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We report a strategy to synthesize Co-MOF-based hierarchical micro/nanospheres with ultrathin nanosheet subunits. Benefitting from the unique 3D architecture, the Co-MOF/M2 exhibits a high specific capacitance and excellent rate capability.

Core–shell structured MIL-96-Al composites are prepared through a melt-diffusion method followed by a water-phase polymerization process. The composites can strongly confine lithium polysulfides in a cathode.

Neurological diseases associated with dysfunctions of neural circuits, including Alzheimer’s disease (AD), depression and epilepsy, have been increasingly prevalent. To tackle these issues, artificial stimulation or regulation of specific neural circuits and nuclei are employed to alleviate or cure certain neurological diseases. In particular, ultrasound neuromodulation has been an emerging interdisciplinary approach, which integrates medicine and engineering methodologies in the treatment. With the development of medicine and engineering, ultrasound neuromodulation has gradually been applied in the treatment of central nervous system diseases. In this review, we aimed to summarize the mechanism of ultrasound neuromodulation and the advances of focused ultrasound (FUS) in neuromodulation in recent years, with a special emphasis on its application in central nervous system disease treatment. FUS showed great feasibility in the treatment of epilepsy, tremor, AD, depression, and brain trauma. We also suggested future directions of ultrasound neuromodulation in clinical settings, with a focus on its fusion with genetic engineering or nanotechnology.

Because protein is readily degraded in the environment, it is unknown whether “protein-like substances” in environments are a group of intact proteins or a mixture of peptides and even amino acids....

Harnessing mitochondria is considered as a promising method for biosynthesis of terpenes due to the adequate supply of acetyl-CoA and redox equivalents in mitochondria. However, mitochondrial engineering often causes serious metabolic burden indicated by poor cell growth. Here, we systematically analyzed the metabolic burden caused by the compartmentalization of the MVA pathway in yeast mitochondria for squalene synthesis. The phosphorylated intermediates of the MVA pathway, especially mevalonate-5-P and mevalonate-5-PP, conferred serious toxicity within mitochondria, which significantly compromised its possible advantages for squalene synthesis and was difficult to be significantly improved by routine pathway optimization. These phosphorylated intermediates were converted into ATP analogues, which strongly inhibited ATP-related cell function, such as mitochondrial oxidative respiration. Fortunately, the introduction of a partial MVA pathway from acetyl-CoA to mevalonate in mitochondria as well as the augmentation of the synthesis of mevalonate in cytosol could significantly promote the growth of yeasts. Accordingly, a combinatorial strategy of cytoplasmic and mitochondrial engineering was proposed to alleviate the metabolic burden caused by the compartmentalized MVA pathway in mitochondria and improve cell growth. The strategy also displayed the superimposed effect of cytoplasmic engineering and mitochondrial engineering on squalene production. Through a two-stage fermentation process, the squalene titer reached 21.1 g/L with a specific squalene titer of 437.1 mg/g dcw, which was the highest at present. This provides new insight into the production of squalene and other terpenes in yeasts based on the advantages of mitochondrial engineering.

Palladium (Pd) has been widely regarded as a high-performance catalyst for various oxidative reactions, however, the actual structure of active site remains controversial due to structural evolution under operation conditions. Herein, we prepared a series of bismuth (Bi)-doped silica-supported Pd catalysts and found a hydrogen-controlled structural reconstruction mechanism of palladium-bismuth oxide cluster to single atom alloy to efficiently catalyze low-temperature CO oxidation. The formation of PdxBiyOz clusters with unique Pd−O−Bi coordination structure could enhance the sinter-resistance ability of Pd species. This structural evolution of active site is clearly uncovered by in-situ XAFS results, in which metallic Bi−Pd shell gradually generates as the increase of reduction temperature without any metallic Bi−Bi bond. More importantly, PdBi1 single atom alloy exhibits an excellent CO oxidation activity with a high CO2 production rate of 413 µmolCO2·gPd−1·s− 1 at 100°C and excellent catalytic stability. Density function calculation (DFT) results indicate that there are geometric and electronic effects between Bi and Pd atoms, which favor total linear-CO adsorption, activate CO and O2 molecules, and reduce the barrier for the formation of OO-CO intermediates in PdBi1 single atom alloy.

Vasculopathy is an important complication of type 2 diabetes mellitus (T2DM) and the leading cause of morbidity and mortality in type 2 diabetes mellitus (T2DM), which is closely related to oxidative stress and inflammation. Haptoglobin (Hp), an acute-phase protein, binds to hemoglobin (Hb) and prevents haeme-iron oxidative damage. To investigate the distribution of the frequencies of Hp genotypes and to analyse the association between Hp gene polymorphisms and vascular complications in diabetes patients. The study included 171 patients with T2DM without vascular complications and 797 patients with T2DM with vascular complications. The clinical characteristics of the studied population were recorded. Hp genotyping was performed using polymerase chain reaction–sequence specific primers (PCR-SSP). Our results showed that the frequencies of Hp genotypes in all 968 T2DM patients were as follows: Hp1-1, 4.98%; Hp2-1, 38.07%; and Hp2-2, 56.95%. Although there was no significant difference in the Hp allele or genotype frequencies among individuals with vascular complications in the T2DM groups and controls regardless of gender, we found that the distribution of the Hp2-2 genotype and allele frequency was higher in males with diabetic retinopathy than in the control group (p

Knowledge of someone’s friendships can powerfully impact how one interacts with them. Previous research suggests that information about others’ real-world social network positions—e.g. how well-connected they are (centrality), ‘degrees of separation’ (relative social distance)—is spontaneously encoded when encountering familiar individuals. However, many types of information covary with where someone sits in a social network. For instance, strangers’ face-based trait impressions are associated with their social network centrality, and social distance and centrality are inherently intertwined with familiarity, interpersonal similarity and memories. To disentangle the encoding of the social network position from other social information, participants learned a novel social network in which the social network position was decoupled from other factors and then saw each person’s image during functional magnetic resonance imaging scanning. Using representational similarity analysis, we found that social network centrality was robustly encoded in regions associated with visual attention and mentalizing. Thus, even when considering a social network in which one is not included and where centrality is unlinked from perceptual and experience-based features to which it is inextricably tied in naturalistic contexts, the brain encodes information about others’ importance in that network, likely shaping future perceptions of and interactions with those individuals.

Individual identification is one of the research hotspots in the practice of forensic science, and the judgment is usually built on the comparison of the unique biological characteristics of the individual, such as fingerprints, iris and DNA. With the dramatic increase in the number of cases related to video image investigations, there is an increasing need for the technology to identify individuals based on the macroscopic comparison of facial appearance biometrics. At present, with the introduction of computer three-dimensional (3D) modeling and 3D superimposition comparison technology, considerable progress has been made in individual identification methods based on macroscopic comparison of facial appearance biometrics. This paper reviews individual facial appearance biometric methods based on macroscopical comparison, comprehensively analyzes the advantages and limitations of different methods, and puts forward recommendations and prospects for subsequent research.个体识别是法庭科学实践的研究热点之一，通常依据具有个体唯一性的生物特征（如指纹、虹膜、DNA等）比对结果进行判别。随着视频图像侦查相关案件数量的剧增，基于宏观比对面部表观生物特征进行个体识别的技术需求日益增长。目前，由于计算机3D建模及3D叠加比对技术的引入，基于宏观比对面部表观生物特征的个体识别方法取得了可观进展。本文综述了基于宏观比对面部表观生物特征进行个体识别的不同方法，对其优势和局限性进行分析，并对后续研究提出建议与展望。.

Purpose: It has previously been reported that repeated exposure to hypoxia increases spleen size and haemoglobin (HGB) level and recent reports on the effect apnoea has on spleen size and haematological parameters are contradictory. Therefore, this study aims to evaluate the effect apnoea training has on spleen size and haematological parameters.Methods: The breath-holding (BH) group was comprised of 12 local student-athletes with no BH exercise experience who performed BH jogging and BH jumping rope dynamic apnoea protocols, five times weekly for 8 weeks. The BH event duration was progressively increased as the apnoea tolerance of the athletes improved (20 to 35 s). The same training task was performed by the control group (n = 10) without BH. Spleen sizes were measured with an ultrasound system and a complete blood cell analysis was performed on the median cubital venous blood.Results: Spleen volume in the BH group increased from 109 ± 13 ml to 136 ± 13 ml (p < 0.001), and bulky platelets decreased from 70.50 ± 5.83 to 65.17 ± 5.87 (p = 0.034), but no changes were recorded for erythrocytes (p = 0.914), HGB (p = 0.637), PLTs (p = 0.346) and WBC (p = 0.532). No changes were recorded for the control group regarding spleen size or haematological parameters.Conclusion: Eight weeks of dry dynamic apnoea training increased spleen size and decreased the number of circulating bulky platelets in the athletes who were assessed in this study. However, the baseline RBC counts and HGB levels of the athletes were not altered by the training programme.

The introduction of high-entropy into Prussian blue analogues (PBAs) has yet to attract attention in the field of lithium-sulfur battery materials. Herein, we systematically synthesize a library of PBAs from binary to high-entropy by a facile coprecipitation method. The coordination environment in PBAs is explored by X-ray absorption fine structure spectroscopy, which together with elemental mapping confirm the successful introduction of all metals. Importantly, electrochemical tests demonstrate that high-entropy PBA can serve as polysulfide immobilizer to inhibit shuttle effect and as catalyst to promote polysulfides conversion, thereby boosting its outstanding performance. Additionally, a variety of nanocubic metal oxides from binary to senary are fabricated by using PBAs as sacrificial precursors. We believe that a wide range of new materials obtained from our coprecipitation and pyrolysis methodology can promote further developments in research on PBA systems and sulfur hosts.

The mechanical properties of refractory high entropy alloys (RHEAs) strongly depend on their phase structures. In this work, the phase stability of a BCC TiNbTa0.5ZrAl0.5 refractory high entropy alloy subjected to thermomechanical processing was evaluated, and the effects of phase decomposition on room/high temperature mechanical properties were quantitatively studied. It was found that, the thermomechanical processing at 800 °C and 1200 °C leads to phase decomposition in the TiNbTa0.5ZrAl0.5 alloy. The phase decomposition is caused by the rapid rising of free energy of the primary BCC phase. The effect of the precipitates on room temperature strength is determined by the competition between the increasing in precipitation strengthening and the decreasing in solid solution strengthening. But at high temperatures (800−1200 °C), the phase decomposition causes significant reduction in strength, mainly due to the grain boundary sliding and the decreasing in solid solution strengthening.

To study the distribution of total phosphine in phosphine poisoning victims and summarize the characteristics of phosphine poisoning cases.The phosphine and its metabolites in the biological samples of 29 victims in 16 phosphine poisoning cases were qualified and quantified by headspace gas chromatography-mass spectrometry.Five victims among 29 were poisoned by ingestion of aluminium phosphide and 24 by inhalation of phosphine gas. Phosphine metabolites were detected in the biological samples of 23 victims, and the concentrations of total phosphine in blood ranged 0.5-34.0 μg/mL. The total concentration of phosphine in liver tissue was up to 71.0 μg/g. Phosphine was not detected in the blood of the other six survived victims, which may be related to the small amount of phosphine exposure and the delay in blood sampling.The total concentration of phosphine in blood and tissues caused by aluminum phosphine ingestion is higher than that caused by phosphine gas inhalation. The death cases of phosphine inhalation are characterized by long exposure time, repeated exposures and age susceptibility.

While morphology constitutes a crucial component for linguistic and psycholinguistic theories as well as the human language faculty, the neural bases of morphological processing in the human brain remains to be elucidated. This current study aims at exploring the extent to which the second language (L2) morphological processing would resemble or differ from that of their first language (L1) in adult Chinese-English bilinguals. Bilingual participants were asked to complete a morphological priming lexical decision task drawing on derivational morphology, which is present for both Chinese and English, when their electrophysiological and optical responses were recorded concurrently. Functional near-infrared spectroscopy (fNIRS) revealed a neural dissociation between morphological and semantic priming effects in the left fronto-temporal network, while L1 Chinese engaged enhanced activation in the left prefrontal cortex for morphological parsing relative to L2 English. In the early stage of lexical processing, cross-language morphological processing manifested a difference in degree, not in kind, as revealed by the early left anterior negativity (ELAN) effect. In addition, L1 and L2 shared both early and late structural parsing processes (P250 and 300 ~ 500 ms negativity, respectively). Therefore, the current results support a unified competition model for bilingual development, where bilinguals would primarily employ L1 neural resources for L2 morphological representation and processing.

Generalizing experiences to guide decision making in novel situations is a hallmark of flexible behavior. Cognitive maps of an environment or task can theoretically afford such flexibility, but direct evidence has proven elusive. We find that discretely sampled abstract relationships between entities in an unseen two-dimensional (2-D) social hierarchy are reconstructed into a unitary 2-D cognitive map in the hippocampus and entorhinal cortex. We further show that humans utilize a grid-like code in entorhinal cortex and medial prefrontal cortex, for inferred direct trajectories between entities in the reconstructed abstract space during discrete decisions. These grid-like representations in the entorhinal cortex are associated with decision value computations in the medial prefrontal cortex and temporoparietal junction. Collectively, these findings show that grid-like representations are used by the human brain to infer novel solutions, even in abstract and discrete problems, and suggest a general mechanism underpinning flexible decision making and generalization.

Patchoulol is a tricyclic sesquiterpene widely used in perfumes and cosmetics. Herein, comprehensive engineering strategies were employed to construct an efficient yeast strain for patchoulol production. First, a platform strain was constructed via pathway modification. Second, three off-pathway genes were deleted, which led to significant physiological changes in yeast. Further, strengthening of the ergosterol pathway, enhancement of the energy supply, and a decrease in intracellular reactive oxygen species were implemented to improve the physiological status of yeast, demonstrating a new promotive relationship between ergosterol biosynthesis and synthesis of patchoulol. Moreover, patchoulol synthase was improved through protein modification and Mg2+ addition, reaching a final titer of 141.5 mg/L in a shake flask. Finally, a two-stage fermentation with dodecane addition was employed to achieve the highest production (1632.0 mg/L, 87.0 mg/g dry cell weight, 233.1 mg/L/d) ever reported for patchoulol in a 5 L bioreactor. This work lays a foundation for green and efficient patchoulol production.

Face recognition is a kind of biometric technology that recognizes identities through human faces. At first, the speed of machine recognition of human faces was slow and the accuracy was lower than manual recognition. With the rapid development of deep learning and the application of Convolutional Neural Network (CNN) in the field of face recognition, the accuracy of face recognition has greatly improved. FaceNet is a deep learning framework commonly used in face recognition in recent years. FaceNet uses the deep learning model GoogLeNet, which has a high accuracy in face recognition. However, its network structure is too large, which causes the FaceNet to run at a low speed. Therefore, to improve the running speed without affecting the recognition accuracy of FaceNet, this paper proposes a lightweight FaceNet model based on MobileNet. This article mainly does the following works: Based on the analysis of the low running speed of FaceNet and the principle of MobileNet, a lightweight FaceNet model based on MobileNet is proposed. The model would reduce the overall calculation of the network by using deep separable convolutions. In this paper, the model is trained on the CASIA-WebFace and VGGFace2 datasets, and tested on the LFW dataset. Experimental results show that the model reduces the network parameters to a large extent while ensuring the accuracy and hence an increase in system computing speed. The model can also perform face recognition on a specific person in the video.

Exercise (Ex) has long been recognized to produce beneficial effects on hypertension (HTN). This coupled with evidence of gut dysbiosis and an impaired gut-brain axis led us to hypothesize that reshaping of gut microbiota and improvement in impaired gut-brain axis would, in part, be associated with beneficial influence of exercise. Male spontaneously hypertensive rats (SHR) and Wistar Kyoto (WKY) rats were randomized into sedentary, trained, and detrained groups. Trained rats underwent moderate-intensity exercise for 12 weeks, whereas, detrained groups underwent 8 weeks of moderate-intensity exercise followed by 4 weeks of detraining. Fecal microbiota, gut pathology, intestinal inflammation, and permeability, brain microglia and neuroinflammation were analyzed. We observed that exercise training resulted in a persistent decrease in systolic blood pressure in the SHR. This was associated with increase in microbial α diversity, altered β diversity, and enrichment of beneficial bacterial genera. Furthermore, decrease in the number of activated microglia, neuroinflammation in the hypothalamic paraventricular nucleus, improved gut pathology, inflammation, and permeability were also observed in the SHR following exercise. Interestingly, short-term detraining did not abolish these exercise-mediated improvements. Finally, fecal microbiota transplantation from exercised SHR into sedentary SHR resulted in attenuated SBP and an improved gut-brain axis. These observations support our concept that an impaired gut-brain axis is linked to HTN and exercise ameliorates this impairment to induce antihypertensive effects.

Background & Aims The nuclear factor of activated T-cells (NFAT) family was first recognised to play an important role in the differentiation of T cells, but has since been shown to regulate multiple pathophysiological processes. However, whether it is involved in the pathogenesis of non-alcoholic steatohepatitis (NASH) remains unknown. Methods Hepatic NFATc expression and localisation were analysed in C57BL/6 mice on a methionine–choline-deficient diet, as well as in samples from non-alcoholic fatty liver disease patients. Gain- or loss-of-function approaches were used to investigate the role of NFATc4 in NASH. Results NFATc4 translocates from the cytoplasm to the nucleus in hepatocytes of both humans and rodents with NASH. NFATc4 knockdown resulted in decreased hepatic steatosis, inflammation, and fibrosis during NASH progression. Mechanistically, we found that activated NFATc4 directly bound to peroxisome proliferator-activated receptor α (PPARα) in the nucleus and negatively regulated its transcriptional activity, thereby impairing the hepatic fatty acid oxidation pathway and increasing lipid deposition in the liver. Moreover, NFATc4 activation increased the production and secretion of osteopontin (OPN) from hepatocytes, which subsequently enhanced the macrophage-mediated inflammatory response and hepatic stellate cell-mediated fibrosis progression via paracrine signalling. Conclusions Hepatic NFATc4 activation accelerates the progression of NASH by suppressing PPARα signalling and increasing OPN expression. Genetic or pharmacological inhibition of NFATc4 may have potential for future therapy of NASH. Lay summary NFATc4 is activated in the non-alcoholic steatohepatitis of mice and patients. Inhibition of NFATc4 activation alleviates lipid deposition, inflammatory response, and fibrosis progression in the liver.

Competitive sports data visualization is an increasingly important research direction in the field of information visualization. It is also an important basis for studying human behavioral pattern and activity habits. In this paper, we provide a taxonomy of sports data visualization and summarize the state-of-the-art research from four aspects of data types, main tasks and visualization techniques and visual analysis. Specifically, we first put sports data into two categories: spatiotemporal information and statistical information. Then, we propose three main tasks for competitive sports data visualization: feature presentation, feature comparison and feature prediction. Furthermore, we classify competitive sports data visualization techniques based on data characteristics into five categories: high-dimensional data visualization, time-series visualization, graph (network) visualization, glyph visualization and other visualization, and we analyze the relationship between major tasks and visualization techniques. We also introduce visual analysis research work of competitive sports, propose the features and limitations of competitive sports data, summarize multimedia visualization in competitive sports and finally discuss visual analysis evaluation. In this survey, we attempt to help readers to find appropriate techniques for different data types and different tasks. Our paper also intends to provide guidelines and references for future researchers when they study human behavior and moving patterns.

Background Exosomes are small membrane vesicles that are secreted by most cell types. Circular RNAs (circRNAs) have recently been identified in exosomes, and exosomal circRNAs exert important biological activities in human cancers, including oral squamous cell carcinoma (OSCC). The purpose of this study was to investigate whether circRNA GDP dissociation inhibitor 2 (circGDI2) was transferred by exosomes and how exosomal circGDI2 regulated OSCC cell malignant behaviors. Methods The levels of circGDI2, miR-424-5p and suppressor of cancer cell invasion (SCAI) were detected by quantitative real-time polymerase chain reaction (qRT-PCR) or Western blot. Cell proliferation was evaluated using 3-(4,5-dimethylthiazol-2-yl)-2,5-diphenyl-2H-tetrazolium bromide (MTT) assay. Transwell assays were performed to detect cell migration and invasion. Measurement of glucose consumption and lactate production were conducted using a corresponding assay kit. Targeted correlations among circGDI2, miR-424-5p and SCAI were confirmed by dual-luciferase reporter assays. Xenograft assays were used to observe the role of circGDI2 in tumor growth in vivo. Results Our data indicated that circGDI2 was down-regulated in OSCC, and it could be transferred by the exosomes in OSCC cells. The up-regulation of exosomal circGDI2 weakened OSCC cell proliferation, migration, invasion and glycolysis. CircGDI2 functioned as a molecular sponge of miR-424-5p, and SCAI was a direct target of miR-424-5p. MiR-424-5p mediated the repression of exosomal circGDI2 overexpression on OSCC cell malignant behaviors, and miR-424-5p silencing mitigated OSCC cell progression by up-regulating SCAI. Moreover, exosomal circGDI2 regulated SCAI expression through sponging miR-424-5p. Additionally, the overexpression of exosomal circGDI2 inhibited tumor growth in vivo. Conclusion The present study had led to the identification of exosomal circGDI2 that regulated OSCC cell malignant behaviors through targeting the miR-424-5p/SCAI axis, highlighting circGDI2 as a novel exosome-based cancer biomarker and therapeutic agent for OSCC treatment.

Lipodermatosclerosis (LDS) is a serious skin change associated with the progression of chronic venous insufficiency (CVI) of the lower extremities, and can be clinically divided into acute phase, subacute phase and chronic phase. The disease is common in middle-aged women, prone to occur in the lower leg 1/3, clinical manifestations of the skin flake erythema, induration, pigmentation, skin rough and thickening. The patients often suffer from secondary infection after scratching due to pruritus. The severe ones can form refractory ulcer or even cause skin necrosis, and may be canceration. At present, domestic reports on LDS are less, the clinical manifestations, etiology, pathogenesis and treatment of the LDS are reviewed in present paper, in order to strengthen the understanding of LDS and provide the evidence for clinical diagnosis and treatment of LDS. DOI: 10.11855/j.issn.0577-7402.2020.07.16

Cancer is a common cause of mortality in the world. For cancer treatment modalities such as chemotherapy, photothermal therapy and immunotherapy, the concentration of therapeutic agents in tumor tissue is the key factor which determines therapeutic efficiency. In view of this, developing targeted drug delivery systems are of great significance in selectively delivering drugs to tumor regions. Various types of nanomaterials have been widely used as drug carriers. However, the low tumor-targeting ability of nanomaterials limits their clinical application. It is difficult for nanomaterials to penetrate the tumor tissue through passive diffusion due to the elevated tumoral interstitial fluid pressure. As a biological carrier, bacteria can specifically colonize and proliferate inside tumors and inhibit tumor growth, making it an ideal candidate as delivery vehicles. In addition, synthetic biology techniques have been applied to enable bacteria to controllably express various functional proteins and achieve targeted delivery of therapeutic agents. Nanobiohybrids constructed by the combination of bacteria and nanomaterials have an abundance of advantages, including tumor targeting ability, genetic modifiability, programmed product synthesis, and multimodal therapy. Nowadays, many different types of bacteria-based nanobiohybrids have been used in multiple targeted tumor therapies. In this review, firstly we summarized the development of nanomaterial-mediated cancer therapy. The mechanism and advantages of the bacteria in tumor therapy are described. Especially, we will focus on introducing different therapeutic strategies of nanobiohybrid systems which combine bacteria with nanomaterials in cancer therapy. It is demonstrated that the bacteria-based nanobiohybrids have the potential to provide a targeted and effective approach for cancer treatment.

Three bump sizes, six pressures and five placement angles of bump were used in this paper to conduct enveloping stiffness experiments. The experimental tire displacement-load curves showed that the enveloping stiffness of the tire under the same pressure did not change with changes of the bump size. And the enveloping stiffness of the tire were changed with changes of pressures and placement angles; Models consider pressure and placement angle of bump were established respectively, and established a model consider pressure and placement angle simultaneously by least squares, those models can be used to estimate enveloping stiffness force without experiments. Abaqus finite element software simulations showed that the stress distribution in the tread is H-shaped and the deformation distribution in the tread is oval; By analyzing the force distribution of the ply found that the distribution of force changes with the change of placement angles. The lateral displacement(U1) of the belts increases linearly with increasing angle. The end of cord is prone to failure at 0° and 45°, and the cord near middle of ply is also prone to failure at all angles.

Alzheimer’s disease (AD) is the most common neurodegenerative disease and is manifested by memory loss and spatial disorientation. There is currently no effective treatment for AD. Abnormalities of the chromosome 9 open reading frame 72 (C9orf72) gene have been associated with various neurodegenerative diseases. However, its intrinsic roles in AD remain to be elucidated. Here we found that Aβ25‑35 increased the expression of C9orf72 in PC12 cells at both mRNA and protein levels. In Aβ25‑35‑treated PC12 cells, C9orf72 overexpression induced an abnormally condensed and fragmented nucleus and apoptosis, as well as significantly enhanced reactive oxygen species (ROS) levels. Mechanistically, an Aβ25‑35‑induced decrease of superoxide dismutase activity was augmented by C9orf72 overexpression, which in contrast increased malondialdehyde content. Consistently, further apoptotic analysis revealed significant downregulation of Bcl‑2 and Bcl‑xL expression and enhanced cleavage of caspase‑3 with Aβ25‑35 treatment, all of which were exacerbated by C9orf72 overexpression. In addition, tau phosphorylation, another hallmark of AD pathology, was induced by Aβ25‑35 and was remarkably enhanced by C9orf72 overexpression. Our data indicate that C9orf72 plays important roles in intracellular ROS signaling and Aβ25‑35‑induced neuronal apoptosis in AD. These findings provide insights into C9orf72 function in the pathogenesis of many related neurodegenerative diseases and provide a basis for potential therapeutic interventions.

The precise characterization of a tight glutenite reservoir’s microscopic pore structure is essential for its efficient development. However, it is difficult to accurately evaluate using a single method, and its microscopic heterogeneity is not fully understood. In this study, a combination of X-ray diffraction, casting thin section observations, scanning electron microscopy, high-pressure mercury injection, constant-speed mercury injection, X-ray computed tomography, and the advanced mathematical algorithms in the AVIZO 8.0 visualization software was used to construct the three-dimensional digital core of a glutenite reservoir at the study site, and the parameters of the pore network model were extracted. The overall microscopic pore structure characteristics were quantitatively investigated from multiple scales. Based on this, the mineral quantitative evaluation system (QEMSCAN) examined the microscopic heterogeneity of the glutenite reservoir and its impact on seepage. The results show that the glutenite reservoir in the study block can be classified into three categories based on lithology and capillary pressure curve characteristics. The type I reservoir samples have large and wide pore throats, low threshold pressure, and high reservoir quality; type II reservoir samples are characterized by medium-sized pore throat, medium threshold pressure, and moderate reservoir quality; and the small and narrow pore throat, high threshold pressure, and poor reservoir quality are characteristics of type III reservoir samples. The various pore throat types and mineral distributions are due to the differences in dissolution, compaction, and cementation. The continuous sheet pores have good connectivity, which is related to the interconnection of primary intergranular pores and strip fractures, while the connectivity of isolated pores is significantly poor, which is related to the development of intragranular dissolved pores and intercrystalline pores. This suggests the deterioration of physical properties and pore throat connectivity, reduced average pore radius, and decreased pore sorting as decreasing permeability. The tight glutenite pores range in size from 5 nm to 80 μm and primarily feature Gaussian and bimodal distribution patterns, and submicron–micron pores contribute more to seepage. The effective pores were found to be attributed to the slowing effect of abnormally high pressure on the vertical stress, and the protective effect was positively correlated with the high-pressure strength. Notably, there is strong microscopic heterogeneity in the distribution of the reservoir matrix minerals and the pore throat size. As a result, the injected fluid easily flows along the preferential seepage channel with pore development and connectivity. This study provides new insights into the exploration and development of similar tight reservoirs.