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BACKGROUND: Cyclophosphamide (Cy) is a frequently used chemotherapeutic drug, but long‐term Cy treatment can cause immunosuppression and intestinal mucosal damage. The intestinal mucosal barrier and gut flora play important roles in regulating host metabolism, maintaining physiological functions and protecting immune homeostasis. Dysbiosis of the intestinal flora affects the development of the intestinal microenvironment, as well as the development of various external systemic diseases and metabolic syndrome. RESULTS: The present study investigated the influence of sciadonic acid (SA) on Cy‐induced immunosuppression in mice. The results showed that SA gavage significantly alleviated Cy‐induced immune damage by improving the immune system organ index, immune response and oxidative stress. Moreover, SA restored intestinal morphology, improved villus integrity and activated the nuclear factor κB signaling pathway, stimulated cytokine production, and reduced serum lipopolysaccharide (LPS) levels. Furthermore, gut microbiota analysis indicated that SA increased t beneficial bacteria (Alistipes, Lachnospiraceae_NK4A136_group, Rikenella and Odoribacter) and decreased pathogenic bacteria (norank‐f‐Oscillospiraceae, Ruminococcus and Desulfovibrio) to maintain intestinal homeostasis. CONCLUSION: The present study provided new insights into the SA regulation of intestinal flora to enhance immune responses. © 2024 Society of Chemical Industry. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Objective: To investigate the potential beneficial effects of sciadonic acid (SA) on improving obesity induced by a high-fat diet in mice. Methods: Forty-eight male C57BL/6 mice were adaptively fed for one week and then randomly divided into the following groups: Control group (C), positive control group (S), model group (M), low-dose sciadonic acid group (LSA), medium-dose sciadonic acid group (MSA), and high-dose sciadonic acid group (HSA). The modeling process lasted for 16 weeks, and the low and high-dose groups were orally administered different doses of SA solution at a fixed time each day. After the modeling period, potential mechanisms of SA in regulating lipid metabolism in obese mice were explored, including aspects such as blood lipid metabolism, hepatic fat metabolism, hepatic oxidative stress, hepatic lipid synthesis, and expression of metabolism-related genes. Results: The high-dose SA intervention in obese mice significantly decreased the levels of total cholesterol (TC), triglycerides (TG), and low-density lipoprotein cholesterol (LDL-C) in serum, while increasing high-density lipoprotein cholesterol (HDL-C) (P<0.05). It inhibited weight gain, reduced epididymal fat accumulation, and improved liver tissue damage. Additionally, SA significantly increased the activities of antioxidant enzymes such as superoxide dismutase (SOD) and glutathione peroxidase (GSH-Px) in mice (P<0.05), and significantly reduced the production of oxidative end products MDA (P<0.05), alleviated oxidative stress in vivo, and inhibited lipid synthesis by regulating the expression of genes related to lipid metabolism to improve lipid metabolism. Conclusion: SA could improve lipid metabolism disorders in obese mice by suppressing fat accumulation, alleviate oxidative stress, regulate lipid synthesis and metabolism. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Reducing the cost and improving the electrocatalytic activity are the key to developing high efficiency electrocatalysts for oxygen evolution reaction (OER). Here, bimetallic NiFe-based metal-organic framework (MOF) was prepared by solvothermal method, and then used as precursor to prepare NiFe-based MOF-derived materials by pyrolysis. The effects of different metal ratios and pyrolysis temperatures on the sample structure and OER electrocatalytic performance were investigated and compared. The experimental results showed that when the metal molar ratio was Fe: Ni = 1:5 and the pyrolysis temperature was 450°C, the sample (FeNi5-MOF-450) exhibits a composite structure of NiFe2O4/FeNi3/C and owns the superior electrocatalytic activity in OER. When the current density is 100 mA·cm−2, the overpotential of the sample was 377 mV with Tafel slope of 56.2 mV·dec−1, which indicates that FeNi5-MOF-450 exhibits superior electrocatalytic performance than the commercial RuO2. Moreover, the long-term stability of FeNi5-MOF-450 further promotes its development in OER. This work demonstrated that the regulatory methods such as component optimization can effectively improve the OER catalytic performance of NiFe-based MOF-derived materials. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Conjugate heat transfer to supercritical CO2in membrane helical coiled tube heat exchangers has been numerically investigated in the present study. The purpose is to provide detailed information on the conjugate heat transfer behavior for a better understanding of the abnormal heat transfer mechanism of supercritical fluid. It could be concluded that the supercritical fluid mass flux and vertical/horizontal placement would significantly affect the abnormal heat transfer phenomenon in the tube side. The flow field of supercritical fluid is affected by both the buoyancy and centrifugal force in the conjugate heat transfer process. The local wall temperature and heat transfer coefficient in the tube side would rise and fall periodically for the horizontal heat exchanger, but this phenomenon will gradually disappear with the increase of the mass flow rate or fluid temperature in the tube side. The dual effects of buoyancy force and centrifugal force lead to the deflection of the second flow direction for the vertical placement, which further results in the heat transfer deterioration region on the top-generatrix wall for the downward flow being larger than that for the upward flow. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

Conjugate cooling heat transfer to supercritical CO2in a vertical double-pipe heat exchanger was numerically investigated in the present study. With the aim to better understand the conjugate cooling mechanism of supercritical fluid, detailed information on heat transfer behavior is provided. The results demonstrate that the numerical results predicted by the Abe, Kondoh, and Nagano (AKN) model show the best agreement with the experimental data. After validation, the influences of cooling water Re and temperature at the shell side, supercritical fluid Re at the tube side, flow direction, and pipe diameter on conjugate cooling heat transfer were investigated based on velocity fields. We conclude that cool water Re and temperature at the shell side have a significant effect on the cooling phenomenon at the tube side. Reduction in heat transfer could be avoided by either an increase in ReCO2or a decrease in di. In addition, variations in density and cpare the most significant factors to determine the occurrence of abnormal heat transfer phenomena. In comparison with the heating process of supercritical CO2, the sharply increased viscosity noted would hinder the distortion of the flow field to ameliorate heat transfer deterioration during the cooling process. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Purpose: To investigate the effects of metabolic syndrome (MS) and its components on the pathological manifestations and metastasis of colorectal cancer (CRC)., Methods: Clinical and pathological data of inpatients with CRC admitted to our hospital from January 1st 2010 to December 31st 2017 were collected, including the patients' general information, initial symptoms, previous history, family history, whether MS or related components were complicated, endoscopic description, imaging diagnosis, pathological diagnosis and metastasis. According to the diagnostic criteria of MS, the patients were divided into MS group and non-MS group, and then patients in non-MS group were further grouped based on whether they met MS single component. The clinical and pathological characteristics in each group were analyzed by SPSS 20.0 statistical software., Results: Among 1528 CRC patients, 76 (4.9%) were complicated with MS. CRC patients complicated with MS and those complicated with hypertension alone or diabetes alone were diagnosed at higher age, and most of them were elderly (p<0.05). CRC patients with body mass index (BMI) ≥25 kg/m2 were diagnosed at lower age (p<0.05). The infiltration depth of CRC patients with diabetes was higher than that in the non-diabetic group, and it was more likely to invade the whole layer (p<0.05). The locations of CRC lesions in different BMI subgroups, fatty liver and nonfatty liver subgroups had statistically significant differences (p<0.05). In BMI ≥25 kg/m2 group, CRC was mostly located in the left colon and rectum, while it was mostly located in the rectum in CRC patients with fatty liver., Conclusion: Reducing the occurrence of MS and its components can reduce the incidence of CRC, and reduce its pathological manifestations and affect its metastasis at the same time.

In this work, a fibrous bed bioreactor with high specific surface area and good adsorption efficacy for S. cerevisiae cells was used as the immobilization matrix in the production of ethanol. In batch fermentation, an optimal ethanol concentration of 91.36 g/l and productivity of 4.57 g l(-1) h(-1) were obtained at an initial sugar concentration of 200 g/l. The ethanol productivity achieved by the immobilized cells was 41.93% higher than that obtained from free cells. Ethanol production in a 22-cycle repeated batch fermentation demonstrated the enhanced stability of the immobilized yeast cells. Under continuous fermentation in packed-bed reactors, a maximum ethanol concentration of 108.14 g/l and a productivity of 14.71 g l(-1) h(-1) were attained at 35 degrees C, and a dilution rate of 0.136 h(-1) with 250 g/l glucose.