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The porcine epidemic diarrhea virus (PEDV) has caused severe economic losses in the pig industry. Since its discovery, the virus has spread in pig herds for more than 50 years. Many new features have been found in the PEDV spike genes. In this study, 123 representative S genes were used to analyze their characteristics across strains. Phylogenetic analysis revealed that PEDV can be divided into nine groups: G1a, G1b, G1c, G1d, G2a, G2b, G2c, G2d, and G3. In addition, 21 different lengths of the S gene were found. Analysis of the amino acid insertion and deletion sites revealed that most deletions and insertions occurred in the loops of the spike quaternary structure, primarily in the D0 and N‐terminal domains (NTDs). According to the above results, PEDV has undergone considerable evolution, possibly under the immune pressure of vaccination. These results are highly important for understanding the current epidemic situation of PEDV. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Three new compounds, 4,5,6,7-tetramethoxy-3-benzoylbenzofuran (1), 4-hydroxy-3,5,6-trimethoxydihydrochalcone-2-O-β-D-glucopyranoside (2) and 2-hydroxy-3,4,5,6-tetramethoxyphenylethyl benzoate (3) along with five known flavonoids were isolated from the dichloromethane fraction of the stems of Fissistigma acuminatissimum Merr.'s ethanol extracts. The compounds were obtained by chromatographic methods and the structure elucidation was completed primarily on the basis of spectroscopic analyses, all of these compounds were isolated from F. acuminatissimum for the first time. All the fractions and compounds were evaluated for their anti-inflammatory activity against lipopolysaccharide (LPS)-stimulated tumor necrosis factor α (TNF-α) production in RAW264.7 cells in vitro. The dichloromethane fraction showed the most potent inhibition(38.2%) at 60 μg/mL, compound 1 (70.2%) and 3 (65.2%) showed significant inhibition at 10 μM. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The operation of a warship is commonly affected by shock loads in different directions during sailing in a rough sea, which can decrease the precision of the shipboard equipment. To improve the shock resistance performance of the shipboard equipment, an isolator is usually installed to isolate it from the vibration of the ship deck. The paper proposes a method for dynamic response and time-variant reliability analysis of an eight-rod shock isolator (ERSI). ERSI has a novel symmetrical structure, which can improve the utilization of the isolation rods compared with the classical parallel mechanism. The isolator is modeled using Denavit-Hartenberg (D-H) convention and screw theory. Then, Duhamel integral is employed to derive the dynamic response to the isolator after decoupling the governing equation using the modal analysis method. Considering impacts of uncertain factors, this paper also presents a practical method for time-variant reliability analysis of ERSI. Finally, a discussion of the practical example of this method along with a detailed analysis to evaluate the efficiency of the proposed method is presented. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Aims: This study aims to investigate the function of positive feedback loops involving noncoding RNA in diabetic wound healing. Methods: We developed a mouse diabetic wound model to confirm that hyperglycemia can impair wound healing. We also used an in vitro keratinocyte model in high-glucose conditions to investigate the mechanism of delayed wound healing. Results: MALAT1 was decreased in diabetic mouse wound tissue and can promote keratinocyte biological functions. MALAT1 could bind to miR-106a-5p to modulate the expression of ZNF148 , a target gene of miR-106a-5p. Surprisingly, ZNF148 bound to a region in the MALAT1 promoter to stimulate gene expression. Conclusion: ZNF148-activated MALAT1 increases ZNF148 expression by competitively binding miR-106a-3p, generating a positive feedback loop that enhances keratinocyte function.

Sulfur fumigation, which is traditional method for preservation, pest control, insecticide and sterilization, has long been widely used in processing and storage and played a positive role of traditional Chinese medicine (TCM). As some businesses sided pursuit of profit, abused and repeated use of sulfur fumigation, have resulted in a large number of harmful residues, such as sulf dioxide (SO2) and harmful heavy metals, which brings a significant impact and danger on human health. This article summarizes the sulfur species and the sulfur fumigation methods and analyzes the harmful substances in TCM after sulfur fumigation, to provide a reference of the choice of species for the sulfur, the optimization of sulfur fumigation process and the standardized processing of TCM after sulfur fumigation.

A new method has been developed for spectrophotometric determination of molybdenum modality distributions in soy hydrolysate hydrolyzed by enzymes, based on the study on the color reaction of methybenzeneazosalicylfluorone (abbreviated as MBASF) with molybdenum (VI). In hydrochloric acid medium, MBASF reacts with molybdenum (VI) sensitively to form a stable red complex, its apparent molar absorptivity is 1.54 L x mol(-1) x cm(-1), and 0-12 microg of molybdenum obeys Beer's law in 25 mL of solution. Besides normal metal ions, protein, peptide and amino acid also have high tolerance limits. Soy hydrolysate hydrolyzed by enzyme (A) was precipitated at its isoelectric point, and the filtrate (B) was obtained. Subsequently, B was transferred to the chromatogram column with D301R resin. The column was purged by using 20 mL of HAc-NaAc (pH 3.6) and NH4Cl-NH3 x H2O buffer solution(pH 9) orderly and the effluent solutions C and D were obtained. A, B, C and D solutions were used for the spectrophotometric determination of total molybdenum, hydrolyzed molybdenum, chelated molybdenum by peptide or amino acid, and dissociative molybdenum, respectively.