Regulation of autophagy by the nuclear factor κB signaling pathway in the hippocampus of rats with sepsis

BACKGROUND: Sepsis with brain dysfunction has contributed to an increase risk of morbidity and mortality. In its pathophysiology, both autophagy and nuclear factor κB (NF-κB) have been suggested to play important roles. Based on the fact that crosstalk between autophagy and NF-κB, two stress-response signaling pathways, has been detected in other pathophysiological processes, this study was undertaken to explore the process of autophagy in the hippocampus of septic rats and the role NF-κB plays in the regulation of autophagy during the process. METHODS: Cecal ligation and puncture (CLP) or a sham operation was conducted on male Wistar rats. Pyrrolidine dithiocarbamate (PDTC), an inhibitor of the NF-κB signaling pathway, or a vehicle control, was used to treat with the rats 2 h before the CLP operation. Hematoxylin-eosin staining and biological signal recording was used to measure the morphological and physiological signs of hippocampal dysfunction. An electron microscope was used to observe autophagosome formation and lysosome activation in the hippocampus after CLP. Western blotting and immune histochemistry were used to detect the hippocampus levels of NF-κB and essential proteins involved in formation of the autophagosome (microtubule-associated protein light chain 3 (LC3), Beclin1, Lamp-1, and Rab7). RESULTS: Compared with sham-operated rats, the CLP rats showed decreasing mean arterial pressure (MAP), increasing heart rate (HR), and pathological histological changes. CLP rats exhibited not only increased vacuolization through electron micrographs but also increased LC3-II, decreased Beclin1, LAMP-1, and Rab7 through the immunofluorescence and Western blot. However, PDTC + CLP rats revealed that inhibition of the NF-κB signal axis by PDTC increased the levels of LC3-II, Beclin1, LAMP-1, and Rab7 and improved physiological function including blood pressure and heart rate. CONCLUSIONS: The autophagy process during the hippocampus of CLP rats might be blocked by the activation of NF-κB signaling pathway. Inhibition of NF-κB signaling pathway could enhance the completion of autophagy with a neuroprotective function in septic brains

Excessively tilted fiber grating based Fe3O4 saturable absorber for passively mode-locked fiber laser

A novel approach to saturable absorber (SA) formation is presented by taking advantage of the mode coupling property of excessively tilted fiber grating (Ex-TFG). Stable mode-locked operation can be conveniently achieved based on the interaction between Ex- TFG coupled light and deposited ferroferric-oxide (Fe3O4) nanoparticles. The central wavelength, bandwidth and single pulse duration of the output are 1595 nm, 4.05 nm, and 912 fs, respectively. The fiber laser exhibits good long-term stability with signal-to-noise ratio (SNR) of 67 dB. For the first time, to the best of our knowledge, Ex-TFG based Fe3O4 SA for mode-locked fiber laser is demonstrated

Cumulative Evidence for Relationships Between 8q24 Variants and Prostate Cancer

Multiple independent cancer susceptibility loci at chromosome 8q24 have been identified by GWAS (Genome-wide association studies). Forty six articles including 60,293 cases and 62,971 controls were collected to conduct a meta-analysis to evaluate the associations between 21 variants in 8q24 and prostate cancer risk. Of the 21 variants located in 8q2\5 were significantly associated with the risk of prostate cancer. In particular, both homozygous AA and heterozygous CA genotypes of rs16901979, as well as the AA and CA genotypes of rs1447295, were associated with the risk of prostate cancer. Our study showed that variants in the 8q24 region are associated with prostate cancer risk in this large-scale research synopsis and meta-analysis. Further studies are needed to explore the role of the 8q24 variants involved in the etiology of prostate cancer

Insulin resistance assessed by estimated glucose disposal rate and the risk of abdominal aortic calcification: findings from a nationwide cohort study

PurposeThe estimated glucose disposal rate (eGDR) serves as a straightforward and noninvasive indicator of insulin resistance (IR). This study aims to explore the association between eGDR and the risk of abdominal aortic calcification (AAC).MethodsWe utilized data from adult participants (≥40 years old, n=3006) from the 2013–2014 National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey (NHANES) database. AAC was measured by dual-energy X-ray absorptiometry and quantified using the Kauppila score. Severe AAC (SAAC) was defined as an AAC score > 6. Logistic regression, restricted cubic spline (RCS), and subgroup analysis were used to analyze the relationship between eGDR and SAAC risk.ResultsIn fully adjusted models, eGDR was found to be negatively associated with SAAC (OR=0.86, 95%CI:0.79–0.94, P<0.001). Compared to participants in the lowest eGDR quantile, those in the highest quantile exhibited a lower risk of SAAC (OR=0.47, 95%CI:0.25–0.91, P=0.026). The RCS analysis indicates a nonlinear relationship between eGDR and SAAC risk, with a turning point at 7.05 mg/kg/min. Subgroup analysis showed that the association between eGDR and SAAC risk was more significant in women.ConclusionsThe degree of IR assessed by eGDR is associated with SAAC risk. The eGDR shows promise as an epidemiological tool for evaluating the influence of IR on AAC

DSA-net: a lightweight and efficient deep learning-based model for pea leaf disease identification

IntroductionPea is a nutrient-dense, functionally diversified vegetable. However, its leaf diseases have a direct impact on yield and quality. Most approaches for identifying pea leaf diseases exhibit low feature extraction efficiency, significant environmental sensitivity, and limited large-scale applications, making it impossible to meet the expectations of modern agriculture for accuracy, real-time processing, and low cost.MethodsTherefore, we propose a deep learning model for pea leaf disease identification based on an improved MobileNet-V3_small, deformable convolution strategy, self-attention, and additive attention mechanisms (DSA-Net). First, a deformable convolution is added to MobileNet-V3-small to increase the modeling skills for geometric changes in disease features. Second, a self-attention mechanism is integrated to improve the ability to recognize global features of complex diseases. Finally, an additive attention strategy to enhance the feature channel and spatial position response relationship in edge-blurred lesion areas. The experimental pea leaf data set consists of 7915 samples divided into five categories. It includes one healthy leaf and four diseases: brown spot, leaf miner, powdery mildew, and root rot.ResultsThe experimental results indicate that the suggested DSA-Net has an average recognition accuracy of 99.12%. It has a parameter size of 1.48M.DiscussionThe proposed approach will help with future edge device deployments. The current proposed technique considerably enhances the diagnostic accuracy of pea leaf diseases and has significant promotion and application potential in agriculture

Biological N fixation but not mineral N fertilization enhances the accumulation of N in peanut soil in maize/peanut intercropping system

Legume/cereal intercropping has the potential to maximize the use of resources to raise yields due to enhanced nitrogen (N) fixation by legume root nodules, while high N fertilization may inhibit the nodulation of legume. However, whether legume/cereal intercropping can promote the accumulation of soil N storage with N fertilization and its underlying mechanism are less clear. Here, we evaluated the long-term (5 years) effects of maize/peanut intercropping and mineral N fertilization on peanut soil total N content and soil N cycling functional genes. The experiment includes two planting patterns (peanut maize intercropping and peanut monocropping) with three N fertilization rates (0, 150, and 300 kg N ha−1). Intercropping increased soil total N content (STN) by average 18.2%, and the positive effect of intercropping on STN decreased with N application rate. Highest N application decreased the nodule fresh weight (NFW) by 64.3% and 46.0% in intercropping and monocropping system, respectively. However, intercropping has no effect on NFW. Intercropping increased the nifH gene abundance by average 26.5%. SEM analysis indicated that NFW and nifH gene abundance combined can explain 46% of the variance of STN. Our results indicate that biological N fixation but not mineral N fertilization enhances the accumulation of N in soil planted with peanut in maize/peanut intercropping system.info:eu-repo/semantics/publishedVersio

Integrated transcriptome and metabolome analysis of salinity tolerance in response to foliar application of choline chloride in rice (Oryza sativa L.)

IntroductionSalt stress is a major abiotic stress that affects crop growth and productivity. Choline Chloride (CC) has been shown to enhance salt tolerance in various crops, but the underlying molecular mechanisms in rice remain unclear.MethodsTo investigate the regulatory mechanism of CC-mediated salt tolerance in rice, we conducted morpho-physiological, metabolomic, and transcriptomic analyses on two rice varieties (WSY, salt-tolerant, and HHZ, salt-sensitive) treated with 500 mg·L-1 CC under 0.3% NaCl stress.ResultsOur results showed that foliar application of CC improved morpho-physiological parameters such as root traits, seedling height, seedling strength index, seedling fullness, leaf area, photosynthetic parameters, photosynthetic pigments, starch, and fructose content under salt stress, while decreasing soluble sugar, sucrose, and sucrose phosphate synthase levels. Transcriptomic analysis revealed that CC regulation combined with salt treatment induced changes in the expression of genes related to starch and sucrose metabolism, the citric acid cycle, carbon sequestration in photosynthetic organs, carbon metabolism, and photosynthetic antenna proteins in both rice varieties. Metabolomic analysis further supported these findings, indicating that photosynthesis, carbon metabolism, and carbon fixation pathways were crucial in CC-mediated salt tolerance.DiscussionThe combined transcriptomic and metabolomic data suggest that CC treatment enhances rice salt tolerance by activating distinct transcriptional cascades and phytohormone signaling, along with multiple antioxidants and unique metabolic pathways. These findings provide a basis for further understanding the mechanisms of metabolite synthesis and gene regulation induced by CC in rice in response to salt stress, and may inform strategies for improving crop resilience to salt stress