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To investigate the impact of visceral adipose tissue (VAT) on atherosclerosis in type 2 diabetes patients with normal bodyweight (OB[-]) in the Chinese population, and to further assess the sex-age differences between them.A total of 8,839 type 2 diabetes patients from two of the National Metabolic Management Centers in China were included in this study. Participants were classified into four groups by visceral fat area (VFA; cmThe VA(+)OB(-) prevalence was 3.7% among these participants. Patients with VA(+)OB(-) had the highest baPWV value (P 0.001) and the highest proportion of the tertile 3 of baPWV (P 0.001) among four groups, and were significantly associated with baPWV (standardized β = 0.026, P = 0.008). VFA was significantly related to tertile 2 to tertile 3 of baPWV in (OB[-]) type 2 diabetes patients, when compared with tertile 1 of baPWV, respectively. In sex-age stratified analysis, the association of VFA and the tertiles of baPWV showed sex differences. For the 55 years age stratification analysis, there was no age difference in the relationship between VFA and baPWV in (OB[-]) patients.Increased VAT was an independent risk factor for atherosclerosis in female type 2 diabetes patients with normal weight.

Previous studies showed a controversial result on the relationship between probiotics treatment duration and blood pressure (BP). The present meta-analysis is performed to summarize the effects of long-term (≥8 weeks) use of probiotics on office and ambulatory BP using combined evidence from randomized, controlled trials. We searched PubMed, Embase, Cochrane library, and the ClinicalTrials.gov till January, 2021 to identify eligible articles. Primary outcomes were changes in office BP. In the presence of heterogeneity, a random-effects model was used to calculate the combined treatment effect. Begg's funnel plots and Egger's regression test were used to assess the publication bias. Meta-analysis of 26 trials in 1624 participants demonstrated that probiotic consumption significantly decreased office systolic BP by 2.18 mmHg (95% confidence interval [CI], −3.41 to −0.94 mmHg) and diastolic BP by 1.07 mmHg (95% CI, −1.72 to −0.41 mmHg). The analysis on ambulatory BP from three trials showed a similar reduction by −2.35/−1.61 mmHg (p ≤ .052). Subgroup analysis in hypertensive and diabetic patients showed a significant reduction in systolic and diastolic BP (p ≤ .02). The reductions in diabetic and hypertensive patients were comparatively larger than nondiabetic and normotensive patients (p ≥ .052). With the increase of age, baseline body mass index (BMI), treatment duration, and systolic BP, the effects of probiotics on BP did not increase significantly (ptrend ≥ .18). The present meta-analysis suggests a beneficial effect of probiotics on BP by a modest degree, especially in the diabetes mellitus and hypertension. Prolonging the treatment duration could not improve the antihypertensive effect.

Objective To investigate whether anterior selective fusion (ASF) could save more distal fusion segments compared with posterior approach in the treatment of Lenke type 5 adolescent idiopathic scoliosis with long term follow‐up. Methods A retrospective cohort study. From 2008 to 2011, 22 AIS girls with Lenke type 5 who underwent ASF or posterior selective fusion (PSF) with more than 8‐year follow‐up, were extracted from the database. 13 girls in the ASF group had an average age of 14.3 ± 1.3 years and Risser sign of 3.3 ± 1.1; 9 PSF girls had an average age of 16.2 ± 3.6 years and Risser sign of 3.8 ± 1.5. The radiographic outcome was compared between groups preoperatively, 6‐month postoperatively, 8‐year postoperatively and at last follow‐up (>8 years). Results The average follow‐up duration was 8.7 ± 0.4 (ASF) and 8.8 ± 0.5 (PSF) years, respectively. There was no significant difference at baseline in age, Risser sign and preoperative curve pattern in the coronal and sagittal plane between the groups (P > 0.05). The ASF group had significantly shorter fusion segments (5.1 ± 0.6 vs. 7.0 ± 1.3) and decreased upper instrumented vertebra (UIV) (T11 ± 0.8 vs. T10 ± 0.8) than the PSF (P 0.05), which suggested that ASF could shorten the fusion segments by lowering UIV. The distal compensatory curve in the ASF group (9.0° ± 3.9°) was significantly larger than in the PSF group (3.3° ± 2.4°, P = 0.003), despite of no significant difference in the incidence of coronal imbalance (P > 0.05), indicating that both two approaches could obtain satisfactory correction in the coronal plane. In the sagittal plane, PSF patients had significantly larger lumbar lordosis (LL, 59.1° ± 10.5°), thoracic kyphosis (TK, 37.2° ± 13.3°) and proximal junctional angle (PJA, 13.3° ± 6.1°) at the last follow‐up than the ASF (LL: 43.4° ± 9.4°; TK: 20.7° ± 8.4°; PJA: 4.7° ± 3.4°; P 0.05). After controlling for age, Risser sign, and radiographic parameters related to the primary curve pattern, shorter fusion segments and more distal reserved segments still remained significant in the ASF group with greater Risser sign (P

OBJECTIVE To investigate whether anterior selective fusion (ASF) could save more distal fusion segments compared with posterior approach in the treatment of Lenke type 5 adolescent idiopathic scoliosis with long term follow-up. METHODS A retrospective cohort study. From 2008 to 2011, 22 AIS girls with Lenke type 5 who underwent ASF or posterior selective fusion (PSF) with more than 8-year follow-up, were extracted from the database. 13 girls in the ASF group had an average age of 14.3 ± 1.3 years and Risser sign of 3.3 ± 1.1; 9 PSF girls had an average age of 16.2 ± 3.6 years and Risser sign of 3.8 ± 1.5. The radiographic outcome was compared between groups preoperatively, 6-month postoperatively, 8-year postoperatively and at last follow-up (>8 years). RESULTS The average follow-up duration was 8.7 ± 0.4 (ASF) and 8.8 ± 0.5 (PSF) years, respectively. There was no significant difference at baseline in age, Risser sign and preoperative curve pattern in the coronal and sagittal plane between the groups (P > 0.05). The ASF group had significantly shorter fusion segments (5.1 ± 0.6 vs. 7.0 ± 1.3) and decreased upper instrumented vertebra (UIV) (T11 ± 0.8 vs. T10 ± 0.8) than the PSF (P 0.05), which suggested that ASF could shorten the fusion segments by lowering UIV. The distal compensatory curve in the ASF group (9.0° ± 3.9°) was significantly larger than in the PSF group (3.3° ± 2.4°, P = 0.003), despite of no significant difference in the incidence of coronal imbalance (P > 0.05), indicating that both two approaches could obtain satisfactory correction in the coronal plane. In the sagittal plane, PSF patients had significantly larger lumbar lordosis (LL, 59.1° ± 10.5°), thoracic kyphosis (TK, 37.2° ± 13.3°) and proximal junctional angle (PJA, 13.3° ± 6.1°) at the last follow-up than the ASF (LL: 43.4° ± 9.4°; TK: 20.7° ± 8.4°; PJA: 4.7° ± 3.4°; P 0.05). After controlling for age, Risser sign, and radiographic parameters related to the primary curve pattern, shorter fusion segments and more distal reserved segments still remained significant in the ASF group with greater Risser sign (P

Morphological trait-matching and species abundance are thought to be the main factors affecting the frequency and strength of mutualistic interactions. However, the relative importance of trait-matching and species abundance in shaping species interactions across environmental gradients remains poorly understood, especially for plant-insect mutualisms involving generalist species. Here, we characterised variation in species and trait composition and the relative importance of trait-matching and species abundance in shaping plant-Hymenoptera and plant-Diptera mutualisms in four meadows across an elevational gradient (2,725-3,910 m) in Yulong Snow Mountain, Southwest China. We also evaluated the effects of morphological traits of flower visitors and plant composition on their foraging specialisation (d' and normalised degree). There was a high degree of dissimilarity in the composition of Hymenoptera and Diptera visitors and their visited plants between communities. This variation was mainly driven by the spatial replacement of species. Both for plant-Hymenoptera and plant-Diptera networks, trait-matching between nectar tube depth and proboscis length was a stronger predictor of the interactions between temporally co-occurring plants and flower visitors than species abundance. Fourth-corner analyses revealed statistically significant trait-matching between nectar tube depth and proboscis length in plant-Hymenoptera networks at all sites, suggesting that Hymenoptera consistently foraged on plant species with nectar tube depths matching their proboscis lengths. By contrast, significant trait-matching in plant-Diptera networks was only observed at the two lower elevation sites. The species-level specialisation d' of flower visitors increased significantly as the proboscis length and the difference in nectar tube depth between the plant community and the plants visited by flower visitors increased. Our results highlight that the importance of trait-matching in shaping pairwise interactions and niche partitioning depends on the specific features (e.g. species composition and trait availability) of the plant-pollinator system. For specialised plant-Hymenoptera systems, trait-matching is an important determinant of species interactions, whereas for generalist plant-Diptera systems, trait-matching is relatively unimportant., H.W. was supported by the Strategic Priority Research Program of the Chinese Academy of Sciences (XDB31000000), the Joint Fund of the National Natural Science Foundation of China-Yunnan Province (U1502261), the Yunling Scholarship of Yunnan Provincial Government (YLXL20170001) and National Natural Science Foundation of China (32071670). Y.-H.Z. was supported by the National Natural Science Foundation of China (31700361) and the Chinese Academy of Sciences ‘Light of West China’ Program. A.L. was supported by a Ramóny Cajal (RYC-2015-19034) contract from the Spanish Ministry of Science, Innovation and Universities, the Spanish State Research Agency, European Social Funds (ESF invests in your future), and the University of the Balearic Islands, and by the project CGL2017-89254-R financed by the Spanish Ministry of Economy and Competitiveness, Feder Funds, and the Spanish Research Agency (Call 2017).

DNA damage in airway epithelia under exogenous disruptors can trigger various pulmonary diseases. Integrin beta 4 (ITGB4) is a structural adhesion molecule, which is indicated to regulate the process of DNA damage in airway epithelia for its unique long cytoplasmic domain subunit.The expression level of ITGB4 and the degree of DNA damage were observed in the house dust mite (HDM)-stressed model and ozone-challenged model, respectively. Besides, ITGB4 conditional knockout mice and ITGB4-deficient airway epithelial cells were constructed to observe the influence of ITGB4 deficiency on DNA damage. Furthermore, the influence of ITGB4 deficiency on HDAC1 expression in airway epithelia was determined under stress stimulation. Finally, corresponding intervention strategies were carried out to verify the involvement of the ITGB4-mediated HDAC1 pathway in DNA damage of airway epithelial cells.HDM stress and ozone challenge reduced the expression of ITGB4, which is accompanied by the increased expression of 8-oxoG and γ-H2AX both in vivo and in vitro. Moreover, ITGB4 deficiency in airway epithelia aggravates the degree of DNA damage under HDM stimulation and ozone stress, respectively. Furthermore, ITGB4 deficiency downregulated the expression of HDAC1 during DNA damage, and restoring HDAC1 can reverse the enhanced DNA damage in airway epithelial cells after exogenous stress.This study confirmed the involvement of ITGB4 in the regulation of DNA damage through mediating HDAC1 in airway epithelial cells under exogenous stress. These results supply some useful insights into the mechanism of DNA damage in airway epithelial cells, which would provide possible targets for early prediction and intervention of pulmonary diseases.

Developing Type-I photosensitizers is considered as an efficient approach to overcome the deficiency of traditional photodynamic therapy (PDT) for hypoxic tumors. However, it remains a challenge to design photosensitizers for generating reactive oxygen species by the Type-I process. Herein, we report a series of α,β-linked BODIPY dimers and a trimer that exclusively generate superoxide radical (O2-. ) by the Type-I process upon light irradiation. The triplet formation originates from an effective excited-state relaxation from the initially populated singlet (S1 ) to triplet (T1 ) states via an intermediate triplet (T2 ) state. The low reduction potential and ultralong lifetime of the T1 state facilitate the efficient generation of O2-. by inter-molecular charge transfer to molecular oxygen. The energy gap of T1 -S0 is smaller than that between 3 O2 and 1 O2 thereby precluding the generation of singlet oxygen by the Type-II process. The trimer exhibits superior PDT performance under the hypoxic environment.

As a unique and common obstetric complication of pregnant women, pre-eclampsia (PE) has been the first leading cause of maternal and perinatal morbidity and mortality in the world. Mounting studies have demonstrated that an abnormality of long noncoding RNA (lncRNA) expression was related to the pathological process of PE. Here, we showed that lncRNA AFAP1-AS1 was markedly downregulated in pre-eclamptic placentas. We further investigated the mechanism underlying the regulatory role of AFAP1-AS1 in PE using human trophoblast cells. In vitro functional assays revealed that AFAP1-AS1 knockdown inhibited trophoblast proliferation, migration, and invasion. Moreover, AFAP1-AS1 interacts with EZH2 and inhibits DUSP5 expression through modulating H3K27m3 in the DUSP5 promoter of trophoblast cells, thus being involved in PE pathogenesis. Overall, these findings suggest that AFAP1-AS1 could potentially become a prognostic biomarker as well as a new therapeutic target for PE.

A one‐dimensional organic‐inorganic halide perovskite DMEACdCl3 (DMEA=N, N‐Dimethylethylamine) was synthesized, which crystallizes in monoclinic space group P21/n, showing obvious dielectric relaxation characteristics in a broad temperature region of 100 K.

Objective The objective of the present paper was to explore the clinical effect of one approach anterior decompression and fixation with posterior unilateral pedicle screw fixation for thoracolumbar osteoporosis vertebral compression fractures (OVCF). Methods This is a single‐center retrospective analysis. A total of six thoracolumbar OVCF patients (four women and two men) with an average age of 65.2 years (58–72 years) who were treated between June 2016 and May 2018 were enrolled in the present study. The lesion segments included: 1 case at T11, 1 case at T12, 3 cases at L1, and 1 case at L2. The six thoracolumbar OVCF patients were treated with one approach anterior decompression and fixation with posterior unilateral pedicle screw fixation. After general anesthesia, patients were placed in the right lateral decubitus position, an approximately 10–15‐cm oblique incision was made along corresponding ribs, and the conventional left retroperitoneal and/or the extrapleural approach was performed for anterior lateral exposure. First, anterior decompression and fixation were performed, and then through the unilateral paraspinal muscle approach, posterior pedicle screw fixation was performed under the same incision. The back pain visual analogue scale (VAS), the Oswestry disability index (ODI), and the MacNab criteria were used to evaluate the clinical outcome. The radiographic analysis included the regional kyphosis angle and the fusion rate. Neurological status, operation time, intraoperative bleeding, the time of ambulation, hospital stay, and surgical complications were also assessed. Results Surgery was successful in all six patients, who were followed up for 31.6 months (range, 23–46 months). The operation time was 125–163 min, with a median of 135 min. The preoperative blood loss was 580–1230 mL, with a median of 760 mL. The time of ambulation was 3–5 days, with a median of 4.2 days. The hospital stay was 8–15 days, with the median of 10.5 days. According to the Frankel classification of neurological deficits, of two patients with grade C preoperatively, one had improved to grade D and one had improved to grade E at final follow up; among four patients with grade D preoperatively, at the final follow up one remained the same and three had improved to grade E. The postoperative back pain VAS score decreased significantly, from 6.17 ± 0.75 preoperatively to 0.83 ± 0.41 postoperatively (P, To treat thoracolumbar vertebral osteoporosis compression fractures, we applied one approach anterior decompression and fixation with posterior unilateral pedicle screw fixation. For this procedure, we placed the patient in the right lateral position, and we did not need to change the patient's position during the operation. Anterior pressure was thoroughly relieved, and fixation was performed without damaging the paravertebral muscles. Pedicle screws were placed through the paramedian muscle‐splitting approach, rebuilding the three‐column structure of the spine.

Organic electrosynthesis has gained increasing research interest as it harvests electric current as redox regents, thereby providing a sustainable alternative to conventional approaches. Compared with direct electrosynthesis, indirect electrosynthesis employs mediator(s) to lower the overpotentials for substrate activation, and enhance the reaction efficiency and functional group compatibility by shifting the heterogenous electron transfer process to be homogenous. As one of the most versatile and cost-efficient mediators, halogen mediators are always combined with an irreversible halogenation reaction. Thus, the electrochemical reaction between halogen mediators and substrates doesn't directly controlled by the two standard potentials difference. In this account, our recent developments in the area of halogen-mediated indirect electrosynthesis are summarized. The anodically generated halogen species from halogenide salts have the abilities to undergo electron-transfer (ET) or hydrogen-atom- transfer (HAT) processes. The reaction features, scopes, limitations, and mechanistic rationalisations are discussed in this account. We hope our studies will contribute to the future developments to broaden the scope of halogen-mediated electrosynthesis.

Arylation of carbonyls, one of the most common approaches toward alcohols, has received tremendous attention, as alcohols are important feedstocks and building blocks in organic synthesis. Despite great progress, there is still a great gap to develop an ideal arylation method featuring mild conditions, good functional group tolerance, and readily available starting materials. We now show that electrochemical arylation can fill the gap. By taking advantage of synthetic electrochemistry, commercially available aldehydes (ketones) and benzylic alcohols can be readily arylated to provide a general and scalable access to structurally diverse alcohols (97 examples, >10 gram-scale). More importantly, convergent paired electrolysis, the ideal but challenging electrochemical technology, was employed to transform low-value alcohols into more useful alcohols. Detailed mechanism study suggests that two plausible pathways are involved in the redox neutral α-arylation of benzylic alcohols.

© 2020 Institute of Botany, Chinese Academy of Sciences Congeneric species may coexist at fine spatial scales through niche differentiation, however, the magnitude to which the effects of functional traits and phylogenetic relatedness contribute to their distribution along elevational gradients remains understudied. To test the hypothesis that trait and elevational range overlap can affect local speciesʼ coexistence, we first compared phylogenetic relatedness and trait (including morphological traits and leaf elements) divergence among closely related species of Rhododendron L. on Yulong Mountain, China. We then assessed relationships between the overlap of multiple functional traits and the degree of elevational range overlap among species pairs in a phylogenetic context. We found that phylogeny was a good predictor for most functional traits, where closely related species showed higher trait similarity and occupied different elevational niches at our study site. Species pairs of R. subgen. Hymenanthes (Blume) K. Koch showed low elevational range overlap and some species pairs of R. subgen. Rhododendron showed obvious niche differentiation. Trait divergence is greater for species in R. subgen. Rhododendron, and it plays an important role between species pairs with low elevational range overlap. Trait convergent selection takes place between co-occurring closely related species that have high elevational range overlap, which share more functional trait space due to environmental filtering or ecological adaptation in more extreme habitats. Our results highlight the importance of evolutionary history and trait selection for species coexistence at fine ecological scales along environmental gradients.

Welsh onions (Allium fistulosum L.) are often affected by stressful environments, such as high light and drought, during summer cultivation, which hinders their growth. We used CO2 assimilation, OJIP transient and MR curves to analyse the photosynthetic characteristics of Welsh onion. The results showed that single high light stress caused a decrease in the net photosynthesis rate through stomatal limitation, while the single drought treatment and the combined stress induced nonstomatal limitation. FO and FJ increased, Fm decreased, and a distinct K-phase was induced. High light and drought stress blocked MR transients, leading to a gradual decrease in VPSI and VPSII-PSI . In general, photosynthesis of Welsh onion was inhibited by high light and drought, which destroyed the receptor and donor side of PSII and reduced electron transport capacity of PSII and PSI.

Epigallocatechin‐3‐O‐gallate (EGCG) exists as one of the major active components of green tea and has been studied extensively; however, the relationship between EGCG and the changes in the gut microflora of ovariectomized (OVX) rats as a model of menopause women have not yet been studied. Female Wistar rats were fed on a maintenance material diet and underwent either ovariectomy or SHAM surgery. The ovariectomized rats were divided into OVX group with the treatment of placebo or EGCG group which was treated with EGCG by oral gavage. After 8 weeks of treatment, anxiety‐like behaviors were assessed using elevated plus maze test (EMP) and open field test (OFT). The serum estradiol concentration was assayed through ELISA. High‐throughput V3–V4 16S rDNA sequencing was conducted to assess the microbial diversity in fecal samples collected from all rats. EGCG, at a concentration of 10 mg/kg, caused behavioral changes in rats similar to anxiety. In EPM, OVX rats spent less time in open arms than SHAM group rats and EGCG group rats (F = 16.043, p, EGCG exhibits antioxidative, anti‐inflammatory, and anticarcinogenic properties and other biological activities. It is expected that EGCG could have a great potential in ameliorating the symptoms of anxiety in postmenopausal women.

The Minisci alkylation of N-heteroarenes with unactivated alkanes under external oxidant-free conditions provides an economically attractive route to access alkylated N-heteroarenes but remains underdeveloped. Herein, a new electrophotocatalytic strategy to access alkyl radicals from strong C(sp

Author(s): Zhou, HA; Liu, J; Wang, Z; Zhang, Q; Xu, T; Dong, Y; Zhao, L; Je, SG; Im, MY; Xu, K; Zhu, J; Jiang, W | Abstract: Interfacially asymmetric magnetic multilayers made of heavy metal/ferromagnet have attracted considerable attention in the spintronics community for accommodating spin-orbit torques (SOTs) and meanwhile for hosting chiral spin textures. In these multilayers, the accompanied interfacial Dzyaloshinskii–Moriya interaction (iDMI) permits the formation of Neel-type spin textures. While significant progresses have been made in Co, CoFeB, Co2FeAl, CoFeGd based multilayers, it would be intriguing to identify new magnetic multilayers that could enable spin-torque controllability and meanwhile host nanoscale skyrmions. In this report, first, thin films made of permanent magnet SmCo5 with perpendicular magnetic anisotropy are synthesized, in which the deterministic SOT switching, enabled by the spin Hall effect, in Pt/SmCo5/Ta trilayer is demonstrated. Further, the stabilization of room-temperature skyrmions with diameters ≈100nnm in [Pt/SmCo5/Ta]15, together with a skyrmionium-like spin texture in [Pt/SmCo5/Ir]15 multilayers is shown. Based on the material specific parameters, micromagnetic simulations are also carried out. The results confirm the presence of chiral spin textures in this new material family. Through interfacial engineering, the results thus demonstrate that rare earth permanent magnets could be a new platform for studying interfacial chiral spintronics.

The catalytic activity of metal clusters is closely related with the support; however, knowledge on the influence of the support on the catalytic activity is scarce. We demonstrate that Pt nanoclusters (NCs) anchored on porous TiO2 nanosheets with rich oxygen vacancies (VO -rich Pt/TiO2 ) and deficient oxygen vacancies (VO -deficient Pt/TiO2 ), display significantly different catalytic activity for the hydrogen evolution reaction (HER), in which VO -rich Pt/TiO2 shows a mass activity of 45.28 A mgPt -1 at -0.1 V vs. RHE, which is 16.7 and 58.8 times higher than those of VO -deficient Pt/TiO2 and commercial Pt/C, respectively. DFT calculations and in situ Raman spectra suggest that porous TiO2 with rich oxygen vacancies can simultaneously achieve reversed charge transfer (electrons transfer from TiO2 to Pt NCs) and enhanced hydrogen spillover from Pt NCs to the TiO2 support, which leads to electron-rich Pt NCs being amenable to proton reduction of absorbed H*, as well as the acceleration of hydrogen desorption at Pt catalytic sites-both promoting the HER. Our work provides a new strategy for rational design of highly efficient HER catalysts.