Diabetes mellitus (DM) patients are at an increased risk of complications following influenza-virus infection, seasonal vaccination (SV) is recommended. However, SV with trivalent influenza vaccine (TIV) can induce antibody and type-I interferon (IFN) responses, and the effect of anti-DM treatment on these responses is incompletely understood. We evaluated the antibody response and IFN-α expression in individuals with and without type 2 DM (T2DM) following SV, and examined the effects on anti-DM treatment. TIV elicited sero-protection in all groups, but antibody persistency was <8 months, except for the antibody response to B-antigens in non-DM. T2DM impaired the IgG avidity index, and T2DM showed a significantly decreased response against H1N1 and H3N2, in addition to delaying and reducing haemagglutination-inhibition persistency against influenza B-antigens in DM groups treated with metformin (Met-DM) or glibenclamide (GB-DM). Following TIV, the Met-DM and GB-DM groups exhibited reduced IFN-α expression upon stimulation with whole- and split-virion influenza vaccines. Suppression of IFN-α expression in the Met-DM group was associated with a reduction in the mechanistic target of rapamycin complex-1 pathway and impaired IgG avidity index. Thus, single-dose TIV each year might not be suitable for T2DM. Our data could aid the development of an efficacious influenza vaccine for T2DM.

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Metformin-induced suppression of IFN-α via mTORC1 signalling following seasonal vaccination is associated with impaired antibody responses in type 2 diabetes

Ionic liquids (ILs) are low-melting organic salts often liquid at room temperature, whose unique properties are the reason of increasing interest for their applications as solvents, reaction media and functional additives. The exceptional properties of ILs have proved to be particularly useful in polymer science giving the potential to produce polymeric materials with improved properties or to immobilize ILs in polymer matrices while keeping their special characteristics. One of the possibilities is polymerization in ILs which can also affect positively polymerization reactions. An especially attractive technique is photopolymerization due to the ease of process control, short reaction time and ambient working temperature. This review gives a literature survey of developments in photopolymerization processes carried out in ILs as well as applications of these processes. It covers both the photopolymerization in ILs as well as photopolymerization of IL monomers. The first part presents a short overview of physicochemical and photochemical properties of ILs; it includes also photochemical reactions and photoinitiation of polymerization in ILs. The second part covers both the basic research (kinetics of photopolymerization including polymerization rate coefficients and polymerization of IL monomers) as well as applications of UV-induced polymerization in ILs. © 2016 Society of Chemical Industry

Photoinitiated polymerization in ionic liquids and its application

Objectives Arecoline is the main bioactive substance extracted from Areca catechu L, which has cell, neural and genetic toxicity The function of arecoline in reproductive system has not been well explored Materials and methods To investigate the toxic effects of arecoline on oocyte development, immunofluorescence staining, qPCR, Western blotting, sperm binding assays and in vitro fertilization were performed to evaluate oocyte meiosis competence and embryo development Results Our data revealed that arecoline exposure disrupts actin filament dynamics, spindle assembly and kinetochore-microtubule attachment stability in mouse oocytes, leading to aneuploidy and oocyte meiosis arrest In addition, arecoline treatment disturbs the distribution of mitochondria, reduces ATP production and increases the level of oxidative stress, which ultimately induces oocyte apoptosis Supplementation with metformin, a medicine for type 2 diabetes in the clinic, partially alleviates these damages Conclusions Metformin has a protective effect on arecoline-induced mouse oocytes apoptosis

Metformin protects against mouse oocyte apoptosis defects induced by arecoline

Porous materials with opposing superwettability toward oil and water have aroused widespread interest for their selective-wetting advantage in oil-water separation. The separation process, however, requires constant energy input to maintain the driving force. Further reducing the external energy consumption or accelerating the liquid transport during separation is still a challenge. The Janus membrane is an emerging porous material with opposing wettability toward a specific liquid on each side. The asymmetric wettability distribution leads to a surface energy gradient-driven liquid-transport behavior through the thickness, which significantly facilitates liquid transportation. It is conceived that porous materials possessing both Janus features and selective superwettability would reduce energy consumption and strengthen the efficiency in oil-water separation. Herein, a novel durable superoleophobic (SOHB) Janus fabric which possesses oil-repellent and surface energy gradient-driven water-transport properties was developed through one-side superoleophobic/superhydrophilic modification of the superamphiphobic fabric. The SOHB Janus fabric exhibits high mechanical durability and significant superior capacity than the homogeneous superoleophobic/superhydrophilic fabric in separating various oil-water mixtures. Moreover, the SOHB Janus fabric repels oil contaminants and pumps perspiration from the human skin, exhibiting prospects in physical moisture regulation and comfort improvement. Our novel Janus fabric, along with the fabrication principle, provides a feasible solution for energetic-efficient oil-water remediations and would have implications for the fabrication of advanced separation membranes and intelligent functional clothing.

Durable Superoleophobic Janus Fabric with Oil Repellence and Anisotropic Water-Transport Integration toward Energetic-Efficient Oil-Water Separation.

https://www.nature.com/articles/s41574-023-00833-4.pdf

Metformin: update on mechanisms of action and repurposing potential

Actuation and biomedical development of micro/nanorobots – a review

Diabetic wounds severely influence life, facing grand challenges in clinical treatments. The demand for better treatment is growing dramatically. Diabetic wound healing is challenging because of inflammation, angiogenesis disruptions, and tissue remodeling. Based on sequencing results of diabetic patients' skins and artificial intelligence (AI)-assisted bioinformatics, we excavate a potential therapeutic agent Trichostatin A (TSA) and a potential target histone deacetylase 4 (HDAC4) for diabetic wound healing. The molecular docking simulation reveals the favorable interaction between TSA and HDAC4. Taking advantage of the microneedle (MN) minimally invasive way to pierce the skin barrier for drug administration, we develop a swelling modified MN-mediated patch loaded with TSA to reduce the probability of injection-caused iatrogenic secondary damage. The MN-mediated TSA patch has been demonstrated to reduce inflammation, promote tissue regeneration, and inhibit HDAC4, which provides superior results in diabetic wound healing. We envisage that our explored specific drug TSA and the related MN-mediated drug delivery system can provide an innovative approach for diabetic wound treatment with simple, effective, and safe features and find a broad spectrum of applications in related biomedical fields.

Artificial Intelligence-Assisted Bioinformatics, Microneedle, and Diabetic Wound Healing: A "New Deal" of an Old Drug.

Timely administration of key medications toward patients with sudden diseases is critical to saving lives. However, slow transport of first‐aid therapeutics and the potential absence of trained people for drug usage can lead to severe injuries or even death. Herein, an unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV)‐mediated first‐aid system for targeted delivery (uFAST) is developed. It allows unattended administration of emergency therapeutics‐loaded transdermal microneedle (MN) patches toward patients to relieve symptoms by a contact‐triggered microneedle applicator (CTMA). The implementability and safety of the uFAST for first aid is demonstrated in a severe hypoglycemic pig model by automatically delivering a glucagon patch with immediate and bioresponsive dual release modes. This platform technique may facilitate the development of UAV‐mediated first‐aid treatments for other sudden diseases.

Unmanned Aerial Vehicle Mediated Drug Delivery for First Aid

Two quaternary ammonium tetraphenyl borates salt photobase generators were synthesized using 2-naphthoymethylene as chromophores, and triethylene diamine, pyridine. Their UV curing properties were studied in different environment. The results showed that their photolysis kinetics was of the first order reaction. Quaternary ammonium salts with the UV irradiation can initiate free radical photopolmerization and cure the epoxy resin.

Study on Duel Photo-Curing Properties of Quaternary Ammonium Salt Ionic Liquid as Photobase Generator

This paper investigates the advantages of using Bird's Eye View (BEV) representation in 360-degree visual place recognition (VPR). We propose a novel network architecture that utilizes the BEV representation in feature extraction, feature aggregation, and vision-LiDAR fusion, which bridges visual cues and spatial awareness. Our method extracts image features using standard convolutional networks and combines the features according to pre-defined 3D grid spatial points. To alleviate the mechanical and time misalignments between cameras, we further introduce deformable attention to learn the compensation. Upon the BEV feature representation, we then employ the polar transform and the Discrete Fourier transform for aggregation, which is shown to be rotation-invariant. In addition, the image and point cloud cues can be easily stated in the same coordinates, which benefits sensor fusion for place recognition. The proposed BEV-based method is evaluated in ablation and comparative studies on two datasets, including on-the-road and off-the-road scenarios. The experimental results verify the hypothesis that BEV can benefit VPR by its superior performance compared to baseline methods. To the best of our knowledge, this is the first trial of employing BEV representation in this task.

Rong Hua Xiong

Papers

Actuation and biomedical development of micro/nanorobots – a review

Artificial Intelligence-Assisted Bioinformatics, Microneedle, and Diabetic Wound Healing: A "New Deal" of an Old Drug.

Unmanned Aerial Vehicle Mediated Drug Delivery for First Aid

Study on Duel Photo-Curing Properties of Quaternary Ammonium Salt Ionic Liquid as Photobase Generator

Leveraging BEV Representation for 360-degree Visual Place Recognition