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Starch is one of the main utilization products of sorghum (

Background and purpose Disturbed flow induces endothelial dysfunction and contributes to uneven distribution of atherosclerotic plaque. Emerging evidence suggests that harmine, a natural constituent of extracts of Peganum harmala, has potent beneficial activities. Here, we investigated if harmine has an atheroprotective role under disturbed flow and the underlying mechanism. Experimental approach Mice of ApoE-/- , LDLR-/- , and endothelial cell (EC)-specific overexpression of yes-associated protein (YAP) in ApoE-/- background were fed with a Western diet and given harmine for 4 weeks. Atherosclerotic lesion size, cellular composition, and expression of inflammatory genes in the aortic roots were assessed. HUVECs were treated with oscillatory shear stress (OSS) and harmine and also used for proteomic analysis. Key results Harmine retarded atherogenesis in both ApoE-/- and LDLR-/- mice by inhibiting the endothelial inflammatory response. Mechanistically, harmine blocked OSS-induced YAP nuclear translocation and EC activation by reducing phosphorylation of YAP at Y357. Overexpression of endothelial YAP blunted the beneficial effects of harmine in mice. Proteomic study revealed that protein tyrosine phosphatase non-receptor type 14 (PTPN14) could bind to YAP. Moreover, harmine increased PTPN14 expression by stabilizing its protein level and inhibiting its degradation in proteasomes. PTPN14 knockdown blocked the effects of harmine on YAPY357 and EC activation. Finally, overexpression of PTPN14 mimicked the effects of harmine and ameliorated atherosclerosis, and knockdown of PTPN14 blunted the atheroprotective effects of harmine and accelerated atherosclerosis, in a partial ligation mouse model. Conclusion and implications Harmine alleviated OSS-induced EC activation via a PTPN14/YAPY357 pathway and had a potent atheroprotective role.

Wild relatives possess potential genetic diversity for maize (Zea mays L.) improvement. Characterization of maize-mexicana introgression lines (ILs) is of great value to diversify the genetic base and improve the maize germplasm. Four maize-mexicana IL generations, i.e. BC1, BC2, BC3, and RIL, were constructed under the elite inbred background of 48-2, elite inbred line that is widely used in maize breeding in Southwestern China, and were phenotyped in different years and genotyped with 56110 SNPs. The results indicated that 48-2 had higher phenotypic performances than all the characterized ILs on most of the agronomic traits. Compared with other ILs, BC2 individuals exhibited more similar performance to 48-2 on most traits and possessed the highest kernel ratio (66.5%). Population structure and principal component analysis indicated that BC3 individuals gathered closer to 48-2 and exhibited the lowest mexicana-introgression frequency (0.50%), while BC2 (29.06%) and RIL (18.52%) showed higher introgression frequency. The high level of genetic diversity observed in the maize-mexicana ILs demonstrated that Z. mays ssp. mexicana can serve as a potential source for the enrichment of maize germplasm.

The density functional tight binding method was used to explore the energetics, electronic structure, and vibrational spectra of pentaerythritol tetranitrate (PETN) nanoparticles (NPs). The surface energy of the PETN NP is anisotropic and its extra energy decreases with the increase of size. The energy bands of the NPs are significantly expanded and the band gaps are narrowed, thus reducing the stability due to nanometer size effect. The surface of the NP is mainly covered by the NO2 group. The high-energy surface may play a role in triggering chemical decomposition. The vibration frequencies of the PETN NPs present a wider distribution than those of the gas and solid phase PETN, which will increase the probability of energy transfer to the molecules in the system and promote the decomposition of PETN. Our results provide a basic understanding from a molecular perspective to the energy properties of nano explosives.

Background: Vascular endothelial cells are critical for maintaining blood pressure (BP) by releasing biologically active molecules, such as nitric oxide. A non-endothelial cell resident matricellular protein, COMP (cartilage oligomeric matrix protein), plays a pivotal role in maintaining cardiovascular homeostasis, but little is known about its regulatory effect on BP. Methods: Mice were infused with AngII (angiotensin II; 450 ng/kg per minute) for 3 days via an osmotic minipump, and BP was monitored by a tail-cuff system. Second-order mesenteric arteries were isolated from mice for microvascular tension measurement. Nitric oxide was detected by an electron paramagnetic resonance technique. Small-interfering RNA transfection, co-immunoprecipitation, bioluminescence resonance energy transfer assays, and patch-clamp electrophysiology experiments were used for further detailed mechanism investigation. Results: COMP −/− mice displayed elevated BP and impaired acetylcholine-induced endothelium-dependent relaxation compared with wild-type mice with or without AngII. Inhibition of eNOS (endothelial nitric oxide synthase) abolished the difference in endothelium-dependent relaxation between wild-type and COMP −/− mice. Furthermore, COMP directly interacted with the C-terminus of Piezo1 via its C-terminus and activated the endogenous Piezo1 currents, which induced intracellular Ca 2+ influx, Ca 2+ /calmodulin-dependent protein kinase type II and eNOS activation, and nitric oxide production. The Piezo1 activator, Yoda1, reduced the difference in endothelium-dependent relaxation and BP in wild-type and COMP − /− mice. Moreover, COMP overexpression increased eNOS activation and improved endothelium-dependent relaxation and BP. Conclusions: Our study demonstrated that COMP is a novel Piezo1 regulator that plays a protective role in BP regulation by increasing cellular Ca 2+ influx, eNOS activity, and nitric oxide production.

Sexual objectification experience is that person experienced life with objectified information. In order to explore the influence of the sexual objectification experience on female college students’ selfie-posting behavior, 700 female college students were surveyed with the Interpersonal Sexual Objectification scale, Enjoyment of Sexualization scale, Social Network Selfile-posting scale and Imaginary Audience Ideation scale. The results show that: 1) Sexual objectification experience is significantly correlated with female college students’ selfie-posting behavior and enjoyment of sexualization. Female college students’ enjoyment of sexualization is significantly correlated with selfie-posting behavior. 2) Sexual objectification experience can predict female college students’ selfie-posting behavior through the partial mediating role of enjoyment of sexualization, and the mediating role of enjoyment of sexualization is moderated by female college students’ imaginary audience ideation. This research revealed the mechanism of the relationship between sexual objectification experience and selfie-posting behavior, which helps to guide female college students to actively and healthfully participate in social activities.

Hit-and-run (HR) crashes refer to crashes involving drivers of the offending vehicle fleeing incident scenes without aiding the possible victims or informing authorities for emergency medical services. This paper aims at identifying significant predictors of HR and non-hit-and-run (NHR) in vehicle-bicycle crashes based on the classification and regression tree (CART) method. An oversampling technique is applied to deal with the data imbalance problem, where the number of minority instances (HR crash) is much lower than that of the majority instances (NHR crash). The police-reported data within City of Chicago from September 2017 to August 2018 is collected. The G-mean (geometric mean) is used to evaluate the classification performance. Results indicate that, compared with original CART model, the G-mean of CART model incorporating data imbalance treatment is increased from 23% to 61% by 171%. The decision tree reveals that the following five variables play the most important roles in classifying HR and NHR in vehicle-bicycle crashes: Driver age, bicyclist safety equipment, driver action, trafficway type, and gender of drivers. Several countermeasures are recommended accordingly. The current study demonstrates that, by incorporating data imbalance treatment, the CART method could provide much more robust classification results.