Publications by authors named "Zhi-peng Li"

Surface-enhanced Raman spectroscopy (SERS) has evolved significantly over fifty years into a powerful analytical technique. This review aims to achieve five main goals. (1) Providing a comprehensive history of SERS's discovery, its experimental and theoretical foundations, its connections to advances in nanoscience and plasmonics, and highlighting collective contributions of key pioneers.

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Photonic simulators are increasingly used to study physical systems for their affluent manipulable degrees of freedom. The advent of photonic chips offers a promising path towards compact and configurable simulators. Thin-film lithium niobate chips are particularly well suited for this purpose due to the high electro-optic coefficient, which allows for the creation of lattices in the frequency domain.

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The wide dissemination of multidrug-resistant (MDR) Gram-negative bacteria poses a significant global health and security concern. As developing new antibiotics is generally costly, fastidious, and time-consuming, there is an urgent need for alternative therapeutic strategies to address the gap in antibiotic discovery void. This study aimed to investigate the activity of colistin (CS) in combination with a natural product, rutin (RT), to combat against Typhimurium ( Tm) in vitro and in vivo.

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Sleep deprivation (SD) has been reported to induce intestinal damage by several mechanisms, yet its role in modulating epithelial repair remains unclear. In this study, we find that chronic SD leads to colonic damage through continuous hypoxia. However, HIF1α, which generally responds to hypoxia to modulate barrier integrity, was paradoxically dysregulated in the colon.

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This review summarizes the latest progress in orthopedic nanotechnology, explores innovative applications of nanofibers in tendon repair, and evaluates the potential of selenium and cerium oxide nanoparticles in osteoarthritis and osteoblast differentiation. This review also describes the emerging applications of injectable hydrogels in cartilage engineering, emphasizing the critical role of interdisciplinary research and highlighting the challenges and future prospects of integrating nanotechnology into orthopedic clinical practice. This comprehensive approach provides a holistic perspective on the transformative impact of nanotechnology in orthopedics, offering valuable insights for future research and clinical applications.

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This study aimed to evaluate how the timing of transarterial chemoembolization (TACE) relative to systemic therapy (tyrosine-kinase inhibitors [TKIs] and immune checkpoint inhibitors [ICIs]) influences oncological outcomes in patients with hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC). A retrospective analysis was conducted on HCC patients treated with TACE plus TKIs and ICIs from January 2018 to February 2023. We compared objective response rate (ORR), disease control rate (DCR), overall survival (OS), and progression-free survival (PFS) between patients receiving TACE before versus after systemic therapies.

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  • * Researchers developed waterborne polyurethane nanoparticles (WPU@LA) to effectively deliver linoleic acid, which showed good biocompatibility and pH-responsive release in cell tests.
  • * In mouse experiments, a dosage of 10 mg/kg/day of WPU@LA reduced the spread of antibiotic resistance by over 45-fold while maintaining gut microbiota health, indicating its potential for controlling antibiotic resistance in mammals.
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  • The study focuses on the "Doukou" genus, which has over 111 species, six of which are commonly used as medicinal plants, necessitating accurate identification due to issues of counterfeit products.
  • Using 11 newly sequenced samples and existing data from NCBI, the researchers performed molecular identification that revealed distinct genetic variations among the species.
  • The findings highlighted that certain genetic sequences, particularly ITS, ITS1, and complete plastomes, were most effective for identifying these medicinal plants, thus aiding in the conservation and sustainable use of wild plant resources.
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The effective method for trypsin purification should be established because trypsin has important economic value. In this work, a novel and simple strategy was proposed for fabricating micron-sized magnetic FeO@agarose-benzamidine beads (MABB) with benzamidine as a ligand, which can efficiently and selectively capture trypsin. The micro-sized MABB, with clear spherical core-shell structure and average particle size of 6.

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Humans have substantially transformed the global land surface, resulting in the decline in variation in biotic communities across scales, a phenomenon known as "biological homogenization." However, different biota are affected by biological homogenization to varying degrees, but this variation and the underlying mechanisms remain little studied, particularly in soil systems. To address this topic, we used metabarcoding to investigate the biogeography of soil protists and their prey/hosts (prokaryotes, fungi, and meso- and macrofauna) in three human land-use ecosystem types (farmlands, residential areas, and parks) and natural forest ecosystems across subtropical and temperate regions in China.

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This article is a comprehensive study based on research on the connection between diabetes mellitus (DM) and prostate cancer (PCa). It investigates the potential role of DM as an independent risk factor for PCa, delving into the biological links, including insulin resistance and hormonal changes. The paper critically analyzes previous studies that have shown varying results and introduces mendelian randomization as a method for establishing causality.

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Background: However, the connection between smoking and the prognosis of patients with bladder cancer remains unclear.

Aim: To determine whether smoking is linked to the recurrence and progression of bladder cancer.

Methods: As of July 20, 2022, relevant English-language research was identified by searching PubMed, the Web of Science, and the Cochrane Library.

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  • Sleep deprivation (SD) leads to gut damage primarily through reactive oxygen species (ROS) accumulation, but specific early events impact gut health, especially goblet cells, before ROS levels increase.
  • The study found that mice suffering from SD showed high levels of metabolites related to ferroptosis, a type of cell death, indicating a connection between SD and gut damage.
  • Melatonin was shown to counteract this ferroptotic damage by reducing lipid peroxidation linked to ALOX15 signaling, and ALOX15 knockout also protected mice, suggesting melatonin and ferroptosis as potential targets for preventing gut damage from SD.*
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  • - This study explores how bladder outlet obstruction (BOO) leads to fibrosis and elevated pressure in the bladder, focusing on the role of a mechanosensitive channel called Piezo1.
  • - Researchers used immunofluorescence staining and cultured bladder fibroblasts under different pressure conditions to analyze Piezo1 activity and the effects of various agonists and inhibitors.
  • - The findings reveal that high hydrostatic pressure enhances Piezo1 expression, promotes fibroblast proliferation, and increases pro-fibrotic factors, indicating that Piezo1 activation may worsen bladder fibrosis.
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The screening of colorectal cancer (CRC) is pivotal for both the prevention and treatment of this disease, significantly improving early-stage tumor detection rates. This advancement not only boosts survival rates and quality of life for patients but also reduces the costs associated with treatment. However, the adoption of CRC screening methods faces numerous challenges, including the technical limitations of both noninvasive and invasive methods in terms of sensitivity and specificity.

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Background: Visceral obesity is increasingly prevalent among adolescents and young adults and is commonly recognized as a risk factor for type 2 diabetes. Estrogen [17β-estradiol (E2)] is known to offer protection against obesity diverse me-chanisms, while its specific effects on visceral adipose tissue (VAT) remain to be fully elucidated.

Aim: To investigate the impact of E2 on the gene expression profile within VAT of a mouse model of prediabetes.

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  • Feralization, an evolutionary process, is explored through the study of the ancient fiber crop ramie, focusing on genomic changes linked to its domestication and feralization.
  • Researchers produced a detailed genome assembly of feral ramie and found significant structural variations from domesticated varieties, using a global collection of 915 ramie accessions.
  • Results revealed that feral ramie shows higher genetic diversity and different natural selection patterns compared to domesticated ramie, indicating that it has adapted to its environment while sharing ecological niches with domesticated forms, offering insights into crop evolution and potential germplasm resources.
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Background: As a nutritional indicator, a lower level of geriatric nutritional risk index (GNRI) has been suggested as a predictor for poor prognosis in acute coronary syndrome (ACS). However, whether GNRI could improve the predictive value of the Global Registry of Acute Coronary Events (GRACE) score for the prognosis in elderly patients with non-ST segment elevation myocardial infarction (NSTEMI) after PCI remains unclear.

Methods: A total of 446 elderly patients with NSTEMI after percutaneous coronary intervention (PCI) were consecutively enrolled.

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Objectives: Traditional Chinese medicine has been used to treat bone fracture for hundreds of years, which exerts a significant improvement in fracture healing. Aucubin, a derivative isolated from , has been demonstrated to possess anti-inflammatory, immunoregulatory, and antioxidative potential. In the present study, our aim was to explore its function in bone regeneration and elucidate the underlying mechanism.

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Essential oils are potential alternatives to antibiotics for preventing albicans (C. albicans) infection which is responsible for economic losses in the pigeon industry. essential oil (EO) can inhibit pathogens, particularly fungal pathogens but its potential beneficial effects on -infected pigeons remain unclear.

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  • Photonic quantum computation is a new technology that's better than regular computers for certain tasks and is getting closer to being used in real life.
  • Scientists have designed a special processor that can do a lot of different programs efficiently and with great precision.
  • They tested this technology by running two complex programs to explore exciting topics in quantum physics, showing that their design is really good for future uses.
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Bromodomain-containing protein 4 (BRD4) is the most well-studied BET protein that is important for the innate immune response. We recently revealed that targeting BRD4 triggers apoptosis in tumor-associated macrophages, but its role in synovial macrophages and joint inflammation is largely unknown. Herein, we demonstrated that BRD4 was highly expressed in the iNOS-positive M1 macrophages in the human and mouse osteoarthritis (OA) synovium, and conditional knockout of BRD4 in the myeloid lineage using Lyz2-cre; BRD4 mice significantly abolished anterior cruciate ligament transection (ACLT)-induced M1 macrophage accumulation and synovial inflammation.

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Background: The triglyceride glucose-body mass index (TyG-BMI index) has been suggested as a novel predictor of insulin resistance. However, its predictive value for slow coronary flow phenomenon (SCFP) in patients with ischemia and nonobstructive coronary arteries (INOCA) remains unclear.

Methods: We consecutively recruited 1625 patients with INOCA from February 2019 to February 2023 and divided them into two groups based on thrombolysis in myocardial infarction (TIMI) frame counts (TFCs): the SCFP group (n = 79) and the control group.

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Gaussian boson sampling (GBS) has the potential to solve complex graph problems, such as clique finding, which is relevant to drug discovery tasks. However, realizing the full benefits of quantum enhancements requires large-scale quantum hardware with universal programmability. Here we have developed a time-bin-encoded GBS photonic quantum processor that is universal, programmable and software-scalable.

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  • - Salmonellosis, a widespread food-borne illness, poses serious public health risks and economic challenges, particularly due to increasing antibiotic resistance in Salmonella.
  • - This study created a novel type of nanoprodrug, called PPRG, that self-assembles into nanoparticles and releases therapeutic agents in response to Salmonella infections, which produce hydrogen sulfide.
  • - PPRG showed enhanced antibacterial effects against Salmonella and also helped reduce inflammation and restore gut microbiota balance, suggesting a promising new approach to targeted therapies for specific infections.
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