Reparative effect of different dietary additives on soybean meal-induced intestinal injury in yellow drum (Nibea albiflora).

Soybean meal (SBM) is an acceptable replacement for unsustainable marine fish meal (FM) in aquaculture. However, we previously reported that high dietary SBM supplementation causes intestinal inflammatory injury in yellow drum (Nibea albiflora). Accordingly, a 4-week SBM-induced enteritis (SBMIE) in yellow drum trial was conducted first, followed by a 4-week additive-supplemented reparative experiment to evaluate the reparative effect of five additives on SBMIE in yellow drum. The control diet comprised 50% FM protein substituted with SBM. The additive-supplemented diet was added with 0.02% curcumin (SBMC), 0.05% berberine (SBM-BBR), 0.5% tea polyphenols (SBM-TPS), 1% taurine (SBM-TAU), or 0.8% glutamine (SBM-GLU) based on the control diet, respectively. The weight gain (WG), specific growth rate (SGR), feed efficiency ratio (FER), and survival rate (SR) of fish fed the additive-supplemented diets were significantly higher than those of fish fed the SBM diet. The WG, SGR, and FER of fish fed the SBMC, SBM-GLU and SBM-TAU diets were significantly higher than those of fish fed other diets. Moreover, fish fed the additive-supplemented diets SBMC and SBM-GLU, exhibited significantly increased intestinal villus height (IVH), intestinal muscular thickness (IMRT), and intestinal mucosal thickness (IMLT) and significantly decreased crypt depth (CD) in comparison with those fed the SBM diets. The relative expression of intestinal tight junction factors (ocln, zo1), cytoskeletal factors (f-actin, arp2/3), and anti-inflammatory cytokines (il10, tgfb) mRNA was remarkably elevated in fish fed additive-supplemented diets than those of fish fed the SBM diet. Whereas, the relative expression of intestinal myosin light chain kinase (mlck) and pro-inflammatory cytokines (il1, il6, tnfa) mRNA was markedly lower in fish fed the additive-supplemented diets. The highest relative expression of intestinal ocln, f-actin, and arp2/3 and the lowest relative expression of intestinal mlck were found in fish fed the SBMC diet. Hence, all five dietary additives effectively repaired the intestinal injury induced by SBM, with curcumin exhibiting the strongest repair effect for SBMIE in yellow drum.

T2SS-peptidase XcpA associated with LasR evolutional phenotypic variations provides a fitness advantage to Pseudomonas aeruginosa PAO1.

The Gram-negative opportunistic pathogen Pseudomonas aeruginosa possesses hierarchical quorum sensing (QS) systems. The intricate QS network of P. aeruginosa synchronizes a suite of virulence factors, contributing to the mortality and morbidity linked to the pathogenicity of this bacterium. Previous studies have revealed that variations in the lasR gene are frequently observed in chronic isolates of cystic fibrosis (CF). Specifically, LasRQ45stop was identified as a common variant among CF, lasR mutants during statistical analysis of the clinical lasR mutants in the database. In this study, we introduced LasRQ45stop into the chromosome of P. aeruginosa PAO1 through allelic replacement. The social traits of PAO1 LasRQ45stop were found to be equivalent to those of PAO1 LasR-null isolates. By co-evolving with the wild-type in caseinate broth, elastase-phenotypic-variability variants were derived from the LasRQ45stop subpopulation. Upon further examination of four LasRQ45stop sublines, we determined that the variation of T2SS-peptidase xcpA and mexT genes plays a pivotal role in the divergence of various phenotypes, including public goods elastase secretion and other pathogenicity traits. Furthermore, XcpA mutants demonstrated a fitness advantage compared to parent strains during co-evolution. Numerous phenotypic variations were associated with subline-specific genetic alterations. Collectively, these findings suggest that even within the same parental subline, there is ongoing microevolution of individual mutational trajectory diversity during adaptation.

Comorbidity of cardiorespiratory and locomotor dysfunction following cervical spinal cord injury in the rat.

Cervical spinal cord injury interrupts supraspinal pathways innervating thoracic sympathetic preganglionic neurons and results in cardiovascular dysfunction. Both respiratory and locomotor functions were also impaired due to damages of motoneuron pools controlling respiratory and forelimb muscles, respectively. However, no study has investigated autonomic and somatic motor functions in the same animal model. The present study aimed to establish a cervical spinal cord injury model to evaluate cardiorespiratory response and locomotor activity in unanesthetized rats. Cardiovascular response and respiratory behavior following laminectomy or cervical spinal contusion were measured using noninvasive blood pressure analyzer and plethysmography systems, respectively. Locomotor activity was evaluated by an open-field test and a locomotor rating scale. The results demonstrated that mean arterial blood pressure and heart rate were significantly reduced in contused rats compared with uninjured rats at the acute injured stage. Tidal volume was also significantly reduced during the acute and subchronic stages. Moreover, locomotor function was severely impaired, evidenced by decreasing moving ability and locomotor rating scores from the acute to chronic injured stages. Retrograde neurotracer results revealed that cervical spinal cord injury caused a reduction in number of phrenic and triceps motoneurons. Immunofluorescence staining revealed a significant attenuation of serotonergic, noradrenergic, glutamatergic, and GABAergic fibers innervating the thoracic sympathetic preganglionic neurons in chronically contused rats. These results revealed the pathological mechanism underlying the comorbidity of cardiorespiratory and locomotor dysfunction following cervical spinal cord injury. We proposed that this animal model can be used to evaluate the therapeutic efficacy of potential strategies to improve different physiological functions.NEW & NOTEWORTHY The present study establishes a preclinical rodent model to comprehensively investigate physiological functions under unanesthetized condition following cervical spinal cord contusion. The results demonstrated that cervical spinal cord contusion is associated with impairments in cardiovascular, respiratory, and locomotor function. Respiratory and forelimb motoneurons and neurochemical innervations of sympathetic preganglionic neurons were damaged following injury. This animal model can be used to evaluate the therapeutic efficacy of potential strategies to improve different physiological functions.

Production of sterile mono-sex triploid yellow drum (Nibea albiflora): genotypic females and sex-reversed phenotypic males with emphasis on utilization as surrogate broodstock.

Production of sterile mono-sex fish is of great significance for sustainable aquaculture as well as germ cell transplantation. In this study, we aimed to produce mono-sex triploid yellow drum, including genotypic females (XXX female) and sex-reversed phenotypic males (XXX male). Firstly, the mono-female triploids were produced through cold-shock treatment on eggs fertilized with sperm from neo-males. Then, the mono-male triploids were produced by the sex reversal of mono-female triploids with oral administration of letrozole (LZ). We comparatively investigated the growth and gonadal development in the mono-sex triploids. The results showed that the triploids displayed similar growth performance to their diploids throughout their first year, but had impaired gonadosomatic index and gametogenesis. No mature gametes were produced in the triploids during their first spawning season. Meanwhile, we analyzed the process of gametogenesis in the both sex of triploids. Ultrastructure of gametogenesis showed that the germ cells arrested at abnormal metaphase 1 in females, while males had irregular meiotic divisions, variable-sized spermatid and degenerated cells. The expression levels of meiosis-related genes (i.e., sycp3 and rec8) confirmed the abnormal meiosis in the triploids. Furthermore, the gonadal development was also determined by the expression patterns of vasa, dmrt1 and cyp19a1a. Abnormal expression of vasa mRNA and protein were detected in triploids. High cyp19a1a expression levels suggested the sex steroid hormones production might be at least partially functional in triploid females. In addition, high dmrt1 expression levels confirmed the masculinization and testicular development of sex-reversed triploid males by LZ. Our findings provide an efficient protocol to produce sterile mono-sex triploid yellow drum and provide new insights into the mechanism of gonadal sterility of triploid fish.

Hippocampal network axons respond to patterned theta burst stimulation with lower activity of initially higher spike train similarity from EC to DG and later similarity of axons from CA1 to EC.

Objective. Decoding memory functions for each hippocampal subregion involves extensive understanding of how each hippocampal subnetwork processes input stimuli. Theta burst stimulation (TBS) recapitulates natural brain stimuli which potentiates synapses in hippocampal circuits. TBS is typically applied to a bundle of axons to measure the immediate response in a downstream subregion like the cornu ammonis 1 (CA1). Yet little is known about network processing in response to stimulation, especially because individual axonal transmission between subregions is not accessible.Approach. To address these limitations, we reverse engineered the hippocampal network on a micro-electrode array partitioned by a MEMS four-chambered device with interconnecting microfluidic tunnels. The micro tunnels allowed monitoring single axon transmission which is inaccessible in slices orin vivo. The four chambers were plated separately with entorhinal cortex (EC), dentate gyrus (DG), CA1, and CA3 neurons. The patterned TBS was delivered to the EC hippocampal gateway. Evoked spike pattern similarity in each subregions was quantified with Jaccard distance metrics of spike timing.Main results. We found that the network subregion produced unique axonal responses to different stimulation patterns. Single site and multisite stimulations caused distinct information routing of axonal spikes in the network. The most spatially similar output at axons from CA3 to CA1 reflected the auto association within CA3 recurrent networks. Moreover, the spike pattern similarities shifted from high levels for axons to and from DG at 0.2 s repeat stimuli to greater similarity in axons to and from CA1 for repetitions at 10 s intervals. This time-dependent response suggested that CA3 encoded temporal information and axons transmitted the information to CA1.Significance. Our design and interrogation approach provide first insights into differences in information transmission between the four subregions of the structured hippocampal network and the dynamic pattern variations in response to stimulation at the subregional level to achieve probabilistic pattern separation and novelty detection.

Noise-insensitive defocused signal and resolution enhancement for optical-resolution photoacoustic microscopy via deep learning.

Optical-resolution photoacoustic microscopy suffers from narrow depth of field and a significant deterioration in defocused signal intensity and spatial resolution. Here, a method based on deep learning was proposed to enhance the defocused resolution and signal-to-noise ratio. A virtual optical-resolution photoacoustic microscopy based on k-wave was used to obtain the datasets of deep learning with different noise levels. A fully dense U-Net was trained with randomly distributed sources to improve the quality of photoacoustic images. The results show that the PSNR of defocused signal was enhanced by more than 1.2 times. An over 2.6-fold enhancement in lateral resolution and an over 3.4-fold enhancement in axial resolution of defocused regions were achieved. The large volumetric and high-resolution imaging of blood vessels further verified that the proposed method can effectively overcome the deterioration of the signal and the spatial resolution due to the narrow depth of field of optical-resolution photoacoustic microscopy.

Characterization of Early Gonadal Differentiation and Induction of Sex Reversal in the Rock Bream Oplegnathus fasciatus.

Rock bream (Oplegnathus fasciatus) is a typical fish that has a unique multiple sex chromosome system (♀X1X1X2X2/♂X1X2Y). We examined the early gonadal development in rock bream via continuous histological observations of the gonads at 40-120 days post hatching (dph). The fish was identified as a typical gonochorist, and female gonads were found to differentiate earlier than male gonads. The ovarian cavity of the female was initially observed at 80 dph, whereas the efferent duct of the male was not observed until 100 dph. Immunofluorescence with the vasa-antibody revealed that germ cells were predominantly distributed around the ovarian cavity in females and on the edge of the gonad in males during the early stages of sex differentiation. Sex reversal was induced via the oral administration of letrozole (LTZ), 17α-methyltestosterone (MT), and 17ß-estradiol (E2), respectively, during the labile period of gonadal development. LTZ and MT induced 100% masculinization of genotype-females, whereas E2 induced only 50-60% feminization of genotype-males. Such findings suggest that the fish retained high sexual plasticity despite the existence of the neo-Y chromosome. MT and E2 had negative effect on fish growth, whereas LTZ did not exert such side effect. LTZ and MT could accelerate gonadal development in sex-reversed genotype-males, whereas E2 inhibited gonadal development in genotype-females of rock bream. These findings provide a basis for further research on the mechanisms of sex determination and differentiation in fishes with X1X2Y sex chromosome system and provide a sex reversal protocol for rock bream.

Study on the effect of multi-source solid waste on the performance of its backfill slurry.

The preparation of slurry from multi-source solid waste for underground backfill adds a way out for solid waste disposal, which is beneficial to reduce environmental impact. In this paper, the effects of gangue, fly ash, gasification coarse slag and desulfurization gypsum on the fluidity, early strength, thermal stability and other properties of the backfill slurry were studied by fluidity test, strength test, Thermo-Gravimetric Analysis (TGA), Scanning Electron Microscope (SEM) and X-ray Diffraction (XRD). The results show that: (1) When G/SW (mass ratio of gangue to solid waste) < 23%, gangue is beneficial to improve the fluidity and early strength of backfill slurry; with the increase of fly ash content, the fluidity of backfill slurry decreases, but its early strength increases; gasification coarse slag has a negative effect on the fluidity of backfill slurry, but it is beneficial to its early strength when GCS/SW (mass ratio of gasification coarse slag to solid waste) < 33%; desulfurization gypsum can improve the fluidity of the backfill slurry, but it is not conducive to the increase of early strength. (2) The compression failure mode of the backfill is mainly divided into the crack-intensive failure, the single main crack penetration splitting failure, and the double main crack conjugate splitting failure. (3) Endothermic dehydration reactions of adsorbed water and crystallization water generally occur at 55-65 °C and 110-130 °C for backfill with different solid waste contents; As the temperature continues to increase, the backfill material undergoes a slow exothermic decomposition reaction; Increasing the content of gangue, fly ash and gasification coarse slag and reducing the content of desulfurized gypsum can make the backfill less weight loss at high temperature and better thermal stability. (4) The main mineral phases in the backfill material are gypsum and quartz, and there are also a small amount of acicular and hexagonal hydration products thaumasite. After high temperature, the thaumasite is dehydrated and decomposed. The research results are helpful to deeply understand the performance of multi-source solid waste for underground backfilling.

Wall shear stress and its role in atherosclerosis.

Atherosclerosis (AS) is the major form of cardiovascular disease and the leading cause of morbidity and mortality in countries around the world. Atherosclerosis combines the interactions of systemic risk factors, haemodynamic factors, and biological factors, in which biomechanical and biochemical cues strongly regulate the process of atherosclerosis. The development of atherosclerosis is directly related to hemodynamic disorders and is the most important parameter in the biomechanics of atherosclerosis. The complex blood flow in arteries forms rich WSS vectorial features, including the newly proposed WSS topological skeleton to identify and classify the WSS fixed points and manifolds in complex vascular geometries. The onset of plaque usually occurs in the low WSS area, and the plaque development alters the local WSS topography. low WSS promotes atherosclerosis, while high WSS prevents atherosclerosis. Upon further progression of plaques, high WSS is associated with the formation of vulnerable plaque phenotype. Different types of shear stress can lead to focal differences in plaque composition and to spatial variations in the susceptibility to plaque rupture, atherosclerosis progression and thrombus formation. WSS can potentially gain insight into the initial lesions of AS and the vulnerable phenotype that gradually develops over time. The characteristics of WSS are studied through computational fluid dynamics (CFD) modeling. With the continuous improvement of computer performance-cost ratio, WSS as one of the effective parameters for early diagnosis of atherosclerosis has become a reality and will be worth actively promoting in clinical practice. The research on the pathogenesis of atherosclerosis based on WSS is gradually an academic consensus. This article will comprehensively review the systemic risk factors, hemodynamics and biological factors involved in the formation of atherosclerosis, and combine the application of CFD in hemodynamics, focusing on the mechanism of WSS and the complex interactions between WSS and plaque biological factors. It is expected to lay a foundation for revealing the pathophysiological mechanisms related to abnormal WSS in the progression and transformation of human atherosclerotic plaques.

A Comparative Study on Growth Performance, Body Composition, and Liver Tissue Metabolism Rearing on Soybean Lecithin-Enriched Artemia Nauplii and Microdiet in Rock Bream (Oplegnathus fasciatus) Larvae.

This study is aimed at establishing optimal soybean lecithin (SL) enrichment protocols in Artemia nauplii and at comparing the growth performance, body composition, and liver tissue metabolism in rock bream (Oplegnathus fasciatus) larvae reared on SL-enriched Artemia nauplii or SL-enriched microdiet (MD). The enrichment protocol experiment results indicated 12 h enrichment, and 10 g SL/m3 seawater could obtain desirable results. Rock bream larvae (25 days posthatching (dph)) were fed Artemia nauplii or MD for 30 days with three replicates. At stage 1 (larval 25-40 dph), significantly higher growth performance was observed in larvae fed the live prey (P < 0.05). Conversely, at stage 2 (41-55 dph), feeding with MD significantly increased larval standard length, and specific growth rate compared with those of larvae fed live prey. Larvae fed a MD showed decreased lipolysis-related lipase activity as well as decreased amino acid catabolism-related alanine aminotransferase and aspartate aminotransferase enzyme activities in liver tissue. RNA sequencing revealed that feeding with the MD primarily increased the expression of lipogenesis-related genes and protein translation-related gene expression in the liver tissue. Notably, feeding with MD significantly increased ribosome biogenesis-related genes as well as mitochondria synthesis-related gene expression, indicating a high protein anabolism rate and high energy production in liver tissue. In conclusion, 10 g SL/m3 seawater and 12 h could effectively enrich SL in Artemia nauplii. Retard weaning onto MD led to lower growth performance, which was likely due to the diversity of lipid and protein metabolism.

Comparative Transcriptome Analyses Characterize Expression Signatures Among Males, Females, Neo-Males, and Gynogenetic Females in the Yellow Drum (Nibea albiflora).

The yellow drum (Nibea albiflora) is one of the most important marine economic fish in China, and its sexually dimorphic growth makes it preferable for mono-sex culture. Although gynogenesis and neo-male induction techniques have been established, the molecular pathways and regulatory mechanisms of sex determination and maintenance in gynogenetic females and neo-males remains far from fully understood. In this study, the gene expression profiles were investigated in the gonads and brains of wild-type male, wild-type female, neo-male, and gynogenetic female yellow drum using comparative transcriptome analyses. Generally, a total of 52,999 novel transcripts were obtained in RNA-seq, of which 45,651 were isoforms of known protein-coding genes, 1,358 novel protein-coding genes, and 5,990 long non-coding RNAs. We found that the differences between wild-type males and neo-males and between wild-type females and gynogenetic females were relatively small at both the histological and transcriptomic levels, indicating that artificial gynogenesis or hormonal sex reversal may have minimal effects on normal female or male life function, respectively. In the brain, pathways such as "Oocyte meiosis", "Cell cycle", and "Riboflavin metabolism" were found to be significantly enriched. In the gonads, pathways such as "Prolactin signaling pathway", "PPAR signaling pathway", "Cholesterol metabolism", and "Jak-STAT signaling pathway" were found to play important roles in maintaining the regular proliferation and differentiation of females and males in yellow drum. In particular, we found that zp4 might be an effective molecular marker to differentiate between gynogenetic and normal females owing to its unique expression pattern. The results of this study may help to elucidate the molecular mechanisms involved in sex maintenance in the gonads and brain and provide basic data for genetic breeding of the yellow drum.

Effects of high-intensity interval training on improving arterial stiffness in Chinese female university students with normal weight obese: a pilot randomized controlled trial.

BACKGROUND: High intensity interval training (HIIT) has been reported to exert better effects on cardiovascular fitness in obesity, but little known about the arterial stiffness (AS) in female university students with normal weight obesity (NWO). Thus, this study aimed to investigate the effects of HIIT on the body composition, heart rate (HR), blood pressure (BP), blood lipids metabolism as well as the novel parameters of propensity for AS (arterial velocity pulse index [AVI], arterial pressure volume index [API]) for female university students with NWO. METHODS: Forty female university students with NWO were randomly assigned to control group (n = 20) and HIIT group (3 bouts of 9­min intervals at 90% of the maximal heart rate [HRmax], interspersed by 1 min rest, 5 days a week, n = 20). Tests were performed before and after 4 weeks of training. Repeated measures ANOVA and simple effect test analysis were used to analyze dependent variable changes. RESULTS: After 4 weeks HIIT statistically significantly improved the body composition by decreasing the body mass index, body fat percent, total body fat mass (BFM), BFM of left arm, measured circumference of left arm, and obesity degree, and increasing the total body skeletal muscle mass, protein content, total body water, fat free mass, body cell mas, and InBody score. HIIT also statistically significantly decreased the HR and BP. As for the lipid profile, HIIT obviously ameliorated the blood lipids metabolism by decreasing the levels of total cholesterol (TC), triglyceride, low-density lipoprotein, and TC/HDL, and increasing the levels of high-density lipoprotein (HDL). In addition, the AVI and API were markedly decreased via HIIT intervention. CONCLUSIONS: HIIT produced significant and meaningful benefits for body composition, HR, BP, and blood lipids metabolism, and could decrease AS in female university students with NWO. This suggests that HIIT may effectively reduce the risk of arteriosclerosis and protect the cardiovascular function for female university students with NWO. Trial registration ChiCTR2100050711. Registered 3 September 2021. Retrospectively registered.

Identification and Characterization of Dimorphic Expression of Sex-Related Genes in Rock Bream, a Fish With Multiple Sex Chromosomes.

The rock bream (Oplegnathus fasciatus) is a typical fish with a unique multiple sex chromosome system. In this study, we investigated the gene expression profiling in the gonads and brains of both males and females using RNA-Seq to identify sex-related genes and pathways. In accordance with the dimorphic expression profiles, combined with Gene ontology and KEGG enrichment analyses, a number of potential genes and pathways associated with sex determination were obtained from transcriptional analysis, especially some sex-biased genes and pathways. Next, we selected 18 candidate genes and analyzed their expression in different tissues and developmental stages. We found that the expression levels of Amh, Dmrt1, Sox9, Dmrtb1, and Nanos2 were significantly higher in the testis than those in the ovary or other tissues, whereas the expression levels of ZP4, Bouncer, RNF208, FoxH1, and TOB were significantly higher in the ovary than those in the testis. Furthermore, the expression levels of these genes in different developmental stages of gonads also showed sexually dimorphic patterns, suggesting that they might play important roles during gonadal development. These genes are useful markers for investigating sex determination and differentiation in rock bream. The findings of this study can provide insights into the molecular mechanisms of sex determination and differentiation in fish with multiple sex chromosome systems.

Low-dispersion mirror with a broad bandwidth and high laser damage resistance.

A low-dispersion mirror (LDM), an important component in ultrafast laser systems, requires both a broad low-dispersion laser-induced damage threshold (LIDT). It is difficult for a traditional quarter-wavelength-based dielectric LDM to achieve these characteristics at the same time. We propose a novel, to the best of our knowledge, low-dispersion mirror (NLDM) that combines periodic chirped layers at the top and alternating quarter-wavelength layers at the bottom. Low dispersion is achieved by introducing a large same group delay (GD) for different wavelengths, so the bandwidth is broadened greatly. In addition, owing to the staggered electric field intensity peak effect in the structure, the NLDM shows the potential for high laser damage resistance. The experiments demonstrated that the NLDM doubles the low-dispersion bandwidth, while the LIDT is also increased compared with the LDM. This novel concept results in improved performance and paves the way toward a new generation of the LDM for ultrafast bandwidth and a high laser applications.

Chromosome-scale assembly and high-density genetic map of the yellow drum, Nibea albiflora.

The yellow drum (Nibea albiflora) is an economically important sciaenid fish in East Asian countries. In this study, we sequenced and assembled a near-complete gynogenetic yellow drum genome. We generated 45.63 Gb of Illumina short-reads and 80.27 Gb of PacBio long-reads and assembled them into a 628.01-Mb genome with a contig N50 of 4.42 Mb. Twenty-four chromosomes with a scaffold N50 of 26.73 Mb were obtained using the Hi-C analysis. We predicted a set of 27,069 protein-coding genes, of which 1,581 and 2,583 were expanded and contracted gene families, respectively. The most expanded genes were categorised into the protein binding, zinc-ion binding and ATP binding functional pathways. We built a high-density genetic linkage map that spanned 4,300.2 cM with 24 linkage groups and a resolution of 0.69 cM. The high-quality reference genome and annotated profiles that we produced will not only increase our understanding of the genetic architecture of economic traits in the yellow drum, but also help us explore the evolution and unique biological characteristics of sciaenid fishes.

Effect of the interface on femtosecond laser damage of a metal-dielectric low dispersion mirror.

Metal-dielectric low dispersion mirrors (MLDM) have a promising application prospect in petawatt (PW) laser systems. We studied the damage characteristics of MLDM and found that the damage source of MLDM (Ag + Al2O3+SiO2) is located at the metal-dielectric interface. We present the effect of the interface on the femtosecond laser damage of MLDM. Finite element analysis shows that thermal stress is distributed at the interface, causing stress damage which is consistent with the damage morphology. After enhancing the interface adhesion and reducing the residual stress, the damage source transfers from the interface to a surface SiO2 layer, and the damage threshold can be increased from 0.60 J/cm2 to 0.73 J/cm2. This work contributes to the search for new techniques to improve the damage threshold of MLDM used in PW laser systems.

Laser-induced layers peeling of sputtering coatings at 1064 nm wavelength.

Large-scale layers peeling after the laser irradiation of dual ion beam sputtering coatings is discovered and a model is established to explain it. The laser damage morphologies relate to the laser fluence, showing thermomechanical coupling failure at low energy and coating layers separation at high energy. High-pressure gradients appear in the interaction between laser and coatings, resulting in large-scale layer separation. A two-step laser damage model including defect-induced damage process and ionized air wave damage process is proposed to explain the two phenomena at different energy. At relatively high energies (higher than 20 J/cm2), ionization of the air can be initiated, leading to a peeling off effect. The peeling effect is related to the thermomechanical properties of the coating materials.

Effects and Mechanisms of Chitosan and ChitosanOligosaccharide on Hepatic Lipogenesis and Lipid Peroxidation, Adipose Lipolysis, and Intestinal Lipid Absorption in Rats with High-Fat Diet-Induced Obesity.

Chitosan and its derivative, chitosan oligosaccharide (CO), possess hypolipidemic and anti-obesity effects. However, it is still unclear if the mechanisms are different or similar between chitosan and CO. This study was designed to investigate and compare the effects of CO and high-molecular-weight chitosan (HC) on liver lipogenesis and lipid peroxidation, adipose lipolysis, and intestinal lipid absorption in high-fat (HF) diet-fed rats for 12 weeks. Rats were divided into four groups: normal control diet (NC), HF diet, HF diet+5% HC, and HF diet+5% CO. Both HC and CO supplementation could reduce liver lipid biosynthesis, but HC had a better effect than CO on improving liver lipid accumulation in HF diet-fed rats. The increased levels of triglyceride decreased lipolysis rate, and increased lipoprotein lipase activity in the perirenal adipose tissue of HF diet-fed rats could be significantly reversed by both HC and CO supplementation. HC, but not CO, supplementation promoted liver antioxidant enzymes glutathione peroxidase and superoxide dismutase activities and reduced liver lipid peroxidation. In the intestines, CO, but not HC, supplementation reduced lipid absorption by reducing the expression of fabp2 and fatp4 mRNA. These results suggest that HC and CO have different mechanisms for improving lipid metabolism in HF diet-fed rats.

Exploring Sexual Dimorphism in the Intestinal Microbiota of the Yellow Drum (Nibea albiflora, Sciaenidae).

Most of fish species exhibit striking sexual dimorphism, particularly during growth. There are also sexual dimorphisms of internal organs and biological functions, including those of intestinal microbiota, which likely plays a key role in growth. In this study, the growth and intestinal microbiota of the female, male, and all-female Nibea albiflora (yellow drums) were comprehensively analyzed. The caged culture female and all-female yellow drums showed higher growth rates than males. A further analysis of the intestinal microbiota showed a significant difference in diversity between females and males in the summer, whereas there were no significant differences in the diversity and richness between females and males in the winter. In contrast, a significant difference in richness was observed between all-female and male fish, regardless of the season. Although the main composition of the intestinal microbiota showed no significant sex differences, the community structure of the intestinal microbiota of yellow drums did. Furthermore, the correlations between intestinal microbial communities are likely to be influenced by sex. The ecological processes of the intestinal microbial communities of the yellow drums showed clear sexual dimorphism. Further network analysis revealed that, although the main components of the network in the intestinal microbiota of female, male, and all-female fish were similar, the network structures showed significant sex differences. The negative interactions among microbial species were the dominant relationships in the intestinal ecosystem, and Bacteroidetes, Firmicutes, and Proteobacteria were identified as the functional keystone microbes. In addition, the functional pathways in the intestinal microbiota of yellow drums showed no significant sexual or seasonal differences. Based on the findings of this study, we gain a comprehensive understanding of the interactions between sex, growth, and intestinal microbiota in yellow drums.