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The Au@POM nanoparticles were facilely synthesized using a one-step method. The as-prepared Au@POMs have excellent GOx-like and HRP-like activities, allowing for fast cascade reactions and sensitive bacterial detections.

Autism is characterized by impaired social communication and interaction, repetitive and restricted behaviours and interests (American Psychiatric Association, 2013). Living with autism not only impacts child development, but also places parents at risk of compromised psychological wellbeing. Child behaviour problems have been identified as a robust predictor of parental psychological wellbeing over and beyond other child, parent and context characteristics such as severity of core autism symptoms (Yorke et al., 2018). However, this has not been adequately established in parents native to mainland China. Social support has been documented as a most important coping resource in improving parental psychological wellbeing. In the light of the stress-buffering model, social support is conceptualized to be able to protect parental psychological wellbeing from the impacts of child behaviour problems as a stressor (Cohen & Wills, 1985). However, little is known about the buffering role of perceived social support in the relationship between child behaviours problems and parental psychological wellbeing in Chinese parents of children with autism. Cultural values are increasingly considered in understanding how parents cope with challenges in raising their children with autism. Individualism and collectivism are one of the most used ways to conceptualize cultural values. Individualism refers to the extent to which individuals consider themselves as independent from their culture group, and collectivism can be defined as the extent to which individuals consider themselves being related to others in their culture group (Hofstede, 1984). Individualism and collectivism may also co-exist in one given culture. They have been used to explain how parents living in individualistic and collectivistic societies adapt to their children with autism differently (e.g., Chao et al., 2018). In the proposed research we plan to disentangle the relationships between individualism and collectivism, and parental perceived social support and psychological wellbeing. An intracultural approach (rather than an intercultural comparison) will be adopted, given the value in describing individual variations within one culture.

This code identifies autistic cohort children from sweeps three to six of the Millennium Cohort Study using the following questions: (1) Has a doctor or health professional ever told you that [cohort child] had Autism? (2) What are the reasons for [cohort member’s] special educational needs? (3) What are the reasons for [cohort member’s] additional support needs?

The traditional Chinese medicine of fermented medicine may be under the involvement of multiple strains and the interaction between these microorganisms. Liu Shenqu (Massa Medicata Fermentata, MMF) is one of the most widely used fermented medicines, whose potential processing mechanism is still unclear. In this work, UPLC/MS and GNPS methods were employed to rapidly predict chemical compositions in MMF. Moreover, the dynamic changes of strains, chemical compositions and anti-inflammatory activity of MMF during fermentation process were investigated, and subsequently strains-chemical compositions-efficacy interactions were revealed by Pearson correlation analysis and partial least squares regression (PLSR) analysis. As a result, 24 components were identified, and the potential strains including Bacillus, Burkholderia_Caballeronia_Paraburkholderia, Enterobacter, Aspergillus heterocaryoticus, Rhizopus arrhizus, Kazachstania bulderi, which related to the production of anti-inflammatory active ingredients were exposed. These results demonstrated chemical compositions-strains-efficacy interactions during fermentation of MMF, and provide reference for the exploration of the processing mechanism of MMF.

Breast cancer (BC) is a serious threat to women’s health and metastasis is the major cause of BC-associated mortality. Various techniques are currently used to preoperatively describe the metastatic status of tumors, based on which a comprehensive treatment protocol was determined. However, accurately staging a tumor before surgery remains a challenge, which may lead to the miss of optimal treatment options. More severely, the failure to detect and remove occult micrometastases often causes tumor recurrences. There is an urgent need to develop a more precise and non-invasive strategy for the detection of the tumor metastasis in lymph nodes and distant organs. Based on the facts that tumor metastasis is closely related to the primary tumor microenvironment (TME) evolutions and that metabolomics profiling of the circulatory system can precisely reflect subtle changes within TME, we suppose whether metabolomic technology can be used to achieve non-invasive and real-time monitoring of BC metastatic status. In this study, the metastasis status of BC mouse models with different tumor-bearing times was firstly depicted to mimic clinical anatomic TNM staging system. Metabolomic profiling together with metastasis-related changes in TME among tumor-bearing mice with different metastatic status was conducted. A range of differential metabolites reflecting tumor metastatic states were screened and in vivo experiments proved that two main metastasis-driving factors in TME, TGF-β and hypoxia, were closely related to the regular changes of these metabolites. The differential metabolites level changes were also preliminarily confirmed in a limited number of clinical BC samples. Metabolite lysoPC (16:0) was found to be useful for clinical N stage diagnosis and the possible cause of its changes was analyzed by bioinformatics techniques.

Background Tetraploid cotton plants serve as prime natural fiber source for the textile industry. Although various omics studies have revealed molecular basis for fiber development, a better understanding of transcriptional regulation mechanism regulating lint fiber initiation is necessary to meet global natural fiber demand. Results Here, we aimed to perform transcriptome sequencing to identify DEGs (differentially expressed genes) in ovules of the cotton variety Xu142 and its fibreless mutant Xu142fl during early lint fiber initiation period. Totally, 5516 DEGs including 1840 upregulated and 3676 downregulated were identified. GO enrichment analysis revealed that the downregulated DEGs were mainly associated with biological processes such as transcription related biosynthesis and metabolism, organic cyclic compound biosynthesis and metabolism, photosynthesis, and plant cell wall organization, with molecular functions involving transcription related binding, organic cyclic compound binding, and dioxygenase activity, while the upregulated DEGs were associated with DNA replication and phospholipid biosynthetic related processes. Among the 490 DEGs annotated as transcription factor genes, 86.5% were downregulated in the mutant including the Malvaceae-specific MMLs, expression patterns of which were confirmed during the central period of lint fiber initiation. Investigation of the 16 genes enriched in the cell wall organization revealed that 15 were EXPA coding genes. Conclusions Overall, our data indicate that lint fiber initiation is a complicated process involving cooperation of multiple transcription factor families, which might ultimately lead to the reorganization of the cell wall and terminated cell division of the differentiating fiber initials.

The colored non-toxic near-infrared (NIR) reflective and infrared radiative pigments are desired in reducing the energy consumption of buildings. In this work, yttrium ferrite (YFeO3) pigments with controllable crystalline structure were successfully synthesized via the method of solid-state reaction at low-heating temperature. The effects of the crystalline structure and microstructure, especially charge state distribution, on the bandgap, chromatic properties, infrared reflection and radiation performance of YFeO3 pigments were investigated for the first time. With the calcining temperature increased, the structure of obtained pigments changed from hexagonal to orthorhombic, and the bandgap was obviously widened. The black hexagonal YFeO3 pigments possessed small particle size, and their intensive optical absorption in the NIR range was related to the noticeable multiple reflections induced by the grain boundary. While, the brown orthorhombic YFeO3 powdered pigments, as well as the corresponding pigmented coatings, possessed good NIR reflection characteristics, and the high solar reflectance values clearly highlight the potential of these pigments as cool pigments. In addition, the obtained YFeO3 pigmented coatings showed high emissivity in 8–14 μm waveband (atmospheric window), indicating their potential applications in energy saving of buildings by combining NIR shielding and space cooling. The larger amount of Fe2+-Fe3+ ions pairs in the orthorhombic pigments led to the enhancement of free carrier absorption, which enhanced infrared emission and contributed to the slightly decreased NIR reflectance.

Low intracellular delivery efficiency and multidrug resistance are among major barriers to effective cancer therapy. Herein, we report a novel, virus-mimicking, endosomolytic liposomal drug-delivery platform to address these two key challenges. The pH-responsive, comb-like pseudopeptides were prepared by grafting relatively long alkyl side chains onto a polyamide, poly(L-lysine isophthalamide), to mimic fusogenic peptides in viral spikes. The cholesterol-containing liposome, which mimics the viral envelope, was readily coated with these pseudopeptides due to their hydrophobic side chains acting as membrane anchors. These endosomolytic pseudopeptides displayed high adsorption onto the liposomal membrane and enabled the significantly higher cellular uptake. The virus-mimicking system showed a pH-triggered content-release profile which could be manipulated by varying the structure and concentration of the adsorbed polymers. The endosomolytic ability of the multifunctional liposome and its use for efficient intracellular delivery of the widely used anticancer drug doxorubicin (DOX) were demonstrated. The virus-mimicking liposomal system with DOX encapsulation exhibited considerably higher potency against HeLa cervical cancer cells, A549 lung cancer cells, MES-SA uterus cancer cells, and MES-SA/DX5 multidrug-resistant cancer cells than DOX-loaded bare liposomes and free DOX. These results suggest its potential applications for enhanced cytoplasmic delivery and cancer treatment.

The aim of this study is to overcome the obstacle of the blood-brain barrier (BBB) in therapeutic drugs of Parkinson's disease (PD), like rhynchophylline (RIN) entry by intranasal administration and to solve the problem of short residence time of drugs in the nasal cavity by the dosage form design of thermosensitive gel. We first conducted a study of the screening of absorption enhancers and 3% hydroxypropyl-β-cyclodextrin (HP-β-CD) was effective to improve the nasal mucosal permeability of RIN. By adjusting the ratio of different components in order to make the gel with adhesion and rapid gelation which were determined to be Poloxamer 407 (P407) 20%, Poloxamer 188 (P188) 1%, polyethylene glycol 6000 (PEG-6000) 1% and HP-β-CD 3%. In addition, the characterization showed that the thermosensitive gel was network cross-linked, rapidly gelation upon entry into the nasal cavity and was stable as semi-solid state with adhesion as well as sustained release properties. Moreover, pharmacokinetic study was performed to evaluate the bioavailability and brain targeting of RIN thermosensitive gel and which were 1.6 times and 2.1 times higher than those of oral administration. We also evaluated the anti-PD effects of RIN thermosensitive gel in-vitro as well as in-vivo. The results showed that RIN thermosensitive gel was effective in repairing the motor function impairment, dysregulated expression levels of oxidative stress factors, and positive neuronal damage within the substantia nigra and dopamine caused by PD. The constructed intranasal drug administration strategy through thermosensitive gel provided a new choice for targeted treatment of PD together with other central nervous system diseases.

Aldo-keto reductase 1C3 (AKR1C3) is overexpressed in multiple hormone related cancers, such as breast and prostate cancer, and is correlated with tumor development and aggressiveness. As a phase I biotransformation enzyme, AKR1C3 catalyzes the metabolic processes that lead to resistance to anthracyclines, the "gold standard" for breast cancer treatment. Novel approaches to restore the chemotherapy sensitivity of breast cancer are urgently required. Herein, we developed a new class of AKR1C3 inhibitors that demonstrated potent inhibitory activity and exquisite selectivity for closely related isoforms. The best derivative 27 (S19-1035) exhibits an IC

Recently, graph neural networks (GNN), due to their compelling representation learning ability, have been exploited to deal with emotion-cause pair extraction (ECPE). However, current GNN-based ECPE methods mostly concentrate on modeling the local dependency relation between homogeneous nodes at the semantic granularity of clauses or clause pairs, while they fail to take full advantage of the rich semantic information in the document. To solve this problem, we propose a novel hierarchical heterogeneous graph attention network to model global semantic relations among nodes. Especially, our method introduces all types of semantic elements involved in the ECPE, not just clauses or clause pairs. Specifically, we first model the dependency between clauses and words, in which word nodes are also exploited as an intermediary for the association between clause nodes. Secondly, a pair-level subgraph is constructed to explore the correlation between the pair nodes and their different neighboring nodes. Representation learning of clauses and clause pairs is achieved by two-level heterogeneous graph attention networks. Experiments on the benchmark datasets show that our proposed model achieves a significant improvement over 13 compared methods.

Designing of multiple-target directed ligands (MTDLs) has emerged as an attractive strategy for Alzheimer's disease (AD). Fusing the benzylpiperidine motif from AChE inhibitor donepezil and the 1,2,4-oxadiazole core from the Nrf2 activator 25 that was previously reported, we designed and synthesized a series of multifunctional anti-AD hybrids. The optimal hybrid 15a exhibited excellent AChE inhibitory (eeAChE IC

Although neural networks have been applied in many fields since they were first introduced, the feasibility of applying it to predict the solution of Maxwell's equations remains open. In this letter, we investigate the feasibility of utilizing the long- and short-term memory (LSTM) neural network to solve the time-domain electromagnetic (TDEM) forward problems. With ground truth datasets being generated from the finite-difference time-domain (FDTD) method, a novel LSTM-TDEM model structure is proposed, and trained by a new feasible algorithm specifically designed for time-domain simulation. The strong approximation ability of the LSTM-TDEM method can accurately predict the electromagnetic field distributions for topologies of different geometries, materials, and excitations at different locations. The effectiveness of the proposed LSTM-TDEM method has been validated by several numerical experiments. The average relative error can be as small as 0.63% for 2-D case and 0.35% for 3-D case. It is worth noting that the training data are only 5% (198/4087) and 30% (660/2189) in 2-D and 3-D cases, respectively. Meanwhile, compared with the traditional FDTD method, the proposed method greatly reduces the calculation time, with its speedup ratio more than 1800 and 44 000 times over the FDTD method in 2-D and 3-D cases, respectively.

Nitrosamine compounds, represented by N-nitrosodimethylamine, are regarded as potentially genotoxic impurities (PGIs) due to their hazard warning structure, which has attracted great attention of pharmaceutical companies and regulatory authorities. At present, great research gaps exist in genotoxicity assessment and carcinogenicity comparison of nitrosamine compounds. In this work, a collection of GFP-fused yeast cells representing DNA damage repair pathways were used to evaluate the genotoxicity of eight nitrosamine compounds (10−6–105 μg/mL). The high-resolution expression profiles of GFP-fused protein revealed the details of the DNA damage repair of nitrosamines. Studies have shown that nitrosamine compounds can cause extensive DNA damage and activate multiple repair pathways. The evaluation criteria based on the total expression level of protein show a good correlation with the mammalian carcinogenicity data TD50, and the yeast cell collection can be used as a potential reliable criterion for evaluating the carcinogenicity of compounds. The assay based on DNA damage pathway integration has high sensitivity and can be used as a supplementary method for the evaluation of trace PGIs in actual production. • The genotoxicity mechanism of nitrosamines was systematically studied. • The influence of compound structure on the efficacy of genotoxicity was explored. • GFP-fused yeast cells have the potential to evaluate impurities in production.

Extensive studies have shown that oxidative stress is a crucial pathogenic factor in Alzheimer’s disease (AD). Nuclear factor E2-related factor 2 (Nrf2) is a master cytoprotective regulator against oxidative stress, and thus represents an attractive therapeutic target in AD. The goal of our study is to investigate the contribution of Nrf2 in Rhynchophylline (Rhy)-induced neuroprotection in AD. The data showed that intraperitoneal administration of Rhy (10 or 20 mg/kg) could ameliorate Aβ1–42-induced cognitive impairment, evidenced by performance improvement in memory tests. The result of Antioxidant response element (ARE)-luciferase activity assay indicated that Rhy treatment improved ARE promoter activity. The results of reactive oxygen species (ROS), malondialdehyde (MDA) and glutathione (GSH) assessment in the frontal cortex and hippocampus showed that Rhy treatment could attenuate Aβ1–42-induced oxidative stress to some extent, evidenced by reversion of these cytokines compared to Aβ1–42 + Veh group. Rhy treatment also restored expression of Nrf2 and its downstream protein heme oxygenase-1 (HO-1), NAD(P)H/quinone oxidoreductase 1 (NOQ1), and recombinant glutamate cysteine ligase, modifier subunit (GCLM) in the frontal cortex and hippocampus of Aβ1–42-treated mice. In addition, to investigate whether activation of Nrf2-mediated pathway is responsible for the neuroprotection of Rhy, Nrf2 siRNA was used in human neuroblastoma cells (SH-SY5Y). Interestingly, the results showed that the protective effects of Rhy, including anti-oxidative, anti-apoptosis and elevation of Nrf2 and its downstream proteins, were abolished in Nrf2 siRNA-transfected cells. These findings indicate that Rhynchophylline is protective against Aβ1–42-induced neurotoxicity via Nrf2–ARE activation, and suggest that Rhy may serve as a potential candidate and promising Nrf2 activator for management of AD.

Chemotherapy resistance is one of the main causes of lung cancer treatment failure, and a combination regimen may be an effective way to overcome this. Here we report 5 new (1-3, 7, and 9) and 15 known polyketides, isolated from an endozoic Aspergillus niger. The structures of the new compounds were determined by the interpretation of IR, HRESIMS, NMR, and ECD spectra. The ESI-MS/MS fragmentation of the isolated naphtho-γ-pyrone isomers in positive mode is discussed. The effects of isolated compounds in combination with cisplatin (DDP) on a DDP-resistant A549 cell line (A459/DDP) are investigated. The most active compound, 12, could reduce the ratio of GSH/GSSG, promote the generation of intracellular ROS, and cooperate with DDP to down-regulated levels of Nrf2, Akt, HO-1, and NQO1, suggesting that inhibition of Nrf2 and Akt pathways might be involved in the combined effect of 12 and DDP in A549/DDP cells.

The TM02 mode has advantage in power capacity over the fundamental TM01 mode in relativistic backward-wave oscillator (RBWO), whereas in our formal experiment, the microwave pulse seemed not as wide as we expected. In this article, the power capacity of the TM02 mode is investigated theoretically and the mechanisms corresponding to the pulse shortening are analyzed in detail. It is found that the pulse shortening in the RBWO results from the breakdown on the window, the bombardment of the stray electrons traveling in the low guiding magnetic field, and the breakdown induced by the intensive electric field on the surface of the slow wave structure (SWS). The approach of eliminating the pulse shortening is put forward based on the theoretical research and the numerical optimization using our artificial intelligence (AI) code and is validated in the experiment. With larger aperture antenna adopted, post resonator simplified, and emitting electric field greatly decreased, the pulsewidth is lengthened from ~9 to 18 ns with the output power of 360 MW at guiding magnetic field of 0.9 T.

In this paper, we investigate microstructural and mechanical properties of enamel coating after different heat treatment periods. The results show that the refractory BaAl2Si2O8, CaAl2Si2O8 and MgCr2O4 crystals precipitate from parent enamel, and crystallization volume fraction reaches saturation at 40 % after heat treatment 32 h. Moreover, from the experimental and theoretical analysis of residual stress, the macro and micro compressive residual stresses increase with increasing the crystallized volume fraction. And, the continuous macro compressive residual stress and small-scale microstructure inhomogeneities could significantly lead to the shear stress concentration near the enamel coating surface, which results in the typical fish-scaling failure of enamel. Meanwhile, we also find that a slit method with geometric phase analysis (GPA) under focused ion beam scanning electron microscopy (FIB/SEM) system could more reliably characterize residual stress of enamel coating because of phase transformation than traditional X-ray diffraction (XRD) method.

Dielectric energy storage materials are becoming increasingly popular due to their potential superiority, for example, excellent pulse performance as well as good fatigue resistance. Although numerous studies have focused on lead-free dielectric materials which possess outstanding energy storage characteristics, the results are still not satisfying in terms of achieving both large discharging energy density (Wd) and high discharging efficiency (η) under low electric fields, which is crucial to be conducted in miniatured electronic components. Here, we adopt the strategy of domain engineering to develop sodium bismuth titanate (Bi0.5Na0.5TiO3)-based ceramics employed in the low-field situation. Remarkably, a large Wd of 2.86 J/cm3 and an ultrahigh η of 90.3% are concurrently obtained in 0.94(Bi0.5Na0.5)0.65(Ba0.3Sr0.7)0.35TiO3-0.06 Bi(Zn2/3Nb1/3)O3 system when the electric field is as low as 180 kV/cm. Additionally, the ceramic shows brilliant thermal endurance (20-160 °C) and frequency stability (0.1-100 Hz) with high Wd (>1.48 J/cm3) together with an ultra-high η (>90%). What's more, the ceramic displays a fast charge-discharge time (t0.9 = 109.2 ns). The piezoresponse force microscopy (PFM) results reveal that the introduced Bi(Zn2/3Nb1/3)O3 disrupts the microdomains of (Bi0.5Na0.5)0.65(Ba0.3Sr0.7)0.35TiO3 ceramics and promotes the formation of nanodomains, leading to enhanced energy storage properties. The current work may arouse interest in developing low-field high-performing dielectric capacitors for energy storage application.

Intelligent systems that offer traceable cancer therapy are highly desirable for precision medicine. Although photodynamic therapy (PDT) has been approved in the clinic for decades, determining where the tumor is, when to irradiate, and how long to expose to light still confuse the clinicians. Patients are always suffering from the phototoxicity of the photosensitizer in nonmalignant tissues. Herein, an activatable theranostic agent, ZnPc@TPCB nanoparticles (NPs), is prepared by doping a photosensitizer, ZnPc, with an aggregation-induced emission probe, TPCB. The assembled or disassembled ZnPc@TPCB NPs in various phases have behaved differently in fluorescence intensity, photoacoustic (PA) signals, and PDT efficiency. The intact nanoparticles are non-emissive in aqueous media while showing strong PA signals and low PDT efficiency, which can eliminate the phototoxicity and self-monitor their distribution and image the tumors' location. Disassembling of the NPs leads to the release of ZnPc and its red fluorescence turn-on to self-report the photosensitizer's activation. Upon light irradiation, the reactive oxygen species (ROS) generated by ZnPc can induce cell apoptosis and activate the ROS sensor, TPCB, which will yield intense orange-red fluorescence and instantly predict the therapeutic effect. Moreover, enhanced PDT efficacy is achieved via the GSH-depleting adjuvant quinone methide produced by the activated TPCB. The well-designed ZnPc@TPCB NPs have shown promising potential for finely controlled PDT with good biosafety and broad application prospects in individual therapy, which may inspire the development of precision medicine.

In the development of a Ka -band overmoded Cerenkov oscillator, the issue of asymmetric modes competition should be paid attention to as they can be potentially excited in the overmoded cavity and then affect the performance of device seriously. Based on the 3-D models, the influences of the structural parameter such as “ ldr ” on the resonance characteristics for the symmetric modes and the asymmetric modes are analyzed. Then according to the start conditions for the modes, the roles of the ${E}_{z}$ -field distribution and the guiding magnetic field in spurring the asymmetric modes are discussed and accordingly the ways to alleviate the asymmetric modes competition are suggested. The 3-D particle-in-cell (PIC) simulation results show that, with the proposed conditions, the optimized device is operating stably with a purified output mode of TM01. Finally, the optimized structure is experimentally tested. In accordance with the theoretical prediction and the simulation results, the experimental results show that under specific conditions the asymmetric modes are very likely to be excited and they can even dominate the beam–wave interaction process. Nevertheless, using the proposed method, the output mode is pure of TM01, demonstrating the feasibility of the proposed method in suppressing the asymmetric modes competition.

In this paper, through the application of 3D printing technology, insulators with different surface microstructures are prepared. Surface flashover test of the printed insulators shows that surface microstructures have a strong influence on the surface flashover voltage. This indicates that through proper surface microstructure design and the application of 3D printing technology insulators with high surface voltage withstand strength can be prepared. The influence of gas release characteristics, with and without thermal treatment, on the surface flashover voltages is studied. The results indicate that insulators with lower gas release rate own higher voltage withstand strength.

Ziyuan Zhang,1,2 Yaling Hu,1,2 Wenyuan Liu,2 Xiaodong Zhang,2 Ruihua Wang,2 Hui Li,2 Dalin Sun,1,2 Jingai Fang2 1Shanxi Medical University, Taiyuan, People’s Republic of China; 2Department of Nephrology, First Hospital of Shanxi Medical University, Taiyuan, People’s Republic of ChinaCorrespondence: Jingai Fang, Department of Nephrology, First Hospital of Shanxi Medical University, 85 Jiefangnan Road, Taiyuan, 030001, People’s Republic of China, Email jingaifang2017003@126.comPurpose: To explore the mechanism of Yishen capsule against diabetic nephropathy (DN) based on the analysis of transcriptomics.Material and Methods: SD rats (Male, SPF grade) were randomly divided into four groups, the normal group, the DN group, the Yishen capsule group and the resveratrol group. Urine and renal tissue samples were collected after feeding with physiological saline and above drugs for 8 weeks. 24-hour urine microalbumin protein was detected by ELISA. HE staining and PAS staining were performed on renal tissues. Differential gene expression in renal tissues was analyzed by transcriptome sequencing. The differentially expressed genes were analyzed by GO enrichment and KEGG enrichment, and verified by RT-PCR and immunohistochemistry staining.Results: The level of 24-hour urinary microalbumin in DN group was increased, while Yishen capsule treatment reversed the increasement of urinary microalbumin. Mesangial cell proliferation, matrix accumulation, edema and vacuolar degeneration of renal tubular epithelial cells and glycogen accumulation were observed in DN group. However, pathological phenotypes mentioned above were alleviated after Yisen capsule administration. This result indicates that Yishen capsule reversed pathological phenotypes of DN in rats. The expression of 261 genes were changed in Yishen capsule group compared with DN group. GO enrichment analysis and KEGG pathway analysis showed that these genes were implicated in pathways, including mineral absorption, adipocytokine signaling pathway, fatty acid biosynthesis, thyroid hormone synthesis, renin–angiotensin system, and NOD-like receptor signaling pathway. Based on previous reported study, the expression of key factors in NOD-like receptor signaling pathway was verified. RT-PCR and immunohistochemistry staining showed that the expression of NLRP3, Caspase-1 and IL-1β in renal tissues of DN group were increased (P < 0.05), which were decreased in Yishen capsule group (P < 0.05).Conclusion: Yishen capsule reduced microalbuminuria and alleviated pathological changes in DN rats, which may be achieved by regulating NOD-like receptor signaling pathway.Keywords: Yishen capsule, diabetic nephropathy, transcriptome sequencing, NOD-like receptor signaling pathway