Copper-Catalyzed Multicomponent Coupling Reaction of Primary Aromatic Amines, Rongalite, and Alkynes: Access to N-Aryl Propargylamines.

In this work, a practical copper-catalyzed multicomponent coupling reaction of primary aromatic amines, rongalite, and alkynes for the direct synthesis of N-aryl propargylamines has been developed. This method could overcome the substrate limitation in A3 coupling reactions of primary aromatic amines, formaldehyde, and alkynes. Mechanistic studies revealed that rongalite acts as not only the active C1 unit but also the accelerator to activate the in situ-generated N-arylmethanimines for the coupling reaction with alkynes. This coupling reaction is highly efficient and features a broad substrate scope, as well as utility with scale-up synthesis and converting the corresponding product N-aryl propargylamines into useful heterocyclic skeletons.

Deriving ecological risk thresholds for soil molybdenum in China based on interspecies correlation estimation and quantitative ion character-activity relationship models.

Soil molybdenum (Mo) levels can reach ecologically hazardous levels. China has not yet established the relevant thresholds, posing challenges for environmental management. Therefore, we present our data relevant to Mo toxicity for several important species. By normalizing soil properties, we obtained a correlation model of Mo toxicity to Hordeum vulgare, as well as 31 models for the toxicity of other elements including Cu and Ni to invertebrates and microbial processes. Using interspecies correlation estimation (ICE) extrapolation, the sensitivity coefficient (0.12-0.71) for five plants were found. For invertebrates and microbial processes lacking Mo data, we used regression analysis to establish Mo toxicity models based on the soil quantitative ion character-activity relationships (s-QICAR; R2 =0.70-0.95) and known toxicities of other metal elements to invertebrate and microbial processes. Furthermore, combining species sensitivity distribution calculations, the HC5 values for protecting 95% of soil species from Mo in three typical soil scenarios in China were calculated. After correction, the predicted no-effect concentrations were 6.8, 4.8, and 3.4 mg/kg, respectively. This study innovatively combined ICE and s - QICAR to derive soil Mo thresholds. Our results can provide a basis for decision-making in the assessment and management of soil Mo pollution.

Plasma MCP-1 and TGF-ß1 Levels are Associated with Kidney Injury in Children with Congenital Anomalies of the Kidney and Urinary Tract.

Congenital anomalies of the kidney and urinary tract (CAKUT) are primarily causal for end-stage renal disease and have significant implications for long-term survival. A total of 39 healthy controls and 94 children with chronic kidney disease (CKD) were enrolled (3-12 years old as children, 13-18 years old as adolescents), who were divided into CAKUT and Non-CAKUT according to the etiology of CKD. CKD group was further classified according to estimating glomerular filtration rate (eGFR). Circulating levels of inflammatory markers such as interleukin-6 (IL-6), tumor necrosis factor-α (TNF-α), monocyte chemokine-1 (MCP-1), and transforming growth factor-ß1 (TGF-ß1) were analyzed. The relationship between these inflammatory markers with eGFR and the kidney injury parameter (urine protein) was investigated to assess their potential as early markers of disease progression. All circulating levels of these inflammatory cytokines were increased in CKD patients (including CAKUT and Non-CAKUT) compared with healthy subjects. The circulating levels of MCP-1 and TGF-ß1 were increased in CAKUT adolescents compared with CAKUT children. In CAKUT children, levels of MCP-1 and TGF-ß1 increased as CKD progressed, and MCP-1 and TGF-ß1 were negatively and significantly correlated with eGFR and positively with urine protein. MCP-1 and TGF-ß1 may contribute to the early detection of CKD and disease stage/progression in CAKUT children.

Contextual Learning in Fourier Complex Field for VHR Remote Sensing Images.

Very high-resolution (VHR) remote sensing (RS) image classification is the fundamental task for RS image analysis and understanding. Recently, Transformer-based models demonstrated outstanding potential for learning high-order contextual relationships from natural images with general resolution ( ≈ 224 × 224 pixels) and achieved remarkable results on general image classification tasks. However, the complexity of the naive Transformer grows quadratically with the increase in image size, which prevents Transformer-based models from VHR RS image ( ≥ 500 × 500 pixels) classification and other computationally expensive downstream tasks. To this end, we propose to decompose the expensive self-attention (SA) into real and imaginary parts via discrete Fourier transform (DFT) and, therefore, propose an efficient complex SA (CSA) mechanism. Benefiting from the conjugated symmetric property of DFT, CSA is capable to model the high-order contextual information with less than half computations of naive SA. To overcome the gradient explosion in Fourier complex field, we replace the Softmax function with the carefully designed Logmax function to normalize the attention map of CSA and stabilize the gradient propagation. By stacking various layers of CSA blocks, we propose the Fourier complex Transformer (FCT) model to learn global contextual information from VHR aerial images following the hierarchical manners. Universal experiments conducted on commonly used RS classification datasets demonstrate the effectiveness and efficiency of FCT, especially on VHR RS images. The source code of FCT will be available at https://github.com/Gao-xiyuan/FCT.

ENTPD1-AS1-miR-144-3p-mediated high expression of COL5A2 correlates with poor prognosis and macrophage infiltration in gastric cancer.

BACKGROUND: Gastric cancer (GC) is a malignant tumor with high morbidity and mortality. Expression of COL5A2 is significantly elevated in GC. Abnormal expression of noncoding RNAs (ncRNAs) have been found in GC, including microRNA (miRNA) and long noncoding RNA (lncRNA). Competing endogenous RNA network plays an important regulatory role in GC. However, its specific regulatory mechanism has not been elucidated. AIM: To gain insight into the ncRNA regulatory mechanism and immune microenvironment related to COL5A2 in GC. METHODS: RNA sequencing data and clinical information from The Cancer Genome Atlas data portal were used to analyze the expressions of COL5A2, miRNA and lncRNA related to the prognosis of GC. Cox regression analysis and Kyoto Encyclopedia of Genes and Genomes analysis were performed to assess the risk factors and relevant function of COL5A2. StarBase was used to predict the interaction of miRNA-lncRNA or miRNA-mRNA in GC. The relationship between COL5A2, miR-144-3p and ENTPD1-AS1 were verified by dual luciferase reporter assay. The association of COL5A2 with immune cell infiltration were analyzed using the Tumor Immune Estimation Resource database and single sample gene set enrichment analysis. The expression of COL5A2 and macrophages in paired GC tissues were detected by immunohistochemical staining. RESULTS: We verified that the upregulation of COL5A2 expression was associated with the prognosis of GC and was an independent risk factor for GC. miR-144-3p was downregulated and correlated with the prognosis of GC. miR-144-3p regulated the expression of COL5A2 through direct interaction with COL5A2. ENTPD1-AS1 was elevated in GC and competitively bound to miR-144-3p, thus inhibiting the expression of miR-144-3p. ENTPD1-AS1 enhanced the expression of COL5A2 through sponging miR-144-3p. Compared to paired normal tissue, COL5A2 expression was upregulated at the protein level, especially in the middle and late stages of GC. The high expression of COL5A2 was positively linked to macrophage infiltration in GC. CONCLUSION: COL5A2 regulated by ENTPD1-AS1-miR-144-3p was associated with poor prognosis and macrophage infiltration in GC. This could be a new biomarker and therapeutic target in GC.

The Efficacy of REG Proteins as a Diagnostic Biomarker for Pancreatic Cancer: a Meta-Analysis.

BACKGROUND: Regenerating gene (REG) family proteins play a pivotal role in cell proliferation, tissue regeneration, and tumor metastasis. Recent studies have concentrated on the role of REG proteins in pancreatic cancer, but the results remain controversial. In this study, a meta-analysis was performed to evaluate the precise diagnostic value of REG proteins in pancreatic cancer. METHODS: A search was conducted in PubMed, Medline, Embase, Cochrane Library, Chinese National Knowledge Infrastructure (CNKI), Biomedical Literature Database (CBM), and WANFANG Data up to May 5, 2021. The QUADAS-2 tool was used to evaluate the quality of the included studies. The statistical analysis of the diagnostic tests was conducted using RevMan5 and Meta-Disc 1.4. The pooled sensitivity, specificity, positive likelihood ratio (PLR), negative likelihood ratio (NLR), diagnostic odds ratio (DOR), and their 95% confidence intervals (95% CIs) were calculated from each eligible study. RESULTS: The meta-analysis included 15 articles containing 796 patients and 584 controls. The pooled sensitivity was 0.71 (95% CI: 0.67 - 0.74), the pooled specificity was 0.73 (95% CI: 0.70 - 0.76), and the pooled DOR was 11.35 (95% CI: 5.92 - 21.77), respectively. The overall area under the receiver operating characteristic curve (AUC) was 0.84. Spearman's correlation coefficient was 0.34 (p = 0.221). For the subgroup analysis, the REG4 protein showed higher diagnostic accuracy compared with the other REG proteins. CONCLUSIONS: REG proteins have moderate diagnostic accuracy in pancreatic cancer. Further well-designed studies with larger sample sizes and clinical application are needed to validate the results of this meta-analysis.

Tetrandrine attenuates SNI-induced mechanical allodynia by inhibiting spinal CKLF1.

Neuropathic pain (NP) is a prevalent clinical problem for which satisfactory treatment options are unavailable. Tetrandrine (TET), a bisbenzylisoquinoline alkaloid extracted from Stephania tetrandra S. Moore, possesses anti-inflammatory and immune-modulatory properties. Chemokine-like factor 1 (CKLF1) is known to play a crucial role in both peripheral and central inflammatory processes. This study aimed to investigate the potential anti-NP effects of TET and the involvement of CKLF1 in the action of TET. A male C57BL/6J mice model of NP caused by spared nerve injury (SNI) was established and mechanical withdrawal thresholds were measured using von Frey filaments. The results showed that TET improved mechanical allodynia in SNI mice and the propofol-induced sleep assay demonstrated that the TET group did not exhibit central inhibition, while the pregabalin (PGB) group showed significant central inhibition. Western blotting and immunofluorescence staining showed that TET significantly inhibited spinal protein expression levels of CKLF1, p-NF-κB/NF-κB, p-IKK/IKK, pro-inflammatory cytokines IL-1ß and TNF-α, and increased protein expression levels of the anti-inflammatory cytokine IL-10, while inhibiting the expression levels of microglia and astrocyte markers IBA-1 and GFAP of SNI mice. Moreover, immunofluorescence double-labeling results revealed that CKLF1 was predominantly colocalized with microglia of the spinal cord (SC) in SNI mice. C19 (an antagonism peptide of CKLF1) alleviated SNI-induced mechanical pain hypersensitivity, while C27 (an analog peptide of CKLF1) induced mechanical allodynia in normal mice. TET significantly attenuated mechanical allodynia induced by C27 in mice. TET may effectively alleviate NP by reducing neuroinflammation and decreasing CKLF1.

TACC diagnosed by transoesophageal endoscopic ultrasonography: A case report.

BACKGROUND: Primary adenoid cystic carcinoma in the trachea (TACC) is a rare tumour. Tracheal bronchoscopy is always chosen as a routine approach to obtain a pathological diagnosis, but it can be associated with an increased risk of asphyxia. CASE SUMMARY: We describe a case of TACC in a patient evaluated by chest computed tomography (CT) with three-dimensional reconstruction imaging and diagnosed by transoesophageal endoscopic ultrasonography. The pathological diagnosis confirmed tracheal adenoid cystic carcinoma. CONCLUSION: We highlight the importance of CT and provide a successful exploration of transoesophageal biopsy as a safe alternative approach.

Body composition and mortality in a cohort study of Chinese patients with hypertrophic cardiomyopathy.

Objective: To analyse the characteristics and mortality of hypertrophic cardiomyopathy (HCM) patients with different body compositions. Methods: In this study, 530 consecutive patients with HCM at West China Hospital were studied from November 2008 to May 2016. An equation based on body mass index (BMI) was used to obtain the Percent body fat (BF) and lean mass index (LMI). Patients were divided into five sex-specific BMI, BF and LMI quintiles. Results: The average BMI, BF and LMI were 23.1 ± 3.2 kg/m2, 28.1 ± 7.3% and 16.5 ± 2.2 kg/m2, respectively. Patients with higher BMI or BF were older and had more symptoms and adverse cardiovascular conditions; those with higher LMI were younger and had less coronary artery disease and lower serum NT-proBNP and creatine. BF correlated positively with resting left ventricular (LV) outflow tract gradient, mitral regurgitation (MR) degree and left atrial diameter but was inversely associated with septal wall thickness (SWT), posterior wall thickness (PWT), LV mass, and E/A ratio; LMI was positively correlated with SWT, LV end diastolic volume and LV mass but was negatively associated with MR degree.48 all-cause deaths occurred during a median follow-up of 33.8 months. Reversed J-shape associations of BMI and LMI with mortality were observed. A lower BMI or LMI was significantly associated with high mortality, especially for low-moderate BMI and LMI. No significant difference in mortality was found across BF quintiles. Conclusions: The associations of BMI, BF and LMI with baseline characteristics and cardiac remodelling are different in HCM patients. In Chinese HCM patients, low BMI and LMI predicted mortality but not BF.

The influence of pressure injury risk on the association between left ventricular ejection fraction and all-cause mortality in patients with acute myocardial infarction 80 years or older.

BACKGROUND: We aimed to investigate whether the pressure injury risk mediates the association of left ventricular ejection fraction (LVEF) with all-cause death in patients with acute myocardial infarction (AMI) aged 80 years or older. METHODS: This retrospective cohort study included 677 patients with AMI aged 80 years or older from a tertiary-level hospital. Pressure injury risk was assessed using the Braden scale at admission, and three risk groups (low/minimal, intermediate, high) were defined according to the overall score of six different variables. LVEF was measured during the index hospitalization for AMI. All-cause death after hospital discharge was the primary outcome. RESULTS: Over a median follow-up period of 1,176 d (interquartile range [IQR], 722-1,900 d), 226 (33.4%) patients died. Multivariate Cox regression analysis showed that reduced LVEF was associated with an increased risk of all-cause death only in the high-risk group of pressure injury (adjusted hazard ratios [HR]=1.81, 95% confidence interval [CI]: 1.03-3.20; P=0.040), but not in the low/minimal- (adjusted HR=1.29, 95%CI: 0.80-2.11; P=0.299) or intermediate-risk groups (adjusted HR=1.14, 95%CI: 0.65-2.02; P=0.651). Significant interactions were detected between pressure injury risk and LVEF (adjusted P=0.003). The cubic spline with hazard ratio plot revealed a distinct shaped curve relation between LVEF and all-cause death among different pressure injury risk groups. CONCLUSIONS: In older patients with AMI, the risk of pressure injury mediated the association between LVEF and all-cause death. The classification of older patients for both therapy and prognosis assessment appears to be improved by the incorporation of pressure injury risk assessment into AMI care management.

[Vitiligo Combined With Annular Lichen Planus: A Rare Case Report].

A 36-year-old female patient came to our hospital with the chief complaint of having white patches on her waist for 10-plus years and having new annular plaques appearing on the white patches for 6-plus months. Wood's lamp examination done in the hospital showed a positive result. Histopathology of skin tissue from the edge of the annular swelling on the right waist revealed epidermal hyperkeratosis, wedge-shaped thickening of the granular layer, liquefactive degeneration of the basal cells, and a band-like infiltration of lymphocytes in the superficial dermis. The patient was diagnosed with vitiligo combined with annular lichen planus (ALP). The patient was treated with topical halometasone cream administered twice a day. The purplish-red annular plagues subsided and disappeared almost completely one month after the treatment was started and no signs of recurrence were observed duringn the 2-month follow-up. ALP is a rare variant of lichen planus. There has been no reported case of vitiligo combined with ALP so far.

Two new monoterpene esters from Illigera paviflora Dunn roots.

Two new monoterpene esters, illigerates H and I (1 and 2), and six known compounds actinodaphine (3), bulbocupnine (4), stephanine (5), hypserpanine B (6), betulinic acid (7) and gallic acid (8) were obtained from the root of Illigera paviflora Dunn. Their structures were elucidated by spectroscopic analysis. Anti-inflammatory and α-glucosidase inhibitory activity of some isolated compounds were assessed. Two monoterpenes 1 and 2 exhibited weak in vitro anti-inflammatory activity (IC50 64.5 ± 5.3 and 79.2 ± 7.5 µM) while compounds 3-6 showed inhibition of α-glucosidase with IC50 values ranged from 87.17 to 118.74 µM.

Self-Assembly of Mechanoluminochromic Ladder-Shaped Gold(I) Clusters Promoted Using Cooperative Aurophilicity.

The self-assembly of mechanoluminochromic polynuclear gold(I) complexes has attracted more and more attention in the field of supramolecular gold(I) chemistry. In this work, we adopted a stepwise self-assembly strategy to precisely synthesize two polynuclear gold(I) supramolecular clusters. Through cooperative AuI···AuI and Au-N interactions, the gold(I) clusters 1+•BF4- and 24+•4BF4- with Au4 and Au16 cores, respectively, were successfully constructed. In these supramolecular clusters, (dppm)Au2Cl2 coordination motifs and trithiocyanuric linkers were stepwise assembled via sequential thiolate-chloride/phosphine coordination substitution and Au-S/Au-N coordination bond rearrangement. Two well-defined gold(I) supramolecular clusters displayed intense emission both in the solid state and in solution. Furthermore, the ladder-shaped cluster 24+•4BF4- exhibited reversible mechanochromic luminescence behavior in the solid state as well as aggregation-caused redshifted emission in solution. Upon mechanical grinding, the emission of the cluster 24+•4BF4- changed from yellow at 582 nm to red at 612 nm. The initial emission could be fully recovered by treatment with acetonitrile.

The discovery of potentially active diterpenoids to inhibit the pyroptosis from Callicarpa arborea.

Pyroptosis is a programmed-inflammatory cell death, which leads to release of inflammatory cellular contents and formation of inflammation. Uncontrollable pyroptosis can result in serious immune diseases, such as cytokine release syndrome (CRS), sepsis, disseminated intravascular coagulation (DIC), and acute organ damage, including acute respiratory distress syndrome (ARDS) and acute kidney injury (AKI). Members of the Callicarpa genus are significant raw materials for traditional Chinese medicine, widely used for analgesia, hemostasis, and anti-inflammation. Previously, we have reported some ent-clerodane diterpenoids from Callicarpa arborea, shown potent inhibitory effects against pyroptosis. In this study, we went on investigating this kind of diterpenoids, and yielded 66 ent-clerodane diterpenoids, including 52 new compounds, from Callicarpa arborea. Their structures featured with a 5/6- (1-25) or a 6/6- (26-66)-fused double-ring scaffolds, were elucidated using spectroscopic data, electrostatic circular dichroism (ECD) and X-ray diffraction analyses. Screening for the inhibitory activity against pyroptosis by detecting of IL-1ß secretion in J771A.1 cells, revealed 28 compounds with an IC50 below 10.5 µM. Compound 1 was the most potent with an IC50 of 0.68 µM and inhibited the J774A.1 macrophage pyroptosis by blocking the NLR pyrin domain containing 3 (NLRP3) inflammasome activation. An in vivo study further revealed that compound 1 decreased infiltration of CD11b + F4/80 + macrophages into lung and attenuated the lipopolysaccharide (LPS)-induced lung injury. Taken together, this study indicated the potential of compound 1 as a candidate for pyroptosis-related inflammation treatment, as well as provided the chemical and pharmacological basis for the further development of Callicarpa genus as a herbal medicine.

Relationship of body fat and left ventricular hypertrophy with the risk of all-cause death in patients with coronary artery disease.

BACKGROUND: Left ventricular hypertrophy (LVH) is prevalent in obese individuals. Besides, both of LVH and obesity is associated with subclinical LV dysfunction. The study aims to investigate the interplay between body fat and LVH in relation to all-cause death in patients with coronary artery disease (CAD). METHODS: In this retrospective cohort study, a total of 2243 patients with angiographically proven CAD were included. Body fat and LV mass were calculated using established formulas. Patients were grouped according to body fat percentage and presence or absence of LVH. Cox-proportional hazard models were used to observe the interaction effect of body fat and LVH on all-cause death. RESULTS: Of 2243 patients enrolled, 560 (25%) had a higher body fat percentage, and 1045 (46.6%) had LVH. After a median follow-up of 2.2 years, the cumulative mortality rate was 8.2% in the group with higher body fat and LVH, 2.5% in those with lower body fat and no LVH, 5.4% in those with higher body fat and no LVH, and 7.8% in those with lower body fat and LVH (log-rank P < 0.001). There was a statistically significant interaction between body fat percentage and LVH ( P interaction was 0.003). After correcting for confounding factors, patients with higher body fat and LVH had the highest risk of all-cause death (HR = 3.49, 95% CI: 1.40-8.69, P = 0.007) compared with those with lower body fat and no LVH; in contrast, patients with higher body fat and no LVH had no statistically significant difference in risk of death compared with those with lower body fat and no LVH (HR = 2.03, 95% CI: 0.70-5.92, P = 0.195). CONCLUSION: A higher body fat percentage was associated with a different risk of all-cause death in patients with CAD, stratified by coexistence of LVH or not. Higher body fat was significantly associated with a greater risk of mortality among patients with LVH but not among those without LVH.

[Abundance and Fluorescent Components of Dissolved Organic Matter Affected by Land Use in a Drinking Water Source].

Regional concentrations, fluorescent components, and sources of dissolved organic matter (DOM) in a drinking water source in Chaobai River across seasons were investigated here using fluorescence excitation-emission matrices, parallel factor analysis, and fluorescence indexes. Five fluorescent-DOM components were identified, including two microbial humic-like components and one autochthonous tyrosine-like, one reduced quinone-like, and one terrestrial humic-like component. DOM was mainly derived from microorganisms. The farmland-dominated region showed the highest DOM concentration and significantly lower maximum fluorescence intensities (Fmax) of almost all fluorescent components than those in the forest-dominated region. The region dominated by urban lands exhibited obviously lower DOM concentrations than those in the farmland-dominated region and lower Fmax values of fluorescent components than those in the forest-dominated region. No interaction was found between land use and season when considering their effects on DOM. Season had a significant influence on the humification degree of DOM. This study shows that agricultural land use had a greater impact on DOM than that of forests and urban areas, and the increased riverine DOM resulting from farmland was mainly non-fluorescent parts.

Orphan gene PpARDT positively involved in drought tolerance potentially by enhancing ABA response in Physcomitrium (Physcomitrella) patens.

Almost all genomes have orphan genes, the majority of which are not functionally annotated. There is growing evidence showed that orphan genes may play important roles in the environmental stress response of Physcomitrium patens. We identified PpARDT (ABA-responsive drought tolerance) as a moss-specific and ABA-responsive orphan gene in P. patens. PpARDT is mainly expressed during the gametophytic stage of the life cycle, and the expression was induced by different abiotic stresses. A PpARDT knockout (Ppardt) mutant showed reduced dehydration-rehydration tolerance, and the phenotype could be rescued by exogenous ABA. Meanwhile, transgenic Arabidopsis lines exhibiting heterologous expression of PpARDT were more sensitive to exogenous ABA than wild-type (Col-0) plants and showed enhanced drought tolerance. These indicate that PpARDT confers drought tolerance among land plants potentially by enhancing ABA response. Further, we identified genes encoding abscisic acid receptor PYR/PYL family proteins, and ADP-ribosylation factors (Arf) as hub genes associated with the Ppardt phenotype. Given the lineage-specific characteristics of PpARDT, our results provide insights into the roles of orphan gene in shaping lineage-specific adaptation possibly by recruiting common pre-existed pathway components.

High sensitivity pH sensing by using a ring resonator laser integrated into a microfluidic chip.

We present a chip-scale integrated pH sensor with high sensitivity by using an optofluidic ring resonator (OFRR) laser. An optical fiber with a high refractive index (RI) is employed both as an optical cavity and the sensing reactor along a microchannel, while disodium fluorescein (DSF) aqueous solution with a low RI is served as the cladding gain medium and fluorescent probes. The pump light is introduced along the fiber axis and guided by the total internal reflection at the fiber/cladding interface. The evanescent field of the pump light extends out of the fiber surface and efficiently excites the dye molecules residing in the evanescent field region of the Whispering Gallery Modes (WGMs) of the OFRRs to produce lasing emission. This pumping scheme provides a uniform excitation to the gain medium and significantly increases the signal-to-noise ratio, ensuring a low lasing threshold and highly sensitive sensing. The lasing threshold property under different pH conditions is experimentally and theoretically conducted to evaluate the sensing performance, which shows that the lasing threshold highly depends on the pH value of the cladding solution due to the increasing deprotonation process. We further verify that the intensity of the lasing emission and the pH value shows good linearity in the pH range 6.51-8.13, with a 2-order-of-magnitude sensitivity enhancement compared to fluorescence measurement. The proposed OFRR lasing platform shows excellent robustness and low sample consumption, providing a powerful sensing strategy in medicine, and hazardous/toxic/volatile sensing, which require label-free, real-time, and in situ detection.

Recyclable, malleable and intrinsically flame-retardant epoxy resin with catalytic transesterification.

Flame retardancy and recyclability are two important issues in the research field of thermosets, particularly for epoxy resin (EP) with the biggest market share. It is of great importance, but rarely achievable, to integrate these properties simultaneously into EP. Herein, we report a facile way to prepare intrinsically flame-retardant epoxy vitrimers combining rapid recycling and multiple shape memory effects by introducing dynamic ester-linkages with catalytic transesterification activity into the crosslinking networks of EP. The flame-retardant epoxy vitrimers exhibited high Tg (∼110.7 °C), desirable thermal stability and excellent flame retardancy with UL-94 V-0 rating, and high LOI of ∼34%. Also, the value of the peak heat release rate (PHRR) and the total heat release (THR) showed 63% and 32% reduction, respectively. Meanwhile, flame-retardant epoxy vitrimers showed high malleability that could be reprocessed in 15 min at 200 °C without sacrificing the mechanical properties and flame retardancy. Moreover, the dynamic transesterification network allowed flame-retardant EP to access multiple shape memory effect. The design of flame-retardant epoxy vitrimers provide a prime example to foster the cyclic utilization of flame-retardant thermosetting polymers.

Streptococcus gordonii finger infection: Case report and a review of the literature.

RATIONALE: Streptococcus gordonii is a rare cause of finger suppurative infection. Very few cases have been reported of its treatment. PATIENT CONCERNS: A 68-year-old male of severe finger infection. Bacterial culture of synovial fluid revealed S gordonii.According to the patient's history and auxiliary examination, the patient was diagnosed with S gordonii infection. Here, we review the diagnosis and treatment of this patient and describe the clinical and epidemiological characteristics of the patient. DIAGNOSES: Streptococcus gordonii finger infection.Interventions: In the case of ineffective oral antibiotics, this patient chose to pursue an abscess incision, but in the course of treatment,the flexor digitorum tendon dissolved and eventually ruptured. OUTCOMES: The infection was controlled after intravenous injection of vancomycin. The incision was sutured 2 weeks later. No recurrence of infection was found after 3 months of follow-up. LESSONS: The treatment included antibacterial and abscess treatments. In the absence of drug sensitivity results, antibiotics can be used empirically. If empirical anti-microbial treatment fails, the antibiotic regimen should be changed in a timely manner, Vancomycin may be an antibiotic choice.