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Various shaped nanostructures have been continually used in the antireflection of organic-inorganic hybrid perovskite solar cells. A full understanding of the shape-dependent light trapping behavior is the basis for finding the excellent broadband and omnidirectional photovoltaic performance. Hence, three-dimensional models of silica sphere, hemisphere, moth-eye and cone nanostructured perovskite solar cells were performed at omnidirectional angle in this work. We proposed electric field intensity per volume as a key parameter, verifying the transition of light trapping modes of several curved nanostructures from normal incidence to oblique incidence. As the incident angle increases, the antireflection effect of four curved structures becomes increasingly crucial, and the differences among them are also greater. Consequently, the moth-eye nanostructured perovskite solar cell has achieved the best photovoltaic performance considering omnidirectional incidence. The short-circuit current density is increased by 8.4% at normal incidence and increased by 36.4% at 60° incidence compared to the planar reference. Our work offers the theoretical analysis for omnidirectional antireflection structure optimization, and provides guidance for the experimental research and production of potential antireflection structures of solar cell.

Visible-infrared person re-identification (VI-ReID) aims to search the same pedestrian images across different modalities, which is a challenging task for video surveillance. Compared to RGB-based re-identification (Re-ID) with sufficient single-modality training samples, VI-ReID suffers from imbalanced dual-modality data which affects the accuracy of deep learning classifiers. To this end, we present a image modality translation (IMT) network that learns to generate translated modality images from given modalities. It performs image modality translation by means of cycle-consistent adversarial network (CycleGAN) and serves as a data augmentation tool to restore balance to imbalanced training images. Concretely, our method mainly includes two steps: first, we train the IMT network on real images and generate target modality samples to enlarge the training dataset size and increase its diversity. Then the source images and modality transferred images are combined to train a Re-ID CNN model for improving cross-modality retrieval performance. To validate the effectiveness of our proposed approach, we perform our work over SYSU-MM01 and RegDB datasets. The experimental results indicate that our proposed method is significantly more accurate than the state-of-the-art methods.

Cryopreservation of marine fish embryos causes to severe cryogenic damage, and to date, adults have not been reared from embryos that were cryopreserved. Here, we optimized vitrification factors to improve the survival and hatching rate of kelp grouper (Epinephelus moara) embryos after cryopreservation. We screened the effects of 11 vitrification solution concentrations (25–50%) on the survival rate of embryos at four developmental stages (16S, 18S, 22S, TB). We investigated the effects of different equilibration time (25–45min) on the survival rate and the influence of vitrification solutions on embryonic volume. In addition, we tested the effects of treating embryos at five different developmental stages (4-6S, 16S, 22S, TB, HB) with different vitrification solutions (35% PMG3S and 35% PMG3T), prechilling temperature (−5 °C and 4 °C) and prechilling time. In total, 9855 embryos were cryopreserved at 10 developmental stages, from optic capsule stage to pre-hatch stage. We found that kelp grouper embryos performed best at equilibration time of 30 min. Embryos at the tail-bud stage exhibited greater tolerance to vitrification than other stages. Vitrification solutions that contained sucrose showed better survival rates compared to embryos treated with vitrification solutions containing trehalose. Pre-chilling treatment improved viability before freezing, but did not improve viability after freezing. In the most optimal condition we identified in this study, the average survival, normal development and malformation rates of cryopreserved embryos were 6.32%, 2.36% and 3.49%, and 39.85% of the surviving embryos that were cryopreserved hatched. The hatched larvae gradually died at day 12 of cultivation, where the longest surviving individuals lived for 16 days. This study provides valuable data for improving survival and hatching rate of cryopreserved grouper embryos, and provides references for further exploring techniques in fish embryo cryopreservation.

Rheumatoid arthritis (RA) is a chronic systemic inflammatory disorder which is associated with the dysregulation of autoimmune response. In recent years, early diagnosis, aggressive treatment and alternative therapeutic options of disease-modifying anti-rheumatic drugs (DMARDs) markedly improve both the management and long-term prognosis of RA. Since the discovery of non-coding RNA (ncRNA) including microRNA (miRNA), long non-coding RNA (lncRNA) and others, their altered expressions have been unraveled to be deregulated in various diseases including RA. Several lines of evidence are emerging that ncRNA may contribute to the pathogenesis, disease progression and treatment of RA. For example, SNP rs2850711 within lnc00305 was indicated to associate with RA development susceptibility, whereas a higher level of miR-10a represented a good response to methotrexate (MTX) treatment in RA patients. In the aspect of refractory RA, ncRNA also plays an important role by affecting or regulating drug sensitivity in RA patients. Of note, lower expression of miR-20a in rheumatoid arthritis synovial fibroblast (RASFs) was demonstrated to activate the Janus Kinase (JAK)- signal transducer and activator of transcription 3(STAT3)-mediated inflammation, thereby promoting cell proliferation and apoptosis-resistant. In this review, we have illustrated the changes of ncRNAs and their underlying mechanisms in the whole developing period of RA pathogenesis and disease progression, as well as highlighted the novel therapeutic targets/strategies and bio-markers for RA therapy.

Epinephelus moara is an economically important fish in Southeast Asian countries but is suffering from nervous necrosis virus (NNV) infection. A deeper understanding of the host-NNV interaction mechanisms makes sense for disease control, however, at present, the pathogenesis of natural NNV infection and the resistance mechanism in host remains poorly understood. In this study, asymptomatic and diseased E. moara with clinical symptoms of viral nervous necrosis (VNN) from a grouper farm were both detected with a positive RT-PCR signal of NNV, then transcriptome sequencing of their immune tissues (liver, spleen and kidney) were performed for comparation analysis. The de novo assemblies yielded 53,789 unigenes which had a length varied from 201 to 19,675 bp and a N50 length of 2115 bp, and 29,451 unigenes were functionally annotated, with 83, 250 and 5632 unigenes being differentially expressed in liver, spleen and kidney respectively. KEGG pathway enrichment analysis of the DEGs showed many DEGs were enriched in immune related pathways. Although the expression of class I major histocompatibility complex (MHC) was significantly higher in three immune tissues of the diseased grouper, many immune related genes, including humoral immune molecules (such as antibodies), the cellular mediated cytotoxic molecules (such as perforin) and some adhesion related genes were down regulated in the diseased grouper. Our results provided many unigenes that might play important roles in NNV resistance for further research. Furthermore, a total of 8666 unigenes containing 11,623 simple sequence repeats (SSRs) were identified, which provided useful information for screening molecular markers associated with NNV resistance in E. moara.

Alginate oligosaccharides (AOS) showed various biological activities. Traditional protocol for producing AOS was a multiple-step and high-pollution procedure. In this study, a rapid and efficient AOS producing method was developed directly from Laminaria japonica. Natural sun-dried L. japonica with a feed ratio of 1:7 (w/v) was pretreated using cellulase with a dry weight of 3%, for releasing the fermentable sugars (8.5 g/L glucose and 15.2 g/L mannitol). Then, the engineered yeast Yarrowia lipolytica strain with alginate lyase activity was grown using an algae-based medium. After fermentation for 72 h, glucose and mannitol were completely consumed, and 71.8 mM AOS was extracted from the fermentation supernatant. The degree of polymerization (DP) was ranging from 2 to 3. The recovery yield of AOS was about 91.7%. The purity of the extracted AOS was 92.6%. Overall, our work provided new insights for the development of green biotechnologies for oligosaccharide production from seaweed.

In this study, Cromileptes altivelis embryos were successfully preserved using non-permeable cryoprotectants for the first time. We compared the toxicity of single non-permeable cryoprotectants and combination of non-permeable cryoprotectants on C. altivelis embryos. Five non-permeable cryoprotectants at 1 M (i.e., trehalose, sucrose, lactose, fructose, and glucose) were used to treat embryos in the somite, tail-bud, or heart-beating stages for 1 h. Survival rates and rates of normal embryonic development after treatment with trehalose, sucrose, or lactose were all greater than 86.97% and 86.01%, respectively. Levels of toxicity of trehalose, sucrose, and lactose were lower than those of fructose and glucose in C. altivelis embryos. Sucrose and trehalose were combined at different ratios (total concentration 1 M) and used to treat embryos for 1 h. Rates of survival and normal development for the somite, tail-bud, or heart-beating stages did not significantly differ among groups treated with sucrose + trehalose at ratios of 1:1 (S1T1), 1:3 (S1T3), and 3:1 (S3T1). Embryos treated with S1T1 had a little higher survival rate than those of the other treatment ratios(P > 0.05). Survival rates of embryos treated with T1S1, sucrose, and trehalose were 93.86 ± 4.17%, 91.58 ± 3.15%, and 92.79 ± 2.45%, respectively. S1T1 was less toxic than sucrose or trehalose alone under the same conditions. Various cryopreservation-related factors (e.g., the cryoprotectant solution, embryonic stage, equilibrium time, thawing temperature, and time) were screened. The optimal protocol was the treatment of embryos at the tail-bud and heart-beating stages with 1 M S1T1 for 2–10 min and thawing at 26 °C for 10 s after freezing. In total, 21 viable embryos were recovered after freezing and thawing, with a survival rate of 0.21–7.55% and maximum survival time of 5 days. Our results demonstrate that it is feasible to cryopreserve C. altivelis embryos using non-permeable cryoprotectants and provide a reference for the use of combinations of cryoprotectants for the species.

Owing to the increasing market demand and emerging grouper aquaculture industry, close attention has been paid to genetic breeding for growth traits in grouper. The construction of linkage maps for quantitative trait loci (QTL) analyses is an essential step for marker-assisted selection (MAS) programs. In this study, we report the first high-density linkage map of Yunlong grouper (Epinephelus moara♀ × E. lanceolatus♂) constructed by sequencing 118 F1 progenies in a full-sib family using restriction site associated DNA (RAD) technology. For the female and male maps, 12,307 and 12,340 single nucleotide polymorphism (SNP) markers were anchored onto 24 linkage groups, spanning 1909.37 and 1933.61 cM, respectively, with an average marker interval of 0.16 cM. QTL mapping revealed 39 significant QTLs for three growth traits. Candidate genes participating in ubiquitin modification, cell adhesion, G-protein coupled receptors, cell proliferation, and calcium transport were identified from these QTLs, including itgb1, col1a1, pdgfc, bmpr1a, pcdhgc5, and cacna1b. The results of this study provide a foundation for genomic and genetic studies and further analyses of the heterosis of some growth traits, thereby facilitating MAS in Yunlong grouper.

For the first time in fish, this study investigated the changes of gene expression in larvae hatched from fresh and cryopreserved embryos using RNA-seq. The transcriptome of kelp grouper from 1-day larvae hatched from fresh and cryopreserved embryos were obtained by high-throughput sequencing and analyzed by KEGG and GO database. The analysis results showed that 1815 unigenes were significantly differentially expressed (1165 up-regulated vs 650 down-regulated). Significantly down-regulated genes were enriched for eye development, cranial nerve development, sensory light stimulation and neurotransmitter transport terms, predicting that dehydration/rehydration or freezing/thawing during cryopreservation may affect development of the central nervous system, including the primordia of the eye. Moreover, many down-regulated genes were involved in calcium ion regulation, which may affect cell structure, as well as cell proliferation and differentiation. Meanwhile, gene expression of some proteins that protect neurons from the toxic effects of high concentrations of extracellular neurotransmitters significantly decreased, further suggesting that cryopreservation may have an effect on the central nervous system of larvae. In addition, huge amounts of primary data provided in present paper contribute to the genome and proteome databases of the grouper. These results will help other researchers better understand the effect of cryopreservation on fish embryos and improve exploration of the molecular mechanism of fish embryo cryoinjury.

The incidence of acute kidney injury (AKI) is high in elderly people, and is difficult to prevent and treat. One of its major causes is renal ischemia-reperfusion injury (IRI). A young systemic environment may prevent the senescence of old organs. However, it is unknown whether a young milieu may reduce renal IRI in the elderly. To examine this question, bilateral renal IRI was induced in old (24 months) mice three weeks after parabiosis model establishment. At 24 hours after IRI, compared to old wild-type mice, the old mice with IRI had significantly damaged renal histology, decreased renal function, increased oxidative stress, inflammation, and apoptosis. However, there was no increase in autophagy. Compared to old mice with IRI, old-old parabiosis mice with IRI did not show differences in renal histological damage, oxidative stress, inflammation, apoptosis, or autophagy, but did exhibit improved renal function. Compared to the old-old parabiosis mice with IRI, the old mice with IRI in the young (12 week)-old parabiosis showed less renal histological injury and better renal function. Renal oxidative stress, inflammation, and apoptosis were significantly decreased, and autophagy was significantly increased. Thus, a youthful systemic milieu may decrease oxidative stress, inflammation, and apoptosis, and increase autophagy in old mice with IRI. These effects ameliorated IRI injuries in old mice. Our study provides new ideas for effectively preventing and treating AKI in the elderly.

κ-Carrageenase cleaves the β-(1–4) linkages of κ-carrageenan into κ-carrageenan oligosaccharides (κ-COS), which exhibit various biological activities. In this study, a glycoside hydrolase (GH) family 16 κ-carrageenase gene, cgkA, was cloned from the marine bacterium Vibrio sp. SY01 and secretory expressed in a food-grade host, Yarrowia lipolytica. The specific activity of the purified CgkA was 12.5 U/mg. Determination of biochemical properties showed that CgkA was a thermo-tolerant enzyme, and 59.9% of the initial enzyme activity was recovered by immediately placing the sample at 20 °C for 30 min after enzymatic inactivation by boiling for 5 min. The recombinant CgkA was an endo-type enzyme, the main enzymatic product was κ-carradiaose (accounting for 87.6% of total products), and κ-carratetraose was the minimum substrate. Additionally, in vitro and in vivo analyses indicated that enzymatic κ-carradiaose possesses anti-oxidant activity. These features make CgkA as a promising candidate for biotechnological applications in the production of anti-oxidant κ-COS.

Here, we explored the metamorphosis and skeletal development of hybrids between Epinephelus awoara (♀) and Epinephelus tukula (♂) (EAT). Currently, many varieties with good characters have been produced by cross breeding, which plays an important role in the development of aquaculture. However, few basic studies have focused on the developmental biology of hybrid progeny. We studied the morphological characteristics and body structure of larvae and juveniles of the hybrid and measured their body length. The results showed that the metamorphosis process of the hybrid grouper was comparable to that of other groupers. Moreover, using whole-mount bone-staining technology, the ontogeny and ossification of the cranium, appendage skeleton and vertebral column were observed and described in the larvae and juveniles. Newly hatched larvae did not have a skeleton. Head cartilage and the pectoral fin developed at 3 days after hatching (DAH), and the total length (TL) was 2.74 ± 0.06 mm. Cartilage of the dorsal fin and pelvic fin developed at 15 DAH (3.90 ± 0.97 mm TL). The vertebral column and caudal fin cartilage appeared at 18 DAH (4.69 ± 0.58 mm TL). Cartilage was observed in the anal fin at 22 DAH (6.16 ± 1.76 mm TL). The second dorsal fin spine and pelvic fin spine were fully ossified between 24 and 26 DAH (8.01 ± 1.41–9.29 ± 1.64 mm TL). The first skeletal part that completed ossification was the pelvic fin, which occurred at the 44 DAH (24.64 ± 3.63 mm TL). The vertebral column was fully ossified at 47 DAH (29.70 ± 1.97 mm TL). The dorsal fin and anal fin were ossified at 51 DAH (34.64 ± 1.92 mm TL) and the cephalic skeleton, caudal fin and pectoral fin were fully ossified at 68 DAH (41.89 ± 2.16 mm TL). These results provide abundant biological data on the metamorphosis and skeletal development of larvae and juvenile groupers, as well as analysis of the growth and survival rate advantage of hybrid offspring.

In this paper, we present a new approach to cryopreserve kelp grouper embryos using non-permeating cryoprotectants (NPC). Various cryopreservation factors (embryo container, cryoprotectant solution, embryonic stage, equilibrium time, solution concentration, and thawing temperature and time) were screened in preliminary experiments. We found that using 1 M sucrose to equilibrate for 5, 6, and 7 mins and using cryotube II as the container for embryos was most effective for the kelp grouper embryos at the 16S and TB stages. Thawing was most effective at 24 °C for 30s. In six of the experiments, at least four groups of embryos survived freezing and thawing. In total, 1195 viable embryos were recovered from those four experiments. The survival rate was 12.60%–31.3%, the hatching rate was 5.08%–41.28%, and maximum alive time of the thawed embryos ranged from 70 h to 9 days. These results are encouraging for future experiments on cryopreservation of kelp grouper embryos using NPCs, and our study provides new cryopreservation conditions for grouper embryos.

3-Oxo-29-noroleana-1,9(11),12-trien-2,20-dicarbonitrile (ONTD) is a novel synthetic derivative of glycyrrhetinic acid (GA), which has the ability to inhibit the proliferation of human hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC) cells. However, the mechanisms by which ONTD exerts its inhibitory effects remain elusive. The present study was conducted to investigate the cytotoxicity of ONTD in Bel-7402 cells and its molecular mechanisms. We found that ONTD depleted intracellular GSH, increased the level of ROS, and consequently induced mitochondrial permeability transition (MPT) leading to the release of apoptosis-inducing factor (AIF) and cytochrome c (Cyt c) to the cytosol. Mitochondrial alteration and subsequent apoptotic cell death in ONTD-treated Bel-7402 cells could be blocked by addition of exogenous antioxidants N-acetylcystein (NAC), GSH and the MTP inhibitor cyclosporin A (CsA). In addition, ONTD activated the phosphorylation of c-Jun N-terminal kinase (JNK) and p38 mitogen-activated protein kinases (MAPK) but not extracellular signal-regulated protein kinases (ERK 1/2). When the cells were exposed to SP600125 (a JNK inhibitor) and SB203580 (a p38 inhibitor), the deregulation of the expression of apoptotic proteins was attenuated. Furthermore, 40 mg/kg ONTD significantly reduced tumor weight (-70.62%, p0.01) in the H22 tumor-bearing mouse model in vivo. Taken together, these findings provide the first experimental evidence supporting that ONTD could induce apoptosis of Bel-7402 cells via MAPK-mediated mitochondrial pathway and ONTD has the potential to be developed as a therapeutic agent for the treatment of HCC.

A series of novel nitric oxide releasing derivatives of 6-amino-3-n-butylphthalide were designed, synthesized and evaluated as potential antiplatelet agents. Compound 10b significantly inhibited the adenosine diphosphate (ADP)-induced platelet aggregation in vitro, superior to 6-amino-3-n-butylphthalide, 3-n-butylphthalide (NBP) and ticlopidine. Meanwhile 10b released moderate levels of NO, which could be beneficial for improving cardiovascular and cerebral circulation. Furthermore, 10b had an enhanced aqueous solubility relative to NBP. These findings may provide new insights into the development of novel antiplatelet agents for the treatment of thrombosis-related ischemic stroke.

A series of novel alkyl substituted fructose-based oxadiazoles were synthesized and their cytotoxic activities toward tumor cells were investigated. We studied the reaction mechanism and the stereochemistry of the reaction. Tautomerization between isomers 2 and 3 was observed in solution. The tautomerization was accelerated by heating or in the presence of acetic acid. An intermediate 6 during the heterocyclization was isolated, and two different pathways for the heterocyclization were suggested. On the basis of these findings, an efficient method, with the assistance of microwave irradiation was developed for the synthesis of 4 and 5. The yields were satisfactory and no by-products were found. We also proposed that the (R/S)-configurations of oxadiazoles were determined by the E/Z configurations of hydrazones.

This work reports the effect of capacitance, cathode material, gas flow rate and specific energy input on methane conversion, energy efficiency and product selectivity in a co-axial cylinder pulsed corona discharge reactor. Ethane and acetylene appear to be formed from dimerization of CH3 radicals and CH radicals, respectively, while ethylene is formed mainly from the dehydrogenation of ethane. At a given power input, low capacitance with high pulse frequency results in higher methane conversion and energy efficiency than operation at high capacitance with low pulse frequency. Platinum coated stainless steel cathodes slightly enhance methane conversion relative to stainless steel cathodes, perhaps due to a weak catalytic effect. As specific energy input increases, energy efficiency for methane conversion goes through a minimum, while the selectivity of acetylene has a maximum value. Comparison of methane conversion for different types of plasma reactors shows that the pulsed corona discharge is a potential alternative method for low temperature methane conversion.