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The cochineal insect (Homoptera: Dactylopiidae) has a long history of artificial breeding and commercial use. A red pigment, cochineal, can be extracted from dried females. Cochineal is mainly comprised of carmine acid, kermesic acid, flavokermesic acid, DC*, DC* and spiroketalcarminic acid, and has high stability and safety in a wide range of applications, including in medicines, as a natural pigment additive, cosmetics and other fields. Due to its high price, encouraging farmers to breed cochineal insects is a Poverty Alleviation project in remote parts of Yunnan Province. However, the quality of cochineal is affected by variables such as gender, and development stage, and environmental factors such as temperature, humidity, light and pests. Because of this variability, NMR, HPLC-DAD-ESI MS/MS, excitation-emission fluorescence data and three-way PARAFAC decomposition, multivariate statistical analysis and other techniques are used to detect and validate cochineal quality. This paper reviews the commercial application of cochineal and cochineal dye in order to attract additional research interest to these products. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The evaporation characteristics of deionized water droplets are investigated on two copper surfaces, a smooth surface and a microhole-patterned surface with wettability gradient. It is observed that at room temperature, the apparent contact angle on the smooth surface linearly decreased with time, while the three-phase contact line is pinned during the evaporation process. However, when a droplet is gently deposited on the gradient microhole-patterned surface, as the side length of the microholes increases, the apparent contact angle goes through three stages: the increasing stage, the stable stage and the re-increasing stage, and the lifetime of evaporating droplets undergoes these three stages too. The solid-liquid contact area plays a key role on the droplet evaporation. In a certain area of the microhole-patterned surface, obvious mesoscopic films are formed. As the droplet evaporates, the mesoscopic films are ruptured; simultaneously, the three-phase contact line shrinks inwards and the apparent contact angle increases. The rupture of the mesoscopic film is analyzed theoretically in this paper. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Aims: Erythropoiesis is controlled by several factors, including oxygen level under different circumstances. However, the role of hypoxia in erythroid differentiation and the underlying mechanisms are poorly understood. We studied the effect and mechanism of hypoxia on erythroid differentiation of K562 cells and observed the effect of hypoxia on early erythropoiesis of zebrafish. Results: Compared with normal oxygen culture, both hemin-induced erythroid differentiation of K562 cells and the early erythropoiesis of zebrafish were inhibited under hypoxic treatment conditions. Hypoxia-inducible factor 1 alpha (HIF1α) plays a major role in the response to hypoxia. Here, we obtained a stable HIF1α knockout K562 cell line using the CRISPR-Cas9 technology and further demonstrated that HIF1α knockout promoted hemin-induced erythroid differentiation of K562 cells under hypoxia. We demonstrated an HIF1-mediated induction of the nuclear factor interleukin-3 (NFIL3) regulated in K562 cells under hypoxia. Interestingly, a gradual decrease in NFIL3 expression was detected during erythroid differentiation of erythropoietin-induced CD34 + hematopoietic stem/progenitor cells (HSPCs) and hemin-induced K562 cells. Notably, erythroid differentiation was inhibited by enforced expression of NFIL3 under normoxia and was promoted by the knockdown of NFIL3 under hypoxia in hemin-treated K562 cells. In addition, a target of NFIL3, pim-1 proto-oncogene, serine/threonine kinase (PIM1), was obtained by RNA microarray after NFIL3 knockdown. PIM1 can rescue the inhibitory effect of NFIL3 on hemin-induced erythroid differentiation of K562 cells. Innovation and Conclusion: Our findings demonstrate that the HIF1α-NFIL3-PIM1 signaling axis plays an important role in erythroid differentiation under hypoxia. These results will provide useful clues for preventing the damage of acute hypoxia to erythropoiesis.

The characteristics of DOM chemical fractions in road runoff with different traffic density were analyzed using excitation emission matrix spectroscopy (EEMs) technology, UV-vis spectra, and FTIR spectroscopy. The results showed that hydrophobic organics were the dominant components in DOM of road runoff, and hydrophobic neutral organics was the most abundant fraction. The hydrophilic organics in DOM of road runoff were mainly composed of protein-like substances. Both protein-like substances and fulvic-like acid substances were found in the hydrophobic organic matters. A high degree of aromatization and a low degree of humification were detected in hydrophobic organics, whereas the characteristics of hydrophilic organics were opposite. Some functional groups such as isomerized carboxyl and unsaturated C=C bonds were featured in acidic organics, and ether and ester groups, phenol, and alcohol were detected in alkaline and neutral organics. The substance composition and characteristics of DOM chemical fractions in road runoff were not affected by the traffic density. Traffic density influenced the quantity of substances in each chemical fraction only. With traffic density increasing, the matter content and the aromatization degree of DOM chemical fractions in road runoff increased, whereas the degree of humification decreased.