The aim of this paper was to study the effect of long-term supervised exercise-induced weight maintenance on metabolic risk factors and physical fitness in obese children in early puberty. A total of 49 obese children aged 12-14 years were divided into control and exercise groups. The children in the exercise group accepted exercise intervention supervised by a professional sports teacher for 9 of the 12 months. All participants in both groups received health education once every 3 months. Anthropometry and fasting serum lipids, glucose, insulin and homeostatic model assessment for insulin resistance (HOMA-IR) were measured at months 0, 3, 9, 12 of the intervention. Physical fitness was determined before and after intervention. After the intervention (i) BMI was reduced by 0.6 (P < 0.05) in the exercise group, but increased by 0.5 (P < 0.05) in the control group, compared with the pre-intervention level at the end of 9-month intervention; (ii) Triglyceride levels in the exercise group significantly decreased by 23.1% by 3 months (P < 0.05), and by 30.2% after 9 months (P < 0.05), but increased by 50% (P < 0.05) in the control group; high density lipoprotein-cholesterol (HDL-C) decreased more by 35% (P < 0.05) in the controls than in the exercise group (P < 0.05); (iii) Fasting serum glucose, insulin level and HOMA-IR decreased, respectively, by 23.1%, 36.6% and 48.5% in the exercise group at 9 months (P < 0.05), whereas glucose levels increased by 10.9% (P < 0.05) in the control group; (iv) Exercise performance, such as upper- and lower-limb strength, flexibility and endurance, were enhanced by 17.9%, 12.3%, 22.3% and 20.4% (P < 0.01), respectively and (v) At 12 months, i.e. 3 months after terminating the supervised exercise, serum triglycerides, glucose, insulin and HOMA-IR level all returned to the pre-intervention level. Supervised decrement exercise can effectively slow the progress of obesity, improve insulin sensitivity and metabolic risk factors, but once the supervised exercise is stopped, the health benefits weaken or vanish. The key to helping these obese children is for them to cultivate good exercise habits which are sustained throughout their lives.

A pincer type ligand provides an additional coordination site or a proton relay depending on the metal oxidation state.

The mass spectrometry (MS)-based quantitative proteomics is powerful to discover disease biomarkers that can provide diagnostic, prognostic and therapeutic targets, and it also can address important problems in clinical and translational medical research. The current status of MS-based quantification strategy and technical advances of several main quantitative assays (two-dimensional (2-D) gel-based methods, stable isotope labeling with amino acids in cell culture (SILAC), isotope-coded affinity tag (ICAT), the isobaric tags for relative and absolute quantification (iTRAQ), ¹⁸O labeling, absolute quantitation and label-free quantitation) have been summarized and reviewed. At present, except 2-D gel-based methods, several stable isotope labeling quantitative techniques, including SILAC, ICAT and iTRAQ, etc, have been widely applied in identification of differential expression of proteins, post-translational modifications and protein-protein interactions in order to look for novel candidate cancer biomarkers from different physiological states of cells, body fluids or tissue samples. Also, the advantages and challenges of different quantitative proteomic approaches are discussed in identification and validation of candidate targets.

Direct asymmetric functionalization of the pyridyl C–H bond represents a longstanding challenge in organic chemistry. We herein describe the first enantioselective para-C–H activation of pyridines through the use of a Ni–Al bimetallic catalyst system and N-heterocyclic carbene (NHC) ligand for intermolecular hydroarylation of styrenes. The reaction procceds in high to excellent enantioselectivities (up to 98.5:1.5 er) and high site-selectivities for both styrene and pyridine components (up to >98:2). Consequently, a broad range of enantioenriched 1,1-diarylalkanes containing pyridine moieties could be prepared in a single step with 100% atom economy. Computational studies supported a mechanism involving a ligand-to-ligand H-transfer (LLHT) and reductive elimination sequence, with LLHT being the rate- and enantioselectivity-determining step. DFT studies indicate that the π–π stacking interaction between the NHC aryl fragment and trans-styrenes is critical for high reactivity and enantiocontrol.

Our results suggested that these identified proteins, including epidermal fatty acid-binding protein, calcyphosine, and cyclophilin A, might be of potential values in the studies of endometrial carcinogenesis or investigations of diagnostic biomarkers or treatment targets for endometrial carcinoma.

This work presents a density functional theory (DFT)-based theoretical study on the cross-coupling reaction of alkyl carboxylic acids and nitrogen nucleophiles via dual copper and photoredox catalysis developed by MacMillan et al. [Nature, 2018, 559, 83–87]. The calculations showed the mechanistic details of three subprocesses proposed in the experimental study, including production of alkyl radicals, iridium­(III) photoredox cycle, and copper­(I) thermalredox cycle. It is found that alkyl radicals can be easily produced from primary, secondary, or tertiary carboxylic acids through iodonium activation. The energetically most favorable cross-coupling pathway involves coordination, deprotonation, single electron transfer (SET), radical addition, and reductive elimination. For the chlorinated indazole nucleophile (R1), the preferred C–N coupling product from the 1H-tautomer is attributed to its higher stability relative to the 2H-tautomer and the high barrier involved in the tautomerism from the 1H-tautomer to the 2H-tautomer. Meanwhile, in the case of heterocycle (R2), the C–N cross-coupling preferentially occurs at the indazole nitrogen rather than at the primary amide nitrogen, which is confirmed to be due to the stronger acidity of the indazole N–H unit, in comparison with the primary amide N–H unit in the indazole side chain. The theoretical results provide help for understanding the molecular mechanism and regioselectivity of the title reaction.

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The first recyclable sulfone-containing polysiloxanes were synthesized via an anionic ring-opening polymerization of macroheterocyclic siloxane monomers.