Land-use intensity influences European tetrapod food webs.

Land use intensification favours particular trophic groups which can induce architectural changes in food webs. These changes can impact ecosystem functions, services, stability and resilience. However, the imprint of land management intensity on food-web architecture has rarely been characterized across large spatial extent and various land uses. We investigated the influence of land management intensity on six facets of food-web architecture, namely apex and basal species proportions, connectance, omnivory, trophic chain lengths and compartmentalization, for 67,051 European terrestrial vertebrate communities. We also assessed the dependency of this influence of intensification on land use and climate. In addition to more commonly considered climatic factors, the architecture of food webs was notably influenced by land use and management intensity. Intensification tended to strongly lower the proportion of apex predators consistently across contexts. In general, intensification also tended to lower proportions of basal species, favoured mesopredators, decreased food webs compartmentalization whereas it increased their connectance. However, the response of food webs to intensification was different for some contexts. Intensification sharply decreased connectance in Mediterranean and Alpine settlements, and it increased basal tetrapod proportions and compartmentalization in Mediterranean forest and Atlantic croplands. Besides, intensive urbanization especially favoured longer trophic chains and lower omnivory. By favouring mesopredators in most contexts, intensification could undermine basal tetrapods, the cascading effects of which need to be assessed. Our results support the importance of protecting top predators where possible and raise questions about the long-term stability of food webs in the face of human-induced pressures.

HMGB1 regulates Th17 cell differentiation and function in patients with psoriasis.

BACKGROUND: Psoriasis is an immune-mediated chronic inflammatory skin disease, in which T helper 17 (Th17) cells and its effective cytokine interleukin (IL)-17A play a pivotal pathogenic role. High mobility group box 1 (HMGB1) is an important proinflammatory cytokine, which has been confirmed to be highly expressed in the peripheral circulation and epidermis tissues of psoriasis patients. The regulatory effect of HMGB1 on IL-17A expression and function has been reported in some inflammatory and autoimmune diseases by the HMGB1-Toll-like receptor 4 (TLR4)-interleukin (IL)-23-IL-17A pathway. While, in the pathological environment of psoriasis, whether HMGB1 can exert the regulatory effect on IL-17A is not clear. OBJECTIVE: We aimed to evaluate the role of HMGB1-TLR4-IL-23-IL-17A pathway in the pathogenesis of psoriasis and explore the possible regulatory mechanism of HMGB1 on Th17 cell differentiation. METHODS: Serum levels of HMGB1, TLR4, IL-23, and IL-17A were quantified in 50 patients with moderate-to-severe plaque psoriasis and 30 healthy controls. Peripheral blood mononuclear cells  were acquired from 10 severe psoriasis patients and administrated by different concentrations of recombinant-HMGB1 (rHMGB1) to detect the Th17 cell percentage, mRNA and protein levels of TLR4, IL-23, IL-17A and retinoid-related orphan receptor γt (RORγt). RESULTS: The serum levels of HMGB1, TLR4, IL-23, and IL-17A in psoriasis patients were significantly higher than healthy controls, especially in severe patients, and positively correlated with the severity index. There were also positive correlations between every two detected indicators of HMGB1, TLR4, IL-23, and IL-17A. In vitro study, rHMGB1 can promote the elevated expression of Th17 cell percentage as well as TLR4, IL-23, IL-17A, and RORγt in a dose-dependent manner. CONCLUSION: HMGB1 can contribute to the pathogenesis of psoriasis by regulating Th17 cell differentiation through HMGB1-TLR4-IL-23-RORγt pathway, then promotes IL-17A production and aggravates inflammation process. Targeting HMGB1 may be a possible potential candidate for the immunotherapy of psoriasis.

Exoproteome analysis of Pseudomonas aeruginosa response to high alkane stress.

Microbial biodegradation serves as an effective approach to treat oil pollution. However, the application of such methods for the degrading long-chain alkanes still encounters significant challenges. Comparative proteomics has extensively studied the intracellular proteins of bacteria that degrade short- and medium-chain alkanes, but the role and mechanism of extracellular proteins in many microorganism remain unclear. To enhance our understanding of the roles of extracellular proteins in the adaptation to long-chain alkanes, a label-free LC-MS/MS strategy was applied for the relative quantification of extracellular proteins of Pseudomonas aeruginosa SJTD-1-M (ProteomeXchange identifier PXD014638). 444 alkane-sentitive proteins were acquired and their cell localization analysis was performed using the Pseudomonas Genome Database. Among them, 111 proteins were found to be located in extracellular or Outer Membrane Vesicles (OMVs). The alkane-induced abundance of 11 extracellular or OMV target proteins was confirmed by parallel reaction monitoring (PRM). Furthermore, we observed that the expression levels of three proteins (Pra, PA2815, and FliC) were associated with the carbon chain length of the added alkane in the culture medium. The roles of these proteins in cell mobility, alkane emulsification, assimilation, and degradation were further discussed. OMVs were found to contain a number of enzymes involved in alkane metabolism, fatty acid beta-oxidation, and the TCA cycle, suggesting their potential as sites for facilitated alkane degradation. In this sense, this exoproteome analysis contributes to a better understanding of the role of extracellular proteins in the hydrocarbon treatment process.

Balancing food production with climate change mitigation and biodiversity conservation in the Brazilian Amazon.

Climate change mitigation and biodiversity conservation are two major environmental actions that need to be effectively performed this century, alongside ensuring food supply for a growing global human population. These three issues are highly interlinked through land management systems. Thus, major global food production regions located in biodiversity hotpots and with potential for carbon sequestration face trade-offs between these valuable land-based ecosystem services. The state of Mato Grosso in Brazil is one such region, where private lands that have been illegally used for agriculture could be restored to natural vegetation - with potential benefits for climate change mitigation and biodiversity conservation, although with potentially negative effects on food production. To address this challenge, in this study we used a multicriteria nexus modeling approach that considers carbon stocks, priority areas for biodiversity conservation, and the opportunity for food production, to develop scenarios of land allocation that aim to balance the benefits and drawbacks of ecosystem restoration. Results show that forcing landowners to restore their individual lands compromises the potential for a "green land market" throughout the Amazon biome in which private landowners with lower food production capacities (e.g., less connected to markets and infrastructure) would benefit from restoration programs that compensate them for the inclusion of environmental restoration among their economic activities, instead of taking large economic risks to produce more food. We additionally highlight that strategic ecosystem restoration can achieve higher gains in biodiversity and carbon with lower costs of restoration actions and with minimal impacts on agriculture. Analyses like ours demonstrate how scenarios of land allocation that simultaneously address climate mitigation and biodiversity conservation through ecosystem restoration, while also minimizing possible impacts on food production, can be sought to move the world towards a sustainable future.

LY294002 ameliorates psoriatic skin inflammation in mice via blocking the Notch1/Hes1-PTEN/AKT/IL-17A feedback loop.

(IL)-17A, the effective factor of Th17 cells, acts an important pathological role in the pathogenesis of psoriasis. Notch1/hairy and split 1 (Hes1) and PI3K/AKT signaling pathways are interpenetrated and involved in Th17 cell differentiation and IL-17A production. In this present study, we used imiquimod (IMQ)-induced mouse psoriatic skin inflammation to explore the possible mechanism of Notch1/Hes1-PTEN/AKT/IL-17A feedback loop in psoriasis by employing AKT inhibitor LY294002 as an intervention with the methods of flow cytometry analysis, reverse transcription-quantitative polymerase chain reaction, western blot, co-immunoprecipitation, and immunofluorescence. First, LY294002 inhibition can obviously alleviate the mouse psoriatic skin inflammation both in skin structural and histopathological characteristics, which is similar to the changes found in IL-17A antibody-treated mice. Additionally, the interaction between Notch1 intracellular domain (NICD1) and nuclear factor kappa B (NF-κB) activator 1 (Act1) was demonstrated. LY294002 interruption resulted in consistent changes in expression levels of key signaling molecules both in Notch1/Hes1 and PI3K/AKT signaling pathways in a time-dependent manner. Moreover, chloroquine (CQ) can partly reverse the inhibitory effects of LY294002 on the Notch1/Hes1-PTEN/AKT/IL-17A feedback loop by affecting Notch1 ubiquitination and lysosomal degradation. The present study showed that LY294002 can exert the inhibitory effect on Notch1/Hes1-PTEN/AKT/IL-17A feedback loop to regulate Th17 cell differentiation and IL-17A function in the process of psoriasis, which provides a new possible therapeutic strategy for psoriasis.

How natural disasters affect carbon emissions: the global case.

The outbreak of the COVID-19 pandemic has once again made the impacts of natural disasters a hot topic in academia. The environmental impacts of natural disasters, however, remain unsettled in the existing literature. This study aims to investigate the impact of natural disasters on CO2 emissions. For this purpose, we employ a panel dataset covering 138 countries over the period 1990-2018 and two dynamic panel estimation methods. Then, considering the differences in CO2 emissions across various countries, we run a panel quantile regression to examine the asymmetry in the nexus between natural disasters and CO2 emissions. We also discuss the mediating effects of energy consumption between natural disasters and CO2 emissions. After conducting a series of robustness checks, we confirm that our results are stable and convincing. The empirical results indicate that natural disasters significantly reduce CO2 emissions. Nevertheless, the impact of natural disasters on CO2 emissions is asymmetric across different quantiles of CO2 emissions. Furthermore, the technology level serves as an important moderating factor between natural disasters and CO2 emissions. The mediating effect results reveal that natural disasters not only directly reduce CO2 emissions but also indirectly promote carbon reduction by restraining energy consumption. Finally, several policy implications are provided to reduce CO2 emissions and the damage caused by natural disasters.

A systematic review of the impact of food security governance measures as simulated in modelling studies.

To effectively address food security, we need tools that assess governance measures (for example, strategic storage reserves, cash transfers or trade regulations) ex ante. Simulation models can estimate the impact of such measures via scenarios with differently governed food systems. On the basis of a systematic review of 110 simulation studies published over 2000-2021, we examined how food security governance has been represented, and identified needs for future simulation model development. We found that studies commonly used agent-based, system dynamics, and computable general equilibrium models; tended to be production, trade or consumption centric; assessed the impact of a wide variety of mostly treasure- or authority-based measures; and applied diverse food security indicators, mostly of access or availability. We also identified blind spots (for example, simulation of nodal measures) and proposed how to address these blind spots (for example, telecoupling) and to make food security governance simulation studies fit for meta-analyses (for example, harmonizing food security indicators for comparison).

Structure-activity relationship and biological evaluation of 12 N-substituted aloperine derivatives as PD-L1 down-regulatory agents through proteasome pathway.

Twenty-nine 12 N-substituted aloperine derivatives were synthesized and screened for suppression on PD-L1 expression in H460 cells, as a continuation of our work. Systematic structural modifications led to the identification of compound 6b as the most active PD-L1 modulator. Compound 6b could significantly down-regulate both constitutive and inductive PD-L1 expression in NSCLC cells, and successively enhance the cytotoxicity of co-cultured T cells against tumor cells at the concentration of 20 µM. Also, it exhibited a moderate in vivo anticancer efficacy against Lewis tumor xenograft with a stable PK and safety profile. The mechanism study indicated that 6b mediated the degradation of PD-L1 through a proteasome pathway, rather than a lysosome route. These results provided the powerful information for cancer immunotherapy of aloperine derivatives with unique endocyclic skeleton by targeting PD-L1 to activate immune cells to kill cancer cells.

Socioeconomic and environmental effects of soybean production in metacoupled systems.

Human-environment interactions within and across borders are now more influential than ever, posing unprecedented sustainability challenges. The framework of metacoupling (interactions within and across adjacent and distant coupled human-environment systems) provides a useful tool to evaluate them at diverse temporal and spatial scales. While most metacoupling studies have so far addressed the impacts of distant interactions (telecouplings), few have addressed the complementary and interdependent effects of the interactions within coupled systems (intracouplings) and between adjacent systems (pericouplings). Using the production and trade of a major commodity (soybean) as a demonstration, this paper empirically evaluates the complex effects on deforestation and economic growth across a globally important soybean producing region (Mato Grosso in Brazil). Although this region is influenced by a strong telecoupling process (i.e., soybean trade with national and international markets), intracouplings pose significant effects on deforestation and economic growth within focal municipalities. Furthermore, it generates pericoupling effects (e.g., deforestation) on adjacent municipalities, which precede economic benefits on adjacent systems, and may occur during and after the soybean production takes place. These results show that while economic benefits of the production of agricultural commodities for global markets tend to be localized, their environmental costs tend to be spatially widespread. As deforestation also occurred in adjacent areas beyond focal areas with economic development, this study has significant implications for sustainability in an increasingly metacoupled world.

Assessing the impact of trade openness on CO2 emissions: Evidence from China-Japan-ROK FTA countries.

After signing the Regional Comprehensive Economic Partnership trade agreement, China became a proposed signatory to another important trilateral free-trade agreement - the China-Japan-South Korea Free Trade Agreement. In the context of the agreement, we explore the potential effect and internal influencing mechanism of trade openness on this region's carbon emissions from 1970 to 2019. We further detect the impact of the agreement by splitting the full sample into two subsamples, one subperiod before the agreement was signed and the other after it was signed. Then we separately analyze the impacts of imports and exports on carbon emissions and find that: (i) Trade openness positively affects the greenhouse effect, and the signing of the agreement can reduce the promotion effect of trade openness on carbon emissions; (ii) imports contribute to increased carbon emissions while exports significantly reduce carbon emissions in a country; and (iii) expanding trade openness not only directly affects carbon emissions directly, but also has indirect impacts by affecting three main effects (i.e., scale effect, technical effect, and structure effect). Finally, several important policy suggestions are provided to mitigate the greenhouse effect and promote high-quality trade openness.

A global assessment of the impact of individual protected areas on preventing forest loss.

Globally, the number and extent of terrestrial protected areas (PAs) are expanding rapidly. Nonetheless, their impacts on preventing forest loss and the factors influencing the impacts are not well understood, despite the critical roles of forests in biodiversity conservation, provision of ecosystem services, and achievement of the United Nations' Sustainable Development Goals. To address this important knowledge gap, we quantified the impacts of 54,792 PAs worldwide on preventing forest loss from 2000 to 2015, and assessed important landscape and management factors affecting the impacts of PAs. Although the majority (71.4%) of the PAs contributed to preventing forest loss, only 30.5% of forest loss in the PAs have been prevented. PAs with higher rates of forest loss in their surrounding regions, located at lower elevations, within a few hours of travel from the nearest city, with higher agricultural productivity, and permission for fewer human uses were better able to prevent forest loss. Impacts on preventing forest loss were similar regardless of whether the PAs were privately or publicly owned. Our findings highlight the potential benefits of strict protections, involving private entities in the establishment of PAs, and situating PAs in areas exposed to high risks of forest loss to enhance the capacity to combat global forest loss.

Novel HIV-1 Protease Inhibitors with Morpholine as the P2 Ligand to Enhance Activity against DRV-Resistant Variants.

Flexible heterocyclic moieties as the P2 ligands of HIV-1 protease inhibitors may be adapted to the minimally distorted active site of mutations easily and enhance activity against DRV-resistant HIV-1 variants. Herein, the design, synthesis, and biological evaluation of a new series of inhibitors containing morpholine derivatives as the P2 ligands were described, among which, carbamate inhibitor 23a and carbamido inhibitor 27a exhibited almost 4- and 2-fold superior activity with enzyme Ki of 0.092 nM and 0.21 nM, as well as antiviral IC50 values of 0.41 nM and 0.95 nM, respectively, compared to DRV. Besides, they exhibited excellent activity with inhibition of 94% and 91%, respectively. Furthermore, they also showed appreciable antiviral activity against DRV-resistant HIV-1 variants.

Design, synthesis and biological evaluation of HIV-1 protease inhibitors with morpholine derivatives as P2 ligands in combination with cyclopropyl as P1' ligand.

A series of novel HIV-1 protease inhibitors has been designed and synthesized, which contained morpholine derivatives as the P2 ligands and hydrophobic cyclopropyl as the P1' ligand at the meantime in this study, with the aim of improving the interactions between the active sites of HIV-1 protease and the inhibitors. Twenty-eight compounds were synthesized and assessed, among which inhibitors m18 and m1 exhibited excellent inhibitory effect on the activity of HIV-1 protease with IC50 value of 47 nM and 53 nM, respectively. The molecular modeling of m1 revealed possible hydrogen bondings or van der Waals between the inhibitor and the protease, worthy of in-depth study.

Porous gold layer coated silver nanoplates with efficient antimicrobial activity.

Although silver nanoparticles are considered as promising antibacterial agents because of their antibacterial activity, the acute cytotoxicity of Ag+ released from Ag nanoparticles restricts their potential practical applications. Herein, porous Ag@Au nanoplates, which could balance the Ag+ release and the toxicity of Ag naoparticles, were fabricated by stepwise seed-mediated growth and oxidation. Laser irradiation further boosted their antimicrobial activity, and significantly accelerated the curing rate of wound. Comparing with Ag nanoplates, the irradiated porous Ag@Au nanoplates showed the similar antibiotic ability against S. aureus strains and lower cytotoxicity in vitro. When the porous Ag@Au nanoplates were applied to treat S. aureus-infected wound, they had the best curing effect. Thus, these porous Ag@Au nanoplates could act as promising antibacterial agents for wound healing applications.

Effectiveness of China's protected areas in reducing deforestation.

Protected areas (PAs) are considered a cornerstone of biodiversity conservation, and the number and extent of PAs are expanding rapidly worldwide. While designating more land as PAs is important, concerns about the degree to which existing PAs are effective in meeting conservation goals are growing. Unfortunately, conservation effectiveness of PAs and its underlying determinants are often unclear across large spatial scales. Using PAs in China as an example, we evaluated the effectiveness of 472 PAs established before 2000 in reducing deforestation between 2000 and 2015. Our results show that the majority (71%) of the PAs were effective in reducing deforestation. Without their establishment, deforestation within the PAs would have increased by about 50% (581 km2), with about 1271 megaton of carbon per year not being sequestered. We also found some attributes of PAs, including surrounding deforestation level, roughness of terrain, and travel time to the nearest city, are significantly related to their effectiveness in reducing deforestation. Our findings highlight the need of systematically evaluating the effectiveness of PAs and incorporating this effectiveness into conservation planning and management to more fully realize the goals of PAs not only in China but also around the world.

Vitamin E Reversed Apoptosis of Cardiomyocytes Induced by Exposure to High Dose Formaldehyde During Mice Pregnancy.

In this study, we investigated the protection effect of Vitamin E (Vit E) on formaldehyde (FA) exposure during pregnancy induced apoptosis of cardiomyocytes, and used an HL-1 cell line to confirmed the findings in vivo.Pregnant mice received different doses of FA (0.5 mg/kg, 1.0 mg/kg, 1.5 mg/kg, 0.1 µg Vit E, or 1.5 mg/kg + 0.1 µg Vit E). TUNEL staining was used to reveal the apoptosis in cardiomyocytes, and SOD, MDA, GSH, Livin, and Caspase-3 in cardiomyocytes were detected by ELISA, RT-PCR, and Western blot. For in vitro study, HL-1 cells were treated with vehicle, 5 µmol/L FA, 25 µmol/L FA, 50 µmol/L FA, 10 mg/L Vit. E, and 50 µmol/L FA+ 10 mg/L Vit E, respectively. CCK-8 assay and flow cytometry were used to evaluate cell vitality and apoptosis. A high dose of FA exposure led to cytotoxicity in both pregnant mice and offspring, as TUNEL staining revealed a significant apoptosis of cardiomyocytes, and the alternation in SOD, GSH, MDA, Livin, and Caspase-3 was found in cardiomyocytes. 0.1 µg Vit. E could reverse high doses of FA exposure induced apoptosis of cardiomyocytes in both pregnant mice and offspring. The in vitro study revealed that FA exposure induced a decrease of cell viability and increased cell apoptosis, as well as oxidative stress in HL-1 cells with alternation in SOD, GSH, MDA, Livin, and Caspase-3.This study revealed a high dose of FA induced oxidative stress and apoptosis of cardiomyocytes in both pregnant mice and offspring, and Vit E supplement during pregnancy reversed the systemic and myocardial toxicity of FA.

Serum microRNA-195 is down-regulated in breast cancer: a potential marker for the diagnosis of breast cancer.

MicroRNA-195 (miR-195) is a tumor suppressor that plays an important role in tumorigenesis. There are few studies on miR-195 expression in breast cancer patients and the results have been inconsistent; therefore, this study examined miR-195 expression in the serum of BC patients. Samples from 102 normal subjects and 210 subjects with BC who had detailed clinical follow-up information available were selected. An internal reference (miR-16) and serum miR-195 were amplified and quantitatively detected by SYBR green-based real-time RT-PCR. We analyzed the differences in miR-195 levels between BC and healthy cases and the relationships between the miR-195 level and TNM stage and other clinicopathological parameters. In addition, changes in miR-195 levels were examined for 21 BC cases using paired samples before and after neoadjuvant chemotherapy. miR-195 was downregulated in BC compared with control samples (P = 0.000, Mann-Whitney U test). The sensitivity and specificity of miR-195 in the diagnosis of BC were 69.0 and 89.2 %, respectively; whereas, the sensitivities of carcinoembryonic antigen (CEA) and carbohydrate antigen 153 (CA153) were only 15.08 and 21.1 %, respectively. Remarkably, serum miR-195 had higher sensitivity, 73.97 % (108/146), as a tumor marker in the diagnosis of early stage BC [ductal carcinoma in situ, tumor-node-metastasis (TNM) I, II] compared with the conventional tumor markers CA153 and CEA (12.41 and 7.59 %). Moreover, compared with CEA and CA153, miR-195 had a higher sensitivity for detecting the response to neoadjuvant chemotherapy and significantly increased, more than twofold, after neoadjuvant chemotherapy (P = 0.025, paired t test) in 52.381 % (11/21) of BC cases. However, there were no significant relationships between miR-195 expression and other clinicopathological parameters (TNM stage/pathotype/ER/PR/lymph node status). Our data indicate serum miR-195 is a promising tumor marker for BC diagnosis and general screening, especially for early stage BC. The high sensitivity of miR-195 to neoadjuvant chemotherapy may lay the foundation for future studies on the use of miRNA-based methods for monitoring BC treatment and therapy.

Analysis for hypertension and related risk factors of physical examination population.

BACKGROUND AND OBJECTIVES: Essential hypertension is the most common chronic disease. To provide a basis for developing the prevention and control strategies of hypertension by epidemiological investigation on factors related to hypertension in health examination population. METHODS: Data of health examination population from Jilin municipal enterprise and public institutions during January 2011 and July 2012 were randomly selected, and statistical analysis was performed for the age, gender, body mass index, blood lipids, blood uric acid, serum creatinine, blood glucose and hypertension classification indexes. RESULTS: 1859 patients were diagnosed as hypertension. The detection rate of hypertension, awareness rate, new discovery rate, treatment rate, control rate and rate of the patients with family history of hypertension were 21.0%, 27.5%, 72.5%, 19.1%, 6.0% and 26.7%, respectively. A statistically significant difference was found in serum creatinine, blood glucose, serum cholesterol, L-DLC, coronary disease, stroke and diabetes mellitus by the comparison among the different blood pressure grades. There was a difference in blood pressure, blood uric acid, blood creatinine, glucose, total cholesterol, triglycerides, H-DLC, L-DLC and other indexes between female and male. No difference was found in the family history of hypertension, renal damage, blood uric acid, triglycerides and H-DLC among the different blood pressure levels. CONCLUSIONS: The hypertension in health examination population has the features of high new discovery rate, low awareness rate and low treatment rate. The factors of age, gender, body mass index, serum creatinine, blood glucose, blood cholesterol, L-DLC, coronary heart disease, stroke and diabetes are associated closely with hypertension.

Microfluidic perfusion system for maintaining viable heart tissue with real-time electrochemical monitoring of reactive oxygen species.

A microfluidic device has been developed to maintain viable heart tissue samples in a biomimetic microenvironment. This device allows rat or human heart tissue to be studied under pseudo in vivo conditions. Effluent levels of lactate dehydrogenase and hydrogen peroxide were used as markers of damaged tissue in combination with in situ electrochemical measurement of the release of reactive oxygen species (ROS). The parameters for perfusion were optimized to maintain biopsies of rat right ventricular or human right atrial tissue viable for up to 5 and 3.5 hours, respectively. Electrochemical assessment of the oxidation current of total ROS, employing cyclic voltammetry, gave results in real-time that were in good agreement to biochemical assessment using conventional, off-chip, commercial assays. This proof-of-principle, integrated microfluidic device, may be exploited in providing a platform technology for future cardiac research, offering an alternative approach for investigating heart pathophysiology and facilitating the development of new therapeutic strategies.

Separation of proteins on surface-modified poly(dimethylsiloxane) microfluidic devices.

Separation and detection of proteins have been realized on nonionic surfactant-modified poly(dimethylsiloxane) (PDMS) microfabricated devices with end-column amperometric detection. The hydrophobic PDMS channels are turned into hydrophilic ones after being modified with Brij35 and facilitate the separation of proteins. The coating can remarkably reduce the adsorption of large protein molecules and is stable in the range of pH 6-12. The detection of proteins in such channels needs less rinsing time and thus efficiency is raised. Even large molecules of proteins can also be detected with better reproducibility and enhanced plate numbers. The relative standard deviation (RSD) of the migration time for glucose oxidase (GOD) is 2.2% (n = 19). Separation of GOD and myoglobin has been developed in modified channels. Predominant operational variables, such as the coating conditions, the concentration of surfactant and buffer, are studied in detail.