Magnetic molecularly imprinted polymer based on coordination for the determination of trace banned substance furosemide in human urine.

Furosemide (FUR), banned in sports events by the World Anti-Doping Agency, is a key target in drug tests, necessitating a pretreatment material capable of selectively, rapidly, and sufficiently separating/enriching analytes from complex matrices. Herein, a metal-mediated magnetic molecularly imprinted polymer (mMIP) was rationally designed and synthesized for the specific capture of FUR. The preparations involved the utilization of chromium (III) as the binding pivot, (3-aminopropyl)triethoxysilane as functional monomer, and Fe3O4 as core, all assembled via free radical polymerization. Both the morphologies and adsorptive properties of the mMIP were characterized using multiple methods. The resulting Cr(III)-mediated mMIP (ChM-mMIP) presented excellent selectivity and specificity toward FUR. Under optimized conditions, the adsorption capacity reached 128.50 mg/g within 10 min, and the imprinting factor was 10.41. Moreover, it was also successfully applied as a dispersive solid-phase extraction material, enabling the detection of FUR concentration as low as 20 ng/mL in human urine samples when coupled with a high-performance liquid chromatography/photodiode array. Overall, this study offers a valuable strategy for the development of novel recognition material.

Magnetic molecularly imprinted polymer based on dynamically established metal-mediated binding sites for the determination of trace captopril in rat plasma.

Therapeutic drug monitoring of captopril, which is a commonly used antihypertensive agent in clinical practice, is necessary. However, matrix effect-induced pretreatment is the bottleneck for determination. Metal-mediated molecularly imprinted polymers, an essential branch of molecularly imprinted polymers with better specificity and selectivity, have been used to separate/enrich analytes from complex matrices. In this work, Cu2+ was introduced to dynamically establish the binding sites of metal-mediated molecularly imprinted polymer towards captopril. All evidence demonstrated that the metal-mediated molecularly imprinted polymer based on Cu2+ coordination obtained a higher adsorption capacity (81.23 mg/g), faster adsorption rate (adsorption equilibrium within 50 min), and better selectivity (with the unrecognized analog). Subsequently, the Cu2+ -mediated molecularly imprinted polymer was used as dispersive molecularly imprinted solid-phase extraction to successfully establish an analytical platform for the determination of trace captopril in rat plasma. The enrichment factor was up to 20, the detection limit was as low as 0.16 µg/ml, and the average recovery was in the range of 87.51%-98.28% with a relative standard deviation of less than 3.29%. This study provides a promising reference for the preparation of selective adsorbents to improve pretreatment.

Ethnicity Disparities in the Prevalence, Awareness, Treatment, and Control Rates of Hypertension in China.

Objectives: Previous studies reported that there were disparities in hypertension management among different ethnic groups, and this study aimed to systematically determine the prevalence, awareness, treatment, and control rates of hypertension in multiple Chinese ethnic groups. Methods: We searched Embase, PubMed, and Web of Science for articles up to 25 October, 2022. The pooled prevalence, awareness, treatment, and control rates of hypertension were estimated with 95% confidence intervals (CI). The heterogeneity of estimates among studies was assessed by the Cochran Q test and I 2 statistic. Meta-regression analyses were conducted to identify the factors influencing the heterogeneity of the pooled prevalence, awareness, treatment, and control rate of hypertension. Results: In total, 45 publications including 193,788 cases and 587,826 subjects were eligible for the analyses. The lowest prevalence was found in the Han group (27.0%), and the highest prevalence was in the Mongolian population (39.8%). The awareness rates ranged from 24.4% to 58.0% in the four ethnic groups. Both the highest treatment and control rates were found in the Mongolian population (50.6% and 16.0%, respectively), whereas the Yi group had the lowest control rate (8.0%). In addition, the study year, the mean age of subjects, mean body mass index of subjects, tobacco use (%), alcohol use (%), residence (urban%), and education (primary school%) had varied effects on heterogeneity. Conclusions: These findings highlight the disparities in prevalence, awareness, treatment, and control rates of hypertension in a different ethnic population of China, which could provide suggestions for making targeted prevention measures.

Efficient separation of aristolochic acid I from Caulis aristolochiae manshuriensis (Guan-mu-tong) with copper mediated magnetic molecularly imprinted polymer.

Screening bioactive compounds from natural products is one of the most effective ways for new drug research and development. However, obtaining a single extract component on a large scale and with high purity from a complex matrix is still an arduous and challenging task. Herein, one metal mediated magnetic molecularly imprinted polymer (mMIP) was rationally designed and prepared for specifically capturing Aristolochic acid I (AAI). The preparation was done with copper(II) as binding pivot, (3-aminopropyl) triethoxysilane as functional monomer, and Fe3O4 as core, by a one-step sol-gel method. Under the optimized conditions, the apparent maximum binding amount of copper mediated mMIP (Cu-mMIP) reaches as high as 349.72 mg g-1, the highest among the reported AAI-MIPs. Moreover, the nanoparticles exhibit excellent specificity and selectivity, good reproducibility and stability, high superparamagnetism (60.32 emu g-1), and high imprinting efficiency (an imprinting factor of 7). By simulating an industrial-scale separation, 16.56 mg AAI (purity of 95.11%) is obtained after six cycles with 100 mg nanoparticles from 20 g Caulis aristolochiae manshuriensis (Guan-mu-tong). Notably, this takes only 3 hours and consumes 50 mL of methanol. The study provides a potent tool for the green, fast, and specific extraction of high-purity ingredients from natural plants in the manufacturing industry and conventional analysis in the lab.

DiaMole: Mole Detection and Segmentation Software for Mobile Phone Skin Images.

Results: This study developed mole detection and segmentation software DiaMole using mobile phone images. DiaMole utilized multiple deep learning algorithms for the object detection problem and mole segmentation problem. An object detection algorithm generated a rectangle tightly surrounding a mole in the mobile phone image. Moreover, the segmentation algorithm detected the precise boundary of that mole. Three deep learning algorithms were evaluated for their object detection performance. The popular performance metric mean average precision (mAP) was used to evaluate the algorithms. Among the utilized algorithms, the Faster R-CNN could achieve the best mAP = 0.835, and the integrated algorithm could achieve the mAP = 0.4228. Although the integrated algorithm could not achieve the best mAP, it can avoid the missing of detecting the moles. A popular Unet model was utilized to find the precise mole boundary. Clinical users may annotate the detected moles based on their experiences. Conclusions: DiaMole is user-friendly software for researchers focusing on skin lesions. DiaMole may automatically detect and segment the moles from the mobile phone skin images. The users may also annotate each candidate mole according to their own experiences. The automatically calculated mole image masks and the annotations may be saved for further investigations.

The relationship between macrophage polarization and glial scar formation in mouse model of spinal cord injury.

OBJECTIVE: The study aimed to investigate the relationship between macrophage polarization and glial scar formation in mice model of spinal cord injury (SCI). METHODS: A total of 40 specific pathogen-free male C57BL/6 mice were randomly divided into the model (n=20) and control (n=20) groups. The model group was divided into 1-d, 7-d, 14-d, and 28-d post-model groups, with 5 mice in each group. SCI at T9-10 levels was produced by freely dropping a 10 g weight from a height of 5 cm onto the T9-10 spinal segment. The control group underwent the same procedures without damaging the spinal cord. Spinal cord tissue samples were obtained at 1d, 7d, 14d, and 28d after SCI, HE and immunohistochemical staining were used to observe glial scar formation following SCI. RT-qPCR and ELISA assay were used to detect the expression of M1 markers TNF-a, IL-1ß, and M2 markers Arginase-1, IL-10. RESULTS: HE and immunohistochemical staining showed glial scar formation in the model group, while no glial scar formation was observed in the control group. Results from RT-qPCR and ELISA showed that the expression of IL-1ß and TNF-α in the model group were significantly higher compared with the control group at each time point (both p <0.01). Highest expression of IL-1ß and TNF-α was observed on days 7, which gradually decreased, and remained stable on day 28 day after SCI in the model group. No significant change in IL-1ß and TNF-α expresseion was obsreved in the control groups. the expression of IL-10 and Arginase-1 in the model group were significantly higher compared with the control group at each time point (both P <0.01). IL-10 and Arginase-1 expression reached its maximum level on day 14, then gradually decreased, and remained stable on day 28 day after SCI in the model group. No significant change in IL-10 and Arginase-1expression was observed in the control group at each time point. CONCLUSIONS: Macrophages were are mainly polarized to M1 phenotype in the first 7 days during glia scar formation after SCI, which were then gradually polarized into M2 phenotype at 7 days, and tended to be stabilized at 28 days after SCI.