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Abstract In many solid tumours, including gastric cancer (GC), the beginning and progression of the tumour are closely correlated with the tumour microbiome. Here, we show the changes in the gastric microbiota and their influence on immune regulation and the promotion of GC progression through 16s rRNA sequencing and single cell RNA sequencing. Streptococcus lutetiensis (S. lutetiensis) was found to be enriched in the tumour tissues of GC patients. Further analysis using single-cell sequencing and flow cytometry showed that S. lutetiensis notably affects the antitumour immunity by suppressing IL17 signalling and reducing the population of CD8+IL17A+ tissue-resident memory T (TRM) cells by activating Nrf2-mediated oxidative stress response. Mouse models confirm S. lutetiensis promotes GC progression by impairing immune responses in CD8+IL17A+TRM cells, suggesting it as a potential GC prognosis indicator and immunotherapy target, highlighting the microbiome's role in cancer progression.

Abstract Edible oil may be mixed with tiny solid impurities like raw material fragments, hair, metal fragments and etc. during the production and manufacturing process. For food safety reasons, these tiny impurities need to be detected in the quality control process. As compared with manual detection ways, computer vision-based impurity detection methods can greatly reduce the workload and improve the detection efficiency and accuracy. However, there are currently no datasets for the detection of solid impurities in edible oils. For this reason, a dual-modal edible oil impurity (DMEOI) dataset is developed and made publicly available. The dataset is composed of 14520 event and full-pic images and annotated in two ways. Five common edible oils and four typical impurities are included in the dataset. The DMEOI dataset can be used for liquid impurity detection in either single-modal or dual-modal way. To prove the usability of the dataset, four object detection algorithms are applied and compared.

Abstract Exploitation of mineral resources is a vital backbone of a country’s socio-economic development. However, the coal exploration would cause ecological and environmental problems such as pollutions of water, soils and atmosphere. Especially, the pollution of heavy metals of soil has become increasingly severity. Plant enrichment and tolerance to heavy metals are crucial for the phytoremediation of coal gangue mountain. In phytoremediation, phytostabilization which can reduce the metal contamination of soil by uptake and burn-off of heavy metals with highly accumulating plants, is one of the most effective techniques of eco-remediation treatment. In present work, heavy metals contamination of soil and plants in the Yaojie mining which located in arid and semi-arid area of northwest China were investigated through field investigation. To identify the suitable plants for the remediation and ecological reclamation of heavy metal contaminated soil in typical mining area, the contamination characteristics of heavy metals in the above-ground parts of 27 native plants and their surrounding non-rhizosphere soils were analyzed. After eliminated by wet digestion and high-pressure closed digestion, the mass fractions of Zinc (Zn), cadmium (Cd), chromium (Cr) and copper (Cu) were determined with inductively coupled plasma emission spectrometer, and the contents of Hydrargyrum (Hg) and Arsenic (As) were analyzed with atomic fluorescence spectrophotometer. The Nemerow pollution index showed that in the surrounding soil, the pollution index of heavy metal was 6.32, which reached the extreme severe pollution level. Among the 6 heavy metals, the most severe contamination being Hg (P i = 8.50) and had particularly strong Coefficient of variation (CV = 105.8%), which is more likely to be caused by anthropogenic activities. In the aboveground parts of 27 plants, except for Zn, other metals exceeded the standard level, and the exceedance rates in descending order were As, Hg, Cr, Cd, and Cu. The most severe exceedance of As was found in C. virgata, which was as high as 19.20, and the average exceedance rate of As in all plants was 2.79. Bioconcentration Factor (BCF) was utilized as an indicator of the enrichments of various metals in 27 plants. The maximum value of BCF for As and Hg in C. virgata were 1.52 and 2.50, Cr and Cu in X. sibiricum were 0.72 and 2.32, Cd and Zn in S. glauca were 3.33 and 1.82. As revealed, except Cr, all the BCF of other metals are greater than 1, indicating that the three plants exhibited a strong accumulation capacity of heavy metal and are potential candidate pioneer species for the removal of heavy metals from the contaminated soil in the Yaojie mining area. This study provides a basis for plant selection for ecological restoration of contaminated soils in arid and semi-arid regions.

Abstract Background At the end of 2021, an epidemic of reproductive abnormalities in cows occurred in Jilin Province, China, posing an urgent need for a rapid diagnosis. Results To identify the cause of the disease, a total of 172 samples were collected from 21 dead calves and 45 aborting or pregnant cows in 10 farms across the province. Routine PCR or RT-PCR detection did not find any common abortion-related agents. We then employed the viromics-based precision diagnosis method to analyze these samples, and the read-based annotation showed signals of an Akabane disease virus (AKAV) in some libraries. To further identify the virus, nested RT-PCR detection revealed that 52.3% (11/21) of dead calves and 26.6% (12/45) of cows were positive for the virus. Phylogenetic analysis of the partial fragments showed that the S segment of the virus was 100% identical to the Chinese strain TJ2016, but its M and L segments shared 94.3% and 96.5% identities with an Israeli strain. Conclusions The viromic and molecular results suggested that these animals were infected with a reassortant AKAV. Coupled with the clinical signs, the virus should be responsible for the epizootic, highlighting that molecular and serological surveys of the virus in cows during early pregnancy, as well as ecological investigation in its arthropod vectors, are necessary.

Chinese government has been advocating a reduction in energy intensity in its efforts to meet peak carbon targets, particularly in the context of emerging economic growth and frequent technological breakthroughs. This study assesses China’s digital economy based on regional data experience and constructs a non-linear dynamic threshold model that incorporates heterogeneity thresholds for low-carbon technology innovation into the impact mechanism to explore whether the digital economy can effectively reduce regional energy intensity. It is found that China’s digital economy currently shows an overall upward trend with fluctuations in parts and a wide gap between the rich and the poor. Further, a significant heterogeneous threshold effect of low-carbon technology innovation exists in the effect of digital economy development on energy intensity: a lower level of low-carbon technology innovation is not advantageous to the decrease of energy intensity by digital economy development, while as the level of low-carbon technology innovation increases and exceeds the “threshold value,” the effect of digital economy development is effectively enhanced to a certain extent, thus promoting the reduction of energy intensity. As the level of low-carbon technology innovation raises and surpasses the “critical value,” the impact effect of digital economy development is heightened to a certain extent, thus promoting the decrease of energy intensity. The study replies the question of how to effectively use low-carbon technology innovation to accomplish digital economy development and help reduce regional energy intensity, which provides a reference for achieving the goal of carbon peak and accelerating green and high-quality economic development.

Abstract Background Carcass traits are essential economic traits in the commercial pig industry. However, the genetic mechanism of carcass traits is still unclear. In this study, we performed a genome-wide association study (GWAS) based on the specific-locus amplified fragment sequencing (SLAF-seq) to study seven carcass traits on 223 four-way intercross pigs, including dressing percentage (DP), number of ribs (RIB), skin thinkness (ST), carcass straight length (CSL), carcass diagonal length (CDL), loin eye width (LEW), and loin eye thickness (LET). Results A total of 227,921 high-quality single nucleotide polymorphisms (SNPs) were detected to perform GWAS. A total of 30 SNPs were identified for seven carcass traits using the mixed linear model (MLM) (p

Abstract. Caloric restriction (CR) is a well-established dietary intervention known to extend healthy lifespan and exert positive effects on aging-related diseases, including cardiovascular conditions. Sirtuins, a family of nicotinamide adenine dinucleotide (NAD+)-dependent histone deacetylases, have emerged as key regulators of cellular metabolism, stress responses, and the aging process, serving as energy status sensors in response to CR. However, the mechanism through which CR regulates Sirtuin function to ameliorate cardiovascular disease remains unclear. This review not only provided an overview of recent research investigating the interplay between Sirtuins and CR, specifically focusing on their potential implications for cardiovascular health, but also provided a comprehensive summary of the benefits of CR for the cardiovascular system mediated directly via Sirtuins. CR has also been shown to have considerable impact on specific metabolic organs, leading to the production of small molecules that enter systemic circulation and subsequently regulate Sirtuin activity within the cardiovascular system. The direct and indirect effects of CR offer a potential mechanism for Sirtuin modulation and subsequent cardiovascular protection. Understanding the interplay between CR and Sirtuins will provide new insights for the development of interventions to prevent and treat cardiovascular diseases.

Non-heading Chinese cabbage, a variety of Brassica campestris, is an important vegetable crop in the Yangtze River Basin of China. However, the immaturity of its stable transformation system and its low transformation efficiency limit gene function research on non-heading Chinese cabbage. Agrobacterium rhizogenes-mediated (ARM) transgenic technology is a rapid and effective transformation method that has not yet been established for non-heading Chinese cabbage plants. Here, we optimized conventional ARM approaches (one-step and two-step transformation methods) suitable for living non-heading Chinese cabbage plants in nonsterile environments. Transgenic roots in composite non-heading Chinese cabbage plants were identified using phenotypic detection, fluorescence observation, and PCR analysis. The transformation efficiency of a two-step method on four five-day-old non-heading Chinese cabbage seedlings (Suzhouqing, Huangmeigui, Wuyueman, and Sijiu Caixin) was 43.33%–51.09%, whereas using the stout hypocotyl resulted in a transformation efficiency of 54.88% for the 30-day-old Sijiu Caixin. The one-step method outperformed the two-step method; the transformation efficiency of different varieties was above 60%, and both methods can be used to obtain transgenic roots for functional studies within one month. Finally, optimized ARM transformation methods can easily, quickly, and effectively produce composite non-heading Chinese cabbage plants with transgenic roots, providing a reliable foundation for gene function research and non-heading Chinese cabbage genetic improvement breeding.

Machine vision-based methods are usually applied to detect impurities in transparent liquids like water or alcohols. Oils have higher viscosity and lower light transmittance, so traditional vision detection methods do not work well. A weak oil impurity detection algorithm was proposed using event stream data. In this method, the binary image of the oil was firstly captured using an event camera. To reduce the noise interference from the event camera, image filtering and morphological operations were applied. Then, image algebra operations were used to remove the oil container’s bottom pattern. Finally, impurity detection was performed through the YOLOv5 network. Three common edible oils serve as the experimental samples. Small flying insects, raw material fragments, metal fragments, hair strands, and tin beads of various sizes are selected as the weak impurities. Experiments were performed on a dataset containing 3000 sample images. To the best of our knowledge, existing algorithms can detect impurities with the minimum size of 0.4mm, and most of the experimental samples are transparent liquids. The proposed method can be applied to detect impurities in water and oils, and the detectable impurity size limit is 0.2mm.

Abdominal subcutaneous fat deposition (ASFD) is not only related to meat quality in the pig industry but also to human health in medicine. It is of great value to elucidate the potential molecular mechanisms of ASFD. The present study aims to identify obese-specific biomarkers and key pathways correlated with ASFD in pigs. The ASF-related mRNA expression dataset GSE136754 was retrieved from the Gene Expression Omnibus (GEO) database and systematically analyzed using a comprehensive bioinformatics method. A total of 565 differentially expressed genes (DEGs) were identified between three obese and three lean pigs, and these DEGs were mainly involved in the p53 signaling pathway, MAPK signaling pathway and fatty acid metabolism. A protein-protein interaction (PPI) network, consisting of 540 nodes and 1,065 edges, was constructed, and the top ten genes with the highest degree scores—ABL1, HDAC1, CDC42, HDAC2, MRPS5, MRPS10, MDM2, JUP, RPL7L1 and UQCRFS1—were identified as hub genes in the whole PPI network. Especially HDAC1, MDM2, MRPS10 and RPL7L1 were identified as potential robust obese-specific biomarkers due to their significant differences in single gene expression levels and high ROC area; this was further verified by quantitative real-time PCR (qRT-PCR) on abdominal subcutaneous fat samples from obese-type (Saba) and lean-type (Large White) pigs. Additionally, a mRNA-miRNA-lncRNA ceRNA network consisting of four potential biomarkers, 15 miRNAs and 51 lncRNAs was established, and two targeted lncRNAs with more connections, XIST and NEAT1, were identified as potentially important regulatory factors. The findings of this study may provide novel insights into the molecular mechanism involved in ASFD.

Acute lung injury (ALI) is a clinically prevalent inflammatory disorder that still needs to be developed with more accurate diagnostic biomarkers and more satisfactory therapies. This study intended to explore the therapeutic material basis and molecular mechanisms of a classical traditional Chinese medicinal prescription, Sang Ju Yin (SJY), against ALI, focusing on the chemical components of formula composition, the disturbance of host genes/metabolites and the dysbiosis of intestinal flora. First, based on liquid chromatography-mass spectrometry (LC-MS) component analysis, 212 in vitro and 44 in vivo compounds were identified respectively in SJY. Then, network pharmacology was adopted to calculate potential anti-ALI compounds in SJY and predict that CXCR2, PI3K-Akt signaling and arachidonic acid (AA) metabolism could be potential targets. Subsequently, integrative multi-omics techniques were employed to elaborate deeper systematic molecular mechanisms. Metabolomic data combining both 1H NMR and LC-MS techniques illustrated that 146 pulmonary and 75 fecal biomarkers, associated with AA and other metabolisms, were recuperated by SJY’s intervention. Transcriptomic analyses suggested that SJY could significantly regulate genes and signaling pathways involved with inflammation and apoptosis, such as PI3K-Akt. Further the obtained key targets (IL-10, LCAT, CXCR2 and C5) were verified by qRT-PCR and their relative compound-target interaction were validated by molecular docking. Notably, the disturbance of intestinal microbial community (such as the abundance of Lactobacillus, etc.) was detected through 16S rRNA gene sequencing, that could be effectively reshaped by SJY. Collectively, our integrated work showed SJY could regulate the crosstalk of metabolite-target-pathway-microflora along the gut-microbiota-lung axis on the whole. Noteworthy, our study provided fundamental and new insights into how molecular networks connected different types of components, genes, metabolites, microbes and potential pathways to map an endogenous functional landscape for clinical ALI diagnosis and SJY application.

Michele Ruggieri (1543–1607) was the first Westerner officially approved to reside in China. He promoted Chinese and Western cultural exchange, and he was especially noted for facilitating dialogue between Confucianism and Catholicism. His writings had an important impact in both China and Europe. During his sojourn preaching in China, Ruggieri not only wrote the Tianzhu shilu—the first catechism written in Chinese—but he was also the first Westerner to translate the Four Books into Western language and introduce them to Europe. Based on Ruggieri’s two translations of the Four Books—one translation into Spanish, and one into Latin—this article analyzes Ruggieri’s views of Confucius. In his translations, Ruggieri identified Confucius as a philosopher and a shengren, or saint, and he highlighted the status of Confucius in the Four Books. After analyzing Ruggieri’s treatments of Confucian concepts, this article discusses how Ruggieri’s translations imply that Confucianism had both rational and religious dimensions. After Ruggieri, other Jesuits who came to China gradually turned to emphasizing the rational aspects of Confucianism.

Purpose. To compare the refractive errors measured by the Spot photoscreener (with or without cycloplegia) to cycloplegic retinoscopy in 6- to 10-week-old infants. Materials and Methods. 101 right eyes from 101 healthy infants aged 6 to 10 weeks were recruited for this cross-sectional observational study. Refractive errors were measured using Spot photoscreener before and after cycloplegia, as well as cycloplegic retinoscopy. Comparisons between the refractive measurements were performed using one-way ANOVA with the post hoc Tukey HSD test or Kruskal–Wallis test with the Steel–Dwass test according to the data normality. Pearson’s correlation test and 95% confidence intervals were calculated. The agreement was evaluated using a Bland–Altman plot with 95% limits of agreement of the differences. Results. Spot photoscreener was found to underestimate the spherical equivalent by 2.33 Diopters (D) in these infants. Following the induction of cycloplegia, the spherical equivalent measured by Spot photoscreener was in excellent agreement with cycloplegic retinoscopy with the mean difference of 0.01 D. Spot photoscreener overestimated cylindrical parameter by 0.2 D with poor agreement with cycloplegic retinoscopy no matter whether cycloplegia was induced. It had good agreement with cycloplegic retinoscopy in the J0 vector than the J45 vector measurement. Conclusions. With the induction of cycloplegia, Spot photoscreener can accurately evaluate spherical equivalent in hyperopic infants with mild-to-moderate astigmatism. While it may provide valuable measurements of astigmatism, discrepancies in cylinder and axis should be taken into account.

Abstract Mental load affects the work efficiency and mental health of operators, and it has a vital effect on the efficiency and reliability of human–machine systems. In this study, the evaluation index system of operators’ mental load was used to quantitatively evaluate the mental load state of workers. The system was established by selecting indices from the operators’ physiological parameters, subjective feelings, and time perception. We propose an extended cloud evaluation model of mental load states that combines cloud model (CM) theory with analytic hierarchy process (AHP) and technique for order preference by similarity to ideal solution (TOPSIS) and provides mental load levels. An energetic material initiation experiment was conducted to evaluate the mental load state of the operators using the proposed method, and the results of a fuzzy comprehensive evaluation and subjective questionnaire were used to verify the performance of the method. The results show that the extended CM evaluation method scientifically and reliably quantified the mental load state. Applying the AHP-TOPSIS integration extended with the CM theory evaluation method in mental load state evaluation provides a new scientific method for studying the quantification of the mental load state and occupational health of workers in hazardous environments. The results of this study are a reference for assessing the mental state of personnel and analyzing occupational suitability for dangerous posts.

A simple, economical and selective method has been established for simultaneous detection of 6 kinds of caine-type anesthetics in cosmetics and rat serum by in situ enrichment thin layer chromatography (TLC) and Raman spectroscopy. The target caine-type anesthetics, procaine hydrochloride (Pro), tetracaine hydrochloride (Tet), dibucaine (Dib), mepivacaine hydrochloride (Mep), lidocaine hydrochloride (Lid) and ropivacaine hydrochloride (Rop), were separated by TLC. The original spots (or position of Rf equal to that of the standard) of anesthetics on TLC plates were in situ enriched into much smaller ones driven by solvent from different directions, and followed by Raman measurement for quanlitative and quantitative analysis, resulting in the improvement of sensitivity and selectivity. Optimization and standardization of the experimental conditions, the composition and proportion of developing solvent, were conducted. Thus a robust and reliable approach which enabled effective separation, accurate identification and quantification has been developed with the lowest detectable amounts of 0.4, 0.2, 1.2, 1, 1 and 1 μg for Pro, Tet, Dib, Mep, Lid and Rop, respectively. The established method was successfully applied in anesthetics analysis in cosmetics (essence, cream and gel) and rat serum without complex sample pretreatment processes, and the results were verified by HPLC. It turned out that the in situ enrichment TLC-Raman technique was feasible and effective for separation and determination of 6 caine-type anesthetics in biological samples and cosmetics, and would have good prospects for on-site qualitative screening of prohibited goods and adulterants.

Background: Esophageal cancer is one of the most unknown and deadliest cancers in the world. Although recent studies have identified some mutations linked to the development of squamous cell carcinoma of the esophagus (ESCC), the specific role of HomeoboxC10 (HOXC10) in the pathogenesis still requires further investigation. Methods: Agilent mRNA single-channel gene expression was employed to identify genome-wide gene signatures in ESCC. These signatures were also verified using qRT-PCR, immunohistochemical staining as well as Western blot. The biological functions of HOXC10 were further investigated through cellular studies conducted on ESCC cells. Survival analysis was conducted utilizing the Kaplan-Meier method. The GEPIA database and the STRING website were utilized to predict the potential targets that bind to HOXC10. Co-immunoprecipitation assays were performed to investigate the binding interaction between HOXC10 and Forkhead Box A3 (FOXA3). Animal models were established to analyze the effects of HOXC10 silencing on tumorigenesis in vivo. Results: The expression levels of HOXC10 mRNA were found to be upregulated in ESCC. Survival analysis revealed a significant association between abnormally elevated levels of HOXC10 mRNA and an unfavorable prognosis in patients with ESCC. In vitro studies revealed that the knockdown of HOXC10 expression resulted in the inhibition of the proliferation, invasion, and migrating ability of ESCC cells through the upregulation of FOXA3. Furthermore, tumor-bearing mouse models studies demonstrated that HOXC10 through knockdown techniques significantly suppressed ESCC tumor growth. HOXC10 was found to enhance the activation of the MAPK signaling pathway by regulating FOXA3 in ESCC cells. Conclusion: These results support a key role for HOXC10 in the tumorigenesis of ESCC by upregulating FOXA3 via the MAPK pathway and highlight its potential as a promising diagnostic and prognostic marker for ESCC.

This study investigates the asymptotic synchronization in fractional memristive neural networks of the Riemann–Liouville type, considering mixed time delays and jump mismatches. Addressing the challenges associated with discrepancies in the circuit switching speed and the accuracy of the memristor, this paper introduces an enhanced model that effectively navigates these complexities. We propose two novel event-based hybrid impulsive controllers, each characterized by unique triggering conditions. Utilizing advanced techniques in inequality and hybrid impulsive control, we establish the conditions necessary for achieving synchronization through innovative Lyapunov functions. Importantly, the developed controllers are theoretically optimized to minimize control costs, an essential consideration for their practical deployment. Finally, the effectiveness of our proposed approach is demonstrated through two illustrative simulation examples.

For all organs at all Cymbidium faberi stages, ACT, UBQ3 and GAPDH can be selected as reference genes. For organs of the vegetative stage, UBQ2 and UBQ3 can be chosen for analysis of normalized gene expression. For the bud stage, ACT and UBQ3 can be used for analysis of gene expression. For the full blossom stage, ACT, UBQ3 and UBQ2 can be introduced into relative gene expression analysis. For vegetative organs, UBQ2 and ACT can be used as reference genes. For reproductive organs, ACT, UBQ3 and UBQ2 can be used as a reference for data processing. CfAG1 gene expression is more consistent when UBQ3, GAPDH and ACT are used as reference genes.

Abstract Background Carcass backfat thickness (BFT), carcass lean percentage (CLP) and carcass fat percentage (CFP) are important to the commercial pig industry. Nevertheless, the genetic architecture of BFT, CLP and CFP is still elusive. Here, we performed a genome-wide association study (GWAS) based on specific-locus amplified fragment sequencing (SLAF-seq) to analyze seven fatness-related traits, including five BFTs, CLP, and CFP on 223 four-way crossbred pigs. Results A total of 227, 921 highly consistent single nucleotide polymorphisms (SNPs) evenly distributed throughout the genome were used to perform GWAS. Using the mixed linear model (MLM), a total of 20 SNP loci significantly related to these traits were identified on ten Sus scrofa chromosomes (SSC), of which 10 SNPs were located in previously reported quantitative trait loci (QTL) regions. On SSC7, two SNPs (SSC7:29,503,670 and rs1112937671) for average backfat thickness (ABFT) exceeded 1% and 10% Bonferroni genome-wide significance levels, respectively. These two SNP loci were located within an intron region of the COL21A1 gene, which was a protein-coding gene that played an important role in the porcine backfat deposition by affecting extracellular matrix (ECM) remodeling. In addition, based on the other three significant SNPs on SSC7, five candidate genes, ZNF184, ZNF391, HMGA1, GRM4 and NUDT3 were proposed to influence BFT. On SSC9, two SNPs for backfat thickness at 6–7 ribs (67RBFT) and one SNP for CLP were in the same locus region (19 kb interval). These three SNPs were located in the PGM2L1 gene, which encoded a protein that played an indispensable role in glycogen metabolism, glycolysis and gluconeogenesis as a key enzyme. Finally, one significant SNP on SSC14 for CLP was located within the PLBD2 gene, which participated in the lipid catabolic process. Conclusions A total of two regions on SSC7 and SSC9 and eight potential candidate genes were found for fatness-related traits in pigs. The results of this GWAS based on SLAF-seq will greatly advance our understanding of the genetic architecture of BFT, CLP, and CFP traits. These identified SNP loci and candidate genes might serve as a biological basis for improving the important fatness-related traits of pigs.

Abstract Background Adipose tissues (ATs), including visceral ATs (VATs) and subcutaneous ATs (SATs), are crucial for maintaining energy and metabolic homeostasis. SATs have been found to be closely related to obesity and obesity-induced metabolic disease. Some studies have shown a significant association between subcutaneous fat metabolism and sexes. However, the molecular mechanisms for this association are still unclear. Here, using the pig as a model, we investigated the systematic association between the subcutaneous fat metabolism and sexes, and identified some key sex-specific pathways and genes in the SATs from pigs. Results The results revealed that 134 differentially expressed genes (DEGs) were identified in female and male pigs from the obese group. A total of 17 coexpression modules were detected, of which six modules were significantly correlated with the sexes (P

Selection of reference genes (RGs) is important for the accurate analysis of real-time quantitative PCR (RT-qPCR) results. This study screened RGs of Cymbidium sinense for more accurate quantification of target genes. The two most stable RGs for all tissues were ACT and EF1α, those for vegetative organs were UBQ3 and ACT, while those for reproductive organs as well as organs in the full flowering stage were EF1α and ACT. The AGAMOUS (CsAG1) expression level was verified using EF1α, ACT, GAPDH, UBQ2 and UBQ3 as RG. The expression profile of CsAG1 was consistent when normalized with EF1α, ACT and UBQ3. The results have practical value for the expression of key genes during the development of C. sinense.

Meat quality traits (MQTs) have gained more attention from breeders due to their increasing economic value in the commercial pig industry. In this genome-wide association study (GWAS), 223 four-way intercross pigs were genotyped using the specific-locus amplified fragment sequencing (SLAF-seq) and phenotyped for PH at 45 min post mortem (PH45), meat color score (MC), marbling score (MA), water loss rate (WL), drip loss (DL) in the longissimus muscle, and cooking loss (CL) in the psoas major muscle. A total of 227, 921 filtered single nucleotide polymorphisms (SNPs) evenly distributed across the entire genome were detected to perform GWAS. A total of 64 SNPs were identified for six meat quality traits using the mixed linear model (MLM), of which 24 SNPs were located in previously reported QTL regions. The phenotypic variation explained (PVE) by the significant SNPs was from 2.43% to 16.32%. The genomic heritability estimates based on SNP for six meat-quality traits were low to moderate (0.07–0.47) being the lowest for CL and the highest for DL. A total of 30 genes located within 10 kb upstream or downstream of these significant SNPs were found. Furthermore, several candidate genes for MQTs were detected, including pH45 (GRM8), MC (ANKRD6), MA (MACROD2 and ABCG1), WL (TMEM50A), CL (PIP4K2A) and DL (CDYL2, CHL1, ABCA4, ZAG and SLC1A2). This study provided substantial new evidence for several candidate genes to participate in different pork quality traits. The identification of these SNPs and candidate genes provided a basis for molecular marker-assisted breeding and improvement of pork quality traits.

Background: As a common malignant disease in females, breast cancer (BCa) causes increasing numbers of cancer-related death. Collagen X alpha 1 chain (COL10A1) plays a critical role in the oncogenesis and progression of malignant tumors. However, a systematic analysis of COL10A1 in BCa has not been conducted. Methods: The COL10A1 expression level and prognostic value in BCa were defined through the Cancer Genome Atlas (TCGA) as well as the Kaplan-Meier plotter data respectively. The expression pattern of COL10A1 was subsequently confirmed on tissue microarray (TMA) by immunochemistry (IHC) staining. Moreover, cellular functional assays which aimed to evaluate cell proliferation, migration, invasion, and apoptosis, were conducted to investigate the oncogenic activity of COL10A1 in BCa. Then, Tumor Immune Estimation Resource (TIMER) was adopted to determine the association between COL10A1 expression and immune cell infiltration. Results: Bioinformatics analysis revealed that COL10A1 was significantly overexpressed and had notable prognostic value, especially for distant metastasis-free survival (DMFS) in BCa. Moreover, IHC analysis of 140 BCa tissues on TMA chips exhibited the overexpression of COL10A1 was correlated to advanced clinical stage, poor overall survival (OS), and worse recurrence-free survival (RFS). Besides, knockdown of COL10A1 remarkably suppressed cell proliferation, migration, and invasion in BCa cells, and notably promoted cell apoptosis as well. Furthermore, COL10A1 was positively associated with immune cell infiltration including B cell, CD8+ T cell, CD4+ T cell, macrophage, neutrophil, and dendritic cell. Conclusion: The results revealed that COL10A1 is a novel oncogene and could serve as a potential prognostic biomarker in BCa. Besides, the downregulation of COL10A1 could inhibit BCa progression, which could be a potential target for BCa therapy.

It has been well-defined that tumor-infiltrating lymphocytes (TILs) play critical roles in pancreatic cancer (PaCa) progression. This research aimed to comprehensively explore the composition of TILs in PaCa and their potential clinical significance. A total of 178 samples from the TCGA and 63 samples from the GSE57495 dataset were enrolled in our study. ImmuCellAI was applied to calculate the infiltrating abundance of 24 immune cell types in PaCa and further survival analysis revealed the prognostic values of TILs in PaCa. Moreover, the Hallmark enticement analysis of differentially expressed genes (DEGs) between low- and high-risk groups was performed as well. Immunohistochemistry staining was used to evaluate NEUROD1 expression. As result, different kinds of TILs had distinct infiltrating features. In addition, Specific TILs subsets had notable prognostic values in PaCa. We further established a 6-TILs signature to assess the prognosis of PaCa patients. Kaplan-Meier and Cox regression analyses both suggested the significant prognostic value of the signature in PaCa. Based on the prognostic signature, we screened a great deal of potential prognostic biomarkers and successfully validated NEUROD1 as a novel prognostic biomarker in PaCa. Overall, the current study illuminated the immune cells infiltrating the landscape in PaCa and identified a TILs-dependent signature and NEUROD1 for prognostic prediction in PaCa patients.

With continued advances in cancer research, the crucial role of the tumor microenvironment (TME) in regulating tumor progression and influencing immunotherapy outcomes has been realized over the years. A series of studies devoted to enhancing the response to immunotherapies through exploring efficient predictive biomarkers and new combination approaches. The microfluidic technology not only promoted the development of multi-omics analyses but also enabled the recapitulation of TME in vitro microfluidic system, which made these devices attractive across studies for optimization of immunotherapy. Here, we reviewed the application of microfluidic systems in modeling TME and the potential of these devices in predicting and monitoring immunotherapy effects.

Polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons (PAHs), nitrated-PAHs (NPAHs) and oxygenated-PAHs (OPAHs) are environmental pollutants with adverse effects on human health. The correlation between the concentrations of PAHs, NPAHs and OPAHs in human plasma and the methylation level of mitochondrial DNA (mtDNA) was investigated using data from 110 plasma samples collected in Tianjin, China. The median concentrations of PAHs, NPAHs and OPAHs were 16.0 (IQR: 14.4–20.7) ng/mL, 82.2 (IQR: 63.1–97.6) ng/mL and 49.6 (IQR: 28.6–53.8) ng/mL, and the mean proportions were 13.4%, 56.5% and 30.1%, respectively. Bisulfite-PCR pyrosequencing was used to measure the methylation level of MT-CO1 and tRNA-Leu. The methylation levels of two mitochondrial genes (MT-CO1, tRNA-Leu) including four CpG sites (MT-CO1-P1, MT-CO1-P2, tRNA-Leu-P1 and tRNA-Leu-P2) were 0.67% ± 1.38%, 13.54% ± 2.59%, 7.23% ± 5.35% and 1.64% ± 2.94%, respectively. To the best of our knowledge, this is the first time that significant correlations were found between PAHs and their derivatives exposure and mtDNA methylation levels.

In an attempt to achieve net zero, the operation and planning of the energy system face techno-economic challenges brought by integrating large-scale distributed energy resources (DERs) with low carbon footprints. Previous work has analyzed the technical challenges including hosting capacity (HC) for DERs. In light of the deregulation of the power industry and the transition to power system with renewables at its center, this article takes the lead to maximizing renewable integration in power grids from a market viewpoint. It solves a significant problem brought forth by the fall in electricity prices, resulting from increasing renewable penetration that jeopardizes investment cost recovery and prevents sustainable grid integration of renewables. To this end, a novel bi-level optimization model is formulated, where the upper-level problem aims to maximize the HC of renewables ensuring the recovery of investment, and the lower-level problem describes the market clearing process considering network constraints. The optimal solution of devised bi-level problem can be found after reformulating it to a single-level mixed-integer linear problem (MILP) using the strong duality theorem and a special ordered set-type 1 (SOS1) founded linearization approach. Case studies confirm the significance of the devised model and quantitatively analyze the impact of different network capacities, renewable subsidies, and energy storage, respectively, on the market-based HC obeying its profitability constraint.

Antiphase boundaries (APBs) of L12 ordered γ′-Co3 (Al, W) precipitates have an essential effect on the high-temperature strength of Co-based monocrystal superalloys. In this work, the antiphase boundaries and their effects on the evolution kinetics of γ′ phase are studied with the phase-field model. The formation of APBs between γ′ phases with different crystallographic variants induces a sharp increase in free energy; the width of APBs measured by the edge-to-edge distances of the γ′ phase is consistent with the experimental results of superalloys. Also, a coupling behavior of Ostwald ripening and APB’s migration in the coarsening of the γ′ phase is revealed. In addition, the volume fraction of the γ′ phase with four antiphase domains is lower than that of the single-domain γ′ phase, and the time exponent of the particles’ number density of the γ′ phase at the steady coarsening stage changes from –0.99 of single domain to –0.8 of APBs. The results show that the high-energy APBs can reduce the coarsening rate of γ′ phases, which are significant in the microstructure and composition designing of the ordered precipitates with APBs in Co-based superalloys.

Based on the daily gridded (0.5° × 0.5°) maximum temperature data during 1962–2020, the spatiotemporal characteristics of heatwaves in Hexi Oasis, Gansu Province, China and their influencing factors are investigated. The results showed that for the last 59 years, the overall trends of high-temperature heatwaves in Hexi Oasis were prolonged duration (0.276 d/10a), increased frequency (0.007 times/10a), and decreased intensity (−0.072 °C/10a). In terms of spatial variation, there was a gradually decreasing trend from northwest to southeast for both the duration and frequency of heatwaves. In the contrary, heatwaves with higher intensity were mainly distributed over the southeastern and central parts of Hexi Oasis. The Mann–Kendall (M-K) analysis demonstrated that the mutation years of the duration and intensity of heatwaves are 2009 and 1992, respectively, while the frequency remained nearly constant for the last 59a. In addition, the cycles for the duration (2.6a and 7.2a), frequency (2.8a and 7.6a), and intensity (2.6a) of heatwaves agree well with those of atmospheric circulation and El Niño events, indicating that the above events have a great impact on the heatwaves. The influencing factors analyzation implies that the heatwaves are mainly influenced by Asian zone polar vortex area index (APVAI), East Asia major trough (EAT), Qinghai-Tibetan Plateau index (TPI), and carbon dioxide emissions (CDE). Additionally, it is concluded that the intensity of heatwaves was negatively correlated with the size of the subtropical high-pressure area in the western Pacific Ocean.

Researchers' investment in reader engagement includes the construction of an appealing abstract. While numerous studies have been conducted on abstracts' rhetorical features, scant empirical attention has been paid to negation use in academic writing. The current study seeks to narrow the research gap from a general and diachronic perspective by adopting an interpersonal model of negation. We found that while "not, no," and "little" tend to be the commonly used negative markers in "Science" abstracts, "little" increased diachronically but decreased for "not" and "no." Functionally, writers prefer to use "interactive negations" and employ relatively more negative markers that function as "consequence" (interactive dimension) and "hedging" (interactional dimension) in their abstracts. Finally, we discuss the possible reasons for such results as well as their pedagogical implications.

Very volatile organic compounds (VVOCs) are a group of important odor pollutants affecting indoor air quality that have been shown to be harmful to human health. A 15 L environmental chamber, combined with multi-bed tube was used to collect gases. Fifteen very volatile organic compounds (VVOCs), including 12 odor compounds, were identified from veneered medium density fiberboard coated with water-based lacquer (WB-MDF) using gas chromatography–mass spectrometry/olfactometry (GC-MS/O). The total very volatile organic compound (TVVOC) and total odor intensity (TOI) showed a decreasing trend over time, reaching equilibrium on day 28. TVVOC showed an overall slow-fast-slow emission profile, from day 3 to day 7, with a maximum decay rate of 29.7%. TOI showed the greatest rate of decline from day 1 to day 3, at approximately 12%. Alkane and alcohol VVOCs were the more abundant compounds, accounting for at least 60% and even up to 80% of the total. The major odor impression was fruity, with a highest odor rating of 6.6, followed by sweet, with an odor rating of 6.1. Although the odor impression changed from sweet to fruity over time, it seemed pleasant overall. The odor contributors were mainly alkanes, alcohols, esters, and ethers, which had relatively high odor intensities. The main odor-contributing substances were dichloromethane, ethanol, ethyl acetate, 2-methylacrylic acid methyl ester, and tetrahydrofuran. When WB-MDF is used for furniture or other decorative materials, it is strongly recommended that it be stored under ventilation for at least 28 days and the adoption of substitute solvents of lacquers, modified adhesives, and low-odor wood raw materials is recommended. These possible initiatives would contribute to the aim of building an environmentally friendly indoor environment.