Alterations to the gut microbiota have been previously suggested to be tightly linked to chronic systemic inflammation, which is a major contributing factor to complications and disease progression in chronic kidney disease (CKD). Nevertheless, the effect of gut dysbiosis on the pathogenesis and/or production of inflammatory factors in CKD has not been extensively studied to date. In the present study, we conducted 16S ribosomal DNA pyrosequencing using fecal microbiota samples and analyzed the production of serum inflammatory factors in 50 patients with CKD and 22 healthy control (HC) subjects. The results revealed that compared to the HC subjects, patients with CKD exhibited a significant reduction in the richness and structure of their fecal microbiota. At the phylum level, compared to the HC group, patients with CKD also presented reduced abundance of Actinobacteria but increased abundance of Verrucomicrobia. Moreover, the genera Lactobacillus, Clostridium IV, Paraprevotella, Clostridium sensu stricto, Desulfovibrio , and Alloprevotella were enriched in the fecal samples of patients with CKD, while Akkermansia and Parasutterella were enriched in those of the HC subjects. The abundance of Akkermansia in the CKD group was significantly lower than that in the HC group (3.08 vs. 0.67%); this decrease in the abundance of Akkermansia , an important probiotic, in patients with CKD is a striking discovery as it has not been previously reported. Finally, we analyzed whether these changes to the fecal microbiota correlated with CKD clinical characteristics and/or the production of known inflammatory factors. Altered levels of the microbiota genera Parasutterella, Lactobacillus, Paraprevotella, Clostridium sensu stricto , and Desulfovibrio were shown to be correlated with CKD disease-severity indicators, including the estimated glomerular filtration rate. Most notably, Akkermansia was significantly negatively correlated with the production of interleukin-10. The results of the present study suggest that microbiota dysbiosis may promote chronic systemic inflammation in CKD. Furthermore, they support that modifying the gut microbiota, especially Akkermansia , may be a promising potential therapeutic strategy to attenuate the progression of, and/or systemic inflammation in, CKD.

Boron–nitrogen coordination in polyurethane elastomers enhances the dynamics of the boronic ester while introduces inter- and intra-molecular interactions, leading to mechanical robustness and excellent self-healing efficiency simultaneously.

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The effects of long chain branching on the nucleation density enhancements and morphological evolution for polylactide (PLA) materials during shear-induced isothermal crystallization process were thoroughly investigated by using rotational rheometer and polarized optical microscopy (POM). Shear-induced nucleation density enhancements for the long chain branched PLA (LCB PLA) were studied on the basis of the determination of the critical shear rate, for which the stretch of the longest chains of the linear component is expected. The results of shear-induced isothermal crystallization kinetics show that the crystallization process under shear is greatly enhanced compared to the quiescent conditions and the crystallization kinetics is accelerated with the increases in shear rate and/or shear time. LCB PLA crystallizes much faster than linear PLA under the same shear condition. A saturation effect of shear time on crystallization kinetics is observed for both linear PLA and LCB PLA. In-situ POM observations demonstrate that LCB PLA not only possesses higher nucleation density under the identical shear time and a constant lower value of spherulitic growth rate compared with that of linear PLA but also forms the shish-kebab structure after sheared for sufficient time. The quantitative evaluation of the shear-induced nucleation densities from rheological measurements is based on the space-filling model by using the Avrami equation, and the obtained nucleation density values are well consistent with that estimated from POM observations. A saturation of nucleation density under shear can be reached for both linear PLA and LCB PLA. The saturated nucleation density values are higher than that under the quiescent condition by a factor of over 3 orders of magnitude, and the saturated nucleation density value for LCB PLA is more than that for linear PLA by a factor of 1 order of magnitude under the same shear condition. The enhancement of nucleation ability and the morphological evolution from the spherulitic to shish-kebab structures induced by shear flow can be ascribed to the broadened and complex relaxation behaviors of LCB PLA.

Polyamides are one of the most important polymers. Long-chain aliphatic polyamides could bridge the gap between traditional polyamides and polyethylenes. Here we report an approach to preparing sustainable ultra-strong elastomers from biomass-derived long-chain polyamides by thiol-ene addition copolymerization with diamide diene monomers. The pendant polar hydroxyl and non-polar butyrate groups between amides allow controlled programming of supramolecular hydrogen bonding and facile tuning of crystallization of polymer chains. The presence of thioether groups on the main chain can further induce metal–ligand coordination (cuprous-thioether). Unidirectional step-cycle tensile deformation has been applied to these polyamides and significantly enhances tensile strength to over 210 MPa while maintaining elasticity. Uniaxial deformation leads to a rearrangement and alignment of crystalline microstructures, which is responsible for the mechanical enhancement. These chromophore-free polyamides are observed with strong luminescence ascribed to the effect of aggregation-induced emission (AIE), originating from the formation of amide clusters with restricted molecular motions.

Composites consisting of polylactide (PLA) and poly(ε-caprolactone) (PCL) filled with acid-oxidized multiwalled carbon nanotubes (A-MWCNTs) were prepared through melt compounding. Phase morphologies of PLA/PCL/A-MWCNT composites with different contents of filled A-MWCNTs and PCL compositions were mainly observed by scanning electron microscope. The results show that A-MWCNTs are selectively dispersed in the PCL phase, regardingless of PCL phase domain sizes. For PLA/PCL/A-MWCNT composites with fixed PLA/PCL ratio of 95/5, the dispersed PCL phase domain sizes in the PLA matrix decrease even though a small content of A-MWCNTs is added, compared with PLA/PCL blend with the same composition, indicating that A-MWCNTs effectively prevent from coalescence of the dispersed PCL phase domains. With filling of 1.0 wt % A-MWCNTs, an interesting change of electrical conductivity for PLA/PCL/A-MWCNT composites is observed, in which the maximum conductivity is observed for PLA/PCL/A-MWCNT composite with PLA/PCL ratio of 60/40. The result is well-explained by the formed cocontinuous phase morphology and effective A-MWCNT content.

Long noncoding RNAs (lncRNAs) show multiple functions, including immune response. Recently, the immune‐related lncRNAs have been reported in some cancers. We first investigated the immune‐related lncRNA signature as a potential target in hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC) survival. The training set (n = 368) and the independent external validation cohort (n = 115) were used. Immune genes and lncRNAs coexpression were constructed to identify immune‐related lncRNAs. Cox regression analyses were perfumed to establish the immune‐related lncRNA signature. Regulatory roles of this signature on cancer pathways and the immunologic features were investigated. The correlation between immune checkpoint inhibitors and this signature was examined. In this study, the immune‐related lncRNA signature was identified in HCC, which could stratify patients into high‐ and low‐risk groups. This immune‐related lncRNA signature was correlated with disease progression and worse survival and was an independent prognostic biomarker. Our immune‐related lncRNA signature was still a powerful tool in predicting survival in each stratum of age, gender, and tumor stage. This signature mediated cell cycle, glycolysis, DNA repair, mammalian target of rapamycin signaling, and immunologic characteristics (i.e., natural killer cells vs. Th1 cells down, etc). This signature was associated with immune cell infiltration (i.e., macrophages M0, Tregs, CD4 memory T cells, and macrophages M1, etc.,) and immune checkpoint blockade (ICB) immunotherapy‐related molecules (i.e., PD‐L1, PD‐L2, and IDO1). Our findings suggested that the immune‐related lncRNA signature had an important value for survival prediction and may have the potential to measure the response to ICB immunotherapy. This signature may guide the selection of the immunotherapy for HCC.

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