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Translational regulation plays the most critical role in gene expression. Ribosome profiling sequencing (Ribo-Seq) is one of the methods to study translation and its regulation. It is a high throughput technology based on deep sequencing, which targets ribosome protected mRNA fragments to produce a ‘global snapshot’ of translatome. There has been an annual increase in the number of publications incorporating Ribo-seq technology. Because of its importance, we used PubMed database to conduct a comprehensive bibliometric analysis on Ribo-seq. We identified 2744 published articles that utilized the term ‘Ribo-seq’ between 2009 and Jan 2024, and 684 articles that contained both Ribo-seq and RNA-seq terms. Based on keywords correlation analysis, we discovered that the primary focus of Ribo-seq articles lies in the areas of translation, transcriptome, and ribosome in the past few years and other topics such as single-cell ribo-seq and crispr within two years, reflecting current areas of interests in Ribo-seq research. The Ribo-seq data analysis applications were also explored and summarized, providing a guide for researchers to choose corresponding tools for different types of analysis. Overall, we highlighted the advances made by Ribo-seq technologies, and the possibilities of utilizing machine learning models to unravel information from multi-omics data. The integration of Ribo-seq with other omics data, such as RNA-seq, is essential to understand the gene expression in complex biological systems.

Abstract Objective To explore the influence of lipid metabolism on the risk of sarcopenia. Methods Two-sample Mendelian randomization (MR) analysis was used to determine causality. A total of 179 lipid metabolism data points were used for exposure, and the data were obtained from a plasma lipid metabolite study of 7174 participants. The total muscle mass and total muscle strength, as well as the muscle strength and muscle mass of different sex groups, were selected as the relevant traits of sarcopenia. Data for outcomes were obtained from the UK Biobank, and sample sizes ranged from 135 468 to 450 243. Inverse-variance weighted (IVW), as the main method for evaluating the causal relationship between lipid metabolites and sarcopenia, uses the false discovery rate (FDR) for multiple comparisons and conducts heterogeneity, pleiotropy, and reverse causality tests. Results Twenty-seven lipid metabolites, mainly phosphatidylcholine, phosphatidylethanolamine, ceramide, triacylglycerol, sphingomyelin, and sterol ester, were found to be associated with the risk of sarcopenia. Ceramide (d40:1), ceramide (d40:2), and sterol ester are risk factors for decreased muscle mass and strength. There is a positive causal relationship between various phosphatidylcholine lipids and muscle mass and strength. Sphingomyelin (d42:2) is a protective factor for total muscle strength and female muscle strength. There are inconsistent effects between different lipid metabolites, triacylglycerol, and muscle strength and muscle mass. Conclusions There was a causal relationship between 27 lipid metabolites and sarcopenia traits, and targeting specific lipid metabolites may benefit sarcopenia diagnosis, disease assessment, and treatment.

BackgroundHealth care workers (HCWs) played a key role in preventing and controlling COVID-19. Higher infection risks and intensive work led to occupational burnout for many HCWs, which may affect their lifestyle behaviors and weight. ObjectiveThis study aimed to assess HCWs’ self-rated health status, overweight and obesity rates, lifestyle behaviors, and psychoemotional changes from 2019 to 2022 across China and to analyze the factors associated with changes from underweight or normal weight in 2019 to overweight or obese in 2022. MethodsIn this retrospective study, 100 health care institutions were randomly selected from 5 provinces or regions in China. All HCWs who worked in the institutions for at ≥3 years were invited to complete the electronic questionnaire and participate in the online survey from August 1, 2022, to August 31, 2022. Collected data included changes in lifestyle behaviors (dietary habits, physical activity, sleep quality, smoking, alcohol consumption), psychoemotional conditions (persistent stress or recurrent anxiety or depressed mood), health status, and chronic disease control from December 2019 to August 2022. Height and weight in 2019 and 2022 were retrieved from annual physical examination records. Overweight and obesity were defined as 24.0 kg/m2≤BMI

Abstract Background Laryngeal squamous cell carcinoma (LSCC) is one of the most common malignant tumors of the head and neck. Vasculogenic mimicry (VM) is crucial for tumor growth and metastasis and refers to the formation of fluid channels by invasive tumor cells rather than endothelial cells. However, the regulatory mechanisms underlying VM during the malignant progression of LSCC remain largely unknown. Methods Gene expression and clinical data for LSCC were obtained from the TCGA and Gene GEO (GSE27020) databases. A risk prediction model associated with VM was established using LASSO and Cox regression analyses. Based on their risk scores, patients with LSCC were categorized into high- and low-risk groups. The disparities in immune infiltration, tumor mutational burden (TMB), and functional enrichment between these two groups were examined. The core genes in LSCC were identified using the machine learning (SVM-RFE) and WGCNA algorithms. Subsequently, the involvement of bone morphogenetic protein 2 (BMP2) in VM and metastasis was investigated both in vitro and in vivo. To elucidate the downstream signaling pathways regulated by BMP2, western blotting was performed. Additionally, ChIP experiments were employed to identify the key transcription factors responsible for modulating the expression of BMP2. Results We established a new precise prognostic model for LSCC related to VM based on three genes: BMP2, EPO, and AGPS. The ROC curves from both TCGA and GSE27020 validation cohorts demonstrated precision survival prediction capabilities, with the nomogram showing some net clinical benefit. Multiple algorithm analyses indicated BMP2 as a potential core gene. Further experiments suggested that BMP2 promotes VM and metastasis in LSCC. The malignant progression of LSCC is promoted by BMP2 via the activation of the PI3K-AKT signaling pathway, with the high expression of BMP2 in LSCC resulting from its transcriptional activation by runt-related transcription factor 1 (RUNX1). Conclusion BMP2 predicts poor prognosis in LSCC, promotes LSCC VM and metastasis through the PI3K-AKT signaling pathway, and is transcriptionally regulated by RUNX1. BMP2 may be a novel, precise, diagnostic, and therapeutic biomarker of LSCC.

This study investigates the essential role of the heme cavity in the peroxidase and antibacterial activities of homodimeric hemoglobin (Tg-HbI) from the blood clam Tegillarca granosa. After treatment with sodium dodecyl sulfate (SDS), the peroxidase and antibacterial activities of the Tg-HbI were significantly inhibited, with the degree of inhibition correlating positively with the SDS concentration. Fluorescence spectroscopy, UV-Vis spectroscopy, and molecular docking analysis further revealed that SDS interacts with key amino acid residues (e.g., His70 and His102) in the heme cavity of Tg-HbI, causing conformational changes that disrupt the internal hydrophobic interactions, thus inhibiting its function. This study confirms that the antibacterial effect of Tg-HbI is mediated through its peroxidase activity and that the heme cavity plays a critical role in maintaining this activity. These findings lay a foundation for further research on the immune defense functions of hemoglobin and provide new insights into the mechanisms of environmental adaptation in T. granosa.

Abstract Background Overweight and obesity have become major public health concerns worldwide. Persistent stress can activate the human hypothalamic‒pituitary‒adrenal axis (HPA) and increase the intake of “self-rewarding food”, thereby raising the incidence of obesity. Health care workers (HCWs) experience higher workloads and mental stress than workers in many other industries, which may put them at increased risk for overweight/obesity. However, few studies have been carried out on overweight and obesity among HCWs in China, and the overall scenario and behind-the-scenes factors of their overweight and obesity are unknown. The aim of this study is to understand the epidemic of overweight and obesity and risk factors among Chinese HCWs. Methods Based on a cross-sectional web survey design, 23,234 HCWs from 100 health institutions in 5 provinces/autonomous regions/municipalities across China were sampled to answer a self-administered questionnaire that was purposely developed using a multi-staged clustered random-sampling method. Chi-square test and ANOVA were performed to compare variables between two or more groups. Univariate analyses were conducted to identify the influence of self-reported persistent stress and/or recurrent anxiety/depressed mood on lifestyle behaviors. A multivariate binary logistic regression model was used to analyse the risk factors of overweight/obesity. Results Among the respondents, 34.26% were overweight, and 11.22% were obese. Most of the respondents had regular exercise habits (68.17%), had habitually stayed-up late (65.06%) and had been affected by persistent stress and/or recurrent anxiety/depressed mood (62.04%). A higher proportion of those with persistent stress and/or recurrent anxiety/depressed mood than those without habitually staying-up late (76.18%); consumed take-out food (54.92%), fried food (49.93%), snacks or desserts (50.51%); drank sugary drinks (46.57%); smoked (14.27%); and drank alcohol (23.34%). Gender (Female) (OR: 0.314, 95%CI: 0.292–0.336), age (OR: 1.742–2.334, 95%CI: 1.544–2.858), education (OR: 0.620–0.728, 95%CI: 0.445–0.973), living and working area (OR: 1.271, 95%CI: 1.192–1.355), breakfast (OR: 0.898, 95%CI: 0.839–0.960), fried food (OR: 1.133, 95%CI: 1.048–1.224), and alcohol consumption (OR: 1.111, 95%CI: 1.017–1.214) were factors for overweight/obesity. All of the aforementioned results were significant (P

Background This study aimed to provide a comprehensive assessment of burden estimates and the secular trend of vision loss due to retinopathy of prematurity (ROP) among people younger than 20 years, at the global, regional and national levels.Methods Data were obtained from the Global Burden of Disease Study 2019 database. The average annual percentage change (AAPC) was calculated to quantify the temporal trends in the measures of vision loss.Results In 2019, the global age-standardised rates (ASRs) of prevalence per 100 000 population was 86.4 for vision loss, specifically, 35 for moderate vision loss, 19.9 for severe vision loss, 31.6 for blindness due to ROP among people younger than 20 years. Moreover, the ASR of years lived with disability per 100 000 was 10.6 for vision loss, specifically, 1.1 for moderate vision loss, 3.6 for severe vision loss, 5.9 for blindness, respectively. From 1990 to 2019, the ASR of prevalence of blindness and vision loss due to ROP significantly increased, while its burden slightly decreased. Males showed higher ASR of prevalence than females in 2019, whereas females have larger increasing trend than males from 1990 to 2019. The global highest ASR of disease burden was observed in South Asia and Southern sub-Saharan Africa, as well as low sociodemographic index (SDI) regions in 2019.Conclusions Globally, although the burden decreased, the prevalence of childhood and adulthood vision loss due to ROP continues to increase. Reasonable resource allocation and advanced intervention are recommended to prevent and control the vision loss due to ROP.

Abstract Background Propofol and sevoflurane are two commonly used perioperative anesthetics. Some studies have found that these anesthetic drugs affect tumorigenesis. Previous studies have mostly focused on in vitro experiments, and the specimens collected were mainly peripheral body fluids, lacking direct evidence of the impact of anesthetic drugs on human tissues. This study aimed to elucidate the effects of propofol and sevoflurane on lung cancer using next-generation sequencing through an in vivo experiment. Methods Patients were randomly assigned to a group receiving either propofol or sevoflurane during surgery. Then, the patients’ tumor and paired normal samples were collected and sequenced by next-generation sequencing. Differentially expressed genes (DEG) were analyzed by two statistical models, followed by cluster analysis, PCA, Gene Ontology, and KEGG pathway analysis. Candidate genes were confirmed by qRT–PCR. Results The demographic data of the two study groups were not statistically significant. Through single-factor model analysis, 810 DEG in the propofol group and 508 DEG in the sevoflurane group were obtained. To better reflect the differential effects between propofol and sevoflurane while reducing the false-positive DEG, we used multifactor model analysis, which resulted in 124 DEG. In PCA and cluster analysis, four groups (propofol cancer group, propofol normal group, sevoflurane cancer group, sevoflurane normal group) were separated adequately, indicating the accuracy of the analysis. We chose seven significant pathways (cellular response to interleukin-1, chemokine-mediated signaling pathway, chemokine signaling pathway, cytokine–cytokine receptor interaction, inflammatory response, immune response, and TNF signaling pathway) for downstream analysis. Based on the pathway analysis, three candidate genes (CXCR1, CXCL8, and TNFAIP3) were chosen, and their qRT–PCR results were consistent with the sequencing results. Conclusions Through RNA-seq analysis, the effects of propofol and sevoflurane during lung cancer resection were different, mainly in inflammatory-related pathways, which might be possibly by targeting CXCL8. Trial registration Trial registry number was ChiCTR1900026213 .

Objective Previous study have shown that lipid accumulation product (LAP), visceral adiposity index (VAI), triglyceride/high-density lipoprotein cholesterol ratio (TG/HDL-C) and triglycerides/glucose index (TyG index) could be simple clinical indicators of insulin resistance (IR) based on anthropometric and/or biochemical parameters. However, the rational and preferred surrogate marker of IR in different population has yet to be validated. The aim of this study was evaluating the practicability of the LAP, VAI, TG/HDL-C, and TyG in predicting IR in middle-aged Chinese population. Methods A cross-sectional study was conducted in 569 Chinese participants (mean age was 48.5; man 67.7%), and each participant completed a questionnaire survey, anthropometric measurement, and biochemical testing. One-way ANOVAs, Chi-squared test, Pearson’s correlation, and multiple logistic regression were used to evaluate the association between VAI, LAP, TG/HDL-C, and TyG with IR. To correctly discriminate individuals with insulin resistance, a receiver operating characteristic (ROC) analysis was conducted for each evaluated variable and the overall diagnostic accuracy was quantified using the area under the ROC curve (AUC). The AUC of evaluated variables were compared using a nonparametric approach. The optimal cut-off points were determined by the Youden’s index, and the corresponding sensitivity and specificity were provided. Results Significant positive correlation was identified between HOMA-IR with TG/HDL-C (r = 0.306), VAI (r = 0.217), LAP (r = 0.381), and TyG (r = 0.371), respectively (all p

Growing evidence has indicated the association of clinical antibiotic use with abnormal blood lipid levels; however, no epidemiological study has examined the relationship of antibiotic exposure, probably derived from food chains, with blood lipid levels. This study investigated the relationships of urinary antibiotic levels with blood lipid levels and dyslipidemias in the older population. Baseline data of 960 participants from the Cohort of Elderly Health and Environment Controllable Factors were used in the present study. High-performance liquid chromatography-tandem mass spectrometry (HPLC-MS/MS) was performed to detect antibiotic residues in the urine samples of the participants. Our findings revealed that each 1 μg/g increase in enrofloxacin and ciprofloxacin levels was associated with an increase of 0.084 (95 % confidence interval (CI): 0.030, 0.139) and 0.049 (95 % CI: 0.012, 0.086) in triglyceride levels, respectively. Enrofloxacin was associated with an increased risk of hypertriglyceridemia. Each 1 μg/g increase in the enrofloxacin level corresponded to an increase of 0.052 (95 % CI: 0.006, 0.098) in the low-density lipoprotein cholesterol level. Furthermore, florfenicol exposure increased the risks of both hyperbetalipoproteinemia and hypoalphalipoproteinemia. By contrast, each 1 μg/g increase in sulfaclozine and doxycycline levels was associated with a − 0.062 (95 % CI: −0.111, −0.020), and − 0.083 (95 % CI: −0.160, −0.007) decrease in total cholesterol levels, respectively. Sulfaclozine was closely related to a decreased risk of hypercholesterolemia. Stratification analysis revealed specific differences in the correlation between antibiotic exposure and lipid levels based on the waist circumference (WC) values of the participants. Except for sulfaclozine and doxycycline, other antibiotics exerted adverse effects on lipid levels and increased dyslipidemia prevalence. The older participants with higher WC values were vulnerable to antibiotic exposure. Therefore, an appropriate understanding of the epidemiological attributes of antibiotic residues is indispensable to prevent abdominal obesity in the older population.

Background: Experimental and epidemiological studies have linked antibiotics use to gut dysbiosis-mediated risk of chronic metabolic diseases. However, whether adiposity is linked to antibiotic exposure in elderly remains inadequately understood. Objective: To investigate the association between internal exposure of antibiotics and adiposity in elderly by using a biomonitoring method. Methods: We included 990 participants (≥60 years) from the baseline survey of the Cohort of Elderly Health and Environment Controllable Factors in Lu’an city, China, from June to September 2016. Forty-five antibiotics and two metabolites in urine were monitored through liquid chromatography-electrospray tandem mass spectrometry (HPLC-MS/MS). Creatinine-corrected urinary concentrations were used to assess antibiotic exposure levels. Body mass index (BMI), waist circumference (WC) and body fat percentage (BFP) were used as indicators of adiposity. Multiple linear regression and binary logistic regression analyses were used to analyze the association of antibiotic concentrations with obesity-related indices. Subsequently, a gender-stratified analysis was performed. Results: Of the included elderly, 50.7% were defined as having overweight/ obesity, 59.8% as having central preobesity/obesity, and 37.5% as having slightly high/high BFP. Linear regression analysis revealed that a 1-unit increase in the logarithmic transformation of norfloxacin concentrations was related with an increase of 0.29 kg/m2 (95% CI: 0.02–0.04), 0.99 cm (95% CI：0.24–1.75), and 0.69% (95% CI：0.21–1.17) in BMI, WC, and BFP, respectively. Compared with the control group, exposure to doxycycline (tertile 2: odds ratio, 2.06 [95% CI: 1.12–3.76]) and norfloxacin (tertile 2: 2.13 [1.05–4.29]; tertile 3: 2.07 [1.03–4.17]) had BMI-based overweight/obesity risk. Additionally, ciprofloxacin (tertile 2: 2.06 [1.12–3.76]), norfloxacin (tertile 3: 2.95 [1.34–6.49]), and florfenicol (tertile 3: 1.84 [1.07–3.14]) were related to WC-based central preobesity/obesity risk. Norfloxacin (tertile 3: 2.54 [1.23–5.24]) was positively associated with a slightly high/high BFP risk. Gender-stratified analysis demonstrated an increased adiposity risk in women compared with men. Conclusions: Our research provided an evidence that exposure to specific types of antibiotics (tetracyclines and fluoroquinolones) probably from the food chain contributed to obesity in elderly. Prospective cohort studies with larger sample size are warrented to explore the causation.

Beyond its role as an oxygen transport protein, the homodimer hemoglobin of blood clam Tegillarca granosa (Tg-HbI) has been found to possess antibacterial activity. However, the mechanism of antibacterial activity of Tg-HbI remain to be investigated. In this study, we investigated the effects of Cu2+ on the structure, peroxidase activity, and antibacterial ability of Tg-HbI. Tg-HbI was significantly inactivated by Cu2+ in a non-competitive inhibition manner, following first-order reaction kinetics. The Spectroscopy results showed that Cu2+ changed the iron porphyrin ring and the coordination of heme with proximal histidine of Tg-HbI, and increased the hydrophobicity of heme pocket. We found that proline could stabilize the heme pocket structure of Tg-HbI, hence, protect peroxidase activity and antimicrobial activity of Tg-HbI against damage by Cu2+. Our results suggest that Cu2+ inhibits the peroxidase and antibacterial activity of Tg-HbI by destroying its heme pocket structure and Tg-HbI probably plays an antibacterial role through its peroxidase activity. This result could provide insights into the antibacterial mechanism of Tg-HbI.

Network security situational assessment, the core task of network security situational awareness, can obtain security situation by comprehensively analyzing various factors that affect network status. Thus, network security situational assessment can provide accurate security state evaluation and security trend prediction for users. Although plenty of network security situational assessment methods have been proposed, there are still many problems to solve. First, because of high dimensionality of input data, computational complexity in model construction could be very high. Moreover, most of the existing schemes trade computational overhead for accuracy. Second, due to the lack of centralized standard, the weights of indicators are usually determined empirically or by subjective opinions of domain expert. To solve the above problems, we propose a novel network security situation assessment method based on stack autoencoding network and back propagation neural network. In stack autoencoding network and back propagation neural network, to reduce the data storage overhead and improve computational efficiency, we use stack autoencoding network to reduce the dimensions of the indicator data. And the low-dimensional data output by hidden layer of stack autoencoding network will be the input data of the error back propagation neural network. Then, the back propagation neural network algorithm is adopted to perform network security situation assessment. Finally, extensive experiments are conducted to verify the effectiveness of the proposed method.

Oral supplemented nutraceuticals derived from food sources are surmised to improve the human health through interaction with the gastrointestinal bacteria. However, the lack of fundamental quality control and authoritative consensus (e.g., formulation, route of administration, dose, and dosage regimen) of these non-medical yet bioactive compounds are one of the main practical issues resulting in inconsistent individual responsiveness and confounded clinical outcomes of consuming nutraceuticals. Herein, we studied the dose effects of widely used food supplement, microalgae spirulina (Arthrospira platensis), on the colonic microbiota and physiological responses in healthy male Balb/c mice. Based on the analysis of 16s rDNA sequencing, compared to the saline-treated group, oral administration of spirulina once daily for 24 consecutive days altered the diversity, structure, and composition of colonic microbial community at the genus level. More importantly, the abundance of microbial taxa was markedly differentiated at the low (1.5 g/kg) and high (3.0 g/kg) dose of spirulina, among which the relative abundance of Clostridium XIVa, Desulfovibrio, Eubacterium, Barnesiella, Bacteroides, and Flavonifractor were modulated at various degrees. Evaluation of serum biomarkers in mice at the end of spirulina intervention showed reduced the oxidative stress and the blood lipid levels and increased the level of appetite controlling hormone leptin in a dose-response manner, which exhibited the significant correlation with differentially abundant microbiota taxa in the cecum. These findings provide direct evidences of dose-related modulation of gut microbiota and physiological states by spirulina, engendering its future mechanistic investigation of spirulina as potential sources of prebiotics for beneficial health effects via the interaction with gut microbiota.

Abstract Background Liver cancer is the fifth most common cancer, and hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC) is the major liver tumor type seen in adults. HCC is usually caused by chronic liver disease such as hepatitis B virus or hepatitis C virus infection. One of the promising treatments for HCC is liver transplantation, in which a diseased liver is replaced with a healthy liver from another person. However, recurrence of HCC after surgery is a significant problem. Therefore, it is important to discover reliable cellular biomarkers that can predict recurrence in HCC. Methods We analyzed previously published HCC RNA‐Seq data that includes 21 paired tumor and normal samples, in which nine tumors were recurrent after orthotopic liver transplantation and 12 were nonrecurrent tumors with their paired normal samples. We used both the reference genome and de novo transcriptome assembly based analyses to identify differentially expressed genes (DEG) and used RandomForest to discover biomarkers. Results We obtained 398 DEG using the Reference approach and 412 DEG using de novo assembly approach. Among these DEG, 258 genes were identified by both approaches. We further identified 30 biomarkers that could predict the recurrence. We used another independent HCC study that includes 50 patients normal and tumor samples. By using these 30 biomarkers, the prediction accuracy was 100% for normal condition and 98% for tumor condition. A group of Metallothionein was specifically discovered as biomarkers in both reference and de novo assembly approaches. Conclusion We identified a group of Metallothionein genes as biomarkers to predict recurrence. The metallothionein genes were all down‐regulated in tumor samples, suggesting that low metallothionein expression may be a promoter of tumor growth. In addition, using de novo assembly identified some unique biomarkers, further confirmed the necessity of conducting a de novo assembly in human cancer study.

Previous epidemiologic studies have reported famine exposure during early life association with overweight or obesity in adulthood, but a consistent perspective has not been established to date.To determine, by conducting a systematic review and meta-analysis, whether exposure to famine could increase body mass index (BMI) in adult or not, and assess the association between famine exposure and the risk of overweight or obesity.Published articles were systematically searched (until August, 2017) from PubMed, ScienceDirect, Cochrane, and China National Knowledge Infrastructure. Initially, comparing differences in BMI between exposed and non-exposed groups that weight mean difference (WMD) were used. Subsequently, the effect of famine exposure on overweight or obesity risk, which pooled relative risks (RRs), odds ratios (ORs) or hazard ratios (HRs) with 95% confidence intervals (CIs) were calculated using a random-effects model.Twenty studies were included in this systematic review and meta-analysis. Compared with non-exposed group, famine exposure group significantly increased the risk of overweight (OR = 1.10, 95% CI: 1.04-1.16) and obesity (OR = 1.15, 95% CI: 1.05-1.24). Sensitivity analyses revealed no significant change in the famine exposure and BMI, the risk of overweight and obesity study when any one study was excluded. Subgroup analyses showed that age, gender, exposure type, study type, continent, famine cause and paper publication date were associated with BMI, the risk of overweight and obesity. Meta-regression analyses suggested that continent, famine cause could partially explain heterogeneity for famine exposure and BMI studies.The systematic review and meta-analysis indicates that famine exposure during early life may increase BMI, the risk of overweight and obesity, especially for female, fetal famine exposure or subject age less than 50. Furthermore, famine exposure group the risk of overweight and obesity in cross-sectional studies, Asian studies, famine cause by natural disaster or paper published from 2015 to the present studies are higher than that of non-exposed group.

Globally, the prevalence of childhood obesity has substantially increased at an alarming rate. This study investigated associations between dietary patterns and overweight/obesity in 3- to 6-year-old children. Recruited children were from four prefecture-level cities in Eastern China. Childhood overweight and obesity were defined according to WHO Child Growth Standards. Individual dietary patterns were assessed by a comprehensive self-administered FFQ using thirty-five food items. Using factor analysis two dietary patterns were derived: the traditional Chinese pattern was characterised by high consumption of cereals, vegetables and fresh juices while the modern pattern was characterised by high consumption of Western fast food, Chinese fast food, sweets/sugary foods and carbonated beverages. The associations of dietary patterns with overweight/obesity were evaluated by logistic regression models. Data of 8900 preschool children from thirty-five kindergartens recruited from March to June 2015 were used in the final analysis. Adherence to the modern dietary pattern was positively associated with children's age while adherence to the traditional dietary pattern was positively associated with maternal education; these associations were statistically significant. After adjustment, we found that being in the highest tertile of any identified dietary patterns was not significantly associated with overweight and obesity. Dietary patterns are not associated with overweight/obesity in Chinese preschool children. Prospective studies are needed to establish a causal link between dietary patterns and childhood obesity.

The state estimation of a complex dynamic stochastic system is described by a discrete-time state-space model with large parameter (including the covariance matrices of system noises and measurement noises) uncertainties. A new scheme of weighted multiple-model adaptive estimation is presented, in which the classical weighting algorithm is replaced by a new weighting algorithm to reduce the calculation burden and to relax the convergence conditions. Finally, simulation results verified the effectiveness of the proposed MMAE scheme for each possibility of parameter uncertainties.

Hemoglobins are a group of respiratory proteins principally functioning in transport of oxygen and carbon dioxide in red blood cells of all vertebrates and some invertebrates. The blood clam T. granosa is one of the few invertebrates that have hemoglobin-containing red hemocytes. In the present research, the peroxidase activity of T. granosa hemoglobins (Tg-Hbs) was characterized and the associated mechanism of action was deciphered via structural comparison with other known peroxidases. We detected that purified Tg-Hbs catalyzed the oxidation of phenolic compounds in the presence of exogenous H2O2. Tg-Hbs peroxidase activity reached the maximum at pH 5 and 35°C and was inhibited by Fe2+, Cu2+, SDS, urea, and sodium azide. Tg-Hbs shared few similarities in amino acid sequence and overall structural characteristics with known peroxidases. However, the predicted structure at their heme pocket was highly similar to that of horseradish peroxidase (HRP) and myeloperoxidase (MPO). This research represented the first systemic characterization of hemoglobin as a peroxidase.

Coronatine [COR] is a novel type of plant growth regulator with similarities in structure and property to jasmonate. The objective of this study was to examine the relationship between increased root vitality induced by 10 nM COR and reactive oxygen species scavenging under potassium (K)-replete (2.5 mM) and K-deficient (0.05 mM) conditions in hydroponic cultured cotton seedlings. K-replete and K-deficient conditions increased root vitality by 2.7- and 3.5-fold, respectively. COR treatment significantly decreased lipid peroxidation in cotton seedlings determined by reduction in MDA levels. These results suggest that COR improves the functioning of both enzymatic and non-enzymatic antioxidant systems. Under K-replete and K-deficient conditions, COR significantly increased the activities of antioxidant enzymes SOD (only for K-repletion), CAT, GPX, and APX comparing; COR also significantly increased DPPH-radical scavenging activity. However, COR led to 1.6- and 1.7-fold increases in superoxide anion (O2•-) concentrations, and 5.7- and 2.1-fold increases in hydrogen peroxide (H2O2) levels, respectively. Additionally, COR intensified the DAB staining of H2O2 and the NBT staining of O2•-. Therefore, our results reveal that COR-induced ROS accumulation stimulates the activities of most antioxidant enzymes but does not induce oxidative stress in cotton roots.

Agricultural crops experience diverse mechanical stimuli, which may affect their growth and development. This study was conducted to investigate the effects of mechanical stresses caused by hanging labels from the flower petioles (HLFP) on plant shape and cotton yields in four cotton varieties: CCRI 41, DP 99B, CCRC 21, and BAI 1. HLFP significantly reduced plant height by between 7.8% and 36.5% in all four lines and also significantly reduced the number of fruiting positions per plant in the CCRI 41, DP 99B and CCRC 21 lines. However, the number of fruiting positions in BAI 1 was unaffected. HLFP also significantly reduced the boll weight for all four cultivars and the seed cotton yields for CCRI 41, DP 99B and BAI 1. Conversely, it significantly increased the seed cotton yield for CCRC 21 by 11.2%. HLFP treatment did not significantly affect the boll count in the fruiting branches of the 1(st) and 2(nd) layers in any variety, but did significantly reduce those on the 3(rd) and 4(th) fruiting branch layers for CCRI 41 and DP 99B. Similar trends were observed for the number of bolls per FP. In general, HLFP reduced plant height and boll weight. However, the lines responded differently to HLFP treatment in terms of their total numbers of fruiting positions, boll numbers, seed cotton yields, etc. Our results also suggested that HFLP responses might be delayed for some agronomy traits of some cotton genotypes, and that hanging labels from early-opening flowers might influence the properties related with those that opened later on.