The current study investigated the efficacy of a probiotic mixture on ameliorating heat stress-induced impairment of intestinal microflora, morphology, and barrier integrity in broilers. The probiotic mixture contained Bacillus licheniformis, Bacillus subtilis, and Lactobacillus plantarum. Three hundred sixty 21-d-old Ross 308 male broilers were allocated in 4 experimental treatments, each of which was replicated 6 times with 15 broilers per replicate. A 2 × 2 factorial design was used in the study, and the main factors were composed of diet (basal diet or addition of 1.5 g/kg of probiotic mixture) and temperature (thermoneutral zone or heat stress). From d 22 to 42, birds were either raised in a thermoneutral zone (22°C) or subjected to cyclic heat stress by exposing them to 33°C for 10 h (from 0800 to 1800) and 22°C from 1800 to 0800. Compared with birds kept in the thermoneutral zone, birds subjected to heat stress had reduced ADG and ADFI; lower viable counts of Lactobacillus and Bifidobacterium and increased viable counts of coliforms and Clostridium in small intestinal contents; shorter jejunal villus height, deeper crypt depth, and lower ratio of villus height to crypt depth; decreased jejunal transepithelial electrical resistance and a higher level of jejunal paracellular permeability of fluorescein isothiocyanate dextran 4 kDa; and downregulated protein levels of occludin and zonula occludens-1 (P < 0.05). Supplemental probiotics increased (P < 0.05) small intestinal Lactobacillus and Bifidobacterium, jejunal villus height, protein level of occludin, and decreased (P < 0.05) feed to gain ratio and small intestinal coliforms. These results indicate that dietary addition of probiotic mixture was effective in partially ameliorating intestinal barrier function. But no temperature × diet interaction was observed in the present study, revealing that the supplemented probiotics had the same effect at both temperatures.
Strained nanogrids are the hybrids between nanogrids and nanorings with high strain like CPPs, offering state-of-the-art models and versatile nanobricks for advanced materials. Herein, we reported the unique blue-emitting strained triangle windmill-type nanogrids (TWGs) with π-interrupted backbones and delta-stacked motifs that have two diastereoisomers with different strains (cis-trans-TWG 15.60 kcal/mol, cis-cis-TWG 13.31 kcal/mol). They are synthesized by Pd-PPh3-assisted C-H gridization with size-selectivity of TWGs in 35 % yield and diastereoselectivity of cis-trans-TWG/cis-cis-TWG (80:20). Single-crystal X-ray diffraction and non-covalent index reveal both diastereoisomers exhibit the unique angle, bending, torsion as well as steric strains. Among those, torsion strain of cis-trans-TWG is much greater than that of cis-cis-TWG. Furthermore, strain-induced red shift of 25 nm in cis-trans-TWG than cis-cis-TWG was confirmed by TDDFT and photophysics charaterization. Interestingly, aggregates-induced emission switching and enhancement was observed in cis-trans-TWG skeleton with concentration from 10-5 to 10-1.
Chemodynamic immunotherapy that utilizes catalysts to produce reactive oxygen species (ROS) for killing tumor cells and arousing antitumor immunity has received considerable attention. However, it is still restricted by low ROS production efficiency and insufficient immune activation, due to intricate redox homeostasis in the tumor microenvironment (TME). Herein, a metalloprotein-like hybrid nanozyme (FeS@GOx) is designed by in situ growth of nanozyme (ferrous sulfide, FeS) in a natural enzyme (glucose oxidase, GOx) to amplify ROS cascade for boosting chemodynamic immunotherapy. In FeS@GOx, GOx allows the conversion of endogenous glucose to gluconic acid and hydrogen peroxide, which provides favorable increasing hydrogen peroxide for subsequent Fenton reaction of FeS nanozymes, thus reinforcing ROS production. Notably, hydrogen sulfide (H2 S) release is activated by the gluconic acid generation-related pH decrease, which can suppress the activity of endogenous thioredoxin reductase and catalase to further inhibit ROS elimination. Thus, FeS@GOx can sustainably amplify ROS accumulation and perturb intracellular redox homeostasis to improve chemodynamic therapy and trigger robust immunogenic cell death for effective immunotherapy combined with immune checkpoint blockade. This work proposes a feasible H2 S amplified ROS cascade strategy employing a bioinspired hybrid nanozyme, providing a novel pathway to multi-enzyme-mediated TME modulation for precise and efficient chemodynamic immunotherapy.
Six oligosaccharides were discovered and isolated for the first time from Ziziphi Spinosae Semen. On the basis of spectroscopic analysis, their structures were determined to be verbascose (1), verbascotetraose (2), stachyose (3), mannotriose (4), raffinose (5), and melibiose (6). This is the first complete assignment of high-resolution 2D NMR assigned to verbascose. The prebiotic effect of the oligosaccharide fraction was assayed by eight gut bacterial growth in vitro, revealing a significant increase in cell density, up to 4-fold, for Lactobacillus acidophilus, Lactobacillus gasseri, and Lactobacillus johnsonii. However, the stimulation was less efficient for Bifidobacterium. The impact of six oligosaccharides with different degrees of polymerization (DPs) and structures on the growth of Lactobacillus acidophilus was evaluated. As a result, stachyose and raffinose demonstrated superior support for bacterial growth compared to the other oligosaccharides. This study explored the structure-activity relationship of raffinose family oligosaccharides (RFOs) and showed that the more the monosaccharide type, the more supportive the gut bacteria growth when oligosaccharides have the same molecular weight.
3D photonic crystals composed of artificial opals infiltrated with CdS semiconductor nanocrystals are prepared by using natural settlement process and solvothermal method.SEM images and XRD patterns show that CdS crystals are filled into the pores of the silica template.The optical properties of the infiltrated opals are also studied and the peak wavelength of reflectance spectrum suffers a red shift.The template can be dissolved away by HF solution.