BackgroundThe cause of almost all cases of Parkinson’s disease (PD) remains unknown. Recent years have seen an explosion in the rate of discovery of genetic defects linked to PD. Different racial and geographical populations may have different distributions of genetic variants.MethodsIn the current study, we screened the following genetic variants, including some rare mutations and single nucleotide polymorphisms (SNPs), in a pedigree and cases-controls. To best of our knowledge, we first screened these variants known to be associated with neurodegeneration disease, E46K (rs104893875) in SNCA, A1442P in LRRK2, IVS9 in PARK2, A350V in SLC41A1, P268S (rs2066842), R702W (rs2066844), G908R (rs2066845), 1007fs (rs2066847) in NOD2 and G2385R (rs34778348) in LRRK2 from southern China population. Genotyping was performed by jointly using primers overlapping polymerase chain reaction (PCR) site-directed mutagenesis, restriction fragment length polymorphism (RFLP), and capillary electrophoresis (CE).ResultsWe didn’t discover above 9 variants in the family members of the pedigree. Furthermore, of 237 patients with sporadic Parkinson’s disease and 190 controls, no heterozygosity or homozygosity were found from E46K, A1442P, A350V, R702W, G908R, or 1007fs but heterozygosity onto G2385R, IVS9, and P268S. No significant difference between cases and controls was found in both allele frequency (P = 0.572) and genotype frequency (P = 0.348) of IVS9. However, significant differences in genotype frequency (P = 0.009) of G2385R were consistent with prior observation. Eight patients with Parkinson’s disease (2 women and 6 men are over the age of 50 years at onset of PD) carried the P268S heterozygous variation in NOD2. There was no heterozygosity or homozygosity of P268S in the controls. Genotype frequency of P268S (P = 0.0450) had significant differences.ConclusionsOur results suggested that the P268S variant in NOD2 might be a risk factor for susceptibility to sporadic Parkinson’s disease in Chinese populations. It also implied that the inflammatory response may play a role in PD.

Tungsten is both naturally occurring and an anthropogenically released contaminant metal in soils, sediments and water systems that typically exits as the soluble tungstate oxyanions, W(VI)O4 2− . Tungsten mobility and fate are strongly dependent on the adsorption of tungstate to mineral surfaces. However, environmental mineral surfaces are commonly coated with natural organic matter (NOM), and the role of this coating in the tungsten adsorption process, and thus in controlling tungsten reactivity and transport, is unclear. This study investigates W(VI) adsorption to ferrihydrite (Fh), a ubiquitous iron (hydr)oxide in soils and sediments, both in the absence and presence of humic acid (HA), a widely occurring type of NOM, using batch experiments coupled with spectroscopic and thermodynamic techniques. Kinetic results indicate that access to the adsorption sites for W(VI) on the organomineral surfaces is limited when Fh is coprecipitated with HA. Commensurate with this observation, batch experiments show that HA decreases W(VI) adsorption to Fh over a wide pH range (4-11), and this inhibitory effect is more pronounced at higher HA concentration. X-ray photoelectron spectroscopy (XPS) measurements demonstrate the formation of inner-sphere type W complexes on both the Fh and HA fraction of the Fh-HA binary composite. In particular, ~40% of the adsorbed W(VI) species is reduced to W(V) in the presence of HA. Attenuated total reflectance Fourier transform infrared spectroscopy (ATR-FTIR) results show the presence of poly tungstate species on Fh, particularly at lower pH and in the presence of HA. Isothermal titration calorimetry shows that W(VI) adsorption to Fh is an exothermic process both in the presence and absence of HA, and that process is accompanied by a positive entropy. The findings of this work suggest that NOM not only mobilizes tungstate but also reduces tungstate from W(VI) to W(V) at environmental iron (hydr)oxide-water interfaces, which is of significance for evaluating the migration and bioavailability of tungsten in both natural and contaminated environments.

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Herein, an eco-friendly lignin-based N-doped cocatalyst (N/C) was fabricated to enhance Fenton-like oxidation capacity. The N/ C-assisted Fe(III)/H 2 O 2 system showed ultrafast pollutant oxidation activity via an accelerated Fe(III)/Fe(II) cycle, exhibiting 16.9 times better caffeine removal efficiency than equivalent quantities of the classical Fenton system. N/C cocatalysts exhibited extraordinary stability and generality in the decontamination and disinfection of complex solution matrixes. Both experimental and theoretical calculation results demonstrated that graphitic N was the active site on N/C cocatalysts, which could elevate the reactivity of Fe(III) and make the interfacial electron transfer more feasible. In the N/C-mediated Fe(III)/H 2 O 2 system, an increase in electron transfer on the surface of N/C facilitated the formation of surface-bound Fe(II), thereby activating H 2 O 2 to produce hydroxyl radicals, the main active species for contaminant degradation. Notably, practical continuous water purification could be achieved by assembling N/C into fixed-bed reactors or membrane treatment units. These findings provide novel insights into N-doped carbonaceous cocatalysts and a promising green strategy for practical water treatment.

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