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Chromium (III) is an essential trace element for the human body. It modulates the synthesis, secretion, and content of insulin in the body. In addition to participating in the regulation of glucose and lipid metabolism, it performs various important physiological functions, including the reduction of glucose and lipid levels. Glucose and lipid metabolism disorders are the cause of many chronic diseases and have a complex pathogenesis. Research shows that chromium (III) is related to glucose and lipid metabolism. Therefore, this study performes a meta-analysis of studies related to the safety of chromium (III) and its influence on glucose and lipid metabolism and elucidated the mechanisms. Chromium (III) can enhance insulin sensitivity, promote glucose absorption and glycogen synthesis and improve insulin resistance by regulating AMPK/GLUT-4 and PI3K/Akt signaling pathways. And it also can improve lipid metabolism by regulating the expression of SREBP-1C, ACC1 and CD36. The article would provide a theoretical basis for the use of chromium (III) toward the prevention and treatment of metabolic diseases, such as diabetes mellitus and obesity, so that it could be further applied in the food industry.

To investigate the effects of different amounts of flaxseed powder on the quality and digestive characteristics of noodles, flaxseed powder (0~15%) was added to wheat flour to investigate the changes in the appearance, texture, cooking, sensory, and digestive characteristics of noodles. Results showed that with the increase of the proportion of flaxseed powder, the appearance color of the noodles was deepened, the chewability and resilience of the noodles increased first and then decreased, and the hardness, elasticity and cohesion of the noodles were significantly decreased (P

The excessive presence of Cu2+ could be harmful to human health. Therefore, a ratiometric fluorescence sensor based on multicolor fluorescent carbon dots (CDs) was developed for Cu2+ detection. The blue and yellow carbon dots (B-CDs/Y-CDs) were synthesized by one-step hydrothermal method. After adding Cu2+, it is captured by the amino groups of B-CDs to form complexes, resulting in a strong fluorescence quenching via photoinduced electron transfer (PET). Meanwhile, the amino groups from Y-CDs also binds with Cu2+ that inhibit the internal PET thus enhancing the fluorescence of Y-CDs. The sensor has the merits in rapid, visual, and selective with a low limit of detection (LOD) at 2.29 nM. Furthermore, an intelligent device composed of portable optical detector and smartphone is constructed, which realizes the visual point-of-care testing (POCT) of Cu2+ with a LOD of 7.51 nM. The strategy provides an accessible approach for monitoring heavy metal pollution and food safety.

This study examined effects of different processing methods on phenolic compounds in flaxseed meal. The optimal SE treatment was 1.0 MPa for 3 min, and the contents of total flavonoids and phenolic acid were 2.26 times and 1.63 times of the control group, respectively. Notably, erucic acid increased 85.76 %. Optimal extrusion conditions (15 % moisture content, 140 °C, 29 hz) led to the presence of rutin and a 2.81 times increase in protocatechuic acid content over the control. Fermenting with 3 % Bacillus subtilis for 4 days yielded gallic acid in bound form and vanillic acid in free form, with protocatechuic acid increasing 40.65 % compared to the control. Among all the treatments, extrusion produced the highest levels of phenolic compounds in flaxseed meal. Each treatment significantly increased the open ring isomer ester phenol (SDG) compared to the control. Overall, various processing methods impacted the phenolic content and composition in flaxseed meal differently.

Abstract The irregular distribution of non-zero elements of large-scale sparse matrix leads to low data access efficiency caused by the unique architecture of the Sunway many-core processor, which brings great challenges to the efficient implementation of sparse matrix–vector multiplication (SpMV) computing by SW26010P many-core processor. To address this problem, a study of SpMV optimization strategies is carried out based on the SW26010P many-core processor. Firstly, we design a memorized data storage transformation strategy to transform the matrix in CSR storage format into BCSR (Block Compressed Sparse Row) storage. Secondly, the dynamic task scheduling method is introduced to the algorithm to realize the load balance between slave cores. Thirdly, the LDM memory is refined and designed, and the slave core dual cache strategy is optimized to further improve the performance. Finally, we selected a large number of representative sparse matrices from the Matrix Market for testing. The results show that the scheme has obviously speedup the processing procedure of sparse matrices with various sizes and sizes, and the master–slave speedup ratio can reach up to 38 times. The optimization method used in this paper has implications for other complex applications of the SW26010P many-core processor.

This study identified phenolic compounds in five flaxseed varieties and evaluated their antioxidant activities. Results showed significant variations in phenolic acids and flavonoids among the varieties. Longya 16 had the lowest flavonoid content, Longya 13 had the lowest phenolic acid content, while Longya 10 exhibited the highest content and diversity of polyphenols, including six flavonoids (vitexin, quercitrin, quercetin, apigenin, kaempfero1, (+)-dihydroquercetin) and five phenolic acids (gallic acid, vanillic acid, ferulic acid, sinapic acid, and 4-hydroxybenzoic acid). Antioxidant activity was assessed using DPPH and ABTS radical scavenging assays, and cell-based assays under tBHP-induced oxidative stress. Flaxseed polyphenol extracts significantly reduced ROS, MDA, and GSSG levels and increased SOD and CAT activities, preserving cell vitality and morphology. These findings confirmed the significant antioxidant activity of flaxseed polyphenols, providing a theoretical basis for their application in antioxidative functional areas.

Limu smoked chicken is a traditional Chinese delicacy; however, polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons (PAHs) are generated during the smoking process. We developed a pyrolysis process for pear wood liquid smoke with minimal PAH generation. Pear wood liquid smoke products were prepared under different pyrolysis conditions in a self-made pyrolysis reactor, and the total phenol, carbonyl compound, total acid, and PAH contents and PAH toxicity risk were evaluated. With increasing temperatures, the toxicity equivalent ΣPAH of the smoke liquid reached 3.004 μg/kg. With increasing particle sizes, the total phenol content reached 1.6 mg/mL; the phenol content was 5.95 mg/mL. With increasing particle sizes, the toxicity equivalent ΣPAHs of the smoke liquor reached 2.441 μg/kg. The optimal parameters for treating pear wood smoke liquid in the thermal reaction device were a pyrolysis temperature of pear wood of >350 °C, particle size of S2, and sucrose content of 8%.

2′-fucosyllactose (2′-FL) is one of the most prevalent milk oligosaccharides. In this study, the anti-obesity effect of 2′-FL was explored in high-fat diet (HFD)-fed mice. Results showed that 2′-FL alleviated body weight gain, improved serum lipid profiles and increased energy expenditure. Under cold exposure, 2′-FL group showed higher body and rectal temperature, improving adaptive thermogenesis. 2′-FL alleviated lipid accumulation, increased mitochondrial DNA content, as well as upregulated the protein expression of thermogenic markers including UCP1, PRDM16, PGC-1α and the phosphorylation of AMPK in both white and brown adipose tissue. 2′-FL also increased the diversity of gut microbiota in HFD mice. The Bacteroides/Firmicutes ratio, and the Bifidobacterium abundance were increased, while Lachnospiraceae abundance was decreased after 2′-FL treatment. Moreover, 2′-FL to HFD mice altered the bile acid profiles at levels comparable to normal diet group. These results indicates that 2′-FL promotes thermogenesis and modulates gut microbiota to alleviate obesity.

Plant polyphenols are a class of plant secondary metabolites containing several phenolic hydroxyl groups in their molecular structure, which have physiological properties such as anti-inflammatory, anticancer, antibacterial, etc., and can be used as excellent dietary supplements. However, some of the polyphenols are poorly stabilized, and they are prone to degradation during food production, processing, and storage, so it is necessary to use encapsulation technology to improve their stability and maintain their activity at the same time. The emulsion possesses the characteristics of stability and versatility with the potential to encapsulate and protect plant polyphenols. This paper firstly analyzes the properties of plant polyphenols and the underlying reasons for their limited applications, further discusses the encapsulation effect of different types of emulsions (normal emulsion, microemulsion, nanoemulsion, Pickering emulsion, multilayer emulsion and emulsion gel, etc.) on polyphenols, and finally summarizes the current status of polyphenol emulsion encapsulation systems in the food industry such as meat, fruits and vegetables, ice cream, bakery, and beverage, etc., and provides an overview of polyphenol emulsions in the future preparation direction and its development direction in the food field. This paper can provide some reference for the application of plant polyphenol emulsion encapsulation system in the future food industry.

As a significant subset of unmanned underwater vehicles (UUVs), autonomous underwater vehicles (AUVs) possess the capability to autonomously execute tasks. Characterized by its flexibility, cost-effectiveness, extensive operational range, and robust environmental adaptability, AUV has emerged as the primary technological apparatus for deep-sea exploration and research. In this paper, we present the design of a 10,000 m class AUV equipped with capabilities such as fixed-depth navigation, regional autonomous cruising, full-depth video recording, and temperature and salinity profiling. Initially, we outline the comprehensive design of the AUV, detailing its structural configuration, system components, functional module arrangement, and operational principles. Subsequently, we compute the hydrodynamic parameters using a spatial kinematics model. Finally, the AUV designed in this paper is tested for its functions and performance, such as fixed-depth sailing, maximum speed, and maximum diving depth, and its reliability and practicability are verified.

Changes in physio-biochemical metabolism, phenolics and antioxidant capacity during germination were studied in eight different wheat varieties. Results showed that germination enhanced sprout growth, and caused oxidative damage, but enhanced phenolics accumulation. Ferulic acid and p-coumaric acid were the main phenolic acids in wheat sprouts, and dihydroquercetin, quercetin and vitexin were the main flavonoids. The phenolic acid content of Jimai 44 was the highest on the 2th and 4th day of germination, and that of Bainong 307 was the highest on the 6th day. The flavonoid content of Hei jingang was the highest during whole germination. The enzymes activities of phenylalanine ammonia lyase (PAL), cinnamic acid 4-hydroxylase (C4H) and 4-coumarate coenzyme A ligase (4CL) were up-regulated. The activities of catalase, polyphenol oxidase and peroxidase were also activated. Antioxidant capacity of wheat sprouts was enhanced. The results provided new ideas for the production of naturally sourced phenolic rich foods.

Abstract With the increasing number and types of global power loads and the development and popularization of smart grid technology, a large number of researches on load-level non-intrusive load monitoring technology have emerged. However, the unique power characteristics of the load make NILM face the difficult problem of low robustness of feature extraction and low accuracy of classification and identification in the recognition stage. This paper proposes a structured V-I mapping method to address the inherent limitations of traditional V-I trajectory mapping methods from a new perspective. In addition, for the verification of the V-I trajectory mapping method proposed in this paper, the complexity of load characteristics is comprehensively considered, and a lightweight convolutional neural network is designed based on AlexNet. The experimental results on the NILM dataset show that the proposed method significantly improves recognition accuracy compared to existing VI trajectory mapping methods.

Flaxseed oil is rich in polyunsaturated fatty acids and has a variety of physiological functions, at the same time, flaxseed oil has poor oxidation stability, low water solubility and low bioavailability, which seriously limits its application in food and other fields. Embedding flaxseed oil in emulsion system is a potential approach to address these deficiencies. This paper summarizes the characteristics of different emulsion systems, such as ordinary emulsion, microemulsion, nanoemulsion, Pickering emulsion, multiple emulsion and gelled emulsion, as well as the research status of embedding flaxseed oil. Based on the reasons of oxidative stability and bioavailability, the application status of flaxseed oil after embedding in emulsion system is reviewed, aiming to provide some theoretical reference for the in-depth study of emulsion system and the wide application of flaxseed oil.

Raffinose family oligosaccharides (RFOs) are 1, 6-galactosyl extensions of α-sucrose, and are plant non-structural carbohydrates, mainly including raffinose, stachyose and verbasose, which are commonly found in the plant kingdom middle. Among them, it is more common in legumes, Rehmannia glutinosa, Stachys japonica Miq., Stachys sieboldii and other plants, and belongs to functional oligosaccharides. RFOs have great potential in functional food development due to their active functions of regulating intestinal flora, preventing inflammatory bowel disease, protecting liver and lowering blood sugar. This article mainly reviews the sources of RFOs, the current research on the relevant technologies of extraction, separation and purification of RFOs, and the function of RFOs, expecting to provide some theoretical reference for the development and utilization of RFOs and enable them to be better applied in functional food.

Pea polyphenols are secondary metabolites widely existing in peas, mainly including flavonoids (populin, kaempferol, quercetin), phenolic acids (p-coumaric acid, erucic acid, ferulic acid) and tannins (catechins). The content, species and distribution of pea polyphenols depend on pea varieties, but they are affected by environment and inducing factors in the process of their growth. The extraction method of pea polyphenols has gradually changed from inefficient solvent extraction to microwave extraction technology with high efficiency and high extraction rate. The research on its physiological activity has gradually developed to the molecular and cellular level, and its application scope has gradually expanded to meat products, aquatic products, flour products and other industries. In order to further understand the chemical properties and potential utilization value of pea polyphenols, this paper expounds in detail the distribution of pea polyphenols, the factors affecting the types and content of pea polyphenols, the separation and extraction, physiological activity and its application in food industry, in order to provide a theoretical basis for the development and research of pea polyphenols.

Poria cocos peel residue (PCPR) still contains much soluble dietary fiber (SDF), steam explosion (SE) treatment was applied to PCPR to create a superior SDF. Steam pressure of 1.2 MPa, residence period of 120 s, and moisture content of 13% were the optimized parameters for SE treatment of PCPR. Under optimized circumstances, SE treatment of PCPR enhanced its SDF yield from 5.24% to 23.86%. Compared to the original SDF, the SE-treated SDF displayed improved enzyme inhibition, including the inhibition of α-amylase and pancreatic lipase, also enhanced water holding, oil holding, water swelling, nutrient adsorption including cholesterol, nitrite ions, and glucose and antioxidant abilities. Additionally, it had a decreased molecular weight, improved thermal stability, and a rough surface with many pores of different sizes. Given that SDF had been improved physiochemical and functional characteristics thanks to SE treatment, it might be the excellent functional ingredient for the food business.

The oligosaccharides extracted from the seeds of peas, specifically consisting of raffinose, stachyose, and verbascose, fall under the category of raffinose family oligosaccharides (RFOs). The effect of RFOs on intestinal microflora and the anti-inflammatory mechanism were investigated by in vitro fermentation and cell experiments. Firstly, mouse feces were fermented in vitro and different doses of RFOs (0~2%) were added to determine the changes in the representative bacterial community, PH, and short-chain fatty acids in the fermentation solution during the fermentation period. The probiotic index was used to evaluate the probiotic proliferation effect of RFOs and the optimal group was selected for 16S rRNA assay with blank group. Then, the effects of RFOs on the inflammatory response of macrophage RAW264.7 induced by LPS were studied. The activity of cells, the levels of NO, ROS, inflammatory factors, and the expression of NF-κB, p65, and iNOS proteins in related pathways were measured. The results demonstrated that RFOs exerted a stimulatory effect on the proliferation of beneficial bacteria while concurrently inhibiting the growth of harmful bacteria. Moreover, RFOs significantly enhanced the diversity of intestinal flora and reduced the ratio of Firmicutes-to-Bacteroides (F/B). Importantly, it was observed that RFOs effectively suppressed NO and ROS levels, as well as inflammatory cytokine release and expression of NF-κB, p65, and iNOS proteins. These findings highlight the potential of RFOs in promoting intestinal health and ameliorating intestinal inflammation.

Plant-based meat analogues offer an environmentally and scientifically sustainable option as a substitute for animal-derived meat. They contribute to reducing greenhouse gas emissions, freshwater consumption, and the potential risks associated with zoonotic diseases linked to livestock production. However, specific processing methods such as extrusion or cooking, using various raw materials, can influence the survival and growth of spoilage and pathogenic microorganisms, resulting in differences between plant-based meat analogues and animal meat. In this study, the microbial communities in five different types of plant-based meat analogues were investigated using high-throughput sequencing. The findings revealed a diverse range of bacteria, including Cyanobacteria, Firmicutes, Proteobacteria, Bacteroidota, Actinobacteriota, and Chloroflexi, as well as fungi such as Ascomycota, Basidiomycota, Phragmoplastophyta, Vertebrata, and Mucoromycota. Additionally, this study analyzed microbial diversity at the genus level and employed phenotype prediction to evaluate the relative abundance of various bacterium types, including Gram-positive and Gram-negative bacteria, aerobic, anaerobic, and facultative anaerobic bacteria, as well as potential pathogenic bacteria. The insights gained from this study provide valuable information regarding the microbial communities and phenotypes of different plant-based meat analogues, which could help identify effective storage strategies to extend the shelf-life of these products.

2’-Fucosyllactose (2’-FL), the functional oligosaccharide naturally present in milk, has been shown to exert health benefits. This study was aimed to investigate the effect of 2’-fucosyllactose (2’-FL) on the browning of white adipose tissue in 3T3-L1 adipocytes and C3H10T1/2 cells. The results revealed that 2’-FL decreased lipid accumulations with reduced intracellular triglyceride contents in vitro. 2’-FL intervention increased the mitochondria density and the proportion of UCP1-positive cells. The mRNA expressions of the mitochondrial biogenesis-related and browning markers (Cox7a, Cyto C, Tfam, Ucp1, Pgc1α, Prdm16, Cidea, Elovl3, Pparα, CD137, and Tmem26) were increased after 2’-FL intervention to some extent. Similarly, the protein expression of the browning markers, including UCP1, PGC1α, and PRDM16, was up-regulated in the 2’-FL group. Additionally, an adenosine monophosphate-activated protein kinase (AMPK) inhibitor, compound C (1 μM), significantly decreased the induction of thermogenic proteins expressions mediated by 2’-FL, indicating that the 2’-FL-enhanced beige cell formation was partially dependent on the AMPK pathway. In conclusion, 2’-FL effectively promoted the browning of white adipose in vitro.

Pork skin and duck skin are highly favored by consumers in China, and high-temperature processing methods are widely employed in cooking and food preparation. However, the influence of high-temperature treatment on the microbial communities within pork skin and duck skin remains unclear. In this study, a high-temperature treatment method simulating the cooking process was utilized to treat samples of pork skin and duck skin at temperatures ranging from 60 °C to 120 °C. The findings revealed that high-temperature treatment significantly altered the microbial communities in both pork skin and duck skin. Heat exposure resulted in a decrease in microbial diversity and induced changes in the relative abundance of specific microbial groups. In pork skin, high-temperature treatment led to a reduction in bacterial diversity and a decline in the relative abundance of specific bacterial taxa. Similarly, the relative abundance of microbial communities in duck skin also decreased. Furthermore, potential pathogenic bacteria, including Gram-positive and Gram-negative bacteria, as well as aerobic, anaerobic, and facultative anaerobic bacteria, exhibited different responses to high-temperature treatment in pork skin and duck skin. These findings highlighted the substantial impact of high-temperature processing on the composition and structure of microbial communities in pork skin and duck skin, potentially influencing food safety and quality. This study contributed to an enhanced understanding of the microbial mechanisms underlying the alterations in microbial communities during high-temperature processing of pork skin and duck skin, with significant implications for ensuring food safety and developing effective cooking techniques.

Abstract Recently, with the construction of smart city, the research on environmental sound classification (ESC) has attracted the attention of academia and industry. The development of convolutional neural network (CNN) makes the accuracy of ESC reach a higher level, but the accuracy improvement brought by CNN is often accompanied by the deepening of network layers, which leads to the rapid growth of parameters and floating-point operations (FLOPs). Therefore, it is difficult to transplant CNN model to embedded devices, and the classification speed is also difficult to accept. In order to reduce the hardware requirements of running CNN and improve the speed of ESC, this paper proposes a resource adaptive convolutional neural network (RACNN). RACNN uses a novel resource adaptive convolutional (RAC) module, which can generate the same number of feature maps as conventional convolution operations more cheaply, and extract the time and frequency features of audio efficiently. The RAC block based on the RAC module is designed to build the lightweight RACNN model, and the RAC module can also be used to upgrade the existing CNN model. Experiments based on public datasets show that RACNN achieves higher performance than the state-of-the-art methods with lower computational complexity.

IntroductionExcessive calorie intake and physical inactivity have dramatically increased nutrient overload-associated disease, becoming a global public health issue. Chimonanthus salicifolius S. Y. Hu (CHI) is a homology plant of food and medicine in China and shows several health benefits.MethodsThis work investigated the antioxidant activity, the alleviating effects, and the mechanism of action on diabetes and hyperlipidemia of CHI leaves.Results and discussionResults showed that CHI leaves infusion displayed in vitro antioxidant activity measured by ABTS and ferric reducing antioxidant power methods. In wild-type Kunming mice, CHI leaves infusion consumption activated the hepatic antioxidant enzymes, including glutathione reductase, glutathione S-transferase, glutathione peroxidase and thioredoxin reductase as well as thioredoxin reductase 1. In alloxan-induced type 1 diabetic mice, CHI leaves infusion ameliorated diabetic symptoms, including polyuria, polydipsia, polyphagia and hyperglycemia, in a dose-dependent and time-course manners. The mechanism involved CHI leaves up-regulating renal water reabsorption associated protein – urine transporter A1–and promoting the trafficking of urine transporter A1 and aquaporin 2 to the apical plasma membrane. Despite this, in high-fat diet-induced hyperlipidemic golden hamsters, CHI leaves powder did not significantly effect on hyperlipidemia and body weight gain. This might be attributed to CHI leaves powder increasing the calorie intake. Interestingly, we found that CHI leaves extract containing a lower dose of total flavonoid than CHI leaves powder pronouncedly reduced the levels of total cholesterol, triglyceride, and low-density lipoprotein cholesterol in serum in golden hamsters fed a high-fat diet. Furthermore, CHI leaves extract elevated the diversity of gut microbiota and the abundance of Bifidobacterium and Ruminococcaceae_UCG-014. It also decreased the abundance of Lactobacillus at the genus level in golden hamsters fed a high-fat diet. Overall, CHI leaves benefit oxidative stress prevention and metabolic syndrome amelioration in vivo.

Abstract Environmental sound classification is one of the important issues in the audio recognition field. Compared with structured sounds such as speech and music, the time–frequency structure of environmental sounds is more complicated. In order to learn time and frequency features from Log-Mel spectrogram more effectively, a temporal-frequency attention based convolutional neural network model (TFCNN) is proposed in this paper. Firstly, an experiment that is used as motivation in proposed method is designed to verify the effect of a specific frequency band in the spectrogram on model classification. Secondly, two new attention mechanisms, temporal attention mechanism and frequency attention mechanism, are proposed. These mechanisms can focus on key frequency bands and semantic related time frames on the spectrogram to reduce the influence of background noise and irrelevant frequency bands. Then, a feature information complementarity is formed by combining these mechanisms to more accurately capture the critical time–frequency features. In such a way, the representation ability of the network model can be greatly improved. Finally, experiments on two public data sets, UrbanSound 8 K and ESC-50, demonstrate the effectiveness of the proposed method.

It is well known that lead-induced neurotoxicity is closely related to oxidative stress. According to previous reports, wheat germ peptides (WGPs) isolated from wheat germ have been shown to have potent antioxidant capacity. This study hypothesized that WGPs could protect PC12 cells from lead-induced oxidative stress. Here, the protecting-efficacies of WGPs were investigated in PC12 cells that were pretreated with WGPs (200 μM, 4 h) and exposed to lead (10 μM, 24 h). The antioxidant capacity was assessed by cell viability, ROS, MDA, SOD, CAT, GR, GPx, GSH, and GSSG. The experimental results showed that WGP3, WGP8, and WGP9 could reverse the reduction of cell viability caused by lead exposure. Lead exposure causes oxidative stress by increasing the levels of ROS and MDA. Moreover, the decrease in the levels of SOD, CAT, GPx, GR, and GSH/GSSG could be observed. However, WGP3, WGP8, and WGP9 can protect PC12 cells against lead-induced oxidative stress by reversing these phenomena. The protein expression of TXNIP, Keap1, and Nrf2 was characterized by western blotting, and the results illustrated that lead exposure up-regulated the expression of TXNIP and Keap1 and down-regulated the expression of Nrf2, and WGP3, WGP8, and WGP9 could improve the antioxidant capacity of PC12 cells by reversing this phenomenon. Therefore, the present study demonstrated that WGP3, WGP8, and WGP9 may protect against lead-induced oxidative stress in PC12 cells by regulating the TXNIP/Keap1/Nrf2 pathway.

IntroductionLead (Pb) has many applications in daily life, but in recent years, various problems caused by lead exposure have aroused people’s concern. Folic acid is widely found in fruits and has received more attention for its antioxidant function. However, the role of folic acid in lead-induced kidney injury in rats is unclear. This study was designed to investigate the effects of folic acid on oxidative stress and endoplasmic reticulum stress in the kidney of rats caused by lead exposure.MethodsForty specific pathogen-free male Rattus norvegicus rats were randomly divided into control, lead, intervention, and folic acid groups. The levels of SOD, GSH-Px, GSH, and MDA were measured by biochemical kits. The protein levels of Nrf2, HO-1, CHOP, and GRP78 were measured by immunofluorescence.ResultsThis study showed that lead exposure increased the blood levels of lead in mice. However, the intervention of folic acid decreased the levels of lead, but the difference was not statistically significant. Lead exposure causes oxidative stress by decreasing kidney SOD, GSH-Px, and GSH levels and increasing MDA levels. However, folic acid alleviated the oxidative damage caused by lead exposure by increasing the levels of GSH-Px and GSH and decreasing the levels of MDA. Immunofluorescence results showed that folic acid intervention downregulated the upregulation of kidney Nrf2, HO-1, GRP78, and CHOP expression caused by lead exposure.DiscussionOverall, folic acid alleviates kidney oxidative stress induced by lead exposure by regulating Nrf2 and HO-1, while regulating CHOP and GRP78 to mitigate apoptosis caused by excessive endoplasmic reticulum stress.

BackgroundLead poisoning causes an oxidative stress response – a key “bridge” connecting various pathways – in the human body. Oxidative stress usually implies an imbalance between pro-oxidants and antioxidants. Moreover, Nrf2, Keap1, and TXNIP proteins play an essential role in oxidative stress. Some studies showed that pea peptides could alleviate the oxidative stress response. However, the effect and mechanism of pea peptide on oxidative stress response induced by lead in PC12 cells has not been reported.AimInvestigating the effect and mechanism of pea peptides in alleviating oxidative damage in PC12 cells induced by lead.MethodsIn this study, cell viability was measured by CCK8 (Cell Counting Kit-8). Superoxide dismutase (SOD), catalase (CAT), glutathione (GSH), glutathione reductase (GR), glutathione peroxidase (GPx), reactive oxygen species (ROS), and lipid peroxidation (MDA) were measured using the corresponding Biochemical kits. The Keap1, Nrf2, and TXNIP protein expressions were tested using Western blot.ResultsPea peptides PP3, PP4, and PP6 could reverse the decrease of cell viability caused by lead exposure (P < 0.05), the elevation of ROS and MDA caused by lead exposure, and the decrease of CAT, SOD, GR, GPx, and GSH/GSSG caused by lead exposure (P < 0.05). Moreover, PP3, PP4, and PP6 could reduce the elevated expression of Keap1 and TXNIP caused by lead exposure; and increase the expression of Nrf2 (P < 0.05).ConclusionPP3, PP4, and PP6 can alleviate lead-induced oxidative stress damage in PC12 cells, and the Nrf2/Keap1/TXNIP signaling pathway may play an essential role in this process.

Abstract Previously, we had cross-sectionally explored the characteristics of T cell receptor (TCR) repertoires from occupational medicamentosa-like dermatitis due to trichloroethylene (OMDT) patients, now we further analyzed the dynamic features of OMDT TCR repertoires. Peripheral blood TCR β-chain complementarity-determining region 3 (CDR3) genes were detected with the high throughput sequencing in 24 OMDT cases in their acute, chronic and recovery stages, respectively, and in 24 trichloroethylene-exposed healthy controls. The TCR repertoire diversity, TRBV/TRBD/TRBJ gene usage and combination, frequencies of CDR3 nucleotide (nt) and amino acid (aa) sequences in the cases in different stages and in the controls were analyzed. TRBV6-4 and TRBV7-9 frequencies significantly differed between the cases and controls (both P

In this study, the effects of γ-aminobutyric acid (GABA) on physio-biochemical metabolism, phenolic acid accumulation, and antioxidant system enhancement in germinated wheat under drought stress was investigated. The results showed that exogenous GABA reduced the oxidative damage in wheat seedlings caused by drought stress and enhanced the content of phenolics, with 1.0 mM being the most effective concentration. Six phenolic acids were detected in bound form, including p-hydroxybenzoic acid, vanillic acid, syringic acid, p-coumaric acid, ferulic acid, and sinapic acid. However, only syringic acid and p-coumaric acid were found in free form. A total of 1.0 mM of GABA enhanced the content of total phenolic acids by 28% and 22%, respectively, compared with that of drought stress, on day four and day six of germination. The activities of phenylalanine ammonia lyase (PAL), cinnamic acid 4-hydroxylase (C4H) and 4-coumarate coenzyme A ligase (4CL) were activated by drought stress plus GABA treatment. Antioxidant enzyme activities were also induced. These results indicate that GABA treatment may be an effective way to relieve drought stress as it activates the antioxidant system of plants by inducing the accumulation of phenolics and the increase in antioxidant enzyme activity.

Increasing evidence shows that selenium and polyphenols are two types of the most reported compounds in tumor chemoprevention due to their remarkable antitumor activity and high safety profile. The cross-talk between polyphenols and selenium is a hot research topic, and the combination of polyphenols and selenium is a valuable strategy for fighting cancer. The current work investigated the combination anti-peritoneal carcinomatosis (PC) effect of selenium nanoparticles (SeNPs) and green tea (Camellia sinensis) polyphenol (-)-epigallocatechin-3-gallate (EGCG) in mice bearing murine hepatocarcinoma 22 (H22) cells. Results showed that SeNPs alone significantly inhibited cancer cell proliferation and extended the survival time of mice bearing H22 cells. Still, the potential therapeutic efficacy is accompanied by an approximately eighty percent diarrhea rate. When EGCG was combined with SeNPs, EGCG did not affect the tumor proliferation inhibition effect but eliminated diarrhea triggered by SeNPs. In addition, both the intracellular selectively accumulated EGCG without killing effect on cancer cells and the enhanced antioxidant enzyme levels in ascites after EGCG was delivered alone by intraperitoneal injection indicated that H22 cells were insensitive to EGCG. Moreover, EGCG could prevent SeNP-caused systemic oxidative damage by enhancing serum superoxide dismutase, glutathione, and glutathione peroxidase levels in healthy mice. Overall, we found that H22 cells are insensitive to EGCG, but combining EGCG with SeNPs could protect against SeNP-triggered diarrhea without compromising the suppressing efficacy of SeNPs on PC in mice bearing H22 cells and attenuate SeNP-caused systemic toxicity in healthy mice. These results suggest that EGCG could be employed as a promising candidate for preventing the adverse reactions of chemotherapy including chemotherapy-induced diarrhea and systemic toxicity in cancer individuals.

In recent years, with the construction of intelligent cities, the importance of environmental sound classification (ESC) research has become increasingly prominent. However, due to the non-stationary nature of environment sound and the strong interference of ambient noise, the recognition accuracy of ESC is not high enough. Even with deep learning methods, it is difficult to fully extract features from models with a single input. Aiming to improve the recognition accuracy of ESC, this paper proposes a two-stream convolutional neural network (CNN) based on raw audio CNN (RACNN) and logmel CNN (LMCNN). In this method, a pre-emphasis module is first constructed to deal with raw audio signal. The processed audio data and logmel data are imported into RACNN and LMCNN, respectively to obtain both of time and frequency features of audio. In addition, a random-padding method is proposed to patch shorter data sequences. In such a way, the available data for experiment are greatly increased. Finally, the effectiveness of the methods has been verified based on UrbanSound8K dataset in experimental part.

Lead (Pb) is a heavy metal environmental pollutant that can cause functional damage and anemia of immune organs. More and more evidence indicate that the toxicity of lead was related to apoptosis driven by oxidative stress and endoplasmic reticulum stress. This article mainly discusses the protective effect and mechanism of folic acid intervention on lead-induced spleen injury and apoptosis. In this study, Sprague-Dawley rats were randomly divided into control group, lead exposure group (0.2% lead acetate), folic acid + lead group (0.4 mg/kg folic acid and 0.2% lead acetate), and folic acid group (0.4 mg/kg folic acid). By recording and calculating the rat's initial body weight, final body weight, net weight gain, daily weight gain, and spleen index, observe the rat's weight change and spleen weight. And adopt the immunofluorescence staining method to determine the expression level of NrF2, HO-1, GRP78, CHOP protein in the spleen. The results showed that The 0.4 mg/kg folic acid diet did not significantly improve in the body weight and spleen index of lead-exposed rats (P > 0.05). While compared with the control group, the expression levels of HO-1 and CHOP protein were significantly increased in the lead exposure group (P

The heavy metal lead in the environment is a neurotoxin with very strong biological toxicity which can cause serious damage to the learning and memory ability of humans and animals, folic acid can be involved in biological process to prevent impaired learning and memory. however, the specific mechanism is not clear. Herein, in order to explore whether folic acid has a protective effect on learning ousing on the M6A of FTO/METTL3 pathway control and learning and memory ability by lead exposure. Forty 6-week-old male rats were randomly divided into four groups, which drinking water freely model to establish folic acid (0.4 mg/ kg ·bw/day) intervention model of acute lead (0.2% lead acetate solution) exposure, and the determination of lead in hippocampus and Serum by GFAAP and the expression of FTO and METTL3 protein was detected by immunofluorescence assay, the methylation level of m6A in hippocampus was detected by EpiQuikTM m6A RNA methylation quantitative. A Morris water maze was used to test the spatial learning and memory ability of animals by positioning navigation experiment and space exploration experiment. Result display: Comparing to the control group, in the hippocampus, the expression of FTO in the lead exposure group was significantly increased (P

Occupational cancer causes a large number of deaths every year, posing a great threat to public health in China and abroad. Occupational cancer surveillance can help to dynamically monitor and predict the trend of cancer occurrence and provide basic reference for the formulation of occupational cancer prevention and treatment measures. Occupational cancer surveillance started late in China relative to developed western countries, but formed its own characteristics through years of development of legislation and institutional reform, and large-scale epidemiological investigations and laboratory research. Occupational cancer surveillance is currently a part of cancer surveillance system of the National Cancer Center, as well as an integral part of occupational disease surveillance in China. It generally includes not only cancer incidence surveillance, but also cancer-related occupational risk factor surveillance, and surveillance of effects of occupational cancer prevention, treatment, and intervention. The methods of occupational cancer surveillance in China include passive monitoring, active monitoring, and sentinel monitoring. These methods have their respective advantages and disadvantages and would be best to be combined in practice. The rapid development of economy and technology, and continuous advancement of hospital informatization, especially the establishment and application of big data on occupational cancer, may point out directions for the development of occupational cancer surveillance in the future. Occupational cancer prevention and control in China still has a long way to go and the destination is to achieve primary prevention for occupational cancer.

Abstract Human exposure to lead mainly occurs by ingestion of contaminated food, water and soil. Blocking lead uptake in the gastrointestinal tract is a novel prevention strategy. Whole-cell biosorbent for lead was constructed with PbrR genetically engineered on the cell surface of Escherichia coli (E. coli), a predominant strain among intestinal microflora, using lipoprotein (Lpp)-OmpA as the anchoring protein. In vitro, the PbrR displayed cells had an enhanced ability for immobilizing toxic lead(II) ions from the external media at both acidic and neutral pH, and exhibited a higher specific adsorption for lead compared to other physiological two valence metal ions. In vivo, the persistence of recombinant E. coli in the murine intestinal tract and the integrity of surface displayed PbrR were confirmed. In addition, oral administration of surface-engineered E. coli was safe in mice, in which the concentrations of physiological metal ions in blood were not affected. More importantly, lead associated with PbrR-displayed E. coli was demonstrated to be less bioavailable in the experimental mouse model with exposure to oral lead. This is reflected by significantly lower blood and femur lead concentrations in PbrR-displayed E. coli groups compared to the control. These results open up the possibility for the removal of toxic metal ions in vivo using engineered microorganisms as adsorbents.

Abstract Background The current chassis organisms or various types of cell factories have considerable advantages and disadvantages. Therefore, it is necessary to develop various chassis for an efficient production of different bioproducts from renewable resources. In this context, synthetic biology offers unique potentialities to produce value-added products of interests. Microbial genome reduction and modification are important strategies for constructing cellular chassis and cell factories. Many genome-reduced strains from Escherichia coli, Bacillus subtilis, Corynebacterium glutamicum and Streptomyces, have been widely used for the production of amino acids, organic acids, and some enzymes. Some Pseudomonas strains could serve as good candidates for ideal chassis cells since they grow fast and can produce many valuable metabolites with low nutritional requirements and strong environmental adaptability. Pseudomonas chlororaphis GP72 is a non-pathogenic plant growth-promoting rhizobacterium that possesses capacities of tolerating various environmental stresses and synthesizing many kinds of bioactive compounds with high yield. These include phenazine-1-carboxylic acid (PCA) and 2-hydroxyphenazine (2-OH-PHZ), which exhibit strong bacteriostatic and antifungal activity toward some microbial pathogens. Results We depleted 685 kb (10.3% of the genomic sequence) from the chromosome of P. chlororaphis GP72(rpeA-) by a markerless deletion method, which included five secondary metabolic gene clusters and 17 strain-specific regions (525 non-essential genes). Then we characterized the 22 multiple-deletion series (MDS) strains. Growth characteristics, production of phenazines and morphologies were changed greatly in mutants with large-fragment deletions. Some of the genome-reduced P. chlororaphis mutants exhibited more productivity than the parental strain GP72(rpeA-). For example, strain MDS22 had 4.4 times higher production of 2-OH-PHZ (99.1 mg/L) than strain GP72(rpeA-), and the specific 2-OH-PHZ production rate (mmol/g/h) increased 11.5-fold. Also and MDS10 had the highest phenazine production (852.0 mg/L) among all the studied strains with a relatively high specific total phenazine production rate (0.0056 g/g/h). Conclusions In conclusion, P. chlororaphis strains with reduced genome performed better in production of secondary metabolites than the parent strain. The newly developed mutants can be used for the further genetic manipulation to construct chassis cells with the less complex metabolic network, better regulation and more efficient productivity for diverse biotechnological applications.

Inhibition of Salmonella by Lactobacillus has been a popular research topic for decades; however, the inhibition potential of chicken-derived Salmonella by chicken-derived Lactobacillus has not yet been studied. In this study, 89 strains of Lactobacillus from chicken intestines were isolated by national standard method, Gram staining, physiological, and biochemical experiments and molecular sequencing; The inhibition characteristics of 89 strains of chicken derived Lactobacillus against 10 strains Salmonella (S. Enteritidis SE05, SC31, SC21, SC72 SC74, SC79, SC83, SC87; S. bongori SE47; S. Typhimurium, SC85) were detected by agar inhibition zone, The results showed that the inhibition zone of 24 strains of chicken derived Lactobacillus was more than 10 mm, which indicated that the isolated chicken derived Lactobacillus could effectively inhibit the growth of Salmonella; The drug resistance and bile salt tolerance of these 24 strains were analyzed, The results showed that the standard strains LG and L76 were not resistant, and the other 22 Lactobacillus strains showed different degrees of resistance. The strains LAB24, LAB26, LAB53, LAB69, and L76 showed good tolerance at the concentration of 3 g/L bile salt; Caco-2 cell experiment and flow cytometry were used to analyze the inhibitory effect of chicken derived Lactobacillus on the adhesion of Salmonella to Caco-2 cells, The results showed that 16 probiotics could effectively inhibit the adhesion of Salmonella to Caco-2 cells. Twelve probiotics were identified by molecular biology. The results showed that L76 was Enterococcus faecalis, and the other 11 strains were Lactobacillus.

Pseudomonas chlororaphis HT66 is a plant-beneficial bacterium that exhibits wider antagonistic spectrum against a variety of plant pathogenic fungi due to its main secondary metabolite, i.e., phenazine-1-carboxamide (PCN). In the present study, a spontaneous phenotypic variant designated as HT66-FLUO was isolated from the fermentation process of wild-type HT66 strain. The newly isolated phenotypic variant was morphologically distinct from the wild-type strain such as larger cell size, semi-transparent, non-production of PCN (Green or yellow crystals) and enhanced fluorescence under UV light. The whole-genome, RNA-sequencing, and phenotypic assays were performed to identify the reason of phenotypic variation in HT66-FLUO as compared to the HT66. Transcriptomic analysis revealed that 1,418 genes, representing approximately 22% of the 6393 open reading frames (ORFs) had undergone substantial reprogramming of gene expression in the HT66-FLUO. The whole-genome sequence indicated no gene alteration in HT66-FLUO as compared to HT66 according to the known reference sequence. The levels of global regulatory factor gacA and gacS expression were not significantly different between HT66 and HT66-FLUO. It was observed that overexpressing gacS rather than gacA in HT66-FLUO can recover switching of the variant to HT66. The β-galactosidase (LacZ) activity and qRT-PCR results indicate the downregulated expression of rsmX, rsmY, and rsmZ in HT66-FLUO as compared to HT66. Overexpressing three small RNAs in HT66-FLUO can revert switching of colony phenotype toward wild-type HT66 up to a certain degree, restore partial PCN production and reduces the fluorescent siderophores yield. However, the origin of the spontaneous phenotypic variant was difficult to be determined. In conclusion, this study helps to understand the gene regulatory effect in the spontaneous phenotypic variant.

Pseudomonas aeruginosa M18, a rhizosphere-isolated bacterial strain showing strong antifungal activity, can produce secondary metabolites such as phenazine-1-carboxylic acid and pyoluteorin (Plt). The LysR-type transcriptional regulator PltR activates the Plt biosynthesis operon pltLABCDEFG, the expression of which is induced by Plt. Here, we identified and characterized the non-conserved pltL promoter (pltLp) specifically activated by PltR and its upstream neighboring lys box from the complicated pltR-pltL intergenic sequence. The 22 bp palindromic lys box, which consists of two 9 bp complementary inverted repeats interrupted by 4 bp, was found to contain the conserved, GC-rich LysR-binding motif (T-N(11)-A). Evidence obtained in vivo from mutational and lacZ report analyses and in vitro from electrophoretic mobility shift assays reveals that the PltR protein directly bound to the pltLp region as the indispensable binding motif "lys box", thereby transcriptionally activating the pltLp-driven plt operon expression. Plt, as a potential non-essential coinducer of PltR, specifically induced the pltLp expression and thus strengthened its biosynthetic plt operon expression.

BACKGROUND: Phenazines are important compounds produced by pseudomonads and other bacteria. Two phz gene clusters called phzA1-G1 and phzA2-G2, respectively, were found in the genome of Pseudomonas sp. M18, an effective biocontrol agent, which is highly homologous to the opportunistic human pathogen P. aeruginosa PAO1, however little is known about the correlation between the expressions of two phz gene clusters. METHODOLOGY/PRINCIPAL FINDINGS: Two chromosomal insertion inactivated mutants for the two gene clusters were constructed respectively and the correlation between the expressions of two phz gene clusters was investigated in strain M18. Phenazine-1-carboxylic acid (PCA) molecules produced from phzA2-G2 gene cluster are able to auto-regulate expression itself and activate the expression of phzA1-G1 gene cluster in a circulated amplification pattern. However, the post-transcriptional expression of phzA1-G1 transcript was blocked principally through 5'-untranslated region (UTR). In contrast, the phzA2-G2 gene cluster was transcribed to a lesser extent and translated efficiently and was negatively regulated by the GacA signal transduction pathway, mainly at a post-transcriptional level. CONCLUSIONS/SIGNIFICANCE: A single molecule, PCA, produced in different quantities by the two phz gene clusters acted as the functional mediator and the two phz gene clusters developed a specific regulatory mechanism which acts through 5'-UTR to transfer a single, but complex bacterial signaling event in Pseudomonas sp. strain M18.