Search

Atherosclerosis significantly contributes to the development of cardiovascular diseases (CVD) and is characterized by lipid retention and inflammation within the artery wall. Multiple immune cell types are implicated in the pathogenesis of atherosclerosis, macrophages play a central role as the primary source of inflammatory effectors in this pathogenic process. The metabolic influences of lipids on macrophage function and fatty acid β-oxidation (FAO) have similarly drawn attention due to its relevance as an immunometabolic hub. This review discusses recent findings regarding the impact of mitochondrial-dependent FAO in the phenotype and function of macrophages, as well as transcriptional regulation of FAO within macrophages. Finally, the therapeutic strategy of macrophage FAO in atherosclerosis is highlighted.

Liver cancer is a malignancy developed from underlying liver disease that encompasses liver injury and metabolic disorders. The progression from these underlying liver disease to cancer is accompanied by chronic inflammatory conditions in which liver macrophages play important roles in orchestrating the inflammatory response. During this process, bioactive lipids produced by hepatocytes and macrophages mediate the inflammatory responses by acting as pro-inflammatory factors, as well as, playing roles in the resolution of inflammation conditions. Here, we review the literature discussing the roles of bioactive lipids in acute and chronic hepatic inflammation and progression to cancer.

Normal stress on dikes is one of the most critical parameters for a sound dike design. With more rapidly rising sea levels due to global warming, dikes are seriously threatened by overtopping induced by the combination of wave and storm surge. Compared with wave overtopping on positive freeboard, the curling breaking wave on dikes induced by the combined wave and surge overtopping may destroy the weakly protected dike crest and landward slope. Thus, in order to prevent severe damage to dikes, it is necessary to fully understand the normal stress induced by the combined wave and surge overtopping. In this paper, physical model tests were carried out to study the normal stress on dike induced by the combined wave and surge overtopping. Two characteristics of normal stress on dike were observed. The spatial distribution of normal stress on dike was also analyzed. It was found that the Weibull distribution can be used to effectively describe the statistical distribution of peak normal stresses. Furthermore, by curve fitting of the laboratory measured data, the Weibull factors on the part of the crest and the upper part of the landward slope were obtained.

Obesity confers an independent risk for carcinogenesis. Classically viewed as a genetic disease, owing to the discovery of tumor suppressors and oncogenes, genetic events alone are not sufficient to explain the progression and development of cancers. Tumor development is often associated with metabolic and immunological changes. In particular, obesity is found to significantly increase the mortality rate of liver cancer. As its role is not defined, a fundamental question is whether and how metabolic changes drive the development of cancer. In this review, we will dissect the current literature demonstrating that liver lipid dysfunction is a critical component driving the progression of cancer. We will discuss the involvement of inflammation in lipid dysfunction driven liver cancer development with a focus on the involvement of liver macrophages. We will first discuss the association of steatosis with liver cancer. This will be followed with a literature summary demonstrating the importance of inflammation and particularly macrophages in the progression of liver steatosis and highlighting the evidence that macrophages and macrophage produced inflammatory mediators are critical for liver cancer development. We will then discuss the specific inflammatory mediators and their roles in steatosis driven liver cancer development. Finally, we will summarize the molecular pattern (PAMP and DAMP) as well as lipid particle signals that are involved in the activation, infiltration and reprogramming of liver macrophages. We will also discuss some of the therapies that may interfere with lipid metabolism and also affect liver cancer development.

ObjectivesSerum neurofilament light chain (NfL) is a biomarker for neuroaxonal damage, and S100B is a blood marker for cerebral damage. In the present study, we investigated the relationship between serum NfL and S100B levels, severity, and outcomes in patients with aneurysmal subarachnoid hemorrhage (aSAH).MethodsWe prospectively recruited aSAH patients and healthy controls between January 2016 and January 2021. Clinical results included mortality and poor outcomes (modified Rankin scale score of 3-6) after 6 months. The ultrasensitive Simoa technique was used to evaluate NfL levels in the blood, and ELISA was used to detect S100B.ResultsA total of 91 patients and 25 healthy controls were included in the study, with a death rate of 15.4%. The group of aSAH patients had significantly higher serum levels of NfL and S100B (P < 0.01). Furthermore, the levels of NfL and S100B increased when the Hunt-Hess, World Federation of Neurological Surgeons (WFNS), and Fisher grades increased (P < 0.01). Serum NfL and S100B levels were linked to poor prognoses and low survival rates. The blood levels of NfL and S100B were found to be an independent predictor related to 6-month mortality in multivariable analysis. Additionally, the areas under the curves for NfL and S100B levels in serum were 0.959 and 0.912, respectively; the clinical diagnostic critical thresholds were 14.275 and 26.54 pg/ml, respectively; sensitivities were 0.947 and 0.921, and specificities were 0.849 and 0.811.ConclusionsThe NfL and S100B values for aSAH patients within 12 days of admission were considerably associated with Hunt-Hess grade, WFNS, and Fisher grade. The higher the grade, the higher the NfL and S100B value, and the poorer the prognosis. Serum NfL and S100B values could be feasible biomarkers to predict the clinical prognosis of patients with aSAH.

Abstract The skill of spatial learning and orientation is fundamental in humans and differs widely among individuals. Despite its importance, however, the malleability of this skill through practice has scarcely been studied empirically, in contrast to psychometric spatial ability. Thus, this article examines the possibility of improving the accuracy of configurational understanding of the environment by training. A total of 40 adults with a poor sense of direction participated in the experiment; and were randomly assigned to either a condition in which they received feedback only or a condition in which they additionally practiced allocentric spatial updating. Participants walked one route in each session, once a week for 6 weeks, and conducted spatial tasks designed to assess their knowledge of the route. A total of 20 people with an average sense of direction also participated as a comparison group. Results showed that training in allocentric spatial updating improved the accuracy of direction estimates, although the size of the effect was limited: the improvement was not large enough to equate the performance in the groups with a poor versus average sense of direction. The two groups, however, did not differ in spatial skill in mental rotation or path integration. Feedback was effective for improving accuracy in straight-line distance estimates and sketch maps: repeated trials with feedback led to improved accuracy by the sixth session to a level comparable to the group with an average sense of direction. The results show that flexible translation between viewer-centered and environment-centered representations is difficult and not readily trainable, and provide insights into the nature of individual differences in large-scale environmental cognition.

Calponin family members are actin filament–associated regulatory proteins with distinct expression patterns. Previous studies on CNN2 (calponin 2) have demonstrated that CNN2 is expressed in a broad range of tissues and cell types, exhibiting potential regulatory roles in a number of cellular activities, including cell proliferation, cell migration, and platelet adhesion. In this work, we found that both messenger RNA and protein expression levels of CNN2 were remarkably upregulated in 60%–70% of gastric cancer tissues by comparison with those of neighboring non-tumorous mucosa. By utilizing specific shCNN2 (small hairpin RNA targeting CNN2 ), the potential role of CNN2 in regulating AGS gastric cancer cell growth was then further investigated. AGS cells infected with shCNN2 exhibited significantly decreased cell growth ability by comparison with control cells in vitro. Moreover, while there was no obvious difference in cell cycle distribution between two groups, enhanced cell apoptosis was detected in cells with reduced CNN2 expression. Consistently, caspase 3/7 activity was also remarkably activated upon shCNN2 lentivirus infection. Taken together, our results demonstrated that knockdown of endogenous CNN2 in AGS cells could significantly activate cell apoptosis pathway and therefore suppress cell growth in vitro. The deletion of CNN2 might be a potential therapeutic approach to inhibit aggressive growth of gastric cancer.

Adult central nervous system (CNS) neurons down-regulate growth programs after injury, leading to persistent regeneration failure. Coordinated lipids metabolism is required to synthesize membrane components during axon regeneration. However, lipids also function as cell signaling molecules. Whether lipid signaling contributes to axon regeneration remains unclear. In this study, we showed that lipin1 orchestrates mechanistic target of rapamycin (mTOR) and STAT3 signaling pathways to determine axon regeneration. We established an mTOR-lipin1-phosphatidic acid/lysophosphatidic acid-mTOR loop that acts as a positive feedback inhibitory signaling, contributing to the persistent suppression of CNS axon regeneration following injury. In addition, lipin1 knockdown (KD) enhances corticospinal tract (CST) sprouting after unilateral pyramidotomy and promotes CST regeneration following complete spinal cord injury (SCI). Furthermore, lipin1 KD enhances sensory axon regeneration after SCI. Overall, our research reveals that lipin1 functions as a central regulator to coordinate mTOR and STAT3 signaling pathways in the CNS neurons and highlights the potential of lipin1 as a promising therapeutic target for promoting the regeneration of motor and sensory axons after SCI. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Liver cancer is a malignancy developed from underlying liver disease that encompasses liver injury and metabolic disorders. The progression from these underlying liver disease to cancer is accompanied by chronic inflammatory conditions in which liver macrophages play important roles in orchestrating the inflammatory response. During this process, bioactive lipids produced by hepatocytes and macrophages mediate the inflammatory responses by acting as pro-inflammatory factors, as well as, playing roles in the resolution of inflammation conditions. Here, we review the literature discussing the roles of bioactive lipids in acute and chronic hepatic inflammation and progression to cancer. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Obesity confers an independent risk for carcinogenesis. Classically viewed as a genetic disease, owing to the discovery of tumor suppressors and oncogenes, genetic events alone are not sufficient to explain the progression and development of cancers. Tumor development is often associated with metabolic and immunological changes. In particular, obesity is found to significantly increase the mortality rate of liver cancer. As its role is not defined, a fundamental question is whether and how metabolic changes drive the development of cancer. In this review, we will dissect the current literature demonstrating that liver lipid dysfunction is a critical component driving the progression of cancer. We will discuss the involvement of inflammation in lipid dysfunction driven liver cancer development with a focus on the involvement of liver macrophages. We will first discuss the association of steatosis with liver cancer. This will be followed with a literature summary demonstrating the importance of inflammation and particularly macrophages in the progression of liver steatosis and highlighting the evidence that macrophages and macrophage produced inflammatory mediators are critical for liver cancer development. We will then discuss the specific inflammatory mediators and their roles in steatosis driven liver cancer development. Finally, we will summarize the molecular pattern (PAMP and DAMP) as well as lipid particle signals that are involved in the activation, infiltration and reprogramming of liver macrophages. We will also discuss some of the therapies that may interfere with lipid metabolism and also affect liver cancer development. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

With the continuous acceleration of urbanization, the construction industry has developed rapidly, but the resulting construction by-product - construction waste is also increasing day by day. The shortage of resources and environmental pollution have become the bottleneck restricting the sustainable development of China. Studying the resource utilization of construction waste is not only conducive to material saving and waste reduction, thereby producing considerable social and economic benefits, but also plays an important role in promoting environmental protection and optimal utilization of resources. How to reprocess and reuse construction waste effectively has become a new topic in the development of urbanization. Aiming at the characteristics of brick-concrete construction waste and the demand for raw materials in road engineering, this paper studies the application of construction waste recycled materials in road engineering through experimental research. We study the effect of rubber content and concrete particle content on the mechanical properties of recycled aggregate inorganic mixture, determine the mix ratio that meets the requirements of the specification, and study the effect of debris content and concrete particle content on the road use of recycled aggregate graded crushed stone performance impact. The research results show that when the cement content is 4% and the concrete particle content is 30%, the unconfined compressive strength of the water-stable mixture can meet the requirements of various pavement sub-bases. Increasing the cement content can obtain higher mechanical properties. The unconfined compressive strength of lime-fly ash stabilized mixture with lime content of 6%, fly ash content of 14%, and concrete particle content of 30% can meet the requirements of various pavement sub-bases. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Tight sandstone is one of the important reservoir types of oil and gas resources. The Ordos Basin has huge oil and gas resources reserves. At present, successful exploration in the Triassic has obtained industrial oil and gas flows. Tight sandstone reservoirs are different from conventional sandstones and have the typical characteristics of low porosity and low permeability, which brings certain difficulties to the exploration of oil and gas resources. Analyzing the petrological characteristics of petroliferous reservoirs and the characteristics of the reservoir space is the only way to deeply understand the reservoirs. Huanjiang Oilfield is in the southwest of the Ordos Basin and is one of the key exploration blocks in recent years. Many drilling explorations show that the Triassic in this area has rich oil resources. In this paper, core analysis, casting thin section, scanning electron microscope and mercury intrusion method are used to analyze the petrological characteristics, pore structure and physical properties of the Chang 8 member of Yanchang Formation. Studies have shown that the lithology of Chang 8 sandstone is mainly gray-white and gray-green medium-fine feldspar sandstone. Various minerals such as chlorite, siliceous and iron calcite constitute sandstone interstitials. The intergranular pores and feldspar solution pores are the main pore spaces of the rock reservoirs. The diagenesis types of Chang 8 sandstone include mechanical compaction, pressure solution, cementation, dissolution, and metasomatism. The diagenesis has entered the middle diagenesis stage. The average porosity of Chang 8 is 9.87%, and the average permeability is 0.847x10_3qm2, which is a typical lowporosity and low-permeability reservoir. The distribution of high-quality reservoirs in the Chang 8 Member is mainly controlled by sedimentation. The compaction and cementation in the diagenesis are the main factors that reduce the reservoir performance. The large number of feldspars dissolved pores and other secondary pores produced by the dissolution are to increase the storage capacity. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]