Lanzhou University

Low back pain (LBP) is a common disease that imposes a huge social and economic burden on people. Intervertebral disc (IVD) degeneration (IVDD) is often considered to be the leading cause of LBP and further aggravate and cause serious spinal problems. The established treatment strategy for IVDD consists of physiotherapy, pain medication by drug therapy, and, if necessary, surgery, but none of them can be treated from the etiology; that is, it cannot fundamentally reverse IVD and reconstruct the mechanical function of the spine. With the development of nanotechnology and regenerative medicine, nano-drug delivery systems (NDDSs) have improved treatment results because of their good biodegradability, biocompatibility, precise targeted specific drug delivery, prolonged drug release time, and enhanced drug efficacy, and various new NDDSs for drugs, proteins, cells, and genes have brought light and hope for the treatment of IVDD. This review summarizes the research progress of NDDSs in the treatment of IVDD and provides prospects for using NDDSs to address the challenges of IVDD. We hope that the ideas generated in this review will provide insight into the precise treatment of IVDD.

Preventing arterial hemorrhage by intervening within the first few minutes is critical to the patient's life. Hemostatic materials have been developed over the last decades to address this issue, nevertheless these materials alone do not contribute to improve the survival effects in many extreme conditions, which is usually caused by penetrating arterial bleeding wounds that are incompressible and deep arterial bleeding with irregularly shapes. It is well known that, after calcium ion stimulation, many intriguing changes occurred in the major components of plasma, including the activation of several coagulation factors, such as the conversion of fibrinogen to fibrin, prothrombin to thrombin, and so on. Therefore, we constructed an expansion sponge with interpenetrating network based on chitosan and plasma, while various activated coagulation factors in plasma were also loaded into the pore structure of chitosan sponges. The prepared CS-PG sponge is capable of providing a simpler and more efficient method for treating high-pressure arterial bleeding wounds, which includes three steps: Rapid sealing and adhension, Thrombin catalysis and Activated autocoagulation. As the next generation bioactive materials, compared to conventional hemostatic materials, CS-PG sponge demonstrated superior hemostatic characteristics in both rabbit femoral artery damage and rat liver injury models.

This paper is devoted to V-shaped calcium concentration waves of the buffered bistable system in R2. We prove that multiple immobile buffers (where all buffers do not diffuse) do not affect the global asymptotic stability and uniqueness of V-shaped calcium concentration waves. The existence of such curved fronts has been proved in our previous work (Jia et al., 2022). However, the study of its stability is difficult since the buffers do not diffuse. We first apply the sliding method to construct a crucial sub-solution. Then, based on the super- and sub-solution method, and comparison principle, we achieve the global asymptotic stability of the V-shaped fronts.

It is extremely necessary to establish a rapid and high-throughput method to detect mycotoxins in food, because grains and cereals are greatly vulnerable to mycotoxins before and after harvest. In this study, we developed a portable aptasensor based on streptavidin magnetic microspheres (MMPs) and hybridization chain reaction (HCR) to simultaneously detect T-2 toxin and zearalenone (ZEN) in corn and oat flour. The MMPs compete with the aptamer for binding, which releases more H0 and triggers HCR with the H1 intermediate modified using 6-FAM and BHQ-1 and the unmodified H2. Subsequently, placing the HCR system corresponding to T-2 and ZEN in a constant-temperature fluorescence detector resulted in well-recovered fluorescence of the HCR products. T-2 and ZEN exhibited good fluorescence response in the dynamic range of 0.001-10 ng mL-1 and 0.01-100 ng mL-1 with detection limits of 0.1 pg mL-1 and 1.2 pg mL-1, respectively. In addition, this strategy achieved the selective detection of T-2 and ZEN in the spiked corn and oat flour samples. The results are also in good agreement with those obtained using commercial ELISA kits. This developed aptasensor with the characteristics of simple operation and portability has the application potential of establishing sensitive and portable field detection of various mycotoxins.

Nitrous oxide has rapid antidepressant effects in patients with treatment-resistant depression (TRD), but its underlying mechanisms of therapeutic actions are not well understood. Moreover, most of the current studies lack objective biological indicators to evaluate the changes of nitrous oxide-induced brain function for TRD. Therefore, this study assessed the effect of nitrous oxide on brain function for TRD based on event-related potential (ERP) components and functional connectivity networks (FCNs) methods. In this randomized, longitudinal, placebo-controlled trial, all TRD participants were divided into two groups to receive either a 1-hour inhalation of nitrous oxide or a placebo treatment, and they took part in the same task-state electroencephalogram (EEG) experiment before and after treatment. The experimental results showed that nitrous oxide improved depressive symptoms better than placebo in terms of 17-Hamilton Depression Rating Scale score (HAMD-17). Statistical analysis based on ERP components showed that nitrous oxide-induced significant differences in amplitude and latency of N1, P1, N2, P2. In addition, increased brain functional connectivity was found after nitrous oxide treatment. And the change of network metrics has a significant correlation with decreased depressive symptoms. These findings may suggest that nitrous oxide improves depression symptoms for TRD by modifying brain function.

In recent years, sulfite (S(Ⅳ)), as an alternative to persulfates, has played a crucial role in eliminating antibiotics in wastewater, so there is an urgent need to develop a cheap, environmentally friendly, and effective catalyst. Zero-valent iron (ZVI) has great potential for activated S(Ⅳ) removal of organic pollutants, but its reactivity in water is reduced due to passivation. In this study, a micron-scale iron-carbon composite(mZVI@C-800) prepared via high-temperature calcination was coupled with S(Ⅳ) to degrade metronidazole (MNZ). Under the optimized reaction conditions of mZVI@C-800 dosage of 0.2 g/L and S(Ⅳ) concentration of 0.1 g/L, the MNZ removal rate was up to 81.5 % in acidic and neutral environments. The surface chemical properties of the catalysts were characterized by different analytical techniques, and the corresponding catalytic mechanism was analyzed based on these analytical results. As a result, Fe2+ is the main active site, and ·OH and SO4·- were the dominant active species. The increase in efficiency was attributed to the introduction of carbon to enhance the corrosion of mZVI further releasing more Fe2+. Additionally proposed were the potential response mechanism, the degradation path, and the toxicity change rule. These results demonstrate that the catalytic breakdown of antibiotics in wastewater treatment can be accelerated by the use of the outstanding catalytic material mZVI@C-800.

It is crucial to elucidate the release rate of microplastics (MPs) and phthalic acid esters (PAEs) in agricultural soil and their effects on crop productivity regarding film types and thicknesses. To address this issue, two-year landfill test was performed using 0.016 mm-thick polyethylene (PEt1) & biodegradable (BIOt1), and 0.01 mm-thin polyethylene (PEt2) & biodegradable (BIOt2) residual films as materials with no landfill as CK. Scanning electron microscopy (SEM) and infrared analyses revealed that two-year landfill caused considerable changes in physical forms and spectral peaks in BIO film, which was more pronounced in thin BIO (36.90 % weight loss). Yet, less changes were presented in the above analyzes in polyethylene (PE) films, and thick films damaged relatively less. MPs number was 86,829.11 n/kg in BIOt1 and 134,912.27 n/kg in BIOt2, equivalent to 2.55 and 3.72 times higher than in PEt1 and PEt2, respectively. This was closely associated with PAEs release, as soil PAEs concentration was substantially lower in PEt1 (17.60 g/kg) and PEt2 (21.43 g/kg) than in BIOt1 and BIOt2 (37.12 g/kg and 49.20 g/kg), respectively. Furthermore, maize productivity parameters were negatively correlated with the amount of MPs and PAEs. BIOt2 and PEt1 had the lowest and highest grain yield, respectively. BIO exhibited greater environmental risk and adverse effects on soil and crop productivity than PE film due to physical degradation and release of PAEs. Thickness-wise comparison exhibited that thin film residues had more adverse effect relative to thick film ones.

Microplastics (MPs) and cadmium (Cd) are widely distributed in soil ecosystems, posing a potential threat to agricultural production and human health. However, the coupled effects of MPs and Cd in soil-plant systems remain largely unknown, especially on a large scale. In this study, a meta-analysis was conducted to evaluate the influence of MPs on plant growth and Cd accumulation under the Cd contamination conditions. Our results showed that MPs had significantly negative effects on shoot biomass (a decrease of 11.8 %) and root biomass (a decrease of 8.79 %). MPs also significantly increased Cd accumulation in the shoots and roots by 14.6 % and 13.5 %, respectively, revealing that MPs promote plant Cd uptake. Notably, polyethylene displayed a stronger promoting effect (an increase of 29.4 %) on Cd accumulation among these MP types. MPs induced a significantly increase (9.75 %) in concentration of soil available Cd and a slight decrease in soil pH, which may be the main driver promoting plant Cd uptake. MP addition posed physiological toxicity risks to plants by inhibiting photosynthesis and enhancing oxidative damage, directly demonstrating that MPs in combination with Cd can pose synergetic toxicity risks to plants. We further noted that MPs altered microbial diversity, likely influencing Cd bioavailability in soil-plant systems. Overall, our study has important implications for the combined impacts of Cd and MPs on plants and provides new insights into developing guidelines for the sustainable use of MPs in agriculture.

While the rapid expansion of China's 5G mobile network helps to speed up the nation's economic and social development, it tends to release more CO2 due to the 5G's significant energy demand, hampering sustainable development of the 5G network. Previous assessments of CO2 emissions from China's 5G development were based on a projected 5G network ranging from six to fifteen million base stations with the absent of a convincing business model in 5G's application. Under the scenario of business-estimated six million base stations in 2030, the share of electricity consumed by China's 5G networks in 2030 could reach 8.4 % of the national total power generation, causing 0.44 GtCO2/yr CO2 emissions. We collected 5G base station numbers in 2020 and 2021 in 31 provinces and province-level municipalities (PLM), the period with the rapid growth of the 5G base stations in China. We linked these provincial base stations with provincial Gross Domestic Product (GDP), population (POP), and big data development level (BDDL) and established a statistical model to predict 5G base stations by 2030. The model predicted 2-5 million 5G base stations by 2030, considerably lower than the business-projected base station number. Under the model predicted 5G base stations, China's 5G network could yield 0.15-0.29 GtCO2/yr emissions subject to the nation's BDDL from 40 to 80 % by 2030. Both 5G base stations and CO2 emissions are significantly lower than the previous estimates. We decomposed the CO2 footprint of China's 5G networks and assessed the contribution of the number of 5G base stations and mobile data traffic to 5G-induced CO2 emissions. We find that increasing the application of clean energy and promoting energy efficiency can reduce CO2 emissions in the 5G network. To more accurately estimate 5G's climate effect, we propose that it urgently needs to improve vivid 5G business models.

In this paper, we prove power convexity result of solution to Dirichlet problem of special Lagrangian equation in dimension two. This provides new example of fully nonlinear elliptic boundary value problem whose solution shares power convexity property previously only knew for 2-Hessian equation in dimension three. The key ingredients consist of microscopic convexity principles and deformation methods.

Humans exhibit a broad range of post-marital residence patterns and there is growing recognition that post-marital residence predicts women's reproductive success; however, the nature of the relationship is probably dependent on whether co-resident kin are cooperators or competitors. Here, we explore this relationship in a Tibetan population, where couples practice a mixture of post-marital residence patterns, co-residing in the same village with the wife's parents, the husband's parents or endogamously with both sets of parents. Using detailed demographic data from 17 villages we find that women who live with only their own parents have an earlier age at first birth (AFB) and age at last birth (ALB) than women who live with only their parents-in-law. Women who co-reside with both sets of parents have the earliest AFB and ALB. However, those with co-resident older siblings postponed reproduction, suggestive of competition-related delay. Shifts to earlier reproductive timing were also observed in relation to the imposition of family planning policies, in line with Fisherian expectations. Our study provides evidence of the costs and benefits to women's direct fitness of co-residing with different kin, against a backdrop of adaptive responses to cultural constraints on completed fertility.

Understanding cloud droplet relative dispersion is critical for mitigating the confounding effect of aerosol-cloud interactions in the simulation of the global climatic patterns. Diverse dispersion effects, meaning that the correlation between relative dispersion (ε) and fog droplet number concentration (Nf) changes from positive to negative as Nf increases at a fixed liquid water content (LWC) condition, were found in the urban fog observed during the winters of 2017 and 2018 in Nanjing, China. The dominant microphysical processes driving the diverse dispersion effects were found to be activation, condensation, deactivation, evaporation, and sedimentation. The critical first bin (diameter range of 2 to 4 μm) strength and volume-mean diameter (Dv) for classifying the diverse dispersion effects are 0.3-0.4 and 10-12 μm, respectively. The mean dispersion offset (DO) was -27.6% for weakening the Twomey effect and 27.5% for enhancing it. Assuming the Gamma distribution for the fog droplet number size distribution, the mean dispersion effect was significantly underestimated at DO < 0. Based on the measured nonmonotonic relationship between ε and Dv, we establish ε parameterization using a Nelder function, which can be applied to the diverse dispersion effects. The mean deviation for diagnosing DO was less than 10% for DO > 0 and less than 50% for DO < 0. These results could shed new light on understanding the diverse dispersion effects, which cloud help reduce the uncertainties in the simulation of aerosol-cloud interactions.

Atmospheric circulation monthly anomalies over the Ural region are key indicators of Eurasian climate anomalies. Here, whether there exists a one-to-two correspondence relationship that generally agrees with the supercritical pitchfork bifurcation model, referred to as a pitchfork-like relationship, between reduced sea ice concentration (SIC) in the Barents-Kara Seas in specific months and the lagging Ural circulation anomalies is explored. Based on the monthly observational SIC data and two reanalyses during 1979/1980 − 2020/2021, two typical examples are found by estimating the joint probability density function. Results show that when the gradually reduced SIC in September (January) passes a critical threshold, the preferred Ural circulation patterns in October (February) exhibit a regime transition from the flat zonal westerlies to wavy westerlies with a Ural trough and wavy westerlies with a Ural ridge. Because both the barotropic and baroclinic conversion of energy from the climatological-mean flow to Ural circulation anomalies exhibit a regime transition from one regime to two regimes. It might be associated with the increased both positive and negative shear vorticity of background westerly wind over the Ural region before the regime transition, contributed by the thermodynamic effect of the SIC reduction. After the regime transition, positive and negative anomaly events of Ural atmospheric circulation occur with equal probability under the same SIC. Our results suggest an increased incidence of both positive and negative anomalies of Ural atmospheric circulation and also the Siberian High, under the recent SIC reduction, which implies a low predictability of Eurasian climate anomalies in October and February.

Compared with O-aryl glycosides, C-aryl glycosides have remarkable stability in the process of enzyme and chemical hydrolysis, and have important applications in pharmaceutical chemistry and biochemistry. In recent years, the synthesis of C-aryl glycosides has attracted extensive attention of chemical researchers. Among them, the strategy of C-aryl glycosides synthesis through C-H functionalization does not require pre-functionalization of the substrate, and has high step economy and atomic economy, which is the focus of attention. Herein, this concept article systematically summarizes the synthesis of C-aryl glycosides with diverse regioselectivity and diastereoselectivity from the perspective of C-H arylation of glycosides and C-H glycosylation of arenes.

The magnesium alloy was made into orthopedic steel plates to repair tibial fractures of New Zealand white rabbits and to explore the biocompatibility, degradation behavior, and mechanical properties of the magnesium alloy plates in repairing fractures in vivo. Fifty-four rabbits were randomly divided into experimental, control, and sham-operated groups. Tibial fractures in the experimental and the control groups were fixed with magnesium alloy and titanium alloy plates, respectively, and only bone tunnels were established without any implants in the sham-operated group. The concentrations of serum alanine transaminase, creatinine (CREA), creatine kinase (CK), and magnesium ion were measured before and 1 day, 1, 2, 4, 8, and 16 weeks after operation, respectively, to evaluate the biocompatibility of magnesium alloy plates. The corrosion products and components were observed using a scanning electron microscope with an energy-dispersive spectroscopy system, and the corrosion rate was observed by weight loss testing. Then the degradation behavior of magnesium alloy plate was analyzed. Analysis of mechanical properties of magnesium alloy plates was done by four-point bending tests. There were no statistically significant differences in serum alanine transaminase, CREA, or CK at each time point among the three groups ( P > 0.05 ). The degradation behavior of the magnesium alloy plates increased with the longer implantation time. The four-point bending test results indicated that the mechanical properties of magnesium alloy plates decreased gradually during the degradation. The results showed that magnesium alloy plates implanted into rabbit tibias degrade gradually with the implantation time, and the mechanical properties of the magnesium alloy weaken gradually during the degradation. Meanwhile, the magnesium alloy plate had excellent biocompatibility and biosafety in the process of degradation in vivo.

Colorectal cancer is a malignant disease with a high incidence and low survival rate, and the effectiveness of traditional treatments, such as surgery and radiotherapy, is very limited. CircRNAs, a kind of stable endogenous circular RNA, generally function by sponging miRNAs and binding or translating proteins. CircRNAs have been identified to play an important role in regulating the proliferation and metabolism of CRC. In recent years, many reports have indicated that by regulating the expression of glycolysis-related proteins, such as GLUT1 and HK2, or directly translating proteins, circRNAs can promote the Warburg effect in cancer cells, thereby driving CRC metabolism. Moreover, the Warburg effect increases lactate production in cancer cells and promotes acidification of the TME, which further drives cancer progression. In this review, we summarized the remarkable role of circRNAs in regulating glucose metabolism in CRC in recent years, which might be useful for finding new targets for the clinical treatment of CRC.

Objective The aggregation of alpha-synuclein (α-syn) is closely related to the pathogenesis and dysfunction of Parkinson’s disease.Methods To investigate the potential of nanoparticlemediated therapy, the interactive mechanism between α-syn and n-myristyltrimethylammonium bromide (MTAB) Gold nanoparticles (AuNPs) with different diameters was explored by molecular dynamics simulations.ResultsThe results indicated that there was a directional interaction between α-syn and n-MTAB AuNPs, in which the driving force for the binding of the C-terminus in α-syn came from electrostatic interactions and the nonamyloid β component (NAC) domain exhibited weak hydrophobic interactions as well as electrostatic interaction, thereby preventing α-syn aggregation. Energy statistics and analysis showed that for 5-MTAB AuNPs, acidic amino acids such as Glu and Asp played a very important role.Conclusions This study not only demonstrated a theoretical foundation for the behavior of biomolecules directionally adsorbed on the surface of biofunctional nanoparticles but also indicated that 5-MTAB AuNPs may be a potential inhibitor against α-syn protein aggregation.