dye-sensitized solar cells with gel-coated reduce graphene oxide/single-walled carbon nanotube composites as the counter electrode exhibiting an open-circuit voltage of 0.90 V.

To increase the open-circuit voltage (Voc) of dye-sensitized solar cells (DSCs), it is crucial to enhance the photovoltaic efficiency of DSCs. Here, we report an effective method to significantly improve the Voc and photovoltaic efficiency of DSCs by using gel-coated composites of reduced graphene oxide (rGO) and single-walled carbon nanotubes (SWCNTs) as the counter electrode. Gel-coated rGO-SWCNT composites outperform Pt, rGO and SWCNTs in catalyzing the reduction of I3(-) and functioning as the counter electrode of DSCs. The Voc and power conversion efficiency (PCE) are 0.86 V and 8.37% for fresh DSCs with the composite of 80 wt % rGO and 20 wt % SWCNTs, significantly higher than those (Voc = 0.77 V, PCE = 7.79%) of control DSCs with Pt fabricated by pyrolysis as the counter electrode. The Voc value of DSCs with rGO-SWCNT composites as the counter electrode further increases to 0.90 V after one week. The high Voc and PCE are ascribed to the synergetic effects of rGO and SWCNTs in reducing the overpotential of the I3(-) reduction. RGO with high specific surface area can have high electrocatalytic activity, whereas SWCNTs give rise to high conductivity for the composites and facilitate the penetration of the redox species into rGO sheets by preventing the agglomeration of the rGO sheets. To the best of our knowledge, this is the first time to report iodide/triiodide DSCs with both high Voc and PCE.

Genetic variation of major histocompatibility complex BLB2 gene exon 2 in Hebei domestic chicken.

Genetic variation of MHC BLB2 gene exon 2 in Hebei domestic chicken was investigated, after PCR and sequencing of a 374bp fragment (containing entire exon 2 (270bp) of BLB2 gene) in 76 individuals. The results showed that along this fragment, there were 69 variable sites, of which 18 were novel variations, and 82 estimated haplotypes with the diversity of 0.960. In Hebei domestic chicken, the nucleotide diversity (π), the average number of nucleotide differences (k), the average number of nucleotide diversity of synonymous substitution (π(s)) and non-synonymous substitution (π(a)) in BLB2 gene exon 2 were 0.098, 24.688, 0.075, and 0.106, respectively; nine non-synonymous substitutions was exclusively found in the peptide-binding sites (PBS) region of BLB2 gene exon 2, inferring that these unique substitutions might be helpful to resist some special bacteria and pathogens. The higher genetic diversity of MHC BLB2 gene exon 2 in Hebei domestic chicken might be consistent with its more robust disease resistance.

Sequence analysis of the lactoferrin gene and variation of g.7605C→T in 10 Chinese indigenous goat breeds.

Much attention has been focused on the study of lactoferrin at the protein or nucleotide level in mice, humans, and cattle, but little is known about it in goats. The goat LF gene from 5' UTR to exon 17 was amplified, and the variation of g.7605C→T in 10 Chinese indigenous goat breeds was analyzed. Among the three ruminant species (cattle, sheep, and goats), the intron-exon distribution pattern was similar, and all the exons had the same length, but the length of introns varied greatly due to insertions or deletions. The frequency of allele T at g.7605C→T (50.12%) was a little higher than that of allele C (49.88%), and the genotype distribution differed greatly between goat populations. The g.7605C→T site showed higher genetic diversity in goat populations. The genetic differentiation was 0.0783, and gene flow was 2.9433 among the 10 Chinese indigenous goat populations.

Molecular characterization of the full-length coding sequence of the caprine laminin receptor gene (RPSA).

Scrapie is a prion disease in sheep and goats. Ribosomal protein SA (RPSA), also called 37 kDa laminin receptor precursor/67 kDa laminin receptor has been demonstrated to be a putative cell surface receptor for prion. To investigate the caprine RPSA, we cloned the full-length coding sequence of the gene of goat and submitted it to GenBank. The length of the open reading frame is 888 bp, encoding 295 amino acids. The putative amino acid sequence is highly similar to that of other mammals. The caprine amino acid sequence of RPSA is shown to be identical to the sequence of species susceptible to scrapie at positions 241, 272, and 291. The phylogenetic tree analysis revealed that the genetic distance between sheep and goat is the smallest. Moreover, RT-PCR results of 11 tissues indicated that RPSA mRNA is expressed in all selected caprine tissues.

Screening for new agonists against Alzheimer's disease.

To find new drug candidates for treating Alzheimer's disease, we used the similarity search technique and GTS-21 as a template to search the Traditional Chinese Medicines Database. The high-score molecules thus obtained were compared with the template through the flexible alignment. Those molecules which had good alignment with GTS-21 were selected for conducting the docking studies aimed at the alpha7 nicotinic acetylcholine receptor. The CHARMM22 force field was taken to compute the partial charge and the TABU search was adopted to operate the docking process. The docking results thus obtained were used to compare with that of GTS-21. Those molecules which had better docking results than that of GTS-21 were singled out for further consideration. Finally, it was found through an in-depth structural analysis that Mol 7235 might be a promising candidate for further modification by experiments to make it become an effective drug for treating Alzheimer's disease.

Molecular insights of SAH enzyme catalysis and implication for inhibitor design.

Biological transmethylation reaction is a key step in the duplication of virus life cycle, in which S-adenosylmethionine plays as the methyl donor. The product of this reactions, S-adenosylhomocysteine (AdoHcy) inhibits the transmethylation process. AdoHcy is hydrolysed to adenosine and L-homocysteine by the action of S-adenosylhomocysteine hydrolase (SAH). Thus the virus life cycle should be cut off once the action of SAH is inhibited. Our study was focussed on the discovery of potential inhibitor against SAH. We performed a similarity search in Traditional Chinese Medicine Database and retrieved 17 hits with high similarity. After that we virtually docked the 17 compounds as well as the natural substrates to the hydrolase using Autodock 3.0.1 software. Then we discussed about the mechanism of the inhibition reaction, followed by proposing the potential inhibitors by comparing best docked solutions and possible modification for the best inhibitors.