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Objectives Corni Fructus is one of the most famous traditional Chinese medicines (TCMs) for the treatment of various chronic kidney diseases. Wine-processed Corni Fructus (WCF) is the main processed form of Crude Corni Fructus (CCF). In this study, potential mechanisms of action of CCF and WCF on chronic renal failure (CRF) model were developed to explore wine-processed mechanism of Corni Fructus. Methods An integrated strategy combining metabolomics, network analysis and bioinformatics analysis has been established to investigate the therapeutic mechanisms of WCF and CCF in rats with CRF. Key findings The histopathological results showed that both WCF and CCF improved kidney injury and dysfunction of CRF rats, but WCF was more effective than CCF. Metabolic pathway analysis indicated that 24 metabolites and 5 major disturbed pathways associated with CCF, while WCF regulated 27 metabolites and 2 metabolic pathways. Bioinformatic analysis and network analysis revealed that 8 genes and 7 genes were regulated by CCF and WCF on CRF rats, respectively. The quantitative real-time polymerase chain reaction experiments verified the regulatory ability of CCF and WCF on the expression of 4 genes. Conclusions An integrated strategy combined metabolomics, network analysis and bioinformatics was established to provide valuable holistic insight to explore the processing mechanism of TCMs.

Yarn-based muscle actuators are highly desired for applications in soft robotics, flexible sensors, and other related applications due to their actuation properties. Although the tethering avoiding release of inserted twist, the complex preparation process and harsh experimental conditions make tether-free structures yarn actuator with reliable cycle recovery effectiveness is needed. Herein, a tether-free, multi-hierarchical hybrid construction of a moisture-sensitive responsive yarn-based actuator with the viscose/PET ratio (VPR) = 0.9 exhibited a contraction stroke of 83.15%, a work capacity of 52.98 J·kg

Fulminant hepatitis remains a critical health problem owing to its high mortality rate and the lack of effective therapies. An increasing number of studies have shown that glutamine supplementation provides protective benefits in inflammation-related disorders, but the pharmacological significance of glutamine in lipopolysaccharide (LPS)/D-galactosamine (D-Gal)-induced fulminant hepatitis remains unclear. In the present study, the potential effects of glutamine on LPS/D-Gal-induced fulminant hepatitis were investigated. Pretreatment with glutamine decreased plasma activities of alanine and aspartate aminotransferases, and ameliorated hepatic morphological abnormalities in LPS/D-Gal-exposed mice. Glutamine pretreatment also inhibited LPS/D-Gal-induced tumor necrosis factor alpha (TNF-α) and interleukin-6 (IL-6) production. In addition, glutamine pretreatment decreased the level of cleaved cysteinyl aspartate–specific proteinase 3 (caspase-3), suppressed the activities of caspase-3, caspase-8, and caspase-9, and reduced the number of cells positive for TdT-mediated dUTP nick-end labeling in LPS/D-Gal-challenged mice. Interestingly, post-treatment with glutamine also provided protective benefits against LPS/D-Gal-induced acute liver injury, although these effects were less robust than those of glutamine pre-treatment. Thus, glutamine may have potential value as a pharmacological intervention in fulminant hepatitis.

This paper analyzed the differences between the two harvesting periods (Taiju and Duoju) on the ingredients and pharmacological activity in Chrysanthemum morifolium Ramat.

Rationale: Radix scutellaria-Licorice drug pair (RSLDP), a frequently used herbal pair with the effect of clearing heat and detoxifying, is the commonly employed drug pair in TCM prescription for the treatment of COVID-19. Until now, the metabolism feature and anti-COVID-19 mechanism of RSLDP have not been fully elucidated. Methodology: In this study, a sensitive and rapid method was developed for the separation and identification of the absorbed constituents of RSLDP in the rat plasma by UHPLC-QTOF-MS. Besides, we optimized the conventional process ways of network pharmacology and proposed a new concept called target network pharmacology (T-NP). It used the absorbed constituents and the corresponding targets to generate compound-target network, and compare to the conventional network pharmacology, it could reduce the false positive results. Results: A total of 85 absorbed constituents were identified or tentatively characterized in dosed plasma,including 32 components in Radix Scutellaria,27 components in Licorice and 65 components in RSLDP. The results showed that the compatibility of Radix Scutellaria and Licorice increased the quantity of components in vivo. We found that 106 potential targets of 64 active compounds in RSLDP were related to COVID-19.And 12 targets (MAPK3,IL6,JUN,IL2,STAT3, AKT1,TNF,STAT1,EGFR,HSP9AA1,VEGFA,RELA) could be core targets for RSLDP in treating COVID-19. Conclusions: The metabolism feature of RSLDP in vivo was systematically uncovered. The combining use of the T-NP method could discover potential drug targets and disclose the biological processes of RSLDP, which will clarify the potential mechanisms of RSLDP in the treatment of COVID-19.

It is well known that the most important task of photocatalytic technology is to synthesize photocatalysts with compact heterojunction structure and high redox ability. To achieve the goal, a novel Z-scheme BiO2-x/BiOBr heterojunction containing oxygen vacancy was synthesized by an in-situ generation process. Several techniques, X-ray diffraction (XRD), transmission electron microscopy (TEM) and X-ray photoelectron spectroscopy (XPS) have verified the BiO2-x/BiOBr heterojunction. XPS and electron spin resonance (ESR) reveals the presence of oxygen vacancy in the BiO2-x/BiOBr composite. As expected, the BiO2-x/BiOBr composite showed good performance in removing Escherichia coli (E. coli), Staphylococcus aureus (S. aureus), Rhodamine B (RhB) and tetracycline (TC). The effects of inorganic ions, pH value and water matrix were investigated with many details. The active species and proposed mechanism were revealed by trapping experiment and related characterizations. The synergistic effect of oxygen vacancy and Z-scheme heterojunction makes the BiO2-x/BiOBr composite possess excellent photocatalytic activity.

Fritillaria cirrhosae bulbus (BFC), a typical traditional Chinese medicine with multiple botanical sources, has been used for relieving cough and reducing sputum. Studies have shown that there were obvious differences in the chemical compositions and clinical efficacy of different sources of BFC. How to characterise BFC from botanical sources accurately and quickly is vital for drug quality evaluation and clinical applications.In the present study, an integrated strategy of plant metabolomics combined with the target network pharmacology was developed to characterise BFC. Plant metabolomics analysis was performed to screen out the chemical markers of six species of BFC. Then, target network pharmacology was applied to explore the relationship between chemical markers and related diseases. Finally, potential Q-markers for species characterization were selected by combined analysis of plant metabolomics and the target network pharmacology.A total of 67 Fritillaria alkaloid compounds were identified. Six species showed clear characterization by multivariate statistical analysis, resulting in 12 chemical markers. Meanwhile, a total of nine components related to asthma were screened out based on the target network pharmacology. Taking content difference and pharmacological activity into consideration, nine constituents were selected as potential Q-markers.The method developed provided not only a standard protocol for characterising different species of BFC directly, but also an effective approach for multisource medicines discrimination.

Tyrosinase inhibitors can alleviate the harm to the liver caused by tyrosinase. How to effectively screen out natural tyrosinase inhibitors becomes a focus. In this study, Isodon excisoides was first extracted with the ultrasound optimized by response surface methodology. Then, a method combined ultrafiltration with ultra-liquid chromatography mass spectrometry (UHPLC/MS) was built to screen and identify tyrosinase inhibitors. The binding energies of active ingredients to tyrosinase were calculated by molecular docking. The reliability of the results was validated by the IC

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Peimine, one of the major quality markers in Fritillaria Cirrhosae Bulbus, was expected to become a new anti-asthma drug. However, its metabolic profiles and anti-asthma mechanism have not been clarified previously. In this study, a method was developed for the detection of peimine metabolites in vitro by ultra-high-performance liquid chromatography coupled with hybrid triple quadrupole time-of-flight mass spectrometry. The potential anti-asthma mechanism was predicted by an integrated analysis of network pharmacology and molecular docking. A total of 19 metabolites were identified with the aid of software and molecular networking. The metabolic profiles of peimine elucidated that the metabolism was a multi-pathway process with characteristics of species difference. The network pharmacology results showed that peimine and its metabolites could regulate multiple asthma-related targets. The above targets were involved in various regulatory pathways linked to asthma. Moreover, the results of molecular docking showed that both peimine and its metabolites had a certain affinity with the β

A novel dual-mode large-mode-area multicore fiber with air-hole structure, which is a quasi-37 core structured fiber with 20 air holes and 17 cores, is proposed in this paper. This fiber can realize strict dual-mode operation, that is, the fundamental mode HE11 and the second-order mode HE21 operation. The air-hole structure makes the second-order modes TE01 and TM01 cut off. Effects of structural parameters on effective refractive index and effective area of fundamental mode are investigated systematically. By optimizing the structural parameters of the fiber, effective area of fundamental mode is up to 1557.91 μm2 and maintaining a low bending loss (less than 10-4 dB/m at R > 0.47 m) while keeping dual-mode operation. The fiber can be used for large-mode-area high-power optical fiber laser, amplifier, FTTH and so on.

A multiwavelength fiber laser based on erbium-doped twin-core fiber (ED-TCF) and nonlinear optical loop mirror (NOLM) is proposed and demonstrated in this paper. The ED-TCF is employed as comb filter and gain medium simultaneously. The NOLM serves as an intensity equalizer. A fiber laser with 8 wavelength outputs is achieved at room temperature. The optical signal to noise ratio (OSNR) is larger than 40 dB. The fluctuation of peak power and wavelength is less than 1 dB and within 0.015 nm, respectively. This fiber laser has the advantages of simple structure and stable operation.

Twisted yarn artificial muscles have attracted great interests for diverse applications, such as soft robotics, miniaturization controllers and smart textiles. A challenging issue in fabricating the twisted yarn artificial muscles is to retain the inserted twist. Different from the exiting strategies of forming double-helical structures or harnessing complex chemical technologies, we herein propose a simple combination of plasma and UV-light treatments to train natural wools into twist-stable single-helical yarn artificial muscles without external torsional tethering, which realizes easy fabrication of twisted actuators, and achieves better moisture-actuating performance (nearly five times higher in maximum rotation) compared to equivalent double-helical actuators. The stable morphology of woolen yarn muscles affected by the opening and closing of disulfide bonds is explained from microstructure characterization and theoretical analysis. The charming properties of single-helical yarn muscles will provide new inspiration for the development of fiber-based actuators in industrial routines, which is expected to promote the practical application of yarn muscles in smart textiles and wider fields.

It is well known that the most important task of photocatalytic technology is to synthesize photocatalysts with compact heterojunction structure and high redox ability. To achieve the goal, a novel Z-scheme BiO

In this paper, a trench-assisted large-mode-field-area multi-core fiber with an air-hole structure composed of 21 conventional fiber cores and 16 air holes is proposed, and it can realize dual-mode transmission. By adjusting the structural parameters, the effective mode field area of fundamental mode can be up to 1916.042 µm2 at 1550 nm. In addition, the fiber has good bending characteristics by adding a trench with a lower refractive index than the cladding. When the bending radius is 1.4 cm, the bending loss is low to 2.96 × 10–3 dB/m. This fiber is of great significance for the design of bending insensitive fiber.

The density-functional theory is used to search for the candidate structures of Li-Ga-Te system below 100 GPa. Several new stable structures are uncovered, namely, P-3m1 LiGaTe2, P4/mmm Li9GaTe2, Immm Li9GaTe2. The band-gap of the I-42d LiGaTe2 and P4/mmm Li9GaTe2 corresponds to the peak position of the imaginary part of the dielectric function. Meanwhile, a new chemical valence of Ga atom under high pressure with [Ga]−5 ionic charge state is found. The dense accumulation of Li atoms and high pressure caused the change of valence state of Ga.

In this paper, a multi-core fiber with 22 air holes and 15 conventional cores is proposed. The fiber can realize dual-mode operation of fundamental mode HE11 and second-order mode HE21 under certain conditions. The relationship between performance of the fiber and the structural parameters that include core pitch, refractive index difference between core and cladding, and fiber core radius is investigated systematically. By adjusting the above parameters, the effective area of fundamental mode can be up to 1423.972 µm2 and keep a low bending loss at 1550 nm. Due to its flexibility of the structure, the proposed fiber is significant for theoretical research and practical manufacturing.

Glaucocalyxin A (GLA) belongs to the natural ent-kauranoid diterpenoids family with antitumor, antifibrotic, anticoagulative, antioxidant, and anti-AD effects. In this study, ultra-high-performance liquid chromatography coupled to quadrupole time-of-flight mass spectrometry (UHPLC-Q-TOF-MS) system was applied to observe probable metabolites of GLA

A novel trench-assisted dual-mode multi-core fiber with large-mode-field-area is proposed. The structure consists of 17 conventional cores and two air holes according to a regular hexagon, which can realize strict dual-mode transmission. The structural parameters’ effect on mode transmission characteristics, mode-field-area, and bending loss are analyzed systematically. By optimizing the structural parameters, the mode-field-area of the fundamental mode can reach 2100.619 µ m 2 . The introduction of the trench with a lower refractive index than cladding can reduce the bending loss to 9.88 × 10 − 4 d B / m when the bending radius is 2.3 cm. Besides, the structural design is flexible, and the manufacturing process is simple, which has broad application prospects.

This study investigates the use of electrically conductive granules as packing material in biotrickling filter (BTF) systems as to provide insights on the specific microbial abundance and functions during the treatment of xylene-containing waste gas. In addition, the effect of applied potential on attached biofilm on conductive granules during xylene degradation was briefly investigated. During stable operation period, the conductive granules packed BTF achieved reactor performance of no less than 80% with a maximum EC of 137.7 g/m3 h. Under applied potential of 1V, the BTF system showed deterioration of xylene removal by ranging from 21 to 76%, which also affected the distribution and relative abundance of the major microorganisms such as Xanthobacter, Acidovorax, Rhodococcus, Hydrogenophaga, Arthrobacter, Brevundimonas, Pseudoxanthomonas, Devosia, Shinella, Sphingobium, Dokdonella, Pseudomonas and Bosea. The acclimation of applied potential led to the enrichment of autotrophic bacteria and strains, which are correlated to improved nitrogen cycling. In general, applying electrical potential is feasible to shape the microbiological structure of biofilms to selectively adjust their biochemical functions.

The present study optimized the ultrasound assisted extraction (UAE) conditions using Box-Behnken design (BBD) with response surface methodology (RSM) and evaluated the antioxidant activity of total flavonoids from Cryptotaenia japonica Hassk. The results showed that the optimum conditions were 55% ethanol concentration, 1:30 g/mL solid to solvent ratio, 400 W ultrasound power, 70 min extraction time and 3 cycles. Under these optimum conditions, the extraction yield of total flavonoids was 33.110 ± 0.742 mg/g DW (dry weight), which was well consisted with value predicted by the model. The RSM optimized extract was subsequently checked for antioxidant activity by 2,2-diphenyl-1-picrylhydrazyl (DPPH) radical scavenging assay, hydroxyl scavenging assay and reducing power assay. Under the flavonoid concentration of 3.0 mg/mL, antioxidant scavenging activity were of 79.87±2.7% and 71.60±2.6% for DPPH and hydroxyl assay while for reducing power and absorbance of 1.200±0.053 was obtained. Furthermore, the composition in antioxidants were investigated, and the luteolin and apigenin were determined. The results indicated that ultrasound assisted extraction is a promising technique for extraction of flavonoids from C. japonica Hassk and the flavonoids could be explored as a potential antioxidant agent for use in medicine or functional foods.