Liquid chromatography coupled with high resolution mass spectrometry reveals the inhibitory effects of Huangkuisiwu formula on biosynthesis of protein-binding uremic toxins in rats with chronic kidney disease.

Chronic kidney disease (CKD) is recognized as a common disorder worldwide. Protein-binding uremic toxins that cannot be efficiently removed by extracorporeal renal replacement therapies, such as indoxyl sulfate (IS) and p-cresyl sulfate (PCS), are associated with high risks of cardiovascular complications and high mortality in CKD population. This study aimed to explore the therapeutical effects of Huangkuisiwu formula (HKSWF) on CKD rats.

polysaccharide fortifies intestinal mucus barrier to alleviate intestinal inflammation by modulating abundance.

The intestinal mucus barrier is an important line of defense against gut pathogens. Damage to this barrier brings bacteria into close contact with the epithelium, leading to intestinal inflammation. Therefore, its restoration is a promising strategy for alleviating intestinal inflammation.

GAPS: a geometric attention-based network for peptide binding site identification by the transfer learning approach.

Protein-peptide interactions (PPepIs) are vital to understanding cellular functions, which can facilitate the design of novel drugs. As an essential component in forming a PPepI, protein-peptide binding sites are the basis for understanding the mechanisms involved in PPepIs. Therefore, accurately identifying protein-peptide binding sites becomes a critical task.

Prenatal EDC exposure, DNA Methylation, and early childhood growth: A prospective birth cohort study.

Background: Exposure to endocrine-disrupting chemicals (EDCs) has been found to be associated with growth and developmental abnormalities in children. However, the potential mechanisms by which exposure to EDCs during pregnancy increases the risk of obesity in children remain unclear.

Objective: We aimed to explore associations between prenatal EDC exposure and the body mass index (BMI) of children at age two, and to further explore the potential impact of DNA methylation (DNAm).

Assessing the Performance of Peptide Force Fields for Modeling the Solution Structural Ensembles of Cyclic Peptides.

Molecular dynamics simulation is a powerful tool for characterizing the solution structural ensembles of cyclic peptides. However, the ability of simulation to recapitulate experimental results and make accurate predictions largely depends on the force fields used. In our work here, we evaluate the performance of seven state-of-the-art force fields in recapitulating the experimental NMR results in water of 12 benchmark cyclic peptides, consisting of 6 cyclic pentapeptides, 4 cyclic hexapeptides, and 2 cyclic heptapeptides.

Hydrogen-bond-modulated negative linear compressibility in a V-shaped molecular crystal.

A material with the "hidden" negative linear compressibility (NLC) will expand along a specific crystal direction upon uniformly compression to a critical pressure; such materials are thought to be promising candidates for non-linear actuators, switches and sensors. Herein, we use density functional theory (DFT) calculations to uncover the hidden NLC in a V-shaped molecular crystal, bis(5-amino-1,2,4-triazol-3-yl)methane (BATZM). The calculations indicate that the crystal is normally compressed over the pressure range of 0-3 GPa while it expands along the -axis when the external hydrostatic pressure exceeds 3 GPa.

Association of lifestyle behaviors and oral health care needs: Mediating effects of inflammatory markers.

Objective: Mounting evidence indicates that modifiable risk factors such as lifestyle behaviors may be involved in the occurrence of oral diseases. However, existing research doesn't come to a unanimous consent. This study aims to evaluate the association between lifestyle behaviors and oral health care needs.

A Single-Enantiomer Emitter Enabled Superstructural Helix Inversion for Upconverting and Downshifting Luminescence with Bidirectional Circular Polarization.

The helical twisting tendency of liquid crystals (LCs) is generally governed by the inherent configuration of the chiral emitter. Here, we introduce the multistage inversion of supramolecular chirality as well as circularly polarized luminescence (CPL) by manipulating the ratio of single enantiomeric emitters (R-PCP) to LC monomers (5CB). Increasing the content of R-PCP from 1 wt % to 3 wt % inverted the helix of LCs from left-handed to right-handed, accompanying a CPL sign changed from positive to negative.

Link between depression and bone mineral density in Cooper Center Longitudinal Study: Indirect effects of vitamin D, inflammation, and physical activity.

Background: To examine the effect of depressive symptom severity on bone mineral density (BMD) and the potential mediators of the relationship.

Method: This study used data from n = 7273 participants in the Cooper Center Longitudinal Study at the Cooper Clinic in Dallas. Participants were included if they had data for all study variables, including left and right femoral neck (BMD), age, sex, body mass index, smoking status, antidepressant (SSRI/SNRI) use, standard alcoholic drinks consumed per week, and depressive symptom severity as measured with the Center for Epidemiological Studies-Depression (CESD)-10.

Genetically predicted gut microbiome and risk of oral cancer.

Purpose: Mounting evidence suggests a possible link between gut microbiome and oral cancer, pointing to some potential modifiable targets for disease prevention. In the present study, Mendelian randomization (MR) was used to explore whether there was a causal link between gut microbiome and oral cancer.

Methods: The single nucleotide polymorphisms (SNPs) significantly associated with gut microbiome were served as instrumental variables.

Improvement of triterpenoid production in mycelia of through mutagenesis breeding and amelioration of CCl-induced liver injury in mice.

Due to the scarcity of wild fruiting bodies, submerged fermentation of the medicinal fungus is attracting much attention, but the production of bioactive triterpenoids is low. Therefore, there is an urgent need to improve the triterpenoid yield of submerged fermentation. Here, the mutant E3-64 was generated from strain AC16101 through random mutagenesis breeding, producing 172.

Freezing-assisted sugaring-out liquid-liquid extraction coupled with LC-MS/MS for quantitative determination of perchlorate in honey.

For the first time, a simple, quick, sensitive, and low cost method for quantification of perchlorate in honey using liquid chromatography-tandem mass spectrometry was developed. Through freezing-assisted sugaring-out liquid-liquid extraction, one-step simultaneous extraction and clean-up of perchlorate from honey were perfectly achieved. Glucose and fructose, the most abundant sugars in honey, were almost completely removed from the extract without use of any clean-up materials.

Recyclable soft photonic crystal film with overall improved circularly polarized luminescence.

Existing circularly polarized luminescence materials can hardly satisfy the requirements of both large luminescence dissymmetry factor and high luminescent quantum yield, which hinders their practical applications. Here, we present a soft photonic crystal film embedded with chiral nanopores that possesses excellent circularly polarized luminescence performance with a high luminescence dissymmetry factor as well as a large luminescent quantum yield when loaded with various luminescent dyes. Benefitting from the retention of chiral nanopores imprinted from a chiral liquid crystal arrangement, the chiral soft photonic crystal film can not only endow dyes with chiral properties, but also effectively avoid severe aggregation of guest dye molecules.

IL-10-dependent Effect of Chinese Medicine on Alleviating Intestinal Inflammation and Modulating Gut Microbiota.

Inflammatory bowel disease (IBD) is a recurrent disease associated with a potential risk of colorectal cancer. (AM), a Chinese herbal medicine, is known to alleviate IBD. However, its mechanism of action requires further clarification.

DROID: Driver-Centric Risk Object Identification.

Identification of high-risk driving situations is generally approached through collision risk estimation or accident pattern recognition. In this work, we approach the problem from the perspective of subjective risk. We operationalize subjective risk assessment by predicting driver behavior changes and identifying the cause of changes.

Cascade energy transfer boosted near-infrared circularly polarized luminescence of nanofibers from an exclusively achiral system.

We constructed chiral supramolecular nanofibers for light harvesting based on symmetry-breaking, and these can generate near-infrared circularly polarized luminescence (CPL) with high dissymmetry factor () through a synergistic energy transfer and chirality transfer process. Firstly, the achiral molecule BTABA was assembled into a symmetry-breaking assembly using a seeded vortex strategy. Subsequently, the chiral assembly can endow the two achiral acceptors, Nile Red (NR) and Cyanine 7 (CY7), with supramolecular chirality, as well as chiroptical properties.

Discovery of Itaconate-Mediated Lysine Acylation.

Itaconate is an important antimicrobial and immunoregulatory metabolite involved in host-pathogen interactions. A key mechanistic action of itaconate is through the covalent modification of cysteine residues via Michael addition, resulting in "itaconation". However, it is unclear whether itaconate has other regulatory mechanisms.

Root canal treatment of type Ⅱ and ⅢA double dens invaginatus in maxillary lateral incisor: a case report.

Dens invaginatus is a rare developmental anomaly of the teeth that is caused by the infolding of enamel organs or the penetration of their proliferations into dental papillae before calcification has occurred. The presence of double dens invaginatus is extremely rare. This paper describes the use of cone beam computed tomography in the evaluation of a maxillary lateral incisor with double dens invaginatus and periapical periodontitis.

Rapid de novo discovery of peptidomimetic affinity reagents for human angiotensin converting enzyme 2.

Rapid discovery and development of serum-stable, selective, and high affinity peptide-based binders to protein targets are challenging. Angiotensin converting enzyme 2 (ACE2) has recently been identified as a cardiovascular disease biomarker and the primary receptor utilized by the severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2. In this study, we report the discovery of high affinity peptidomimetic binders to ACE2 via affinity selection-mass spectrometry (AS-MS).

Cupric ions inducing dynamic hormesis in duckweed systems for swine wastewater treatment: Quantification, modelling and mechanisms.

Hormesis has attracted close attention of environmental and toxicological communities over the past decades. Most studies focused on the hormesis induced by stressors in the aspect of their biotoxicity to organisms, while little research was conducted on hormesis in the aspect of biological wastewater treatment process. In this study, removal of NH-N and Cu by S.

Using natural language processing to identify opioid use disorder in electronic health record data.

Background: As opioid prescriptions have risen, there has also been an increase in opioid use disorder (OUD) and its adverse outcomes. Accurate and complete epidemiologic surveillance of OUD, to inform prevention strategies, presents challenges. The objective of this study was to ascertain prevalence of OUD using two methods to identify OUD in electronic health records (EHR): applying natural language processing (NLP) for text mining of unstructured clinical notes and using ICD-10-CM diagnostic codes.

Machine Learning Guides Peptide Nucleic Acid Flow Synthesis and Sequence Design.

Peptide nucleic acids (PNAs) are potential antisense therapies for genetic, acquired, and viral diseases. Efficiently selecting candidate PNA sequences for synthesis and evaluation from a genome containing hundreds to thousands of options can be challenging. To facilitate this process, this work leverages machine learning (ML) algorithms and automated synthesis technology to predict PNA synthesis efficiency and guide rational PNA sequence design.

Antibiotic-induced depletion of species increases the risk of secondary fungal infections in preterm infants.

Preterm infants or those with low birth weight are highly susceptible to invasive fungal disease (IFD) and other microbial or viral infection due to immaturity of their immune system. Antibiotics are routinely administered in these vulnerable infants in treatment of sepsis and other infectious diseases, which might cause perturbation of gut microbiome and hence development of IFD. In this study, we compared clinical characteristics of fungal infection after antibiotic treatment in preterm infants.