Previous epidemiological studies have investigated the association of fish and marine n-3 polyunsaturated fatty acids (n-3 PUFA) consumption with cardiovascular disease (CVD) mortality risk. However, the results were inconsistent. The purpose of this meta-analysis is to quantitatively evaluate the association between marine n-3 PUFA, fish and CVD mortality risk with prospective cohort studies. A systematic search was performed on PubMed, Web of Science, Embase and MEDLINE databases from the establishment of the database to May 2021. A total of 25 cohort studies were included with 2,027,512 participants and 103,734 CVD deaths. The results indicated that the fish consumption was inversely associated with the CVD mortality risk [relevant risk (RR) = 0.91; 95% confidence intervals (CI) 0.85−0.98]. The higher marine n-3 PUFA intake was associated with the reduced risk of CVD mortality (RR = 0.87; 95% CI: 0.85–0.89). Dose-response analysis suggested that the risk of CVD mortality was decreased by 4% with an increase of 20 g of fish intake (RR = 0.96; 95% CI: 0.94–0.99) or 80 milligrams of marine n-3 PUFA intake (RR = 0.96; 95% CI: 0.94–0.98) per day. The current work provides evidence that the intake of fish and marine n-3 PUFA are inversely associated with the risk of CVD mortality.

Amino acid and protein metabolism are interrelated and both play important roles in plant adaptation to heat stress. The objective of this study was to identify amino acids and soluble proteins associated with genetic variation in heat tolerance of hard fescue ( Festuca trachyphylla ). According to a previous screening experiment, the hard fescue cultivars Reliant IV and Predator were selected as heat-tolerant and heat-sensitive cultivars, respectively. Plants of these two hard fescue cultivars were exposed to heat stress at 38/33 °C (day/night) or optimal temperature at 21/18 °C in growth chambers. Each cultivar had four replications under each temperature, and the experimental design was a split-plot design, temperature as the main plots and cultivars as the subplots. Under heat stress, ‘Reliant IV’ exhibited higher turf quality (TQ) and greater membrane stability than ‘Predator’. In response to heat stress, total amino acid content increased, whereas total soluble protein content decreased in both cultivars. The greater accumulation of amino acids in ‘Reliant IV’ was contributed by the greater increase of proteins involved in the glycolysis and the tricarboxylic acid (TCA) cycle that provided carbon skeleton for amino acid synthesis. ‘Reliant IV’ leaves exhibited greater extent of increases in the content of six individual amino acids (histidine, glutamine, proline, threonine, aspartate, and tryptophan) than ‘Predator’ under heat stress. Several soluble proteins were upregulated in response to heat stress, to a greater extent in ‘Reliant IV’ than ‘Predator’, including the proteins involved in photosynthesis, protein folding, redox hemostasis, stress signaling, stress defense, cell organization, and metabolism. These differentially accumulated free amino acids and soluble proteins could be associated with the genetic variation in heat tolerance of hard fescue.

Gut microbiota dysbiosis has adverse health effects on human body. Multi-drug-resistant tuberculosis (MDR-TB) treatment uses a variety of antibiotics typically for more than 20 months, which may induce gut microbiota dysbiosis. The aim of this study is to investigate the long-term effects of MDR-TB treatment on human gut microbiota and its related health consequences. A total of 76 participants were recruited at a hospital in Linyi, China. The study included one active MDR-TB treatment group, one recovered group from MDR-TB and two treatment-naive tuberculosis groups as control. The two treatment-naïve tuberculosis groups were constructed to match the sex and the age of the active MDR-TB treatment and the recovered group respectively. The fecal and blood samples were collected and analyzed for gut microbiota and metabolic parameters. An altered gut microbiota community and a loss of richness were observed during the MDR-TB treatment. Strikingly, three to eight years after recovery and discontinuing the treatment, the gut microbiota still exhibited an altered taxonomic composition (p=0.001) and a 16% decrease in richness (p=0.018) compared to the gut microbiota before the treatment. The abundance of fifty-eight bacterial genera was significantly changed in the MDR-TB recovered group versus the untreated control group. Although there were persistent and pervasive gut microbiota alterations, no gastrointestinal symptom such as abdominal pain, diarrhea, nausea, flatulence and constipation was observed in the recovered group. However, chronic disorders may be indicated by the elevated level of low-density lipoprotein cholesterol (p=0.034) and total cholesterol (p=0.017). These adverse lipid changes were associated with the altered gut bacterial taxa, including phylum Firmicutes and Verrucomicrobia and genera Adlercreutzia, Akkermansia, Butyricicoccus, Coprococcus, Clostridioides, Eubacterium, Erysipelatoclostridium, Fusicatenibacter, Klebsiella, Psychrobacter and Streptococcus. Collectively, MDR-TB treatment induced a lasting gut microbiota dysbiosis, which was associated with unfavorable changes in lipid profile.