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These findings suggest that caffeine may represent a novel, protective strategy against alcoholic liver injury by attenuating oxidative stress and inflammatory response.

Background: We evaluated the efficacy and safety of the modified FOLFOX6 (mFOLFOX6) regimen as a neoadjuvant chemotherapy in gastric cancer patients.

Tree peonies are a group of traditional ornamental plants, especially in East Asia, with Paeonia ostii as one of the most important ancestral species. P. ostii has flowers with varying colors, ranging from nearly white, light pink to deep pink. However, few studies have been done to unravel the molecular mechanisms underlying the flower color intensity variation in plants. Based on comparative analyses of the pigment composition and transcriptomes of P. ostii with different flower color intensities, we found that the anthocyanin concentration was significantly correlated with the flower color intensity in P. ostii. Transcriptome analysis by RNA-Sequencing revealed 7187 genes that were differentially expressed between flowers with different color intensities. Functional enrichment analysis of differentially expressed genes revealed multiple pathways possibly responsible for color intensity variation in P. ostii, including flavonoid biosynthesis, fatty acid oxidation, carbohydrate metabolism, and hormone-mediated signaling. Particularly, while anthocyanin biosynthesis genes showing positive correlations between their expression and anthocyanin concentration in flowers, two transcription factors, PoMYB2 and PoSPL1, seem to negatively regulate anthocyanin accumulation by affecting the activation capacity of the MYB-bHLH-WDR complex, exhibiting an inverse relationship between their expression and anthocyanin accumulation. Our results showed that, although anthocyanin biosynthesis had a direct effect on the pigmentation of the P. ostii flower, other metabolic and hormone-mediated signaling pathways were also contributed to the flower color intensity variation in P. ostii, suggesting complex coordinated changes in the transcriptional network. Differential expression of genes encoding anthocyanin repressors seems to be the major factor responsible for the intensity variation in anthocyanin pigmentation in P. ostii.

The probiotic properties of two selected lactobacilli strains were assessed. L. salivarius and L. plantarum displayed higher hydrophobicity (48% and 54%, resp.) and coaggregation ability with four pathogens (from 7.9% to 57.5%). L. salivarius and L. plantarum had good inhibitory effects on S. aureus (38.2% and 49.5%, resp.) attachment to Caco-2 cells. Live lactobacilli strains and their conditioned media effectively inhibited IL-8 production (<14.6 pg/mL) in TNF-α-induced Caco-2 cells. Antibiotic-treated and the sonicated lactobacilli also maintained inhibitory effects (IL-8 production from 5.0 to 36.3 pg/mL); however, the heat-treated lactobacilli lost their inhibitory effects (IL-8 production from 130.2 to 161.0 pg/mL). These results suggest that both the structural components and the soluble cellular content of lactobacilli have anti-inflammatory effects. We also found that pretreatment of Caco-2 cells with lactobacilli inhibited S. typhimurium-induced IL-8 production (<27.3 pg/mL). However, lactobacilli did not inhibit IL-8 production in Caco-2 cells pretreated with S. typhimurium. These results suggest that the tested lactobacilli strains are appropriate for preventing inflammatory diseases caused by enteric pathogens but not for therapy. In short, L. salivarius and L. plantarum are potential candidates for the development of microbial ecological agents and functional foods.

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Realizing and manipulating strong light–matter coupling in 2D monolayer semiconductors is of paramount importance in the development of novel photonic devices. Here, it is revealed by numerical simulation that strong coupling between the excitons in a WS2 monolayer and the surface plasmon polaritons propagating on the surface of a thin Au film can be realized when the surface plasmon polaritons are generated via the Kretschmann–Raether configuration. The use of liquid Ga nanoparticles, which exhibit broad scattering spectra in visible light, is proposed to identify the strong exciton–plasmon coupling. It is demonstrated numerically and experimentally that the exciton–plasmon coupling strength, which is manifested in Rabi splitting, can be further enhanced by the in‐plane localization of the electric field provided by liquid Ga nanoparticles. Anti‐crossing of the scattering spectra can be observed by tuning the angle of the incident light and Rabi splitting exceeding 120 meV can be obtained. The results open new horizons for realizing strong exciton‐plasmon coupling in hybrid structures composed of monolayer semiconductors and thin metal films and pave the way for the practical applications of strong light–matter interaction in nanoscale photonic devices.