Several studies have shown the role of oxidative stress in pathophysiology of burn injuries. This study aimed to evaluate the changes of oxidant-antioxidant levels during the week following burn injuries and its correlation with grade of burn.

Chest ultrasonography is routinely used in evaluation of chest trauma for diagnosis of pulmonary injury. This study aimed to evaluate the accuracy of B-Lines for diagnosing lung contusion in patients with blunt trauma of the chest.

Suction devices for clearing the surgical field are among the most commonly used tools of every surgeon because a better view of the surgical field is essential. Forced suction may produce disturbingly loud noise, which acts as a nonnegligible stressor. Especially, in emergency situations with heavy bleeding, this loud noise has been described as an impeding factor in the medical decision-making process. In addition, there are reports of inner ear damage in patients due to suction noises during operations in the head area. These problems have not been solved yet. The purpose of this study was to analyse flow-dependent suction noise effects of different surgical suction tips. Furthermore, we developed design improvements to these devices.

Increased utilization of donation after circulatory death (DCD) lungs may help alleviate the supply/demand mismatch between available donor organs and lung transplant candidates. Using an established porcine DCD model, we sought to determine the effect of increasing warm ischemia time (WIT) after circulatory arrest on lung function during ex vivo lung perfusion (EVLP).

To assess the contribution of variants in STK32B, PPARGC1A, and CTNNA3 as essential tremor (ET) predisposing factors following their association in a 2-stage genome-wide association study (GWAS).

The study aimed to observe TNF-α serum concentration as well as changes in respiration rate, body temperature, and pulse rate in burn victims during 84 h post burn.

The study evaluated the ameliorative effects of Helianthus annuus leaf extract on nephrotoxicity, cardiac, and haematologic disorders in alloxan-induced hyperglycaemic rats.

Surgical safety checklists (SSCs) aim to create a safe operating room environment for surgical patients. Provider attitudes toward checklists affect their ability to prevent harm. Pediatric surgeons' perceptions surrounding SSCs, and their role in improving patient safety, are unknown.

Single center work demonstrated a safe reduction in unnecessary blood culture use in critically ill children. Our objective was to develop and implement a customizable quality improvement framework to reduce unnecessary blood culture testing in critically ill children across diverse clinical settings and various institutions.

Data concerning the relation between increased levels of circulating sclerostin (a physiological inhibitor of bone formation) and bone turnover in patients with chronic renal failure (CRF) are limited. Therefore, the aim of this study was to evaluate associations between plasma sclerostin levels and calcium-phosphate disturbances, markers of bone turnover as well as inflammation in haemodialysis (HD) patients.

Cancer-related fatigue (CRF) is one of the most burdensome symptoms in breast cancer survivors (BCSs), accompanied by reduced health-related quality of life (HRQOL).

Colorectal cancer has an overexpression of galectin-3 that is related to cancer progression. A decreased risk of colon cancer can be related to consumption of dietary fibers, but the entire mechanism by which this protection occurs remains unclear. Pectin is a type of dietary fiber that possesses β-galactosides and can bind and inhibit galectin-3-mediated effects. Papaya fruit has a massive cell wall disassembling during ripening that naturally changes its pectin structure. Our work shows that different points in the ripening time of papaya fruit exhibit pectins (chelate-soluble fractions; CSF) that can or cannot inhibit galectin-3. The fraction that inhibits galectin-3 (3CSF) also diminishes the proliferation of colon cancer cell lines, and it is derived from an intermediate point of papaya ripening. Therefore, we related this to a papaya pectin structure-dependent effect, and the papaya fruit seems to have a pectin structure that is promising in decreasing the risk of colon cancer development.

Bactrocera biguttula is an African olive fruit fly that does not attack cultivated olives but rather develops in the fruits of wild species of Olea and Noronhia. The complete mitochondrial genome of an individual specimen was characterized in comparison to other Bactrocera. The phylogenetic relationships of B. biguttula with other Dacini were investigated, with special focus on B. oleae, an agricultural pest known to attack cultivated and wild olives. The sequence had a total length of 15,829 bp, and included the typical features of insect mitogenomes, similarly to the other Bactrocera analysed. Start codons included ATG, ATC, ATT, and TCG (in COI). The majority of stop codons (TAA) were fully encoded, whereas in some cases only TA or T were present. The complete sequence was biased towards A + T, with a positive AT-skew and a negative GC-skew. The predicted cloverleaf structure of tRNASer1 showed absence of the DHU arm, a common feature in insects and other Metazoans. Phylogenetic reconstruction showed that B. biguttula and B. oleae are sister species, having diverged from a common ancestor < 10 Myr ago. This result warrants future genomic comparisons between these two closely related species for investigating the specific adaptations to the different hosts.

Significant advances have been made in understanding the regulation of inflammasomes and its involvement in innate immunity during pathogenic infections. Inflammasome activation is a tightly regulated process that provides defense against pathogenic infection and important for inflammatory response. Very few studies on the involvement of NLRP3 inflammasome protein complex have been reported in leishmanial infections with contradictory results and without much mechanistic insights. However, the role of NLRP3 inflammasome and its components has not been well deciphered in Leishmania donovani infection. Here we report for the first time a detailed mechanism and plausible impairment of caspase 1 activation during L. donovani infection leading to the survival of these parasites inside the host cells. Low mRNA expression of pro-caspase 1 and lack of caspase 1 maturation were observed after infection, hindering the processing of pro-IL-1β and pro-IL-18 into their mature counter parts. Further, siRNA mediated knock-down of caspase 1 in macrophage cells (THP-1) resulted in significantly higher parasitic burden validating the importance of caspase 1 in the host defense mechanism. Taken together, our data suggests that the parasite inhibits caspase 1 activation to evade the inflammatory nature of pyroptosis.

Fungi under genus Trichoderma as ameliorates of biotic and abiotic stresses in cultivated crops is gaining popularity world-wide and their application in conjunction with seed coating polymers is an attractive proposition to reduce bioagent wastage and harnessing benefits of combined application. The synergistic action of Trichoderma with natural polymers like chitosan can enhance antimicrobial activity. A series of blended film solutions were synthesized by using chitosan, PEG and plasticizer in varying concentrations. The optimization of blended film composition and dose for coating of seeds was done w.r.t seed coating. Studies on compatibility of film forming ingredients with Trichoderma have not shown any inhibition and antimicrobial activity has shown different levels of inhibition of plant pathogens. Films were structurally characterized by XRD, SEM, FT-IR, TGA, DSC. The optimized film solution in combination with different Trichoderma strains improved seed quality parameters in test crop castor (Ricinus communis). Significant increase in vigour index (3110) was observed with Th4d treatment followed by chitosan and Th4d combination formulation (3023). In conclusion, the optimized chitosan-PEG-Th blend was effective in enhancing seed germination and plant growth of castor. The material can be further tested under large field evaluation as a seed coating agent against various plant diseases.

The electrospinning PAN nanofiber membrane (P-CN) was hydrolysed to convert carboxylic groups as reaction sites and covalently graft chitosan molecule. The chitosan derivatives with quaternary ammonium groups exerted greater efficiency against bacteria as compared to pure chitosan. Hence, the chitosan modified membrane (P-CS), can be functionalized with quaternary amine (i.e., glycidyl trimethyl ammonium chloride, GTMAC) to form quaternized chitosan nanofiber membrane (designated as P-HTCC) under various conditions (acidic, neutral, and alkaline). N-quaternized derivatives of chitosan modified membrane (N-HTCC) showed 72% and 60% degree of quaternization (DQ) under acidic and neutral conditions, respectively. Under alkaline condition, additional quaternization of N, O-HTCC via its amino and hydroxyl groups, has improved up to 90% DQ of the chitosan. The antibacterial activity of the quaternized chitosan modified membrane prepared from acetic acid medium is stronger than that prepared from water and alkaline media. Also, antibacterial activity of quaternized chitosan is stronger than chitosan modified membrane against E. coli. The microbiological assessments showed that the water-stable P-HTCC nanofiber membrane under modification in acidic medium exerted antibacterial activity up to 99.95% against E. coli. Therefore, the P-HTCC membrane exhibited high potential to be integrated into microfiltration membrane to effectively disinfect E. coli.

Drought resistance is required in rice breeding to address the challenge of frequent droughts. However, the evolutionary mechanism of rice drought resistance is not fully understood. We investigated the genetic differentiation between upland and lowland rice domesticated in agro-ecosystems with contrasting water-soil conditions using genome-wide SNPs. We estimated morphological differences among upland and lowland rice in drought resistance and productivity through common garden experiments. Upland rice had better drought resistance but poorer productivity. The negative correlations between traits of drought resistance and productivity are attributed to the underlying genetic trade-offs through tight linkages (e.g., DCA1 and OsCesA7) or pleiotropic effects (e.g., LAX1). The genetic trade-offs are common and greatly shape the evolution of drought resistance in upland rice. In genomic regions associated with both productivity and drought resistance, signs of balancing selection were detected in upland rice, while signs of directional selection were detected in lowland rice, potentially contributing to their adaptive differentiation. Signs of balancing selection in upland rice resulted from bi-directional selection during its domestication in drought-prone upland agro-ecosystems. Using genome-wide association analysis, we identified several valuable quantitative trait loci associated with drought resistance, for which highly differentiated genes should be considered candidates. Bi-directional selection breaking tight linkages by accumulating recombination events would be applicable in breeding water-saving and drought-resistance rice.

Acute respiratory distress syndrome (ARDS) is a life-threatening critical care syndrome with uncontrolled inflammation that is a central issue. Its main characteristic is inflammatory mediators and cytokines as well as agglutinating chemokines that injure target cells. Interleukin (IL)-35 is a newly identified IL-12 cytokine family member with structural similarities to other IL-12, IL-23, and IL-27 cytokines but unique immunological functions. How IL-35 functions in ARDS is unclear. The purpose of our study was to determine what role IL-35 played in the development of ARDS. Here we found serum IL-35 concentrations were significantly elevated in patients with ARDS relative to healthy people. Moreover, we established a mouse model of lipopolysaccharide- and cecal ligation and puncture-induced ARDS treated with neutralizing antibodies (anti-IL-35 Ebi3 or anti-IL-35 P35); the results showed that lung injury occurred more often than in untreated models and the inflammatory cytokines CXCL-1, tumor necrosis factor alpha, IL-6, and IL-17A increased significantly after neutralizing antibody treatment in bronchoalveolar lavage fluid and serum. Therefore IL-35 can protect against the development of ARDS. Even more interesting in our study was that we discovered IL-35 expression differed between lung and spleen across different ARDS models, which further demonstrated that the spleen likely has an important role in extrapulmonary ARDS model only, improving the ratio of CD4+/CD4+CD25+Foxp3+(Tregs). Meanwhile in our clinical work, we also found that the concentration of IL-35 and the ratio of CD4+/Treg in the serum are higher and the mortality is lower than those with the spleen deficiency in patients with extrapulmonary ARDS. Therefore, IL-35 is protective in ARDS by promoting the ratio of splenic CD4+/Tregs in extrapulmonary ARDS, and as such, may be a therapeutic target.

Particulate matter (PM) increases levels of pro-inflammatory cytokines, but its effects on the skin remain largely unknown. We investigated the signal transduction pathway and epigenetic regulatory mechanisms underlying cellular inflammation induced by PM with a diameter of ≤ 2.5 (PM2.5) in vitro and in vivo. PM2.5-treated skin keratinocytes produced various inflammatory cytokines, including IL-6. The binding of PM2.5 to TLR5 initiated intracellular signaling through MyD88, and led to the translocation of NFκB to the nucleus, where it bound the NFκB site within IL-6 promoter. Furthermore, PM2.5 induced a direct interaction between TLR5 and NOX4, and in turn induced the production of ROS and activated NFκB-IL-6 downstream, which was prevented by siRNA-mediated knockdown of NOX4 or antioxidant treatment. Furthermore, expression of TLR5, MyD88, NOX4, phospho-NFκB, and IL-6 was increased in skin tissue of PM2.5-treated flaky tail mice. PM2.5-induced increased transcription of IL-6 was regulated via DNA methylation and histone methylation by epigenetic modification; the binding of DNA demethylase and histone methyltransferase to the IL-6 promoter regions resulted in increased IL-6 mRNA expression. Our findings provide deep insight into the pathogenesis of PM2.5 exposure and can be used as a therapeutic strategy to treat inflammatory skin diseases caused by PM2.5 exposure.

The E3 ubiquitin (Ub) ligase gp78 plays an important role in endoplasmic reticulum (ER)-associated degradation (ERAD) and regulation of lipid biogenesis. Although a variety of substrates of gp78 have been described, the regulation of the degradation of gp78 itself remains poorly understood. To address this problem, we used co-immunoprecipitation-coupled liquid chromatography-tandem mass spectrometry (Co-IP/LC-MS/MS) to identify novel proteins interacting with gp78. One of the proteins identified in this study is the deubiquitylating (DUB) enzyme USP34 (Ub-specific protease 34). We demonstrate that knockdown of USP34 facilitates proteasomal degradation of gp78 and consequently impairs the function of gp78 in regulating lipid droplet formation. This study unveils a previously unknown function of USP34 in regulating the metabolic stability of gp78 and adds to our understanding of the relevance of partnering of DUBs and E3s in regulation of protein ubiquitylation.