The best facultative anaerobes among vertebrates are members of the genera Trachemys (pond slider turtles) and Chrysemys (painted turtles), and are able to survive without oxygen for up to 12 to 18 weeks at ∼3 °C. In this study, we utilized RNAseq to profile the transcriptomic changes that take place in response to 20 hrs of anoxia at 5 °C in the liver of the red eared slide turtle (Trachemys scripta elegans). Sequencing reads were obtained from at least 18,169 different genes and represented a minimum 49x coverage of the C. picta bellii exome. A total of 3,105 genes showed statistically significant changes in gene expression between the two animal groups, of which 971 also exhibited a fold change equal to or greater than 50% of control normoxic values. This study also highlights a number of anoxia-responsive molecular pathways that are may be important to navigating anoxia survival. These pathways were enriched in mRNA found to significantly increase in response to anoxia and included molecular processes such as DNA damage repair and metabolic reprogramming. For example, our results indicate that the anoxic turtle may utilize succinate metabolism to yield a molecule of GTP in addition to the two molecules that results from lactate production, and agrees with other established models of anoxia tolerance. Collectively, our analysis provides a snapshot of the molecular landscape of the anoxic turtle and may provide hints into the how this animal is capable of surviving this extreme environmental stress.

There remains uncertainty about the impact of menopausal hormone therapy (MHT) on women's health. A systematic, comprehensive assessment of the effects on multiple outcomes is lacking. We conducted an umbrella review to comprehensively summarize evidence on the benefits and harms of MHT across diverse health outcomes.

Social inequities affecting minority populations after Hurricane Katrina led to an expansion of environmental justice literature. In August 2017, Hurricane Harvey rainfall was estimated as a 3000- to 20,000-year flood event, further affecting minority populations with disproportionate stroke prevalence. The Stomp Out Stroke initiative leveraged multimedia engagement, creating a patient-centered cerebrovascular health intervention.

Pentastomiasis is a rare zoonotic disease caused by pentastomids. Despite their worm-like appearance, they are commonly placed into a separate sub-class of the subphylum Crustacea, phylum Arthropoda. However, until now, the systematic classification of the pentastomids and the diagnosis of pentastomiasis are immature, and genetic information about pentastomid nylum is almost nonexistent. The objective of this study was to obtain information on pentastomid nymph genes and identify the gene homologues related to host-parasite interactions or stage-specific antigens.

This article present data related to the publication entitled "Interactions of pyrene and/or 1-hydroxypyrene with bovine serum albumin based on EEM-PARAFAC combined with molecular docking" (Zhang et al., 2018) [1]. The excitation-emission matrix (EEM) fluorescence spectral parameters of pyrene, 1-hydroxypyrene, bovine serum albumin (BSA), and their mixtures were presented in this article. Combined EEM - parallel factor analysis with fluorescence quenching analysis, some data related to the binding affinity of pyrene and/or 1-hydroxypyrene with BSA in the binary and ternary systems were obtained.

Mild traumatic brain injury (mTBI) poses a considerable burden on healthcare systems. Whilst most patients recover quickly, a significant number suffer from sequelae that are not accompanied by measurable structural damage. Understanding the neural underpinnings of these debilitating effects and developing a means to detect injury, would address an important unmet clinical need. It could inform interventions and help predict prognosis. Magnetoencephalography (MEG) affords excellent sensitivity in probing neural function and presents significant promise for assessing mTBI, with abnormal neural oscillations being a potential specific biomarker. However, growing evidence suggests that neural dynamics are (at least in part) driven by transient, pan-spectral bursting and in this paper, we employ this model to investigate mTBI. We applied a Hidden Markov Model to MEG data recorded during resting state and a motor task and show that previous findings of diminished intrinsic beta amplitude in individuals with mTBI are largely due to the reduced beta band spectral content of bursts, and that diminished beta connectivity results from a loss in the temporal coincidence of burst states. In a motor task, mTBI results in diminished burst amplitude, altered modulation of burst probability during movement, and a loss in connectivity in motor networks. These results suggest that, mechanistically, mTBI disrupts the structural framework underlying neural synchrony, which impairs network function. Whilst the damage may be too subtle for structural imaging to see, the functional consequences are detectable and persist after injury. Our work shows that mTBI impairs the dynamic coordination of neural network activity and proposes a potent new method for understanding mTBI.

Although seafood is known to contain heart-healthy omega-3 fatty acids, many people choose to limit their seafood consumption because of fear of mercury exposure from seafood. It is imperative to clarify the potential health effects of current mercury exposure in contemporary populations.

To prevent the transmission of the novel coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19), China adopted nationwide lockdown measures on January 25, 2020, leading to an evident diminution in the observed air pollutants. To investigate the influence of the lockdown on atmospheric chemistry, the specific molecular composition, oxidative potential of organic aerosols (OAs) in PM2.5 were studied using a high-resolution orbitrap mass spectrometry at a typical coal-combustion city, Linfen, in the North China Plain (NCP). The major air pollutants including PM2.5, PM10, SO2, NO2, and CO were observed to be diminished by 28.6-45.4%, while O3 was augmented by 52.5% during the lockdown compared to those before the lockdown. A significant decrease of oxygen-containing (CHO) compounds (24.7%) associated with anthropogenic acids was observed during the lockdown, implying a reduction in fossil fuel combustion. The coal-burning related sulfur-containing organosulfates (CHOS-) and nitrooxy-sulfates (CHONS-) have also shown attenuated in both their relative abundances and anthropogenic/biogenic ratios. Amine/amide-like CHON + components have decreased by 27.6%, while nitro/nitrooxy-containing CHON- compounds have only decreased by 7.1%. Multi-source nitrogen-containing (CHN) compounds have shown a moderate elimination of 24.0%, while the identified high-condensed azaarenes have fallen from 17.7% to 14.7%, implying a potential reduction in the health risk of OAs during quarantine. The measurement of OAs' oxidative potential through dithiothreitol (DTT) assay has confirmed that as it had dropped from 0.88 nmol min-1 m-3 to 0.80 nmol min-1 m-3. High correlations were observed between the abundance of OA subgroups with the concentration of PM2.5 after the execution of the lockdown, suggesting a potential elevation in the contribution of organic components to the total PM2.5 level. Our study provides insightful compositional and health-related information in the variation of OAs during the lockdown period and attests to the validity of joint-control strategy in controlling the level and health risks of numerous atmospheric pollutants.

Recent animal studies suggested that deregulated expression of the platelet-derived growth factor receptor alpha (PDGFRalpha) may contribute to the failure of normal neural tube closure (NTC). There is also suggestive evidence that the promoter haplotype of the PDGFRA is associated with genetic susceptibility in human neural tube defects (NTDs). The purpose of our study was to investigate the association between promoter haplotype combinations of the human PDGFRA gene and risk for NTDs in a Hispanic population from the Texas-Mexico border region. This population has a considerably higher prevalence of NTDs (16/10,000 live births) than that generally reported in the United States (8-10/10,000 live births). In the present study, NTDs were defined as spina bifida or anencephaly. The haplotype of PDGFRA gene promoter was determined by direct DNA sequence analysis. Two novel haplotypes, H2epsilon and H1beta, were found. We observed significant differences among variable haplotype groups from in vitro transient transfection studies in U2-OS osteosarcoma cell and two other cell lines (HeLa cell and MCF7 cell). Result from our case-control study demonstrated that the frequencies of haplotypes with low transcription activity were significantly higher in NTD mothers than that observed in control mothers (odds ratio=2.2, 95% CI=1.0-4.6). Infants with at least one low activity allele showed slightly higher risk (odds ratio=1.5, 95%=0.8-3.1). Our study suggests that the reduced transcriptional activity of PDGFRA gene could increase the risk of having an NTD-affected pregnancy.

TDCPP is one of the major chemical of organophosphate flame retardants (OPFRs) that has been detected ubiquitously in both the environment and biota. Previously we observed that it influenced the concentrations of sex and thyroid hormones in a sex-dependent pattern, leading to reproductive impairments after short-term exposure in zebrafish. Here we investigate the consequences of longer-term exposure to TDCPP on the hypothalamic-pituitary-gonad (HPG), hypothalamic-pituitary-interrenal (HPI), and hypothalamic-pituitary-thyroid (HPT) axes of zebrafish (Danio rerio).

p-Phenylenediamines (PPDs) have been extensively used in the rubber industry and found to be pervasive in various environmental compartments for decades, while their transformation products and associated ecological and human health risks remain largely unknown. Herein, we developed and implemented a mass spectrometry-based platform combined with self-synthesized standards for the investigation of rubber-derived quinones formed from PPD antioxidants. Our results demonstrated that five quinones are ubiquitously present in urban runoff, roadside soils, and air particles. All of the identified sources are closely related to mankind's activities. Among the identified quinones, N-(1,3-dimethylbutyl)-N'-phenyl-p-phenylenediamine quinone has been recently found to be highly toxic, causing acute mortality of coho salmon in the Pacific Northwest. Ultrahigh-performance liquid chromatography coupled with triple quadrupole mass spectrometry was then applied for quantification of the five quinones and their corresponding PPD antioxidants. The results revealed interesting distinct distribution and concentration patterns of PPD-derived quinones in different environmental matrices. Daily intake rates of these quinones in a compact city of Hong Kong were estimated to be varied from 1.08 ng/(kg·day) for adults to 7.30 ng/(kg·day) for children, which were higher than the exposure levels of their parent compounds. Considering the prevalence of the use of rubber products, the outcome of this study strongly suggests for additional toxicological studies to investigate potential ecological and human health risks of the newly discovered quinones.

Misfolded α-synuclein (α-Syn) aggregates participate in the pathogenesis of synucleinopathies, such as Parkinson's disease. Whereas much is known about how the various domains within full-length α-Syn (FL-α-Syn) contribute to the formation of α-Syn aggregates and therefore to their neurotoxicity, little is known about whether the individual peptides that can be generated from α-syn, possibly as intermediate metabolites during degradation of misfolded α-Syn aggregates, are neurotoxic themselves.

9-Hydroxyphenanthrene (9-OHPhe), the representative hydroxyl metabolite of phenanthrene, has generated increasing concern as it is potentially hazardous to organisms. Herein, multispectroscopic and molecular docking techniques were applied to investigate the molecular interaction of human serum albumin (HSA) with 9-hydroxyphenanthrene (9-OHPhe) under simulated physiological conditions. Steady-state fluorescence and time-resolved fluorescence spectral analysis showed that 9-OHPhe quenched HSA fluorescence through a mixed static and dynamic process. HSA can bind with 9-OHPhe to form a 1:1 complex, with binding constants of 1.28 × 105, 1.36 × 105, and 1.26 × 105 L·mol-1 at 298.15, 303.15, and 308.15 K, respectively. The strong binding between HSA and 9-OHPhe is spontaneous and entropy-driven. Molecular docking indicated that the optimal binding site of 9-OHPhe with HSA was located in the IA subdomain of HSA. Thermodynamic analysis and molecular docking results suggested that hydrophobic interactions and hydrogen bond force dominated the binding process of HSA with 9-OHPhe. Specifically, 9-OHPhe formed hydrophobic interactions with LEU134, LEU139, ILE142, LEU154, PHE157, ALA158, and TYR161 and formed a 1.86 Å hydrogen bond with LEU135. Circular dichroism spectral analysis showed that the α-helical content of HSA decreased from 52.3 to 50.9% after adding 9-OHPhe with a ratio of 1:1. The obtained results are hoped to provide basic data for understanding the potential effects of the hydroxyl metabolites of PAHs on functional biomacromolecules.

Early and accurate detection of viruses in clinical and environmental samples is essential for effective public healthcare, treatment, and therapeutics. While PCR detects potential pathogens with high sensitivity, it is difficult to scale and requires knowledge of the exact sequence of the pathogen. With the advent of next-gen single-cell sequencing, it is now possible to scrutinize viral transcriptomics at the finest possible resolution-cells. This newfound ability to investigate individual cells opens new avenues to understand viral pathophysiology with unprecedented resolution. To leverage this ability, we propose an efficient and accurate computational pipeline, named Venus, for virus detection and integration site discovery in both single-cell and bulk-tissue RNA-seq data. Specifically, Venus addresses two main questions: whether a tissue/cell type is infected by viruses or a virus of interest? And if infected, whether and where has the virus inserted itself into the human genome? Our analysis can be broken into two parts-validation and discovery. Firstly, for validation, we applied Venus on well-studied viral datasets, such as HBV- hepatocellular carcinoma and HIV-infection treated with antiretroviral therapy. Secondly, for discovery, we analyzed datasets such as HIV-infected neurological patients and deeply sequenced T-cells. We detected viral transcripts in the novel target of the brain and high-confidence integration sites in immune cells. In conclusion, here we describe Venus, a publicly available software which we believe will be a valuable virus investigation tool for the scientific community at large.

Autism is a multifaceted developmental disorder of the nervous system, that necessitates novel therapeutic approaches beyond traditional medications and psychosomatic therapy, such as appropriate sensory integration training. This systematic mapping review aims to synthesize existing knowledge on enriching environmental interventions as an alternative avenue for improving autism, guiding future research and practice.

Lyciumruthenicum Murray (L. ruthenicum) has been used both as traditional Chinese medicine and food. Recent studies indicated that anthocyanins are the most abundant bioactive compounds in the L. ruthenicum fruits. The purpose of this study was to investigate the preventive effects and the mechanism of the anthocycanins from the fruit of L. ruthenicum (ACN) in high-fat diet-induced obese mice. In total, 24 male C57BL/6J mice were divided into three groups: control group (fed a normal diet), high-fat diet group (fed a high-fat diet, HFD), and HFD +ACN group (fed a high-fat diet and drinking distilled water that contained 0.8% crude extract of ACN). The results showed that ACN could significantly reduce the body weight, inhibit lipid accumulation in liver and white adipose tissue, and lower the serum total cholesterol and low-density lipoprotein cholesterol levels compared to that of mice fed a high-fat diet. 16S rRNA gene sequencing of bacterial DNA demonstrated that ACN prevent obesity by enhancing the diversity of cecal bacterial communities, lowering the Firmicutes-to-Bacteroidota ratio, increasing the genera Akkermansia, and decreasing the genera Faecalibaculum. We also studied the inhibitory effect of ACN on pancreatic lipase. The results showed that ACN has a high affinity for pancreatic lipase and inhibits the activity of pancreatic lipase, with IC50 values of 1.80 (main compound anthocyanin) and 3.03 mg/mL (crude extract), in a competitive way. Furthermore, fluorescence spectroscopy studies showed that ACN can quench the intrinsic fluorescence of pancreatic lipase via a static mechanism. Taken together, these findings suggest that the anthocyanins from L. ruthenicum fruits could have preventive effects in high-fat-diet induced obese mice by regulating the intestinal microbiota and inhibiting the pancreatic lipase activity.

Substituted para-phenylenediamine (PPD) antioxidants have been extensively used to retard oxidative degradation of tire rubber and were found to pervade multiple environmental compartments. However, there is a paucity of research on the environmental occurrences of their transformation products. In this study, we revealed the co-occurrence of six PPD-derived quinones (PPD-Qs) along with eight PPDs in fine particulate matter (PM2.5) from two Chinese megacities, in which N,N'-bis(1,4-dimethylpentyl)-p-phenylenediamine quinone (77PD-Q) was identified and quantified for the first time. Prevalent occurrences of these emerging PPD-Qs were found in Taiyuan (5.59-8480 pg/m3) and Guangzhou (3.61-4490 pg/m3). Significantly higher levels of PPDs/PPD-Qs were observed at a roadside site, implying the possible contribution of vehicle emissions. Correlation analysis implied potential consistencies in the fate of these PPD-Qs and suggested that most of them were originated from the transformation of their parent PPDs. For different subpopulation groups under different exposure scenarios, the estimated daily intakes of PPD-Qs (0.16-1.25 ng kgbw-1 day-1) were comparable to those of their parent PPDs (0.19-1.41 ng kgbw-1 day-1), suggesting an important but overlooked exposure caused by novel PPD-Qs. Given the prolonged exposure of these antioxidants and their quinone derivatives to traffic-relevant occupations, further investigations on their toxicological and epidemiological effects are necessary.

Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD) is a neurodevelopmental disorder with early onset in utero or childhood. Environmental exposure to six metals (Pb, Hg, As, Cd, Mn, Al) is believed to be associated with ASD directly or interactively with genes. Objective: To assess the association of ASD among Pakistani children with the six metals and genotype frequencies of three GST genes (GSTP1, GSTM1, GSTT1).

With the increasing availability and dropping cost of high-throughput technology in recent years, many-omics datasets have accumulated in the public domain. Combining multiple transcriptomic studies on related hypothesis via meta-analysis can improve statistical power and reproducibility over single studies. For differential expression (DE) analysis, biomarker categorization by DE pattern across studies is a natural but critical task following biomarker detection to help explain between study heterogeneity and classify biomarkers into categories with potentially related functionality. In this paper, we propose a novel meta-analysis method to categorize biomarkers by simultaneously considering the concordant pattern and the biological and statistical significance across studies. Biomarkers with the same DE pattern can be analyzed together in downstream pathway enrichment analysis. In the presence of different types of transcripts (e.g., mRNA, miRNA, and lncRNA, etc.), integrative analysis including miRNA/lncRNA target enrichment analysis and miRNA-mRNA and lncRNA-mRNA causal regulatory network analysis can be conducted jointly on all the transcripts of the same category. We applied our method to two Pan-cancer transcriptomic study examples with single or multiple types of transcripts available. Targeted downstream analysis identified categories of biomarkers with unique functionality and regulatory relationships that motivate new hypothesis in Pan-cancer analysis.

Metabolic syndrome (MetS), a cluster of metabolic disturbances that increase the risk for cardiovascular disease and diabetes, was because of genetic susceptibility and environmental risk factors. To identify the genetic variants associated with MetS and metabolic components, we conducted a genome-wide association study followed by replications in totally 12,720 participants from the north, north-eastern and eastern China. In combined analyses, independent of the top known signal at rs651821 on APOA5, we newly identified a secondary triglyceride-associated signal at rs180326 on BUD13 (Pcombined = 2.4 × 10-8 ). Notably, by an integrated analysis of the genotypes and the serum levels of APOA5, BUD13 and triglyceride, we observed that BUD13 was another potential mediator, besides APOA5, of the association between rs651821 and serum triglyceride. rs671 (ALDH2), an east Asian-specific common variant, was found to be associated with MetS (Pcombined = 9.7 × 10-22 ) in Han Chinese. The effects of rs671 on metabolic components were more prominent in drinkers than in non-drinkers. The replicated loci provided information on the genetic basis and mechanisms of MetS and metabolic components in Han Chinese.