Publications by authors named "Xuefeng Gao"

Utilizing superhydrophobic micro/nanostructures to enhance condensation heat transfer (CHT) of copper surfaces has attracted intensive interest in recent years due to its significance in multiple industrial fields including nuclear power generation, thermal management, water harvesting, and desalination. However, superhydrophobic surfaces have instability risk caused by microcavity defect-induced vapor penetration and/or hydrophobic chemistry destruction. Here, we report a superwetting copper hierarchical microgroove/nanocone (MGNC) structure strategy that can realize high-efficiency CHT over a whole range of surface subcooling.

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  • PARP inhibitors are a new type of medicine that show promise for treating a difficult form of prostate cancer called castration-resistant prostate cancer (CRPC).
  • We found that a special molecule called N6-methyladenosine (mA) and a protein called FTO are linked to how cancer grows and responds to treatments.
  • By boosting FTO levels, we can make PARP inhibitors work better, which suggests new ways to treat this type of cancer.
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Background: Cardiovascular disease (CVD) is a series of diseases affecting the heart or blood vessels.

Objectives: To assess the relationship between blood pressure (BP) levels defined by the 2017 American College of Cardiology/American Heart Association (ACC/AHA) guideline and CVD/atherosclerotic cardiovascular disease (ASCVD) risk for middle-aged and elderly people in China.

Methods: A total of 6,644 middle-aged and elderly people from the China Health and Retirement Longitudinal Study (CHARLS) were finally included.

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Biomass and its derivatives have broad applications in the fields of bio-catalysis, energy storage, environmental remediation. The structure and components of biomass, which are vital parameters affecting corresponding performances of derived products, need to be fully understood for further regulating the biomass and its derivatives. Herein, tobacco is taken as an example of biomass to introduce the typical characterization techniques in unraveling the structural information, chemical components, and properties of biomass and its derivatives.

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Faecalibacterium prausnitzii (F. prausnitzii) has been recognized for its various intestinal and extraintestinal benefits to human. And reduction of F.

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Liquid-solid contact electrification (CE) is essential to diverse applications. Exploiting its full implementation requires an in-depth understanding and fine-grained control of charge carriers (electrons and/or ions) during CE. Here, we decouple the electrons and ions during liquid-solid CE by designing binary superhydrophobic surfaces that eliminate liquid and ion residues on the surfaces and simultaneously enable us to regulate surface properties, namely work function, to control electron transfers.

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Reactive astrocytes are key players in HIV-associated neurocognitive disorders (HAND), and different types of reactive astrocytes play opposing roles in the neuropathologic progression of HAND. A recent study by our group found that gp120 mediates A1 astrocytes (neurotoxicity), which secrete proinflammatory factors and promote HAND disease progression. Here, by comparing the expression of A2 astrocyte (neuroprotective) markers in the brains of gp120 tgm mice and gp120/α7nAChR mice, we found that inhibition of alpha 7 nicotinic acetylcholine receptor (α7nAChR) promotes A2 astrocyte generation.

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  • The study investigates the microbiota in the biliary and duodenal systems of patients with primary and recurrent choledocholithiasis (CDL) to understand their relationship with stone formation and recurrence.
  • It involved collecting and analyzing samples from patients undergoing endoscopic retrograde cholangiopancreatography (ERCP), highlighting differences in microbial diversity and abundance between those with CDL and healthy controls.
  • Findings indicate that an imbalance in duodenal microbiota may contribute to the recurrence of CDL, with specific bacteria linked to complications like cholecystectomy, inflammation, and liver issues.
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Tissue-resident macrophages are complementary to proinflammatory macrophages to promote the progression of atherosclerosis. The noninvasive detection of their presence and dynamic variation will be important to the understanding of their role in the pathogenesis of atherosclerosis. The goal of this study was to develop a targeted PET radiotracer for imaging CD163-positive (CD163+) macrophages in multiple mouse atherosclerosis models and assess the potential of CD163 as a biomarker for atherosclerosis in humans.

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Background: Postoperative recurrence (POR) remains a major challenge for patients with Crohn's disease (CD). Gut microbial dysbiosis has been reported to be involved in the pathogenesis of POR. This study aims to investigate the relationship between fecal microbiome and endoscopic recurrence in patients with CD after ileocolonic resection.

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  • Non-alcoholic fatty liver disease is a leading cause of chronic liver issues, and GPR40 is identified as a possible therapeutic target for related metabolic disorders.
  • The study assessed a new GPR40 agonist, SZZ15-11, in diet-induced obese mice and HepG2 cells, observing significant reductions in hyperglycaemia, hyperlipidaemia, triglycerides, and cholesterol levels.
  • SZZ15-11 was shown to enhance AMPK activity through cAMP accumulation, which is linked to the regulation of lipid metabolism, suggesting its potential benefits in treating fatty liver disease.
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  • The study investigated how sleep deprivation (SD) affects gut microbiota and serum metabolites, and whether multi-probiotic supplementation could help with anxiety-like behaviors in rats.
  • After one week of SD, rats showed signs of increased anxiety, along with significant changes in gut bacteria and metabolites, such as higher lipopolysaccharide (LPS) and lower uridine and tryptophan levels.
  • Multi-probiotic treatment for two weeks after SD improved anxiety symptoms and notably reduced serum LPS levels, suggesting that rebuilding gut health may help mitigate some effects of chronic inflammation related to SD.
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Aim: Novel long-acting drugs for type 2 diabetes mellitus may optimize patient compliance and glycaemic control. Exendin-4-IgG4-Fc (E4F4) is a long-acting glucagon-like peptide-1 receptor agonist. This first-in-human study investigated the safety, tolerability, pharmacokinetic, pharmacodynamic and immunogenicity profiles of a single subcutaneous injection of E4F4 in healthy subjects.

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  • ENL, a histone acetylation reader, is crucial for regulating transcription at super-enhancers (SEs), which are powerful cis-regulatory elements in various cancers.
  • It binds to acetylated histones at SEs, promoting oncogene transcription like MYC, and its depletion significantly reduces this activity.
  • Additionally, ENL is important for the response of immediate early genes to growth factors and its overexpression is linked to colorectal cancer progression, indicating that targeting ENL could enhance the effectiveness of other cancer treatments.
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Background: By observing the changes of lung imaging airway structure in patients with advanced lung squamous cell carcinoma(ALUSC), the relationship between the different types of COPD pulmonary structural remodeling and the prognosis of patients with ALUSC was analyzed.

Methods: We reviewed the medical records of 278 patients with ALUSC. The degree of emphysema and the percentage of bronchial wall thickness(WT%) on chest HRCT were calculated by Synapse3D software, Lung structural remodeling can be divided into there types: airway remodeling dominated, emphysema dominated, and mixed types.

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Abdominal aortic aneurysm (AAA) is a degenerative vascular disease impacting aging populations with a high mortality upon rupture. There are no effective medical therapies to prevent AAA expansion and rupture. We previously demonstrated the role of the monocyte chemoattractant protein-1 (MCP-1) / C-C chemokine receptor type 2 (CCR2) axis in rodent AAA pathogenesis via positron emission tomography/computed tomography (PET/CT) using CCR2 targeted radiotracer Cu-DOTA-ECL1i.

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Purpose: This study aimed to characterize the gut microbiota in obese adolescents from Shenzhen (China), and evaluate influence of gender on BMI-related differences in the gut microbiome.

Methods: Evaluation of physical examination, blood pressure measurement, serological assay and body composition were conducted in 205 adolescent subjects at Shenzhen. Fecal microbiome composition was profiled via high-throughput sequencing of the V3-V4 regions of the 16S rRNA gene.

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This research aimed to evaluate the eradication efficacy, safety, and gastrointestinal symptom relief rates of empirical bismuth quadruple therapy, high-dose dual therapy, and resistance gene-based triple therapy in primary eradication patients in Yangzhou, China. It also investigated the possible factors influencing the success of different elicobacter eradication regimens. A single-center, prospective, open-label, randomized controlled study was performed from December 2020 and October 2021, in which 255 patients with infection were assigned in a 1:1:1 ratio to the three different groups.

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Background: L. (Sangzhi) alkaloid (SZ-A) is a new antidiabetic drug approved by the China National Medical Products Administration in 2020. Diabetic nephropathy (DN) is a common diabetic complication and an important cause of morbidity and mortality in patients with diabetes.

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The nutritional benefits of soluble dietary fiber were mainly attributed to its viscosity and hydration capacity. This study was aimed to investigate the effects of the interaction between konjac glucomannan (KGM) and dihydromyricetin (DMY) on the viscosity and hydration capacity of KGM and the thermal stability of DMY. In contrary to most reports, the addition of DMY to KGM resulted in an increase of viscosity and hydration capacity determined via rheology and nuclear magnetic resonance spectroscopy characterization.

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Background: Effective risk prediction models are lacking for personalized endoscopic screening of gastric cancer (GC). We aimed to develop, validate, and evaluate a questionnaire-based GC risk assessment tool for risk prediction and stratification in the Chinese population.

Methods: In this three-stage multicenter study, we first selected eligible variables by Cox regression models and constructed a GC risk score (GCRS) based on regression coefficients in 416,343 subjects (aged 40-75 years) from the China Kadoorie Biobank (CKB, development cohort).

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Farnesoid X receptor (FXR) is a promising target for drug discovery against nonalcoholic fatty liver disease (NAFLD). However, no FXR agonist has been approved for NAFLD so far. The R & D of FXR agonists are somewhat hindered by the lack of effective and safe chemotypes.

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Despite extensive astrocyte activation in patients suffering from HIV-associated neurocognitive disorders (HAND), little is known about the contribution of astrocytes to HAND neuropathology. Here, we report that the robust activation of neurotoxic astrocytes (A1 astrocytes) in the CNS promotes neuron damage and cognitive deficits in HIV-1 gp120 transgenic mice. Notably, knockout of α7 nicotinic acetylcholine receptors (α7nAChR) blunted A1 astrocyte responses, ultimately facilitating neuronal and cognitive improvement in the gp120tg mice.

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Background And Objectives: The use of over-the-counter laxatives is common in the general population. The microbiome-gut-brain axis hypothesis suggests that the use of laxatives could be associated with dementia. We aimed to examine the association between the regular use of laxatives and the incidence of dementia in UK Biobank participants.

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