The effects of TGF-β-induced activation and starvation of vitamin A and palmitic acid on human stem cell-derived hepatic stellate cells.

Background: Hepatic stellate cells (HSC) have numerous critical roles in liver function and homeostasis, while they are also known for their importance during liver injury and fibrosis. There is therefore a need for relevant in vitro human HSC models to fill current knowledge gaps. In particular, the roles of vitamin A (VA), lipid droplets (LDs), and energy metabolism in human HSC activation are poorly understood.

Cell identity dynamics and insight into insulin secretagogues when employing stem cell-derived islets for disease modeling.

Stem cell-derived islets (SC-islets) are not only an unlimited source for cell-based therapy of type 1 diabetes but have also emerged as an attractive material for modeling diabetes and conducting screening for treatment options. Prior to SC-islets becoming the established standard for disease modeling and drug development, it is essential to understand their response to various nutrient sources . This study demonstrates an enhanced efficiency of pancreatic endocrine cell differentiation through the incorporation of WNT signaling inhibition following the definitive endoderm stage.

Glucose Concentration in Regulating Induced Pluripotent Stem Cells Differentiation Toward Insulin-Producing Cells.

The generation of insulin-producing cells from human-induced pluripotent stem cells holds great potential for diabetes modeling and treatment. However, existing protocols typically involve incubating cells with un-physiologically high concentrations of glucose, which often fail to generate fully functional IPCs. Here, we investigated the influence of high (20 mM) versus low (5.

Preparative agarose gel electrophoresis for reducing matrix interferences of organoid cell medium prior to LC-MS analysis of insulin.

Organoids are 3D cell cultures with microanatomies mimicking aspects of real organs, useful for e.g. animal-free studies of development, disease, and drug discovery.

Pump-Less, Recirculating Organ-on-Chip (rOoC) Platform to Model the Metabolic Crosstalk between Islets and Liver.

Type 2 diabetes mellitus (T2DM), obesity, and metabolic dysfunction-associated steatotic liver disease (MASLD) are epidemiologically correlated disorders with a worldwide growing prevalence. While the mechanisms leading to the onset and development of these conditions are not fully understood, predictive tissue representations for studying the coordinated interactions between central organs that regulate energy metabolism, particularly the liver and pancreatic islets, are needed. Here, a dual pump-less recirculating organ-on-chip platform that combines human pluripotent stem cell (sc)-derived sc-liver and sc-islet organoids is presented.

Simultaneous LC-MS determination of glucose regulatory peptides secreted by stem cell-derived islet organoids.

For studying stem cell-derived islet organoids (SC-islets) in an organ-on-chip (OoC) platform, we have developed a reversed-phase liquid chromatography-tandem mass spectrometry (RPLC-MS/MS) method allowing for simultaneous determination of insulin, somatostatin-14, and glucagon, with improved matrix robustness compared to earlier methodology. Combining phenyl/hexyl-C18 separations using 2.1 mm inner diameter LC columns and triple quadrupole mass spectrometry, identification and quantification were secured with negligible variance in retention time and quantifier/qualifier ratios, negligible levels of carryover (<2%), and sufficient precision (±10% RSD) and accuracy (±15% relative error) with and without use of an internal standard.

Characterization of human stem cell-derived hepatic stellate cells and liver sinusoidal endothelial cells during extended culture.

There is a significant need for predictive and stable human liver representations for disease modeling and drug testing. Hepatic stellate cells (HSCs) and liver sinusoidal endothelial cells (LSECs) are important non-parenchymal cell components of the liver and are hence of relevance in a variety of disease models, including hepatic fibrosis. Pluripotent stem cell- (PSC-) derived HSCs (scHSCs) and LSECs (scLSECs) offer an attractive alternative to primary human material; yet, the suitability of scHSCs and scLSECs for extended modeling has not been characterized.

Determination of insulin secretion from stem cell-derived islet organoids with liquid chromatography-tandem mass spectrometry.

Organoids are laboratory-grown 3D organ models, mimicking human organs for e.g. drug development and personalized therapy.

Mixotrophic denitrification processes in basalt fiber bio-carriers drive effective treatment of low carbon/nitrogen lithium slurry wastewater.

Lithium battery slurry wastewater was successfully treatedby using basalt fiber (BF) bio-carriers in a biological contact oxidation reactor. This resulted in a significant reduction of COD (93.3 ± 0.

Control of transverse mode in a He-Ne laser using an astigmatic resonator.

The realization of output of the controllable transverse mode in a laser resonator has always been the key problem in applications of lasers. At present, the theory of optical resonators for passive resonators is relatively mature, but the non-uniformity of gain media greatly affects the output of the laser transverse mode for astigmatic resonators in operation; especially for gas lasers, controllable high-order modes have not been studied. To realize the theory of an astigmatic passive resonator of a gas laser as a good approximation of an active resonator, this paper develops the theory of selecting the laser eigenmode through an astigmatic resonator, and verifies that the two-dimensional tilt of the cavity mirror can break the axial symmetry.

Spatial Environment Affects HNF4A Mutation-Specific Proteome Signatures and Cellular Morphology in hiPSC-Derived β-Like Cells.

Studies of monogenic diabetes are particularly useful because we can gain insight into the molecular events of pancreatic β-cell failure. Maturity-onset diabetes of the young 1 (MODY1) is a form of monogenic diabetes caused by a mutation in the HNF4A gene. Human-induced pluripotent stem cells (hiPSCs) provide an excellent tool for disease modeling by subsequently directing differentiation toward desired pancreatic islet cells, but cellular phenotypes in terminally differentiated cells are notoriously difficult to detect.

Enhancing capacity building to climate adaptation and water conservation among Chinese young people.

Capacity development has been regarded as one of many measures to empower the abilities of nations to adapt to a changing climate. Promoting public engagement in water conservation, especially among young people since they will be leading decision making in the near future, is one effective strategy for adapting to the changing climate. This research presented a water footprint adaptation (WF) approach which attempted to link climate adaptation and capacity development with saving water strategy.

Changing trends in viral hepatitis mortality in East and Southeast Asia between 1987 and 2015 and its prediction until 2030.

Background & Aims: Trends in long-term mortality rates for viral hepatitis in East and Southeast Asia have been rarely reported. The aim of our study was to explore the long-term trends in viral hepatitis mortality rates in East and Southeast Asian countries between 1987 and 2015 and provide predictions of mortality to 2030.

Methods: We obtained viral hepatitis mortality data from the WHO Mortality Database for six East and Southeast Asian countries between 1987 and 2015.

Isolation and characterization of microsatellite loci for (Ericaceae).

Premise Of The Study: We developed microsatellite primers for (Ericaceae), a narrowly distributed species found in the Dabie Mountains, China, to study the genetic diversity, population structure, and evolutionary history of the species.

Methods And Results: Two terminal sequencing modes of the Illumina HiSeq platform were used to mine simple sequence repeat markers from large-scale transcriptional groups. In this study, 24 microsatellite loci were screened.

Biomedical semantic indexing by deep neural network with multi-task learning.

Background: Biomedical semantic indexing is important for information retrieval and many other research fields in bioinformatics. It annotates biomedical citations with Medical Subject Headings. In face of unbalanced category distribution in the training data, sampling methods are difficult to apply for semantic indexing task.

The Burden of Chronic Hepatitis C in China From 2004 to 2050: An Individual-Based Modeling Study.

The launch of new direct-acting antivirals (DAAs) is expected to substantially reduce the burden of hepatitis C virus (HCV) in China. However, the effect of these changes has not yet been modeled in China. Therefore, we aim to predict the burden of HCV-related diseases in China by simulating different scenarios that incorporate recent therapeutic advances of HCV and China's current screening strategy.

A geographical location prediction method based on continuous time series Markov model.

Trajectory data uploaded by mobile devices is growing quickly. It represents the movement of an individual or a device based on the longitude and latitude coordinates collected by GPS. The location based service has a broad application prospect in the real world.

Patterns and Trends of Liver Cancer Incidence Rates in Eastern and Southeastern Asian Countries (1983-2007) and Predictions to 2030.

Background & Aims: We examined temporal trends in liver cancer incidence rates overall and by histological type from 1983 through 2007. We predict trends in liver cancer incidence rates through 2030 for selected Eastern and Southeastern Asian countries.

Methods: Data on yearly liver cancer incident cases by age group and sex were drawn from 6 major selected Eastern and Southeastern Asian countries or regions with cancer registries available in the CI5plus database, including China, Japan, Hong Kong Special Administrative Region (SAR), the Philippines, Singapore, and Thailand.

A new species of from the Dabie Mountains in eastern China (Anura, Ranidae).

A new species is described from the Dabie Mountains in Anhui Province, China, based on morphological character differences and molecular analyses. The new species can be distinguished from its congeners by a combination of diagnostic characters. The results of phylogenetic analyses (based on 12s rRNA, 16s rRNA, ND2, Cyt , RAG1, BDNF and Tyr) and genetic distances (based on Cyt ) indicate that the new species belongs to the group, and is placed as the sister taxon to .

Pneumonia Mortality in Children Aged <5 Years in 56 Countries: A Retrospective Analysis of Trends from 1960 to 2012.

Background: Pneumonia is now the second leading cause of death for children aged <5 years worldwide. However, analyses of the long-term evolution of under-5 mortality from pneumonia are still scarce in the literature. We aimed to explore long-term trends of under-5 mortality from pneumonia in 56 countries from 1960 to 2012.

Epidemiological features of and changes in incidence of infectious diseases in China in the first decade after the SARS outbreak: an observational trend study.

Background: The model of infectious disease prevention and control changed significantly in China after the outbreak in 2003 of severe acute respiratory syndrome (SARS), but trends and epidemiological features of infectious diseases are rarely studied. In this study, we aimed to assess specific incidence and mortality trends of 45 notifiable infectious diseases from 2004 to 2013 in China and to investigate the overall effectiveness of current prevention and control strategies.

Methods: Incidence and mortality data for 45 notifiable infectious diseases were extracted from a WChinese public health science data centre from 2004 to 2013, which covers 31 provinces in mainland China.

The complete mitochondrial genome of (Squamata: Viperidae).

is a new record in China, and in this study, the complete mitochondrial genome sequence of had been determined. The length of mitogenome is 17,237 bp, including 13 protein-coding genes, 22 tRNA genes, 2 rRNA genes (12S and 16S rRNA), 1 origin of L-strand replication (OL), and 2 control regions (CRs). The maximum-likelihood (ML) tree based on the whole mitogenome shown that belongs to the genus .

Worse than imagined: Unidentified virtual water flows in China.

The impact of virtual water flows on regional water scarcity in China had been deeply discussed in previous research. However, these studies only focused on water quantity, the impact of virtual water flows on water quality has been largely neglected. In this study, we incorporate the blue water footprint related with water quantity and grey water footprint related with water quality into virtual water flow analysis based on the multiregional input-output model of 2007.