Air pollution, health status and public awareness of environmental problems in China.

Understanding public awareness of environmental problems is vital for effectively formulating sustainable policies. This paper aims to investigate the impacts of two perspectives-external air pollution and individual health status-on public awareness by leveraging panel data from two waves of the China Family Panel Studies (CFPS) conducted between 2018 and 2020. The model integrates provincial-level PM2.

CuO nanoparticles elicit intestinal immunotoxicity in zebrafish based on intestinal microbiota dysbiosis.

Copper II oxide nanoparticles (CuO NPs), a kind of widely used nanomaterial, have been detected in food and the environment, which has aroused widespread public concern. Recently, increasing data have suggested that intestinal microecology is closely related to immune homeostasis. However, the intestinal immunotoxicity induced by CuO NPs through intestinal microbiota is still unknown.

Physicochemical properties and solution conformation of polysaccharides from Toona sinensis (A. Juss) Roem leaves.

In this study, two polysaccharide fractions (TSP-1 and TSP-2) were isolated from Toona sinensis leaves. The physicochemical properties and solution conformations of TSP-1 and TSP-2 were investigated. DSC and TG results showed that TSP-1 and TSP-2 had thermal stability.

Comprehensive insights into the metabolism characteristics of small RNA Qrr4 in Vibrio alginolyticus.

Vibrio alginolyticus is an important foodborne pathogen that can infect both humans and marine animals and cause massive economic losses in aquaculture. Small noncoding RNAs (sRNAs) are emerging posttranscriptional regulators that affect bacterial physiology and pathological processes. In the present work, a new cell density-dependent sRNA, Qrr4, was characterized in V.

Point-of-care CRISPR/Cas biosensing technology: A promising tool for preventing the possible COVID-19 resurgence caused by contaminated cold-chain food and packaging.

The ongoing coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) pandemic caused by severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2) has caused great public health concern and has been a global threat due to its high transmissibility and morbidity. Although the SARS-CoV-2 transmission mainly relies on the person-to-person route through the respiratory droplets, the possible transmission through the contaminated cold-chain food and packaging to humans has raised widespread concerns. This review discussed the possibility of SARS-CoV-2 transmission via the contaminated cold-chain food and packaging by tracing the occurrence, the survival of SARS-CoV-2 in the contaminated cold-chain food and packaging, as well as the transmission and outbreaks related to the contaminated cold-chain food and packaging.

Facile and Green Synthesis of Highly Fluorescent Carbon Quantum Dots from Water Hyacinth for the Detection of Ferric Iron and Cellular Imaging.

Natural biomass is used for facile synthesis of carbon quantum dots (CQDs) with high fluorescence, owing to its abundance, low cost, and eco-friendliness. In this study, a bottom-up hydrothermal method was used to prepare CQDs from water hyacinth (wh) at a constant temperature of 180 °C for 12 h. The synthesized wh-CQDs had uniform size, amorphous graphite structure, high water solubility (containing multiple hydroxyl and carboxyl groups on the surface), excitation light-dependent characteristics, and high photostability.

Enzyme-Induced Transformable Peptide Nanocarriers with Enhanced Drug Permeability and Retention to Improve Tumor Nanotherapy Efficacy.

Temporal persistence is as important for nanocarriers as spatial accuracy. However, because of the insufficient aggreagtion and short retention time of chemotherapy drugs in tumors, their clinical application is greatly limited. A drug delivery approach dependent on the sensitivity to an enzyme present in the microenvironment of the tumor is designed to exhibit different sizes in different sites, achieving enhanced drug permeability and retention to improve tumor nanotherapy efficacy.

Enzyme-induced morphological transformation of drug carriers: Implications for cytotoxicity and the retention time of antitumor agents.

Nanocarriers have been widely employed to deliver chemotherapeutic drugs for cancer treatment. However, the insufficient accumulation of nanoparticles in tumors is an important reason for the poor efficacy of nanodrugs. In this study, a novel drug delivery system with a self-assembled amphiphilic peptide was designed to respond specifically to alkaline phosphatase (ALP), a protease overexpressed in cancer cells.

Tumor acidic microenvironment-induced drug release of RGD peptide nanoparticles for cellular uptake and cancer therapy.

Spatial accuracy is crucial in drug delivery, especially to increase the efficacy and reduce the side effects of antitumor drugs. In this study, we developed a simple and broadly applicable strategy in which a target peptide ligand was introduced to construct a pH-responsive drug-loading system to achieve targeted delivery and drug release in lesions. In addition to reaching the tumor tissue through passive targeting modalities such as the enhanced permeability and retention (EPR) effect, active targeting nanoparticles used RGD motifs coupled to nanocarriers to specifically bind certain integrins, such as ανβ3, which is expressed on the surface of tumor cells, to achieve active tumor cell targeting.

Structural characterization, α-amylase and α-glucosidase inhibitory activities of polysaccharides from wheat bran.

In this study, two polysaccharide fractions were isolated from wheat bran by sequential extraction with water and alkaline solution, DEAE Cellulose-52 chromatography and Sephacryl S-400 gel permeation chromatography, they were named as WXA-1 and AXA-1, respectively. Structural analyses indicated that both polysaccharide fractions were heteropolysaccharides, their average molecular weights were 193 kDa and 107 kDa, respectively. The backbone of WXA-1 was → 4)-β-d-Xylp-(1→, which was substituted at O-3 positions by arabinose, glucose and galactose residues, while the backbone of AXA-1 was → 4)-β-d-Xylp-(1→, which was mainly substituted at O-3 positions by arabinose.

Different ferric dosing strategies could result in different control mechanisms of sulfide and methane production in sediments of gravity sewers.

Ferric salt dosing is widely used to mitigate sulfide and methane emissions from sewers. In gravity sewers with sediments, responses of sulfate-reducing bacteria (SRB) and methanogenic archaea (MA) residing in different zones to Fe dosing strategies still remain unknown. In this study, we investigated the changes in behavior of SRB and MA in different depths of sewer sediment using laboratory-scale sewer sediment reactors with different Fe dosing strategies (different instant dosages and frequencies).

Structural characterization and hepatoprotective activities of polysaccharides from the leaves of Toona sinensis (A. Juss) Roem.

Two polysaccharide fractions (TSP-1 and TSP-2) with molecular weights of 833.6 kDa and 81.6 kDa were isolated from Toona sinensis leaves (Meliaceae) by hot water extraction, DEAE Cellulose-52 chromatography and Sephacryl S-400 gel permeation chromatography.

Structural characterization, physicochemical properties and α-glucosidase inhibitory activity of polysaccharide from the fruits of wax apple.

In this study, a novel water-soluble polysaccharide fraction (WAFP) was isolated from wax apple fruits. The structural characterization, physicochemical properties and α-glucosidase inhibitory activity of WAFP were investigated. The results indicated that WAFP had average molecular weight of 49.

Microwave spectroscopy measurement of ultracold ground state molecules produced via short-range photoassociation.

The high-resolution microwave (MW) spectroscopy is employed to measure the rotational structures of ultracold RbCs molecules prepared in the XΣ (v = 0) ground state. These ground-state molecules are created using short-range photoassociation (PA) followed by the spontaneous emission. Using a combination of continuous-wave (CW) depletion spectroscopy and photoionization (PI) technique, we obtain the MW spectroscopy by coupling the neighboring rotational levels of ground-state molecules.

Single nucleotide polymorphisms in the CDH17 gene of colorectal carcinoma.

Aim: To investigate the relationship between c.343A>G and c.2216A>C polymorphism sites in the CDH17 gene and colorectal carcinoma.