The selectivity of hydrogenation of furfural can be tuned to furfuryl alcohol, cyclopentanone, and cyclopentanol by tuning the reaction conditions with a Cu catalyst. Catalyzed by Cu 0.4 Mg 5.6 Al 2 , furfural can be hydrogenated and dehydrated smoothly to furfuryl alcohol, cyclopentanone, and cyclopentanol in high yields, respectively. At 110 °C and under 2.0 MPa H 2 pressure, furfuryl alcohol can be obtained in 99.5% yield. Moreover, the Cu 0.4 Mg 5.6 Al 2 catalyzed hydrogenation of furfural in water gave cyclopentanol in 98.6% yield. Additionally, cyclopentanone can also be obtained in 98.1% yield. The catalyst Cu 0.4 Mg 5.6 Al 2 can be reused several times with only slightly deactivation. Additionally, the hydrogenation of furfural gave well to excellent yield of cyclopentanol in high concentration (15−30 wt % solution of furfural in water), which improved the practicability and efficiency of the process. The hydrogenation of furfural is high efficient, practical and green process of biomass application.

Gut microbiota play critical roles in host nutrition and metabolism. However, little is known about the genetic effects on the gut microbiota assemblages because a suitable model for investigation is lacking. In the present study, we established the reciprocal hybrid fish lineages derived from the parents with different feeding habits, namely, herbivorous blunt snout bream (Megalobrama amblycephala, BSB, 2n = 48) and carnivorous topmouth culter (Culter alburnus, TC, 2n = 48). We investigated the genetic effects on gut microbiota assemblages by using 16S rRNA gene sequencing. The results showed that the gut characteristics (structure, relative gut length, relative gut mass, and Zihler’s index) differed between the two types of hybrids and the two parents. In particular, a strong correlation between genotype and gut microbial assemblages indicated that host genetic (subgenome) significantly altered the gut microbial communities. In addition, the microbial structures (composition and abundance) in the two types of hybrids were more similar to those in BSB parent (P > 0.05) than to those in TC parent (P < 0.05), and the cellulase contents in the gut (produced by gut microbes) also showed the similar results. The results suggested that the host genomic interaction (mainly subgenome domination) had a sizeable effect on shaping the gut microbiota assemblages in reciprocal hybrid fish. This study enriches our understanding of the relationship between host genetic and gut microbiota assemblages, and provides insight into gut microbiota and metabonomics.

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Fermented ginseng can alleviate alcoholic liver injury by adjusting the intestinal flora.

The new generation androgen receptor (AR) pathway inhibitor enzalutamide can prolong the survival of patients with metastatic prostate cancer. However, resistance to enzalutamide inevitably develops in these patients, and the underlying mechanisms of this resistance are not fully defined. Here we demonstrate that the kinesin family member 15 (KIF15) contributes to enzalutamide resistance by enhancing the AR signaling in prostate cancer cells. KIF15 directly bound the N-terminus of AR/AR-V7 and prevented AR/AR-V7 proteins from degradation by increasing the protein association of ubiquitin-specific protease 14 (USP14) with AR/AR-V7. In turn, the transcriptionally active AR stimulated KIF15 expression. KIF15 inhibitors alone or in combination with enzalutamide significantly suppressed enzalutamide-resistant prostate cancer cell growth and xenograft progression. These findings highlight a key role of KIF15 in enabling prostate cancer cells to develop therapy resistance to enzalutamide and rationalize KIF15 as a potential therapeutic target. Significance: These findings demonstrate how reciprocal activation between KIF15 and AR contributes to enzalutamide resistance in prostate cancer and highlights cotargeting KIF15 and AR as a therapeutic strategy for these tumors.

In analytic chemistry a detection limit (DL) is the lowest measurable amount of an analyte that can be distinguished from a blank; many biomedical measurement technologies exhibit this property. From a statistical perspective, these data present inferential challenges because instead of precise measures, one only has information that the value is somewhere between 0 and the DL (below detection limit, BDL). Substitution of BDL values, with 0 or the DL can lead to biased parameter estimates and a loss of statistical power. Statistical methods that make adjustments when dealing with these types of data, often called left-censored data, are available in many commercial statistical packages. Despite this availability, the use of these methods is still not widespread in biomedical literature. We have reviewed the statistical approaches of dealing with BDL values, and used simulations to examine the performance of the commonly used substitution methods and the most widely available statistical methods. We have illustrated these methods using a study undertaken at the Vanderbilt-Ingram Cancer Center, to examine the serum bile acid levels in patients with colorectal cancer and adenoma. We have found that the modern methods for BDL values identify disease-related differences that are often missed, with statistically naive approaches.

Common buckwheat is one of the most commonly cultivated grain species across the globe. Large amounts of buckwheat hulls are produced during its processing as a by-product.Numerous studies reveal that buckwheat hulls are embedded with rich amounts of flavonoids, which include but are not limited to, rutin, vitexin, quercetin, isoorientin, and hyperoside (Cui et al., 2020;Dziadek et al., 2016;Zhang et al., 2017). Flavonoids are the most studied subclass of polyphenolic compounds that are present in almost all parts of flowering plants, such as grains, fruits, vegetables, and teas (Cassidy & Minihane, 2017;Swallah et al., 2020), with more than 9,000 identified different structures bearing similar diphenol propane skeleton in nature (C6-C3-C6) (Swallah et al., 2020). Flavonoids are well evidenced in numerous studies as the widest subclass with hydrosoluble heterocyclic