Multistimuli-responsive fluorescence behaviours of aggregation-induced emission small-molecule and electrospun nanofibre films for acid–base vapour sensing

Multistimuli-responsive fluorescent materials have garnered great research interest benefited from their practical applications. Two twisted-structure compounds containing tetraphenylethylene (TPE) as the aggregation-induced emission (AIE) group and a pyridine unit as the acid reaction site to obtain new multistimuli-responsive fluorescent compounds (namely, TPECNPy: TPECNPy-2 and TPECNPy-3) were successfully synthesized through a one-step Knoevenagel condensation reaction. The multiple-stimuli response process of TPECNPy was investigated by means of photoluminescence (PL) spectra and emission colour. The results showed that both TPECNPy compounds with excellent AIE abilities displayed reversible emission wavelength and colour changes in response to multiple external stimuli, including grinding–fuming by CH₂Cl₂ or annealing and HCl-NH₃ vapour fuming. More importantly, fluorescent nanofibre films were prepared by electrospinning a solution of TPECNPy mixed with cellulose acetate (CA), and these exhibited reversible acid-induced discolouration, even with only 1 wt% TPECNPy. The results of this study may inspire strategies for designing multistimuli-responsive materials and preparing fluorescent sensing nanofibre films.     

固相萃取与气相色谱⁃质谱法联用测定食用植物油和含脂肪食品中氯丙醇酯的方法验证研究

氯丙醇酯是国际上广泛关注的食品加工过程污染物,其水解产物氯丙醇对人体（特别是婴幼儿）危害风险较大。采用固相萃取与气相色谱-质谱（gas chromatography-mass spectrometry,GC-MS）联用技术,对食用植物油和含脂食品中的氯丙醇酯[3-氯-1,2-丙二醇脂肪酸酯（简称3-MCPD酯）和2-氯-1,3-丙二醇脂肪酸酯（简称2-MCPD酯）]进行检测。该方法准确度高（3-MCPD酯和2-MCPD酯的平均回收率分别为98.9%和96.5%)、灵敏度高(3-MCPD酯和2-MCPD酯的检出限分别为0.042 mg·kg^-1和0.058 mg·kg^-1)、重现性好(相对标准偏差均低于5%)。76批次监测样品中,3-MCPD酯和2-MCPD酯的含量分别为0.042~4.865 mg·kg^-1(平均值为0.773 mg·kg^-1)和0.058~2.592 mg·kg^-1(平均值为0.469 mg·kg^-1)。经机构间的协同验证和英国FAPAS样的能力验证,2种氯丙醇酯在0.200~3.000 mg·kg^-1范围内线性良好,为进一步研究奠定了基础,同时也为食品加工企业严格控制生产过程建立了一种可行的检测方法。     

基于生态系统服务评价的围填海区域景观生态红线划分方法及应用研究

以围填海活动为代表的高强度的人类开发利用方式从根本上改变了海岸带地区的自然属性,区域生态环境发生了深刻变化。定位于我国大陆沿海的围填海区域,通过人机交互目视解译的方法获取我国大陆沿海围填海区域的矢量数据,基于围填海活动影响下海岸带区域的景观类型和生态系统服务变化的评估结果,识别我国海岸带的生态脆弱区和重点保护区,提出围填海区域景观生态红线的划分方法。通过分析可知:(1)围填海区域景观生态红线区呈现出"总体分散、局部集中"的的分布特点;(2)景观生态红线区主要分布在人工湿地和残存自然湿地中。围填海区域是进行海陆统筹研究的关键区域,而景观生态红线作为识别其重要生态功能区,并进行二次保护和抢救性保护的有效手段,将为我国海岸带生态管理提供新思路和新方法。     

X-box binding protein l splicing attenuates brain microvascular endothelial cell damage induced by oxygen-glucose deprivation through the activation of phosphoinositide 3-kinase/protein kinase B,extracellular signal-regulated kinases,and hypoxia-inducible factor-1α/vascular endothelial growth factor signaling pathways

Angiogenesis is positively correlated with the survival rate of stroke patients. Therefore, studying factors that initiate and promote angiogenesis after ischemic stroke is crucial for finding novel and effective treatment targets that improve the prognosis of stroke. X-box binding protein l splicing (XBP1s) plays a positive regulatory role in cell proliferation and angiogenesis. However, the role and mechanism of XBP1s on the proliferation of brain microvascular endothelial cells (BMECs) and angiogenesis after cerebral ischemia remains unclear. In the current study, we investigated the role XBP1s plays in BMEC proliferation and angiogenesis following cerebral ischemia. In this study, the roles of XBP1s on cell survival, apoptosis, cycle migration, and angiogenesis were determined in oxygen-glucose deprivation (OGD) treated BMECs. The expression of XBP1s in BMECs, which were exposed to OGD at 0, 2, 4, and 6 hr, increased in a time-dependent manner. The overexpression of XBP1s promoted cell survival, cell cycle, migration, and angiogenesis of BMECs, and inhibited the apoptosis in OGD-treated BMECs. In addition, the overexpression of XBP1s promoted the expression of cyclin D1, matrix metalloproteinase (MMP-2), and MMP-9, but inhibited cleaved Caspase-3 and cleaved Caspase-9 expression in OGD-treated BMECs. The overexpression of XBP1s also promoted the expression of hypoxia-inducible factor 1-alpha, vascular endothelial growth factor, phosphatidylinositol-4,5-bisphosphate 3-kinase, p-AKT, p-mTOR, p-GSK3β, and p-extracellular signal-regulated kinase1/2 in OGD-treated BMECs. The effect of XBP1s silencing was opposite to that of XBP1s overexpression. In conclusion, using an in vitro OGD model, we demonstrated that XBP1s may be a promising target for ischemic stroke therapy to maintain BMECs survival and induce angiogenesis.     

GSK3β-mediated tau hyperphosphorylation triggers diabetic retinal neurodegeneration by disrupting synaptic and mitochondrial functions

Background

Although diabetic retinopathy (DR) has long been considered as a microvascular disorder, mounting evidence suggests that diabetic retinal neurodegeneration, in particular synaptic loss and dysfunction of retinal ganglion cells (RGCs) may precede retinal microvascular changes. Key molecules involved in this process remain poorly defined. The microtubule-associated protein tau is a critical mediator of neurotoxicity in Alzheimer’s disease (AD) and other neurodegenerative diseases. However, the effect of tau, if any, in the context of diabetes-induced retinal neurodegeneration has yet to be ascertained. Here, we investigate the changes and putative roles of endogeneous tau in diabetic retinal neurodegeneration.

Methods

To this aim, we combine clinically used electrophysiological techniques, i.e. pattern electroretinogram and visual evoked potential, and molecular analyses in a well characterized high-fat diet (HFD)-induced mouse diabetes model in vivo and primary retinal ganglion cells (RGCs) in vitro.

Results

We demonstrate for the first time that tau hyperphosphorylation via GSK3β activation causes vision deficits and synapse loss of RGCs in HFD-induced DR, which precedes retinal microvasculopathy and RGCs apoptosis. Moreover, intravitreal administration of an siRNA targeting to tau or a specific inhibitor of GSK3β reverses synapse loss and restores visual function of RGCs by attenuating tau hyperphosphorylation within a certain time frame of DR. The cellular mechanisms by which hyperphosphorylated tau induces synapse loss of RGCs upon glucolipotoxicity include i) destabilizing microtubule tracks and impairing microtubule-dependent synaptic targeting of cargoes such as mRNA and mitochondria; ii) disrupting synaptic energy production through mitochondria in a GSK3β-dependent manner.

Conclusions

Our study proposes mild retinal tauopathy as a new pathophysiological model for DR and tau as a novel therapeutic target to counter diabetic RGCs neurodegeneration occurring before retinal vasculature abnormalities.

     

Predicting Growth Traits with Genomic Selection Methods in Zhikong Scallop (<Emphasis Type="Italic">Chlamys farreri</Emphasis>)

Selective breeding is a common and effective approach for genetic improvement of aquaculture stocks with parental selection as the key factor. Genomic selection (GS) has been proposed as a promising tool to facilitate selective breeding. Here, we evaluated the predictability of four GS methods in Zhikong scallop (Chlamys farreri) through real dataset analyses of four economical traits (e.g., shell length, shell height, shell width, and whole weight). Our analysis revealed that different GS models exhibited variable performance in prediction accuracy depending on genetic and statistical factors, but non-parametric method, including reproducing kernel Hilbert spaces regression (RKHS) and sparse neural networks (SNN), generally outperformed parametric linear method, such as genomic best linear unbiased prediction (GBLUP) and BayesB. Furthermore, we demonstrated that the predictability relied mainly on the heritability regardless of GS methods. The size of training population and marker density also had considerable effects on the predictive performance. In practice, increasing the training population size could better improve the genomic prediction than raising the marker density. This study is the first to apply non-linear model and neural networks for GS in scallop and should be valuable to help develop strategies for aquaculture breeding programs.     

厦门海湾型城市发展累积生态效应动态评价

港湾地区的快速城市化使港湾湿地生态系统及其生产功能和服务功能发生急剧改变并在时间和空间上产生累积效应。以具有典型意义的厦门港湾湿地为研究对象，采用系统动力学方法，定性分析系统因子因果反馈关系，筛选港湾湿地水动力环境、水质环境、生物生态环境、地形地貌、景观环境作为厦门海湾型城市发展的累积生态效应指示因子。通过调整模型的相关政策变量及组合，仿真模拟了不同发展策略下厦门港湾湿地的累积生态效应，并结合灰色评估模型对累积生态效应进行量化，得出不同发展策略的累积生态效应指数，并对模型进行了模型验证与敏感性分析。设计三大未来发展情景，即基准情景（BS）、发展规划情景（S1）、生态城市发展情景（S2）。模型模拟结果表明：基准情景下2020年厦门城市发展对港湾湿地的累积生态效应指数为0.61;发展规划情景下对港湾湿地的累积生态效应指数为0.37;生态城市发展情景下对港湾湿地的累积生态效应指数为0.30，相对基准情景下可减少累积生态效应50%，建议厦门市按照海湾型生态城市模式进行发展。     

Dental pulp stem cell‐derived exosomes alleviate cerebral ischaemia‐reperfusion injury through suppressing inflammatory response

ObjectivesThe study aimed to determine whether dental pulp stem cell‐derived exosomes (DPSC‐Exos) exert protective effects against cerebral ischaemia‐reperfusion (I/R) injury and explore its underlying mechanism.Materials and MethodsExosomes were isolated from the culture medium of human DPSC. Adult male C57BL/6 mice were subjected to 2 hours transient middle cerebral artery occlusion (tMCAO) injury followed by 2 hours reperfusion, after which singular injection of DPSC‐Exos via tail vein was administrated. Brain oedema, cerebral infarction and neurological impairment were measured on day 7 after exosomes injection. Then, oxygen‐glucose deprivation–reperfusion (OGD/R) induced BV2 cells were studied to analyse the therapeutic effects of DPSC‐Exos on I/R injury in vitro. Protein levels of TLR4, MyD88, NF‐κB p65, HMGB1, IL‐6, IL‐1β and TNF‐α were determined by western blot or enzyme‐linked immunosorbent assay. The cytoplasmic translocation of HMGB1 was detected by immunofluorescence staining.ResultsDPSC‐Exos alleviated brain oedema, cerebral infarction and neurological impairment in I/R mice. DPSC‐Exos inhibited the I/R‐mediated expression of TLR4, MyD88 and NF‐κB significantly. DPSC‐Exos also reduced the protein expression of IL‐6, IL‐1β and TNF‐α compared with those of the control both in vitro and in vivo. Meanwhile, DPSC‐Exos markedly decreased the HMGB1 cytoplasmic translocation induced by I/R damage.ConclusionsDPSC‐Exos can ameliorate I/R‐induced cerebral injury in mice. Its anti‐inflammatory mechanism might be related with the inhibition of the HMGB1/TLR4/MyD88/NF‐κB pathway.     

苏南快速城市化地区景观生态优化调控研究

城市化是经济快速发展的必然结果和要求.以苏锡常为代表的快速城市化苏南板块正在导致原有的城乡景观发生快速的变化（优化与恶化并存）.基于城市景观生态调控方法,通过城市景观生态规划（整体共生的理念）、城市景观生态工程（循环再生的理念）和城市景观生态管理（竞争自生的理念）,提出快速城市化过程中城市景观生态优化调控的构想.以苏南地区的常州市武进区为例,从其地理环境背景及景观演化出发,提出可持续发展的景观生态优化的基本原则和目标.将城镇整合成以中心城区斑块为核心的向外辐射的4个城镇景观生态发展斑块,即5大斑块平衡组团的景观格局,协调各行政区域的城市化、工业化发展;典型景观生态片区建设以淹城保护区斑块为核心,以滆湖-太湖斑块和绿色空间基底景观生态建设为主体,依托＂二纵三横＂的生态廊道网络,形成整个武进富有韵律的生态网架,从区域整体上改善、优化城乡景观生态,有效避免景观破碎与退化和生态环境恶化.