Huzhou University

A photo-mediated cascade rearrangement of nitroarenes in an electron donor-acceptor (EDA) complex generates phosphinic amides without metal or oxidants. Utilizing oxygen atoms from nitro groups, the reaction facilitates P(III) to...

Background Multiple primary malignancies (MPM) are two or more independent primary malignancies. Recently, the relationship between microbiome and various tumors has been gradually focused on. Objective To describe the relationship between MPM patients (MPMs) and gut microbiome. Methods A total of 27 MPMs, 30 colorectal cancer patients (CRCs), and 30 healthy individuals were included to obtain metagenomic sequencing data. The knowledge graphs of gut bacteria and enteroviruses were plotted based on metagenomics. Wilcoxon rank-sum test was used to screen the characteristic gut microbiome. Results The knowledge graph of gut microbiome in MPM patients was plotted. A total of 26 different gut bacteria, including Dialister, Fecalibacterium and Mediterraneibacter, were found between MPMs and healthy individuals. Twenty gut bacteria, including Parvimonas, Dialister and Mediterraneibacter, were more abundant in MPM complicated by CRC compared with CRCs. Twenty-one different enterovirus, including Triavirus, Punavirus and Lilyvirus, were screened between MPMs and healthy individuals. Triavirus, Punavirus and Lilyvirus were less abundant in MPM than healthy individuals. The abundance of Triavirus, Punavirus and Lilyvirus in CRC patients were also lower than MPM complicated by CRC patients. Conclusion The knowledge graph of gut microbiome in MPM patients was plotted. It may provide basic data support for future research of MPM.

In this work, a novel, comprehensive, and eco-friendly protocol for the production of biologically active dihydropyrano-pyrazole derivatives in aqueous medium at room temperature using 1,3,5-trimethyl-2,4,6-tris(4-pyridinium sulfonic acid)benzene tri-chloride (TMTPSBTC) as a capable, recyclable, and homogeneous Brønsted acidic ionic liquid catalyst is described. The results from carbon, hydrogen and nitrogen elemental analysis, mass spectrometry, thermal analysis, nuclear magnetic resonance, and Fourier transform infrared techniques characterized the TMTPSBTC skeleton. The high yields of products in reasonable times during a one-pot multicomponent domino operation (1a-16a, 85–98%, 5–20 min), the introduction of novel products to the literature (5a and 16a), the non-metallic nature of the catalysis, the simple preparation of the catalyst, and its reusability (four runs) without significant loss of activity are attractive benefits of the present methodology. Graphical abstract

Background Trehalose-6-phosphate synthase (TPS) is an essential enzyme involved in the production of trehalose, and the genes associated with TPS are crucial for various processes such as growth, development, defense mechanisms, and resistance to stress. However, there has been no documentation regarding the evolution and functional roles of the TPS gene family within Theaceae. Results Here, we uncovered the lineage-specific evolution of TPS genes in Theaceae. A total of 102 TPS genes were discovered across ten Theaceae species with sequenced genomes. Consistent with the previous classification, our phylogenetic analysis indicated that the TPS genes in Theaceae can be categorized into two primary subfamilies and six distinct clades (I, II-1, II-2, II-3, II-4, II-5), with clade I containing a greater number of introns compared to those found in clade II. Segmental duplication served as the main catalyst for the evolution of TPS genes within Theaceae, and numerous TPS genes exhibited inter-species synteny among various Theaceae species. Most of the TPS genes were ubiquitously expressed, and expression divergence of TPS paralogous pairs was observed. The cis-acting elements found in TPS genes indicated their involvement in responses to phytohormones and stress. Conclusion This research enhanced our understanding of the lineage-specific evolution of the TPS gene family in Theaceae and offered important insights for future functional analyses.

In this paper, the power series and hypergeometric series representations of the beta function and the Ramanujan R-function with one parameter, are presented, which yield higher order monotonicity results related to ${\mathcal {B}}(x)$ and ${\mathcal {R}}(x)$; the decreasing property of the functions ${\mathcal {R}}\left( x\right) /{\mathcal {B}}\left( x\right)$ and $[ {\mathcal {B}}(x) -{\mathcal {R}}(x)] /x^{2}$ on $\left( 0,\infty \right)$ is proved. Moreover, a conjecture put forward by Qiu et al. in [17] is proved to be true. As applications, several inequalities and identities are deduced. These results obtained in this paper may be helpful for the study of certain special functions. Finally, an interesting infinite series similar to the Riemann zeta functions is mentioned and a relevant problem is proposed.

Objective To explore the inhibitory function characteristics of overweight female college students through two studies, and on this basis, to explore the effects of high-intensity interval training (HIIT) intervention on the inhibitory function of overweight female college students, as well as to test the mediating role of body composition. Methods Study I recruited 34 overweight female college students and 38 normal-weight female college students, using the GO/NOGO task and the Flanker task to measure the participants' response inhibition and interference inhibition. Study II randomly divided the recruited 64 overweight female college students into an experimental group (n = 32) and a control group (n = 32), with the experimental group undergoing 8 weeks of Tabata-based HIIT and the control group not engaging in any form of exercise. The body composition of the participants was measured using a bioelectrical impedance body composition analyzer made in South Korea, the GAIA KIKO. Based on the SPSS 21.0 software, statistical techniques such as independent sample t-tests, Pearson correlation analysis, and mediation effect tests were used for analysis. Results The reaction times of overweight female college students were significantly shorter than those of normal-weight female college students under the GO stimulus, consistent conditions, and inconsistent conditions (P < 0.05). 8 weeks of HIIT could effectively reduce the reaction times of overweight female college students under the GO stimulus, consistent conditions, and inconsistent conditions (P < 0.05), and effectively improve BMI, fat-free weight, fat content, muscle content, and basal metabolic rate (P < 0.05). There was a significant positive correlation between fat content and reaction times under the GO stimulus, consistent conditions, and inconsistent conditions (P < 0.05), and a significant negative correlation between waist-hip ratio and reaction times under the GO stimulus (P < 0.05). In addition, the mediation effect test found that fat content had a significant mediating effect in the reaction times under the consistent conditions after HIIT intervention (P < 0.01). Conclusion Overweight female college students have poorer inhibitory function, and HIIT can effectively improve their inhibitory function, with fat content playing a potential mediating role in the intervention process. It is recommended that HIIT be used as an important means to control the weight of overweight female college students and improve their inhibitory function.

Introduction Non-typhoidal Salmonella (NTS) infections typically present as localized inflammation near the intestinal mucosal epithelium. However, some NTS strains can breach the intestinal barrier and enter the bloodstream, leading to bacteremia and severe systemic infections. The mechanisms by which NTS invades the bloodstream remain unclear. Methods In this study, we isolated 36 NTS strains from patients with diarrhea and bacteremia at First Affiliated Hospital of Huzhou University. Strains represented two distinct clinical manifestations, and were subjected to whole-genome sequencing, comparative genomics, and genetic differentiation analysis to identify genes potentially involved in bloodstream invasion. Additionally, we conducted inhibition assays using quercetin, a chemical inhibitor of the identified gene pathways, to validate our findings. Results Our analysis revealed that genes distinguishing the bloodstream Salmonella isolates from the fecal Salmonella isolates were primarily involved in the AI-2 quorum sensing pathway and biofilm-associated protein transport. Subsequent biofilm formation assays demonstrated that the bloodstream isolates exhibited significantly higher biofilm formation capacity compared to the fecal isolates. Upon the addition of quercetin, biofilm formation was equally inhibited in both groups. Collectively, these findings suggest that genes involved in the AI-2 pathway and biofilm-associated protein transport may be key factors contributing to the development of bacteremia in NTS infections.

The evolution of hydrogen bubbles plays a critical role in governing the performance of Zn-based batteries by influencing Zn deposition, electrode morphology, and mass transfer dynamics. This work consolidates recent...

Metal‐support interaction represents an effective strategy to boost the electrocatalytic performance of electrocatalysts. Herein, a novel electrocatalyst consisting of Ru nanoclusters anchored on the N‐doped carbon nanosheets (abbreviated as Ru@N‐CNS hereafter) with synergistic strong metal‐support interaction (SMSI) and reactive metal‐support interaction (RMSI) is developed. Thanks to the equilibrium of SMSI and RMSI, the obtained Ru@N‐CNS electrocatalyst possesses abundant exposed active sites, robust mechanical strength, fast mass transfer and regulated electronic states, thereby holding outstanding electrochemical hydrogen evolution performance in alkaline medium. To be specific, the Ru@N‐CNS only requires a small overpotential of 16 mV at a current density of 10 mA cm‐2, low Tafel slope of 67.8 mV dec‐1, and highlighted long‐term stability, surpassing the commercial Pt/C and Ru/C. More memorably, a water splitting electrolyzer built by the Ru@N‐CNS electrode as cathode and commercial RuO2 as anode needs a low cell voltage of 1.56 V at 10 mA cm‐2 and exhibits excellent stability, reflecting a huge prospect for scalable electrochemical H2 generation. This work opens up a novel thought of synergizing metal‐support interactions for designing progressive electrocatalysts in energy‐related fields.

Medical imaging, such as X-rays and CT scans, plays a critical role in diagnostics, yet the growing workload leads to reporting delays and potential errors. Traditional deep learning-based approaches often struggled to capture complex semantic relationships in long medical reports, leading to issues of coherence and consistency in generated texts. To address these challenges, we propose a novel multi-stage generative framework based on diffusion models. A cross-attention mechanism is incorporated that simultaneously attends to both textual and visual features, significantly improving the model’s ability to align image content with accurate textual descriptions. Additionally, we optimize multimodal information fusion by integrating skip connections, Long Short-Term Memory (LSTM) networks, and MIX-MLP networks, enhancing the flow of information between different modalities. By integrating advanced multimodal fusion mechanisms, our approach enhances the accuracy and coherence of automatic report generation. The model was evaluated on IU-XRAY and MIMIC-CXR datasets, achieving state-of-the-art performance across multiple metrics, including BLEU, METEOR, and ROUGE, significantly surpassing prior methods. These results validate the framework’s effectiveness in generating professional and coherent medical reports, offering a reliable solution to alleviate the burden of manual reporting. The source code is available at https://github.com/watersunhznu/DifMIRG.

Symbiotic microbes facilitate rapid adaptation of invasive insects on novel plants via multifaceted function provisions, but little was known on the importance of cross linkages in symbiotic microbiota to insect invasiveness. Novel host pine Pinus tabuliformis is inherently unsuitable for invasive red turpentine beetle (RTB) in China; however, Novosphingobium and Erwinia / Serratia in gallery microbiota (at the interface between RTB larvae and pine phloem) have been discovered to help beetles via biodegrading pine detrimental compounds naringenin and pinitol, respectively. Here, we further revealed significant positive linkage of the two functions, with higher activity level conferring more growth benefit to RTB larvae. Abundance of Erwinia / Serratia was remarkably increased in response to pinitol, while naringenin‐biodegrading Novosphingobium was unable to utilize this main phloem carbohydrate directly. High‐activity bacterial microbiota produced nutritive metabolites (sucrose and hexadecanoic acid) from pinitol consumption that facilitated growth of both Novosphingobium and beetle larvae. Functional proteins of several bacterial taxa were enriched in high‐activity microbiota that appeared to form a metabolic network collectively to regulate the nutrient production. Our results indicate that positive interaction between Erwinia / Serratia and Novosphingobium is critical for RTB invasion success, while Bacilli bacteria might restrict this linkage, providing new insights into symbiotic microbial interactions for insect herbivores.

Background and Objective Small bowel obstruction is a common acute abdomen. The disease presentation changes rapidly and differential diagnosis is difficult. If diagnosis and treatment are delayed or inappropriate, the consequences will be serious. Methods Here, we report here a rare case of small bowel obstruction caused by enteroliths formed in the duodenal diverticulum. Results Conservative treatment was not effective. Six days later, the patient underwent emergency exploratory laparotomy to confirm small bowel obstruction, and enterotomy for lithotomy was performed. Conclusion Obstruction of the small intestine due to passage of enteroliths from the duodenal diverticulum is rare. There is currently no definitive evidence delineating the optimal duration for non‐surgical treatment. However, it should be noted that the postponement of surgical intervention may elevate mortality rates.

Multimodal phototheranostics utilizing single molecules offer a “one-and-done” approach, presenting a convenient and effective strategy for cancer therapy. However, therapies based on conventional photosensitizers often suffer from limitations such as a single photosensitizing mechanism, restricted tumor penetration and retention, and the requirement for multiple irradiations, which significantly constrain their application. In this report, we present an aggregation-induced emission luminogen (AIEgen) bacteria hybrid bionic robot to address above issues. This bionic robot is composed of multifunctional AIEgen (INX-2) and Escherichia coli Nissle 1917 (EcN), i.e., EcN@INX-2. The EcN@INX-2 bionic robot exhibits near-infrared II (NIR-II) fluorescence emission and demonstrates efficient photodynamic and photothermal effects, as well as tumor-targeting capabilities. These features are facilitated by the complementary roles of INX-2 and EcN. The robot successfully enables in vivo multimodal imaging and therapy of colon cancer models in female mice through various mechanisms, including the activation of anti-tumor immunity, as well as photodynamic and photothermal therapy. Our study paves an avenue for designing multifunctional diagnostic agents for targeted colon cancer therapy through image-guided combinational immunotherapy.

Background In recent decades, mental health and stress among medical students have become a global concern. Currently, China lacks a scale specifically designed to assess stress levels in medical school settings. This study aims to cross-culturally translate and adapt the Perceived Medical School Stress (PMSS) Scale into Chinese, evaluate its psychometric properties in medical schools, and analyze the associated factors of medical students’ stress levels. Methods Data collection for the Chinese version of the PMSS was conducted from October to November 2023, among medical students from selected medical schools in North and East China. Exploratory factor analysis (EFA) and confirmatory factor analysis (CFA) were used to evaluate the underlying factor structure. Content validity was assessed using the Content Validity Index (CVI). Criterion validity was evaluated with the Chinese version of the Perceived Stress Scale (PSS). Internal consistency was assessed by calculating Cronbach’s alpha coefficient, McDonald’s Omega coefficient, and test-retest reliability. Additionally, relationships between medical school stress and general demographic characteristics, insomnia severity, and self-efficacy were examined. Results The final Chinese version of the PMSS supports a two-factor structure with 13 items, defined as “psychological stress and environment” and “resilience and expectations.” The scale’s Content Validity Index (CVI) was 0.980, with a criterion validity of 0.767. The Cronbach’s alpha coefficient was 0.911, McDonald’s Omega coefficient was 0.914, and the test-retest reliability was 0.794. Medical school stress levels showed significant differences based on gender and educational background (P < 0.05). Stress levels were positively correlated with insomnia severity and negatively correlated with self-efficacy. Conclusions The Chinese version of the PMSS is a reliable and valid tool for assessing stress levels among medical students in Chinese medical schools. Female students and those pursuing graduate degrees report higher levels of medical stress. Insomnia severity and self-efficacy significantly influence stress levels among medical students.

Traditional liquid electrolyte‐based lithium‐ion batteries (LIBs) are constrained by safety risks such as flammability and explosion, as well as a relatively low theoretical specific capacity (~300 mAh g⁻¹). Lithium‐metal batteries (LMB), which offer higher energy density and enhanced safety, have emerged as competitive candidates for next‐generation lithium‐based batteries. As a key component of LMBs, polymer electrolytes are expected to exhibit excellent ionic conductivity, robust mechanical properties, and stable interfacial compatibility with electrode materials. Among the diverse range of polymer electrolytes, polyvinylidene fluoride (PVDF)‐based polymer electrolytes stand out due to their unique properties. PVDF, with its high dielectric constant, effectively facilitates lithium salt dissociation and ion migration, while maintaining excellent mechanical flexibility. These characteristics position PVDF‐based polymer electrolytes as a promising material for LMBs. This review begins by introducing the classification of polymer electrolytes and the mechanisms of lithium‐ion migration within them. It then focuses on PVDF‐based polymer electrolytes, systematically discussing the synthetic and modification strategies categorized into four main approaches: composite fabrication, inorganic filler doping, liquid additive modification, and multi‐strategy modification. Finally, the challenges and future prospects of PVDF‐based polymer electrolytes are reviewed to provide insights for developing high‐performance polymer electrolytes in the future.

The emergence and rapid spread of multidrug-resistant Botrytis cinerea strains pose a great challenge to the quality and safety of agricultural products and the efficient use of pesticides. Previously unidentified fungicides and targets are urgently needed to combat B. cinerea –associated infections as alternative therapeutic options. In this study, the promising compound Z24 demonstrated efficacy against all tested plant pathogenic fungi. Thiamine thiazole synthase (Bcthi4) was identified as a target protein of Z24 by drug affinity responsive target stability (DARTS), cellular thermal shift assay (CETSA), and surface plasmon resonance (SPR) assays. Molecular docking and enzyme activity experiments have demonstrated that Z24 can affect the function of Bcthi4. Last, mechanistic studies show that Z24 inhibits thiamine biosynthesis by binding to Bcthi4 and induces up-regulation of alternative splicing [alternative 5′ splice site (A5SS)] of the Bcthi4 gene. In conclusion, by targeting Bcthi4, Z24 has the potential to be developed as a previously unidentified anti– B. cinerea candidate.