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IntroductionAcupuncture analgesia (AA) is widely used in clinical practice. The autonomic nervous system (ANS) may be an important pathway for acupuncture signal transduction. However, real-time changes in autonomic function during AA and the effect of “needle sensation” remain unclear.MethodsWe established a human pain model in healthy adults and randomly assigned 128 participants to the model, sham acupuncture, and acupuncture groups in a 1:1:2 ratio. Heart rate variability (HRV), including total power (TP), low-frequency power (LF), high-frequency power (HF), ratio of LF to HF (LF/HF), standard deviation of the normal-normal intervals (SDNN), and root mean square of successive interval differences (RMSSD), were used to assess autonomic function. The visual analog scale (VAS) and efficiency were used to assess the analgesic effect of acupuncture. The Massachusetts General Hospital acupuncture sensation scale (MASS) was used to indicate the intensity of the needle sensation. Anxiety levels were also measured. Finally, the correlation of MASS with HRV, VAS, and anxiety levels was analyzed.ResultsVAS decreased after 10 min of needling and 5 min after needle withdrawal in the acupuncture group compared with those in the model group (p = 0.038, p = 0.020). The efficacy rates were 82.0, 50.0, and 61.3% in the acupuncture, model, and sham groups, respectively. These represent significant differences between the acupuncture group and the model and sham acupuncture groups (p

Based on its evolutionary history, this paper explores the different manifestations of traditional culture in tourism development. The matrix decomposition of the spatial elements of tourism development is used to study the coupling relationship between tourism space and traditional culture. Finally, the evaluation index system of the tourism development degree is constructed, and the two-dimensional matrix model is used to realize the integration measurement of traditional culture inheritance and tourism development. In the empirical study, the evaluation index of cultural industry development in Liaoning province increased year by year from 2011 to 2020, reaching a stage peak of 0.623189 in 2015, and the coupling degree of the culture and tourism industry in Liaoning province was greater than 0.92. The measurement model established in this study effectively promotes the integrated development of traditional culture tourism.

In view of the poisonous nature of Cr(VI), it is of great significance to explore an effective and environmentally friendly method to remove Cr(VI). The potential synergistic effects of Cr(VI) reduction by iron-rich biochar and Pseudomonas aeruginosa (PA) were systematically explored in this study. Significantly, in association with PA, the biochar produced by pyrolyzing iron-rich sludge at 300 °C (Fe-300) was more efficient at reducing Cr(VI) than that pyrolyzed at 800 °C (Fe-800), and the performance was always better than biochar or PA alone. For instance, upon an incubation for 20 days, the Cr(VI) removal efficiencies in the groups Cr + Fe-300 + PA, Cr + Fe-800 + PA, Cr + Fe-300, Cr + Fe-800 and Cr + PA were 80%, 19%, 51%, 0% and 35%, respectively. Through further analyses of phosphorus (P) and iron species as well as the cell extraction components of PA, the high Cr(VI) efficiency in Fe-300 + PA was mainly attributed to two aspects: (1) more P (mainly in the form of ortho phosphorus) was released from Fe-300 by PA compared to that from Fe-800, and the released P may react with Fe(II), Fe(III), Cr(VI) and Cr(III) ions to form precipitation; (2) cytoplasmic and periplasmic proteins as well as membrane proteins extracted from PA further helped to reduce Cr(VI). A novel approach for reducing Cr(VI) may be proposed by using the potential synergistic effects of iron-rich biochar and PA from this study.

Research background. Depression has become a global threat to human health. In order to solve it, researchers have conducted multi-faceted studies including diet. Many food-derived bioactive substances have shown antidepressant effects. However, there are few studies on the design of industrialized food with antidepressant effect. This study aims to evaluate the antidepressant effect of afunctional beverage made from several ingredients with potential antidepressant function and investigate its antidepressant mechanisms. Experimental approach. The beverage consists of peppermint oil, active peptides derived from bovine milk casein and Acanthopanax senticosus extract (ASE) whose active ingredient is eleutheroside. Different amounts of ASE were evaluated to determine the optimal concentration of eleutheroside in this functional beverage to deliver the best antidepressant effect through extensive behavioral testing, including preliminary acute stress experiments and further chronic unpredictable mild stress test. Results and conclusions. The results demonstrated that the beverage with 15 mg/kg of eleutheroside could significantly reduce the mice’s immobility time of tail suspension test and forced swimming test, recover mice’s sucrose preference and behavior changes in the open field test, improve the contents of dopamine, norepinephrine, 5-hydroxytryptamine and the activity of superoxide dismutase and reduce the content of malondialdehyde in mice’s brains, which indicated that the improvement of monoamine neurotransmitter systems and antioxidation was one potential mechanism of antidepressant action. Novelty and scientific contribution. This study provides a design of antidepressant functional beverage and an efficient way for the prevention and treatment of depression.

Acylglycerophosphate acyltransferases (AGPATs) are the rate-limiting enzymes for the de novo pathway of triacylglycerols (TAG) synthesis. Although AGPATs have been extensively explored by evolution, expression and functional studies, little is known on functional characterization of how many members of the AGPAT family are involved in TAG synthesis and their impact on the cell proliferation and apoptosis. Here, 13 AGPAT genes in buffalo were identified, of which 12 AGPAT gene pairs were orthologous between buffalo and cattle. Comparative transcriptomic analysis and real-time quantitative reverse transcription PCR (qRT-PCR) further showed that both AGPAT1 and AGPAT6 were highly expressed in milk samples of buffalo and cattle during lactation. Knockdown of AGPAT1 or AGPAT6 significantly decreased the TAG content of buffalo mammary epithelial cells (BuMECs) and bovine mammary epithelial cells (BoMECs) by regulating lipogenic gene expression (p < 0.05). Knockdown of AGPAT1 or AGPAT6 inhibited proliferation and apoptosis of BuMECs through the expression of marker genes associated with the proliferation and apoptosis (p < 0.05). Our data confirmed that both AGPAT1 and AGPAT6 could regulate TAG synthesis and growth of mammary epithelial cells in buffalo. These findings will have important implications for understanding the role of the AGPAT gene in buffalo milk performance.

Carotenoids are organic pigments that play an important role in both plant coloration and human health; they are a critical subject in molecular breeding due to growing demand for natural molecules in both food and medicine. In this study, we focus upon characterizing BoaCRTISO, the carotenoid isomerase gene before the branch of the carotenoid biosynthetic pathway, which is expressed in all organs and developmental stages of Chinese kale, and BoaCRTISO, which is located in the chloroplast. The expression of BoaCRTISO is induced by strong light, red and blue combined light, and gibberellic acid treatment, but it is suppressed by darkness and abscisic acid treatment. We obtained BoaCRTISO-silenced plants via virus-induced gene silencing technology, and the silence efficiencies ranged from 52 to 77%. The expressions of most carotenoid and chlorophyll biosynthetic genes in BoaCRTISO-silenced plants were downregulated, and the contents of carotenoids and chlorophyll were reduced. Meanwhile, BoaCRTISO-silenced plants exhibited phenotypes of yellowing leaves and inhibited growth. This functional characterization of BoaCRTISO provides insight for the biosynthesis and regulation of carotenoid in Chinese kale.

Recently, a growing body of evidence has suggested that abnormal ovarian angiogenesis, secondary to the imbalance between various angiogenic markers, is involved in the pathogenesis of PCOS, and this has led to the use of various interventions (such as Diane-35) to restore the normal ovarian angiogenesis. Therefore, we conducted the current investigation to determine the role of such markers (endothelial growth factor (VEGF), endostatin (ES), and thrombospondin-1 (TSP-1)) in the pathogenesis of PCOS along with the associated changes in ovarian blood flow in patients with PCOS compared to healthy controls, both before and after a course of oral contraception. A total of 381 patients with PCOS and 98 healthy females of childbearing age were recruited from July 2014 to June 2017 at the Reproductive Center of the Second Affiliated Hospital of Harbin Medical University. The serum levels of VEGF, ES, and TSP-1 were determined by enzyme-linked immunosorbent assay, while ovarian perfusion was measured by the pulsatility index (PI) and resistance index (RI) by using transvaginal color Doppler ultrasound. Repeated analyses were carried out after 3 months of Diane-35 treatment. Post-treatment serum levels of luteinizing hormone (LH)/follicle stimulating hormone (FSH) ratio of patients with PCOS decreased significantly (P

Background Water buffalo (Bubalus bubalis) are divided into river buffalo and swamp buffalo subspecies and are essential livestock for agriculture and the local economy. Studies on buffalo reproduction have primarily focused on optimal fertility and embryonic mortality. There is currently limited knowledge on buffalo embryonic development, especially during the preimplantation period. Assembly of the river buffalo genome offers a reference for omics studies and facilitates transcriptomic analysis of preimplantation embryo development (PED). Methods We revealed transcriptomic profile of four stages (2-cell, 8-cell, Morula and Blastocyst) of PED via RNA-seq (Illumina HiSeq4000). Each stage comprised three biological replicates. The data were analyzed according to the basic RNA-seq analysis process. Ingenuity analysis of cell lineage control, especially transcription factor (TF) regulatory networks, was also performed. Results A total of 21,519 expressed genes and 67,298 transcripts were predicted from approximately 81.94 Gb of raw data. Analysis of transcriptome-wide expression, gene coexpression networks, and differentially expressed genes (DEGs) allowed for the characterization of gene-specific expression levels and relationships for each stage. The expression patterns of TFs, such as POU5F1, TEAD4, CDX4 and GATAs, were elucidated across diverse time series; most TF expression levels were increased during the blastocyst stage, during which time cell differentiation is initiated. All of these TFs were involved in the composition of the regulatory networks that precisely specify cell fate. These findings offer a deeper understanding of PED at the transcriptional level in the river buffalo.

The prediction of toxicological interactions and hormesis of chemical mixtures is important because organisms are mostly exposed to numerous contaminants and typically to low dose of these mixtures, and it is still a challenge. Although many models have been developed to predict the mixture toxicities such as concentration addition (CA) and independent action (IA), they cannot solve these challenges perfectly. This study has developed an improved inverse distance weighted (IDW) interpolation for prediction of the mixture toxicities. IDW uses the mixture and the single compound as scatter points in space, and the space can be constructed by the concentration axes of various components in the mixture system. Some known mixtures (or the single compound) closest to the unknown mixture are selected as interpolation nodes. To be more accurate in calculation, a new normalization method for concentration has been proposed through dividing the concentration of the mixture and the single compound by the respective EC50 values. Sixteen binary mixture systems are selected for leave-one-out cross-validation and three binary mixture systems are selected for external validation. The results show that the accuracy of IDW is ≥95% for three types of mixtures including no hormetic component, one hormetic component (show no toxicological interaction), and two hormetic components. The IDW also show higher prediction accuracy than that of CA and IA. The IDW developed in this study can be used to predict the toxicity of various mixture systems, thus providing predictive information for chemical mixtures risk assessment. Keywords: Combined toxicity, Euclidean distance, Multi-component, Normalization, Cross validation

This study presents a systematic analysis of the functional differences between two genes that encode phytoene desaturase (PDS) in Chinese kale. The promoter sequences of both BaPDS1 and BaPDS2 were amplified and cloned, and their lengths were 2005 bp and 2000 bp, respectively. The mining of cis-acting elements in the promoters showed that the two BaPDS genes are mainly associated with light and phytohormone responsiveness. Light quality, light intensity and plant hormone treatments were conducted in seedlings of Chinese kale, and the results indicated that the response of the two genes to different factors differed. Among them, BaPDSs collectively respond to the treatment with salicylic acid and abscisic acid. With regard to response differences, BaPDS1 is sensitive to red and blue light, blue light, and strong light, while BaPDS2 responds to blue light, weak light, darkness, gibberellin and methyl jasmonate. In addition, both BaPDS1 and BaPDS2 are likely targeted to the chloroplast. Furthermore, single and double mutants of BaPDSs were generated via CRISPR/Cas9 technology. Phenotypic analysis showed that the double mutant with edited PDS1 and PDS2 was a pure albino, while the single mutants with edited PDS1 or PDS2 were partly whitened. In summary, BaPDS1 and BaPDS2 genes played different and indispensable roles in Chinese kale, and their functions were partially complementary.

In this study, we report the isolation and purification of protoplasts from Chinese kale (Brassica oleracea var. alboglabra) hypocotyls, and their transient gene expression transformation and subcellular localization of BaMYB75 (Bol042409). The upshot is that the vintage protocol included 5-d hypocotyls that were enzymatically hydrolyzed for 8 h in enzyme solution (3.0% cellulase, 0.5% pectolase, and 0.5 M mannitol), and the protoplasts were purified by precipitation. The total yield of protoplasts was 8 × 105 protoplast g−1 fresh weight, and the protoplasts’ viability was 90%. The maximum transformation efficiency obtained by using green fluorescent protein (GFP) as a detection gene was approximately 45% when the polyethylene glycol (PEG)4000 concentration was 40% and transformation time was 20 min. In addition, BaMYB75 was ultimately localized in the nucleus of Chinese kale hypocotyl protoplasts, verifying the validity and reliability of this transient transformation system. An effective and economical hypocotyl protoplast isolation, purification, and transformation system was established for Chinese kale in this study. This effectively avoided interference of chloroplast autofluorescence compared to using mesophyll cells, laying the foundation for future research in the molecular biology of Brassica vegetables.