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ABSTRACT Background Hyperglycemia accelerates the development of diabetic nephropathy (DN) by inducing renal tubular injury. Nevertheless, the mechanism has not been elaborated fully. Here, the pathogenesis of DN was investigated to seek novel treatment strategies. Methods A model of diabetic nephropathy was established in vivo, the levels of blood glucose, urine albumin creatinine ratio (ACR), creatinine, blood urea nitrogen (BUN), malondialdehyde (MDA), glutathione (GSH), and iron were measured. The expression levels were detected by qRT‐PCR and Western blotting. H&E, Masson, and PAS staining were used to assess kidney tissue injury. The mitochondria morphology was observed by transmission electron microscopy (TEM). The molecular interaction was analyzed using a dual luciferase reporter assay. Results SNHG1 and ACSL4 were increased in kidney tissues of DN mice, but miR‐16‐5p was decreased. Ferrostatin‐1 treatment or SNHG1 knockdown inhibited ferroptosis in high glucose (HG)‐treated HK‐2 cells and in db/db mice. Subsequently, miR‐16‐5p was confirmed to be a target for SNHG1, and directly targeted to ACSL4. Overexpression of ACSL4 greatly reversed the protective roles of SNHG1 knockdown in HG‐induced ferroptosis of HK‐2 cells. Conclusions SNHG1 knockdown inhibited ferroptosis via the miR‐16‐5p/ACSL4 axis to alleviate diabetic nephropathy, which provided some new insights for the novel treatment of diabetic nephropathy.

Abstract Background Visceral obesity is associated with high cardiovascular events risk in type 2 diabetes mellitus (T2DM). Whether normal-weight visceral obesity will pose a higher atherosclerotic cardiovascular disease (ASCVD) risk than body mass index (BMI)-defined overweight or obese counterparts with or without visceral obesity remains unclear. We aimed to explore the relationship between general obesity and visceral obesity and 10-year ASCVD risk in patients with T2DM. Methods Patients with T2DM (6997) who satisfied the requirements for inclusion were enrolled. Patients were considered to have normal weight when 18.5 kg/m2 ≤ BMI

Interferon regulatory factor 4 (IRF4) is expressed in immune cells and is a member of the interferon regulatory factor family. Recently, it has been found that IRF4 plays important roles in the acute kidney injury (AKI)-chronic kidney disease (CKD) transition, glomerular diseases and kidney allograft rejection. In particular, the relationship between IRF4 and the AKI-CKD transition has attracted widespread attention. Furthermore, it was also found that the deficiency of IRF4 hindered the transition from AKI to CKD through the suppression of macrophage-to-fibroblast conversion, inhibition of M1-M2 macrophage polarization, and reduction in neutrophil inward flow. Additionally, an examination of the crucial role of IRF4 in glomerular disease was conducted. It was reported that inhibiting IRF4 could alleviate the progression of glomerular disease, and potential physiopathology mechanisms associated with IRF4 were postulated. Lastly, IRF4 was found to have detrimental effects on the development of antibody-mediated rejection (ABMR) and T-cell-mediated rejection (TCMR).

Abstract Background The M-type phospholipase A2 receptor (PLA2R)-associated idiopathic membranous nephropathy (IMN) is a common immune-related disease in adults. Vascular endothelial growth factor A (VEGFA) is the key mediator of angiogenesis, which leads to numerous kidney diseases. However, the role of VEGFA in IMN is poorly understood. Methods In the present study, we downloaded the microarray data GSE115857 from Gene Expression Omnibus (GEO). The differentially expressed genes (DEGs) were identified with R software. The cytoHubba plug-in were used to identify hub genes from the protein–protein interaction network. Gene set enrichment analysis (GSEA) was used to identify signalling pathway in IMN. CCK8 was performed to assess the cell viability in human vascular endothelial cells (HVECs). Then, passive Heymann nephritis (PHN) was induced in rats by a single tail vein injection of anti-Fx1A antiserum. Animals treated with VEGFA inhibitor bevacizumab (BV), with saline as a positive control. Proteinuria was evaluated by biochemical measurements. Immunohistochemistry and immunofluorescence was used to evaluate relative proteins expression. Electron microscopy was performed to observe the thickness of the glomerular basement membrane (GBM). Results We revealed 3 hub genes, including one up-regulated gene VEGFA and two down-regulated genes JUN and FOS, which are closely related to the development of PLA2R-associated IMN. Pathway enrichment analysis found that the biological process induced by VEGFA is associated with PI3K/Akt signalling. GSEA showed that the signalling pathway of DEGs in GSE115857 was focused on angiogenesis, in which VEGFA acts as a core gene. We confirmed the high expression of VEGFA, PI3K, and AKT in IMN renal biopsy samples with immunohistochemistry. In HVECs, we found that BV suppresses cell viability in a time and dose dependent manner. In vivo, we found low dose of BV attenuates proteinuria via inhibiting VEGFA/PI3K/AKT signalling. Meanwhile, low dose of BV alleviates the thickening of the GBM. Conclusion VEGFA/PI3K/AKT signalling may play significant roles in the pathogenesis of IMN, which may provide new targets for the treatment of IMN.

Phenyl hydrogen polysiloxanes of different structures were prepared, and LED packaging silicone rubbers were made from these polysiloxanes. The hardness, elongation, tensile strength and anti-yellowing of the LED packaging silicone rubbers on lamps were characterized. The results show that phenyl hydrogen polysiloxanes of resin structures had lower molecular weight, and that the cured silicone rubbers exhibited higher hardness, tensile strength, crosslink density and lower gas permeability. Phenyl hydrogen polysiloxanes of oil structures had higher molecular weight, and the cured silicone rubbers from these polysiloxanes exhibited lower volume expansion coefficient, higher hot and cold impact cycles and less change in hardness during the aging process. The study results further showed that the degree of change in hardness, yellowing, gas permeability, sulfuration and volume expansion coefficient was reduced by using phenyl hydrogen polysiloxanes of resin-oil structures as crosslinking agents, enabling the combined performance advantages of both resin-structure and oil-structure rubbers. DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.5755/j01.ms.24.2.18494

Y-box-binding protein 1 (YB-1) is a multifunctional protein involved in various cellular processes via the transcriptional and translational regulation of target gene expression. YB-1 promotes acute or chronic kidney injury through multiple molecular pathways; however, accumulating evidence suggests that significantly increased YB-1 levels are of great importance in renoprotection. In addition, YB-1 may contribute to obesity-related kidney disease by promoting adipogenesis. Thus, the role of YB-1 in kidney injury is complicated, and no comprehensive review is currently available. In this review, we summarise recent progress in our understanding of the function of YB-1 in kidney injury and provide an overview of the dual role of YB-1 in kidney disease. Moreover, we propose that YB-1 is a potential therapeutic target to restrict kidney disease.

In CT image reconstruction, the limited angle problem is an ill-posed problem. To solve this ill-posed problem, the total variation (TV) regularization has been widely used in image reconstruction. In recent years, an algorithm based on TV regularization and alternating direction multiplier method has been proposed and named as ADTVM. ADTVM can reconstruct high-quality images for the limited angle problem. However, ADTVM just considers the homogeneity of image at different directions. In real application, image possesses different properties at different directions. Therefore, we construct an adaptive weighted TV (AwTV) regularization and propose the ADM-AwTV method on the basis of ADTVM. ADM-AwTV is an iterative image reconstruction method which can reveal the anisotropy of image, adaptively. In each iteration, the weights of different directions can update according to the last reconstruction image. Experiments on two simulation images and one real projection data show that the proposed method achieves better reconstruction results than the other iterative image reconstruction methods such as ART-TV and ADTVM for the limited angle problem.

A novel micro/nanoscale rough structured superhydrophilic hybrid-coated mesh that shows underwater superoleophobic behavior is fabricated by spray casting or dipping nanoparticle–polymer suspensions on stainless steel mesh substrates. Water droplets can spread over the mesh completely; meanwhile, oil droplets can roll off the mesh at low tilt angles without any penetration. Besides overcoming the oil-fouling problem of many superhydrophilic coatings, this superhydrophilic and underwater superoleophobic mesh can be used to separate oil and water. The simple method used here to prepare the organic–inorganic hybrid coatings successfully produced controllable micro-nano binary roughness and also achieved a rough topography of micro-nano binary structure by controlling the content of inorganic particles. The mechanism of oil–water separation by the superhydrophilic and superoleophobic membrane is rationalized by considering capillary mechanics. Tetraethyl orathosilicate (TEOS) as a base was used to prepare the nano-SiO2 solution as a nano-dopant through a sol-gel process, while polyvinyl alcohol (PVA) was used as the film binder and glutaraldehyde as the cross-linking agent; the mixture was dip-coated on the surface of 300-mesh stainless steel mesh to form superhydrophilic and underwater superoleophobic film. Properties of nano-SiO2 represented by infrared spectroscopy and surface topography of the film observed under scanning electron microscope (SEM) indicated that the film surface had a coarse micro–nano binary structure; the effect of nano-SiO2 doping amount on the film’s surface topography and the effect of such surface topography on hydrophilicity of the film were studied; contact angle of water on such surface was tested as 0° by the surface contact angle tester and spread quickly; the underwater contact angle to oil was 158°, showing superhydrophilic and underwater superoleophobic properties. The effect of the dosing amount of cross-linking agent to the waterproof swelling property and the permeate flux of the film were studied; the oil–water separation effect of the film to oil–water suspension and oil–water emulsion was studied too, and in both cases the separation efficiency reached 99%, which finally reduced the oil content to be lower than 50 mg/L. The effect of filtration times to permeate flux was studied, and it was found that the more hydrophilic the film was, the stronger the stain resistance would be, and the permeate flux would gradually decrease along with the increase of filtration times.