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Osteoarthritis (OA) is a degenerative joint disease characterized by articular cartilage degradation and joint inflammation in which microRNAs are significantly involved. Previous studies have reported that miR-142-3p is a novel mediator of inflammatory signaling pathways, but whether miR-142-3p regulates OA remains unknown. In this study, we aimed to investigate the potential role of miR-142-3p in OA and the underlying molecular mechanism. We showed that miR-142-3p was significantly reduced in the articular cartilage tissues from experimental OA mice. The expression of miR-142-3p was also decreased in chondrocytes treated with lipopolysaccharide (LPS) in vitro. Moreover, the overexpression of miR-142-3p significantly inhibited cell apoptosis, nuclear factor (NF)-kB, and the production of proinflammatory cytokines, including interleukin (IL)-1, IL-6, and tumor necrosis factor (TNF)-α induced by LPS. Interestingly, bioinformatics analysis demonstrated that high mobility group box 1 (HMGB1), an important inflammatory mediator of OA, was predicted as a target of miR-142-3p, which was validated by dual-luciferase reporter assay. The high expression of HMGB1 in chondrocytes induced by LPS was significantly inhibited by miR-142-3p overexpression. Furthermore, the restoration of HMGB1 markedly abrogated the effect of miR-142-3p. In OA mice, the overexpression of miR-142-3p by lentivirus-mediated gene transfer significantly inhibited HMGB1 expression, NF-kB signaling, and proinflammatory cytokines. Moreover, the overexpression of miR-142-3p significantly alleviated OA progression in OA mice in vivo. Taken together, our study suggests that miR-142-3p inhibits chondrocyte apoptosis and inflammation in OA by inhibiting the HMGB1-mediated NF-kB signaling pathway. The overexpression of miR-142-3p impedes the OA progression in mice in vivo indicating that miR-142-3p is a potential molecular target for OA treatment.

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The electrocatalytic hydrazine oxidation reaction (HzOR) has drawn extensive attention due to its high energy conversion efficiency and wide applications in hydrazine-assisted water splitting and direct hydrazine fuel cells (DHFC).

Restoring ecosystems has been a key strategy to combat land degradation and reverse losses in biodiversity. Because interactions between communities above and below the ground drive key ecosystem processes, they can profoundly influence ecological succession trajectories. However, relatively little empirical information is available for plant-microbial diversity linkages during ecological restoration. Here, using the Illumina platform for bacterial and fungal sequencing, we investigated linkages between soil microbial and plant diversity across a 30-year chronosequence of restored grasslands on the Loess Plateau in Northwestern China. The results showed that plant, bacterial, and fungal species richness all increased with increased years of grassland restoration, during which their community compositions shifted among six different habitats. The microbial community assembly data were integrated into a co-occurrence network analysis, revealing greater network complexity in the late restoration stage (25 and 30 years). The alpha and beta diversities of both the bacterial and fungal communities were significantly and positively correlated with plant communities. Bacterial community composition was governed primarily by soil edaphic factors and deterministic processes, whereas fungal community composition was structured mainly by plant community composition and both deterministic and stochastic processes. This evidence strongly suggests that different ecological processes shaped bacterial and fungal communities during ecological restoration of the grasslands. Our results provide insight into the aboveground-belowground associations of restored habitats, which may have implications for ecological restoration practices and biodiversity maintenance in arid and semiarid grassland ecosystems.

Electrocatalytic urea oxidation reaction (UOR) is a key half-reaction in assembling the direct urea fuel cells (DUFCs) to generate electricity, or constructing a urea electrolyzer to convert electricity to clean hydrogen energy. However, the sluggish six-electron transfer process of UOR significantly limits the reaction kinetics, thereby restricting the development of the aforementioned energy conversion techniques. Herein, we highlighted a high-performance UOR catalyst based on the hierarchical wire-on-sheet Ni(OH) 2 nanoarrays with optimal cerium doping and controllable phase regulation. The local Ni 3+ species and the unique wire-on-sheet morphology of the α-Ni(OH) 2 nanoarray catalyst guarantee fast formation of high-valence species for UOR catalysis, and the Ce doping further optimizes the electronic structure, therefore resulting in greatly enhanced UOR behavior synergistically. This work may provide a universal structural optimization strategy for designing advanced UOR electrocatalysts.