The Antioxidant and Hypolipidemic Effects of Mesona Chinensis Benth Extracts

In this study, the antioxidant and hypolipidemic effects of Mesona Chinensis Benth (MCB) extracts were evaluated. Seven fractions (F0, F10, F20, F30, F40, F50 and MTF) were obtained from the MCB ethanol extracts. Compared to the commercial antioxidants (vitamin C), MTF and F30 exhibited higher antioxidant activities in the antiradical activity test and the FRAP assay. The half-inhibition concentration (IC50) for MTF and F30 were 5.323 µg/mL and 5.278 µg/mL, respectively. MTF at 200 µg/mL significantly decreased the accumulation of TG in oleic acid (OA)-induced HepG2 cells and reversed the inhibitory effect of Compound C on AMPK (MTF and F30 significantly increased the glucose utilization of insulin-induced HepG2 cells). In addition, the components of MTF were identified by HPLC-MS, which were caffeic acid, quercetin 3-O-galactoside, isoquercetin, astragalin, rosmarinic acid, aromadendrin-3-O-rutinoside, rosmarinic acid-3-O-glucoside and kaempferol-7-O-glucoside. Through statistical correlations by Simca P software, it was found that the main antioxidant and hypolipidemic components of MCB might be caffeic acid, kaempferol-7-O-glucoside, rosmarinic acid-3-O-glucoside and aromadendrin-3-O-rutinoside, which may play important roles in the AMPK pathway. MTF and F30 in MCB could be potential health products for the treatment of hyperlipidemia.     

The Extracts of Polygonum cuspidatum Root and Rhizome Block the Entry of SARS-CoV-2 Wild-Type and Omicron Pseudotyped Viruses via Inhibition of the S-Protein and 3CL Protease

COVID-19, resulting from infection by the SARS-CoV-2 virus, caused a contagious pandemic. Even with the current vaccines, there is still an urgent need to develop effective pharmacological treatments against this deadly disease. Here, we show that the water and ethanol extracts of the root and rhizome of Polygonum cuspidatum (Polygoni Cuspidati Rhizoma et Radix), a common Chinese herbal medicine, blocked the entry of wild-type and the omicron variant of the SARS-CoV-2 pseudotyped virus into fibroblasts or zebrafish larvae, with IC₅₀ values ranging from 0.015 to 0.04 mg/mL. The extracts were shown to inhibit various aspects of the pseudovirus entry, including the interaction between the spike protein (S-protein) and the angiotensin-converting enzyme II (ACE2) receptor, and the 3CL protease activity. Out of the chemical compounds tested in this report, gallic acid, a phytochemical in P. cuspidatum, was shown to have a significant anti-viral effect. Therefore, this might be responsible, at least in part, for the anti-viral efficacy of the herbal extract. Together, our data suggest that the extracts of P. cuspidatum inhibit the entry of wild-type and the omicron variant of SARS-CoV-2, and so they could be considered as potent treatments against COVID-19.     

手性大孔磷酸镓Hit-5的水热合成与晶体结构

本文采用水热合成法制备了一个三维手性大孔开放骨架磷酸镓Ga16P16O75·4[1,6-C6H18N2]·[C2H10N2]·2H2O(简称Hit-5).反应起始原料摩尔配比为:1 GaOOH:15 H3PO4:7.5 H2N(CH2)6NH2:0.5 C2H8N2:555 H2O.Hit-5属正交晶系,P21212空间群,晶胞参数:a=0.8671(1)nm,b=1.7945(1)nm,c=0.9101(1)nm,β=108.33(1)°,V=1.3443(2)nm3,Z=4.Hit-5的骨架是由Ga3P3六聚体和Ga4P4八聚体两个不同的二级结构单元通过共顶点联接构成三维纳米孔结构,在[001]方向呈现16-元环孔道.     

High-performance potassium poly(heptazine imide) films for photoelectrochemical water splitting

Photoelectrochemical (PEC) water splitting is an appealing approach by which to convert solar energy into hydrogen fuel. Polymeric semiconductors have recently attracted intense interest of many scientists for PEC water splitting. The crystallinity of polymer films is regarded as the main factor that determines the conversion efficiency. Herein, potassium poly(heptazine) imide (K-PHI) films with improved crystallinity were in situ prepared on a conductive substrate as a photoanode for solar-driven water splitting. A remarkable photocurrent density of ca. 0.80 mA cm⁻² was achieved under air mass 1.5 global illumination without the use of any sacrificial agent, a performance that is ca. 20 times higher than that of the photoanode in an amorphous state, and higher than those of other related polymeric photoanodes. The boosted performance can be attributed to improved charge transfer, which has been investigated using steady state and operando approaches. This work elucidates the pivotal importance of the crystallinity of conjugated polymer semiconductors for PEC water splitting and other advanced photocatalytic applications.

Potassium poly(heptazine imide) photoanode is synthesized, and owing to the improved crystallinity, it has presented a remarkable performance for solar-driven water splitting.     

Alkene insertion reactivity of a o-carboranyl-substituted 9-borafluorene

The synthesis of 9-borafluorene with an electron-withdrawing o-carboranyl substituent and its reactions with a series of alkenes are described. The o-carboranyl substituent is bonded via one of the cluster carbon atoms to the boron atom of the 9-borafluorene moiety. In all cases, the reactions afford partly saturated analogs of borepins (i.e. 6,7-dihydroborepins) by unprecedented alkene insertion into the endocyclic B–C bond of the borole ring. Comparative studies with 9-bromo-9-borafluorene illustrate the superior insertion reactivity of the carboranyl-substituted derivative. A suite of experimental and computational techniques disclose the unique properties of the 9-borafluorene and provide insight into how the 9-carboranyl substituent affects its chemical reactivity.

A 9-carboranyl-substituted 9-borafluorene is reported, which is capable of undergoing efficient ring expansion to 6,7-dihydroborepins by a previously unknown alkene insertion.     

Preface

This special issue of the journal Numerical Mathe-matics: Theory, Methods and Applications is dedicated to Professor Yucheng Su of Nanjing University (China) on the occasion of his eightieth birthday. It consists of eight papers covering computational methods of partial differential equations, where most of the equations are singularly perturbed.     

Conserved Control Path in Multilayer Networks

The determination of directed control paths in complex networks is important because control paths indicate the structure of the propagation of control signals through edges. A challenging problem is to identify them in complex networked systems characterized by different types of interactions that form multilayer networks. In this study, we describe a graph pattern called the conserved control path, which allows us to model a common control structure among different types of relations. We present a practical conserved control path detection method (CoPath), which is based on a maximum-weighted matching, to determine the paths that play the most consistent roles in controlling signal transmission in multilayer networks. As a pragmatic application, we demonstrate that the control paths detected in a multilayered pan-cancer network are statistically more consistent. Additionally, they lead to the effective identification of drug targets, thereby demonstrating their power in predicting key pathways that influence multiple cancers.     

二维相关红外光谱研究4-氨基吡啶/甲基丙烯酸分子间相互作用

采用二维相关红外光谱方法研究了4-氨基吡啶和甲基丙烯酸分子问相互作用.一维红外光谱难以直接反映4-氨基毗啶和甲基丙烯酸分子间相互作用的类型和键的关联,而二维相关分析结果清晰表明4-氨基吡啶和甲基丙烯酸分子间存在的相互作用.研究中发现1298和1 202 cm-1归属于甲基丙烯酸的-OH伸缩振动峰与1 531 cm-14-氨基吡啶的C=N伸缩振动峰存在同步交叉正峰,3 382和3 212 cm-1属于4-氨基吡啶的氨基N-H伸缩振动峰与1 705 cm-1归属于甲基丙烯酸的羰基伸缩振动峰存在同步交叉正峰.根据二维相关规则,4-氨基吡啶的C=N峰与甲基丙烯酸的-OH峰、4-氨基吡啶的氨基N-H峰与甲基丙烯酸的羰基峰有很强协同作用.结果表明4-氨基吡啶的C=N与甲基丙烯酸的-OH存在静电作用,4-氨基吡啶的氨基与甲基丙烯酸的羰基存在氢键作用.二维红外光谱是研究分子内、分子间相互作用的一种强有力的手段.     

人工神经网络对VOCs的自动识别

利用人工神经网络(ANN)对严重混叠的傅里叶变换红外光谱图进行了定性和定量解析。通过大量模拟数据训练神经网络后,引用了新的评价标准——逼近度来选择最优网络模型。利用此优化网络对两类光谱图进行了解析,考察了网络的泛化能力。结果表明：该网络不仅能够对两组分同时存在时的样本进行准确解析,而且对于未知单组分光谱图,也能够进行准确鉴别和定量分析。可见, 该研究为人工神经网络在单组分和多组分未知物的定性和定量分析方面提供了一种新思路。