Editor’s choice: Synthesis of Hexahydroxy Strontium Stannate/Tin Dioxide Nanocomposites and their Photocatalytic Properties for Gentian Violet

Author(s):Chunhu Yu, Zeyang Xue, Yajing Mao, Jianfeng Huang, Feihu Tao, Zhengyu Cai, Chuangang Fan and Lizhai Pei*

Background: Gentian violet dye released from industries into the environment has caused serious water pollution and is a significant environmental pollutant to human beings owing to the toxicity. It is urgent to decrease environmental pollution by removing gentian violet in the wastewater.

Objective: The aim is to synthesize hexahydroxy strontium stannate/tin dioxide nanocomposites by a simple hydrothermal method without surfactants and research the photocatalytic performance for gentian violet degradation.

Methods: Hexahydroxy strontium stannate/tin dioxide nanocomposites have been obtained via the hydrothermal method. The structure, size, morphology and photocatalytic performance were characterized by X-ray diffraction, electron microscopy, solid ultraviolet-visible diffuse reflectance spectroscopy and X-ray photoelectron spectroscopy.

Results: The nanocomposites possess oven-shaped morphology with the size of less than 100 nm and are composed of hexagonal SrSn(OH)₆ and tetragonal SnO₂ phases. The band gap of the nanocomposites is 3.52 eV. 10 mg hexahydroxy strontium stannate/tin dioxide nanocomposites have the ability to completely degrade 10 mL gentian violet solution with the concentration of 10 mgL^-1 under 6 h ultraviolet-visible light irradiation. Hydroxyl radical, hole and superoxide radical are the main species for the gentian violet photocatalytic degradation using the nanocomposites.

Conclusion: The hexahydroxy strontium stannate/tin dioxide nanocomposites show good photocatalytic performance for the GV degradation. The photocatalytic performance for gentian violet degradation using the hexahydroxy strontium stannate/tin dioxide nanocomposites depends on the irradiation time and content of the nanocomposites.

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Editors choice: Neurosteroid Modulation of GABAA Receptor Function by Independent Action at Multiple Specific Binding Sites

Author(s): Lei Wang, Douglas F. Covey, Gustav Akk and Alex S. Evers*

Neurosteroids are endogenous modulators of GABA_A receptors that mediate anxiety, pain, mood and arousal. The 3-hydroxyl epimers, allopregnanolone (3α-OH) and epiallopregnanolone (3β-OH) are both prevalent in the mammalian brain and produce opposite effects on GABA_A receptor function, acting as positive and negative allosteric modulators, respectively. This Perspective provides a model to explain the actions of 3α-OH and 3β-OH neurosteroids. The model is based on evidence that the neurosteroid epimers bind to an overlapping subset of specific sites on GABA_A receptors, with their net functional effect on channel gating being the sum of their independent effects at each site.

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Editors choice: Nutraceutical Potentials of Azanza garckeana (Snot Apple): A Review

Author(s):Abiola Fatimah Adenowo, Fausat Titilola Salisu, Mushafau Adewale Akinsanya and Mutiu Idowu Kazeem*

Background: Nutraceuticals are products derived from natural sources and are used as therapeutic agents for the management of various health disorders. Several nutraceuticals have been produced from fruits, including wild edible fruits. Azanza garckeana is an example of wild edible fruit belonging to the Malvaceae family. It is a semi-deciduous flowering plant that grows in savanna- wooded grasslands and open forests. It can be found in tropical Eastern Africa, Southern Africa, and some countries of Western Africa. All parts of the plant are useful for medical and economic purposes. There are various traditional claims on the application of various parts of the plant in the management and treatment of diabetes, infertility, aches and pains, hemorrhage, liver and cardiac diseases, etc.

Objective: This article presents a review of the plant Azanza garckeana regarding its botanical description, its traditional relevance economically and medically, and its established nutritional as well as pharmacological relevance based on reported in vitro and in vivo experimental investigations.

Conclusion: Experimental reports on the nutritional and pharmacological potentials of Azanza garckeana are sparse. Therefore, there is a need for extensive research to further establish the plant as a potential candidate for a pharmacological or nutraceutical agent for the management of oxidative stress-related diseases and other human health disorders.

Learn more: http://bit.ly/3GT9VDE

Editor’s Choice：Establishment of “Nasopharyngeal Carcinoma Ecology” and “Medical Ecology Tree”

Author(s): Weiren Luo

In this study, the author proposes nasopharyngeal carcinoma ecology, and cancer could be conceptualized as a multidimensional spatiotemporal “unity of ecology and evolution” pathological ecosystem. In addition, medical ecology tree of human diseases is constructed, and the author demonstrates that the development and progression of human diseases including various kinds of neoplasms and human-microbe diseases could be a spatiotemporal ecological process.

The establishment of “NPC ecology” and “medical ecology tree” might provide a new paradigm and conceptual framework for our understanding of the complex progression of human diseases and development of potential preventive and therapeutic strategies for patients.

Read more: https://www.preprints.org/manuscript/202210.0226/v3

EDITOR’S CHOICE: Microarray Analysis Workflow Based on a Genetic Algorithm to Discover Potential Hub Genes

Author(s): Jessica Andrea Carballido*

This paper presents a sequence of steps oriented to gain biological knowledge from microarray gene expression data. The pipeline’s core is a canonical multi-objective Genetic Algorithm (GA), which takes a gene expression matrix and a factor as input. The factor groups samples according to different criteria, e.g., healthy tissue and diseased tissue samples. The result of one run of the GA is a gene set with good properties both at the individual level, in terms of differential expression, and at the aggregate level, in terms of correlation between expression profiles. Microarray experiment data are obtained from GEO (Gene Expression Omnibus dataset). As for the pipeline structure, independent runs of the GA are analyzed, genes in common between all the runs are collected, and over-representation analysis is performed. At the end of the process, a small number of genes of interest arise. The methodology is exemplified with a leukemia benchmark dataset, and a group of genes of interest is obtained for the illustrative example.

Read more: http://bit.ly/3gJwL63

Editors choice: Five Years of Gene Networks Modeling in Single-cell RNA-sequencing Studies: Current Approaches and Outstanding Challenges

Author(s):Samarendra Das*, Upendra Pradhan and Shesh N. Rai*

Single-cell RNA-sequencing (scRNA-seq) is a rapidly growing field in transcriptomics, which generates a tremendous amount of gene expression data at the single-cell level. Improved statistical approaches and tools are required to extract informative knowledge from such data. Gene network modeling and analysis is one such approach for downstream analysis of scRNA-seq data. Therefore, newer and innovative methods have been introduced in the literature. These approaches greatly vary in their utility, basic statistical concepts, models fitted to the data, etc. Therefore, we present a comprehensive overview of the available approaches for gene network modeling and analysis in single-cell studies, along with their limitations. We also classify the approaches based on different statistical principles and present a class-wise review. We discuss the limitations that are specific to each class of approaches and how they are addressed by subsequent classes of methods. We identify several biological and methodological challenges that must be addressed to enable the development of novel and innovative single-cell gene network inference approaches and tools. These new approaches will be able to analyze the singlecell data efficiently and accurately to better understand the biological systems, increasing the specificity, sensitivity, utility, and relevance of single-cell studies. Furthermore, this review will serve as a catalog and provide guidelines to genome researchers and experimental biologists for objectively choosing the better gene network modeling approach.

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Editors choice: Blood Glucose Lowering Effect by an Extract from Aronia (Aronia melanocarpa) – A Pilot Intervention Study

Author(s):Kirsten Berger, Johanna Josefine Ostberg Potthoff, Tamara Bakuradze, Peter Winterhalter and Elke Richling*

Background: The polyphenols from red fruits exhibit protective effects against degenerative diseases, such as diabetes mellitus type 2, cardiovascular disease and others.

Objective: In this small pilot intervention study with only ten volunteers, we investigated the influence of phenolic extracts prepared from an aronia juice, and a red grape juice concentrate on peripheral glucose, blood glucose, and insulin after the intake of a drink containing these extracts plus maltodextrin and water.

Method: Maltodextrin in water served as control; additionally, phenolic extracts from aronia or grape juice were added. Blood samples were taken before ingestion of the bolus drink, and 30, 60, 90, 120, 180, 240, and 360 min after. Additionally, the peripheral glucose was measured continuously using a commercially available sensor system.

Results: In all ten volunteers, the intake of aronia extract (100 mg) reduced both, the peripheral glucose and the blood glucose levels significantly (p≤0.05) in comparison to the control. Blood insulin levels were not affected. Whereas the intake of red grape extract (120 mg) did not reduce the glucose levels, but increased the insulin levels significantly.

Conclusion: Our pilot study showed that even low amounts of a phenolic aronia extract could lower the glucose absorption. Thus, due to the blood glucose lowering effects of aronia phenolics in healthy volunteers, these preliminary results warrant further investigation in the frame of a follow- up study with larger number of volunteers.

Read more: http://bit.ly/3OzJOn2

Editors choice: Identification of Novel Key Targets and Candidate Drugs in Oral Squamous Cell Carcinoma

Author(s):Juan Liu, Xinjie Lian, Feng Liu, Xueling Yan, Chunyan Cheng, Lijia Cheng, Xiaolin Sun*and Zheng Shi*

Background: Oral Squamous Cell Carcinoma (OSCC) is the most common malignant epithelial neoplasm. It is located within the top 10 ranking incidence of cancers with a poor prognosis and low survival rates. New breakthroughs of therapeutic strategies are therefore needed to improve the survival rate of OSCC harboring patients.

Objective: Since targeted therapy is considered as the most promising therapeutic strategies in cancer, it is of great significance to identify novel targets and drugs for the treatment of OSCC.

Methods: A series of bioinformatics approaches were launched to identify the hub proteins and their potential agents. Microarray analysis and several online functional activity network analysis were firstly utilized to recognize drug targets in OSCC. Subsequently, molecular docking was used to screen their potential drugs from the specs chemistry database. At the same time, the assessment of ligand-based virtual screening model was also evaluated.

Results: In this study, two microarray data (GSE31056, GSE23558) were firstly selected and analyzed to get consensus candidate genes including 681 candidate genes. Additionally, we selected 33 candidate genes based on whether they belong to the kinases and transcription factors and further clustered candidate hub targets based on functions and signaling pathways with significant enrichment analysis by using DAVID and STRING online databases. Then, core PPI network was then identified and we manually selected GRB2 and IGF1 as the key drug targets according to the network analysis and previous references. Lastly, virtual screening was performed to identify potential small molecules which could target these two targets, and such small molecules can serve as the promising candidate agents for future drug development.

Conclusion: In summary, our study might provide novel insights for understanding of the underlying molecular events of OSCC, and our discovered candidate targets and candidate agents could be used as the promising therapeutic strategies for the treatment of OSCC.

Learn more: http://bit.ly/3U3CKQQ

Editors choice: Beneficial and Detrimental Effects of Antioxidants Use in Sports: How is it Balanced?

Author(s):Olfa Slimeni, Ali Zaiter*, Patrick Chaimbault, Reem Omar Mohamed Salih , Andrzej Pokrywka, Sondes Sellami , Nicola Bragazzi and Maha Sellami

This review aims to summarize the fundamental classes of antioxidants, the utilization of the supplement with antioxidants as ergogenic benefits in exercise and sport, the efficiency, and the consequence of their chronic uses. Antioxidants have been used for a long time in different sports disciplines and at all degrees of rivalry. The supplement with antioxidants anticipates muscle damage by reducing immune dysfunction, inflammation, and fatigue syndrome for athletes. Subsequently, antioxidant supplementation will improve the physical performances and health of athletes. Polyphenol compounds as incredible antioxidants that are abundant in numerous plants. The consumption of antioxidants could be hazardous whenever taken in high dosages. Researchers found that overdoses may cause undesirable symptoms and might grow the risk of death.

Learn more: http://bit.ly/3Ox5kJ0

Editors choice: A Systematic Review of Decipher Genomic Classifier Risk Scores for Prostate Cancer in African-Americans

Author(s): Mahnoosh Rahimi and Sheldon Greenfield*

Background: Prostate Cancer (PCa) is a non-cutaneous malignancy in men, and Decipher being a genomic test, has gained increasing attention in estimating the risk of developing a recurrence or metastatic PCa disease in patients. Therefore, this study is focused on evaluating the association of Decipher score risk with recurrence of prostate cancer patients based on their medical, genetic predictors, and demographics (e.g., races) by conducting a systematic review. Moreover, the study has also assessed whether Decipher score risk can be a good predictor for prostate patients’ metastasis and prostate cancer-specific mortality in men and clinical decision-making regarding patient treatment recommendations.

Methods: The research study has reviewed 74 research articles, and the systematic review results have been presented in the form of themes. The studies’ review indicated that Decipher acts as a genomic metastasis signature to predict metastatic disease among patients and make better decisions about treating the disease. Moreover, this genomic test can also be used in conjunction with Magnetic Resonance Imaging (MRI) for identifying the lesions that may carry the biological potential for early metastases. Furthermore, this review also identified that treatment options for PCa might range from Adjuvant Radiation Treatment (ART) and Salvage Radiation Therapy (SRT) to Radical Prostatectomy (RP); however, the selection of treatment methodology depends upon the GC score and risk stratification.

Results: The results further suggested that the occurrence of PCa is two folds greater among African-Americans (AA) men as compared to non-AA men. Thus, the increasing incidence of PCa among AA and discrimination within AA’s health and socio-economic conditions plays a significant role in treating AA. In this scenario, the Decipher test score plays an essential role in making treatment decisions.

Conclusion: To conclude, further trials are still required for validating the Decipher biomarkers, and scientists should enhance the decipher test ability to be run on a patient’s blood samples instead of tumor tissue, which will help patients use decipher as a screening test at the asymptomatic level.

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