Beyond top-hit nontarget screening: Diagnostic fragment analysis reveals nitrogen-containing heterocycles in iron and steel industry wastewater.

Nitrogen-containing heterocyclic compounds (NHCs), widely present in industrial wastewater, pose significant environmental and health risks, yet their identification and characterization remain poorly understood. Herein, we developed a diagnostic fragment list comprising 20 nitrogen-containing fragments for NHCs, by integrating chemical information from Pubchem with the NIST mass spectral library. Leveraging this list, we employed a diagnostic fragment-assisted nontarget screening approach and identified 151 NHCs in iron and steel industry wastewater.

Integrated wide-scope and class-specific nontarget analysis reveals a broad spectrum of organic micropollutants in an urban river.

Environmental monitoring using nontarget analysis (NTA) has become a powerful tool for identifying complex mixtures of organic micropollutants in aquatic systems. Herein, we developed an integrated screening strategy that combines wide-scope NTA with class-specific NTA to comprehensively characterize micropollutant occurrence in the Chaobai River, Beijing, with a watershed that features a variety of human impacts and land cover patterns. In addition to the 293 micropollutants identified through target analysis and wide-scope NTA, class-specific NTA revealed 161 additional nontarget chemicals, including 28 per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances, 50 organophosphate esters, and 83 antibiotics and their transformation products, significantly expanding the chemical space identified by traditional wide-scope NTA.

Anthropogenic PFAS or Natural Products? Natural Products Cause Overestimation of C2-C5 Perfluoroalkyl Carboxylic Acid Levels.

The increasing environmental concentrations of C2-C5 perfluoroalkyl carboxylic acids (PFCAs) have raised concerns about their global threat. However, analytical interference has been reported to cause overestimation of PFCA concentrations. Recently, we discovered that a human metabolite, γ-carboxyethyl hydroxychroman, caused overestimation of the perfluoropentanoic acid (PFPeA) concentration by 454 times due to its similar retention time and ion pair mass with those of PFPeA in low-resolution mass spectrometry.

Unveiling the mechanism and driving factors of pharmaceutical and personal care product (PPCP) removal in wastewater treatment plants.

Wastewater treatment plants (WWTPs) are primary point sources of pharmaceuticals and personal care products (PPCPs) entering the environment; however, few studies have systematically elucidated the PPCP removal mechanism in WWTPs. In this study, we conducted two composite sampling campaigns, collecting water and sludge samples from each treatment stage of four secondary or tertiary WWTPs with various processes. Our goal was to identify the mechanisms and driving factors behind the removal of 30 common PPCPs.

More Active Hair Growth in Human Scalp Psoriasis and Mouse Psoriasis: Evidence for the Same "Switch-On" of Psoriasis and Hair Growth.

Our findings indicate that psoriasis lesions are associated with increased hair presence, which suggests a common activation mechanism linking psoriasis and hair follicle dynamics, and psoriatic lesion-induced scratching might be an additional stimulative factor of hair growth, warranting further investigation into the role of the Wnt pathway.

Whether the transient hair shedding phase exist after minoxidil treatment and does it predict treatment efficacy? A retrospective study in androgenetic alopecia patients.

Purpose: Minoxidil is a routinely used drug in treating multiple hair disorders. This study aimed to investigate the facticity of the temporal increase in the hair shedding amount after topical use of minoxidil.

Materials And Methods: We selected 49 patients who used 2% or 5% minoxidil topically to treat androgenetic alopecia for 24 weeks.

Efficacy and safety of ritlecitinib in Asian patients with alopecia areata: A subgroup analysis of the ALLEGRO phase 2b/3 trial.

This subgroup analysis of the ALLEGRO phase 2b/3 study (NCT3732807) assessed the efficacy and safety of multiple doses of ritlecitinib, an oral JAK3/TEC family kinase inhibitor, in Asian patients with alopecia areata (AA). Patients aged ≥12 years with AA and ≥50% scalp hair loss received once-daily ritlecitinib 50 or 30 mg (with or without 4-week 200-mg loading dose ["200/50" or "200/30"]) or 10 mg or placebo for 24 weeks, followed by a 24-week extension, in which patients initially assigned to placebo switched to 200/50 or 50 mg. In this subgroup analysis, Asian patients with response based on achieving a Severity of Alopecia Tool (SALT) score ≤20, SALT ≤10, ≥2-grade improvement or normal score on the eyebrow assessment (EBA) scale, and ≥2-grade improvement or normal score on the eyelash assessment (ELA) scale were evaluated through week 48.

A clustering approach based on high-resolution ecological vulnerability index reveals spatial patterns of per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances pollution in lakes on the Tibetan Plateau.

Per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances (PFAS) are persistent organic pollutants (POPs) with toxicity, chemical stability, and long-range transport potential. The transport and accumulation mechanisms of PFAS in specific or typical lakes have been reported. In the wake of global PFAS pollution, it is more important to unravel the distribution patterns of PFAS across larger-scale, multi-lake systems.

Organic Micropollutants in Waterways of a Large-Scale Water Diversion Project: Insights from Nontarget Screening and "Community" Analysis.

Large-scale water diversion projects are essential for meeting the needs of water-stressed regions, necessitating an evaluation of their impact on water quality and aquatic ecosystems. This study provides the first snapshots of organic micropollutants (OMPs) along the 1466 km Eastern Route of China's South-to-North Water Diversion Project. Using nontarget analysis with ultrahigh-performance liquid chromatography and high-resolution mass spectrometry, we identified and quantified 357 OMPs from water samples collected during the water diversion period (WDP) and the nonwater diversion period (NWDP).

Incorporating Transformation Products for an Integrated Assessment of Antibiotic Pollution and Risks in Surface Water.

The widespread presence of antibiotics in aquatic ecosystems is a global challenge, yet the occurrence and risks associated with their transformation products (TPs) remain poorly understood. This study investigated the occurrence and potential risks of antibiotics and their TPs in water along the Chaobai River in Beijing. We used high-resolution mass spectrometry and an integrated target, suspect, and nontarget screening approach to identify 21 parent antibiotics and 78 TPs among 90 water samples, with the majority from macrolides and sulfonamides.

Differential impacts of water diversion and environmental factors on bacterial, archaeal, and fungal communities in the eastern route of the South-to-North water diversion project.

Water diversion projects effectively mitigate the uneven distribution of water resources but can also influence aquatic biodiversity and ecosystem functions. Despite their importance, the impacts of such projects on multi-domain microbial community dynamics and the underlying mechanisms remain poorly understood. Utilizing high-throughput sequencing, we investigated bacterial, archaeal, and fungal community dynamics along the eastern route of the South-to-North water diversion project during both non-water diversion period (NWDP) and water diversion period (WDP).

Pan-cancer analysis of IRF1 focusing on prognostic and immunological roles in non-small cell lung cancer.

Interferon regulatory factor 1 (IRF1) significantly affects tumour occurrence and development. This study aimed to analyse its function as a pan-cancer prognostic indicator. We compared IRF1 expression and prognostic significance in normal and tumour samples from different databases.

The competing controls of glaciers, precipitation, and vegetation on high-mountain fluvial sediment yields.

Investigating erosion and river sediment yield in high-mountain areas is crucial for understanding landscape and biogeochemical responses to environmental change. We compile data on contemporary fluvial suspended sediment yield (SSY) and 12 environmental proxies from 151 rivers in High Mountain Asia surrounding the Tibetan Plateau. We demonstrate that glaciers exert a first-order control on fluvial SSYs, with high precipitation nonlinearly amplifying their role, especially in high-glacier cover basins.

An accurate prediction for respiratory diseases using deep learning on bronchoscopy diagnosis images.

Introduction: Bronchoscopy is of great significance in diagnosing and treating respiratory illness. Using deep learning, a diagnostic system for bronchoscopy images can improve the accuracy of tracheal, bronchial, and pulmonary disease diagnoses for physicians and ensure timely pathological or etiological examinations for patients. Improving the diagnostic accuracy of the algorithms remains the key to this technology.

Urea/Thiourea Imine Linkages Provide Accessible Holes in Flexible Covalent Organic Frameworks and Dominates Self-Adaptivity and Exciton Dissociation.

Unraveling the robust self-adaptivity and minimal energy-dissipation of soft reticular materials for environmental catalysis presents a compelling yet unexplored avenue. Herein, a top-down strategy, tailoring from the unique linkage basis, flexibility degree, skeleton electronics to trace-guest adaptability, is proposed to fill the understanding gap between micro-soft covalent organic frameworks (COFs) and photocatalytic performance. The thio(urea)-basis-dominated linkage within benzotrithiophene-based COFs induce the framework contraction/swelling (intralayer micro-flexibility) in response to tetrahydrofuran or water.

Neural Functions Enabled by a Polarity-Switchable Nanofluidic Memristor.

Reproducing neural functions with artificial nanofluidic systems has long been an aspirational goal for neuromorphic computing. In this study, neural functions, such as neural activation and synaptic plasticity, are successfully accomplished with a polarity-switchable nanofluidic memristor (PSNM), which is based on the anodized aluminum oxide (AAO) nanochannel array. The PSNM has unipolar memristive behavior at high electrolyte concentrations and bipolar memristive behavior at low electrolyte concentrations, which can emulate neural activation and synaptic plasticity, respectively.

Distribution and drivers of co-hosts of antibiotic and metal(loid) resistance genes in the fresh-brackish-saline groundwater.

Groundwater is an essential source of drinking water and agricultural irrigation water, and its protection has become a global goal for public health. However, knowledge about heavy metal(loid) resistance genes (MRGs) in groundwater and the potential co-selection of antibiotic resistance genes (ARGs) have seldom been developed. Here, during the wet and dry seasons, we collected 66 groundwater samples (total dissolved solids = 93.

Nontarget Analysis Combined with TOP Assay Reveals a Significant Portion of Unknown PFAS Precursors in Firefighting Foams Currently Used in China.

Firefighting foam is a significant source of per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances (PFAS) pollution, yet the PFAS profiles in foam formulations, particularly in China, remain unclear. Here, using target and nontarget analyses, we investigated 50 target PFAS in firefighting foams currently utilized in China, identified novel PFAS, and discovered new end products through a total oxidizable precursor (TOP) assay. We identified a total of 54 PFAS compounds (spanning 34 classes and containing seven novel PFAS) with total PFAS concentrations of 0.

Enhancing and sustaining arsenic removal in a zerovalent iron-based magnetic flow-through water treatment system.

In areas affected by arsenicosis, zerovalent iron (ZVI)/sand filters are extensively used by households to treat groundwater, but ZVI surface passivation and filter clogging limit their arsenic (As) removal performance. Here we present a magnetic confinement-enabled column reactor coupled with periodic ultrasonic depassivation (MCCR-PUD), which efficiently and sustainably removes As by reaction with continuously generated iron (oxyhydr)oxides from ZVI oxidative corrosion. In the MCCR, ZVI microparticles self-assemble into stable millimeter-scale wires in forest-like arrays in a parallel magnetic field (0.

Impacts of rapidly urbanizing watershed comprehensive management on per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances pollution: Based on PFAS "diversity" assessment.

The impact of watershed comprehensive management (WCM) on per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances (PFAS) pollution in rapidly urbanizing areas remains unclear. In a typical rapidly urbanizing watershed of Shenzhen, China, we investigated temporal variations in contamination level, primary source and ecological risk of 50 emerging and legacy PFAS, as well as the replacement trends of emerging PFAS before and after WCM during a six-year sampling campaign. We found that large-scale dredging was a non-negligible factor in abnormally increased PFAS concentrations (6.

Immunotoxicity of legacy and alternative per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances on zebrafish larvae.

Hexafluoropropylene oxide dimer acid (HFPO-DA) and perfluoroethylcyclohexane sulfonate (PFECHS) are increasingly used as alternatives for perfluorooctanoic acid (PFOA) and perfluorooctane sulfonate (PFOS). However, their immunotoxicity and underlying molecular mechanisms remain poorly understood. Here, to assess immunotoxic effects, zebrafish embryos were exposed to environmentally relevant concentrations of PFOA, PFOS, HFPO-DA, and PFECHS for four days.