Objective:This review aimed to summarize the relationship between intestinal microbiota metabolism and cardiovascular disease (CVD) and to propose a novel CVD therapeutic target.Data Sources:This study was based on data obtained from PubMed and EMBASE up to June 30, 2015. Articles were selected using the following search terms: “Intestinal microbiota”, “trimethylamine N-oxide (TMAO)”, “trimethylamine (TMA)”, “cardiovascular”, and “atherosclerosis”.Study Selection:Studies were eligible if they present information on intestinal microbiota metabolism and atherosclerosis. Studies on TMA-containing nutrients were also included.Results:A new CVD risk factor, TMAO, was recently identified. It has been observed that several TMA-containing compounds may be catabolized by specific intestinal microbiota, resulting in TMA release. TMA is subsequently converted to TMAO in the liver. Several preliminary studies have linked TMAO to CVD, particularly atherosclerosis; however, the details of this relationship remain unclear.Conclusions:Intestinal microbiota metabolism is associated with atherosclerosis and may represent a promising therapeutic target with respect to CVD management.

A novel endophytic oleaginous fungus 'Salicorn 5' was isolated from Salicornia bigelovii Torr. Morphological characterization and phylogenetic analysis revealed the isolate could be characterized as a new species of the genus Cunninghamella and was subsequently named Cunninghamella bigelovii. The new species was found to accumulate high levels of unsaturated fatty acids, including polyunsaturated fatty acid γ-linolenic acid (GLA) that accounted for 13.28 % of the total fatty acid content by weight.

Tuning thermal transport in low-dimensional systems such as nanowires and graphene is crucial for both conventional electronic device cooling and nanoscale energy conversion. Here, we explore a connection between surface functionalization and heat transport in functionalized graphene by oxygen functional groups from the first-principles approach. Compared to the high thermal conductivity of pristine graphene, our calculation demonstrates that the thermal conductivity of functionalized graphene has remarkably decreased by more than one order of magnitude, which is consistent with the experimental observations. Our analysis of phonon modes confirms that highly suppressed phonon lifetimes are responsible for this great reduction of thermal conductivity in functionalized graphene. We elucidate that the greatly shortened phonon lifetimes mainly result from the expanded phase space for phonon scatterings, while contributions from lattice anharmonicity may be negligible. Our findings shed light on the mechanism of thermal transport in oxygen-functionalized graphene and offer some valuable insights into a new strategy for tuning thermal conductivity and the exploration of new thermoelectric devices.

Heat transport in one-dimensional (1D) momentum-conserving lattices is generally assumed to be anomalous, thus yielding a power-law divergence of thermal conductivity with system length.However, whether heat transport in two-dimensional (2D) system is anomalous or not is still on debate because of the difficulties involved in experimental measurements or due to the insufficiently large simulation size. Here, we simulate energy and momentum diffusion in the 2D nonlinear lattices using the method of fluctuation correlation functions. Our simulations confirm that energy diffusion in the 2D momentum-conserving lattices is anomalous and can be well described by the Lévy-stable distribution. We also find that the disappear of side peaks of heat mode may suggest a weak coupling between heat mode and sound mode in the 2D nonlinear system. It is also observed that the harmonic interactions in the 2D nonlinear lattices can accelerate the energy diffusion. Contrary to the hypothesis of 1D system, we clarify that anomalous heat transport in the 2D momentum-conserving system cannot be corroborated by the momentum superdiffusion any more. Moreover, as is expected, lattices with a nonlinear on-site potential exhibit normal energy diffusion, independent of the dimension. Our findings offer some valuable insights into the mechanism of thermal transport in 2D system.