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Persistent organic pollutants seriously affect the growth and development of crops. 1,2,4-Trichlorobenzene (TCB), as one of the most widely used chlorobenzenes, can affect the yield of japonica rice. However, existing research on the effect of TCB on japonica rice yield is not in-depth, and a basic understanding of commonality has not yet been formed. In this study, 28 conventional japonica rice varieties were selected to investigate the effects of TCB stress on their yield, yield composition, and TCB accumulation. This study also evaluated the efficiency of conventional tolerance indices in evaluating the TCB stress tolerance of japonica rice. The results showed that TCB caused sustained inhibition of the growth of japonica rice, which was considerably manifested in plant height, root length, soil plant analysis development (SPAD), and dry weight at different growth stages. Under TCB stress, TCB accumulation in various tissues of japonica rice increased sharply. TCB stress reduces the yield of japonica rice by reducing the number of panicles per hill, the number of spikelets per panicle, the grain filling percentage, and the grain weight. Overall, the results of this study indicate that TCB stress can cause a decrease in the yield of japonica rice, and the decrease in panicle number is the main reason. The conventional tolerance index can effectively evaluate the tolerance of japonica rice to TCB. The results of this study are substantial for the breeding and cultivation of japonica rice.

BackgroundAging is an inescapable process, but it can be slowed down, particularly facial aging. Sex and growth hormones have been shown to play an important role in the process of facial aging. We investigated this association further, using a two-sample Mendelian randomization study.MethodsWe analyzed genome-wide association study (GWAS) data from the UK Biobank database comprising facial aging data from 432,999 samples, using two-sample Mendelian randomization. In addition, single-nucleotide polymorphism (SNP) data on sex hormone-binding globulin (SHBG) and sex steroid hormones were obtained from a GWAS in the UK Biobank [SHBG, N = 189,473; total testosterone (TT), N = 230,454; bioavailable testosterone (BT), N = 188,507; and estradiol (E2), N = 2,607)]. The inverse-variance weighted (IVW) method was the major algorithm used in this study, and random-effects models were used in cases of heterogeneity. To avoid errors caused by a single algorithm, we selected MR-Egger, weighted median, and weighted mode as supplementary algorithms. Horizontal pleiotropy was detected based on the intercept in the MR-Egger regression. The leave-one-out method was used for sensitivity analysis.ResultsSHBG plays a promoting role, whereas sex steroid hormones (TT, BT, and E2) play an inhibitory role in facial aging. Growth hormone (GH) and insulin-like growth factor-1 (IGF-1) levels had no significant effect on facial aging, which is inconsistent with previous findings in vitro.ConclusionRegulating the levels of SHBG, BT, TT, and E2 may be an important means to delay facial aging.

IntroductionBurns are a common trauma associated with considerable mortality and morbidity. Although a lot is known regarding burns' pathogenesis, the involvement of ferroptosis is uncertain. Here, we aimed to explore vital ferroptosis-related genes and molecules in burns, through bioinformatics analysis, to uncover new effective therapeutic targets.MethodsThe FerrDb database was used to acquire ferroptosis-related genes and GSE19743 was downloaded from Gene Expression Omnibus (GEO), a dataset with analysis of control and burned individuals. Hub genes were selected with Cytoscape software, and Gene Ontology (GO), and Kyoto Encyclopedia of Genes and Genomes (KEGG) enrichment analyses were conducted. Cox proportional hazard function and Kaplan-Meier survival analyses were implemented to screen prognosis-related genes. Additionally, the miRWalk database was used to acquire the miRNAs relevant to our hub genes function and analyzed for enrichment.ResultWe identified 64 differentially expressed genes and through the intersection with ferroptosis-related genes, 10 were selected as hub genes. GO analysis revealed that the hub genes' most enriched activities were response to oxidative stress, pyridine-containing compound metabolic processes, and reactive oxygen species metabolic processes. KEGG pathways' analysis showed that these overlapped genes were enriched in several pathways, namely, in VEGF signaling. Furthermore, the molecular miRNA functions significantly enriched were signal transduction and cell communication, namely, the biological pathways of the glypican pathway and the ErbB receptor signaling network. SLC40A1 and GPT2 genes were found to be associated with overall survival, suggesting an important role in burn prognosis.DiscussionThis study may improve our understanding of the underlying burn mechanisms and provide a new direction for the prevention of poor outcomes, advances in burns treatment, and drug development.

ObjectiveLiquid metal (LM) nowadays is considered a new biomedical material for medical treatment. The most common application of LM in medical therapy is taking LM as a carrier for oncology therapeutics. However, the feasibility and direct effect of LM in tumor treatment are still unknown, and how to delineate the negative resection margin (NRM) of the tumor is also a crucial problem in surgery. We aimed to inject LM into interstitial channels of extremities of mice to overlay the surface of the primary tumor to investigate the effect of LM on inhibiting tumor growth and highlight the NRM of the tumor.MethodsIn this study, all 50 BALB/c-nude female mice were used to construct the transplanted HepG2-type hepatocellular carcinoma model. One week after the establishment of the model, the mice were divided into three groups, named LM group, PBS group and Control group by injecting different liquid materials into the forelimb interstitial channel of the mice. T2WI image on MRI and Magneto-acoustic tomography (MAT) were used to show the distribution of LM and PBS in vivo. The group comparisons of tumor growth and blood tests were evaluated by one-way ANOVA and post-hoc analysis. And the biocompatibility of LM to BALB/c nude mice was evaluated by histopathological analysis of LM group and control group.ResultsThe volume change ratio of tumor was significantly lower in LM group than in PBS and Control group after 10 days of grouping. Compared with PBS and Control group, the main indexes of blood tests in LM group were significantly lower and close to normal level. In addition, the distribution of LM in vivo could be clearly observed under T2WI anatomic images and the crossprofile of the tumor in MAT. LM also has a obvious contrast in MRI T2WI and enhanced the amplitude of imaging signal in MAT.ConclusionLM may inhibit the growth of transplanted hepatoma tumor through tumor encapsulation. In vivo, tumor imaging and LM distribution imaging were achieved by MRI T2WI, which verified that LM injected with interstitial injection made the NRM of tumor more prominent and had the potential of being MRI contrast agent. At the same time, LM could also be a new conductive medium to improve the imaging quality of MAT. Moreover, LM performed mild biocompatibility.

Objective: To establish a pre-operative acute ischemic stroke risk (AIS) prediction model using the deep neural network in patients with acute type A aortic dissection (ATAAD).Methods: Between January 2015 and February 2019, 300 ATAAD patients diagnosed by aorta CTA were analyzed retrospectively. Patients were divided into two groups according to the presence or absence of pre-operative AIS. Pre-operative AIS risk prediction models based on different machine learning algorithm was established with clinical, transthoracic echocardiography (TTE) and CTA imaging characteristics as input. The performance of the difference models was evaluated using the receiver operating characteristic (ROC), precision-recall curve (PRC) and decision curve analysis (DCA).Results: Pre-operative AIS was detected in 86 of 300 patients with ATAAD (28.7%). The cohort was split into a training (211, 70% patients) and validation cohort (89, 30% patients) according to stratified sampling strategy. The constructed deep neural network model had the best performance on the discrimination of AIS group compare with other machine learning model, with an accuracy of 0.934 (95% CI: 0.891–0.963), 0.921 (95% CI: 0.845–0.968), sensitivity of 0.934, 0.960, specificity of 0.933, 0.906, and AUC of 0.982 (95% CI: 0.967–0.997), 0.964 (95% CI: 0.932–0.997) in the training and validation cohort, respectively.Conclusion: The established risk prediction model based on the deep neural network method may have the big potential to evaluate the risk of pre-operative AIS in patients with ATAAD.

Background: Stroke is a common postoperative complication in patients with acute type A aortic dissection (ATAAD). We aimed to explore the preoperative imaging risk findings for postoperative new stroke in patients with ATAAD.Methods: From January 2015 to December 2018, 174 patients with ATAAD who underwent preoperative aortic computed tomography angiography (CTA) and cerebral diffusion-weighted imaging (DWI) as well as postoperative brain CT were included, and divided into DWI (+) and DWI (–) groups. Pre- and intraoperative variables were collected, and logistic regression analysis was used to determine the independent risk predictors of postoperative new stroke.Results: The incidence of postoperative new stroke was 18.4% (32/174) in patients with ATAAD. Postoperative stroke was detected in 13 (31.0%) patients in the DWI (+) group and in 19 (14.4%) patients in the DWI (–) group with significant difference (P = 0.016). In the DWI (+) group, the lesions of the cerebral infarction located in the unilateral cerebral hemisphere and distributed more than three lobes (P = 0.007) were an independent risk factor for postoperative new stroke. Hypotension (P = 0.002), retrograde ascending aorta dissection with thrombosis of the false lumen (P = 0.010), aortic arch entry (P = 0.035), and coronary artery involvement (P = 0.001) were independent risk factors for postoperative stroke in the DWI (–) cohort.Conclusions: Patients with ATAAD with cerebral infarction are more likely to develop postoperative new stroke; thus, a preoperative DWI examination may be necessary. DWI lesions distributed more than 3 lobes in the unilateral hemisphere suggest a high possibility of postoperative stroke. For patients with ATAAD with normal brain, particular attention should be given to the CTA findings of false lumen thrombosis, aortic arch entry, and coronary artery involvement to avoid postoperative stroke.

Sepsis is a prevalent severe syndrome in clinic. Vascular leakage and lung injury are important pathophysiological processes during sepsis, but the mechanism remains obscure. Microvesicles (MVs) play an essential role in many diseases, while whether MVs participate in vascular leakage and lung injury during sepsis is unknown. Using cecal ligation and puncture induced sepsis rats and lipopolysaccharide stimulated vascular endothelial cells (VECs), the role and the underlying mechanism of endothelial microvesicles (EMVs) in pulmonary vascular leakage and lung injury were observed. The role of MVs from sepsis patients was verified. The results showed that the concentration of MVs in blood was significantly increased after sepsis. MVs from sepsis rats and patients induced apparent pulmonary vascular leakage and lung injury, among which EMVs played the dominant role, in which miR-23b was the key inducing factor in vascular leakage. Furthermore, downregulation and upregulation of miR-23b in EMVs showed that miR-23b mainly targeted on ZO-1 to induce vascular leakage. MVs from sepsis patients induced pulmonary vascular leakage and lung injury in normal rats. Application of classic antidepressants amitriptyline reduced the secretion of EMVs, and alleviated vascular leakage and lung injury. The study suggests that EMVs play an important role in pulmonary vascular leakage and lung injury during sepsis by transferring functional miR-23b. Antagonizing the secretion of EMVs and the miR-23b might be a potential target for the treatment of severe sepsis.

BackgroundVascular leakage is a common complication of hemorrhagic shock. Endothelial glycocalyx plays a crucial role in the protection of vascular endothelial barrier function. Hydroxyethyl starch (HES) is a commonly used resuscitation fluid for hemorrhagic shock. However, whether the protective effect of HES on vascular permeability after hemorrhagic shock is associated with the endothelial glycocalyx is unclear.MethodsUsing hemorrhagic shock rat model and hypoxia treated vascular endothelial cells (VECs), effects of HES (130/0.4) on pulmonary vascular permeability and the relationship to endothelial glycocalyx were observed.ResultsPulmonary vascular permeability was significantly increased after hemorrhagic shock, as evidenced by the increased permeability of pulmonary vessels to albumin-fluorescein isothiocyanate conjugate (FITC-BSA) and Evans blue, the decreased transendothelial electrical resistance of VECs and the increased transmittance of FITC-BSA. The structure of the endothelial glycocalyx was destroyed, showing a decrease in thickness. The expression of heparan sulfate, hyaluronic acid, and chondroitin sulfate, the components of the endothelial glycocalyx, was significantly decreased. HES (130/0.4) significantly improved the vascular barrier function, recovered the thickness and the expression of components of the endothelial glycocalyx by down-regulating the expression of heparinase, hyaluronidase, and neuraminidase, and meanwhile increased the expression of intercellular junction proteins ZO-1, occludin, and VE-cadherin. Degradation of endothelial glycocalyx with degrading enzyme (heparinase, hyaluronidase, and neuraminidase) abolished the beneficial effect of HES on vascular permeability, but had no significant effect on the recovery of the expression of endothelial intercellular junction proteins induced by HES (130/0.4). HES (130/0.4) decreased the expression of cleaved-caspase-3 induced by hemorrhagic shock.ConclusionsHES (130/0.4) has protective effect on vascular barrier function after hemorrgic shock.The mechanism is mainly related to the protective effect of HES on endothelial glycocalyx and intercellular junction proteins. The protective effect of HES on endothelial glycocalyx was associated with the down-regulated expression of heparinase, hyaluronidase, and neuraminidase. HES (130/0.4) had an anti-apoptotic effect in hemorrhagic shock.

Myocardial ischemia is a condition with insufficient oxygen supporting the heart tissues, which may result from myocardial infarction or trauma-induced hemorrhagic shock. In order to develop better preventive and therapeutic strategies for myocardial ischemic damage, it is important that we understand the mechanisms underlying this type of injury. Mitochondrial-derived vesicles (MDVs) have been proposed as a novel player in maintaining mitochondrial quality control. This study aimed to investigate the role and possible mechanisms of MDVs in ischemia/hypoxia-induced myocardial apoptosis. H9C2 cardiomyocytes were used for the cellular experiments. A 40% fixed blood volume hemorrhagic shock rat model was used to construct the acute general ischemic models. MDVs were detected using immunofluorescence staining with PDH and TOM20. Exogenous MDVs were reconstituted in vitro from isolated mitochondria under different hypoxic conditions. The results demonstrate that MDV production was negatively correlated with cardiomyocyte apoptosis under hypoxic conditions; exogenous MDVs inhibited hypoxia-induced cardiomyocyte apoptosis; and MDV-mediated protection against hypoxia-induced cardiomyocyte apoptosis was accomplished via Bcl-2 interactions in the mitochondrial pathway. This study provides evidence that MDVs protect cardiomyocytes against hypoxic damage by inhibiting mitochondrial apoptosis. Our study used a novel approach that expands our understanding of MDVs and highlights that MDVs may be part of the endogenous response to hypoxia designed to mitigate damage. Strategies that stimulate cardiomyocytes to produce cargo-specific MDVs, including Bcl-2 containing MDVs, could theoretically be helpful in treating ischemic/hypoxic myocardial injury.

Brain computer interface (BCI)-based training is promising for the treatment of stroke patients with upper limb (UL) paralysis. However, most stroke patients receive comprehensive treatment that not only includes BCI, but also routine training. The purpose of this study was to investigate the topological alterations in brain functional networks following comprehensive treatment, including BCI training, in the subacute stage of stroke. Twenty-five hospitalized subacute stroke patients with moderate to severe UL paralysis were assigned to one of two groups: 4-week comprehensive treatment, including routine and BCI training (BCI group, BG, n = 14) and 4-week routine training without BCI support (control group, CG, n = 11). Functional UL assessments were performed before and after training, including, Fugl-Meyer Assessment-UL (FMA-UL), Action Research Arm Test (ARAT), and Wolf Motor Function Test (WMFT). Neuroimaging assessment of functional connectivity (FC) in the BG was performed by resting state functional magnetic resonance imaging. After training, as compared with baseline, all clinical assessments (FMA-UL, ARAT, and WMFT) improved significantly (p < 0.05) in both groups. Meanwhile, better functional improvements were observed in FMA-UL (p < 0.05), ARAT (p < 0.05), and WMFT (p < 0.05) in the BG. Meanwhile, FC of the BG increased across the whole brain, including the temporal, parietal, and occipital lobes and subcortical regions. More importantly, increased inter-hemispheric FC between the somatosensory association cortex and putamen was strongly positively associated with UL motor function after training. Our findings demonstrate that comprehensive rehabilitation, including BCI training, can enhance UL motor function better than routine training for subacute stroke patients. The reorganization of brain functional networks topology in subacute stroke patients allows for increased coordination between the multi-sensory and motor-related cortex and the extrapyramidal system. Future long-term, longitudinal, controlled neuroimaging studies are needed to assess the effectiveness of BCI training as an approach to promote brain plasticity during the subacute stage of stroke.

Mitogen-activated protein kinases (MAPKs) play central roles in plant developmental processes, hormone signaling transduction, and responses to abiotic stress. However, no data are currently available about the MAPK family in cassava, an important tropical crop. Herein, 21 MeMAPK genes were identified from cassava. Phylogenetic analysis indicated that MeMAPKs could be classified into four subfamilies. Gene structure analysis demonstrated that the number of introns in MeMAPK genes ranged from 1 to 10, suggesting large variation among cassava MAPK genes. Conserved motif analysis indicated that all MeMAPKs had typical protein kinase domains. Transcriptomic analysis suggested that MeMAPK genes showed differential expression patterns in distinct tissues and in response to drought stress between wild subspecies and cultivated varieties. Interaction networks and co-expression analyses revealed that crucial pathways controlled by MeMAPK networks may be involved in the differential response to drought stress in different accessions of cassava. Expression of nine selected MAPK genes showed that these genes could comprehensively respond to osmotic, salt, cold, oxidative stressors, and abscisic acid (ABA) signaling. These findings yield new insights into the transcriptional control of MAPK gene expression, provide an improved understanding of abiotic stress responses and signaling transduction in cassava, and lead to potential applications in the genetic improvement of cassava cultivars.