Persistent luminescence nanoparticles (PLNPs) have shown great promise in the field of biomedicine, but are currently limited by the challenge in the synthesis of high-quality PLNPs with bright persistent luminescence and a long afterglow time. Herein, we report a facile strategy for the synthesis of monodisperse, rechargeable and LED-activated ZnGa2O4 : Cr3+ near-infrared (NIR) PLNPs based on a modified solvothermal liquid–solid-solution method. The as-synthesized PLNPs are not only flexible for bioconjugation, but could also circumvent the limitation of the weak persistent luminescence and short afterglow time that most PLNPs confronted owing to their rechargeable capability. It was unraveled that both thermal activation and quantum tunneling mechanisms contributed to the afterglow decay of the PLNPs, and the quantum tunneling was found to dictate the LED-activated afterglow intensity and lasting time. Furthermore, by utilizing the superior excitation-free persistent luminescence, we demonstrated for the first time the application of biotinylated ZnGa2O4 : Cr3+ PLNPs as background-free luminescent nano-bioprobes for sensitive and specific detection of avidin in a heterogeneous assay with a limit of detection down to ∼150 pM, thus revealing the great potential of these NIR PLNPs in ultrasensitive biodetection and bioimaging.
Electromyography (EMG) provides a useful way to identify amyotrophic lateral sclerosis(ALS) disease. EMG signals sampled from different muscles show different sensitivities on ALS disease identification, in which to find out the most sensitive muscles to ALS is meaningful. In this paper, a selective ensemble learning method is proposed for cross-muscle ALS disease identification. First, omics features are extracted from time, frequency and wavelet domains of the original EMG signals and their adaptively decomposed components respectively. Second, the ensemble learning method with selective voting strategy is proposed for ALS identification in cross-individual and cross-muscle scenarios. Finally, the contributions of each sample to the individual identification are comprehensively analyzed using the ridge regression model. Two EMG datasets from different human race and different devices are used to evaluate the performance of the proposed method. Experimental results illustrate the effectiveness of the proposed method on cross-individual and cross-muscle ALS identification, i.e. the classification accuracy and sensitivity improve by 1% ~ 11% and 1%. ~ 18% respectively.
Cadmium (Cd) is one of the most hazardous heavy metals that negatively affect the growth and yield of wheat. He-Ne laser irradiation is known to ameliorate cadmium (Cd) stress in wheat. However, the underlying mechanism of He-Ne laser irradiation on protecting wheat against Cd stress is not well recognized. In present study, Cd-treated wheat showed significant reduction in growth, root morphology and total chlorophyll content, but notably increase of Cd accumulation in both roots and shoots. However, He-Ne laser irradiation dramatically reduced concentrations of malondialdehyde (MDA) and hydrogen peroxide (H2O2), and increased total chlorophyll content and activities of superoxide dismutase (SOD), peroxidase (POD), catalase (CAT) and ascorbate peroxidase (APX) in roots of wheat plants under Cd stress. Further, He-Ne laser irradiation significantly upregulated the transcripts of TaGR (glutathione reductase) and TaGST (glutathione-S-transferase) genes along with the increased activities of GR and GST and glutathione (GSH) concentration in roots of wheat seedlings under Cd stress. In addition, He-Ne laser irradiation enhanced the uptake of mineral elements (N, P, Mg, Fe, Zn and Cu), and significantly decreased Cd uptake and transport mainly through down-regulating the expressions of Cd transport genes (TaHMA2 and TaHMA3) in roots of wheat seedlings under Cd stress. Overall, these findings suggested that He-Ne laser irradiation alleviated the adverse effects of Cd on wheat growth by enhancing antioxidant defense system, improving mineral nutrient status, and decreasing the Cd uptake and transport. This study provides new insights into the roles of He-Ne laser irradiation in the amelioration of Cd stress in wheat and indicates the potential application of this irradiation in crop breeding and growth under Cd stress conditions.
Abstract Background: Smoking can damage dental health, but the relationship between the duration of habitual smoking and the degree of dental damage has not been reported. Objective: This research aimed to investigate the dental health of habitual smokers who participated in the National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey (NHANES) from 2011 to 2018 and to assess the relationship between the duration of regular smoking and dental health. Methods: Participants in the NHANES database aged ≥18 and ≤70 years were included in this study. Based on the responses to the smoking questionnaire, the regular smoking time is estimated. Data concerning dental health were derived from the results of dental screenings. This study investigated the connection between the average smoking time of the participants and dental health using a multivariate linear regression model. This study created a risk prediction model to assess tooth injury risk in the smoking population. Results: A total of 3113 participants with complete information were involved. The analysis of multiple linear regression models showed that the longer a person smoked, the more severe the damage to their teeth, with a smoking year of 20 increasing to 0.069 (β=0.069，95% CI (0.024, 0.114), p<0.0001) and a smoking year of more than 20 rising to 0.135 (β=0.135, 95% CI (0.070,0.201), p<0.0001). The smokers who had been smoking for more than 20 years had a 2.7-fold higher number of unhealthy teeth than the group who had smoked for less than 20 years (β=2.7, 95% CI (2.2, 3.3), p<0.0001). Conclusion: The longer smokes, the more detrimental the impact on dental health can be. Therefore, smoking can negatively affect teeth, making it beneficial to quit or reduce smoking as soon as possible for better dental health. Several tools have been developed include prediction curves, risk assessment models, and assessment scales to assess the dental status of smokers and promote better dental health.
Constitutive activation of Signal Transducers and Activators of Transcription 3 (STAT3) signaling is frequently detected in breast and pancreatic cancer. Inhibiting constitutive STAT3 signaling represents a promising molecular target for therapeutic approach. Using structure-based design, we developed a non-peptide cell-permeable, small molecule, termed as XZH-5, which targeted STAT3 phosphorylation. XZH-5 was found to inhibit STAT3 phosphorylation (Tyr705) and induce apoptosis in human breast and pancreatic cancer cell lines expressing elevated levels of phosphorylated STAT3. XZH-5 could also inhibit interleukin-6-induced STAT3 phosphorylation in cancer cell lines expressing low phosphorylated STAT3. Inhibition of STAT3 signaling by XZH-5 was confirmed by the down-regulation of downstream targets of STAT3, such as Cyclin D1, Bcl-2, and Survivin at mRNA level. In addition, XZH-5 inhibited colony formation, cell migration, and enhanced the cytotoxicity of chemotherapeutic drugs when combined with Doxorubicin or Gemcitabine. Our results indicate that XZH-5 may be a potential therapeutic agent for breast and pancreatic cancers with constitutive STAT3 signaling.
Abstract We developed a novel auto-nucleation suppressed mechanism (ANSM) for direct synthesis of EM-visible gold nanoparticles (AuNPs) on cysteine-rich tags (e.g., metallothionein) in cells for single-molecule detection with electron microscopy (it accompanies our Nature Method manuscript, Jiang et al. 2020 [1] ). Both tagged-fusion proteins expressed in cells ( e.g. bacteria, yeast and mammalian cells) and antigens stained with antibody-tag fusion proteins can be visualized by this protocol. Here we describe the typical protocols (both the chemical fixation and the high pressure freezing cases) developed for ANSM-based AuNP synthesis in HeLa cells expressing metallothionein (MTn) tags ( Figure 1 ). This approach should be widely applicable to many systems for EM visualization of single-molecule in mammalian cells.
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