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Abstract Background To explore the impact of ARGs on the prognosis of NSCLC, and its correlation with clinicopathological parameters and immune microenvironment. Preliminary research on the biological functions of CEBPA in NSCLC. Methods Using consensus clustering analysis to identify molecular subtypes of ARGs in NSCLC patients; employing LASSO regression and multivariate Cox analysis to select 7 prognostic risk genes and construct a prognostic risk model; validating independent prognostic factors of NSCLC using forest plot analysis; analyzing immune microenvironment correlations using ESTIMATE and ssGSEA; assessing correlations between prognostic risk genes via qPCR and Western blot in NSCLC; measuring mRNA and protein expression levels of knocked down and overexpressed CEBPA in NSCLC using CCK-8 and EdU assays; evaluating the effects of knocked down and overexpressed CEBPA on cell proliferation using Transwell experiments; examining the correlation of CEBPA with T cells and B cells using mIHC analysis. Results Consensus clustering analysis identified three molecular subtypes, suggesting significant differential expression of these ARGs in NSCLC prognosis and clinical pathological parameters. There was significant differential expression between the two risk groups in the prognostic risk model, with P

Abstract This article aims to improve the deep-learning-based surface defect recognition. In actual manufacturing processes, there are issues such as data imbalance, insufficient diversity, and poor quality of augmented data in the collected image data for product defect recognition. A novel defect generation method with multiple loss functions, DG2GAN is presented in this paper. This method employs cycle consistency loss to generate defect images from a large number of defect-free images, overcoming the issue of imbalanced original training data. DJS optimized discriminator loss is introduced in the added discriminator to encourage the generation of diverse defect images. Furthermore, to maintain diversity in generated images while improving image quality, a new DG2 adversarial loss is proposed with the aim of generating high-quality and diverse images. The experiments demonstrated that DG2GAN produces defect images of higher quality and greater diversity compared with other advanced generation methods. Using the DG2GAN method to augment defect data in the CrackForest and MVTec datasets, the defect recognition accuracy increased from 86.9 to 94.6%, and the precision improved from 59.8 to 80.2%. The experimental results show that using the proposed defect generation method can obtain sample images with high quality and diversity and employ this method for data augmentation significantly enhances surface defect recognition technology.

Variety detection provides technical support for selecting XinHui citrus for use in the production of XinHui dried tangerine peel. Simultaneously, the mutual occlusion between tree leaves and fruits is one of the challenges in object detection. In order to improve screening efficiency, this paper introduces a YOLO(You Only Look Once)v7-BiGS(BiFormer&GSConv) citrus variety detection method capable of identifying different citrus varieties efficiently. In the YOLOv7-BiGS network model, initially, the BiFormer attention mechanism in the backbone of the YOLOv7-based network strengthens the model’s ability to extract citrus’ features. In addition, the introduction of the lightweight GSConv convolution in place of the original convolution within the ELAN of the head component effectively streamlines model complexity while maintaining performance integrity. To environment challenge validate the effectiveness of the method, the proposed YOLOv7-BiGS was compared with YOLOv5, YOLOv7, and YOLOv8. In the comparison of YOLOv7-BiGS with YOLOv5, YOLOv7, and YOLOv8, the experimental results show that the precision, mAP and recell of YOLOv7-BiGS are 91%, 93.7% and 87.3% respectively. Notably, compared to baseline methods, the proposed approach exhibited significant enhancements in precision, mAP, and recall by 5.8%, 4.8%, and 5.2%, respectively. To evaluate the efficacy of the YOLOv7-BiGS in addressing challenges posed by complex environmental conditions, we collected occluded images of Xinhui citrus fruits from the Xinhui orchard base for model detection. This research aims to fulfill performance criteria for citrus variety identification, offering vital technical backing for variety detection endeavors.

The rhizome of Polygonatum, which has been consumed in China for nearly 2000 years, is rich in oligosaccharides, polysaccharides, saponins, and alkaloids and has various effects such as lowering blood sugar and anti-aging. Its aerial parts are often discarded as by-products and have been rarely studied; moreover, the nutritional composition and carbohydrate composition of these parts are not clear. In this study, the nutritional composition, amino acid evaluation, and the total phenolics content of the leaves, stems, fruits, and flowers of Polygonatum cyrtonema Hua were analyzed, and the composition and content of carbohydrates were determined by high-performance anion-exchange chromatography with pulsed amperometric detection (HPAEC–PAD). The results suggested that the leaves and flowers of Polygonatum cyrtonema Hua (PC) contained 1.12–1.37% phenolic substances. The proteins of the aerial parts had high nutritional values, and the total amino acid content of the leaves and flowers, with the total leaf amino acids amounting to 11.77%, were followed by the flowers at 11.65%. The sugars in the flowers were mainly free monosaccharides at 10.38%, and the fruits were dominated by 9.44% fructo-oligosaccharides. This study provided new evidence for the utilization of the aerial parts of Polygonatum.

BackgroundNon-small cell lung cancer (NSCLC) is a highly heterogeneous malignancy with an extremely high mortality rate. Necroptosis is a programmed cell death mode mediated by three major mediators, RIPK1, RIPK3, and MLKL, and has been shown to play a role in various cancers. To date, the effect of necroptosis on NSCLC remains unclear.MethodsIn The Cancer Genome Atlas (TCGA) and Gene Expression Omnibus (GEO) databases, we downloaded transcriptomes of lung adenocarcinoma (LUAD) patients and their corresponding clinicopathological parameters. We performed multi-omics analysis using consensus clustering based on the expression levels of 40 necroptosis-related genes. We constructed prognostic risk models and used the receiver operating characteristic (ROC) curves, nomograms, and survival analysis to evaluate prognostic models.ResultsWith the use of consensus clustering analysis, two distinct subtypes of necroptosis were identified based on different mRNA expression levels, and cluster B was found to have a better survival advantage. Correlation results showed that necroptosis was significantly linked with clinical features, overall survival (OS) rate, and immune infiltration. Kyoto Encyclopedia of Genes and Genomes (KEGG) and Gene Ontology (GO) enrichment analysis confirmed that these differential genes were valuable in various cellular and biological functions and were significantly enriched in various pathways such as the P53 signaling pathway and cell cycle. We further identified three genomic subtypes and found that gene cluster B patients had better prognostic value. Multivariate Cox analysis identified the 14 best prognostic genes for constructing prognostic risk models. The high-risk group was found to have a poor prognosis. The construction of nomograms and ROC curves showed stable validity in prognostic prediction. There were also significant differences in tumor immune microenvironment, tumor mutational burden (TMB), and drug sensitivity between the two risk groups. The results demonstrate that the 14 genes constructed in this prognostic risk model were used as tumor prognostic biomarkers to guide immunotherapy and chemotherapy. Finally, we used qRT-PCR to validate the genes involved in the signature.ConclusionThis study promotes our new understanding of necroptosis in the tumor microenvironment of NSCLC, mines prognostic biomarkers, and provides a potential value for guiding immunotherapy and chemotherapy.

Nanotechniques for curcumin (Cur) encapsulation provided a potential capability to avoid limitations and improve biological activities in food and pharmaceutics. Different from multi-step encapsulation systems, in this study, zein–curcumin (Z–Cur) core-shell nanoparticles could be self-assembled within Eudragit S100 (ES100) fibers through one-pot coaxial electrospinning with Cur at an encapsulation efficiency (EE) of 96% for ES100–zein–Cur (ES100–Z–Cur) and EE of 67% for self-assembled Z–Cur. The resulting structure realized the double protection of Cur by ES100 and zein, which provided both pH responsiveness and sustained release performances. The self-assembled Z–Cur nanoparticles released from fibermats were spherical (diameter 328 nm) and had a relatively uniform distribution (polydispersity index 0.62). The spherical structures of Z–Cur nanoparticles and Z–Cur nanoparticles loaded in ES100 fibermats could be observed by transmission electron microscopy (TEM). Fourier transform infrared spectra (FTIR) and X-ray diffractometer (XRD) revealed that hydrophobic interactions occurred between the encapsulated Cur and zein, while Cur was amorphous (rather than in crystalline form). Loading in the fibermat could significantly enhance the photothermal stability of Cur. This novel one-pot system much more easily and efficiently combined nanoparticles and fibers together, offering inherent advantages such as step economy, operational simplicity, and synthetic efficiency. These core-shell biopolymer fibermats which incorporate Cur can be applied in pharmaceutical products toward the goals of sustainable and controllable intestine-targeted drug delivery.

Canned citrus is a major citrus product that is popular around the world. However, the canning process discharges large amounts of high-chemical oxygen demand wastewater, which contains many functional polysaccharides. Herein, we recovered three different pectic polysaccharides from citrus canning processing water and evaluated their prebiotic potential as well as the relationship between the RG-I domain and fermentation characteristics using an in vitro human fecal batch fermentation model. Structural analysis showed a large difference among the three pectic polysaccharides in the proportion of the rhamnogalacturonan-I (RG-I) domain. Additionally, the fermentation results showed that the RG-I domain was significantly related to pectic polysaccharides’ fermentation characteristics, especially in terms of short-chain fatty acid generation and modulation of gut microbiota. The pectins with a high proportion of the RG-I domain performed better in acetate, propionate, and butyrate production. It was also found that Bacteroides, Phascolarctobacterium, and Bifidobacterium are the main bacteria participating in their degradation. Furthermore, the relative abundance of Eubacterium_eligens_group and Monoglobus was positively correlated with the proportion of the RG-I domain. This study emphasizes the beneficial effects of pectic polysaccharides recovered from citrus processing and the roles of the RG-I domain in their fermentation characteristics. This study also provides a strategy for food factories to realize green production and value addition.

In the production of canned citrus, large amounts of processing water were discharged during the segment membrane removal process, causing severe pollution. In order to reduce pollution and recover the bioactive compounds in the processing water, the production of canned satsuma mandarin, sweet orange and grapefruit were studied, and improved acid (0.1% HCl, 0.4% citric acid) and alkali (0.1% KOH, 0.2% NaOH) were used to conduct the new chemical hydrolysis process to remove the segment membrane. The obtained acid and alkali processing water were firstly explored the potential to make novel beverages, which contain electrolytes (Na: 472–945 ppm; K: 208–279 ppm; Cl: 364–411 ppm; citrate: 1105–1653 ppm) and potential prebiotics such as pectin and flavonoids. The improved segment membrane removal process realized the conversion of wastewater into drinkable beverages at low costs. The bioactive compounds were fully recovered without wastewater discharging, which produced great environmental, economic and health value.

Glycyrrhiza is a well-known plant resource used for the production of extractum-glycyrrhizae; however, large amounts of Glycyrrhiza residues containing polysaccharides are produced, and these have not been well utilized until now. The aim of this study was to evaluate the Glycyrrhiza polysaccharides obtained from Glycyrrhiza residues as a potential gelatin replacer in yogurt. The incorporation of Glycyrrhiza polysaccharide (GP) at different concentrations accelerated the growth of lactic acid bacteria. Similar to the effect of adding gelatin (GE), GP could suitably improve the water-holding capacity (WHC) and texture of the yogurt. Moreover, the yogurt prepared with GP showed a higher viscosity and shorter transverse relaxation time of mobile water (T23) value than the control group (CG). Moreover, the microstructure analysis indicated that the casein network of yogurt with GP was more compact and cohesive than those of others. Yogurt prepared with 0.1% GPs exhibited the best sensory acceptance. The results indicated that small amounts of GPs can effectively replace gelatin as a thickener in yogurt with good quality.

Natural polysaccharides are new popular healthy food material, and the materials are widely used in various functional foods. The influences of polysaccharides from Glycyrrhiza uralensis on the quality and sensory properties of Chinese steamed bread (CSB), as well as the performance (starch digestion in vitro and starch staling) of CSB, were investigated in this study. The addition of Glycyrrhiza polysaccharide (GP) increased the specific volume of CSB in a dose-dependent manner, and the specific volume of CSB-2 was 2.55 mL/g. GP also contributed to the increase in hardness (from 1240.17 to 2539.34 g) and chewiness (893.85 to 1959.27 g) of fresh CSB. In addition, GP could maintain the integrity of the protein network within the CSB. The scores for sensory evaluation indicators of CSB-1 were relatively balanced. More importantly, the addition of GP altered starch digestive properties, and the content of the resistant starch (RS) was increased from 8.62 (CSB-0) to 43.46% (CSB-2). GP led to a significant reduction of the expected glycemic index (eGI) of CSB, and the eGI of CSB was decreased from 97.50 (CSB-0) to 73.8 (CSB-2), which was classified as a medium-GI (MGI) food. In addition, X-ray diffraction (XRD) and differential scanning calorimeter (DSC) revealed the addition of GP delayed the staling of CSB during storage. In general, adding the proper amount of GP could improve the quality of CSB and show the potential as a functional component of CSB to reduce the postprandial blood glucose level resulted by the CSB.

Abstract Pectin, a natural polysaccharide found in the cell wall of most higher plant such as citrus, has drawn much attention due to its potential beneficial role in facilitating the treatment of many diseases like cancer, hyper cholesterol and diabetes. However, the broad application of pectin faces great limitations as the large molecular size of pectin severely prevents its bioavailability in vivo. In this study, we report an effective and highly convenient approach to degrade natural pectin into lower molecular pectin. By combining ultrasound with Fenton system (US-Fenton), we show that ultrasound synergistically enhances the efficiency of Fenton reaction to degrade pectin into 5.5 kDa within only 35 minutes. Importantly, RG-I domain, the most effective portion of natural pectin, was well preserved and highly enriched. In addition, the antioxidant activities of US-Fenton-treated pectin was significantly elevated. The mechanism of this novel observation was further investigated through the multiple structural analyses including HPLC, IR and NMR. Taken together, we present a novel and convenient approach to generate ultra-low molecular weight pectin with high efficiency and higher bioactivity. We expect our approach will have broader applications in improving the bioavailability and bioactivity of other polysaccharide-based natural compounds.

Heparin and its low-molecular-weight heparin derivatives are widely used clinical anticoagulants. These drugs are critical for the practice of medicine in applications, including kidney dialysis, cardiopulmonary bypass, and in the management of venous thromboembolism. Currently, these drugs are derived from livestock, primarily porcine intestine and less frequently bovine intestine and bovine lung. The worldwide dependence on the pig as a single dominant animal species has made the supply chain for this critical drug quite fragile, leading to the search for other sources of these drugs, including the expanded use of bovine tissues. A number of laboratories are now also examining the similarities between heparin and low-molecular-weight heparins prepared from porcine and ovine tissues. This study was designed to compare low-molecular-weight heparin prepared from ovine heparin through chemical β-elimination, a process currently used to prepare the low-molecular-weight heparin, enoxaparin. Using top-down, bottom-up, and compositional analyses as well as bioassays, low-molecular-weight heparin derived from ovine intestine was shown to closely resemble enoxaparin. Moreover, the compositions of daughter low-molecular-weight heparins prepared from three unfractionated ovine parent heparins were compared. Ovine enoxaparins had similar molecular weight and in vitro anticoagulant activities as Lovenox. Some disaccharide compositional, oligosaccharide composition at the reducing and nonreducing ends and intact chain compositional differences could be observed between porcine enoxaparin and ovine low-molecular-weight heparin. The similarity of these ovine and porcine heparin products suggests that their preclinical evaluation and ultimately clinical assessment is warranted.

Polysaccharides are considered to be the most important active substances in Goji. However, the structure of polysaccharides varies according to the extraction methods applied, and the solution used to prepare Goji polysaccharides (LBPs) were limited. Thus, it is important to clarify the connection between extraction methods and structure of Goji polysaccharide. In view of the complex composition of cell wall polysaccharides and the various forms of interaction, different extraction methods will release different parts of the cell wall. The present study compared the effects of different extraction methods, which have been used to prepare different types of plant cell wall polysaccharides based on various sources, on the structure of cell-wall polysaccharides from Goji, by the single separate use of hot water, hydrochloric acid (0.4%) and sodium hydroxide (0.6%), at both high and low temperatures. Meanwhile, in order to explore the limitations of single extraction, sequential extraction methods were applied. Structural analysis including monosaccharide analysis, GPC-MALLS, AFM and 1H-NMR suggested the persistence of more extensively branched rhamnogalacturonan I (RG-I) domains in the procedures involving low-temperature-alkali, while procedures prepared by high-temperature-acid contains more homogalacturonan (HG) regions and results in the removal of a substantial part of the side chain, specifically the arabinan. A kind of acidic heteropolysaccharide was obtained by hot water extraction. SEC-MALLS and AFM confirmed large-size polymers with branched morphologies in alkali-extracted polysaccharides. Our results provide new insight into the extraction of Goji polysaccharides, which differ from the hot water extraction used by traditional Chinese medicine.

The dried cubeb berries are widely used as medicinal herb and spicy condiment with special flavor. However, there is a significant definition discrepancy for cubeb berries. In this study, an efficient analytical method to characterize and discriminate two popular cubeb fruits (Litsea cubeba and Piper cubeba) was established. The aroma profiles of cubeb berries were evaluated by different extraction methods including hydro-distillation, simultaneous distillation/extraction, and solid-phase micro-extraction followed by gas chromatography-mass spectrometry-olfactometry (GC-MS-O). In total, 90 volatile compounds were identified by HD, SDE, and SPME combined with GC-MS. Principal component analysis was further applied and discriminated ambiguous cubeb berries by their unique aromas: Litsea cubeba was characterized by higher level of d-limonene (“fruit, citrus”), citral (“fruit, lemon”) and dodecanoic acid; α-cubebene (“herb”) was identified as a marker compound for Piper cubeba with higher camphor (“camphoraceous”), and linalool (“flower”). Flavor fingerprint combined with PCA could be applied as a promising method for identification of cubeb fruits and quality control for food and medicinal industries.

Pectin had been recovered from canning wastewater produced by chemical treatment of segment membrane during preparation of canned citrus in our previous research. The purpose of this study was to characterize the extracted pectin from canning wastewater, and to evaluate its application as a fat alternative to replace fat in ice cream. The monosaccharide composition and rheological properties of the pectin were determined. The influences of fat reduction and pectin addition on the physicochemical, rheological and sensory properties of low-fat ice cream were determined. The rheological results showed that pectin solutions were typical pseudoplastic fluids. The addition of pectin in ice cream can cause an increase in viscosity, overrun, and hardness, and a decrease in meltdown of the ice cream. When 0.72% pectin (w/w) is incorporated into ice cream, a prototype product of ice cream with 45% lower fat content compared to the control was made. Results indicated that their qualities such as appearance, flavor, and taste were not significantly different. The low-fat ice cream had higher smoothness scores and lower mouth-coating scores. Hence, pectin extracted from citrus canning wastewater can be potentially used as fat replacer in ice cream, which benefits both the environment and the food industry.

Anthocyanins, naturally found in citrus, play key roles in improving the qualities of citrus fruits and products. Dietary consumption of fruit-derived anthocyanins is concerned increasingly owing to health-promoting properties. However, anthocyanins are vulnerable to many physical and chemical factors during processing and storage, affecting fruit qualities and consumer acceptance. Thus, the aim of this review is to focus on main advances in chemical structures, differential biosynthesis mechanisms, enrichment methods, and bioactivities of anthocyanins in pigmented and unpigmented citrus fruits. In this review, anthocyanin species and concentrations display tissue specificity in citrus, and the chemical structures and contents of main anthocyanins are summarized. For differential biosynthesis mechanisms, the reasons why most citrus fruits lose the ability of anthocyanin biosynthesis compared with pigmented fruits, and the molecular differences of biosynthesis mechanisms in pigmented citrus fruits are both discussed in detail. Furthermore, anthocyanins' enrichment methods (low-temperature stimulus, light irradiation, xenobiotics inductions, and ripeness influence) during processing and storage have been summarized, which achieve quality improvement by promoting structural gene expression, reducing anthocyanin-degrading enzyme activities, or altering DNA methylation status. Meantime, the health benefits of extract from pigmented citrus and their waste are mentioned, which provides a new approach for citrus waste recycling. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]