Previous research suggests mitochondrial apoptosis alleviates rheumatoid arthritis (RA), but the role of mitochondrial apoptosis-related genes (MARGs) is unclear. Urgent exploration of RA-related mitochondrial apoptosis biomarkers is needed. Gene Expression Ontology (GEO)-derived RA datasets were used to identify differentially expressed genes (DEGs) compared to normal controls, intersected with MARGs to obtain differentially expressed mitochondrial apoptosis-related genes (DE-MARGs).
View Article and Find Full Text PDFBackground: MiR-519d-3p, also called specific placenta biomarkers, is a member of the Chromosome 19 miRNA Cluster (C19MC) with the highest concentrations of miRNAs in human placenta and maternal serum. These miRNAs are secreted by fetal trophoblast cells within extracellular vesicles (EVs) and interact with the mother's immune cells, which has been proposed to be crucial for immunological tolerance at the placental-maternal interface. A key mechanism in preeclampsia, a multifactorial, multipath hypertensive pregnancy illness, is an immunological imbalance between the mother and the fetus.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFProc Natl Acad Sci U S A
January 2025
Insect phenoloxidase, presented as an inactive precursor prophenoloxidase (PPO) in hemolymph, catalyzes melanin formation, which is involved in wound healing, pathogen killing, reversible oxygen collection during insect respiration, and cuticle and eggshell formation. Mosquitoes possess 9 to 16 PPO members across different genera, a number that is more than that found in other dipteran insects. However, the reasons for the redundancy of these PPOs and whether they have distinct biochemical properties and physiological functions remain unclear.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFThe combined application of dissimilatory iron-reducing bacteria (DIRB) and Fe(III) nanoparticles has garnered widespread interest in the contaminants transformation and removal. The efficiency of this composite system relies on the extracellular electron transfer (EET) process between DIRB and Fe(III) nanoparticles. While modifications to Fe(III) nanoparticles have demonstrated improvements in EET, enhancing DIRB activity also shows potential for further EET enhancement, meriting further investigation.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFPeatlands store one-third of the world's soil organic carbon. Globally increased fires altered peat soil organic matter chemistry, yet the redox property and molecular dynamics of peat-dissolved organic matter (PDOM) during fires remain poorly characterized, limiting our understanding of postfire biogeochemical processes. Clarifying these dynamic changes is essential for effective peatland fire management.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFThermogenic fat, including brown and beige fat, dissipates heat via thermogenesis and enhances energy expenditure. Thus, its activation represents a therapeutic strategy to combat obesity. Here, we demonstrate that levels of F-box and WD repeat domain-containing 7 (FBXW7), an E3 ubiquitin protein ligase, negatively correlate with thermogenic fat functionality.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFActa Biochim Biophys Sin (Shanghai)
December 2024
Gastric cancer (GC) is an aggressive tumor type with an intricate pathogenesis and limited therapeutic options. Ubiquitin-specific protease 22 (USP22) is a protein implicated in cell proliferation, metastasis, and tumorigenesis. However, the regulatory mechanisms governing USP22 in GC are still not fully understood.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFDust released from widely established plastic sports courts and synthetic turf poses potential environmental and health risks. Herein, we systematically investigate the metal(loid) characteristics, potential sources, and health risks of 162 dust samples from 17 campuses in Beijing, using complementary analytical techniques. Bulk analysis revealed higher levels of Zn, Pb, Cu, Sb, Cd, and Cr than background values, suggesting excessive anthropogenic contamination.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFResearch on virus/receptor interactions has uncovered various mechanisms of antibody-mediated neutralization against severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2). However, understanding of neutralization by antibodies targeting the silent face, which recognize epitopes on glycan shields, remains limited, and their potential protective efficacy in vivo is not well understood. This study describes a silent face neutralizing antibody, 3711, which targets a non-supersite on the N-terminal domain (NTD) of the spike protein.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFBackground: Individuals with normal weight obesity (NWO) often escape the attention of healthcare providers who may assume that a normal body mass index (BMI) correlates with low health risks. However, it remains unknown whether NWO increases the risk of breast cancer.
Methods: This study included 22,257 and 52,506 pre- and postmenopausal females with normal BMI in the UK Biobank.
Atmospheric Hg(0) dry deposition is a vital process that significantly affects the global distribution and cycling of Hg. However, significant knowledge gaps and challenges remain in understanding atmospheric Hg(0) deposition and its subsequent post-deposition processes. Hg isotope fractionation has emerged as the most powerful tool for evaluating the impact of atmospheric Hg(0) deposition and unraveling key processes associated with it.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFEnviron Sci Technol
December 2024
Sulfate-reducing microorganisms (SRMs) show promise for heavy metal removal from contaminated environments, but their scalability is limited by reliance on organic carbon, sludge formation, and CO emissions. This study investigates using photoelectrons from biogenic (Bio-ZnS) and abiogenic (Abio-ZnS) sphalerite nanoparticles to enhance the activity of G20 (G20) for sulfate reduction and lead removal without organic substrates. Both Abio-ZnS and Bio-ZnS NPs promote sulfate reduction and energy production in G20 cells under illumination without the addition of organic substrates, with Bio-ZnS achieving 1.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFTuna are economically important as food resources in food markets. However, because tuna is often processed into steaks or fillets, the meat can be difficult to identify through morphological features. For effective fishery management and to protect the rights of consumers, it is necessary to develop a molecular method to accurately identify the species used in tuna products.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFBioprocess Biosyst Eng
November 2024
Droplet-based bioprinting (DBB) allows for high precision, noncontact, and on-demand distribution of bioinks, hence it has been widely utilized in the preparation of bacteria-laden living materials (BLMs). Nonetheless, discontinuous ink deposition makes it challenging to fabricate large-sized intact living structures via this technique. Herein, we explore the way of using DBB to construct centimeter-scale BLMs with bespoke geometries, and further demonstrate its potential applicability in sensing-responsive device by integrating engineered bacteria.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFDesigning palladium-based formic acid oxidation reaction (FAOR) catalysts to achieve significant breakthroughs in catalytic activity, pathway selectivity, and toxicity resistance is both urgent and challenging. Here, these challenges are addressed by pioneering a novel catalyst design that incorporates both topological and chemical disorder, developing a new class of PdCuLaYMnW high-entropy amorphous alloys with a porous network (Net-Pd-HEAA) as a highly active, selective, and stable FAOR electrocatalyst. This novel Net-Pd-HEAA demonstrates record-breaking FAOR performance, achieving the mass and specific activities of 5.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFPeatland fires induced changes in electron transfer properties and relevant electroactive structures of peat soil organic matter (PSOM) remain ambiguous, impeding comprehension of postfire biogeochemical processes. Here, we revealed temperature-dependent electron exchange capacity (EEC) of PSOM dynamics through simulated peat soil burning (150-500 °C), which extremely changed postfire microbial Fe-nanoparticles reduction and methanogenesis. EEC diminished significantly (60-75% loss) due to phenolic-quinone moieties depletion with increasing temperature, regardless of oxygen availability.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFNorovirus (NoV) virus-like particles (VLPs) adjuvanted with aluminum hydroxide (Alum) are common vaccine candidates in clinical studies. Alum adjuvants usually inefficiently assist recombinant proteins to induce cellular immune responses. Thus, novel adjuvants are required to develop NoV vaccines that could induce both efficient humoral and robust cellular immune responses.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFThe Mpox virus (or Monkeypox virus, MPXV) uses its own encoded proteins to form a replication machine that replicates the viral genome in the host cell cytoplasm, making this machinery a key target for antiviral drug design. The D5 (also known as the OPG117 or E5) protein, a bi-functional helicase-primase enzyme, is crucial in the MPXV replication machinery and genome uncoating process. Recently, cryo-electron microscopy (cryo-EM) structures of D5 in multiple states have been determined.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFJ Colloid Interface Sci
February 2025
The direct regeneration method, recognized for its cost-effectiveness, has garnered considerable attentions in the field of battery recycling. In this study, a novel direct regeneration strategy is proposed to repair spent LiFePO (S-LFP) cathodes without the need for impurity removal. Instead, the residual conductive carbon and polyvinylidene fluoride (PVDF) in S-LFP are employed as inherent reductive agents.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFBackground: To investigate the association between serum branched chain amino acids (BCAAs), mammalian target of rapamycin (mTOR) levels and the risk of gestational diabetes mellitus (GDM) in pregnant women.
Methods: 1:1 matched case-control study was conducted including 66 GDM patients and 66 matched healthy pregnant women (± 3 years) in 2019, in China. Fasting bloods of pregnant women were collected in pregnancy at 24 ~ 28 weeks gestation.
There is a long-standing debate over the effectiveness of chemical extraction methods in assessing soil metal phytoavailability. This study addresses the limitations of widely-used chemical extraction methods and presents the water-extractable pool as a more reliable indicator based on wheat pot experiments using homogenized agricultural soil amended with lime materials, phosphate, and biochar. Over 120 days' pot experiments, Cd accumulation in whole wheat plants and tissues exhibited positive relationships with water-extractable Cd concentrations at heading and maturity stage (Spearman's rho: 0.
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