Chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD) is a major public health problem, and cigarette smoke (CS) is the primary risk factor. The pathology is often observed in the lung, but COPD is also associated with intestinal barrier disruption, although the underlying mechanisms are poorly understood. To address this, a CS‑exposed rat model was evaluated in the present study by analyzing small intestinal gene expression using reverse transcription‑quantitative polymerase chain reaction. CS exposure caused upregulation of the nicotinamide adenine dinucleotide phosphate‑oxidase subunits nox2 and p22phox in the small intestine, while the antioxidative enzyme superoxide dismutase was downregulated. CS exposure also increased bax expression and decreased bcl‑2 expression. This was associated with an elevation of hypoxia‑inducible factor (HIF)‑1α. Claudin‑1 was decreased and claudin‑2 increased, indicating a loosening of small intestinal tight junctions (TJs). These data suggest that during the development of COPD, HIF‑1α expression is altered in the small intestine, which may be associated with the increased oxidative stress and apoptosis, eventually resulting in disruption of the intestinal TJs.

We experimentally demonstrate that a probe beam at one wavelength, although exhibiting a weak nonlinear response on its own, can be modulated and controlled by a pump beam at another wavelength in plasmonic nanosuspensions, leading to ring-shaped pattern generation. In particular, we show that the probe and pump wavelengths can be interchanged, but the hollow beam patterns appear only in the probe beam, thanks to the gold nanosuspensions that exhibit a strong nonlinear response to pump beam illumination at the plasmonic resonant frequencies. Colloidal suspensions consisting of either gold nanospheres or gold nanorods are employed as nonlinear media, which give rise to refractive index changes and cross-phase modulation between the two beams. We perform a series of experiments to examine the dynamics of hollow beam generation at a fixed probe power as the pump power is varied and find that nonlinear beam shaping has a different power threshold in different nanosuspensions. Our results will enhance the understanding of nonlinear light–matter interactions in plasmonic nanosuspensions, which may be useful for applications in controlling light by light and in optical limiting.

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We report on hollow beam generation in an otherwise uniform low-power infrared beam co-propagating with a green beam in plasmonic nanosuspensions. Experimentally observed beam dynamics are numerically corroborated based on nonlinear cross-phase modulation.

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