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Gushen Jiedu capsule (GSJD) is a formula that has been widely used in traditional Chinese medicine for the prevention and treatment of diabetic nephropathy (DN). However, the mechanism underlying the protective effects of GSJD on DN is still unclear. This study was performed to clarify the therapeutic effects of GSJD on DN and its underlying mechanisms. High-fat diet- and streptozotocin-induced DN rats were treated with or without GSJD suspension by gavage for 8 weeks, and biochemical changes in blood and urine were analysed. Kidneys were isolated for histological, TUNEL and Western blot analysis. Compared to the DN group, the GSJD-treated groups exhibited decreased urinary albumin, ameliorated renal dysfunction, including serum creatinine and blood urea nitrogen, and attenuated total cholesterol, triglyceride and total protein levels. However, there were no significant effects of GSJD on body weight, fasting blood glucose or albuminuria. Histology showed that GSJD could retard the progression of DN and decrease the apoptosis rate from 52% to less than 20%. Western blot analysis showed that GSJD could regulate the mitochondrial apoptotic pathway by downregulating the expression of Bax and upregulating the expression of BCL-2 in the kidneys of DN rats. Moreover, the Akt pathway, an upstream signalling pathway of the BCL-2 family, was also ameliorated by GSJD. Further, the podocyte foot process markers podocin and nephrin were upregulated by GSJD in DN rats. This study demonstrated that GSJD might play a renoprotective role by inhibiting apoptosis and regulating the mitochondrial apoptotic and Akt pathways during pathological changes in DN.

Catalytic and selective oxidation of monosaccharides into value-added sugar acids is highly desirable from both scientific and industrial perspectives. Here, we report a hierarchical porous carbon (NC-3) supported gold catalyst (Au/NC-3) and its application in the base-free aerobic oxidation of D-glucose and D-xylose into value-added sugar acids under mild conditions (100 °C). The catalyst exhibited excellent catalytic performance with the yields of D-gluconic acid and D-xylonic acid reaching 97.62% and 98.76%, respectively. We studied the effect of the ball-milling process on the hierarchical porous preparation, which is critical to the formation of the fibrous structure during the pyrosis process. This specific structure provides active sites for Au adsorption. DFT calculation revealed that the Au NPs prefer to anchor on pyridinic N sites; meanwhile, the initial reactants and essential intermediates are found to be well stabilized by Au/NC-3. Moreover, upon recycling, gold was stable toward the recovery procedure. In this work, we provide a green method for an improved generally selective oxidation of D-glucose and D-xylose using Au/NC-3 as an efficient heterogeneous catalyst.

Prefabricated construction hoisting has one of the highest rates of fatalities and injuries compared to other construction processes, despite technological advancements and implementations of safety initiatives. Current safety risk management frameworks lack tools that are able to process in-situ data efficiently and predict risk in advance, which makes it difficult to guarantee the safety of hoisting. Thus, this article proposed an intelligent safety risk prediction framework of prefabricated construction hoisting. It can predict the hoisting risk in real-time and investigate the spatial-temporal evolution law of the risk. Firstly, the multi-dimensional and multi-scale Digital Twin model is built by collecting the hoisting information. Secondly, a Digital Twin-Support Vector Machine (DT-SVM) algorithm is proposed to process the data stored in the virtual model and collected on the site. A case study of a prefabricated construction project reveals its prediction function and deduces the spatial-temporal evolution law of hoisting risk. The proposed method has made advancements in improving the safety management level of prefabricated hoisting. Moreover, the proposed method is able to identify the deficiencies regarding digital-twin-level control methods, which can be improved towards automatic controls in future studies.

Given the high and increasing prevalence of obesity, the safe and effective treatment of obesity would be beneficial. Here, we examined whether oral hydroxysafflor yellow A (HSYA), an active compound from the dried florets of Carthamus tinctorius L., can reduce high-fat (HF) diet-induced obesity in C57BL/6 J mice. Our results showed that the average body weight of HF group treated by HSYA was significantly lower than that of the HF group (P 0.01). HSYA also reduced fat accumulation, ameliorated insulin resistance, restored glucose homeostasis, reduced inflammation, enhanced intestinal integrity, and increased short-chain fatty acids (SCFAs) production in HF diet-fed mice. Sequencing of 16S rRNA genes in fecal samples demonstrated that HSYA reversed HF diet induced gut microbiota dysbiosis. Particularly, HSYA increased the relative abundances of genera Akkermansia and Romboutsia, as well as SCFAs-producing bacteria, including genera Butyricimonas and Alloprevotella, whereas it decreased the phyla Firmicutes/Bacteroidetes ratio of HF diet-fed mice. Additionally, serum metabolomics analysis revealed that HSYA increased lysophosphatidylcholines (lysoPCs), L-carnitine and sphingomyelin, and decreased phosphatidylcholines in mice fed a HF diet, as compared to HF group. These changed metabolites were mainly linked with the pathways of glycerophospholipid metabolism and sphingolipid metabolism. Spearman's correlation analysis further revealed that Firmicutes was positively while Bacteroidetes and Akkermansia were negatively correlated with body weight, fasting serum glucose and insulin. Moreover, Akkermansia and Butyricimonas had positive correlations with lysoPCs, suggestive of the role of gut microbiota in serum metabolites. Our findings suggest HSYA may be a potential therapeutic drug for obesity and the gut microbiota may be potential territory for targeting of HSYA.

Recently, the nanofiber materials derived from natural polymers instead of petroleum-based polymers by electrospinning have aroused a great deal of interests. The lignocellulosic biomass could not be electrospun into nanofiber directly due to its poor solubility. Here, sugarcane bagasse (SCB) was subjected to the homogeneous esterification with different anhydrides, and the corresponding esterified products (SCB-A) were obtained. It was found that the bead-free and uniform nanofibers were obtained via electrospinning even when the mass fraction of acetylated SCB was 70%. According to the thermogravimetric analyses, the addition of SCB-A could improve the thermal stability of the electrospun composite nanofibers. More importantly, in contrast to the pure polyacrylonitrile (PAN) based carbon nanofiber, the SCB-A based carbon nanofibers had higher electrical conductivity and the surface N element content. In addition, the superfine carbon nanofiber mats with minimum average diameter of 117.0 &plusmn, 13.7 nm derived from SCB-A were obtained, which results in a larger Brunauer&ndash, Emmett&ndash, Teller (BET) surface area than pure PAN based carbon nanofiber. These results demonstrated that the combination of the homogeneous esterification and electrospinning could be a feasible and potential way to produce the bio-based carbon nanofibers directly from lignocellulosic without component separation.

Increased circulating branched-chain amino acids (BCAAs) have been involved in the pathogenesis of obesity and insulin resistance (IR). However, evidence relating berberine (BBR), gut microbiota, BCAAs, and IR is limited. Here, we showed that BBR could effectively rectify steatohepatitis and glucose intolerance in high-fat diet (HFD)-fed mice. BBR reorganized gut microbiota populations under both the normal chow diet (NCD) and HFD. Particularly, BBR noticeably decreased the relative abundance of BCAA-producing bacteria, including order Clostridiales; families Streptococcaceae, Clostridiaceae, and Prevotellaceae; and genera Streptococcus and Prevotella. Compared with the HFD group, predictive metagenomics indicated a reduction in the proportion of gut microbiota genes involved in BCAA biosynthesis but the enrichment genes for BCAA degradation and transport by BBR treatment. Accordingly, the elevated serum BCAAs of HFD group were significantly decreased by BBR. Furthermore, the Western blotting results implied that BBR could promote the BCAA catabolism in the liver and epididymal white adipose tissues of HFD-fed mice by activation of the multienzyme branched-chain α-ketoacid dehydrogenase complex (BCKDC), whereas by inhibition of the phosphorylation state of BCKDHA (E1α subunit) and branched-chain α-ketoacid dehydrogenase kinase (BCKDK). The ex vivo assay further confirmed that BBR could increase BCAA catabolism in both AML12 hepatocytes and 3T3-L1 adipocytes. Finally, data from healthy subjects and diabetics confirmed that BBR could improve glycemic control and modulate circulating BCAAs. Together, our findings clarified BBR improving IR associated not only with gut microbiota alteration in BCAA biosynthesis but also with BCAA catabolism in liver and adipose tissues.

Xueshuantong Lyophilized Powder (XST), consisting of a series of saponins extracted from Panax notoginseng, is widely applied to treat acute cerebral infarction, stroke, and coronary heart disease in China. However, most adverse drug reactions (ADR) in clinic are caused by quality problems of XST. In this study, six batches of certainly abnormal, four batches of possibly abnormal XST, and eight batches of normal XST were obtained from the clinical practice. Their quality fluctuations were identified by ultra-performance liquid chromatography coupled with an electrospray ionization quadrupole time-of-flight mass spectrometry operating in MSE mode (UPLC-QTOF/MSE) and bioassays including antithrombin and proplasmin assay. Fourteen potential components responsible for clinical ADR were identified by UPLC-QTOF/MSE, especially ginsenoside Rg1, Rg3, Rb1 and notoginsenoside R1. In addition, 83.3% (5/6) and 50.0% (3/6) certainly abnormal samples could be identified by UPLC-QTOF/MSE and bioassay, respectively. Interestingly, further integration of the two methods could entirely identify all the certainly abnormal samples and inferred that all the possibly abnormal samples were closely related to their quality fluctuation. It indicates that it is advisable to combine UPLC-QTOF/MSE and bioassay for identifying quality fluctuation of XST, and thus reduce its ADR in clinic.