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Background: The dietary proteins are one of the most important factors determining health conditions in humans. The sufficient digestion and absorption of dietary proteins in the digestive tract has positive effects on performance and recovery in sportspeople and athletes. Improving protein digestibility is a strategy for maintaining health status and optimal performance in sport and exercise activities. Objectives: The aim of the present study is to verify whether Weizmannia coagulans BC 99 (BC99) can increase muscle mass and strength. Methods: This randomized double-blind, controlled trial assigned 72 male college students to receive probiotics (n = 36, 20.25 ± 1.03 years; 179.00 ± 5.94 cm; 73.55 ± 8.73 kg, protein powder with BC99) or the placebo (n = 36, 20.19 ± 0.79 years; 179.25 ± 5.16 cm; 73.61 ± 8.24 kg, protein powder) for 12 weeks. At the baseline and final stages of the study, strength tests and body composition assessment were performed. Blood and stool samples were taken at the end of the 12-week intervention, and digestive enzymatic activity of stool samples, biochemical parameters, amino acids and hormone level of plasma were analyzed. Results: BC99 administration significantly improved strength performance, skeletal muscle mass, activity of pepsin and trypsin, the concentrations of branched chain amino acids and essential amino acids, reduced activities of creatine kinase and lactic dehydrogenase and urea nitrogen (BUN) level and increased testosterone and glucagon-like peptide-1 level in male college students. Conclusions: Therefore, BC99 supplementation can be an important nutritional strategy to improve strength performance, body composition, protein digestion and body metabolism in healthy young males. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Objective: To investigate the effect of hepatitis B virus (HBV) on the expression of type I interferon and its possible mechanism. Methods: HepG2 cells and HBV stably transfected HepG2.2.15 cells were used as the model, cells were transfected with pEGFP-HBx plasmid or HBx-siRNA, the levels of IFN-α and IFN-β mRNA in cells were detected by fluorescence quantitative PCR, and the expression of pEGFP-HBx plasmid in HepG2 cells was observed by fluorescence microscope, the changes of HBx and p-IRF3 protein in cells were analyzed by Western blot, to investigate the effect of HBV on the expression of type I interferon. Results: The levels of IFN-α and IFN-β mRNA in HepG2.2.15 cells were slightly higher than those in HepG2 cells, there was no significant difference (P>0.05); after silencing HBx expression by using RNA interference in HepG2.2.15 cells, the levels of IFN- α and IFN-β mRNA were significantly increased. Moreover, the levels of type I interferon genes expression and p-IRF3 protein expression in HepG2 cells transfected with pEGFP-HBx were both decreased. Conclusion: HBV inhibits the expression of type I interferon by regulating the activation of IRF3 protein through HBx protein. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Climate change poses a severe threat to biodiversity. Greenhouse gas emissions have accelerated climate warming and significantly impacted species distribution and population dynamics. Zanthoxylum armatum DC. is an ecologically, medicinally, and economically important plant; it is cultivated as an economic crop at large scales in China, and is a valuable medicinal plant in India, Nepal, etc. A precise prediction of the potential distribution areas of Z. armatum will contribute to its protection and determination of its planting areas. In this paper, based on 433 distribution points and 19 climate factors, the MaxEnt model was used to analyze the spatial distribution pattern of Z. armatum between 1970 and 2000, predict its spatial distribution pattern in 2040–2060 (the 2050s) and 2081–2100 (the 2090s), and comprehensively assess the critical climate factors limiting its geographical distribution. The findings are as follows: (1) in the 1970–2000 scenario, the potential suitable distribution areas of Z. armatum include the subtropical monsoon climate regions of Japan, the Korean Peninsula, the south of the Qinling–Huaihe Line of China, and the regions along the southern foot of the Himalayas (India, Bhutan, Nepal, etc.), with an area of 330.54 × 104 km2; (2) the critical climate factors affecting the potential distribution of Z. armatum include temperature (mean diurnal temperature range, mean temperature of the coldest quarter, and temperature seasonality) and annual precipitation; (3) the distribution areas of Z. armatum will shift to higher latitudes and shrink under the three climate change scenarios in the 2050s and 2090s. In the 2090s–SSP585 scenario, the total area of suitable habitat will decrease most markedly, and the decrease rate of the highly suitable areas will reach up to 97.61%; only the region near Delong Town, Nanshan District, Chongqing City, will remain a highly suitable habitat, covering an area of merely 0.08 × 104 km2. These findings suggest that Z. armatum is susceptible to climate change. The border area between Guizhou Province and Chongqing City and the southwest district of Leshan City, Sichuan Province, will be a stable and moderately high potential suitable habitat for Z. armatum in the future. The above regions are recommended to be managed as key protected areas. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The aim of this study was to compare the diagnostic values of red blood cell distribution width-coefficient of variation (RDW-CV) and red blood cell distribution width-standard deviation (RDW-SD) in mid-pregnancy women with iron deficiency anemia (IDA). To obtain the results, 115 mid-pregnancy women with IDA, defined as the IDA group, and 142 healthy mid-pregnancy women, selected as the control group, were enrolled in this study. Hematological parameters and ferritin concentrations in the serum were analyzed. The efficiency of RDW-CV and RDW-SD to distinguish IDA from mid-pregnancy women was evaluated using receiver operating characteristic (ROC) curves. The RDW-SD value in the IDA group was significantly higher than that in the control group (p < 0.05), while the RDW-CV value did not differ between them (p = 0.84). Significantly negative correlations were found between RDW-CV (r = −0.297, p = 0.001), RDW-SD (r = −0.404, p = 0.000), and serum ferritin in the IDA group but not in the control group. For the diagnosis of IDA, RDW-CV and RDW-SD produced areas under the ROC curves of 0.58 and 0.84. To conclude, our results suggest that RDW-SD, but not RDW-CV, can be used as a diagnostic index of IDA for mid-pregnancy women. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The fuzzy c-means (FCM) clustering algorithm has been widely used in image segmentation. However, FCM exhibits poor robustness to noise, often leading to unsatisfactory segmentations on noisy images. Additionally, the FCM algorithm is sensitive to the choice of initial cluster centers. In order to solve these problems, this paper proposes clone kernel spatial FCM (CKS_FCM), which improves segmentation performance in several ways. First, in CKS_FCM, an immune clone algorithm is used to generate the initial cluster centers, which helps prevent the algorithm from converging on local optima. Second, CKS_FCM improves the robustness to noise by incorporating spatial information into the objective function of FCM. Third, CKS_FCM uses a non-Euclidean distance based on a kernels metric, instead of the Euclidean distance conventionally used in FCM, to enhance the segmentation accuracy (SA). We present experimental results on both real and synthetic SAR images, which suggest that the proposed method can generate higher accuracy, and obtain more robustness to noise, as compared against six state-of-the-art methods from the literatures. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

Ceramide synthase-4 orchestrates the cell proliferation and tumor growth of liver cancer in vitro and in vivo through the nuclear factor- B signaling pathway Oncol Lett 14: 1477-1483, 2017; DOI: 10.3892/ol.2017.6365 Subsequently to the publication of the above article, an interested reader drew to the authors' attention that, on p. 1480, the data shown in Fig. Reverse transcription-quantitative polymerase chain reaction assay to detect the knockdown efficiency of CERS4 in (C) HepG2 and (D) Huh7 cells (n=3). [Extracted from the article]

Toughening-induced textural decay easily occurs in stored mushrooms. The objective of this study was to investigate the textural alteration caused by toughening in relation to other quality attributes of king oyster mushroom ( Pleurotus eryngii ). Fresh king oyster mushrooms, packed in low-density polyethylene bags, were stored at different low temperatures for 18 days to measure textural and other quality attributes. It was found that toughening occurred twice during the entire storage time. Highly associated change profiles were observed for the lignin content and activities of three important enzymes involved in lignin synthesis. The chitin and cellulose contents exhibited low correlation with toughening. Malondialdehyde content, electrolyte leakage rate and total phenolics content appeared to be related to toughening, but the browning index showed a negative correlation with toughening. Our results suggested that toughening may be mainly caused by lignification and can affect the postharvest quality of the tested mushrooms. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The Puroindoline A (PINA) from soft wheat endosperm is a broad-spectrum antimicrobial protein. Herein, we investigated the action of the PINA protein on Aspergillus flavus mycelia growth, conidia and sclerotia development, and its ability to control pathogenicity in infected crop seeds. The PINA protein strongly inhibited spore germination, mycelia growth, and conidia and sclerotia formation at 128 μg/mL. Furthermore, scanning electron microscopy revealed altered mycelia morphology, mycelia were dented, shrivelled and holes were observed, suggesting that the cell wall and membrane were damaged, and this was confirmed by calcofluor white fluorescent probe assays and propidium iodide staining. Additionally, there were significant changes in mycelia intramembranous structure based on 5,5′,6,6′-tetrachloro-1,1′,3,3′-tetraethylbenzimidazolocarbocyanine iodide and 4′,6-diamidino-2-phenylindole staining, which indicates decreased mitochondrial membrane potential, excessive nuclear condensation, and DNA fragmentation. These results demonstrated that the defects of A. flavus pathogenicity in peanut and corn appeared to be related to cell wall and membrane destruction, which may trigger mitochondrial and DNA damage, leading to cell death. These findings provide visual evidence that the PINA protein inhibits A. flavus pathogenicity, and may assist food preservation applications in future. • PINA protein had a strong inhibitory effect on the growth of Aspergillus flavus. • PINA protein destroyed cell wall, membrane, nuclear, and mitochondria of A. flavus. • PINA protein reduced the pathogenicity of A. flavus infection in peanut and corn. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Abstract: In this study, 26 published microsatellite DNA markers, which were originally developed for Zostera marina, were employed to distinguish between 57 Z. marina and 49 Zostera caespitosa samples collected from different submerged meadows on the coasts of Northeastern China. Eight of these markers were suitable for cross-species analysis. On the basis of the data obtained from these loci, all of the Z. marina and Z. caespitosa samples were correctly assigned to the cluster of their species in the assignment test. Using PCR amplification, 4 of the 26 markers were positive for Z. marina and negative for Z. caespitosa. We found that both the assignment test with 8 loci and PCR with 4 loci were efficient in distinguishing between the two sympatric species, which was previously only achieved by scientific divers. [Copyright &y& Elsevier]