Berberine Inhibits KLF4 Promoter Methylation and Ferroptosis to Ameliorate Diabetic Nephropathy in Mice.

Inflammation, oxidative stress, fibrosis, and ferroptosis play important roles in diabetic nephropathy development. Krüppel-like factor 4 (KLF4) is a transcriptional factor, which regulates multiple cell processes and is involved in diabetic nephropathy. Berberine has various biological activities, including anti-inflammation, antioxidative stress, and antiferroptosis.

Unveiling lignin structures and lignin-carbohydrate complex (LCC) linkages of bamboo (Phyllostachys pubescens) fibers and parenchyma cells.

Bamboo (Phyllostachys pubescens) is an attractive biomass block to develop biorefining industry, however, less emphasis has been placed on elucidating the chemical linkage variations of lignin and LCC between different bamboo cell walls. Here, purified milled wood lignin (MWLp) and lignin-carbohydrate complex (LCC) were isolated from bamboo (Phyllostachys pubescens) fibers (BF) and parenchyma cells (PC), respectively. The variations of structure features and chemical linkages of lignin and LCC were investigated via FT-IR, 2D HSQC NMR, and P NMR techniques.

Fabrication of antimicrobial composite films based on xylan from pulping process for food packaging.

A facile and green route is introduced to fabricate antimicrobial composite films in this article from xylan (XL) and hydroxyethyl cellulose (HEC) with citric acid (CA) and polyethylene glycol 400 (PEG-400) as crosslinker and plasticizer, respectively. XL was obtained by precipitating wood hydrolysate (WH) produced during pulping process with ethanol. Antimicrobial activity was constructed by incorporating β-cyclodextrin/sodium benzoate (β-CD/NaBz) complex into the composite matrix.

Molecular characterization of enterovirus 71 sibling strains for thermal adaption in Vero cells with adaptive laboratory evolution.

Enterovirus 71 is the main pathogen that causes severe and fatal hand-foot-mouth-disease (HFMD) cases. As the enterovirus virus mutation has implications for pathogenesis, vaccine development, antiviral therapy, and epidemiological disease management of the virus. In this study, we investigated the variations of enterovirus 71 in thermal adaption, using the method of adaptive laboratory evolution.

Multiple transcriptional regulation of walnut JrGSTTau1 gene in response to osmotic stress.

Glutathione S-transferases (GSTs) are important plant proteins involved in biotic and abiotic stress responses. A gene from Juglans regia, JrGSTTau1 was previously cloned and functionally characterized as an enzyme involved in improving cold tolerance in plants. To clarify the functional mechanism of JrGSTTau1 and its role in stress response, here, the JrGSTTau1 promoter including the up-stream regulators was examined using yeast one-hybrid together with transient expression assays, and the osmotic stress response ability was confirmed by comparing with wild-type plants.