No abstract

Persistent chronic oxidative stress is a primary pathogenic characteristics of diabetic foot ulcers. Puffball spores are a traditional Chinese medicine used to treat diabetic foot ulcers infections and bedsores. However, their effects against diabetic wounds and the mechanism underlying these effects remain largely unknown. The present study explored the effectiveness of puffball spores in diabetic wound treatment and the mechanisms underlying their effects. Sprague-Dawley rats with streptozotocin (STZ)-induced diabetes were treated with puffball spores to ascertain whether they accelerated wound healing.Real-time quantitative PCR, western blotting, hematoxylin-eosin and Masson’s trichrome staining, immunohistochemistry analysis, and immunofluorescence assays were performed. As indicated by wound and serum histology and biochemical analyses, the puffball spores accelerated wound healing by activating Akt/Nrf2 signaling and promoting the expression of its downstream antioxidant genes, markedly stimulating antioxidant activity and enhanceing angiogenesis and collagen deposition. Our findings showed that puffball spores could accelerate diabetic wound healing, enhance antioxidant ability, promote the expression of vascular markers, and suppress inflammation, thus providing a theoretical basis for the treatment of diabetic and refractory wounds.

In tri-reference point theory, four regions-failure, loss, gain and success-are formed by three reference points-minimum requirement (MR), status quo (SQ), and goal (G)-which play an important role in decision-making. Considering investors' three reference points with respect to investment returns, optimization models of portfolios including structured products are constructed by employing investors' maximum perceived value in tri-reference point theory as the objective under the premise of satisfying the safety-first principle. Then, a hybrid particle swarm optimization algorithm that is suitable for solving these models is designed. In this setting, the superiority of structured products relative to riskless assets and underlying assets are studied by changing the parameters in trireference point theory. The results show that structured products are the most favored by investors when both MR and G are relatively high. This is because under these circumstances, structured products are capable of satisfying investors' demand for relatively high returns under the premise of ensuring safety and in turn attract the most investors in the market.