Search

Lupus nephritis (LN), the most severe organ manifestation of systemic lupus erythematosus (SLE), is generally treated with glucocorticoids (GC) in clinical practice, leading to drug resistance and adverse effects in the long term. Fortunately, the combination of GC and traditional Chinese medical prescriptions can attenuate the adverse effects and improve therapeutic efficiency. Hedyotis diffusa Willd (HDW) is one of the most commonly used herbal compounds for LN treatment, which exhibits “heat-clearing” and “detoxification” effects. However, the underlying pharmacological mechanism remains unclear. The present study identified the chemical compounds in HDW extract with UPLC-Q-TOF-MS/MS. A total of 49 components were identified in the HDW extract, and the IL-17 signaling pathway was highly enriched by network pharmacological analysis. MRL/lpr model mice, reflecting the spontaneous development of LN, were used to evaluate the protective activity and investigate the underlying mechanism of the combination treatment. The white blood cell content (WBC), including lymphocytes and neutrophils, cytokines (IL-6, MCP-1, TNF-a), and various autoantibodies (ANA, ab-dsDNA, ab-snRNP/sm) in the blood of MRL/lpr mice were significantly improved by the intragastric administration of HDW. Additionally, the expression of STAT3, IL-17, Ly6G, and MPO in the kidney and neutrophil NETosis were ameliorated with HDW treatment. The pathological and morphological analysis suggested that HDW application could reduce urinary protein levels and inflammatory cell infiltration and inhibit glomerular interstitial cell proliferation. Hence, HDW might ameliorate lupus nephritis by inhibiting IL-6 secretion and STAT3-induced IL-17 expression. The active compounds in HDW were predictively selected with computational methods. The docking affinity of asiatic acid, neoandrographolide to IL-6, glycyrrhetinic acid, oleanolic acid, ursolic acid, and wilforlide A to STAT3 are extremely high. In conclusion, the IL-6 and STAT3/IL-17signaling pathways could be critical regulative targets of HDW on LN.

The spatial distribution of soil moisture, especially the temporal variation at seasonal and interannual scales, is difficult for many land surface models (LSMs) to capture partly due to the deficiencies of the LSMs and the highly spatial variability of soil moisture, which makes it problematic to simulate the moisture for climate studies. However the soil moisture plays an important role in influencing the energy and hydrological cycles between the land and air, so it should be considered in land surface models. In this paper, a soil moisture simulation in China with a T213 resolution (about 0.5625δ × 0.5625°) is compared to the observational data, and its relationship to precipitation is explored. The soil moisture distribution agrees roughly with the observations, and the soil moisture pattern reflects the variation and intensity of the precipitation. In particular, for the 1998 summer catastrophic floods along the Yangtze River, the soil moisture remains high in this region from July to August and represents the flood well. The seasonal cycle of soil moisture is roughly consistent with the observed data, which is a good calibration for the ground simulation capacity of the Atmosphere-Vegetation Interaction Model (AVIM) with respect to this tough problem for land surface models.

The net primary productivity (NPP) of global terrestrial vegetation is estimated by an Atmosphere-Vegetation Interaction Model (AVIM). AVIM consists of two intercoupled components: physical processes, involving water and energy transfer among soil, vegetation and the atmosphere at the land surface and eco-physiological processes, i.e. photosynthesis, respiration, dry matter allocation, littering, phenology. Globally vegetation is classified into 13 types and soi! texture is classified into 6 types. The estimated NPP for different vegetation types at 1637 sites are validated with the observed data provided by EMDI. The main results of NPP estimation show that global averaged NPP is 405.13 g C m-2yr-1, varying from 99.58 g C m-2yr-1 (tundra) to 996.2 g m-2yr-1 (rainforest). Global total annual NPP is about 6O.72Gt C yr-1, in which the maximum part, about 15.84 Gt C yr-1, accounting for 26.09% of the total is contributed by tropical rainforest. The maximum carbon sink occurs in the temperate region of the Northern Hemisphere. The global spatial and seasonal distribution of terres trial NPP is estimated reasonably.

An attempt is made to construct a model, coupling land surface and atmospheric processes in the planetary boundary layer (PBL). A grassland strip in a semi-desert (hereinafter called desert) is presupposed, so as to simulate the case of heterogeneous vegetation cover.

In this paper, the coupling schemes of atmosphere-ocean climate models are discussed with one-dimensional advection equations. The convergence and stability for synchronous and asynchronous schemes are demonstrated and compared.