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Diethylene glycol (DEG), a chemical that has been implicated in multiple medication-associated mass poisonings, can result in renal and neurological toxicity if ingested. Three previous such mass poisonings implicated Chinese manufacturers as the origin of contaminated ingredients. No literature exists on potential DEG or triethylene glycol (TEG), a related compound, contamination of health products imported from Asian countries to the USA. Our primary objective was to quantitatively assess the amount of DEG present in a convenience sampling of these health products. The study's secondary objectives were to: (1) evaluate for, and quantify TEG levels in these samples; (2) compare DEG and TEG levels in these products directly to levels in medications implicated in previous similar mass poisonings; and (3) to estimate DEG dose (in mg/kg) based on the manufacturer's instructions and compare these values to toxic doses from past mass poisonings and the literature. A quantitative assessment of DEG and TEG was performed in a convenience sampling of over-the-counter health products imported from Asian countries. Results were converted to volume to volume ( v/ v) % and compared with DEG levels in medications implicated in previous mass poisonings. Estimated doses (based on the manufacturer's instructions) of each product with detectable levels of DEG for a 70 kg adult were compared to toxic doses of DEG reported in the literature. Seventeen of 85 (20%) samples were not able to be analyzed for DEG or TEG due to technical reasons. Fifteen of 68 (22%) samples successfully tested had detectable levels of DEG (mean, 18.8 μg/ml; range, 0.791-110.1 μg/ml; and volume to volume ( v/ v) range, 0.00007-0.01%). Two of 68 (3%) samples had TEG levels of 12.8 and 20.2 μg/ml or 0.0012% and 0.0018% TEG v/ v. The product with the highest DEG% by v/ v was 810 times less than the product involved in the Panama DEG mass poisoning (8.1%). The lowest reported toxic dose from a past DEG mass poisoning (14 mg/kg) was more than 150 times higher than the highest daily dose estimated in our study (0.09 mg/kg). Sixty-eight of 85 (80%) samples were able to be successfully analyzed for DEG and TEG. DEG and TEG were detectable in 15/68 (22%) and 2/68 (3%) samples, respectively. Based on current standards, these levels probably do not represent an acute public health threat. Additional research focusing on why DEG is found in these products and on the minimum amount of DEG needed to result in toxicity is needed. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

• Surface expression of co-stimulatory molecule MHC II on DCs was inhibited after treatment with chloroquine (CQ), as well as a decrease of PD-L1. • CQ enhances expression of PD-1 on CD4+T cells and B cells. • The decrease of CD4+TEM, memory B cells and IgG2a memory B cells after CQ treatment was reversed when CQ was applied after PD-1 blockade. Growing evidence describes the host immune response mechanism involved in malaria. Despite the spread of drug resistance, chloroquine (CQ) remains the main antimalarial drug in most countries in Latin America and Asia. Studies have indicated an immunomodulatory activity of CQ, however, the potential implications for CQ on immunological memory recognizing the malaria parasite are still being elucidated. Our study suggests that CQ treatment significantly delayed the initiation of parasitemia during infection of mice with the rodent malaria parasite, Plasmodium chabaudi (P.c.). Additionally, there was a decrease in T follicular helper cells (Tfh), CD4+ effector memory T cells, memory B cells (MBC), IgG2a memory B cells, along with IgG2a plasma cells; while antibody production was not affected at the observation time points. After PD-1 blockade and CQ treatment, no reductions in the numbers of CD4+ effector memory T cells, MBC, and IgG2a memory B cells were observed compared with the P.c. group. Therefore, CQ might regulate immunological memory via the PD-1/PD-L1 signaling pathway. Compared with antibody secretion, the inhibition of CQ on immune memory cells was a more sensitive indicator. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The first purpose of this paper is to evaluate and compare four aerosol optical depth (AOD) products from the MODerate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer (MODIS) and the Visible Infrared Imaging Radiometer Suite (VIIRS) during 2013–2018 in Asia. In our study, a total of 81 AERONET sites are considered and land cover maps are utilized as well. The results show that the AOD product of deep blue from VIIRS (DB_V) achieves the best performance in the study areas, with the R of 0.91 and the RMSE of 0.14. Meanwhile, the deviations for the AOD products of deep blue from MODIS (DB_M), dark target (DT), DB_V, and environmental data record (EDR) periodically fluctuate with different levels as time moves forward. In general, DB_V overcomes others with the smallest overall deviation, while the largest positive and negative deviations are observed in DT and EDR, respectively. The performance of each AOD product is different in the regions with diverse land cover types. Especially, all AOD products will generally underestimate the AOD values in forest ; DB_V performs better than DB_M in croplands and urban , while the overestimation of DB_V is larger than that of DB_M in arid lands. The distribution of high AOD values for DT and EDR shows difference in four seasons, which is dominated by multiple factors. With regard to DB_M and DB_V, apart from the seasonal variations, the high AOD values also distribute in arid lands from March to August. For the coverage of valid AOD values, the annual AOD completeness of DB_M and DB_V tends to be large in the Southwest (arid lands). As for DT and EDR, the large annual AOD completeness principally distributes in India, where the primary land cover type is croplands. Next, a novel grid-based merging framework (SL-SGW) is proposed to acquire the AOD product with the best performance and the largest AOD completeness of DB_M, DT, DB_V, and EDR as much as possible. The experiment results (2017–2018) show that the R and the RMSE for the merged AOD product are 0.904 and 0.13, respectively. It's believed that the merging framework could effectively absorb the strengths of DB_M, DT, DB_V, and EDR. In the meantime, the underestimations of the AOD values for all AOD products in forest and the overestimations for DB_M and DB_V in arid lands are both mitigated after merging. The AOD completeness of the merged exceeds those of other AOD products for all land cover types, particularly in croplands and urban. • A total of four AOD products from MODIS and VIIRS were evaluated and compared against 80 AERONET sites in Asia. • The evaluation and comparison results were analyzed considering aerosol loadings, time sequence, and AOD-related factors. • A novel grid-based merging framework was proposed to absorb the strengths of the four AOD products from MODIS and VIIRS. • The incorrect estimations for all AOD products in forest and for DB_M and DB_V in arid lands are mitigated after merging. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Acute lung injury (ALI) is an intractable disorder associated with macrophages. This bibliometric analysis was applied to identify the characteristics of global scientific output, the hotspots, and frontiers about macrophages in ALI over the past 10 years. We retrieved publications published from 2011 to 2020 and their recorded information from Science Citation Index Expanded (SCI-expanded) of Web of Science Core Collection (WoSCC). Bibliometrix package was used to analyze bibliometric indicators, and the VOSviewer was used to visualize the trend and hotspots of researches on macrophages in ALI. Altogether, 2,632 original articles were reviewed, and the results showed that the annual number of publications (Np) concerning the role of macrophages in ALI kept increasing over the past 10 years. China produced the most papers, the number of citations (Nc) and H-index of the USA ranked first. Shanghai Jiaotong University and INT IMMUNOPHARMACOL were the most prolific affiliation and journal, respectively. Papers published by Matute-Bello G in 2011 had the highest local citation score (LCS). Recently, the keywords "NLRP3" and "extracellular vesicles" appeared most frequently. Besides, researches on COVID-19-induced ALI related to macrophages seemed to be the hotspot recently. This bibliometric study revealed that publications related to macrophages in ALI tend to increase continuously. China was a big producer and the USA was an influential country in this field. Most studies were mainly centered on basic researches in the past decade, and pathways associated with the regulatory role of macrophages in inhibiting and attenuating ALI have become the focus of attention in more recent studies. What is more, our bibliometric analysis showed that macrophages play an important role in COVID-19-induced ALI and may be a target for the treatment of COVID-19., Competing Interests: The authors declare that the research was conducted in the absence of any commercial or financial relationships that could be construed as a potential conflict of interest., (Copyright © 2021 Wang, Zhou, Zheng, Zhu, Zhu, Feng, Wei, Chen, Jin, Yang, Shi and Lv.)