Chronic kidney disease (CKD) patients have an increased risk of cardiovascular diseases (CVDs). The present study aimed to investigate the gut microbiota and blood trimethylamine-N-oxide concentration (TMAO) in Chinese CKD patients and explore the underlying explanations through the animal experiment. The median plasma TMAO level was 30.33 μmol/L in the CKD patients, which was significantly higher than the 2.08 μmol/L concentration measured in the healthy controls. Next-generation sequence revealed obvious dysbiosis of the gut microbiome in CKD patients, with reduced bacterial diversity and biased community constitutions. CKD patients had higher percentages of opportunistic pathogens from gamma-Proteobacteria and reduced percentages of beneficial microbes, such as Roseburia, Coprococcus, and Ruminococcaceae. The PICRUSt analysis demonstrated that eight genes involved in choline, betaine, L-carnitine and trimethylamine (TMA) metabolism were changed in the CKD patients. Moreover, we transferred faecal samples from CKD patients and healthy controls into antibiotic-treated C57BL/6 mice and found that the mice that received gut microbes from the CKD patients had significantly higher plasma TMAO levels and different composition of gut microbiota than did the comparative mouse group. Our present study demonstrated that CKD patients had increased plasma TMAO levels due to contributions from both impaired renal functions and dysbiosis of the gut microbiota.

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PurposeThe objective of this paper is to identify and measure the perceived importance of barriers in the SME community to the adoption of internet business procurement and supply chain solutions.Design/methodology/approachThis was a telephone survey of a sample of 173 Canadian small and medium‐sized enterprises (SMEs), stratified by size of company (small and medium) and according to whether they were distributors, retailers or manufacturers. The data were analyzed statistically through an analysis of variance approach.FindingsFew differences were found between SME internet adopters and non‐adopters. There is a need for education for all SME management on the benefits and drawbacks to using e‐business solutions. Inter‐organizational information systems that are required to link supply chain partners can be a serious barrier to online solutions. There is a significant dependency among supply chain partners in decisions on adopting online links. Flexibility, agility and ability of SMEs can help them to use partial e‐business solutions for low volumes of business, but this approach can be very ineffective when transaction volumes are large.Practical implicationsThe results from this paper can help to direct future efforts to encourage SMEs to adopt e‐business solutions.Originality/valueThis study differs from other SME e‐business adoption studies, in that it includes relationships with supply chain partners that play a large role in the adoption of innovative e‐business solutions, transaction volumes which, for many SMEs that have not adopted e‐business, may be too small to justify automated supply chain linkages, and transaction volumes with a company's biggest customer or supplier.

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Chemoresistance of colon cancer cells to the chemotherapeutics is still a main obstacle in treatment of this malignancy. The microRNA (miRNA) mediated chemosensitivity regulation in colon cancer cells is still largely unknown. Here we constructed a fluorouracil (5-Fu) resistant SW480 cell line (SW480/ 5-Fu) and discovered that miRNA miR-494 was downregulated in the drug resistant cells compared with the parental cells. miR-494 level was found to be correlated with 5-Fu sensitivity in colon cancer cells, and artificial alteration of miR-494 affects the sensitivity of colon cancer cell lines to 5-Fu. miR-494 also promoted apoptosis of colon cancer cells at present of 5-Fu. Importantly, as a regulatory enzyme in the 5-Fu catabolic pathway, DPYD was confirmed to be a direct target of miR-494 through the interaction of miR-494 and its binding site within DPYD 3 0 untranslated region (3 0 UTR). miR-494 also negatively regulated endogenous DPYD expression in SW480 cells. Overexpression or knockdown of DPYD could attenuate miR-494 mediated 5-Fu sensitivity regulation, suggesting the dependence of DPYD regulation in miR-494 activity. miR-494 inhibited SW480/5-Fu derived xenograft tumors growth in vivo at present of 5-Fu. Thus, we concluded that in colon cancer cells, tumor suppressor miR-494 enhanced 5-Fu sensitivity via regulation of DPYD expression. V C 2015 IUBMB Life, 67(3):191-201, 2015

Purpose The purpose of this paper is to explore the research status and development trend of the field of event detection in social media (ED in SM) through a bibliometric analysis of academic publications. Design/methodology/approach First, publication distributions are analyzed including the trends of publications and citations, subject distribution, predominant journals, affiliations, authors, etc. Second, an indicator of collaboration degree is used to measure scientific connective relations from different perspectives. A network analysis method is then applied to reveal scientific collaboration relations. Furthermore, based on keyword co-occurrence analysis, major research themes and their evolutions throughout time span are discovered. Finally, a network analysis method is applied to visualize the analysis results. Findings The area of ED in SM has received increasing attention and interest in academia with Computer Science and Engineering as two major research subjects. The USA and China contribute the most to the area development. Affiliations and authors tend to collaborate more with those within the same country. Among the 14 identified research themes, newly emerged themes such as Pharmacovigilance event detection are discovered. Originality/value This study is the first to comprehensively illustrate the research status of ED in SM by conducting a bibliometric analysis. Up-to-date findings are reported, which can help relevant researchers understand the research trend, seek scientific collaborators and optimize research topic choices.

Ageing is a crucial risk factor for the development of age‐related cardiovascular diseases. Therefore, the molecular mechanisms of ageing and novel anti‐ageing interventions need to be deeply studied. Alginate oligosaccharide (AOS) possesses high pharmacological activities and beneficial effects. Our study was undertaken to investigate whether AOS could be used as an anti‐ageing drug to alleviate cardiac ageing. D‐galactose (D‐gal)‐induced C57BL/6J ageing mice were established by subcutaneous injection of D‐gal (200 mg·kg‐1·d‐1) for 8 weeks. AOS (50, 100 and 150 mg·kg‐1·d‐1) were administrated intragastrically for the last 4 weeks. As a result, AOS prevented cardiac dysfunction in D‐gal‐induced ageing mice, including partially preserved ejection fraction (EF%) and fractional shortening (FS%). AOS inhibited D‐gal‐induced up‐regulation of natriuretic peptides A (ANP), brain natriuretic peptide (BNP) and ageing markers p53 and p21 in a dose‐dependent manner. To further explore the potential mechanisms contributing to the anti‐ageing protective effect of AOS, the age‐related mitochondrial compromise was analysed. Our data indicated that AOS alleviated D‐gal‐induced cardiac ageing by improving mitochondrial biogenesis, maintaining the mitochondrial integrity and enhancing the efficient removal of impaired mitochondria. AOS also decreased the ROS production and oxidative stress status, which, in turn, further inhibiting cardiac mitochondria from being destroyed. Together, these results demonstrate that AOS may be an effective therapeutic agent to alleviate cardiac ageing.