Diabetes-related brain damage can lead to cognitive decline and increase the risk of depression, but the neuropathological mechanism of this phenomenon remains unclear. Different insular subregions have obvious functional heterogeneity, which is related to many aspects of type 2 diabetes mellitus (T2DM)-related brain damage. However, little is known about changes in functional connectivity (FC) in insular subregions in patients with T2DM. Therefore, we aimed to investigate FC between different insular subregions and clinical/cognitive variables in patients with T2DM. Fifty-seven patients with T2DM and 55 healthy controls (HCs) underwent a neuropsychological assessment and resting-state FC examination. We defined three insular subregions, including the bilateral dorsal anterior insula (dAI), bilateral ventral anterior insula (vAI), and bilateral posterior insula (PI). We examined differences in FC between insular subregions and the whole brain in patients with T2DM compared with HCs. A correlation analysis was performed to examine the relationship between FC and clinical/cognitive variables. Compared with HCs, patients with T2DM showed significantly decreased FC between the dAI and the right inferior frontal gyrus, right superior/middle temporal gyrus, right hippocampus, and right precentral gyrus. FC between the vAI and the right supramarginal gyrus, as well as the PI and the right precentral/postcentral gyrus, was reduced in the T2DM group compared with the control group. In the T2DM group, we showed a significant negative correlation between glycated hemoglobin concentration and FC in the dAI and right hippocampus ( r = −0.428, P = 0.001) after Bonferroni correction. We conclude that different insular subregions present distinct FC patterns with functional regions and that abnormal FC in these insular subregions may affect cognitive, emotional, and sensorimotor functions in patients with T2DM.
Dissolved oxygen is an environmental factor that affects fish survival. Aquatic environments suffer from an increasing oxygen deficiency resulting from global warming and environmental pollution. In this study, we combined high-throughput transcriptome analysis with non-targeted liquid chromatography-mass spectrometry-based metabolome sequencing to assess the metabolic response to hypoxia in the Pelteobagrus fulvidraco liver. Healthy fish (body weight: 12.76 ± 1.99 g) were subjected to hypoxic conditions (1.02 ± 0.08 mg/L) for 0, 6, 24, and 48 h. Hypoxia exposure increased the levels of malondialdehyde, lactate, and glucose, enhanced the activity of total superoxide dismutase and lactate dehydrogenase, and decreased succinate dehydrogenase activity. Histological examination revealed that liver tissue was damaged after exposure to hypoxia for 24 h. In the liver transcriptome, 1527 differentially expressed genes (DEGs) were identified, of which 240 were co-identified in the three comparison groups. These DEGs were highly enriched in pathways involved in oxidation-reduction and metabolic processes. Reverse transcription-quantitative polymerase chain reaction confirmed transcriptional induction of metabolism-related genes in response to hypoxia. Metabolomic analysis demonstrated that the differentially expressed metabolites were related to amino acid, carbohydrate, and lipid metabolism. Additionally, a conjoint analysis revealed an increase in the activity of several key enzymes, such as phosphoenolpyruvate carboxykinase, phospholipid phosphatase 1a, and betaine-homocysteine methyltransferase. An integrated regulatory network was observed to be involved in glycine, serine, and threonine metabolism; glycolysis/gluconeogenesis; the tricarboxylic acid cycle; protein digestion and absorption; and lipid metabolism in response to hypoxia exposure. Overall, the findings indicated that hypoxia can cause oxidative stress in yellow catfish and that their bodies can resist stress by activating the antioxidant defense system and mobilizing multiple metabolic pathways to meet the energy demand. These results will help develop strategies to reduce the damage caused by hypoxic exposure in fish.
Carnation (Dianthus caryophyllus L.) is a typical ethylene-sensitive cut flower, but a few differences in ethylene sensitivity have been reported for different potted carnation species. In this study, we investigated the relationship between vase life, ethylene sensitivity, ethylene biosynthesis gene expression, and flower volatile substance content of 17 different potted carnation varieties. It was found that under the same post-harvest environmental conditions, the vase life of different varieties ranged from 6.2−14.2 d. Among the 17 varieties, 'Cherry' and 'Grace Bay' were highly sensitive to ethylene, and qRT-PCR analysis showed that their ethylene biosynthesis genes DcACS1 and DcACO1 expression increased the most, while 'Pink and Purple', 'Bondi Beach', and 'Grane Beach' showed the opposite pattern. In addition, the lower ethylene release was important in leading to longer vase life of potted carnations, and that ethylene release from shorter vase life varieties was 2.5−4.5 times greater than that of longer vase life varieties. Varieties that are more sensitive to ethylene are more likely to have a shorter vase life due to early disruption of water relations, which is mainly the result of reduced stem hydraulic conductivity and transpiration water loss. Analysis of volatile substances showed that ethylene had no significant effect on the release of volatile substances from potted carnations. Therefore, a better understanding of petal senescence in potted carnations will help us to improve measures to extend flower longevity according to the ethylene sensitivity of different varieties.
Abstract Background: Zishen Yutai (ZSYT) pill, a patent Chinese medicine, has been widely used in the treatment of infertility, abortion, and adjunctive treatment of in vitro fertilization (IVF) for decades. Recently, the results of clinical observations showed that premature ovarian failure (POF) patients exhibited improved expression of steroids and clinical symptoms associated with hormone disorders after treatment with ZSYT pills. However, the pharmacological mechanism of action of these pills remains unclear. Methods: The components of ZSYT found in blood circulation were identified via ultra-high performance liquid chromatography-quadrupole time-of-flight mass spectrometry (UHPLC-Q-TOF-MS) technique in the serum of POF mice after oral administration of ZSYT pills. The potential targets of components were screened using Traditional Chinese Medicine Systems Pharmacology Database, Traditional Chinese Medicine Database@Taiwan, Drugbank Database, PubChem, HIT, Pharmapper, and SwissTargetPrediction. The target genes associated with POF were collected from Online Mendelian Inheritance in Man Database, PharmGkb, Genecards, therapeutic target database, and Genetic Association Database. The overlapping genes between the potential targets of ZSYT components and the target genes associated with POF were clarified via protein-protein interaction (PPI), pathway, and network analysis. Results: Nineteen components in ZSYT pills were detected in the serum of POF mice after oral administration. A total of 695 ZSYT-related targets was screened, and 344 POF-related targets were collected. From the results of ZSYT-POF PPI analysis, CYP19A1, AKR1C3, ESR1, AR, and SRD5A2 were identified as key targets via network analysis, indicating their core role in the treatment of POF with ZSYT pills. Moreover, the pathway enrichment results suggested that ZSYT pills treat POF primarily by regulating neuroactive ligand-receptor interaction, steroid hormone biosynthesis, and ovarian steroidogenesis. Conclusions: We demonstrated that regulation of neuroactive ligand-receptor interaction, steroid hormone biosynthesis, and ovarian steroidogenesis are very likely to be therapeutic mechanism of ZSYT pills in treating POF. Our study suggests that combining the analysis of ZSYT pills components in blood in vivo in the POF models and network pharmacology prediction may offer a tool to characterize the mechanism of ZSYT pills in the POF.
This study established a single cloned chicken embryonic fibroblast (CEF) cell line. It solves the main problem of the instability of a cultured primary cell and its impact on the experiment. In this study, CEF pass through this crisis and formed a continuous cell line after subculture. We isolated single postcrisis CEF by a mouth pipette under a convert microscope then established a single cloned cell line named CSC-1-5 which passaged continuously from 96-well plates to 60 mm culture plates. CSC has a normal chicken diploid karyotype, no tumorigenicity, and a high G2/M phase cell ratio. We found that Fugene could mediate the transfection of CSCs efficiently; it was significantly improved compared with the primary cells. It could also promote the proliferation of chicken embryonic stem cell as a feeder layer.
This study was conducted to evaluate associations of blood variables and urine variables with different residual feed intakes (RFIs) in growing Chuanzang black (CB) pigs. A total of 228 growing CB boars from 99 days were used. The same basal diet was offered ad libitum and individual feed intake and body weight were measured over a period of 181 d. The CB pigs were categorized based on their residual feed intake values, with six individuals each from the high and low ends selected and divided into two groups: the low residual feed intake group (LS) and the high residual feed intake group (HS). Serum and urine samples were collected at the end of the experiment for determination of metabolomics profiling. Results showed that there were significantly different metabolites in serum and urine of different RFI groups (fold-change, FC > 2.0 or FC < 0.5, and p < 0.05), and 21 metabolites were identified in serum and 61 in urine. Cluster analysis showed that 20 metabolites were up-regulated and one metabolite was down-regulated in serum; 44 metabolites were up-regulated and 17 metabolites were down-regulated in urine. Kyoto Encyclopedia of Genes and Genomes analysis showed that the differential metabolites of serum were enriched in linoleic acid metabolism, and the differential metabolites of urine were enriched in steroid hormone biosynthesis, taurine and hypotaurine metabolism, and primary bile acid biosynthesis. The correlations between serum metabolites and urine metabolites indicated a significant positive correlation between all fatty acyls in serum metabolites and L-glutamate in urine. However, no compelling genetic or blood biomarkers have been found to explain the differences in RFI, suggesting multiple approaches to effective feed use in pigs. This study provides new insights into the subsequent assessment of RFI by metabolomics profiling, as well as the development of novel feed additives for the factors that will facilitate future research directions in CB pigs.
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