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The benzene and acetonitrile azeotropic mixture was proposed to be separated by extractive distillation using an ionic liquid (IL) as the entrainer. The suitable IL was selected by the COSMO-RS model, and 1-ethyl-3-methylimidazolium tetrafluoroborate ([EMIM][BF4]) was considered as the suitable entrainer mainly due to its high selectivity, low viscosity, and low price. The experimental vapor pressure data of the IL-containing systems (benzene + [EMIM][BF4] and acetonitrile + [EMIM][BF4]) were measured in the full concentration range. The results show that acetonitrile has a stronger interaction with IL than benzene, and the low deviations between the experimental and UNIFAC predicted values show the reliability of the UNFIAC model. The UNIFAC predicted vapor-liquid equilibrium data of the benzene + acetonitrile + dimethyl sulfoxide (DMSO)/[EMIM][BF4] system show that the relative volatility of benzene to acetonitrile is higher when the entrainer is [EMIM][BF4]. The process simulation results show that [EMIM][BF4] can reduce the material and energy consumptions compared with DMSO.

The SAFT-γ Mie model is a recent version of statistical associating fluid theory (SAFT), which uses a group contribution approach to obtain a high-quality equation of state. In this work, this model is, for the first time, extended to ionic liquids (ILs). The SAFT-γ Mie calculated values agree well with the experimental data for one-component, binary and ternary systems that contain ILs, thus indicating the versatility and accuracy of this extension.

Background: Drug-resistance and immunological escape of Staphylococcus aureus and its “superbug”, methicillin-resistant S. aureus (MRSA), have become one of main causes of bacterial infection in both human and animals. In dairy cattle, elimination of bovine mastitis induced by S. aureus is of importance because S. aureus-infected cows normally are culled passively. Methods: Here, we investigated the beneficial effects of bovine trafficking protein particle complex 9 (TRAPPC9) gene and folic acid supplementation in the control of mastitis induced by S. aureus or MRSA by a series of in vivo and in vitro experiments. Results: The data showed that the genetic mutations and DNA methylation of TRAPPC9 were highly linked with the mastitis resistance of dairy cows. Additionally, knockdown of bovine TRAPPC9 was significantly involved in the mRNA expression levels of interleukin’s genes (increased IL-1β and IL-6), and down-regulated the protein level of NF-κB-P65 in the mastitis cell model induced by MRSA. Meanwhile, dose-dependent folic acid addition can inhibit the invasion of MRSA into Mac-T cells and improve TRAPPC9 expression in dairy cows. Conclusions: Altogether, our data suggest that an appropriate dose of folic acid can significantly reduce the inflammation caused by MRSA partially through TRAPPC9 mediated NF-κB pathway. These findings provide new insights to control the drug-resistant pathogens and to restrict the overuse of antibiotics through combined effects of the intrinsic host gene and extrinsic nutrient.

A combinatorial screening approach combining quantum chemical (QC) calculation and molecular dynamics (MD) simulation was presented for the selection of ionic liquid (IL) extractant to remove methanol from methylal. The thermodynamic properties of the distributional coefficient and selectivity were calculated by COSMO-RS based on QC calculation to qualitatively narrow down the IL candidates. The separation performance of these IL candidates was further evaluated through MD to determine the best IL extractant. Then, the methanol removal performance of the best IL was further evaluated by the liquid – liquid equilibrium experiments and the process simulation. Finally, the separation mechanism of the IL was investigated through QC calculations, wavefunction and MD analysis. The consistency between simulations and experiments indicates that this approach is a very useful tool to screen ILs for specific separation tasks.

This is the first work to investigate the hydrodynamics and gas-liquid mass transfer of carbon dioxide (CO2) absorbed into the amino-functionalized ionic liquid (IL) [NH2e-mim][BF4] and monoethanol-amine (MEA) mixture through a vertical circular monolith channel by means of computational fluid dynamics (CFD). It is shown that there are five flow patterns (i.e., bubbly flow, Taylor flow, slug-bubbly flow, slug-annular flow, and annular flow), and Taylor flow is the main flow pattern. The intrinsic kinetics of CO2 absorbed into the [NH2e-mim][BF4]-MEA mixture was obtained, the reaction orders relative to CO2, [NH2e-mim][BF4], and MEA being 1, and the activation energy Ea (19,313 and 28,991 J•mol−1) and pre-exponential factor k0 (3.34×105 and 7.04×106 mol-1•L•min−1) for CO2 absorbed in [NH2e-mim][BF4] and MEA were derived. After the kinetic parameters were imported into the mass transfer model, it was found that the liquid phase volumetric mass transfer coefficient (kLa) in the presence of a chemical reaction can be improved by three to eight times, indicating that mass transfer can be enhanced remarkably by chemical reaction. Moreover, a correlation formula is developed to predict kLa, which agrees well with the simulation results. This work provides a new way to capture CO2 with the combination of IL and MEA in a monolith reactor.

Descriptive statistics of phenotypic values for each trait in Holstein and Sanhe cattle. (DOCX 12 kb)

Staphylococcus aureus (S. aureus) is problematic for lactating mammals and public health. Understanding of mechanisms by which the hosts respond to severe invasion of S. aureus remains elusive. In this study, the genome-wide expression of mRNAs and miRNAs in bovine mammary gland cells were interrogated at 24 h after intra-mammary infection (IMI) with high or low concentrations of S. aureus. Compared to the negative control quarters, 194 highly-confident responsive genes were identified in the quarters with high concentration (109 cfu/mL) of S. aureus, which were predominantly implicated in pathways and biological processes pertaining to innate immune system, such as cytokine-cytokine receptor interaction and inflammatory response. In contrast, only 21 highly-confident genes were significantly differentially expressed in face of low concentration (106 cfu/mL) of S. aureus, which slightly perturbed the cell signaling and invoked corresponding responses like vasoconstriction, indicating limited perturbations and immunological evading. Additionally, the significant up-regulations of bta-mir-223 and bta-mir-21-3p were observed in the quarters infected by high concentration of S. aureus. Network analysis suggested that the two miRNAs' pivotal roles in defending hosts against bacterial infection probably through inhibiting CXCL14 and KIT. The significant down-regulation of CXCL14 was also observed in bovine mammary epithelial cells at 24 h post-infection of S. aureus (108 cfu/mL) in vitro. Integrated analysis with QTL database further suggested 28 genes (e.g., CXCL14, KIT, and SLC4A11) as candidates of bovine mastitis. This study first systematically revealed transcriptional and post-transcriptional responses of bovine mammary gland cells to invading S. aureus in a dosage-dependent pattern, and highlighted a complicated responsive mechanism in a network of miRNA-gene-pathway interplay.

Background Bovine mastitis is the most common and costly disease of lactating cattle worldwide. Apart from milk somatic cell count (SCC) and somatic cell score (SCS), serum cytokines such as interleukin-17 (IL-17) and interleukin-4 (IL-4) may also be potential indicators for bovine mastitis. The present study was designed to investigate the effects of single nucleotide polymorphisms (SNPs) in bovine IL-17F and IL-17A genes on SCC, SCS and serum cytokines in Chinese Holstein and Inner-Mongolia Sanhe cattle, and to compare the mRNA expression variations of the cows with different genotypes. Results A total of 464 lactating cows (337 Holstein and 127 Inner-Mongolia Sanhe cattle) were screened for SNPs identification and the data were analyzed using fixed effects of herd, parity, season and year of calving by general linear model procedure. The results revealed that SNP g.24392436C > T in IL-17F and SNP g.24345410A > G in IL-17A showed significant effects on SCC and IL-4 in Holstein (n = 337) and on IL-17 and IL-4 in Sanhe cattle (n = 127). The homozygous GG genotype of SNP g.24345410A > G had significantly higher mRNA expression compared with the heterozygous AG genotype. Conclusions The results indicate that IL-17F and IL-17A could be powerful candidate genes of mastitis resistance and the significant SNPs might be useful genetic markers against mastitis in both dairy and dual purpose cattle. Electronic supplementary material The online version of this article (doi:10.1186/s40104-016-0137-1) contains supplementary material, which is available to authorized users.